MXMFW 11: Abortion Part 2

We had so much to say, we had to make a part 2! Come join us on this week of My Ex and My Future Wife as we continue to discuss the complexities behind abortion. And thanks again to Liz Behlke for suggesting this topic!

Episode Transcript Available Here: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L9PXgS2mTh39Mc14DnunKwIAvV4bORJ7/view?usp=sharing

References
-Last week's sources
-Nuance and Dialectics
-“A Defense of Abortion” by Judith Jarvis Thomson 
-"Same Love" by Macklemore

Transcript

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Theo (singing): In the beginning, God made three lesbians who liked to talk, and they loved each other, and they loved God, but they have a few questions, and they think you might have a few questions too about religion, gay stuff, and life, so come join me, My Ex, and My Future Wife.

Maggie: Hello and welcome to My Ex and My Future wife, I’m Maggie

Theo: I’m Theo I’m the ex

Bridget: I’m Bridget, I’m the future wife

M: And we have so many thoughts on abortion we just couldn’t keep it in one episode, could we fellas?

T: We could not fellas

B: We could probably make this a five-parter

M: Should we make a spin off abortion podcast 

T: Yeah, we should make this podcast about abortion and sometimes other stuff

M: Comment down below!

T: Comment down below in the comment section that Maggie thinks we have

(laughter)

M: I think if I say it enough, they’ll give me a comment section

B: Imagine how deranged it would be if Spotify had a comment section. 

(Laughter)

T: Or any podcasting platform, the reviews are already bat shit pretty much I think maybe

B: That would be off the chain

T: Have you seen the YouTube comments?

B: Have you seen YouTube comments lately? “Man that’s gay” gets dropped on the daily

(Laughter)

T: Do not quote Same Love by Macklemore on our podcast about gay people

M: This podcast is brought to you by Same Love by Macklemore.

B: We’re sponsored by the song

T: We’re sponsored by Macklemore

B: We’re sponsored by the song Same Love, all proceeds from the song go to production for our podcast.

T: I wish that were true that would be great, our audio would be so much better

B: Our audio quality would be so good, and I would have access to research databases

M: Oh fuck, sorry

B: You have access to research databases, my friend

M: Sorry, you said research databases and I said what if I got horny right now.

(Laughter)

M: Sometimes I see EBSCOhost and that does it for me. Anyways, should we talk about racism?

B: It’s like a really big tonal shift but yeah, let’s get into it.

M: So, where we left off was a little scattered because we had so many thoughts, it was also one in the morning my time, and so I kind of dropped the comment that people who are pro-life are—tend to have more racist qualities, like score higher on the racism test

T: The racism test

B: Not a test you wanna be getting an A on

M: Nope. And I forgot about compassion for those who are deconstructing and mostly that is because of how the Right Wing, it’s more of a correlation rather than a causation situation because if you’re in pro-life circles, chances are you are getting looped into more Right-Wing circles, which as we mentioned in the last episode, that’s just racism, it’s white supremacy but really Reagan, so that’s my summary of that. The Pro-Life propaganda is really powerful and has a lot of money behind it

B: So much money behind it

M: We’re gonna talk about that later in this episode, but just wanted to say, if you are pro-life or have been indoctrinated into that propaganda or any of that stuff, we just have a lot of compassion and so much love for you, so that’s what I wanted to say

T: But not the pro-life beliefs though, I think is important also

B: Zero compassion for the beliefs

M: So, hate the sinner love the sin, if you will

T: Again, on this podcast, as we say

B: I think that’s kind of a bold statement ever to say, hate the sin love the sinner is kind of a…not my favorite piece of ideology

T: No, it’s pretty bad usually, I think it’s kind of funny to say when we turn it to the opposite

