0:01

Hi, Margaret, here with Samantha today's

0:03

guest, recording a new introduction to this episode

0:06

because a lot has happened since we recorded

0:08

it only a couple of weeks ago. Normally,

0:10

this is a history podcast in the way that our subjects

0:13

tying to current events is left up to the listeners

0:15

imagination. But this is kind

0:18

of an exceptional moment because

0:20

when we recorded this episode, which is about abortion

0:22

access and direct action abortion access, specifically

0:25

the Jain collective. Well, I guess you all saw that

0:27

when you saw the title of the episode when you download it.

0:29

The we we kind of joke about, I think

0:32

during the course of recording about

0:34

not joke what we say, Well, the overturning of

0:36

Roe v. Wade is a potential threat. Um,

0:38

And since then we've obviously all seen that

0:41

there's a leaked document that says, well, it's

0:43

not a potential threat, is a

0:45

and almost certainty that is happening. The

0:48

Supreme Court intends to overthrow Roe v.

0:50

Wade. Um, Samantha, do you have a better

0:53

overview than that? So

0:56

here is what we have been

0:58

able to read and what we know the

1:00

end this late document, they have already

1:03

voted to overturn roe

1:05

v. Wade, and they did it through the

1:07

Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson

1:10

Women's Health Organization, which is based

1:12

out of Mississippi, which also

1:14

is a trigger state. And if you don't know what trigger

1:16

state is, it means they are ready to go the

1:18

minute Roe v. Wade is overturned,

1:21

that there will be an immediate ban on

1:23

abortion the second

1:25

it happens. So they are called the trigger states.

1:27

And there are several will mention that in a minute

1:30

um and Mississippi is

1:32

one of those. So in this brief

1:35

that we read from Judge Alito,

1:37

who is the one that has written this up,

1:39

it is ninety eight pages long, with

1:42

like forty something pages of an appendix

1:45

to talk about his argument about why Roe

1:47

v. Wade should be overturned. And

1:49

he begins his statement, and I think it's something that

1:51

we need to talk about because the language in

1:53

itself is going to be repeated throughout. I'm

1:55

not gonna read it, I swear to God, I'm not. I

1:57

cried. I screamed at the computer when I was reading

1:59

this and dissecting it, and I want

2:01

to vomit as we are talking

2:04

about it. But in it,

2:06

he writes, uh, Yeah.

2:08

He begins the statement with talking about how divisive

2:10

this issue is and as a profound

2:13

moral issue. So he is

2:15

allowing this conversation to take into

2:18

a whole load of feelings and

2:20

automatically place what he feels his morality

2:23

and his own morality onto this. So

2:25

that's how it begins. Um. And then

2:27

he talks about the fact that the Constitution

2:30

and we hold that Row and Casey, which is the

2:32

Casey versus Planned Parenthood which happened

2:34

in the nineties that helped keep

2:36

up with the pro v wade um that it

2:38

must be overruled. The Constitution

2:41

makes no reference to abortion, and no such

2:43

right is implicitly protected by any

2:45

constitutional provision, including the

2:47

one on which the defenders of Row and

2:49

Casey now chiefly rely, the

2:52

due process clause of the fourteenth Amendment.

2:54

So in that clause, just for people. I

2:56

have a feeling that so many people, the people listening

2:58

to this are so smart to me, like, would you shut up and move

3:01

on? But just in case, just in case,

3:03

is that privacy, the right to privacy which

3:05

is not necessarily mentioned, but

3:08

it is based in this And they took that language

3:10

and said, yes, this is about privacy. So that's

3:13

very important, as we know, because it goes to a flew

3:16

of other unconstitutional constitutional

3:18

things. So he talks about that,

3:21

and that he continues on that provision

3:23

has been held to guarantee some rights

3:25

that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but

3:28

many such must be quote deeply

3:30

rooted in this nation's history and

3:33

tradition and implicitly in the

3:35

concept of ordered liberty.

3:37

So ordered liberty as well as nation's

3:39

history is going to be all throughout this

3:42

brief. His whole stance is

3:44

that because it was never mentioned

3:46

in the Constitution, that it was

3:49

never ever a constitutional

3:51

thing and should not be allowed

3:53

as a constitutional thing, and that it wasn't

3:55

even mentioned to be a right

3:58

until nineteen seventy three. And

4:00

because of that, this is not a constitutional

4:02

issue. And the other

4:05

part to this is that ordered liberty.

4:07

So when we talk about ordered liberty, this

4:09

is when he is saying that he and

4:12

a certain amount of people have the right to

4:14

tell you what your liberties are, and

4:16

they get to tell you what is orderly. So

4:18

this is why we're talking about

4:20

how this is going to overturn it because

4:22

he's able to make this a

4:25

state's right thing, in which he said that's

4:27

how it's always been, that's how it's always

4:29

should be. Roe v. Wade overstepped

4:32

because they took something out of context

4:34

from an eighteen sixty idea

4:37

of this constitutional conversation.

4:40

So where we are today,

4:42

Yes, there's back and forth right

4:45

now about it's not that big of a deal

4:48

because the states can govern. It's

4:50

not an outright ban

4:53

technically, Um,

4:55

what we we're talking about earlier,

4:57

what I was talking about earlier with the trigger state,

5:00

the states are Idaho, Utah, Wyoming,

5:03

Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky,

5:06

Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi,

5:08

North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma.

5:11

Um. And even though in my state of Georgia,

5:13

they don't necessarily have a trigger law,

5:15

yet, what they have done is come

5:18

at the abortion clinics and abortion

5:20

facilities, um, telling them go

5:22

ahead and get ready. And so a lot of the clinics

5:25

have stopped taking appointments and

5:27

canceled appointments at this point in time. So

5:30

it's very very dangerous. And where we are,

5:32

even though it's not necessarily a trigger

5:34

state, those who are sitting

5:36

in most likely more liberal

5:39

left leaning are quote unquote

5:41

okay, Um, it is those

5:44

who are what would be the red states that are could

5:46

be heavily heavily affected. Yeah, and

5:48

what people I think often forget when they're

5:50

like sitting comfortably in their blue states or whatever, is

5:52

that, you know, the margins that we're talking

5:55

about. The difference between the red state and blue state is actually

5:57

not incredibly dramatic. It's not like

5:59

the red state are all like you people

6:02

who want to get rid of this or something like that it might

6:04

be or even well, I

6:06

guess actually abortion itself, what is it

6:08

like, Americans? You

6:12

want to keep it? And in the state of Georgia as

6:14

well. So even though people think of us as

6:16

just like the you know, silly red state, that

6:19

we proved them wrong in the last few elections.

6:21

And I know this. I

6:24

am with with everyone when

6:26

I say this government is bullshit and

6:28

there's some things to be so many things changed,

6:31

and I am frustrated to the core because nothing like

6:33

some things are better and this is better

6:35

than it was. But at the same time, what

6:37

happened in really really

6:40

fucked up everything else, and what we are

6:42

seeing is the detriment of that. However,

6:46

it's not a fixal I understand

6:48

this, but what we're saying is in the state

6:50

of Georgia, the majority of the voters, who are

6:53

typically women of color and people of

6:55

color, are all about

6:57

our current senators and those who are

6:59

pushing to that point. But jerry mandering has

7:01

made it almost impossible, as well as

7:03

voter suppression UM to get

7:06

to move and push it to the right direction. Nearly,

7:09

I do say nearly, And it's frustrating because

7:11

yes, we are going to be affective, even though

7:13

Georgia is not a trigger state as we were

7:15

talking about earlier. Obviously he's

7:17

already had he being governor, Kemp has

7:20

already put in the sixth week ban and

7:22

just kind of sitting in a court right now

7:24

and if the things change is over

7:27

yeah, well, and honestly,

7:29

the I mean, besides the fact that we

7:31

have an unelected shadow council that makes all the decisions

7:34

about what happens with our bodies. Really

7:37

the point of this episode that you all are about to listen

7:39

to UM is about direct

7:41

action abortion access and how even

7:43

when the law is not on

7:45

your side, this is still going

7:47

to happen, and how can we make it happen as

7:50

well as possible, as safely as possible.

7:53

There's also, unfortunately, other effects that could happen

7:55

beyond just this. I was talking to my

7:57

my lawyer, the amazing Moira Meltzer

8:00

Cohen, who said that we need to be prepared

8:02

for all of the pannumbra cases, which are

8:04

cases that put forth the idea

8:06

that um that constitutional due

8:08

process implies the right to privacy. This

8:11

was called the pannumbra basically

8:13

during Griswold versus Connecticut, which is the case

8:15

that legalized birth control, and

8:18

so basically saying that they had a pannumbra,

8:21

a sort of shadow that implied

8:23

rights to privacy, and lawyers

8:26

on both sides have been arguing that this is a terrible

8:29

and flimsy legal standing for

8:31

a very long time. But

8:34

other things that rely on that include,

8:36

as I mentioned, birth control, but also gay

8:39

sex or really any sex that isn't

8:41

for procreation could theoretically be criminalized

8:44

once again. And so what we're gonna

8:46

do is we're gonna link to a lot of resources in the show notes

8:49

encourage people to to look into things,

8:51

look into ways to contribute, look

8:53

into ways to if if you have your own

8:56

needs, um, how you can meet those

8:58

directly if you or how help other

9:00

people meet their needs directly through

9:02

lots of different ways. And for those

9:04

who are in the point, I know people are filling

9:06

a time crunch because there is a time crunch. Abortion

9:10

is still legal and accessible.

9:12

Uh. The home abortion

9:14

pill is FDA proved to be sent

9:16

by mail, So if you need to do that, do that.

9:19

That is still accessible and it's still around.

9:21

And we do see organizations that are coming through

9:24

kind of like the jan Collective did UM

9:26

on a better, bigger level, which I love

9:29

every bit of that. That's kind of that silver lining.

9:32

And again, yeah, things that we'd see

9:34

such as birth control, we are seeing things in play.

9:36

Missouri and Louisiana has decided

9:39

to put in a clause in their trigger loss that

9:41

includes i u d s being illegal,

9:44

So that means someone who has an i U D which

9:47

has become very effective, uh

9:49

maybe prosecuted um.

9:52

As well as the fact that those who are going

9:54

through things like topic pregnancy, which is when again

9:56

I think we talked about it later, it gets uh, the

9:58

egg is the fertilized egg is stuck in your

10:00

Phillipian two first and kills a person can

10:03

kill, a person damaged severrely.

