0:00

Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool

0:02

Stuff. It's a podcast. The title

0:05

isn't sarcastic. We actually talk about

0:07

people we think are cool and who did

0:09

things that we also think are cool. And

0:12

you know who else is cool? Is my guest

0:14

this week Samantha McVeigh, who is the

0:16

host of Stuff Mom Never Told You. And

0:18

it's not only my new best friend, but dear

0:21

listener, she is your new best friend

0:23

as well. Yes, how you doing? I'm

0:26

doing so? See, this is the theme that I've been trying

0:28

to run with. This is how I make friends by

0:31

trying to tell them I'm cool. So this

0:33

is perfect. So I'm going to be on the show about

0:36

people would do cool stuff because I want

0:38

to be cool, Like That's that's how it works, right, and then

0:40

people want to be friends with me? Yeah definitely.

0:43

Okay, That's what I'm relying on as well.

0:45

At time, I'm going to channel this.

0:47

Let's go yeah uh. And

0:49

we also have Sophie with us, who is not

0:51

only the producer of this show, but and

0:54

the coolest and it's also basically the

0:56

Pope of podcasts. Um. Yes,

0:59

that's the charge of all podcasts. And much like

1:01

the Pope she decides who lives and who dies.

1:04

Yeah. Yes, and much like the Pope, direct

1:06

tells us what's moral than what's not, even if

1:09

we don't believe her half the time, and

1:11

then we just act on whatever Sophie says instead

1:13

of actually listening to her. Sorry, we painted

1:16

you into a corner here, so I

1:20

too, like fun hats Yeah

1:24

it's true. Um, it's true,

1:27

you do. Yeah, but you know

1:29

it's not about me. Let's go, let's go. Okay,

1:32

Okay, So today

1:34

we're doing part two of our two part series

1:36

on the Jane Collective, who are a badass crew of underground

1:38

abortionists and pre Roe v Wade Chicago.

1:41

And this episode will make approximately

1:44

zero sense if you don't go back and listen to

1:46

part one. So go listen to part

1:48

one. We'll wait. Okay.

1:50

So Jane offering

1:52

abortions no longer reliant on crime

1:54

guy Nick Mike, but are doing it themselves Mike,

1:57

Nick, Yeah, Mike next. Sorry, Um,

1:59

and I'm just making sure we have both versions

2:02

in so that we are correct.

2:04

But we did forget the title sexy, so

2:06

sexy Mike Nick sexy

2:09

Nick Mike right, right, totally,

2:11

Yeah, that is the title of the Yeah,

2:13

like, yeah, um

2:15

okay, So so Jane is offering abortions

2:17

for every trimester. Uh, and this

2:20

is like really not how to d I y

2:22

an abortion podcast, although if those exists,

2:24

you should go listen to them, but this is not one of them.

2:26

And the techniques I'm going to be talking about are like fifty

2:29

years old and are transmitted through me, who

2:31

is an absolute lay person who doesn't

2:34

have a uterus and is completely grossed up by

2:36

the idea of the inside of my own body. Um

2:38

Like, if I go to a training about how to

2:41

apply a tourniquet, I what I do is I

2:43

am pretend like I'm

2:45

not there, and then learn the information. Um,

2:49

so just keep things,

2:52

pretend you're not there, and just learn. Yeah,

2:54

exactly. And but

2:57

it it feels important to me to understand

3:00

some of the ways that people have historically and contemporarily

3:02

go about ending unwanted pregnancies. For

3:05

some weird reason, it just seems like really important

3:07

right now. It's hard to say why as

3:11

a person in Georgia, but many laws

3:14

of floating I don't either. Yeah,

3:16

it's so it's so weird, just someone in the air, I don't

3:18

know. And and one thing I talked to

3:20

when I was talking through this show with one of my friends is

3:22

a reproductive rights

3:25

justice activist person all

3:27

of those words in the proper order um.

3:29

One of the things that they were pointing out is that it's

3:32

important not to present this dark age before

3:34

Roe v. Wade legal abortion access

3:36

matters, and we need to defend that. But

3:38

we need to like soberly

3:41

recognized that people can and

3:43

have learned how to take care of not just their

3:45

own health, but like on a community level and

3:47

on a like a real level, UM,

3:50

so that people recognize that they do

3:52

have real options if we lose Roe v. Wade,

3:55

right, so that it's not like your only

3:57

option is to go to someone who's really sketchy,

4:00

uh, because we need to instead

4:02

fight to make sure that that doesn't become

4:05

the case. So when Jane started, they were mostly

4:07

doing a style of abortion called dilation

4:09

and CURETAS or a d n C,

4:12

especially for first trimester abortions.

4:14

And what they do is they injected a local anesthetic

4:16

and then they scraped the walls of the uterus with a

4:18

loop shape instrument called a cut, and

4:21

they then provided pills and injections

4:23

to stop infection and bleeding, and

4:25

they recommended a gynecologist, or they recommended

4:27

getting a dialogical check up, and if you didn't have

4:29

one, they recommended you won. And

4:32

d n C, at least as it was performed

4:35

originally, is a fairly dangerous

4:37

procedure. It's it's not a bad procedure.

4:40

It's important that people be able to do this,

4:42

but it's a it's a it involves sharp objects

4:44

in sensitive areas. And Jane

4:46

was really fucking good at it. But it it

4:48

seems like some of the worst ways that inexperienced abortionists

4:51

UM funck patients up is with

4:53

d n C, and especially also with herbal abortions,

4:55

but we're not going to get into that on the show. Um

4:58

and Jane didn't funk with herbal abortions. To my knowledge,

5:01

d NC is still used today, although the term is

5:03

a wider usage now basically to include things,

5:05

um other than a sharp curet. They

5:08

like suction curets, vacuum

5:10

inspiration as it's sometimes called, where they vacuum

5:13

things out instead of scraping them out. But

5:15

to tell you about vacuum inspiration, I get to tell

5:17

you about a bunch of other really cool people. Let's

5:19

go with people who are complicated

5:22

who did cool things for

5:24

some of these people instead of people who I want to

5:26

blanketly tell you are cool. Because

5:29

Harvey Carmen was not an m d

5:32

uh. Some reports claimed that he is a psychology

5:35

doctorate, so he was technically a doctor. Others

5:37

claimed that he just had a master's degree in theater,

5:40

and while that is vastly that

5:42

is it is. He might have had both. He might have later gone

5:44

back and got a doctor a degree in psychology. I don't

5:46

know. Okay, when he was still

5:49

a student, he was practicing abortion in California

5:51

and one of his patients died and he

5:53

served two and a half years in prison for it. And I

5:56

literally don't have a means by which to judge whether

5:58

or not he was a responsible practitioner who happened

6:00

to lose a patient due to the circumstances

6:02

that he was forced into by criminalization,

6:05

or whether he was a sketchy, fucking,

6:08

shitty abortionist. I literally don't have

6:10

a way to at least my

6:13

information gathering powers did

6:15

not answer this um.

6:17

But he was an innovator, and

6:20

which really doesn't answer the question of whether or

6:22

not he was responsible or ethical, because

6:25

just because you want to try new ship doesn't necessarily make

6:27

it good. Right. It's

6:30

kind of like when doctors

6:32

were practicing curing

6:34

hysteria on women and we know what that

6:36

led to, right totally.

6:39

But one time, when he's in jail for practicing

6:41

abortions, he invents a new abortion

6:43

technique which has revolutionized

6:46

first trimester abortions. And it's like

6:48

largely the reason, as far as I understand,

6:51

um, that we have safe first trimester

6:53

abortions. However, when I say revolutionize and invented,

6:55

you'll be shocked to know that Chinese

6:58

doctors figured it out a long time early, um,

7:01

and that information was not transmitted to

7:03

the West until after Western practitioner

7:06

figured it out, which happens

7:08

time and time again. Every time you're like

7:10

this guy invented a thing, You're like this,

7:12

this guy invented it for the Western world.