B: I think I would say something more along the lines of “have compassion for the unlearning of toxic ideology, while not supporting or condoning anything about that ideology or the continued believing of it”. I went to a Catholic college, and the Catholic church is very pro-life, there’s a lot of different types of protestant Christianity—and Protestant Christianity is so wide and varied that you get a lot of scattered throughout—but the Catholic Church because it’s so centralized tends to be pretty specific in the things that it believes and doesn’t, and as an institution they’re very pro-life. So, I actually knew a lot of people who had grown up with pro-life ideology and weren’t ready to completely let go of it yet because abortion still seemed bad to them, but they did not feel super good or comfortable with the idea of legislating other people’s bodily autonomy, and I think that can a lot of times be a very difficult thing to get past, is they’re like “well I don’t think people should have abortions, but…”. I think a lot of people unlearning that ideology get to a place where they’re like “it doesn’t really feel fair for me to tell someone that they can or can’t do something with their body”. And, if you’re at that place, and I have a lot of respect for people who’ve gotten to that place, I think it’s just really important to make sure that you’re doing everything that you can that is data-based to reduce rates of abortion, if that’s something that your passionate about, by making sure that people have safe and easy access to contraception, making sure that there is legislation for family support for people who have kids because a lot of times people have an abortion as a financial decision because they feel that they wouldn’t be able to afford childcare or wouldn’t be able to afford basic needs. So, I just would say, if you’ve gotten to a place where you’re uncomfortable with saying “I’m so down with abortion”, but you also are not vibing with “it’s so great to tell everyone with their bodies”, focus on the ways you can support people, and a lot of the really cool, wonderful Catholics specifically, but a lot of Christians who I’ve known, who are kind of in the middle on that, like that’s what they do, and I have a lot of respect for that. I don’t know Maggie, that’s my two cents,

M: That’s really good two cents

T: I like it too.

B: We had a lot of discussions about the ways that people who are pro-choice and pro-life can sometimes meet around back on things like universal daycare and stuff like that. But, you have still be cautious that you’re not like trying to do anything that’s compromising people’s autonomy and you’re not trying to coerce anybody into doing something that they don’t want to do,  because a lot of anti-abortion stuff can be super coercive and tell people that are pregnant that they’re murderers and it’s hateful of them to have an abortion, and I think that’s really wrong and messed up and traumatizing for a lot of people. Anyways, you had some things to say about racism Maggie?

M: I think that’s the main thing actually, I lied, I think that’s the main thing I had to say about racism, that it’s more of a correlation issue than a causation issue.

B: You had something in your notes about the ways that policy that restricts abortion ends up being racist, and I feel like we touched on a little bit last episode that when access to safe abortion is limited, the people who end up dying from unsafe abortion are disproportionately people of color and especially low income people and low income people of color are the people who have the most difficult time accessing safe abortion when safe abortion becomes illegal. Obviously, low income people across the board have the most difficulty accessing abortion even when it is legal because it just is simply expensive either way. 

T: And then we could get into a whole thing about how people of color are disproportionately affected by poverty under capitalism, though

B: Lots of cycle of poverty there, lots of systemic oppression stuff there, and it gets pretty bad. Anyways go donate to your local abortion fund, that’s also a whole thing. Did we wanna jump into a little bit of Jewish Law about abortion now that we’ve talked about Christian indoctrination

M: Now that we’ve talked about the religious right, I think it’s time to take a step back and look at Jewish Law about abortion because there’s nothing in the New Testament about abortion.

B: Really?

M: Nope, that I know of!

T: Damn that’s crazy!

B: Do you know what, I kind of know, do you know what parts of the Hebrew Bible Christians tend to cite when they’re saying that the Bible says abortion is wrong

M: Do not murder

B: That? That’s it? I think there’s a little bit more, do you know any others?

M: Off the top of my head, like when I’ve read about the fundamentalist religious right organizations, they’re like “thou shalt not murder” especially innocent children, like that’s most of the things that are cited.

B: I definitely thought there was something about like God forming our souls, it’s from like Pslams maybe?