10:05

This will be if you try to extract that

10:07

that will be considered abortion as well. So

10:10

this is why these laws are so important that we

10:12

pay tidgion to it. Again, that privacy

10:15

clause. That's what they're coming after, and

10:17

that includes gay marriage, that includes

10:20

consensual adults sex, that includes

10:22

so much more um. And that's why

10:24

this is so damn scary. Yeah,

10:28

and we'll leave it to

10:30

the listeners imagination about the

10:32

methods that might be necessary when the democratic

10:35

process has failed. But one

10:37

thing also will say is that I love

10:40

this episode that you're all about to hear, but don't

10:42

listen to it to determine how

10:45

to self manage abortions. Look

10:47

elsewhere for information about how to self manage

10:50

abortions. Medicated abortions are

10:52

readily available, at least at the moment, and are substantially

10:55

better than what is available

10:57

and what was available to the heroes of today's

10:59

episode. So what

11:02

can people do? Like if people have

11:04

if people want to donate, what would you be? What would

11:06

you suggest? So I don't want to

11:08

give you specific organizations because it

11:10

affects different people different in

11:12

different places. But one of the

11:14

things I would say is planned parenthood

11:16

is not necessarily where you should donate, Maybe

11:19

start looking at specific clinics

11:21

and funds that you are appreciative of

11:23

or think that they can do a good job. Research who you're

11:25

donating to. Also, if you're in a safe

11:28

state, as we said, and I'm going to call the safe

11:30

states, I don't know if that's what they're called, We're just gonna quote

11:32

it, like in one of the states where the

11:34

government is allowing and talking about, Yeah,

11:36

abortion, it should be part

11:38

of health care. Then maybe look to the trigger

11:41

states that we mentioned earlier and helped donate to

11:43

those states because they are in deep

11:45

danger as I said before, about losing

11:47

everything very quickly, very fast. Yeah,

11:51

And the people I've been talking to and asking for

11:53

advice about where to put people put

11:55

your energy in terms of organizations to support,

11:57

have also suggested that abortion funds are

12:00

specifically the place to go. And then also one

12:03

other one that again my my lawyer friend recommended,

12:05

is called the repro Legal Defense Fund, which

12:08

is a fund that supports people who are

12:10

investigated, arrested, or prosecuted for

12:12

self managed abortion or for helping end

12:15

their own or someone else's pregnancy. And so

12:18

that is a thing that legal defense is going

12:20

to have to become part of all of this as well, unfortunately.

12:22

Absolute um. And if you kind of want to

12:24

know what is impacted and how you

12:26

can impact better, you can also go to the National Network

12:29

of Abortion Funds and they kind of have a

12:31

list of who is in need of services and what

12:33

type of services are being used for what funds,

12:36

and that could give you a kind of at least an audited

12:38

sheet of who you're giving to what they're doing. And

12:41

here's the episode.

12:45

Hello and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

12:48

the podcast that needs no introduction. No,

12:50

no, Margaret, it needs an introduction.

12:54

Okay, Welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

12:56

the podcast that apparently needs an introduction.

13:00

Every week I'm going to bring you a new story of cool

13:02

people who did cool stuff, thus the

13:04

title. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy.

13:07

And this week I have on Samantha McVeigh, who

13:09

is the host of the also stuff related podcast

13:11

stuff Mom Never told you. Samantha,

13:13

How are you doing good? Thank you for having

13:16

me on the show. And ya, welcome to the fam

13:18

and all the things. So excited to

13:21

have you as a part of our network family.

13:24

Yeah, I'm really excited. Okay,

13:27

So um, I've also

13:29

Sophie on the call. Sophie is the producer.

13:31

How are you doing Superheroes? Sophie

13:33

over here doing doing, I'm doing Okay.

13:39

That is that is the that is the theme of

13:45

whatever year it is we're doing. It's not

13:48

real. It does not exist,

13:51

especially since what we're recording will make no sense to

13:53

people who are listening to it twenty five years from now. Gosh,

13:56

yeah, I hope so, but so

14:00

Meantha, I'm wondering, how do you feel about reproductive

14:03

rights? Would you say that overall your pro or

14:05

anti you deciding what happens with your

14:07

body? You know, as someone

14:10

who does have a uterus and feels

14:12

the fact that I am a pretty smart and capable

14:14

woman, um that I should be allowed to

14:16

have my choices, and that being dictated

14:19

by sis white men telling

14:21

me that they need control over my body because they're

14:23

afraid of the vagina in

14:25

general and uterus and the power of the uterus.

14:28

I'm muna say I'm pro everything about

14:30

it, and let's go ahead and say, Nabra

14:33

get out of it. Well,

14:36

not a long winded answer, no,

14:39

no, this is great. It would be a very different

14:41

in short podcast if your answer was wildly different

14:43

from that. I have really sure non because

14:46

I was like Margaret, I have this really great

14:48

person that I want to have on for this specific

14:50

topic comes on

14:52

and it's like, oh,

14:55

yes, you

14:57

know how I feel. I used

14:59

to. Can I tell you this. I

15:02

grew up in a very

15:04

conservative For the listeners who

15:06

are familiar with me, I

15:08

grew up in a very conservative uh town.

15:11

My parents are white.

15:13

I'm adopted, and they're very conservative

15:16

people who um have always

15:18

voted on moralities, including

15:21

anti choice a lifestyle.

15:23

And for the longest time I was told because

15:26

I was adopted, I should be anti choice

15:28

or I wouldn't have existed. This whole like guilt

15:31

trip onto me about that, making

15:33

it seem like I was in the wrong for

15:36

say, but wait, the biggest

15:38

conversation is you're telling me that you really feel

15:40

like you can't trust me as a as an adult, as

15:42

a person, as an individual to make

15:44

my own choices in life, um

15:47

and that it needed to be dictated by a government. But nothing

15:49

else does. Okay, But it took

15:51

me a long time to get out of that headspin. Because

15:54

you know, you want to acclimate and

15:57

be a be a part of whatever your society

15:59

or can unity you're in doing me a while to

16:01

figure out, Oh god, that's growth, what

16:03

is happening, you know, and what kind of control had

16:06

it on there? So honestly, if you'd asked

16:08

me that twenty years ago, we

16:10

would have had a different conversation. Okay,

16:14

that I mean, that's fair and like it. You

16:16

know, there's a lot of indoctrination that we all feel.

16:19

I'm almost sort of lucky and that like I

16:21

was always just like such one of the bad kids that

16:23

I was pretty young when like my friends

16:25

started having abortions. Um,

16:28

and I'm so grateful that they had that

16:31

opportunity because a lot

16:33

of them were able to like get out of the

16:35

situations they were in, you know, um,

16:38

because they had that access. But well,

16:41

today's heroes have come to similar

16:43

conclusions that we have about

16:45

being pro people deciding what to do

16:47

with their own bodies and

16:50

uh, because okay, people were gonn talk about

16:52

fucking cool And I'm gonna be talking about direct action

16:54

abortion access and in particular, we're going to focus

16:57

on one crew of women out of Chicago, the

16:59

Notorious Jane Collective. Oh

17:05

this is one of my favorites. Come on, I'm

17:08

ready, let's go and so

17:11

I think actually the podcast that you're on, I don't think you're

17:13

the host of this particular episode, but the podcast

17:15

you you run actually didn't interview with the founder

17:17

of Jane Heather Booth. Um, I just want

17:19

to acknowledge that. And so it was it was freaking cool. And I listened

17:22

to that while I was getting ready for this one

17:25

and before I start getting too deep into it. So I'm going to talk

17:27

about abortion, right and so I'm going to be

17:29

talking about how it is and isn't

17:31

a woman's issue in the modern context. Um, I

17:33

want to acknowledge upfront that abortion is

17:35

not just a woman's issue. A plenty of people who are

17:37

not women can get pregnant. It might not want

17:40

to be whether that's some trans men,

17:42

some non binary people, and some intersex people

17:44

who can all get pregnant. Uh, And I

17:46

will I will say that one day it's

17:49

as likely as not that some trans woman is going to get pregnant.

17:51

And there's this meme floating around that I really

17:53

like, is that what will really drive the right wing into a rage

17:56

is and when the first Trands woman gets pregnant. It's when the first

17:58

Trands woman chooses to have an abortion.

18:03

But but I also will say that, um,

18:05

so it's not just a women's issue, but it is

18:07

also a women's issue as well, and I don't

18:09

want to cut that out of the conversation either. And

18:12

I spent a while trying to figure out to phrase all this right because

18:14

it's a kind of a moving target to understand how

18:16

we talk about this stuff. The So

18:18

I would say that the history of the limitation of

18:20

abortion access is entirely entangled

18:22

with the history of misogyny and with controlling women's

18:25

bodies and denying us agency.