7:16

Credit for it, Yeah, totally, but

7:20

he uh. He invented something called the

7:22

Carmen canula, which is

7:24

a flexible curet and it

7:26

it basically allows vacuum aspiration.

7:28

It allows the idea of using in this

7:30

case originally a syringe to suck

7:33

things out with a flexible tube

7:35

instead of using a sharp, you know, curet and

7:38

it dramatically reduces the risk of perforat

7:40

and the uterus, and it reduces the need

7:42

for anaesthesia to relax the cervix

7:44

and it um. I mean, it's just a fucking flexible

7:47

tube as far as I can tell. And

7:49

and it gets called vacuum aspiration or the non

7:51

medical term, and I'm gonna talk about this in a little bit is

7:53

called menstrual extraction. The

7:56

former, as best as I understand it is like the medical name,

7:58

and the latter is it's dem class name

8:00

used in different people by two women

8:02

who immediately took upon his concept and improved

8:05

upon it. Carol Downer and Laurie

8:07

Anne Rothman were two of the

8:09

most important underground abortion providers at

8:11

the time. Yet they're rarely referred to as

8:13

that because what they did is

8:16

they invented and

8:18

again I can't speak to everyone ever having done this

8:20

before, but they invented a menstrual

8:22

extraction. They took the

8:24

existing vacuum aspiration and

8:27

they added um both

8:29

a one way valve in order to keep

8:31

air from accident going into the uterus, and

8:33

then also a jar mason

8:35

jar that's attached to it so that

8:37

more supterial can be removed at once, and

8:39

so now you can do a full menstrual

8:42

extraction, which is basically the idea of like you

8:45

can pass all of your men sees all at

8:47

once instead of waiting for it to slowly

8:49

pass. And what

8:52

happens when you do that is if you

8:54

happen to be pregnant, and if with the

8:56

first traemester abortion, you are suddenly

8:58

no longer pregnant. Okay.

9:01

And they didn't like advertise

9:03

this as an abortion technique because

9:06

that would have been illegal. Instead,

9:08

they like were like, oh, groups of

9:10

women could just all get together and provide

9:13

this service for each other. Because it actually takes multiple

9:15

people to use this device. You can't necessarily self

9:18

administer it um just because

9:20

of angles and I don't

9:22

know UM, And I to

9:24

be frank, I had never heard of this. And about half of

9:26

the people I've talked to whom have

9:29

unteruses had heard of this, and half of them hadn't. And I

9:31

don't know other myself like

9:33

that, not in person, like I obviously have seen

9:36

the pictures of so as you're describing, I'm like,

9:38

oh, yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. Yeah,

9:41

And it gets called their inventions called

9:43

a dell M d E L

9:45

space e M in case you all

9:47

want to go look up how to do this kind of interesting

9:49

thing. In V one, they invent

9:51

this thing and then they downplay the abortion side

9:53

of it. But they go to the National Organization Conference

9:56

of Women, the NOW Conference in California

9:59

one so they can announced this invention to the world,

10:01

and um, they

10:03

were like, hell, yeah, everyone's gonna love this. But instead the NOW

10:06

organizers were like, this is a little

10:08

bit much for a booth. I

10:10

don't think you can have a booth for an abortion here.

10:13

Um, And they're like, what does prevent structs?

10:15

Right now? I'm putting words in their mouth. But and

10:18

so they put up flyers saying, hey, come to our hotel

10:20

room and we'll show you how to use this device.

10:23

And everyone fucking loved it, right because it fucking

10:25

ruled. And so they gathered this list

10:27

of names and they went on this greyhound

10:30

tour across the country giving presentations

10:32

about the del M. And I just love how like scrappy

10:34

it is that they like invent this thing that involves Mason

10:37

jars and they don't have a car, so they're just like, again,

10:39

I mean, maybe a car, but they go on a greyhound

10:41

tour and that that rules. And

10:45

Lorraine has a quote from two thousand two that sums

10:47

up the sort of de medicalization approach that was popular

10:50

with a lot of the underground abortion

10:52

access people before in n What

10:55

did women do before there were doctors. Let's

10:58

stop the humiliation of trying to persue aid the powers

11:00

that be to legalize abortion. Let's

11:02

just take back the technology, the tools, the

11:05

skills, and the information to perform

11:07

early abortions and be in charge of our own reproduction.

11:10

And once again, you'll be shocked to know that this

11:12

device is having something of a comeback in the

11:14

modern era. Mm hmm.

11:17

And so Jane didn't use the Dell

11:20

M specifically as far as I can tell, but they

11:22

did use the Carmen canula extensively,

11:25

and I think in generally in combination with vacuum

11:27

aspiration. They also, and this

11:30

gets into the sketchier side of some of it,

11:32

they use another one of Carmen's inventions that was

11:34

a lot less successful. They use something called

11:36

the super coil. I'm actually curious

11:38

if you heard of this. I'm trying to figure out how

11:40

known this is. And I don't

11:43

think so. But it's one of those I'm like,

11:45

as you describe it, I may know of it. I'm

11:48

not trying to put you on the spot. Yeah, I'm trying to be

11:51

like yeah, because I'm sitting here like, Okay,

11:53

We've gotten through several

11:56

devices and I

11:58

think I'm glazed up. But yeah, you going no, no, no, So

12:01

the super coil is not around today, um

12:04

because it is a bad idea as far as I

12:06

can tell, and it was meant to revolutionized

12:08

second trimester abortion. Basically, he was like, I have

12:10

revolutionized first trimester abortion and made

12:13

it easier for lay people to do it. Now I

12:15

want a revolutionary second trimester abortion. And

12:18

so the super coil involves

12:21

coiling up like like tightly coiled

12:23

plastic rings basically attached to a string

12:26

that are inserted into the uterus and then left

12:28

to expand um so

12:30

that they could be pulled out and then clear

12:33

out the area as they

12:36

you know, causing the I did not know

12:38

what this is horrifying though, Yeah,

12:41

I feel like I've had Sophie.

12:43

Um. Yeah, so my last interaction

12:46

with Robert when Sophie

12:48

was them talking about a birth control

12:50

that attached itself and tore out people's

12:53

shooters. So this is amazing. I feel like we've comfort

12:55

circle. We definitely have come full circle. That

12:58

them on that episode with Robert was like one

13:00

of the like I it like makes

13:02

me itchy. I'm like it was so terrifying.

13:05

Yeah, I still see people post,

13:07

but yeah, like that, we're back here to

13:10

something that goes out, expands and tries to

13:12

pull things out of people's vagina. So I'm

13:14

like, Okay, we're back. We're

13:16

back that certain things. Samantha, I

13:20

love me to dissociated with this. Let's keep going.

13:22

This is amazing. I mean I'm

13:24

now like, yes, this is my world, let's go.