M: Jerimiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I sanctified you a prophet to the nations”

B: That, yeah that’s the passage I’m thinking of

M: That is straight from godisprolife.org, so shout out to them

(Laughter)

B: Oh no! That’s wacky 

M: Yeah, so I guess I’ve also heard like “do not murder” but also from…

B: So that I believe, if I’m gonna come at this from a Jewish law standpoint, where I’m going to first and foremost refute that, I think that what a lot of Jewish religious leaders say about that specifically is that it’s a piece of poetry that’s not considered to be law in any way, and if you actually look at the text of Jewish Law, there’s a lot of pretty reasonable evidence for the fact that a fetus just isn’t considered to be a human life regardless of whether or not God already knew you. One of the most, like, popular things that quoted is Exodus 21:22-23, I think that’s a 21 and then 22-23

T: Colon

M: I know this, this is yeah

B: If people are fighting and a pregnant woman gets hit and gives birth prematurely and there’s not serious injury to the woman, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband or court decides. Which is like, okay you messed something up a little bit and so there’s going to be a fine, but pretty much everywhere else in Jewish Law, even if there’s serious injury, you have to do injury for injury or life for life. In the case of someone causing someone to miscarry, there’s never like an “okay, this is a life for a life and now we have to kill your son” or anything like that, it’s like “that was pretty rude, so you’re gonna be fined because you beat someone up”. And there’s also a lot of stuff about how the fetus is fluid in the womb. These are the Niddah Laws I was reading to you, where for quite a while there’s just a lot of different shapes and things that a fetus or embryo is likened to at different stages of miscarriage. Like, the sandal fetus is a big one, there’s also a clump of hair, a mosquito

T: The mosquito really gets me, didn’t it say mosquitoS plural

B: Wait let me look, I’m getting back in here

M: I think sandal’s still my favorite. Waiting for that one to get topped.

T: You gave birth to something and it’s like multiple mosquitos? Like how is it gonna look like that? 

B: Well, you haven’t actually given birth. A shell…so basically an embryo is like fluid for the first quite a while of a pregnancy, not even like form, and then you get to it being like a sandalfish

T: Of course

B etc. etc. But, you’re not really getting that it’s a whole human until very late on in the pregnancy, and you’re really not getting that it’s like a person until birth. Birth is pretty much the marker for that. And so, Jewish laws is like pretty clear on birth or breath kind of depending on who you ask, so either from the beginning of the process of being born, or from your first breath is going to be when your life has begun. And, I’m worried that this is repetitive from last episode because I don’t remember how much of this I said before, it’s just not a huge thing that the fetus is a human life the way that weirdly is in Christianity even though there’s not clear biblical precedent for it at all, so from the standpoint of religious law, it’s kind of nonsensical. But it is what it is. And then, something else that I just wanted to say about the way that Jews interact with the legal sphere is that we talked a little bit last episode about how Jews are very much like, “yeah separation of church and state, that’s really important”. But another big thing about Judaism is that Jewish law is really important to Jews, I mean I say that as a Jew, Jewish law is really important to me. But we don’t believe that it applies to anyone else.

T: Which is I feel like that should be obvious

B: As Jews we are the ones that made a covenant with God and we accepted the 613 commandments and so those are ours to keep and we follow them and respect them and that’s our whole thing, but if you were not there at Sinai making that covenant with God, then you don’t have to keep those commandments because you never said you would. 

T: If your friend made a promise to somebody and then was mad at you for not keeping that promise, that wouldn’t make any sense.

B: So there’s kind of this big thing in American Christian Culture, but also in Christian culture historically, looking at you crusades, looking at you Spanish Inquisition, fucking looking at you every major conversion even of all time, that you have to impose your values onto other people, and that just simply is not an element of Judaism. There’s a handful, a small handful of commandments, that were like everyone should follow these, and those are like the “thou shalt not kill” type ones, the just real biggies that everyone’s kinda supposed to be follow, but the vast majority of commandments, as Jews, they’re ours to follow and that’s our job, and it’s not anyone else’s job because nobody else is in that covenant.

T: I feel like it’s fair for God to be like, “maybe everyone shouldn’t kill people”

B: That’s like a reasonable expectation. So there’s way less of a thing in Jewish culture of feeling in need to legislate our beliefs and for our beliefs to be backed up with the power of the government because we don’t think that everyone has to do what we think we have to do, and an analogy that I often like to draw is that Christians saying that they believe abortion is wrong and therefore should be allowed to get an abortion would be akin to me saying “well, I believe that eating pork and shellfish are wrong, so I’m gonna make it illegal for any restaurant to serve pork or shellfish and I’m going to completely shut down the market for pork and shellfish and any pig farmers I’m going to put in prison”. I’m not exaggerating, the law in Texas, they’re like doctor’s who provide abortion can be criminally charged.