18:27

And there's there's plenty of women who can't get pregnant,

18:30

whether it's because of age, surgeries, hormone

18:32

shifts, the way we were born. But

18:34

something doesn't need to affect like every

18:36

single woman to be a woman's issue,

18:38

to be something that affects all of us, because

18:41

patriarchal society wanting to control women's

18:43

bodies doesn't stop

18:46

with the women who can get pregnant, right,

18:48

Um, they want to control everybody. So

18:51

I guess what I want to say to to anyone's

18:53

listening, um, And just to kind of provide

18:55

the context that I'm coming from, is that when

18:58

I'm talking about abortion access. I'm sure I talk

19:00

about it from both of these angles at once. U two

19:03

sort of intersecting axes of oppression is people

19:05

with the ability to give birth and people who are women,

19:07

and which is very often a intersection,

19:10

right, but not always. And then

19:13

of course we're talking about ship that happened like fifty years

19:15

ago, right, And so a lot of the existing

19:17

language about the people that we're going to be talking about

19:19

will be referring to people

19:22

as women and will

19:24

be approaching it primarily from this lens of a

19:26

women's issue. And I'm trying to well, I'm going to try

19:28

and be more directly inclusive throughout. I'm not trying to

19:30

cast judgment on these people who

19:33

framed it in the ways that they understood it is

19:35

the best way to frame it. Um. So that's

19:37

my disclaimer. It's

19:40

been more time on than like the rest of the that's

19:42

not true. You have to do though,

19:45

Yeah, okay, So abortion and legality,

19:47

right, Abortion has been a contentious issue since

19:50

forever, and and sometimes it's about

19:52

morality, like like on an individual

19:55

level, a lot of people against abortion because of

19:57

what they consider morality, and some

20:00

religious groups teach that life begins at conception

20:02

or at the quickening, which is when a pregnant

20:04

person can first feel the baby moving um,

20:07

which is usually about halfway through the pregnancy. It

20:09

happens I guess a couple of weeks earlier in pregnancies,

20:11

after the first pregnancy that a person has. Other

20:14

people claim that life begins at viability,

20:16

which is when the fetus would be able to survive outside

20:18

the womb, which is usually around seven months, and

20:21

then other religions and other concepts

20:24

and faiths teach that life begins at birth, and

20:27

it isn't as like simple as like this religion believes

20:29

this. This religion believes that there's not like one answer

20:31

about like how Christianity believes or whatever. Right,

20:33

It's all different and changing

20:35

at different times. I also, frankly

20:38

don't care on some level like

20:40

um, like whether or not I am or

20:42

I'm not a religious person, Like I have no interest in

20:44

letting religion dictate the laws

20:46

of society. So there's

20:49

this case that a lot of people make

20:51

that the restriction of abortion

20:53

has nothing to do with morality or religion, but instead

20:55

about the control of bodies,

20:58

right of women's bodies and

21:00

and women's bodies. And then like by extension

21:02

all of the people who are in the periphery of

21:04

womanhood and I

21:06

don't know, it's like and sometimes they're really even open about

21:09

this desire where it's like literally just about controlling

21:11

reproduction. A lot of countries they

21:13

say that motherhood is like patriotic,

21:16

right, because really, at the end of the day,

21:18

it's about this, like, well, we want more babies

21:21

to throw into the you know,

21:23

gristmill of labor and war

21:26

and ship. If you're looking

21:28

at the Q and on level of U

21:31

of the mom groups is

21:33

an interesting fight they have and

21:35

a part of the solution, and part of that fight is

21:38

to birth their own babies,

21:40

meaning like typically white

21:43

children, and making sure that that

21:45

theny, it continues in this big all fight

21:48

in the Q and on war, the whole

21:50

rabbit hole in itself. I wish

21:52

I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me

21:54

this terrible thing that's happening. Oh my god, it's

21:57

like it doesn't surprise me at don't no, it doesn't surprise me

21:59

at all. But I'm like,

22:00

great, of course they're doing that. God

22:03

damn it. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

22:05

No, no, no, no, I know it's there. I

22:08

will tell you. I probably shouldn't given you that heads

22:10

up is on our show on

22:12

stuff, Mom've never told you I am

22:15

the pessimist. Okay,

22:17

okay, post that brings out

22:19

the unfun facts, so apologies

22:21

and advanced No, no, no, that's perfect because I'm trying

22:23

to do this, Like I mean, it's ironic. I picked this name

22:26

kill Joy and then I like dedicate my life to try

22:28

and spread revolutionary hope. But I love

22:30

that. I love that. I love that we have

22:32

this balance today. It's perfect. Unfun

22:36

facts with Samantha mcveay show

22:38

Welcome. You should have a show. I want

22:42

you should be Samanthe.

22:45

You need to start this up. You're the creator of all

22:47

shows. Let's do this. I'm in, I'm in.

22:52

Okay. So, the first European government

22:54

to to legalize abortion was Revolutionary

22:57

Russia as far as I can research, and

22:59

in October nine they legalized abortion.

23:02

And some people will talk about

23:04

how they did from a feminist point of view. A lot of other stuff

23:06

will say they did it because, um, they were

23:08

all starving and so they just were like

23:11

it's okay to not have babies for this moment, right,

23:14

Um. And I think there's a lot of a strong

23:16

case to be made for that that they didn't actually some

23:18

of them cared, some of them didn't care. I don't know. Because they

23:20

also got rid of abortion again various

23:23

points. And then they had like huge pro natal

23:25

PR campaigns, and then of course

23:27

Stalin made it illegal

23:30

again because he's Stalin and he

23:32

only does bad things. Um

23:35

and okay, the the law that he passed

23:37

on June six is the

23:39

most Soviet name I've ever heard, which

23:41

is the Decree on the Prohibition

23:44

of Abortions, the improvement of Material Aid to

23:46

women in childbirth, the establishment of state assistants

23:48

to parents of large families, and the extension of lying in

23:50

homes, nursery schools, and kindergartens, the tight you

23:52

know of criminal punishments and the nonpayment

23:54

of alimony, and on certain modifications on levorce

23:57

legislation that

23:59

rolls right off a tongue. That was amazing. It

24:01

was so beautiful. Good jobs on certain

24:04

modifications in divorce legislation,

24:09

all right. I was just making sure I got cool

24:13

cool obviously. And

24:18

then one of the other times that abortion

24:20

was legalized in Europe, I actually think was really

24:22

cool and not like, oh, maybe why are

24:24

they doing this? But U during the

24:26

Spanish Civil War and I guess probably

24:28

nine or so, I didn't I don't remember

24:30

the actual year. And an anarchist

24:33

became the first man, the first

24:35

woman minister of health and like one of the first

24:37

women ministers in government in Europe. This

24:40

is anarchist woman. Federica Montsani became

24:43

the Minister of Health of the Second Spanish Republic

24:46

and she legalized abortion because it

24:48

was the right thing to do. And

24:50

then Franco uh successfully invaded

24:53

the special Second Spanish Republic and

24:56

it was a whole war thing that happened, and it didn't

24:58

really go very well. Um, and Spain got

25:00

fascism instead of legalized abortion.

25:02

So close to getting it right, no, um,

25:08

almost like I don't don't know where to stick this. But one

25:10

of the things that I think about a lot when I'm talking

25:12

about how like why are they making abortion

25:15

illegal? Is it morality or is it social

25:17

control? And I think that as soon as you start throwing

25:19

birth control into it too, it becomes so obvious

25:22

that it's not about moralities, about social control

25:24

because all of the same stuff that's illegalizing

25:26

abortion is like, you know, I'm going to do a whole

25:28

episode about the birth control fight at some point.

25:30

But um, it's just this whole

25:32

parallel thing where basically they're like, right,

25:35

you shouldn't have sex, that doesn't make babies, that's

25:37

wrong. It's because they just which is by

25:40

the way, a new headline

25:42

that I've seen all of a sudden coming back around

25:44

from the right wing. Um conversation

25:47

is the same narrative of you shouldn't

25:49

have sex, it's from making children, you can't

25:51

handle having children, you shouldn't be having sex like

25:53

this new I've seen it trending and

25:55

I was like, what is happening? Are we bringing that back

25:58

again? Is this really the nine eight, eight, the

26:00

seventies sixties however, which by the way,

26:02

abortion didn't happen until like the nineteen

26:04

sixties in the US, Like why

26:07

are we? Why are we back here? But yeah,

26:09

it's I agree with you, this whole level of like

26:11

when we really look at it, obviously, that's the conversation

26:13

we've had about is it really your pro life?

26:16

Are you just anti choice? Like that's the

26:18

conversation. Totally, No, totally yeah,

26:20

because yeah, you're literally anti people

26:22

choosing to have like you know, saying

26:25

consensual whatever the phrasing is.

26:27

The safe sex that's consentual and happy

26:29

and all that ship. But then, okay,

26:31

so when I'm I'm doing all this like preface stuff, I'm

26:34

gonna get to Jane soon. Um, a

26:36

lot of feminists, including today's heroes, they weren't necessarily

26:38

even just fighting for the legalization of abortion. One

26:41

of the cases that I want to make, because it kept coming up

26:43

as I was researching these people and a lot of the other abortionists

26:45

at the time, is especially the

26:47

feminist and the women involved, was that they

26:49

were fighting for the de medicalization of reproductive

26:52

health. Basically, they were fighting

26:54

to take reproductive health like birth control, abortion,

26:56

pregnancy, and birth out

26:58

of the page riarchical field

27:00

of western medicine, and to

27:03

have direct control over their own bodies, which

27:05

doesn't necessarily mean like d I Y at

27:07

home abortions, but it means abortions

27:10

performed by like competent practitioners, whether they're

27:12

in the medical field or not. And there's

27:15

this this argument that my friends

27:17

have made very convincingly to me that I tend to believe

27:20

that the a lot of the ship that's going

27:22

on in the witch hunts in Europe

27:24

in medieval Europe were basically a lot

27:27

of it was about, like, here these people

27:29

who are health practitioners who are not

27:31

tied into the sort of male and academic

27:33

field of health that we're trying to build,

27:36

and so we should murder them

27:38

all, um, because we

27:40

want to be the ones controlling everyone's

27:42

bodies instead of like all of these women.

27:45

And uh and actually a lot of I

27:47

think gay men and other people involved in sort of like swept

27:50

up in them whatever periphery of women. I don't know how

27:52

to describe this. And so it's just it's

27:54

hard to control population people's bodies if there's

27:56

all these like wild and free practitioners running around

27:58

helping people control their own bodies.

28:01

Um. And one of the things that that's so interesting about this

28:03

argument is that it basically means that the medicalization

28:05

of reproductive health was a violent

28:08

process that required mass murder. Um.

28:10

You just killed all the practitioners,

28:13

as you probably guessed. Anyone listening to this. I'm not here

28:16

to convince you to be pro choice, because I'm assuming

28:18

that you are anyone who's listening to this, and if you're

28:20

not, you should. Maybe you'll get something

28:22

out of this episode. Maybe listening to it would be good

28:24

for you. Maybe you'll just hate me. That's

28:27

fine. Um. And

28:29

because I'm not really here to like balance the moral

28:32

weight of abortion today, I just want to like celebrate

28:34

heroic at us women who refuse to go

28:36

along with a society that told them they couldn't

28:39

control their own reproductive health. And so

28:42

I want to celebrate the Jain collective. Man,

28:47

I'm proud. Sometime around there's

28:50

a lot of arguments about exactly what

28:52

year had happened. I'm actually the person who does know is

28:54

alive, but lots of people writing lots of

28:56

different things on the Internet and in books

28:58

because everything doesn't match up with the anyway.

29:01

In is a white Jewish socialist

29:03

student in Chicago named Heather Booth who

29:05

got a call from her friend and her friend

29:07

was despondent. His sister

29:10

was pregnant and she didn't know what to

29:12

do. Abortion was illegal in every state

29:14

in the US at that point, with

29:17

a few medical exceptions here, and they're different in

29:19

different places, and Heather

29:22

hadn't given much thought to abortion access

29:24

until that moment, but she was like, all right, I'll see what

29:26

I can do, And basically, just with that

29:28

willingness to step up when someone needed help, she

29:30

started one of the most radical and interesting

29:32

abortion access groups in history, which

29:34

is a lesson to everyone that sometimes you just

29:37

step up when the call to

29:40

adventure happens. This

29:42

isn't part of my script. I'me Griffin badly.