13:27

This is the This is the darkest chunk of this

13:29

episode. I believe even

13:32

later they get arrested and it's not as dark as this

13:34

chunk. So they helped Carmen

13:36

test it. They sided with him

13:38

in debates to come, and they were probably wrong

13:40

about it. It was meant to help lay people

13:43

provide abortions, but it was it was probably too

13:45

good to be true. Basically, like

13:47

they were. At least one person I

13:49

read argued that basically they were like sucked in by

13:51

the idea of like, oh, we have a nu miracle device. This

13:53

rules because they had just gotten

13:55

a numerical device from the same guy. Not

13:58

numeracle but not number, but

14:00

miracle device that is new. Um. So

14:03

he goes and tests it, and he first tests it

14:05

through and with international planned parenthood in on

14:08

Bangladeshi women at a large scale,

14:11

and it I'm not

14:14

aware of it killing anyone, but it

14:16

did not do incredibly well. Uh,

14:18

and there were a lot of complications. I would

14:20

say it sounds like I could cause permanent

14:23

damage, which

14:25

is kind of the horror stories people

14:27

tell that our anti choice about

14:30

the permanent damage, and this seems to follow

14:32

suit, because I can't imagine

14:35

something just at that point in time

14:37

being like, oh, it's self working. It just expands

14:39

and grabs the right things, but doesn't

14:42

exactly. And Uh,

14:45

there's a lot of different arguments about or

14:48

I've seen a couple of different things about whether

14:50

or not Jane was involved in using

14:53

this or testing this. I do believe they did use

14:55

this successfully for a number of abortions, and again,

14:57

their overall results were that

15:00

they were as good as any medical facility

15:02

at that time. Right right, Um, But

15:07

anyway, this is a darker saying that they

15:09

were involved in, right. I mean, that makes me

15:11

question did they give the people

15:14

who came in, the patients and clients a choice

15:16

on what kind of procedure they could

15:19

have? Uh? And I

15:21

know they were pretty good about giving like risk

15:24

statistics and let them know aftercare

15:26

and all of that. So I wonder if there was like a

15:28

moment of like, you have these options, now, which

15:31

would you like to do? I I

15:34

would like to get off of them the benefit of the doubt of

15:36

that around that, But I I don't

15:38

know. And because I honestly did not know

15:41

this part of this history, I was like, oh, yeah,

15:43

that's that's a little alarming. You don't want

15:45

to start testing things. And when you have someone testing

15:48

on a different group of

15:51

people, you know it's probably

15:53

not good, which is the history

15:55

of all medicine essentially. But you know,

15:58

that's a whole different rabbit hole that I will not do

16:00

as a negative Nelly moment though. No,

16:03

No, I mean like, and this is like, this is the most warts

16:05

and all that I'm going to get around this, and even

16:07

this is like a complicated thing. Um.

16:10

You know. One of the things that I read one

16:12

of the black women who volunteered

16:15

for this was like basically defended

16:17

her position being like I'm paraphrasing,

16:19

but like if I'm kidding me saying that I can't consent

16:21

to this just because I'm a black woman, you know. And

16:23

so there's this like I'm reading biased

16:25

reports, right, I'm reading people

16:28

who are trying to make positions to either

16:30

claim that this was this terrible thing that people did

16:32

or this brilliant, brave thing that people

16:34

did. And I don't

16:37

have anything near the right

16:39

position to understand what

16:42

isn't is an't ethical for for what happened here,

16:44

and like what level of informed consent was

16:46

available? Um, but I'm

16:49

also under the impression that a lot of their other options

16:51

were worse, right, Um,

16:54

So we come back to the fact that there's

16:57

so many things that pushes people to a certain

16:59

point, and when it's not accessible and

17:01

it becomes looked out as

17:04

again unlawful, then

17:06

people are pushed to the point that is

17:10

is extreme. So you do what you can, and

17:13

people being in that point, we are

17:15

going to choose what they think is lesser evil

17:17

for them. Yeah, and it's not the case

17:20

like that he shouldn't have to be even that conversation.

17:23

Yeah, totally, And and

17:26

so as a Carmen. He kind of disappears

17:28

after this whole fiasco. He's like, I

17:31

try to invent a thing and it didn't work, and he kind of his

17:34

trub was called. At least from my my

17:36

sloping at this point, it wasn't

17:39

a medical doctor, right, You're saying that he's either

17:42

maybe maybe in psychology, but

17:45

also maybe just theater, Like he just

17:48

did a thing. However, as

17:50

as a different states would legalize abortion, he was

17:53

so well known that he would be invited

17:55

to come participate in legal

17:58

abortion areas because he was a really

18:00

experienced abortionist. Um, but that

18:03

also empowered him to do all of

18:06

these things that a

18:08

real messy and so it's just like kind of interesting

18:10

that like this is the person who did

18:13

the thing that got safe first trimester abortions

18:16

available, you know, um right,

18:18

I mean some good did come of it, right,

18:21

and now we have chemical abortions for first

18:23

foremaster that are are safer and better than

18:25

this method is as far as I understand the circumstances,

18:28

but I don't know. There's so many things to

18:30

this in this conversation about what this

18:32

looks like when it is not considered

18:35

healthcare and why it's so blase,

18:38

and yet some good did come of it, but some bad

18:41

to come of it. And then there's this need of

18:43

like understanding it is healthcare.

18:46

Yeah, totally okay,

18:48

But but who is cool? Yes, I will, I

18:50

will go on. I don't know him to say, is

18:53

another abortionist to popularize some ship that

18:55

Jane wound up using a guy named Robert

18:57

Spencer. And Robert spend

19:00

who was a true believer and he was not a grifter. He

19:02

was a doctor and actual medical doctor

19:04

and the coal fields in Ashland, Pennsylvania,

19:07

and he cut his doctor in teeth inventing

19:09

new ways to treat black lung and coal miners um,

19:12

including a lot of pioneering work and I

19:15

don't know a pronounce this where broncos scopy, bronchios

19:17

is taking cameras down people's throats, I don't

19:19

know, looking at people's throats, and and

19:22

and he did experiment with black lung. But this is

19:24

also a situation where like, oh, these coal miners are dying

19:27

and no one here is like paying attention to black

19:29

lung except me. And so he's

19:31

very well liked, this doctor in this town. And

19:34

then sometime in the early twenties he

19:36

starts a coal miner's wife is like, Yo, I'm pregnant.

19:38

I'd really rather not be uh, And I

19:40

tried calling Jane, but the number is an active yet or something.

19:43

I'm like forty years too early. So he

19:46

um, he performs an abortion,

19:48

and then he just starts performing abortions in this town.

19:50

And he single handedly performs something like forty

19:52

thousand abortions. Um. He

19:55

died in nineteen sixty nine before his work could

19:57

become legal, and his wife burned all of his records.

19:59

I guess to either protect his legacy or maybe

20:02

his staff or maybe herself. I don't know. And

20:05

he uh. Eventually, the entire

20:07

town's economy, like huge chunk of the town's economy

20:10

relies on this guy because people are coming from

20:12

all over the place to get abortions here, and they like

20:14

staying at hotels and ship but the

20:16

hotels didn't some of the hotels at least didn't

20:18

let black patients stay. So he built accommodations

20:21

so that black patients could still come and get

20:23

abortions in this town. He was

20:25

arrested three times for providing abortions.

20:28

One of the times he was arrested at least

20:30

was because a patient died. Um, they died from

20:32

anesthesia problems. And

20:36

you know, I'm not a doctor.

20:39

I know that anesthesia is a complicated

20:42

thing, especially eighty years

20:44

ago. You know, I'm not trying to like lay judgment on

20:46

him for this, but he was acquitted

20:49

two of the times he was arrested, um,

20:52

because I think everyone in town was like, you can't

20:54

convict this guy. What are you what are you talking about? Like this

20:56

is a guy like this guy were

20:59

like abortion yeah yeah,

21:02

and like um, and he also had union

21:04

protection. The United Mine

21:06

Workers had his back, okay,

21:09

okay, yeah, and they're like union miners

21:11

did not funk around back then as

21:14

our boy, don't touch you. Yeah. And

21:16

his quote about why he why

21:19

people liked him. I've been here since nineteen

21:22

nineteen. I dare say I've helped out half the town,

21:24

even on the abortion end. There's probably one

21:26

of my patients related to a family in half the town.

21:29

I think most of the town would stand up for me. That's

21:33

just like I think they would stay up at me. I think I think

21:36

we're cool. Yeah. And so he's

21:38

seventy nine years old. He keeps going into retirement

21:40

and then coming out of retirement. Because people need

21:42

his help, right, because he's really fucking

21:45

good at his job, and he provides abortions

21:47

for cheap And I'll get to that. Um. And

21:49

he's seventy nine and he's on he's

21:51

waiting awaiting trial for a third time, and

21:54

he dies of old age while like actively practicing.

21:57

And he was performing three to four abortions a day

22:00

right up to the end. Um. There's this whole article

22:02

from Village Voice from nine

22:04

I think it's called the Death of an Abortionist, and it's a

22:07

journalist who travels down there to basically just to meet

22:09

him, just to be like, you are amazing.