T: Which is bat shit insane, I’ll say it

B: And then I’ll be like “If you’re raising pigs for slaughter or are a butcher distributing pork, then that’s a criminal offense and I’m gonna send you to jail and I’m gonna pay your neighbors to snitch to the cops on you about the fact that you have an illicit black market pork business”. Just because I think it’s wrong for me to eat pork and I don’t want to do it, but for some reason I’m deciding that because I think it’s wrong and because I’ve decided I’m not gonna do it that nobody should do it because I think it’s wrong, even though that’s my opinion. 

T: Yeah, it’s like really crazy to me

B: So that’s just also because Jews don’t have a culture of I have to impose my beliefs onto everyone, we just have a culture of I have to impose my beliefs onto other Jews

T: Which I think is fine

B: It’s like ingroup, we’re not trying to make any laws (laughs)

T: We’re not making any laws exactly, we’re not encroaching into the political sphere on this one, but I also thin it’s a little fair to try to make other Jews do the things that we’re supposed to do as Jews because we made a covenant so might as well

B: But I’m not trying to say that in a Christians versus Jews, look how chiller Jews are kind of way because, again, I know many very chill Christians who are also not trying to legislate people’s bodies, I’m talking about this on a larger cultural scale and why these cultural differences exist. Just because of the way that our religions are formatted kind of, and I think that’s really interesting. That’s what I mean, I’m not trying to start a war.

M: I also think it’s really interesting, Dietrick Bonhoeffer, one of my top theologians I’ll say, a little gay

B: As they all are, as they all should be, sorry

M: Dietrick Bonhoeffer is like a really respected theologian, and he’s a really big fan of the separation between church and state because he thought it kept the integrity of the two.

B: I agree

M: And that was a very common belief for a lot of Christians to have, and it really…with the formation of the religious right and the power of the conservative party in the Americas that came around the 70s and 80s like we talked about, that was when that resurgence happened again, and so it’s just modern

B: So what you’re saying is that the American Christian bend towards unification of church and state has been a more recent revisiting of that.

M: More recent revisiting of that, yeah

B: Or that ideology has kind of gained popularity in the past probably 50 years.

M: Yeah, exactly, thank you Bridget, that’s what I’m saying

B: That’s really interesting. Why do you think that happened? We talked a little bit about school segregation, you think that was part of the catalyst for it

M: I thin k that was part of the catalyst, we also talked a little bit about this in the purity culture episode, how kind of after WWII and the Cold War and that era there was an association between if you are pro-America, you’re pro-Christian and vice versa. There was the marrying of church and state, and my dad’s good friend, he’s a historian and he has his PhD in Cold War American Propaganda

T: That’s hilarious, that’s kind of a fun one

M: Hey, if you’re listening, would you like to be a guest on the podcast (laugh). So, a lot of things that we think of as American Christianity are, within the last 50 years…but there is also some of that from just general white supremacy, but a lot of this really big religious right conservative movement, pro-life, pro-legislation around pro-Christian legislation, pro prayer in school, all of that stuff that really only came about in the last 50 years, so it’s actually a pretty recent phenomena, which I think is super interesting.

T: That is super interesting because I kind of just generalized it to all American History ever

M: So we have My Ex and My Future Wife, and then we’re going to have the abortion spin-off podcast, and we’re also going to have the spin-off podcast that’s just about the 1960s-1980s and the counter culture movement and Nixon and Reagan and the effect that had on American Christianity. That’s the third spin-off podcast that we’re gonna have.

T: And also butch lesbians 

(laughter)

T: Will be in that one

M: The fourth spin-off podcast is just us going “mmm butch” for 45 minutes

T: And we just talk about them

B: It’s our exclusive patreon content actually

T: Honestly

M: Comment down below! Quick Q, one pro-life argument I’ve had the hardest time with, and this one comes straight from Linn Haralson, is that if two cells join and an embryo is created, God has an act in that creation, so God wanted that embryo to exist and eventually grow to become a person.