29:47

I don't like that. UM, but yeah,

29:49

I agree like that we're seeing we're seeing

29:51

it happen. Unfortunately, as there

29:54

has become evident that we're

29:56

back into this fight again, we've almost like started

29:58

over and it feels like we're star over into

30:00

this point, and funds are

30:02

being created to make sure that

30:05

if it does happen, if it's outright

30:07

band and I know we're gonna talk about this probably a bit,

30:10

that we will have an underground

30:12

network essentially to continue

30:14

to help the people who need this access.

30:17

And I know it happened in Chile too, UM

30:20

and Poland to where the neighboring

30:22

countries have set up these funds as

30:24

Poland has passed one of the strictest abortion

30:27

restrictions that they're now making

30:29

an underground essentially UH network

30:32

for them to get access when they need

30:34

it by giving as many people UH

30:38

traveled UH reimbursement

30:40

as well as places to stay UM

30:43

to get in that plan be all of those things.

30:45

So yeah, I think unfortunately, I'm

30:47

so excited about talking about this story, and I'm so glad you're

30:49

bringing this up because we are

30:51

repeating history and we may have to look

30:53

at this as an example of all right, y'all, let's get

30:56

let let's get it together. We've got to do something and

30:58

become radical essentially. Yeah,

31:00

No, I I what are you talking about?

31:02

This is a history podcast. History doesn't have lessons

31:05

for the present, right, we don't

31:07

have to learn history. Yeah,

31:09

it's just random that I picked this topic. No,

31:13

I really like and please continue with the how

31:15

it ties into everything, because like, oh,

31:18

you're speaking to my soul. So

31:24

good. Okay. So Heather Booth was already

31:26

a radical right uh. In nineteen sixty

31:28

four, she joined Freedom Summer, which is when activists

31:31

flooded to Mississippi to defy the KKK

31:33

and register black voters and set up schools

31:36

and libraries, which didn't

31:38

go smoothly. At least seven people

31:40

were murdered by right wing forces, including

31:44

black residents and both white and black civil

31:46

rights activists from from outside the area,

31:48

and something like seventy black

31:51

homes, churches, and businesses were bombed

31:53

or burned, eighty activists were

31:55

beaten, and more

31:57

than a thousand activists ended up arrested, including

32:00

Heather Booth. During all of this, it

32:02

also wasn't like it's like,

32:04

it wasn't perfect and Rosie either. I mean, I

32:06

just described all the horrible stuff that happened, but um,

32:10

it also led to some resentment, at least according

32:12

to some of the sources I read. I suspect that people had

32:14

a lot of different opinions about what happened. Some

32:16

local black residents felt that those kind of a paternalistic

32:18

white northern savior thing that had just happened,

32:21

and they weren't necessarily excited about it. But I believe

32:23

that that is, you know, people

32:25

have very different opinions about things, and it's

32:27

it's sort of a critical, if complicated

32:30

chapter of the civil rights movement, and and how their Booth

32:32

was was part of it. And I think

32:34

this is also important because we it's always important to talk about

32:36

how all of the people fighting for all these things always

32:38

come from intersections or believe in intersectionality,

32:41

even if that term didn't exist yet. You know, like

32:44

I did another episode once on on abolitionists

32:46

and realized that all the abolitionists were feminists, and all the feminist

32:48

re abolitionists, not universally, but the ones who

32:50

were cool enough to make it into my podcast. And

32:55

so anyway, so it's not coming out of nowhere

32:57

this, you know. So she's

33:00

back in Chicago after that summer, and

33:02

she was helping form feminist groups where the where

33:04

women talked about the issues facing them, a process

33:07

that a few years later got more widespread

33:09

and be called consciousness raising groups. Was a big

33:11

part of feminist movement in the United

33:13

States in the sixties and seventies. Um.

33:16

And this is probably how she ended up

33:18

being the person her friend thought to call. But that's

33:20

that's just conjecture. I don't know why a friend called

33:22

her. So she gets the call, and she asks

33:25

around the medical community within the civil rights movement,

33:27

basically being like, you know, who can perform an

33:29

abortion on my friend? You know who wants

33:31

to commit a felony really quick? And the

33:34

doctor she eventually reached, as best as

33:36

I can tell, was a surgeon named TRM.

33:38

Howard, who gets left out of this history

33:41

sometimes and not always, which a shame because

33:43

he's a really fucking interesting guy. He

33:45

was more famous as a civil rights leader than

33:47

he was as a doctor. He was one of the most prominent

33:50

non socialist voices in the movement. Most

33:52

of the civil rights movement was substantially

33:54

further left than than this guy. But

33:57

you know his black man fighting for civil rights? Uh,

34:00

I don't know. So. So during the Emmett Till case, which

34:03

again I'm gonna wander to tell you about cool people have

34:05

to say about all these horrible things that happened. Um,

34:08

Emmetti was a fourteen year old black kid who was really

34:10

murdered by a white mob in Mississippi in and

34:13

during that case, Howard helped run the search for evidence,

34:15

and I believe that's where he became more prominent within the civil

34:17

rights movement. And during that

34:19

trial, discriminatory gun laws wouldn't let

34:21

him own weapons, but he he did anyway, And he

34:23

kept a pistol in a secret compartment in his car,

34:26

and he slept with a Thompson machine gun at the foot

34:28

of his bed. Um.

34:30

And there's this whole history that I also

34:32

will want hopefully one day cover, uh

34:35

about hitting Within the civil rights

34:37

movement, there was actually a huge move Even if the

34:39

political action was largely non violent, people

34:42

weren't people were fine with self defense, and

34:44

a lot of that movement was armed. Um,

34:48

so he was very politically engaged. He runs

34:50

for Republican. He runs as a Republican

34:53

for Congress in nineteen fifty eight. He doesn't win. But

34:55

he also fought against the criminalization of sex work,

34:57

which rules. And he was a surgeon

35:00

and a legal abortionist, which he considered part of

35:02

his civil rights work, which also just rules.

35:05

And he was arrested in nineteen nineteen sixty

35:07

five for providing abortions in Chicago,

35:09

although he was never convicted. So Heather Booth

35:12

reaches out to him and he's like, yeah, bring

35:14

your friend's sister to my office. So

35:17

word gets around quickly that Heather Booth has the

35:19

hook up with safe abortionists because

35:23

obviously, regardless of law, people are still

35:25

getting abortions in the United States at this point. Um

35:29

yeah, um, I'm shocked, but it's

35:31

weird. It's almost like anyway,

35:34

right, just because it's outlawed. Yeah,

35:38

we thought we got rid of that.

35:40

It definitely stopped everything for sure.

35:43

I didn't make everything else dangerous for the low socioeconomic

35:45

status and easy access for the rich

35:48

people who still kept getting abortions. What

35:51

wait, did you read my script? Did I share it? We're

35:55

just in tune. We're not saying as we're

35:57

best friends. Yeah, me

36:00

to remind people I'm their best friend when they don't

36:02

know. That's

36:07

the name of your podcast should be, Uh, your

36:09

best friend tells you boutad Obviously

36:14

that's the perfect title. Yeah, yeah, totally.

36:17

Um, we're professional.

36:21

I love. I have to say that every few hours, just to remind

36:24

myself and others around me. Speaking

36:27

of being a professional, Margaret, do you know what time

36:30

it is? Is it time

36:32

to tell you about how great it is to

36:35

eat potatoes and other healthy food

36:37

direct from gardens instead

36:39

of and how everyone should grow their own food, and how

36:41

this podcast is sponsored by the concept

36:44

of self reliance

36:46

and inter reliance among healthy communities

36:49

and no other sponsors at all, except for

36:51

a few that might slip in after I stopped talking.

36:54

Yes, here's

36:56

some ads, and

37:02

we're back. I hope you enjoyed those ads. I hope

37:04

all of them were for really positive things and none of

37:06

them were for bad things, which is definitely

37:09

the way that advertising works. I

37:11

was gonna say, if they're not, it's Robert Evans fault.

37:13

I can say that that's true. Everything

37:16

is Robert. Anything you don't like is Robert's

37:18

fault. That's how I lived my life.

37:22

Robert is in charge of making all the decisions

37:24

about advertising for them now or again. If

37:26

you have problems with it, you should hit

37:29

him up on Twitter twe

37:31

Director of Tweets, and your emails to

37:33

him las him, not me. Thank

37:35

you. All

37:39

right. So it's hard to keep stats

37:41

on a legal ship. For some weird reason, people

37:43

don't like necessarily always telling the government when they

37:45

do a legal ship UM.

37:47

But one five study estimated

37:49

that anywhere between two hundred thousand

37:52

and a one million two hundred thousand

37:54

abortions were happening every year in the United States

37:56

in ninety five. Around nineteen

37:58

seventy the UM, which

38:00

is still three years before Roe v. Wade, the

38:03

claimed number is more like one to two million.

38:06

But who knows abortions

38:08

are happening. Rich women get the hook up

38:10

from their private doctors, or they fly

38:12

to the UK, where abortion law

38:15

is generally more lenient UM, and for

38:17

less privileged folks it's a lot less rosy.

38:19

The underground abortion scene was like a mixed match

38:22

of like sketchy grifters and then well,

38:24

meaning incompetent doctors, but you didn't necessarily

38:26

have a way to determine which one you're

38:28

going to get. And almost

38:31

all of them are men, and

38:33

a lot of them are also connected to organized crime,

38:36

including some of the good ones. I think some

38:38

of the good ones were just like outright criminals

38:40

attached to organized crime. Yeah,

38:43

it was really interesting to see that layer,

38:45

as when you start like finding

38:47

out these backgrounds, you're like wow,

38:49

wow, okay,

38:52

okay, Yeah,

38:54

they're gonna come up a couple of times in this story

38:57

intrigue, although not as

39:00

much as they could because

39:02

some of the people involved in this are all still alive,

39:04

right, and so I'm not trying to make conjectures

39:07

about certain things. Let's

39:09

not in danger anybody today.

