Episode Transcript
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0:00
When you're behind the wheel,
0:02
it's okay to rock out to your music.
0:05
But it's not okay to interact with your phone
0:07
screen and electronic devices while
0:09
driving. In most cases, anything
0:11
more than a single touch or swipe is
0:14
against the law. That means no
0:16
texting, no typing, no scrolling,
0:19
no shopping, no browsing. If
0:21
an officer sees a violation, they can
0:23
pull you over. So remember,
0:26
Ohio, phones down. It's
0:28
the law.
0:53
And
0:58
you're looking for a podcast, or if you know
1:00
somebody like that,
1:01
check it out. It's called Grown.
1:03
Older people might like it, too. You can get
1:05
it wherever you get your podcasts. And now, here's
1:08
today's show. A
1:10
quick warning. There are curse words that are un-beeped
1:13
in today's episode of the show. If you prefer
1:15
a beeped version, you can find that at
1:17
our website, thisamericanlife.org.
1:21
That
1:21
happened nine months ago in Georgia.
1:24
I was at work, and
1:26
I ate a Reese's cup, which is
1:28
what I usually eat. And I don't
1:31
know, I just felt really sick immediately.
1:34
Taylor was pretty sure. Not totally
1:36
sure, but pretty sure. It
1:39
was the same with Kay in Ohio. She
1:41
suspected, but it was confusing. Yeah,
1:45
I had COVID the same time. So
1:47
it was just kind of like, is it COVID, is it not? I
1:50
had like a little bit of nausea, but
1:52
honestly, I just kind of chalked it up to not
1:55
really feeling the best.
1:57
Ashley in Texas, she was nauseous, too. But
2:00
her kids just had a stomach bug. And
2:02
so I had been feeling sick, but
2:04
then everyone else felt better. And
2:08
come the morning of Fourth of July, like I
2:10
just threw up so hard. I mean,
2:12
I don't know if this is kind of like too much information,
2:14
but I wasn't puking out my food
2:16
from last night. I didn't have stomach poisoning. I was dry
2:18
heaving. like it was a pregnancy
2:21
hormonal morning sickness puking,
2:23
which if you've puked for entire pregnancies
2:25
before, it's very specific.
2:31
Katie
2:31
was one of many women whose boyfriends insisted
2:33
on multiple tests. Her boyfriend did
2:36
not believe it. He, when
2:38
he saw it, he was like, no, it could
2:40
be wrong, take another one, take another one.
2:42
It's gonna, it could be wrong. And
2:44
it was one of the digital ones. So it wasn't
2:46
like we read the lines wrong or anything. It was a digital
2:49
one and it like came back quick.
2:51
I was like, there's no way it's wrong. It
2:54
wasn't wrong. She was pregnant. They
2:57
were all pregnant and they all did not want to
2:59
be pregnant, but they all lived in
3:01
states that had just banned abortion.
3:04
Taylor in Georgia. I was very naive
3:06
about it because I had totally forgot. I think Roe v.
3:08
Wade was maybe like in May. This June,
3:11
the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the
3:13
ruling that made abortion a constitutional right.
3:17
that happened the week before Taylor got pregnant. Yeah,
3:19
so it was new, but it also wasn't
3:22
something that was like
3:24
important to me on the regular, you know,
3:26
day-to-day. So I
3:27
got on the phone and I called and they were super rude
3:30
to me at Planned Parenthood. I was like,
3:32
well, I don't even think I'm six weeks. And I
3:34
really wasn't understanding what she was saying because she was
3:36
saying, it doesn't really matter. We're
3:39
just not gonna be able to do it. You know, and that's when
3:41
I was like, oh, like I totally forgot
3:43
that this is like this new thing where
3:45
I can't go and get it done, I
3:47
have to go somewhere else.
3:49
Kay in Ohio was also looking for a clinic.
3:52
She started calling immediately. They
3:54
didn't have anything for like,
3:56
I think it was like a month or two.
3:59
It was so backed up.
4:02
And it was like that
4:04
pretty much everywhere I had checked.
4:06
It was either like a few weeks to
4:09
a couple months.
4:10
They'd have to wait. It's
4:12
been nine months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
4:14
Wade. And to mark that fact, on
4:16
today's show, we're going to look at what these last
4:18
nine months have been like for people who discovered they were
4:20
pregnant right when the laws changed in their
4:23
states and came up against a wall,
4:25
trying to find an abortion. These
4:28
are people who nine months ago found themselves waiting
4:30
for an appointment. Waiting
4:33
to get together money to travel,
4:35
to make a plan, just to get
4:37
somebody on the phone. And
4:39
in that waiting, there was time
4:41
for other things to happen. For
4:44
instance, Kay and Ohio and Taylor and Georgia were
4:46
both waiting for an appointment, and one day Kay
4:49
and her boyfriend walked to Dairy Queen. It wasn't
4:51
until the walk back that we started to talk
4:54
about it, And we were
4:56
both kind of joking about the
4:58
fact that, you know, like, oh, I wonder
5:01
what our baby would look like.