B: I’m going to be honest, Maggie, my knee jerk reaction to that is just that I feel like it’s maybe placing a little too much emphasis on how hard God is thinking about creation

T: Yeah, I also think

B: Because God does a lot of creating all the time, and something that I have heard and really appreciate is just the fact that 1.) not everything that God creates is then inherently good and 2.) that just because God has a hand in creating something doesn’t actually mean that God has extremely lofty intentions for it

M: That’s a really interesting take, I really like that

B: I think that creation isn’t inherently, again I’m going to go back to my constant refrain that I’m on, which is that a lot more things are value neutral than we like to think, and I don’t think that creation means inherent good, I think that…that’s also funny for me to say and then start thinking about the concept of original sin, and how there is a certain sect of Christian belief that everybody is born inherently sinful, which is insane to me. Because, as we’ve all agreed babies are perfect. I think that creation a lot of the time is neutral and it has the potential to become good or bad, but it’s just potential, and it doesn’t actually have to become anything

T: I also think it kind of comes back to the thing about why Christians need Satan, and it’s like the difference between God created good and evil, and God creates good and Satan is responsible for the evil, and that kind of puts more emphasis on everything God creates being good and something to preserve, and so that kind of applies yes when you don’t believe in Satan and hell, you feel me?

M: I do feel you, that makes a lot more sense, thank you.

B: The other thing I wanted to say that the best parenting advice that she ever got was to have no expectations for your child, have no expectations for who they will be, have no expectations for anything about them in that way, if that makes sense, and that it’s important to support them and to nurture them to the best of your ability, but not to expect certain things from them. I think that if we are conceiving of God as kind of the ultimate parent, then God knows enough to not have giant expectations for all of their creations.

T: I think that rocks, and also I think it’s important to…I think it’s helpful to not expect anything for your child, and you can hope for things, right? So the kind of dialects there, I think are good, you know?

B: I also think that, like we were talking about, about imposition of values, it’s important to remember that not everyone having an abortion even believes that God had any hand in it, so just because you do doesn’t mean you get to say “this is really important to me, so I am going to say that you can’t do something with your body because it makes me stressed out about if that was what God wanted” that’s not really fair to anyone who’s actual body it is, if that makes sense. 

T: It’s kind of practicing non-ego-centrism. I don’t say that in like…I think about ego centrism a lot because of being in child psychology, it’s just a thing that humans do a lot and a lot of it is somewhat for self-preservation, but I think it’s not an inherently bad thing, I just think it’s something that we should focus on more and think about more because many of our stresses and worries are quote ego-centric and I think that’s interesting, like when you’re worried that everyone is talking shit about you behind your back, that’s a very ego-centric worry, you know what I mean? And when you’re worried that God doesn’t want this person who doesn’t even believe in God to have an abortion, that’s an ego-centric view of the event and not productive

B: Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you feel about someone else’s decision to make for them

T: It’s not your decision and you’re not even involved

B: But also in the context of if you’re counseling someone who is Christian and is concerned about that, which I feel like is more the standpoint that you’re coming from when you ask that question because Maggie I know that you as a person are not trying to legislate away other people’s bodily freedom. 

M: Yeah, that’s not my goal in general

B: Yeah, but I think that in that context then you can circle back to more of the stuff that we were talking about before, but yeah, just sort of at the end of the day, I’m never gonna tell anybody “you’re not allowed to be uncomfortable with abortion, you’re not allowed to believe that abortion is going to be the wrong choice for you”, it’s one of those things where it’s not up to you to make that commentary for anyone else, or make that decision for anyone else.

T: You can decide for you. It’s about imposition of values again

B: It’s like if someone picks a name, and you’re like “that name is ugly and I hate it” that’s just something you have to keep to yourself because it’s not your business.

M: Am I unlearning my indoctrination into Christianity? Yes. My other follow-up question is how abortion and miscarriage, how do we handle the reality that you can have an abortion and not be emotional about it, and you can have an abortion and be emotional about it of course, and also the grief of a miscarriage, and how that…Do you see what I’m asking? I don’t have a question I just…

B: I know exactly what you’re talking about, I think that miscarriage and abortion are very different, and even though they have a similar result

M: A fetus that existed that no longer is existing

B: One is a choice, and one is not a choice, and that makes them so, so different because even if someone was unsure about a pregnancy and miscarries, that’s still a choice that was yours that has now been taken away from you and also something completely not on your terms that happened to your body.