39:11

Yeah, Okay. So, as

39:13

an interesting note, Chicago actually had one of the only

39:16

women doctors that I found when I was looking at

39:18

women abortionists, but pre Chine. I'm

39:20

sure there were more, but um Dr

39:23

Josephine Gabbler performed more than eighteen thousand

39:25

abortions throughout the nineteen thirties, and

39:27

her patients were referred to or from almost two hundred

39:30

different medical facilities, and basically she would

39:32

pay a kickback to all the like medical facilities

39:34

that would send her patients. Um,

39:36

they would get a quarter of the abortion fee

39:39

because everything is sketchy in crime Land. But

39:42

she was also a I believe, a safe and competent

39:44

abortionist. And then in nineteen forties

39:46

she sold her practice to her receptionist, Adam

39:49

Martin, and she takes over the practice, but

39:51

she actually hires outside practitioners to perform

39:53

the actual abortions because she was a receptionist, not

39:55

a surgeon or whatever. Um.

39:58

But in the nineteen forties and fifties, abort and laws

40:00

started being enforced more strenuously. It was always

40:02

illegal, but it was like kind of

40:05

a lot of times a lot of places, I was like, well, you don't

40:07

kill anyone. We aren't necessarily

40:09

going to do anything. But then fifties,

40:12

unfortunately, right when this receptionist

40:15

takes over, abortion law gets

40:17

enforced more strenuously, and

40:20

which of course shutters

40:22

the safest abortion clinics in the country

40:25

and does nothing to stop women from meeting

40:27

abortions. So Heather

40:30

Booth is compiling all the names of the reasonable

40:32

providers that she can run across, basically

40:34

keeping track of who could be trusted to be safe, both

40:37

like kind of legally safe, like I mean not

40:39

it's illegal, but you know, to be careful, also

40:42

to be medically safe, and also to be sexually

40:44

safe, because there's a whole problem with abortion

40:47

providers creeping on the patients in their care,

40:49

which obviously

40:52

legalization didn't stop. But um,

40:55

you know, that's

40:57

why even when things are legal, we still

40:59

need people to advocate for us. And

41:03

so more and more people start coming to her for referrals,

41:06

but she starts getting busier. In nineteen sixty

41:08

seven, she marries Paul Booth, who's an activist She

41:10

met at a sit in demonstration against the draft

41:12

in the Vietnam War. Because again, everything is intersectional.

41:15

He went on to help found Students for Democratic

41:17

Society in nineteen sixty nine.

41:19

By nineteen sixty nine, they had two kids,

41:21

and she had a job, and she was in grad school and she

41:23

couldn't handle running like underground

41:26

crime ring all by herself. Um,

41:28

so she called up a bunch of other activists women and got

41:30

them in on her underground crime ring. And that's how

41:32

Jane started. And Jane

41:34

wasn't called Jane. It was the not

41:37

quite as bad as a Soviet name, but it was the Abortion

41:39

Council in Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union

41:42

a little shorter, yeah, and they were

41:44

like, you know, just let's just call

41:46

it Jane. They mostly called it the

41:48

Service within their own ranks apparently,

41:51

um, but they picked Jane to be like kind of like

41:53

the every woman name, right, like you

41:55

know, we're all Jane or whatever, like Jane Doe.

41:59

And history remembers that as

42:01

the Jain Collective, which is a better name than the Abortion

42:03

Council Service in the Chicago Women's Libration Union.

42:06

It's a cooler name. It's definitely like rings,

42:08

like, oh, this is a good mystery novel. Let's

42:11

go oh good point.

42:13

Yeah, no, totally yeah.

42:16

And then they get the sense of intrigue in your life.

42:18

And if you're going to go do a crime, right,

42:20

you should get some intrigue in your life out of it. It It shouldn't

42:22

be like the cold like Bureau of

42:24

Crime where you like go in and they're like, please

42:27

fill out a form for the crime you would like to commit,

42:29

and you're like and they're like we need it and triplicate.

42:31

No, it should be fucking like exciting

42:34

the collective. I mean, come on, is the Jain

42:36

Collective. So obviously they're badass

42:39

espionage parts of to this somehow

42:42

in like secret coded languages

42:44

and all that kind of stuff. Come

42:46

on, you gotta be good. I can't

42:49

wait till we can talk about more of the underground

42:51

parts of the history. But I

42:53

am not wishing. I

42:55

wouldn't wish them all along happy lives.

43:00

So okay, So they spend months planning out

43:02

the whole thing before they launch. They're trying to be really careful with

43:04

their crime ring they and also

43:06

it's not just because it's crime. They actually they're doing this because

43:08

they care, right, And so they're like, all right, what are

43:11

we going to do if one of our patients has a medical

43:13

emergency? What are we going to do if someone dies?

43:15

What are we going to do? If one of us is arrested? What are we going

43:17

to do if one of our doctors is arrested? They like

43:19

mapped all this out for months. They mapped

43:22

it all very carefully, and then they opened and

43:24

they decided to keep minimal records and have different

43:26

volunteers handle patient contact and doctor

43:28

contact because again crime. And

43:32

they also got an answering machine, which is like a

43:34

weird it's only notable to me because it's like a nice visual

43:36

detail because I think at the time it's like a huge real to

43:38

real machine. And so then and then they

43:40

put up ads in all the student and underground

43:43

newspapers in Chicago and they say pregnant

43:45

don't want to be called Jane. It's

43:48

so snazzy, like I

43:50

know, I know, like it was a whole

43:52

system. Yeah,

43:54

I love it. It's kind of like they're trying to if

43:57

you do know, doing war times, I guess they were doing

43:59

the messages, his telegrams are trying to decode

44:01

things. It was this level and it was phenomenal.

44:05

Yeah, and we will hopefully

44:07

never need it again. But it's an interesting anecdote

44:10

about history. Um,

44:12

it'll make me cry, come on,

44:15

yeah,

44:17

okay. So, so when they first started, they worked with a bunch

44:19

of different abortionists, and slowly they started using

44:21

one guy more and more. And some

44:24

accounts call him Nick and some accounts

44:26

call him Mike, and all of the accounts

44:28

put his name in in like quotes. I gonna

44:31

say they put in air quotes. But that's what I'm doing, is the air quotes.

44:33

You often see it because

44:35

Nick Mike is a crime guy, like

44:38

that's his thing, through and through. Like one account

44:41

just refers to him as like a con man over and over again,

44:43

but it's a very positive account about like their

44:45

con man, right. And

44:48

some accounts say he was a mafia abortionist,

44:50

and some accounts say he was independent and on the run

44:52

from both cops and the mafia. I

44:55

straight up don't know what to believe. If you've heard one way or the other,

44:57

I'd be curious. But yeah, I did hear

44:59

a to the mafia at one

45:01

point in time. But again, like that's kind of like, doesn't

45:04

make me make it more intriguing that this

45:06

is what's happened, or doesn't make it more sinister,

45:09

right, Well, what's going to make it both more

45:11

intriguing and sinister is that at least one

45:13

account wants you to know that Nick Mike is

45:15

the sexiest man alive. Okay,

45:18

wait, I missed that. As

45:20

much research as I've done and trying

45:22

to get this stuff that I did not see.

45:24

So now like, well I gotta have a picture, come

45:26

on, but mark

45:29

photo. No, I don't think there's pictures of

45:31

quote. I don't know. We don't actually

45:33

have an identity for him because he

45:35

wasn't around but they wanted to know that

45:38

he is a babe, Like

45:40

I need to know who said this. So it

45:42

wasn't collective something. It

45:44

was one of the Jane collective. I can't remember at the top of my head. It

45:47

wasn't Jody because it was someone who would go and meet

45:49

with him. Um. And it's in one of her accounts.

45:51

It's from an interview. I think it's in the

45:53

There's a zine that came out in like two thousand

45:56

three or four called Jane and that

45:58

has a lot of the interviews and ship and that was

46:00

where I pulled the Sexiest Man Alive part from

46:02

and that that stays in my memory. You know that

46:04

is amazing. Yeah, I'm

46:07

always looking for the subtext, you know, like

46:09

like who's who's sucking who? And um,

46:13

like this has become a drug, Like not only

46:15

has it become like an espionage things, it's kind of becoming

46:17

a soap opera or something alone. Those

46:19

lies for someone have to put that narrative

46:22

in, like he's one of the sexiest men. I'm

46:24

like, how sexy I have I have a feeling

46:26

because it was the sexties seventies he had

46:28

the mustache. I know he did he had to have

46:30

the mustache, right, totally. Yeah, probably in

46:33

long hair, you know, like but

46:35

not like full hippie long hair, just like kind

46:37

of a yeah. I

46:39

was describing this to one of my friends and they

46:42

were like, oh, he probably had like a leather

46:44

jacket and said, chow a lot, you know, um,

46:47

And I'm not convinced by the chow part. I'm

46:49

not convinced. I think my friend, I've been watching a

46:51

lot of is any Wizard That's amazing

46:53

and that's turned out. I really wish

46:56

I don't want like any like real because

46:58

I don't want to focus on him because he and himself

47:00

was whatever. But the fact that this was

47:03

like a narrative around him is phenomenal.

47:05

Yeah, totally. And

47:08

when they would go beat him, at

47:10

least for a while, I don't know if he stayed this way all the time. He

47:12

would only meet one Jane at a time because

47:15

theoretically he wanted to avoid conspiracy charges,

47:18

and if you have three or more people talking

47:20

about a crime, then you can get conspiracy charges.

47:22

And I'm not trying to say that this is the way

47:24

you successfully avoid conspiracy charges is you never

47:27

let more than one other person in the room at the same time,

47:29

but theoretically that was what his his

47:31

whole thing was. And so they liked their new

47:33

con man and they started working more

47:36

or less exclusively with with him, and they would,

47:38

I guess pick him up the airport driving motel and

47:40

they would bring him work. He wanted

47:42

slightly less pay than most the other abortionists,

47:44

but he was still wasn't cheap and he was in it for the

47:46

money. Um. Most abortions at the time

47:48

rant six hundred dollars to a thousand dollars, which

47:51

is four to seven thousand dollars into

47:55

Jane was able to offer them for five hundred at the start,

47:57

which is and then after about five or six full price

47:59

abortion Nick Mike would do a

48:01

couple for cheaper um.

48:04

And one of the founders, Jody Howard, was

48:06

Nick Mike is still such a funny thing

48:08

to me, and that the only thing we know

48:11

about them is that they were hot. Yeah,

48:14

totally, that's all you need to know. Come on, ck

48:16

Mike, Nick Mike, It's

48:19

so funny. Wanted to be his first and middle name

48:24

name. Yeah, yeah, he was.

