Abortion: The Body Politic with Katie Couric iHeartPodcasts

Katie’s special series, Abortion: The Body Politic, has wrapped, but we wanted to give the very last word to a special group of people — people who have had abortions. These first-person stories reveal the lengths people have always had to go through to get an abortion — enduring unnecessary waiting periods, lengthy travel, parental consent needs, manipulative partners, unsupportive family members, shame, guilt, and more. These abortion stories span decades, cultures, race, faiths and gender. They reveal how common abortion is and yet how consistently stigmatized. This episode is dedicated to abortion storytellers everywhere whose voices and personal experience help normalize abortion for all.  This episode includes stories from Busy Philipps, Gloria Steinem, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and more. 

More about the organizations mentioned in this podcast: 


We Testify
Shout Your Abortion
Physicians for Reproductive Health
ReproAction

Action items:


How to find, contact, and donate to your local abortion fund
Learn about abortion laws in your state
How to get abortion pills in any state
How to share your abortion story [Also, We Testfy]
Support reproductive justice organizations, like Sister Song and Latina Institute for Reproductive Rights
Check out Vote Save America about how to take action at the ballot.
Follow all the organizations and people featured in this series!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Abortion: The Body Politic started on the ground, visiting two abortion clinics 15 minutes away from each other in two very different states: Missouri and Illinois. On this last episode, we check back in with someone who works in those two clinics to understand the immediate impact the Supreme Court decision had on their patients. Then we consider, what now? Katie interviews Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) who has been a legislative leader in the fight for reproductive rights to understand what lawmakers can do to protect abortion now and in the future. Finally, we hear from a new generation of activists, actors (like Busy Phlipps), musicians (like MILCK and Amanda Shires), and TikTokers about how they are using their platforms, social media and art to not only normalize abortion but also share information (when that information could be criminalized), and, perhaps, change hearts and mind one person at a time. 

More information on this episode’s guests and resources:


Planned Parenthood
National Advocates for Pregnant Women
ReproAction
Rep. Pramila Jayapal
Paula Ávila-Guillén
Gen-Z For Change
@OliviaJulianna
Busy Philipps
MILCK
Whole Woman’s Health

Action items:


How to find, contact, and donate to your local abortion fund
Learn about abortion laws in your state
How to get abortion pills in any state
How to share your abortion story [Also, We Testfy]
Support reproductive justice organizations, like Sister Song and Latina Institute for Reproductive Rights
Follow all the organizations and people featured in this podcast!

Books and more:


Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think), by Reshma Saujani
It’s time for Republican women to speak up for reproductive rights, by Kathryn Kaufman, The Washington Post
This Will Only Hurt A Little, by Busy Philipps
Amanda Shires demands more artists stand up for abortion rights, Rolling Stone
Take It Like A Man, by Amanda Shires
We Won’t Go Back, by MILCK, BIIANCO, & Autumn Roe (feat. Ani DiFranco)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Part 5 of Abortion: The Body Politic, Katie looks abroad for models of progress — and regress — when it comes to reproductive rights and abortion access. What are the trends and how does the U.S. now compare? We check in with the Center for Reproductive Rights to find out. Perhaps no region has seen more progress than Latin America. Human Rights lawyer and one of the founders of the Green Wave movement, Paula Ávila-Guillén, shares her experiences on the front lines of the decades-long fight for reproductive justice and what Americans can learn from our sisters to the South. We also hear from an activist in Mexico who is helping people across the border access abortion care they can no longer get in the United States. And academic, Lina-Maria Murillo gives us context for the unique relationship the United States and Mexico share when it comes to abortion access. There’s no denying the fact that many of the countries we are highlighting are largely conservative and Catholic. What does the progress these Catholic countries have made say about our own complicated assumptions about religion and abortion. We hear from several leaders of faith from a Jewish Rabbi to a Baptist Reverend and leaders from organizations like, Catholics for Choice and SACRED, about how they have worked reproductive rights and abortion access into their faith practice.