T: I also think it’s important when you’re talking about…just how people feel about things that happen, it’s important to remember that emotions are morally neutral, like emotions are not bad or good to have, and I think that’s important when you talk about Christianity and stuff because I think that Christianity loves to say that your emotions and thoughts are bad or good, when they are not that, they are just emotions and thoughts. Also, the range of human experiences about abortion and about miscarriage when they happen is so broad and varied that it is very not black and white, you know what I mean? So I think it’s about nuance again, I think it’s about nuance and dialects and not black and white thinking.

M: Oh that’s, what?

T: I don’t know if you’ve heard of that?

B: That’s not something we do on this podcast.

T: I think it’s good actually.

M: I literally, whenever I do this citation for any episode, I’m like “Theo’s love of DBT, Theo’s love of DBT, Theo’s love of DBT”

T: It tuck that in every episode, it’s very important, but it does apply when you’re talking about religion, it does so much, there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of dialectics. 

B: Maggie did any of that, has any of this been helpful?

M: That has been really helpful.

T: What do you think about, any of it. 

M: What do I think about abortion? 

(Laughter)

T: No just like, I don’t know

M: Time to talk about myself and my religious trauma, it’s. that time of the episode

B: This episode, we were like “we’re going to talk about Jewish Law” and what we’re actually doing is on-air deconstruction. We did talk about Jewish Law, you know, comment below if you have anything you want me to also say about Jewish Law, I would love to. Let’s let Maggie do some more deconstruction cause I’m loving this.

M: I’m thinking…quick comment about Jewish Law, my understanding that our Jewish Law segment was so sort this episode is because Jewish Law doesn’t have a lot to say on this episode.

B: Well, it’s pretty straightforward

T: It’s pretty much like, it’s fine. So I think it’s okay

B: Also I did talk about it for like 10-15 minutes straight. Sorry Maggie what were you going to say?

M: Okay, time for on-air deconstruction with Maggie, are you ready ladies, mens, and non-binary friends? I think like many other Christian people, grew up with abortion is an issue that we agree to disagree on with some people,  it’s very complicated and there is compelling evidence for both side, kind of like a the best way to go is a moderate approach, kind of thing.

T: Which is never true, that’s not true actually, I take that back. DBT and Buddhism are both all about the Middle Path

(Laughter)

M: So, I don’t know, do you guys have any thoughts on why an agree to disagree or a middle path on the issue to abortion isn’t necessarily the way to go, or is it?

T: I have thoughts

B: I have thoughts

M: Okay

B: Can I go first?

T: Sure!

B: Okay, well number one, we began this podcast by talking about the fact that we do have compassion for people that are still unlearning these things, and I would like to say that I also have a lot of compassion and respect for people who don’t compassion for that. I think that’s completely fine, I think that a lot of people have been really harmed by anti-abortion redirect and by anti-abortion actions and a lot of people have been harassed and there is a lot of

M: Been killed

B: Yeah, been killed, and there’s a lot of violence connected to the particular topic of abortion, so if somebody says, like, I feel iffy about abortion or I don’t really support abortion or whatever, and you’re like “you know fuck you, dealbreaker, I never want to see you again, and I think that you’re an awful person”. I also am like, that’s a totally fine place to be in, and I completely understand why people would feel that way, and I can definitely feel that way about a lot of things and it’s pretty easy to get me fired up, I was defiantly raised in a way where I was like always taught to try and give people as much understanding as I could, and as long as people aren’t being disrespectful or being violent of other people, if they’re beliefs don’t align with yours, but you can have civil discourse about it sometimes it’s okay, I kind of feel that way about abortion just because it’s not a deeply personal issue to me, so I feel okay being someone who can talk people through why I don’t agree with them on it, and it’s not triggering for me. But I defiantly don’t think that a moderate approach really makes a lot of sense because, especially if we’re talking about legislate, it’s either something that you let people have access to, or you fight tooth and nail to restrict their access as much as possible, and I don’t really think that there is as much of a middle ground on it as people want to believe that there is, if that makes sense. That’s my stance, I’m not seeing that much of a middle ground.