48:26

He never actually lied about anything. He just his

48:28

name was Nick, last name Mike. And the

48:33

man with two first names.

48:35

Okay, the

48:38

whole guide there to the round this one

48:40

mysterious man anyway,

48:42

going on? Okay, So, so

48:45

one of the founders, Jody Howard, was particularly

48:47

close with Nick Mike and there's some kind of like subtext

48:49

and what I read. But again, I'm not trying to make assumptions

48:52

because people might still be alive. But

48:54

but Jody decided, and this actually makes a lot

48:56

of sense, right, She was like, there needs to be a woman

48:58

in the room as you're performing these abortions,

49:01

and so she started insisting and then started insisting

49:03

that he apprenticed her and her

49:06

own uh. Jody Howard's

49:08

own entry into the movement was kind of interesting. She

49:10

had two kids in lymphatic cancer and

49:12

she was pregnant for a third time, and she knew that

49:14

childbirth would as likely as not killer uh,

49:17

and doctors still wouldn't let her get an abortion. Theoretically,

49:19

the law at the time was if childbirth would kill, you

49:21

can get an abortion. So the

49:24

only way she felt like she could take matters into her own hands

49:26

about this is she basically like, give me an abortion or

49:28

I'll kill myself and

49:30

um, and they were like, okay, you can have an abortion

49:33

now, and which is just a

49:35

like how cruel is a law that

49:37

the only way that you can control your own body is by

49:40

like threatening to end your own

49:42

life. Um, So

49:45

she became an abortion access crusader, imagine

49:47

that. And she figured out, she was the first

49:49

one to figure out, apparently kind of quickly, that

49:52

handsome man crime doc Nick Mike wasn't

49:54

a doctor. Um. He had a lot

49:56

of things going for him, but a medical license was not one

49:58

of the things he had going for him. And

50:01

and she knew that. So

50:03

once again, the only thing that's actually

50:06

accurate about Nick Mike is

50:08

hot. Possibly

50:10

that was by one person's it

50:14

is it is in

50:16

Stone

50:19

thinks you're sexy. You're sexy? You know? Okay,

50:22

God, anyway,

50:24

keep going, all right. So she

50:26

decides not to tell anyone at first, because she's like, everyone's

50:28

going to freak the funk out. And she's like, also

50:31

like, but if if he can learn it, and he's not

50:33

a doctor, so can I. I'm not a

50:35

doctor. And so he made

50:37

him teacher. And and

50:39

at first Nick Mike is working out of motels, but

50:41

then one day an angry husband comes and like is

50:43

banging on the motel room door, and they realized

50:45

they had to step up their security. So in

50:48

order to make it all more mystery

50:50

novel crime novel, they start renting apartments

50:52

all over the city and they need to at

50:54

any given time. First they have the front where

50:57

all the patients come for counseling and consultation.

51:00

It's where it's also where they show

51:02

up on the day of the abortion, and they're encouraged

51:04

to bring loved ones for support. And

51:06

of course most people who can who

51:09

get abortions already have children, and

51:11

so they provided childcare at the front

51:13

as well. And working

51:15

at the front was therefore this like really demanding

51:17

job. You were a counselor, you were a babysitter,

51:20

and you're also like an entertainer. You were passing

51:22

out like snacks and tea and soda and shipped

51:24

like anxious boyfriends and probably

51:26

girlfriends and siblings and all that ship, you know. And

51:29

then you had the place that was the front night of

51:31

the place. Very it's still

51:33

better than the Soviet names. Actually is also kind of sound

51:35

like anyway whatever um

51:37

it looks sounds very coded and wonderfully

51:41

yeah, totally. And so the places,

51:43

the apartment where the abortion is actually performed on

51:45

a bed with like plastic and cloth sheets down,

51:48

and um. They worked hard to make the

51:50

whole experiences like un medical as possible.

51:53

They worked to be relaxing and inviting and communicate

51:56

with people about what's going on. Some of the reports

51:58

I was reading and said, this isn't always work. Sometimes they're

52:00

like, hey, I'm like, I'm your new best friend,

52:03

you know, and they're like trying to be really nice, and then um,

52:05

and sometimes they're like, no, this is the worst day in my life.

52:07

Let's get this fucking over with, you know. And other

52:09

times they were like, you know, friendly

52:12

and stuff. Then there are the drivers who

52:15

took people from one place to the other. They rather

52:17

they took people from the front to the place and from the place

52:19

to the front. And these were

52:21

in somewhat short supply, apparently because most

52:24

of the James were students at the University of Chicago

52:26

and so um, and a lot of them come

52:29

from New York City where people just didn't have

52:31

driver's licenses, so the

52:33

few drivers with driver's licenses were basically

52:36

it's like all of the jobs that any of the James were

52:38

doing were incredibly important, not just the

52:40

abortionists, you know, and they

52:43

performed over eleven thousand abortions

52:45

and like barely three

52:47

year span. It's like ninety nineteen

52:49

seventy three. A later obstetrician

52:52

looking at their records suggested it was as safe as

52:54

any above ground legal clinic. Um.

52:56

They never had a patient die, uh,

52:59

at least not one that they performed an abortion on. They

53:01

did have one time where a woman came in

53:03

in bad shape. She tried and failed

53:05

to enter pregnancy on her own a few different

53:07

ways, because making

53:09

things illegal is really fucked up, UM,

53:12

and she had a really severe infection. Jane

53:15

determined it wasn't safe to operate on her,

53:17

and so they insisted she go to the hospital, and

53:19

she didn't. She went home instead. And

53:22

I kind of assume, I mean, I feel

53:24

like we've all been there or we've been like someone's like you really

53:27

see a doctor and you're like, doctor,

53:29

we look like a millionaire, you know. I

53:32

mean. And also again the stigma and

53:34

the judgments and if she was trying,

53:36

if this person was trying to do a self

53:40

abortion, that in itself told

53:42

tells you how a dire of a situation

53:44

they felt they were in and felt

53:46

like they had to do something whatever they could and it

53:48

killed them, which is what that situation

53:50

leads to. When you really feel whatever

53:53

circumstanced, whether it's trying

53:55

to not be disapproved by

53:57

the parents or the family or idy

54:00

or whatever, having this level of being

54:02

alone and trying to do whatever you can

54:05

no matter the cost, and then not

54:07

realizing there is another option until

54:09

it's too late. That's that's that whole level

54:11

in itself that just breaks your heart

54:13

in this whole situation. But I love to

54:16

set up about the front and the

54:18

place as you were talking about, because as I

54:20

was reading about these things, the

54:22

idea that going to a gynecologist, going

54:25

to get your yearly check up, it's

54:27

frightening. Going to a doctor in general is

54:29

frightening as hell to me. It's probably one of those

54:32

anxiety moments of like, oh my God, why do

54:34

I have to be here, and to know that you're going

54:36

to do something that seems that you've been told

54:38

is wrong a B. So

54:40

you have all of this guilt on

54:42

top of that. Whatever it may be, whatever

54:45

the situation is, and we don't know the outlying situation,

54:47

whether it is you did have considual

54:49

sex and you didn't have protection, or because

54:52

you didn't understand the

54:54

way anatomy works. You didn't

54:56

have full understanding what was happening with you.

54:59

We already know was like there's sexual

55:01

trauma within even normal situations

55:03

that could be sexual trauma. And I want to say normal,

55:05

I mean consensual situations or what it

55:08

was consensual? Uh, like having

55:11

understanding, would these Jay's

55:13

coming in and be like, let me counsel you and

55:15

let's have a deep conversation, but also we're

55:17

going to set this whole place up like a home

55:20

so that you feel comfortable and like not

55:22

instead of in a theile, scary

55:25

back haul like what people

55:27

would search for at that point in time trying to get those illegal

55:29

abortions. Really feel like these are professionals,

55:32

Like that's wow, Like that's above

55:34

and beyond. I love that. Yeah,

55:37

I know that, and thinking

55:39

about like I mean, you

55:41

know, not in anywhere the same level of scale

55:43

of what some other people have to deal with. I remember, um

55:46

the first time, just so now that listeners no way too

55:48

much about my sexual history and health. I

55:51

went to go an sci screening the first time

55:53

after I came out as trends and was willing

55:55

to, you know, put down my actual gender

55:57

on on forms and things like that, and I went to go

55:59

again a t I screening and like, you

56:02

know, and was in this stupid

56:04

room with a stupid health practitioner

56:06

who touched me inappropriately and like came onto

56:08

me while you know, um

56:11

touching my genitals and like yeah,

56:13

and I'm like and then

56:16

and then I it took

56:18

me a long ast time before I went got st I screened

56:20

again, you know, and like

56:22

I'm not proud of that, and I'm sorry everyone,

56:24

you know, but like but it's like and just

56:26

thinking about what it must be like, yeah, like you're talking

56:28

about being in this situation where you're like, fuck

56:31

it, I'm giving myself an abortion, you

56:33

know. Like so I'm like really not

56:35

trying to shame this person who like chose not to go

56:37

to the hospital until it's too late. You

56:39

know. This is about, first and

56:41

foremost, I'm so sorry that you went

56:43

through that bullshit on

56:46

every level and it was wrong and

56:48

that person should be arrested and they

56:50

are assholes, first and foremost. Yeah,

56:54

I've had enough of my day with just people

56:56

being bad people and what happened

56:58

to you, Oh my god, I'm

57:01

speechless in that. I

57:03

hate that now I'm beginning to know you

57:05

that whatever anyone would ever have to go through

57:08

anything like that to a person that they should be able

57:10

to trust. Professionals are someone that

57:12

we should be able to trust. And you were kind of talking about

57:14

that with the James

57:16

being like Heathery being like, you know what, I think

57:18

there needs to be a woman present so we can

57:20

watch and make sure they don't feel traumatized.

57:23

That in itself, Oh god,

57:25

I am so sorry and that should not have

57:27

happened to you and that was wrong in every

57:29

fucking level. Thank you.

57:31

Yeah, it's it's it's funny to like, you know,

57:34

like, oh, I've like barely told people this and now I've

57:36

told however many people of

57:38

this um but like I don't

57:40

have any I don't feel any like guilt or shame around it. I'm

57:42

just angry, you know, and like right, and

57:44

I'm angry that, like, you know, I was like

57:46

so excited you like whatever, if I talked about

57:48

this too much, I'll start crying. But like I was so excited

57:50

that I could like fill out the form and actually write down that

57:52

I'm like, you know, transwoman and ship like that, and it's

57:54

like, oh, I'm gonna have gender firming care. I've never had gender

57:57

firming care. And I'm like, oh, actually,

57:59

be it being seen as a woman sucks everything.