5:03
And so we were like discussing
5:05
like, Oh, what color eyes do you think they would have?
5:07
What color hair? We got to talking
5:09
about like, what we were like as kids.
5:12
And then we were like, Yeah, that, you know, could
5:14
be, I
5:15
guess, fun to have our own. I was
5:18
like, watching us talk about how we
5:20
were and I was like yeah that would be awesome
5:23
to like have you know a baby
5:25
with this person.
5:26
Talking through it I was like oh
5:29
my gosh like am I changing my mind like
5:32
am I gonna keep it? Taylor started
5:34
wondering the same thing. She'd
5:36
been certain until she waited. First
5:39
for the ultrasound appointment and then
5:41
for the abortion. It was weeks and weeks.
5:44
I just spent a lot of time I'm
5:46
thinking what I wanted if I felt like,
5:50
you know, do I want to have a kid or not? I
5:52
think it was the first time for someone like
5:54
me who's very sure of themselves. That was the
5:56
first time
5:56
I was ever stumped. I
5:59
can't tell where I've been pregnant. weeks earlier, they
6:01
both would have gotten abortions at nearby clinics. But
6:04
now, this new reality set
6:07
them both on very different paths
6:09
as they try to find their way to an abortion. From
6:12
WBC Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm
6:14
Ira Glass, today's show, nine
6:17
months after the end of Roe v. Wade. Today's
6:21
episode was inspired by the excellent reporting of
6:23
Caroline Kitchener, who covers abortion
6:25
for The Washington Post. If you've ever
6:27
seen her stories, Caroline's reporting just
6:29
gets inside people's lives in this
6:31
way that feels very unusual, intimate
6:35
and very real and you see how
6:37
not black and white people's feelings
6:39
and situations can be. She'll
6:41
be with us for the hour. Stay with us,
6:43
okay?
6:51
First trimester. So
6:53
we start today's show in those first few months right
6:55
after the court's decision and how this played out
6:58
for Cahn Taylor, who both found out they
7:00
were pregnant and both weren't on abortions. 14
7:02
states have banned most abortions
7:05
since Roe was overturned. And for
7:07
some people, that's it. They won't get abortions. But
7:10
others, of course, like Cahn Taylor, they're
7:12
still going to try to get one. And for them,
7:14
the state bans are a hurdle. That slows
7:17
things down as they try to figure out how.
7:20
The anti-abortion movement is aware
7:22
that there's this new window of time where
7:25
maybe they could reach these people and persuade
7:27
them to change their minds.
7:29
Since the fall of Roe, there's been a big push to do just
7:31
that, to increase state funding for
7:33
crisis pregnancy centers, which
7:35
already get millions of dollars from taxpayers.
7:38
These are clinics whose whole mission is to convince
7:40
people to not get abortions. Meanwhile,
7:43
online, anti-abortion folks are trying
7:45
to connect with people who are looking for information
7:47
about abortions. And any abortion
7:50
activist reached both Kay and Taylor during
7:52
the first trimester. And each responded
7:54
very differently. Caroline Kitchener
7:57
watches unfold for each of them in two separate...
8:00
States week by week. Just
8:02
a quick note that we've changed some names in today's show
8:04
for people who requested that for privacy, though
8:07
Kay and Taylor are their real names. Anyway,
8:10
here's Caroline. Kay was in
8:12
Ohio. Taylor was
8:14
in Georgia. Both states had just
8:16
banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
8:20
That leaves a super short window to get an abortion.
8:24
From the beginning, Kay tried to approach her pregnancy
8:26
the way she approaches other things in her life. She's
8:29
methodical, organized. Kay
8:32
is 25 years old, white, owns her own
8:34
pet sitting business. She
8:36
kept track of her periods on an app, and when
8:38
she missed one, she took a pregnancy test.
8:41
It was positive. She started calling
8:43
clinics to try to get an appointment for an abortion.
8:46
Kay wasn't completely sure she wanted one. Ever
8:49
since that walk with her boyfriend to the Dairy Queen, she'd
8:52
started going back and forth, wondering
8:54
if maybe she should keep the pregnancy after all.