22:12

You are the reason that people feel safe,

22:14

you know. Um. And he

22:16

charged the cheapest rates, some of the cheapest rates

22:19

of anyone. His first abortions cost five dollars,

22:21

and then there's the cost of drugs,

22:23

and overhead went up. At the end. He was charging two hundred

22:25

dollars in the late sixties, but again most

22:28

abortions were costing six hundred to two

22:30

thousand dollars. He was this like lovable

22:32

weirdo. He treated everyone kindly. He

22:34

covered his office and like weird weird

22:36

plaques from tourist traps and

22:39

the Village Voice journalist who showed up.

22:41

She asks him, like, why did you perform

22:44

abortions when the people first asked you? And he

22:46

said, because I could see their point of view?

22:49

Mhm, And I just I love

22:51

that as an answer, you know, um, just

22:53

like basic human empathy. And

22:56

his name never really appeared until he died.

22:58

His name like didn't really appear much in print. I think one

23:00

place Dockston or whatever, but he was always

23:03

just printed as the legendary doctor

23:05

s and okay.

23:07

And he popularized a technique or

23:10

using something called I don't pronounce this word

23:12

loundbacks paste loan backs paste two

23:16

to help dilate the cervix. It's like a soft soap

23:19

um is not currently in use, but

23:22

but Jane used it and was very glad

23:24

for it. It helped make their whole anesthesia process

23:27

much safer. And they I

23:29

don't know whether they made their own or got it from Robert

23:31

Spencer, because Robert Senser was making his own because

23:34

it was no longer commercially available. I

23:36

don't know. I think he's cool too, and I really like

23:39

that Jane was building from

23:41

this was part of this larger

23:43

framework of people who were like, how

23:45

do we do this like absence of like the

23:48

medical industry, how do we actually

23:51

like figure out how to do this safely

23:53

and well? Right?

23:55

Actually caring about their patients. That's revolutionary.

23:59

Yeah, totally. God, I wish I

24:01

wish that revolution. It's stuck. Yeah,

24:04

you know who does care about their patients? I'm

24:07

ready. Well, potatoes,

24:09

I've been I've been trying to get advertised by potatoes.

24:11

I don't know how potatoes have become doctors, but I think

24:14

potatoes are great. And um, I want

24:16

to be sponsored by entirely wholesome things.

24:18

So if you hear anything unwholesome in the ads, that

24:21

was a mistake. It's Robert's fault. It's

24:24

Robert's fault. Agreed. Yeah,

24:27

And so here's some ads

24:29

for potatoes and maybe some other stuff. And

24:35

we're back and we're discussing whether or not we should

24:37

actually expand our list of sponsors

24:40

to include kittens. I mean, I

24:43

think, I think yes, I mean it's

24:46

good to diversify. I mean,

24:49

I think it's important

24:51

that we talk about kittens, and right,

24:54

I think so we just have to make clear that we're advertising

24:57

the concept of kittens and puppies, not the

24:59

people who tradition really go about selling kittens

25:01

and puppies. Yes, yes, it's very clear.

25:04

Not not a kitten mill or puppy bill

25:06

type situation. Rescue

25:10

is the idea of just cuddling with some

25:12

kittens or

25:15

cuddling with a dog maybe, or

25:17

at least looking at cute pictures. Yeah,

25:20

while one kitten is in one arm and one puppy

25:22

is in the other armaid when

25:24

kittens and dogs are friends, Yeah,

25:27

totally. I can't wait to introduce my

25:29

dog to more cuts. It's actually never gone. Well,

25:31

so I actually my dog does not

25:33

love cats either. My dog loves

25:36

the castle, love the dog, that's

25:38

fair. He does not know how to play. So

25:41

so I want to quote a

25:43

little bit at length from why Jane Collective

25:46

did this work. It's from a statement about

25:49

why they did is a pamphlet that they gave to

25:51

prospective clients. Abortion

25:53

as a social problem. We

25:55

are giving our time not only because we want to make

25:58

abortions safer, cheaper, and

26:00

more accessible for the individual women who come to us,

26:02

but because we see the whole abortion issue as

26:04

a problem of society. The current

26:06

abortion laws are a symbol of something subtle

26:09

but often blatant oppression of women in our society.

26:12

Women should have the right to control their own bodies

26:14

and lives. Only a woman who is pregnant

26:16

can determine whether or not she has enough resources

26:18

economic, physical, and emotional at

26:21

a given time to bear and rear child. Yet

26:23

at present, the decision to bear the child or

26:25

to have an abortion is taken out of her hands by

26:27

government bodies, which can have only the

26:29

slightest notion of the problems involved. The

26:32

same society that glamorizes women as sex

26:34

objects and teaches them from an early childhood

26:36

to please and satisfy men, views

26:38

pregnancy and childbirth as punishment for immoral

26:41

or careless sexual activity, especially

26:43

if the woman is uneducated, poor, or black.

26:46

Our society's view of equal opportunity means

26:48

that lower class women bear unwanted children

26:51

or face expensive, illegal, and often unsafe

26:53

abortions, while well connected, middle

26:55

class women can frequently get safe and hush hush

26:58

d n c s and hospitals. Only

27:00

women can bring about their own liberation. It

27:03

is time for women to get together to change the male

27:05

made laws and aid their sisters caught

27:07

in the bind of legal restrictions and social stigma.

27:10

Women must fight together to change the attitudes

27:12

of society about abortion and to make

27:14

the state provide free abortions as a human

27:16

right. I like that. I

27:20

like that. There's so many things that like

27:22

it just applies today. I know we're talking

27:24

about that, but m but

27:26

the problem is because it

27:29

is women centered typically, and

27:31

especially during that time, people see

27:33

that as being a less important

27:36

in conversation has become. It made it a moral

27:38

ground even though it's very

27:40

political obviously. But yeah,

27:42

I do love I do love that sentiment and and

27:47

we still need that sentiment. Yeah, No, I

27:49

I like like sometimes when I get lost

27:51

in the weeds about like this is how they did this one thing, and this is how

27:53

they did this other thing. And then instead of just kind of like here's

27:55

like a hundred people who got together to commit felonies

27:58

to try and keep people safe, it's just

28:00

like that's always cool, you

28:02

know, like like and there's always something I

28:05

don't know, So I like hearing the the why they

28:07

did it. But speaking of felonies,

28:10

this is not an ad transition. I'm not advertising

28:12

felonies on the I'm probably advertising

28:15

felonies on this show, but not from the point of view

28:17

of a sponsorship not

28:20

trying to get money for it. Yeah, well

28:23

you gotta go and get them your own money, you

28:25

know. Yeah.

28:31

So, so Jane is this big open

28:33

secret and everyone knows about

28:35

it. They advertised and they had

28:37

security procedures in place, but clearly the police

28:39

knew about them, And

28:42

most of the reporting about Jane basically

28:44

says the cops didn't bust them because the cops kind

28:46

of liked them. They were clean and safe

28:48

and no one was dying, so so why bust

28:50

them? Right? To

28:53

me, this this fundamentally misunderstands the nature

28:55

of the police, especially the Chicago Police

28:57

Department. In a nation of corrupt police department's

28:59

Chicago like consistently stands out as

29:01

one of the crookedest. And the other thing you hear

29:04

is that police put up with it because

29:06

the wives of police and the wives of politicians

29:08

were amongst their clients. And this feels more

29:10

plausible to me. But I suspect

29:12

that politicians wives at least could afford a trip to

29:15

New York, and so I feel like there's some kind of like.

29:17

To be clear, I think crime is cool. But

29:21

the same accounts also say that mafia

29:23

didn't come after them for similar reasons.