More information on this episode’s guests and resources


Center for Reproductive Rights


Women’s Equality Center


Paula Ávila-Guillén


Las Libres


Lina-Maria Murillo


Physicians for Reproductive Health


Catholics for Choice


Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice


SACRED: A Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity


Sister Song

Books and more:


When Abortion Was a Crime, by Leslie J. Reagan
A Complicated Choice: Making Space for Grief and Healing in the Pro-Choice Movement, by Reverend Katey Zeh

Guests include:


Paula Ávila-Guillén, human rights lawyer, Green Wave activist
Veronica Cruz, founder of Las Libres
Leah Hoctor, senior regional director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights
Lina-Maria Murillo, professor at Iowa focusing on reproductive rights along the borderlands
Jamie Manson, Catholics for Choice
Katey Zeh, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Rabbi Kelly Levy, Congregation Beth Israel, Austin, Texas
Kenyetta Chinwe, Sister Song, SACRED
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Part 4 of Abortion: The Body Politic, Katie examines how abortion is explored and reflected in popular culture and Hollywood. Because whether we realize it or not, the movies we have loved and the TV shows we watch represent the collective imagination of our culture at particular moments in time. And for much of the past 50 years, that collective imagination was riddled with problematic abortion tropes that perpetuates stereotypes about the procedure and the people who seek it out. But the good news is that in the past decade, more showrunners and filmmakers — and even studios — telling more abortion stories and even taking some risks. Katie takes listeners to the front row of a new comedy show about abortion, aptly named, “Oh God A Show About Abortion,” from comedian Alison Leiby. Filmmakers Gillian Robespierre (“Obvious Child,” 2014), Rachel Lee Goldenberg (“Unpregnant,” 2020), and Dawn Porter (“Trapped,” 2016) share the origin stories of their narrative-busting movies and what more Hollywood and creatives need to do in the long fight toward reproductive rights. 

More information on this episode’s guests and resources:


Abortion Onscreen study
Abortion Onscreen Database
Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health
We Testify

TV Shows, movies and more:


Stream Obvious Child on Prime and Hulu
Stream Unpregnant on HBO Max
Oh God, A Show About Abortion, by Alison Leiby
Unpregnant, by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan
Stream Trapped on Prime
Watch The Racial Politics of Abortion on YouTube
Planned Parenthood’s Secret Weapon (Washington Post)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Part 3 of Abortion: The Body Politic focuses on Roe and its unraveling. The last living Roe prosecutor, Linda Coffee, shares her recollections of that historic Supreme Court case and how she found out she had won. We learn of  the immediate failings of Roe, especially for Black women, and the birth of the Reproductive Justice movement. Experts trace the politicization of abortion, the belated moral-issue grab by evangelicals,  the violence that hit abortion doctors and clinics in the 1990s, and the anti-abortion strategy that forever altered American politics. We hear first-person experiences of long-time abortion doctors as well as fresh medical students who share why they felt inspired to join the cause. We also hear from two abortion storytellers about their experiences navigating a convoluted system that can be particularly apathetic to the needs of those seeking later abortions.

More information on this episode’s guests and resources:


Access Reproductive Justice
Boulder Abortion Clinic
The Bixby Center for Reproductive Health
Physicians for Reproductive Health
The Doula Project
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast

Books and more


Roe v. Wade’s secret heroine tells her story [Vanity Fair]
Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present, by Mary Ziegler
Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, by Mary Zeilger
Reproductive Justice, by Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right, by Randall Balmer
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In Part 2 of Abortion: The Body Politic, we step into the past, long before Roe, and trace the roots of today’s abortion’s debate to understand  — if abortions have always happened and the majority of Americans have always believed they should be legally accessible — why is abortion such a contentious, even volatile, issue in this country. In this journey, a new narrative of reproductive resistance comes to the surface. Women, particularly Black, brown and indigenous, have always made choices that are best for their bodies, families, and lives — no matter the obstacles men have placed before them. In these stories of resistance we also hear first-hand accounts of surprising allies in underground abortion access, courage in the face of limited reproductive choices, and a relentless push for bodily autonomy. The illegal period before Roe is a mirror to our impending, post-Roe future. It’s vital that we pay attention.

More information on this episode’s guests and resources:


Guttmacher Institute
The Bixby Center for Reproductive Health
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Boulder Abortion Clinic

Books and more:


Reproductive Justice, by Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973, by Leslie Reagan
The Janes, available to stream now on HBO Max
Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe V. Wade, by Daniel K. Williams
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.