T: I feel kind of a similar way, basically I would say, I don’t care if you’re moderate on this issue as long as you are not legislating it that way, you know what I mean?

B: It’s about imposition of values, not about personal belief

T: Personal belief is not the issue, it’s the imposition of it.

B: It’s the control aspect.

T: Basically, the view I have is just don’t make it other people’s problem what you think about abortion. 

M: Keep your abortion in your uterus

T: Well, keep it out if you want it to be out though of your uterus

(Laughter)

T: Which is how abortion works

M: Abortion in or out of the uterus, that’s up to you and your uterus

T: Thanks, good tagline, concise

(Laughter)

M: Should we print flyers 

T: Flyers that say “Abortion in or out of the uterus, it’s up to you”

B: Keep your abortion in or out of your own uterus

(More Laughter)

M: Thank you for letting me on air deconstruct. I think these questions that I asked was like me and Chloe had a conversation about abortion and these are the questions that we raised

B: I feel like those were really good questions

T: I also feel like those were good questions that allows for discourse

B: And different ones than I’ve heard

T: And also this is discourse between Jews and Christians who are all leftists, you know?

B: Yeah, some of the things that I’ve heard other people who are like actively anti-abortion say that they grappled with are, okay guys what if I bring up ableism

T: Do it

B: I’ve heard people say that they don’t think that abortion should be allowed because they’re uncomfortable with the idea that parents or pregnant people will abort fetuses that they find out are disabled

T: I also feel that way

B: Which is eugenicists, I’ve heard the same things about people finding out that fetuses are trans

T: That’s not really how it works. Do they mean intersex?

B: No.

M: Gay gene!

B: At my conference that was hosted at my university, a trans man gave an entire talk about how in the future we were going to be able to genetically screen for homosexuality and transness and therefore if we let abortion keep happening, people will abort trans and gay fetuses, that’s one that I don’t even, I don’t even know how to respond to it

T: Here’s the thing, I have a catch all, you don’t have control over what other people do and sometimes that sucks cause they’re gonna do stuff you think are wrong, but it’s literally not your problem, you don’t have control over it, so educate people that you know about how to not be ableist and not abort babies that they find out are gonna be disabled, but straight up it does not mean you should ban abortion. That’s not the solution

B: And then another one that I’d heard was—there have been interesting ones because my college campus would intentionally have left wing anti-choice speakers because they made more compelling points to the demographics of our student body, which was fascinating and I would attend these talks because I was getting class points for it and also because if I did a write up about it

T: Interesting

B: And also because it was interesting. So another one that I’ve heard is that a woman who was being abused was talking about how she almost had an abortion and then she felt like it was “passing down the violence” of her abuser to someone even more helpless

T: I think that’s a fucked up view to have

B: Me too, that one creeped me out, if I’m gonna be honest. But, I understood where she was coming from, but I was also like…I had compassion on this woman in her situation, but I was like it was really bad you were being abused, and it also sounds like you didn’t not want to have this child, you just didn’t want to have it with your abuser. And then she got out of that abusive relationship and things were a lot better.

T: Which happens when you get out of it. Abuse is not the same as getting an abortion

B: No, not at all

T: That doesn’t make any sense

B: So that one was definitely really challenging, and then there was a Black woman who came and spoke about how she felt like anti-abortion because she felt like Black women were coerced into it and it felt like Eugenic-y to her

T: Which is not something I have the authority to speak on, but I think it’s a little bit of a different topic

B: But she also said she would not legislate against it

T: And that I think is the important part of this, you can believe whatever you want as long as you don’t impose it on other people 

B: All of those were super interesting, and I also feel like pretty much very solid in my position just having listening to a lot of other people’s opinions and especially people’s whose values aligned much more with mine. I feel like I hear a lot of people on the left doing their big buzz phrases where they’ll be like “people are pro-life until there are immigrant children on cages on the boarder” and you know what, I will be the first to admit that there are pro-life organization that go and try and help immigrant children on the boarder and they exist, and that’s what I mean when I say your values can meet around back with people sometimes. My mom has worked in policy a lot in her life and she always says that in politics sometimes when you’re trying to get something good to happen, you have to team up with people you mostly don’t agree with and this is one of the big problems with politics. But, it also means that if you’re trying to make sure that there is universal daycare or immigrant children at the boarder are being cared for and not being put in cages, sometimes someone else who has a lot of political power and can help you is also someone who’s like pro-life and cares a lot about babies and children, and you just have to be like “you know what, we agree on this one thing so let’s work together on this, but let’s still not agree on a lot of other stuff”. I’m not gonna say that’s wrong or right, but it defiantly sometimes works I guess