8:57
She made a pro-con list.
8:59
She really wasn't sure.
9:01
Her boyfriend kept telling her that he'd support her
9:03
no matter what. That wasn't exactly
9:05
helpful. She pressed him, trying
9:08
to figure out what he actually thought.
9:10
Because I was like, well, OK, I'm making
9:12
up my mind. Like, I'm going to have an abortion.
9:14
How do you feel about that? That's fine.
9:18
OK, well, I changed my mind. And now I'm thinking
9:20
about keeping it. How do you feel about that? That's fine.
9:22
And I was like, dude, what the hell? Come
9:25
on, like give me something more.
9:27
It was just kind of like wanting almost
9:30
like somebody to tell me what to do because I
9:32
felt so out of control of the situation.
9:37
That like I just needed like somebody
9:40
almost to like help me make the decision.
9:43
Finally, Kay found a woman's center
9:45
online that offered free ultrasounds and
9:48
abortion consultations. They had
9:50
an appointment right away.
9:51
I remember my first thought
9:53
was like, Wow, this is super purple.
9:56
Um, what was purple?
9:59
pretty much
9:59
everything, the walls,
10:02
some of the decor. I just remember
10:04
it was very calming
10:07
and quiet. I remember them offering
10:09
me ginger ale.
10:11
And I was just like, yeah, I'll take ginger ale. I'm
10:14
super nauseous. The Women's Center
10:16
was actually a crisis pregnancy center. Those
10:19
are places where staff are specially trained to
10:21
talk people out of having abortions.
10:24
But Kay didn't know any of that. She
10:26
was there to get an answer to a question. Could
10:28
she get an abortion in Ohio at all? Was
10:31
she still under six weeks? The
10:34
Crisis Pregnancy Center gave her an ultrasound. I
10:36
was like, okay, well, how far along am I?
10:39
And they were like too
10:41
early to even tell. It's
10:44
too early to like
10:46
say anything.
10:48
A trained ultrasound hack should have been
10:50
able to give her some sense of how far along
10:52
she was starting around five weeks,
10:55
which is right where Kay thought she was. Obviously,
10:57
I'm not a doctor, so I'm not
11:00
gonna argue with somebody. But
11:02
I was kind of looking at it, I'm like, there's nothing
11:05
you can tell me? Like,
11:07
absolutely nothing.
11:10
And I was just like,
11:12
is there anything? Like,
11:15
any type of estimate.
11:18
And she was like, I can't
11:20
say. like, we'll just have to
11:22
like reschedule another ultrasound
11:25
about a week from now. The
11:27
only thing that kept going through my head
11:29
was like, I'm going to be past six weeks.
11:32
Here is something I've heard from abortion providers.
11:35
Crisis pregnancy centers will sometimes
11:37
delay telling people how far along they are, or
11:40
they'll misinform people about how far along they
11:42
are,
11:43
until abortion is no longer an option. The
11:46
doctors tell me they've heard this from patients to
11:48
come in to see them after going to a pregnancy
11:50
center. Kay had
11:53
wanted someone to help her decide what to do with
11:55
this pregnancy, and she'd walked
11:57
into a place that was specifically set up.
11:59
to do just that.
12:07
Meanwhile, Taylor could not get an abortion
12:10
in Georgia because she was too far along. She
12:13
had to fly to Florida for her appointment,
12:15
but the soonest one she could get was weeks away. Taylor
12:19
is 27 years old, black. She
12:21
studied film in college, ended up working
12:23
an office job at a financial services company.
12:26
She'd just gotten her first apartment.
12:29
Also, she's a little bit nerdy. Big
12:31
Reddit user. When she hears something
12:33
that piques her interest, her first move is usually
12:35
to scout around for the relevant subreddit. So
12:38
when she learned that her abortion procedure
12:40
would use a suction tool, Taylor
12:43
wanted to know more. I actually went home and
12:45
looked it up.
12:46
Because I think a lot of times the only images we
12:48
have are like of people who are
12:50
pro-life, who want to show you like pieces
12:53
of gutted fetuses. So
12:56
I didn't look up anything like that, but I was
12:58
able to see like
13:00
an animated version of what
13:03
it looks like when the actual
13:05
surgical tool is in the body and
13:08
it pulls the fetus out.
13:10
A tube would be inserted inside her uterus,
13:13
a pump,
13:14
and then a suction.
13:15
You know, and it made me wonder if the
13:18
kid was alive or not, and if
13:20
it's going to hurt him if they
13:23
used that tool.
13:25
I just thought that there would be a more
13:29
advanced way to
13:32
do it that wouldn't be that gruesome.