29:26

They're like, oh, well, they're not really making a profit,

29:28

so why would the mafia care? And this doesn't

29:32

sound like if that doesn't sound like the police, and that doesn't

29:34

sound like the mafia. Um, So

29:38

this is amazing, all of this, all of this moment

29:40

is amazing. Thank you. I'm just I'm enjoying

29:42

this entire thing, all right. And the other part

29:45

of this is because they don't

29:47

see this as an issue for them, because

29:49

at that point in time, I think the majority of the police were

29:53

men. Yeah, just speaking those

29:55

it was a woman's things. Also kind

29:57

of the same level of like not talking about periods

30:00

and being shameful about women's bodies. So

30:02

it was we're going to

30:04

pretend that you don't exist because it's easier for

30:06

us to you ikey, even though

30:09

I mean to be frank, the majority

30:12

of the times kind of like today when

30:14

we talk about abortion, uh and abortion

30:17

rights and abortion being healthcare,

30:19

men typically outside of the morally

30:22

loud like this isn't just whatever, I

30:24

just don't care because it has nothing to do with them, and it's

30:26

just gross and it's like, uh, it's women's issues, so

30:28

would rather just ignore it and doesn't

30:31

think it's necessarily important. Of

30:33

course we've got the religious bits. Yeah,

30:36

no, this is actually it is actually that helps

30:39

sell me on it better because like all I can see,

30:41

I am again really not trying to accuse anyone who

30:43

might be alive of any kind of crime, but it seems

30:45

like the mafia might have been getting a share out of this.

30:48

I don't know again, like

30:50

no judgment of what are people need to do to keep

30:53

keep the ship running? But but

30:56

yeah, because because everyone knows about this and no one's

30:58

doing anything about it. But but the thing you're saying and also

31:00

about like basically people being like we're just not

31:02

gonna touch it is also completely possible.

31:05

Um. And then the way it

31:07

all falls apart,

31:09

well, it doesn't actually really fall apart. The way that some people

31:12

get in trouble can be told a couple different ways

31:14

of run across one probable

31:16

story and then one maybe story. One

31:18

day in three a Catholic woman

31:20

comes to get an abortion, and at the time I actually

31:23

behind the Bastards did a better podcast. But this never remember

31:25

exactly when the Protestants started carying about abortion,

31:28

but for a while, like only the Catholics cared.

31:31

Catholic woman comes in to get an abortion, and she

31:33

was a mixed minds the whole about the whole thing. A

31:36

Jane volunteer named Jeannie Galatz

31:38

or Levy spent a long time talking

31:40

with her about it and like counseling her,

31:43

and later she's really bitter about the

31:45

long time she spent talking to her about it. Her

31:47

sister in law, the patient's sister in

31:50

law, was there with her, and her sister in

31:52

law called them in, And what

31:54

I've heard is that she didn't call him into

31:57

the police station like in the district where

31:59

they like seeing as friendly, but

32:01

instead called them into a different district, and

32:04

so subtly bad

32:06

things happen. But that's that's that's the story I

32:08

hear most often told. Another

32:10

account is that the anti

32:13

abortion lobby was trying to get some arrests in to

32:15

do some damage on the legal front because Supreme

32:17

Court was about to see Roe v. Wade and

32:21

which spoiler alert legalized abortion federally

32:24

across the U. S and a seven to two ruling, So

32:26

maybe someone wanted to get some abortionists on trial

32:28

and hurry. And then there's a third story

32:32

which comes from the person who's very critical of

32:35

their super coil testing, that

32:37

the bust happened on a day that they were

32:39

planning on doing super coil testing,

32:42

and that it was like related

32:44

to all of that. I tend to

32:47

believe that the Catholic story best,

32:49

but I feel like there's something I actually don't believe

32:51

any of these stories. Frankly, that's what I I

32:53

don't know what it is. Yeah, we just know

32:56

that they got rated, and we don't know how

32:58

it began. But yeah, it could be any of the stories.

33:00

But that's the one I've heard too, is the Catholic Catholic

33:03

women have accorded them, but

33:06

any physical reason. Again, it

33:08

was coincidentally around and

33:10

I will use a quotes more coincidentally

33:13

around uh ro versus Wade and

33:16

then the big backlash and back

33:18

and forth and controversy with that. So

33:20

yeah, yeah, yeah,

33:23

I think I would. I would put the most likely is

33:25

the combination of the first two things. Is the Catholic

33:27

woman and um and some people

33:29

trying to get some shipped on going on. I don't

33:31

know, but yeah, they get rated

33:34

um May Third two,

33:37

Genie is working at the front and she's caring for

33:39

three children left behind by a patient. When

33:41

she hears a knock at the door. She thought it was another

33:43

Jane who had just like dropped off some snacks, come back

33:45

to to drop off more snacks, or maybe forgot

33:48

something or something, and instead

33:50

it was cops, really really

33:53

tall cops. Genie is like let them

33:55

in and told everyone in the waiting room, these are the police.

33:57

You don't have to tell them anything. And then

33:59

Genie, describing the event, says,

34:02

they were really tall, really weird.

34:04

I developed this whole theory. I love crackpot theories.

34:07

I intend to be a crack pot when I grow up. This

34:09

is Genie, not me, although it is also true of me.

34:11

I love no

34:14

I know, yeah yeah,

34:17

yeah quote. I intend to be a

34:19

crack pot when I grow up. My theory

34:21

is that you had to be really tall to be a homicide cop.

34:23

These were homicide cops because abortion was a homicide,

34:26

and they were homicide cops who hated being there.

34:28

You know, it's not easy to make homicide detective. You

34:30

have to be really good. It's not even political, like taking

34:32

the sergeant's exam. You have to really do something,

34:35

and they do it because they want to. And by

34:37

and large, what they do is track people down

34:39

who kill other people. And they think of themselves

34:41

as good guys and they hated being there. This was

34:43

not their kind of crime. End quote.

34:47

That is an interesting theory. I really

34:49

like, there's so many observations

34:51

about just the male appearance,

34:54

that these characters are so like

34:57

that they're all tall, very

34:59

tall though I

35:02

know right all

35:04

the all the cops are like five ft seven, you know, right

35:09

average, but they're tall because I'm four ft totally,

35:13

or maybe they like sent there like there are

35:15

three people who are you know, six ft six

35:17

over to go arrest everyone? Um uh.

35:20

And so they detain everyone at the front

35:22

and they started asking everyone questions. And the way they figured

35:25

out who the Jains were, apparently is that when they asked

35:27

the James questions, the James refused to answer.

35:30

And while this did get them separated out for arrest,

35:32

it it probably saved them later in court,

35:34

or at least it was very helpful in court. Their lawyer

35:36

later thanked them, was like, I'm

35:39

so glad you all didn't say anything, right

35:42

And patients, though, were asked all kinds of questions

35:44

and they largely answered. One question

35:46

that left the cops completely confused was they kept

35:48

asking how much the Jans charged, and everyone

35:50

gave wildly different answers. The

35:52

police came, I guess, maybe expecting a mafia

35:55

style for profit enterprise, and they didn't find

35:57

one. And at the same time, the cops

35:59

arrived at the place and arrest everyone there. And

36:01

apparently they showed up and they were like, where are all

36:03

the men? Though, you know who's doing the abortions,

36:06

right, And so

36:08

I guess they actually really didn't know Jane inside

36:10

it out, you know, if they think all these things, um

36:14

and so at least they probably weren't infiltrated,

36:16

right, if this is what the cops think and

36:19

spies. Yeah, I did

36:21

to think that, like the cops know everything, right, because

36:23

we talked about how we live in a pen opticon and we're all

36:26

being studied all the time or whatever,

36:28

and then like every now and then the cops are just like, they

36:31

don't know ship. I want to tell a completely off based

36:33

story about all of this. Right, one time, my

36:35

friend was being um investigated

36:38

as the leader of international anarchism by

36:40

the FEDS and never

36:43

mind, I'm not going to tell that story, Okay,

36:45

So um, there's

36:47

so many levels of understanding why

36:50

I'm like, yeah, I have I have a cookie

36:52

cutter, vani little life. And I'm

36:54

really sad that I'm not a part of this.