T: I think the consensus seems like, again, people are so multi-faceted, and the range of human experience is so broad that you cannot just decide there are good and bad people or that there are people who agree with you and people who don’t because that’s not the truth of reality.

B: We’re having a lot of nuance in this episode, it’s making me nervous how much nuance we’re having

T: It’s making me thrilled.

B: I’m always so scared people are gonna get mad at me for saying that pro-life people aren’t always wrong about everything, you know what I mean?

M: I think, yeah, I think that’s also why I didn’t want to make the statement about racism because I know a lot of pro-life people who are passionate about anti-racism it’s just

T: It’s more correlation than causation and also there’s so much nuance

B: Also read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” because it’s a beautiful piece of philosophy that’s very well written, and I highly recommend it. 

M: And stay tuned for our abortion podcast where we also discuss the history of sterilization and eugenics

B: Maggie you can’t keep promoting something we don’t have

T: You can’t promo a fake podcast that we’re not making

(Laughter)

B: Maggie’s committed, she’s making it

M: Where we talk about the intersections of racism and ableism in the eugenics movement, comment down below

B: As much as I would love too, this podcast is already a lot of work

(More laughter)

M: Comment down below if you think I’m right

T: We’re not making another podcast that would be a lot of work for me and all of us.

B: It would be a lot of work for Theo, almost none for me

T: A lot for me though

M: And that’s a lot for all 10 of our listeners to have to listen to every week too

B: Excuse me, we have 14 consistent listeners

T: Anyways we’re not making another podcast, I wanna make that clear

B: Yet

T: In Maggie’s dreams maybe we are

B: Once we get funding

M: Once we get the comment section

(Laughter)

T: Okay Maggie, deal, when we get a comment section on the podcast apps then maybe we can make another podcast about abortion

M: Then we get the abortion My Ex and My Future Wife

T: Abortion edition

(Laughter)

T: Alright sounds good

B: Do we have any other closing threats beyond hold a lot of nuance in your heart and don’t impose your beliefs onto other people in a legislative way and #bechill?

T: I feel like those are our closing thoughts

M: Can our closing thought also be: Abortion in or out of your uterus is between you and your uterus. 

B: And read read Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” and donate to your local abortion fund today. Just search “abortion fund” wherever you are, insert wherever you are, or national abortion fund, and then send them $10, and then send me $10 and I’ll send it to my local abortion fund. Also remember, abortion is not women’s healthcare, it is just healthcare full stop, it’s reproductive healthcare, abortion can be trans healthcare, abortion can be just for bodies, I don’t know. Whenever I read stuff about abortion people call it women’s healthcare, it makes me really irritated

T: Nothing is women’s healthcare, it’s all healthcare

M: Your mom’s women’s healthcare 

T: Nice, got em

B: Wait, it’s all healthcare?

T: Always has been

(Laughter)

M: Thank you for listening to My Ex and My Future Wife. If you enjoyed us, you can join us on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok at mxw pod

T: Nope, you said it wrong, you said it wrong Maggie

(Laughter)

M: @mxmfwpod

T: you said mxw, my ex-wife pod, which is not what we’re called

(More laughter)

B: That’s another of our upcoming podcast!

T: Once the future wife and the main person get married and then get divorced

M: So actually, you can join us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok @mxmfwpod. If you have love letters, suggestions, nice things to say, thoughts

T: Love Letters, again

M: You could email us at mxmfwpodcast@gmail.com. Thank you again for tuning in this week, I’m Maggie

T: I’m Theo

B: I’m Bridget

M: And until next week, be gay and question God

B: And a fetus is a sandal fish

Theo (singing): My Ex and My Future Wife