58:03

Um yeah, that's

58:05

definitely just a whole different level of like

58:08

this moment that you should be celebrating to be

58:11

free, Oh my god, free here I am.

58:13

I get to be here and be who I

58:15

am, and then have this dick

58:18

coming through and just ruining that

58:21

moment and then honestly portraying

58:24

their portraying their professionalism,

58:26

betraying their profession, um

58:28

and showing off as like oh, yeah,

58:30

you are evil in general and

58:33

therefore you shouldn't they should

58:35

not be a part of this profession whatever

58:37

what not. But on top of that, yeah,

58:39

that you had the audacity

58:42

to take someone's

58:44

hope. Yeah, in safety

58:47

and I hate that. I am so sorry. And again

58:50

yeah uh and I love yeah

58:53

you being angry. Yeah you're

58:55

better than I because I think I would like rage

58:59

everywhere. But you know, that's

59:02

a whole different conversation with me. J Now,

59:04

I I am I am totally fine with rage

59:07

and anger as a way of dealing with certain issues

59:09

in society and in my personal life

59:11

when when people are doing things um

59:13

yeah, and yeah, coming back to I love

59:16

that the Jain collective really

59:18

kind of understood that level.

59:20

And yeah, I hate that that someone died and that's

59:22

not someone that they I know, like they were

59:25

traumatized them, which is why we've got they Their

59:27

whole attitude was like, we gotta do better. That's

59:29

why we as women. Even

59:32

though they were not doctors of medical professionals,

59:34

it is concerning. I will say what I first read that, I

59:36

was like, oh, that's a

59:38

good idea. But understanding that

59:40

they really cared about these

59:43

people that were coming in and was

59:45

all about giving them safety and understanding

59:48

what they had to do is what they had to

59:50

do because the doctors were no longer

59:53

coming through because they were getting like the

59:55

ro Versus way, it was really coming through about

59:57

who was getting penalized and who was really

1:00:00

getting targeted. Um, and so

1:00:02

they had less and less options and why

1:00:04

not if they can truly do a good job.

1:00:07

And and the big thing was getting the right equipment,

1:00:10

getting sterilized equipment. I know that was

1:00:12

a big factor in it as well. Yeah,

1:00:15

um, but you know who will sell you sterile

1:00:17

medical equipment they can use? Tell

1:00:21

me the products

1:00:23

can we get? Can we get? Can we

1:00:25

get sponsored by by

1:00:27

at home Abortion Care. You

1:00:31

know, one of our sponsors was playing b hell

1:00:33

yeah yeah, so there you go.

1:00:37

Okay, well and then we're sponsored by that

1:00:39

and whatever. This other stuff is back

1:00:48

from the break. That was a long one. Let's go. And

1:00:51

you know who else kept going was was

1:00:53

the Jain Collective because

1:00:55

as as you were pointing out, like the this

1:00:57

brush with death like shook them up because they

1:01:00

I mean, it wasn't their fault, right, they didn't do anything

1:01:03

wrong, but they care. Yeah.

1:01:06

That was the whole point of them starting is because

1:01:08

they wanted to prevent uh

1:01:11

people from dying from this

1:01:13

type of process and this type

1:01:15

of access. And so even though it had

1:01:17

nothing to do with them, it was still a death

1:01:19

because of something. So yeah,

1:01:24

and I was trying to make a joke about how they are actually

1:01:26

just in it to make a quick book, but it wouldn't even

1:01:28

work because it's so obviously untrue. Um.

1:01:31

And so they keep going. Over a hundred women

1:01:33

work as Jane. So the course of the project though generally

1:01:36

is like twenty thirty at any given time, um,

1:01:39

which is kind of interesting to have this like high turnover rate,

1:01:41

Like oh, like is this casual thing. You go join this

1:01:43

like very above ground, underground organization

1:01:46

that's like committing felonies, which is cool.

1:01:49

One Jane named Jeannie gallatzer

1:01:52

Levy and she'll come up more later. She

1:01:54

described her first meeting that she showed up

1:01:56

to for orientation. There were like thirty women crammed

1:01:59

into the dining. Each new volunteer was paired

1:02:01

with a big sister who would get them on

1:02:03

boarded like a mentor. And at each

1:02:05

meeting, they would pass around index cards with all

1:02:07

of the cases that needed to be handled, and everyone

1:02:09

would take the cards of the cases

1:02:12

that they wanted to handle, And of course

1:02:14

that meant they like everyone took the easy cards first,

1:02:16

you know, and then like the big complicated ones.

1:02:18

Everyone's like, but you know, we've all been there. And

1:02:22

so Jody Howard

1:02:24

finally tells the rest of the group that sexy

1:02:27

nick Man was not a quote unquote

1:02:29

real doctor. Um

1:02:31

and did we change did we change his name to Nick

1:02:33

Man? No? Nick Mike? Sorry? I?

1:02:36

Um, yeah, no nick Man, sexy

1:02:38

man. I don't know, Yeah,

1:02:43

it wrong. Everyone's listening an

1:02:47

amazing, amazing by

1:02:50

to sexy nick Man, sexy sexy

1:02:53

sexy guy. Uh it's

1:02:56

okay. So people take the news

1:02:58

really hard, right, um.

1:03:00

And the reactions fall into two camps, and

1:03:02

half of them were like, we're no better than the back

1:03:04

alley providers, and the other half were like, well,

1:03:07

if crime guy can do it, so can we. And

1:03:11

um. In general, the former

1:03:13

camp left and the latter camp stayed, and

1:03:16

many of the people who stayed. You know, I've I've read some

1:03:19

said that half of the Jain's left, and I've read other

1:03:21

things that said that's an exaggeration. I

1:03:24

don't know, um, right, but a

1:03:26

lot of the ones who stayed learned how to provide abortions,

1:03:29

and abortion was kind of

1:03:31

having a bit of a renaissance around this time in

1:03:33

the late six season early seventies in terms of how it was

1:03:35

done. Um, a lot of the abortionists,

1:03:38

Yeah, we're sketchy Backelley providers, but

1:03:40

um, but the Jain Collective wasn't the only ones who

1:03:42

are taking it seriously and and caring.

1:03:45

Other people were working their asses off to help people

1:03:47

get abortions safely and effectively despite state

1:03:49

repression. And we're gonna talk a little bit later, I think

1:03:51

in part two about some of the things

1:03:54

that the methods that people pioneered

1:03:56

and which ones are still applicable to the name, which ones are

1:03:58

not. Um, so so Nick

1:04:00

Mike, he makes himself obsolete. Um

1:04:02

he was a crime guy at the end of the day, and

1:04:04

he's in it for the money, but he's

1:04:07

willing to make himself obsolete. So he teaches a

1:04:09

lot of Jane's how to do this because

1:04:11

and they're like, well, we want to charge a hunter bucks and he's

1:04:13

like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. So he teaches them

1:04:15

how to do it, and then he sucks off and he's

1:04:18

just like gone, his trail goes cold. Did you

1:04:20

ever have you ever heard anything else there's this? So

1:04:23

they're like, one of the things that I read was that

1:04:25

that the mafia was after him and that's

1:04:27

why he just disappeared. But that

1:04:30

could have been just someone trying to make

1:04:32

a big, bigger story and that's why we don't

1:04:35

have nothing of them. But it could be as as

1:04:37

simple as he didn't want any part of it. They

1:04:40

it got a little hot. A lot of people were investigating

1:04:43

different types of organizations, and because

1:04:45

the doctors had pulled out, he pulled out too. And

1:04:47

also he didn't get enough money since they

1:04:49

were trying to downgrade the costs. So he was like, fine,

1:04:52

never see you again. But yeah, I did hear

1:04:54

that the mafia might have come after him.

1:04:56

Yeah. I like to think that he rode away into

1:04:59

the sunset on a mo recycle while smoking

1:05:01

and then lived a hundred and seven. That's

1:05:03

that's the version of him. Yeah, sexy

1:05:06

Nick Mike has got he's got it to be in the sunset

1:05:08

somewhere. Yeah, for some reason,

1:05:10

he is Mike Nick for me. But

1:05:13

I hear what I'm saying, Nick, Mike is

1:05:15

Mike Nick for me. And you know

1:05:17

what, that's just a personal preference. I

1:05:19

guess y, Nick

1:05:22

Mike, Mike Nick can be whoever

1:05:24

you need him to be, because he's just the sexy man

1:05:26

he rode away, who shows up and

1:05:29

teaches you how to provide abortions and then rides

1:05:31

off at the sunset. Apply

1:05:33

there you go. Who knew this

1:05:36

is what we needed in our lives. But

1:05:39

the greatest part is they only needed him

1:05:41

for a little while, just a little while,

1:05:43

because he made himself obsolete. And then at that

1:05:45

point all of the work was being done entirely

1:05:47

by women. And they also

1:05:50

it wasn't just enough that they did it in the cold

1:05:52

medical way. They also still wanted to again sort

1:05:54

of demedicalize it, and they wanted to teach

1:05:56

clients what was happening and give them agency.

1:05:58

One of the one of the j Ruth Circle, in

1:06:01

an interview said quote,

1:06:03

it was one of the things we talked about a lot. We

1:06:06

were not doing something to this woman.

1:06:08

We were doing something with this woman, and she was

1:06:10

as much a part of it and part of the process

1:06:12

as we were. So that we would talk about

1:06:14

how we relied on them. If we got busted, you

1:06:17

know, we would explain that they were not doing

1:06:19

something illegal. We were doing something illegal,

1:06:22

but we need their help, and you know,

1:06:24

you don't talk about it and we have to keep quiet.

1:06:27

So I like that. They like basically they are like,

1:06:29

look, because it wasn't illegal to

1:06:31

get an abortion, was legal to give an abortion.

1:06:34

Um, so the James were taking all of the legal

1:06:36

risk um. But they basically brought

1:06:38

everyone in and we're like, look, like you rely

1:06:41

on us, we need to rely on you. And I think that's

1:06:43

cool. Yeah, And

1:06:45

not all of them performed abortion, some

1:06:47

of them. Everyone took tasks that suited

1:06:50

them best. They were callback Jane's who talked

1:06:52

to the patients, and Big Janes, who would handle the

1:06:54

coordination. At least one Jane

1:06:56

later pointed out that decision making was kind of fraught

1:06:58

within the collective. Um.