36:58

I don't want to be investigated because I do not have the

37:00

anxiety to go through an investor. But just knowing

37:02

someone, I'm like, yeah, they

37:05

are. Yeah. Well the spoiler

37:07

there is no leader of international anarchism. It goes

37:09

against the whole idea. And eventually Defense

37:11

figured that out. But the more personal

37:14

details about it, I'm not going to get into. You're

37:16

not You're not gonna do that, okay, yeah, but so

37:20

okay, So they're all thrown into patty wagons. They're taken

37:23

off to jail, and Genie

37:25

says that, Um, when they were taking off to jail

37:27

in the patty wagon, all the all the other women

37:29

in the in the patty wagon sex workers who kept

37:31

everyone in good spirits by just like telling

37:33

fun horrible stories about their lives or whatever.

37:36

Um, and I really like that they were there to keep

37:38

everyone's um spirits up. And

37:40

then in the pattiwagon, the Jains all pulled

37:42

out all the index cards with all of the patient

37:44

info and ship and they ripped them up in the little pieces,

37:47

passed them out and ate them, which is

37:49

great badass, and

37:52

they only spent one night in jail, probably

37:54

because their middle class white women. Uh

37:57

one of them, I think one of them, who was a nursing

37:59

mother, was let go that night because

38:01

she had to go home and feed her kids. Uh.

38:03

And Jeannie talks about how the cops like treated

38:05

them all well as fellow middle class white

38:08

people while being rude to any of the patients

38:10

who ended up in jail and all the other people and all the other women

38:12

in jail, which yeah, I guess

38:14

doesn't really surprise anyone who's listening to us.

38:17

But in jail, they all all the only food they got

38:19

offered was Bologney sandwiches, which which

38:22

Jeannie couldn't eat, presumably because

38:24

she was vegetarian. And the reason

38:26

that I include this is because one time I was arrested at

38:28

this anti IMF demonstration in d C, thirty

38:30

years after all this ship and two thousand

38:32

two, and they gave us all bologna sandwiches and

38:34

we all just like sat there and like laughed at or bologna sandwiches

38:37

because we were all fucking like vegans and vegetarians and Ship,

38:39

We're like, what are we gonna do with this? Um? And

38:41

it was it was mostly a bad

38:44

experience. But I was only in jail for like thirty six hours.

38:46

Um uh, possibly

38:48

because I'm middle class and white and

38:51

I don't know, so I didn't get to eat in jail and sucked.

38:53

But whatever. I just like that this has

38:55

been like a true thing forever. Is that like when hippies

38:58

and activists and ship get arrested, they're like, what funk

39:00

am I gonna do this? A bologna sandwich? Um?

39:04

So they get let out on bail. Uh,

39:06

And they're each facing a hundred and ten years because the eleven

39:09

counts of homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide

39:12

in the case that will be known as the Abortion

39:14

seven. And at

39:16

least according to Genie, Jane

39:19

kind of distances themselves at this

39:21

point from them and they,

39:23

I guess, like as like they were like, oh, it's the strategic necessity,

39:26

We're going to keep going. And Jane did keep

39:28

going while the trial was ongoing. But

39:31

it still doesn't sound good to me,

39:33

honestly, um and Genie

39:36

at least felt really betrayed. According to the interview

39:39

I read with her, the rest

39:41

of the feminist movement kind of though had her back. Um

39:44

there was a defense committee formed

39:47

with the sick name of the Abortion Task

39:49

Force the a t F, and several

39:52

of the arrestees were part of an organization called Leche

39:54

League, which is a pro nursing organization.

39:57

Nursing, I guess was out of style at the time, and

39:59

le had their back, which fucking

40:01

rules that the like the Mother's

40:03

Association was like, yeah, of course we're defending these

40:05

abortionists, you know. Um, And

40:08

I don't really know what the distancing looked like

40:10

because several the Abortion seven actually went back to

40:12

work for Jane while they were out on bail, which is also

40:14

fucking badass, and they spent

40:16

a while finding lawyer. Most of

40:18

the lawyers they found were terrible. One guy was

40:21

very movement focused and wanted them to basically go

40:23

to prison. Was like, yeah, you're gonna be martyrs for

40:25

the cause, you know, And they're like, we

40:27

don't like that very much. This is not actually their

40:29

plan um And so finally

40:31

they settled on Joeann Wolfson, who one

40:33

to count calls the Queen of the Hopeless, and

40:36

she once ran away from home to join the circus

40:39

and like work with elephants and ship. Okay,

40:42

so her brother was an attorney to who

40:44

once got sentenced to seventy years in prison in

40:47

after pleading guilty to racketeering in an anti

40:49

corruption case in Chicago. That's

40:52

all a ton of the judges, lawyers and cops sent

40:54

away for organized crime ship. So

40:57

mafia and corruption ship just runs deep.

40:59

And anyway,

41:03

so this is their lawyer and she is the what

41:06

I do know about her, She was the right lawyer for the job, and

41:08

she rules. Um, she saw rov

41:11

Wade on the horizon and she was like, all

41:13

right, here's the plan. Let's delay this ship

41:15

as long as possible. And the court

41:18

was fine with that plan too, because frankly, they saw the

41:20

writing on the wall and they didn't want to waste court resources

41:22

on it. So in January, the

41:25

Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendments guarantee

41:27

the right to privacy included the right to have abortions

41:29

and a very I had my lawyer friend try and explain

41:32

this whole thing to me recently, and Roe v. Wade

41:34

is like complicated as

41:36

a from a legal perspective, but it

41:38

worked for now for

41:40

good. We'll see maybe, but time you're listening

41:42

to this anyway. Whatever, So prosecutors

41:45

knew if they wanted, they could come after

41:47

them for practicing medicine without a license,

41:49

but they decided was more trouble than it was worth, and

41:52

they really just didn't want to make a fuss out of it. That

41:54

said, also, my lawyer friend was explaining to me that most

41:56

Supreme Court decisions are not retroactive. But

42:00

basically they're like this ship. As far as I can tell,

42:02

they're like, this ship is way too political. We don't want to touch

42:04

this case. So they made the cut of deal.

42:07

We don't charge you with practicing medicine without a license,

42:09

you don't ask for your medical equipment back, and

42:11

the Jane seven said, oh my god, yes please.

42:13

They took their deal and the

42:16

charges were dropped. The end of Jane.

42:18

That's the name of my little section in the script. Rovi

42:21

Wade fucking rules, and I don't want

42:23

to pretend like it doesn't. The fact that it's under threat

42:25

is fucking bad. You

42:28

know. I hope that this doesn't sound like we're talking from

42:30

distant utopian past when you all hear this episode

42:32

come come out, because this episode will probably come out

42:34

about a month after we record it. But it's

42:37

it's not enough, and that the women of Jane knew that

42:39

right. Because abortion was legalized, but it was also re medicalized.

42:42

It went back in the hands of mail doctors. It became it

42:45

tied once again into an inaccessible medical

42:47

system that treats women like bodies like cars

42:50

to be fixed. Jane actually continued

42:52

for a few weeks after the ruling, but everyone

42:54

was just so fucking exhausted and burned out and the fire was

42:56

gone. And ironically they

42:58

were afraid that they might catch charges for

43:01

because the for profit medical industry might lead

43:04

the charge for on them for practicing medicine without

43:06

a license. They threw a

43:08

funcket We're done now party, and

43:11

and Jane was over after their funcket We're done now party,

43:13

which is the way I'm praising it. And people

43:16

miss the intensity of it. Jane activists

43:19

Ruth Sergill put it like this. For the

43:21

people I know, it was the single most intense

43:23

period of our life. And when it stopped,

43:25

there was something missing, and you couldn't find

43:27

anything to do that carried quite that energy

43:29

for a long time. But you know what

43:32

does carry energy is

43:34

potatoes. And you

43:36

should eat food of some type, whatever

43:39

type you like. But it

43:41

is healthy and good and

43:44

that's why we advertise it on this show. The

43:46

concept of potatoes. Yeah,

43:48

all potatoes. All potatoes are great as

43:51

well as whatever is that being advertised. And

43:58

we are back and so this this intensity

44:01

leaving, uh, it's something that

44:03

I think is familiar to a lot of people are involved in activism,

44:06

especially like more intense activism. I'm guessing

44:08

that anyone who was radicalized by the demonstrations

44:11

has has felt this when you

44:14

leave this moment of intensity, But

44:17

people keep going right. TRM. Howard,

44:19

the black civil rights leader who is the first abortionist

44:21

the network called. He kept providing abortions

44:23

now legally and his his private black owned

44:26

practice offered abortions for fifty dollars less

44:28

than what local hospitals charged. The

44:30

Defense Committee with that sick name, the A t

44:33

F. They switched to, becoming a new group

44:35

that also had a sick name, Health Evaluation

44:37

and Referral Services HERS. It's

44:39

a shitty name, but it's a great acronym. And

44:43

I feel like they really, I don't know, they started

44:45

off with not strong naming

44:48

game, but I think that they over the course of time they figured

44:50

it out again. There yeah,

44:52

so so hers and Heather Booth, Jamee's founder.

