Abortion: Say It With Your Chest

In this conversation…

Caro & Katie talk about abortion in America, starting with leaders in the evangelical church recognizing it as a political tool in the 1970s with which to gain power in the face of unwanted desegregation, to the profound discomfort that modern politicians across the spectrum express about the subject—that is, until maybe, right now. It turns out that American women have never actually been guaranteed the freedom to get an abortion, and to begin changing that, we need a new moral framework.

References, Bonus Reading & Timestamps, Oh My

References

“An Irish Problem,” a knock-your-socks-off essay by Sally Rooney about something that is also, incidentally, An American Problem

“Hillary Clinton’s Moral Conflicts on Abortion,” a 2016 profile in The Atlantic that feels, in retrospect, like such an ambulance siren warning for the years to come that it might just inspire you to quit your job, spend a decade or two building a time machine, and go back in time just to try that much harder to get Bernie across the finish line at the DNC

“Obama Says Abortion Rights Are Not a Priority,” a 2009 Reuters article that will make you realize the time machine needs to take you back earlier

“Jimmy Carter Says Jesus Would Not Support Abortion, Revealing ‘Only Conflict’ Between His Politics and Christian Faith,” an article that will make you say fuck it, the time machine effort is pointless, and inspire you to smash the time machine in a field, Office Space-style, because when it comes to Democrats dropping the ball on abortion, the limit does not apparently exist

“Doctors Agreed Her Baby Would Die 3 Months Before She Was Forced to Give Birth,” a Rolling Stone story of a Florida woman who was psychologically, physically, and financially tortured by Ron DeSantis’s abortion laws

The Turnaway Study (2008), a 10-year longitudinal study of nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions—some of whom accessed care and others who were denied it—that found not only do women who get abortions not regret it (95% reported it was the right choice in the years that followed), but those who don’t receive care accurately predict the hardships they will encounter after being denied care

“The Obstacle Course Facing Those Seeking Abortions,” a 2021 interview with reproductive rights expert Carole Joffe that offers insight into just how shitty our “golden age” of reproductive rights under Roe really was

“The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth,” a 2022 piece in Politico in which old quotes from Christianity Today prove how little church leaders cared about abortion, and how in 1971, the delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion, a position they reaffirmed in 1974 and again in 1976 (one year and three years after Roe v. Wade, respectively)

Bonus Reading/Listening