1:07:01

They tended to suppress internal conflict

1:07:03

and so everyone will like stay focused on the task

1:07:05

and we don't have time to address the you know,

1:07:07

power dynamics and the other issues happening. Um.

1:07:10

And I'm trying to like single them out for this.

1:07:12

Every activist organization

1:07:14

I've ever heard of does this, right,

1:07:16

It's like something that we just need to be aware of. And

1:07:19

I don't know whether this happens particularly in direct action

1:07:21

groups or if I think that because most of the organizations

1:07:23

I've been involved with more direct action groups. But

1:07:26

it's just a thing that happens where like people are like, you

1:07:28

know, like tree sitters are like, oh, we can't talk about patriarchy

1:07:30

within the movement. They're cutting the trees down right now,

1:07:33

you know, right, And so

1:07:35

I think they had some of that going on, at least according to

1:07:37

at least one of them. Later, it wouldn't

1:07:40

be surprising. Uh, And I go, of course, we don't

1:07:42

know all of the jenes that came through, but

1:07:44

it was pretty much ran by white women.

1:07:47

Um, and when we know what

1:07:49

happens when it comes to feminism and white women

1:07:51

and where that can lead and who actually

1:07:54

gate keeps what, there's always

1:07:56

going to be situations with that. And then when you have

1:07:59

something that is so uh

1:08:01

as you said from but like uncertain, anything

1:08:05

illegal, we know it's going to be uncertain, it's going

1:08:07

to have a lot of stress. And I can't

1:08:09

imagine what that looks like within a group,

1:08:11

especially when we're also handled handling medical

1:08:14

procedures on your own as

1:08:16

well. So I feel like there's so many things

1:08:18

to that. And again, like talking about

1:08:20

who was getting access, a lot of people

1:08:23

were getting access, but it's seeming like it was a lot

1:08:25

of like college students at this point in

1:08:27

time. We know that for young women to

1:08:29

be in college, they probably had some money and

1:08:31

even though they might not have as much money as others

1:08:33

in society, they still had a little bit of access

1:08:36

and higher economic status than than

1:08:38

most. And again it

1:08:41

says a lot too even though they were trying to be accessible,

1:08:43

but the word of mouth went through, who who

1:08:45

did it go to? Typically

1:08:48

a middle class uh women

1:08:50

so or middle class people at that point in time. So

1:08:52

there's a lot to be said kind of the

1:08:54

same way that if we wanted to go jump and I don't

1:08:56

want to, because I did this with Robert a long time

1:08:58

ago about playned

1:09:01

parenthood and the beginnings of that. So

1:09:03

you know, we know that that there is

1:09:05

things that happen within movements

1:09:08

and who was leading movements and what that could

1:09:10

have been on the under underbelly

1:09:12

of it. And because

1:09:15

you know more than I do, but no, no, I

1:09:17

don't. And like, I mean, it's funny because once again you're reading

1:09:19

my script ahead of me, and not in a bad

1:09:21

way. No, I just I like that we're on the same page about

1:09:24

this, because yeah, that's

1:09:26

that's one of the most important things to understand with a

1:09:28

lot of this is like, um, it's

1:09:30

mostly white women. It's almost exclusively white women

1:09:32

doing this work. Um. In n seventy,

1:09:35

New York and a few other states Hawaii, Alaska,

1:09:37

and Washington legalized most abortion

1:09:40

and suddenly there weren't as many middle class

1:09:42

patients from that point, and because

1:09:44

people could just fly or train out to New York

1:09:47

and have a legal abortion stead of going all the way to the

1:09:49

UK, and so they started serving the black

1:09:51

community of Chicago more and more, but it

1:09:53

was still white women doing it. And

1:09:56

and yeah, when I when I first read, like, oh they

1:09:58

advertised in the student paper, and I'm like, okay,

1:10:00

it's really cool as students have access to abortion,

1:10:03

but that is not necessarily like the majority

1:10:05

of the people in Chicago or whatever, you know.

1:10:08

Um, And I've only run

1:10:10

across one, uh black

1:10:12

chain, a woman named Louise, who

1:10:15

joined basically to be like, look,

1:10:18

y'all are doing a good thing, but it's like still

1:10:20

kind of fucking weird that you're all white. And

1:10:23

and then again and I read that basically her

1:10:25

friends were like, what are you fucking doing?

1:10:27

If these white women get caught, they'll get

1:10:29

off, and if you get caught, you're you're fucked

1:10:32

right. And I don't

1:10:34

know that that ever had to be tested. I don't believe

1:10:36

it. It It was ever tested. Uh well,

1:10:39

the fact that white women getting arrested ended up, okay,

1:10:41

was tested, but I did I don't believe any

1:10:44

I believe Louise was the only black Jain and

1:10:46

certainly the only one I ran across uma

1:10:49

And and just the little research that I did, I

1:10:51

didn't see her name pop up and like

1:10:55

or who she was. So yeah, again, probably

1:10:57

being identified is not a thing you want

1:11:00

to be doing an underground

1:11:03

totally. Um. But yeah, absolutely

1:11:06

that's dangerous on so many levels. And we understand

1:11:08

that, and in Chicago and itself long

1:11:11

ugly history of segregation

1:11:13

and such. So

1:11:16

now that Nick Mike has gone and they're providing

1:11:18

the abortions themselves, though their prices are

1:11:20

able to drop dramatically. Their

1:11:23

abortions were nominally a hundred dollars, but

1:11:26

realistically they took whatever the patient could offer.

1:11:28

They averaged about fifty dollars. The drivers

1:11:30

were the ones collecting the money and somewhere

1:11:32

between the front and the place, but they didn't

1:11:35

count the money. They just were handed money

1:11:37

and took it. Sometimes they were handed jars

1:11:39

of change, and

1:11:42

when they could, were taken

1:11:44

out of every you know, and if there's

1:11:46

at least twenty five dollars a far as I understand, twenty five

1:11:48

is taken out and put into a revolving loan fund

1:11:51

where people could come and say, like, I need

1:11:53

a loan to get it, and they would have no interest

1:11:55

loan. That kind of is a like, look,

1:11:57

please pay it back, but we're not like

1:11:59

sending to anyone to your house if you don't pay it back,

1:12:02

you know. So it's kind of a like please

1:12:04

pay it back, not up, you must pay

1:12:08

system. Yeah, totally, And it's and it's kind

1:12:10

of thing where it's like natural non system. But like I assume

1:12:12

they weren't like, don't starve yourself to

1:12:14

pay us back, right, you know? Um,

1:12:17

And you know, they basically were just like, this

1:12:20

is so that the next woman who needs an abortion

1:12:22

can have one if you can, you know. And

1:12:24

that's and that's where we're gonna leave it today with Jane in

1:12:26

their heyday. They're all women

1:12:28

collective providing safely legal abortions

1:12:30

and to the people of Chicago, which is it's

1:12:33

pretty freaking cool. Yes, do

1:12:35

you have any like final thoughts for today or or

1:12:37

do you want to I'm just so excited

1:12:39

that we're talking more about this. I discovering

1:12:42

all these things being on an intersectional

1:12:45

filminist show and coming to like, yes,

1:12:47

let's keep talking about it. This is amazing.

1:12:49

I love it. But yeah, but being realistic

1:12:51

about you know, it wasn't glamour and

1:12:54

it wasn't as easy

1:12:56

obviously as it should be. And this

1:12:58

is the problem when we have limited

1:13:01

access or no access and

1:13:03

then when we start criminalizing people were trying

1:13:05

to just live Like that's just But

1:13:08

I'm excited that we are talking about Yeah,

1:13:10

and I really want to, like, whenever possible, I really want

1:13:12

to do like a warts and all version of the show, because

1:13:14

like when you hold up people as heroes and like this

1:13:17

person was perfect and you're like, well, I'm

1:13:19

not perfect. I can't be a hero, you

1:13:21

know, and it's like no, like these people like got

1:13:23

lots of things wrong and they

1:13:25

just did amazing shit anyway, um

1:13:28

right, and and nobody is perfect

1:13:30

besides dogs, correct, besides

1:13:32

dogs. And my dog's a dick

1:13:35

but I love her. But yeah,

1:13:37

on the top of the back that I'm

1:13:40

honest, We're honest about it.

1:13:43

But yeah, she's the best part perfect.

1:13:46

Yeah. Sure, So

1:13:49

if he gets angrier and angrier at the idea that

1:13:51

the dog might not be perfect, don't you

1:13:53

can't say it. I don't see

1:13:55

it. But yeah, like I think in that's

1:13:57

the thing is like, honestly, what comes down

1:13:59

to I love discovering and I know we're

1:14:01

gonna keep talking about it, but about these cool people

1:14:04

is that it wasn't that they wanted to be a hero. And

1:14:06

that they didn't do anything wrong before or don't have

1:14:08

wrong perspectives or may have misspoke.

1:14:11

Uh, it's just that they saw a need and

1:14:13

they did something about it. And

1:14:15

that's what we get to celebrate totally,

1:14:18

and you can you can celebrate more

1:14:21

with us on the part two

1:14:23

of this two part series on Wednesday,

1:14:25

when we're gonna talk in more detail about exactly

1:14:27

what services they offered and how it all went

1:14:30

down. Um, and some of the

1:14:32

other people who have taken up the torch

1:14:34

in the decades since them. Samantha,

1:14:36

anything you want to plug before we head out? Oh

1:14:39

yeah, So if this interest you and

1:14:41

you like to learn more about women

1:14:43

in history and the intersectionality of it all,

1:14:46

you should come listen to Stuff Mom Never Told

1:14:48

You, which you can also find on the I Heart

1:14:50

Radio app or wherever you get your podcast.

1:14:53

You can follow us Stuff I've Never Told

1:14:55

You on Twitter and on Instagram.

1:14:58

You can also follow me McVeigh

1:15:00

sayum, I believe is my Instagram and

1:15:02

then Sam McVeigh on Twitter.

1:15:05

Y'all, I'm struggling. I'm not

1:15:07

really active, but sometimes I exist.

1:15:10

Um. There's a very cute dog

1:15:12

picture on your Instagram where you're

1:15:14

wearing matching Halloween not fits. So

1:15:18

that's that's what I would like to plug at

1:15:20

the end. Here is that photo your

1:15:23

pumpkins? Yeah? Anyways,

1:15:26

well we'll see, we'll see. We'll see you all Wednesday.

1:15:28

Yeah.

1:15:33

Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production

1:15:35

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