44:55

They went on to start the Chicago Abortion Fund

44:57

in Chicago, which is a

44:59

nonp fit that is still around today and it's

45:02

a simple, clean, honest name that does what it says

45:05

on the tin. And as the host of

45:07

Cool People did Cool stuff, I appreciate a thing

45:09

that just does what it says on the tin. So

45:11

I want to talk about some of the other direct action

45:13

abortionists who have who have come since, because this need

45:16

continues right and there are there are millions

45:18

of people who have done this kind of work. Probably as long as there's

45:20

been legal restrictions on abortion, there have been people fighting

45:22

against it. You talked about some of them actually at the beginning

45:25

of the show, and I'm hoping you chime in with more of them

45:27

as I as I go through some of these um

45:29

and I want to do more episodes about more of these people,

45:31

or I think people can listen to other podcasts

45:34

that talk about it too. Um Yeah,

45:37

So normally a stick with people

45:39

in the past for this show, but this issue just feels too important

45:41

to me right now to not include some of these. So there's

45:43

Women on Waves, which is a Dutch organization

45:46

that was started by the physician Rebecca Gonpert,

45:50

and she used to be the ship's doctor aboard a green

45:52

piece ship and she was like, oh, boats are

45:54

fucking cool, which is my paraphrasing, not a direct

45:56

quote. So she got a boat and she headed

45:58

out to various countries with active abortion practices.

46:01

She loads up patients on shore heads twenty miles out

46:03

to sea. And since it's Dutch ship, Dutch laws

46:05

and effect, though even the Dutch are a little

46:07

wary about the whole thing. And the ship is only authorized

46:10

to provide the abortion pill uh, non

46:12

surgical abortions to pregnancies up to nine

46:14

weeks. And they don't just provide abortions,

46:16

they provide education, contraception and education.

46:20

And the first place they go is Ireland, because,

46:22

um, you don't have to go very far from the Netherlands to go

46:24

to a country that had terrible abortion laws in two thousand

46:27

one. Ironically, Ireland

46:29

is liberalizing as abortion laws just as the US

46:31

is regressing. And this this boat

46:34

is super contentious. And also it's contentious

46:36

when you tell people who have ships that they're called boats, because

46:38

they don't like that. Um, they like to

46:40

be like, this is a ship not a boat, but

46:43

I think it's funny because boat is a cuter name. So

46:46

Portugal blocks women on waves from approaching

46:48

with a fucking warship. And then

46:50

in Guatemala they make it less than a day

46:52

before a warship comes and pushes them out to sea. And

46:56

oh and then you actually we talking about Poland

46:58

earlier women on way this once fluid

47:01

drone carrying abortion pills into Germany from Poland.

47:04

In case anyone needs any ideas, um

47:09

and Rebecca Gomperts goes on in to

47:12

form a nonprofit called aid Access that focuses on helping

47:14

pregnant people self managed their own abortions with abortion

47:17

pills, which are generally a combination

47:19

of I don't know how to pronounce these words. I'm terribly sorry,

47:21

Maybe you do, myfi press stone and my supposed

47:23

at all. These are the primary

47:26

abortion pills that people are taking right now to

47:28

end first trimester abortions and sending

47:31

them through the mail in the US and to other

47:33

countries that are increasingly criminalizing abortion. And

47:35

they feelded about fift requests in the first

47:37

year that they were operational. At

47:40

least one organization is bulletproofing

47:42

vans getting ready to help people safely leave

47:44

Texas to get to states where they can get

47:46

the healthcare they need. They're like part getting ready

47:48

to park the van's right outside the border of Texas.

47:51

And and frankly, what isn't

47:54

isn't legal doesn't dictate what is and isn't

47:56

safe. Right. During the fifty years

47:58

we've had Roe v. Wade in the US,

48:00

abortion workers have regularly risks and sometimes

48:02

lost their lives in order to help people terminate

48:05

on wanted pregnancies. Receptionists, security

48:07

guards, and clinic escorts have all been murdered,

48:10

kidnaps, attack threatened, you name

48:12

it. Um. And one

48:15

of the reasons I bring that up, I hate ending on this kind of

48:17

darker note, But the one of the reasons I bring

48:19

that up is because we can have this concept that

48:21

direct action abortion can only happen when it's illegal,

48:24

and that's just not true. Um. Like,

48:28

I don't know. In one southern city I lived in, there were

48:30

for years there were no clinic escorts because the

48:32

people, um, and clinic escorts

48:34

for anyone who doesn't know, are the people who wait outside

48:36

a clinic and shield patients from the abuse from

48:39

anti choice protesters. And there are no clinic

48:41

escorts in this town because all the escorts have been followed

48:43

home and had their windows shot out. And and

48:45

my sister does clinic escorting, and

48:47

I just want to shout her out. She's a direct

48:49

action hero from my point of view, even if what she's doing

48:52

is legal, you know, yeah,

48:55

totally. I only did it once. It was

48:57

a long time ago in Louisville, Kentucky and base

49:00

sickly as I understood it, I was

49:02

told by the punks in town. They were like, the

49:04

anti choice protesters here are like really scary,

49:06

so they want the scary punks to come be

49:09

the clinic escorts, you

49:12

know, because like normally, if you don't have really bad protesters,

49:14

you kind of don't want the scary people to come to

49:17

like help escort people in. But

49:19

when people are really threatening, then you

49:21

call the really threatening looking people. Which

49:24

when I was twenty, I was a very threatening looking person

49:26

just by being a punk. Um.

49:29

I love it. I love the best the threat

49:32

punk that's right, come here. Yeah. And

49:34

we were all like full of ourselves, like

49:36

twenty year old anarchists who are like we'll do

49:38

anything, you know. Um, And the world

49:41

needs lots of angry twenty year

49:43

olds. Also, unfortunately it also needs

49:45

a lot of the angry twenty year olds to stop. It depends

49:47

on what they're angry about, really, right,

49:49

I mean just a reminder, I mean, I just want to put

49:52

this also sad little fact in here.

49:54

Even after a Road versus Weight in

49:56

the Supreme Court in ninety seven, we had

49:58

the High Amendment which is in place

50:00

and has never gone away um,

50:03

which acts restricts funds UH

50:05

for health care and access, which means

50:08

pretty much the it's a very classist

50:10

and racist amendment making

50:12

sure those who really probably are the

50:14

ones that need it and need this help and need this choice,

50:17

are the ones that can't get access to

50:20

safe abortion and safe

50:23

reproductive care in general. And

50:25

then that has always been in place, and it has not been

50:28

removed, and it has not even come close

50:30

to being removed, and could have been and should have

50:32

been by some administrations. But

50:35

that's something to remember too. Yeah,

50:38

but that's part of the problem

50:40

is we have other things that yeah, sure, now

50:42

we are supposedly yeah,

50:45

we supposedly have the right to do so, but

50:49

we don't have access to do so. And

50:51

that's a conversation we need to have in pretending

50:54

like it's actually free and it's not or

50:56

not actually free, that is actually accessible

50:58

and it's not, and and who that truly

51:01

affects and why it's such a bigger

51:03

conversation, as well as the fact that the gag rule

51:06

exists, which uh, Title

51:08

ten came in trying to help out to

51:10

get those funds, and then we have the gag rules

51:12

saying like, well, no, I guess

51:15

individuals can choose this. So it gets

51:17

so convoluted and there's

51:19

so many policies and amendments on top of

51:21

each each other that it becomes almost

51:24

impossible to know what is

51:26

accessible in what is legal. And yeah,

51:28

just because it's not legal doesn't

51:31

mean you can't get it or you should

51:33

be. But like that's this whole whole

51:35

conversation in this bigger picture of like we're

51:37

coming coming back to the basics. Unfortunately,

51:40

but we because we were never unable to unravel

51:43

the details that really, uh

51:46

find us for those who want

51:48

to get that ability to just have a

51:50

choice. And again, reproductive care

51:53

is not just an abortion. Like there's

51:55

just a whole bigger conversation. Once

51:58

again, the fact that the cob will city

52:00

for black women, it's higher like, it's

52:02

just there's so many

52:04

conversations and what these policies

52:07

are and who they truly affect, and

52:09

why these policies are in place.

52:12

It's supremacy,

52:14

patriarchy, those things. The reason

52:16

we keep harping on these two were these

52:18

three words, and people get piste off about

52:20

it because it's true. There's no other

52:23

I'm sorry, I'm sorry it bothers you, and

52:25

that you've been benefiting from that. Fuck you

52:27

is still true. No, I

52:30

ran finished, No, no, no, I incredibly,

52:34

this is part of why I'm really excited that you're the

52:36

guest for this um is

52:38

the High Amendment. Is that the thing where like I

52:41

know that like at least for a

52:43

while, there was only one abortion clinic

52:46

in Kentucky, and it was because you

52:48

weren't allowed to have an

52:50

abortion clinics. Hallways must be exactly

52:52

and I'm making this number up thirty one inches wide,

52:54

whereas a normal clinic has to have thirty

52:57

three inch wide things. And so they would do this ship

52:59

where you like cannot have any a clinic

53:01

that is anything other than abortion clinic,

53:04

which means that it is entirely financially unstable

53:07

and impossible. Yeah, it starts stripping things.

53:09

Essentially, the High Amendment really took away the

53:12

funding, so any public funding

53:14

could not go into it. So if you had

53:17

accessibility too, so if you say,

53:19

yes, we offer abortion

53:22

air, then you're automatically

53:24

stripped of it. You cannot get government

53:27

funds period. So any

53:29

kind of like services that would

53:31

take medicaid, a mate of care, you cann't

53:33

go to their uh get abortion

53:36

because that was restricted for government

53:39

funds. So like it absolutely

53:41

was a classics law, which just

53:43

continues the previous status quo where the

53:46

rich have access to reproductive health and

53:48

then and it's so sneaky. It's

53:50

so sneaky because people don't know about it much like they

53:52

really think they have access because it's a liberal state.

53:54

But High Amendment, Yeah,

53:58

reproductive care is so much more than you as

54:00

you said, reproductive cares so much more in abortion,

54:02

and like a lot of it is also about

54:04

like the ability to choose to

54:06

have children, right, right, people

54:09

who have children. This

54:11

is a high risk thing for many

54:14

many people and they need that care.

54:17

Um And there's a reason why

54:19

people died in childbirth and

54:21

it shouldn't have to be because there are

54:24

advancements that can prevent that,

54:26

but people can't afford that like

54:28

that, that in itself is that conversation, and

54:31

we don't actually care about those

54:33

who are giving birth, like to make

54:36

sure they're healthy. That's not pro life.

54:39

Yeah, totally. The hypocrisy

54:42

of all that stuff can like keep me up at nights sometimes

54:44

because I try to have empathy with people

54:46

I disagree with and it it short circuits

54:49

my empathy because I I can't understand

54:51

it because it makes no fucking sense that

54:54

you're like claiming to be you know, this

54:56

one thing and then you just don't give a ship about people

54:58

when they actually have children, and like, I

55:00

love that. That's why you quoted that doctor from

55:04

what was the Kentucky Pennsylvania

55:06

Well, yeah, that's the same that. I'm just kidding Pennsylvania

55:09

because it's just seeing their perspective

55:11

that that is the true point of it. And

55:14

this conversation of a late term

55:16

abortions, A majority of the people who

55:18

are having late term abortions are

55:21

not by choice. Uh. Typically

55:23

they have been preparing for their

55:25

child um and

55:28

I know many of people who were anti

55:30

choice for the longest time when they had to be put

55:32

in that situation and understanding, Oh, this

55:35

is still technically an abortion.

55:37

They may have different terms for it. Um.

55:40

Realizing that, oh,

55:43

and then costing thousands and

55:45

thousands and thousands of dollars, putting

55:48

their lives at risk, coming back to being pro

55:50

choice, realizing what this conversation

55:52

and what these types of laws really hurt

55:55

and who they really hurt, and how damaging

55:57

it is. Um, because there's this mystic

56:01

religious moral background that in

56:04

order to demoralize and demonize

56:06

those who even talk about it

56:09

as an option. Yeah, the

56:11

moral crusaders are just being used as useful

56:13

idiots by people who want to do this other ship and they

56:16

like get people riled up into being like

56:18

this is what is moral and they're like okay, and you run

56:20

off and go do the thing, and like that's not what the people

56:22

controlling those people and give a shit about any of that stuff.

56:24

This is not about that. Yeah, And they're

56:26

just you're being used if you made it

56:29

this far and you're you're

56:31

moral anti yeah, um,

56:35

just more than in the first episode. Yeah,

56:37

we're going to we're on this length so you

56:39

know they know, no y'all know, right,

56:43

but yes, thank you so much for bringing this because

56:45

I love talking about this history. Yeah, I definitely

56:47

learned more because I was like, what what is that? Things

56:49

I didn't want to know and things I didn't want to know, So thank

56:52

you for giving me that blend. Yeah,

56:54

yeah, no, I yeah, I was realizing.

56:56

I was like, this is a thing that some people know a lot about

56:58

and some people don't know about it, and like, I'm really

57:01

excited that more and more information is coming forward and

57:03

people are coming more and more aware about Jane

57:05

Collective and all of the people who have done this kind of

57:07

work because like, because we fucking

57:09

need it, and and we've we've already said that

57:11

a bunch of times on the show, but it just it feels worth

57:14

repeating. Is that, like we need to know that

57:16

we can like be brave and do the right thing, you

57:18

know, and we need to know that the means

57:21

by which to do it, uh do

57:23

the right thing, we can have those means.

57:25

We can figure that out, you

57:28

know. So Yeah, well,

57:30

well, thank you so much for coming on.

57:32

And I

57:35

am a new best friend. Yeah, well

57:38

you so many new best friends also because all the listeners,

57:40

but I want to be more of the best friend than them.

57:43

Um, any any plugs at the end here? Uh,

57:47

Like I said, on the last episode, which I hope you listened

57:49

to and you stayed around for the second part. I'm

57:51

on stuff mom never told you a podcast

57:53

with I Heart Radio. You can

57:56

get it wherever you listen to your podcast.

57:58

We are on Instagram, in on Twitter.

58:02

We don't we don't type. Is that this

58:05

is how old I am. We don't post

58:07

a lot. I don't type things on there a lot, but we're

58:09

there and we love getting messages. Um.

58:12

I'm also on the social media's obviously

58:15

not very good at it on Instagram with mcmay

58:17

Sam and Twitter Sam

58:20

McVeigh because that's how creative

58:22

I am. And

58:24

you can see pictures of her dog. Yeah,

58:27

yes, that's pretty much all it is pictures

58:29

of my dog. So you like that, come

58:31

on check it out and then we'll be

58:33

back next week on Monday and

58:36

one stay wherever.

58:41

Talk to you all soon by

58:45

listeners. Cool

58:51

People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production

58:53

of cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts

58:55

and cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

58:58

zone media dot com, or check us out on

59:00

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or wherever you get your podcasts. M

59:11

HM