13:35
You know, and it made me wonder if it's
13:38
too barbaric or too archaic
13:40
or too violent.
13:44
Taylor had pretty uncomplicated feelings about
13:46
abortion up until now. To
13:48
the extent she'd ever thought about it, she always figured
13:50
that if she did get pregnant unexpectedly, she'd
13:52
go to the Planned Parenthood clinic down the road from her
13:55
apartment. And that would be that.
13:57
But now, she wasn't sure what to do. She
14:00
called her aunt and she said, I don't know
14:02
if I'm comfortable doing this. And she was just like,
14:04
listen, you cannot afford a kid.
14:07
That's just the end of the day. Doesn't matter
14:09
if you think the procedure is barbaric. They do
14:11
it every day. They do. This is a very
14:13
common procedure. This is
14:15
not anything you need to
14:16
be alarmed about. You'll be
14:18
just fine. Her aunt
14:21
reminded her that she didn't have a lot of savings. Her
14:23
new job wasn't a done deal. She still had to
14:26
pass a big exam to keep it. and
14:28
she didn't know how to drive. Taylor
14:30
says it was kind of insulting. She
14:32
called her boyfriend. They were long distance.
14:35
He had just moved to Florida, and the clinic she'd
14:38
picked for the abortion was near where he lived.
14:40
Now,
14:41
on the phone, she told him she was having
14:43
doubts.
14:45
He assured her that was totally normal, and
14:47
he had his own theory to explain her feelings.
14:50
What he was saying was that he felt like because
14:53
he was so far away, maybe the baby
14:55
was away from me to feel more connected to him. Then
14:57
I was just like, what the? I just immediately
15:00
was like, you're not that important to me. I
15:02
think I'm pretty sure I'm still in control
15:03
of how I feel. If I was
15:05
having second thoughts, it would 100% be because
15:08
of me and no one else. You know, like a
15:10
baby is not something
15:12
that you use to feel
15:14
closer to another person. Like it was
15:16
just such a weird thing to
15:19
even suggest like me wanting to emotionally
15:22
connect with him through the baby. And
15:24
that's when I went out for other people's opinions.
15:27
Taylor found herself in the exact same spot
15:29
as Kay in Ohio,
15:31
asking other people what she should do. Like
15:34
Kay, Taylor would soon find herself
15:37
face to face with the anti-abortion movement,
15:39
people who were ready and eager to influence
15:42
her decision.
15:51
When Kay left her appointment at the pregnancy
15:53
center in Ohio, She still didn't
15:55
know it wasn't a regular abortion-friendly
15:57
medical clinic. the staff
15:59
hand.
15:59
her a gift bag. It had a nail file,
16:02
many, many pamphlets, spearmint
16:04
gum to help with nausea and prenatal
16:07
vitamins, which she did think
16:09
was a little bit weird.
16:10
She told them that she was planning to get an abortion.
16:13
It was the way that they described them that
16:15
made me think that they weren't completely
16:18
listening to me because they were like, well, this
16:20
is for the health
16:21
of your pregnancy moving forward and like,
16:24
well, the pregnancy isn't moving forward. Like having
16:27
somebody give me these options
16:30
and almost push the option
16:32
I wanted to the side like
16:34
it wasn't even really like a choice
16:38
that really just like irked
16:40
me and I was like well this is what
16:42
I want and you're not even like
16:44
listening to me like
16:47
I would expect this from
16:49
like a man or something
16:51
but to have other women disregard
16:55
what I was saying was one of the
16:57
most irritating things to me.
17:01
Crisis pregnancy centers have carefully thought
17:03
through all these moves to push people away
17:05
from abortion.
17:06
But for Kay, it actually seemed
17:08
like it was backfiring. It was making
17:11
her more sure that she wanted an abortion.
17:14
When she left, she looked up abortion pills online
17:16
and found Aid Access, an
17:18
organization based in Europe that sends pills
17:21
to all 50 states. Even states
17:23
where abortion is banned. They operate
17:25
in this kind of legal gray area.
17:27
That made Kay nervous, but she put in the order
17:30
anyway.
17:31
She still wanted to know how far along she was, so
17:34
she went back for another scan at the Crisis
17:36
Pregnancy Center.
17:39
People who work at Crisis Pregnancy Centers, they
17:41
see their work as saving lives. That's what they're there
17:43
for.
17:44
I talked to several staffers at centers who told
17:47
me they find immense fulfillment in convincing
17:49
even just one person to keep their pregnancy. And
17:52
part of that is making the best case they can for
17:55
not having an abortion.
17:57
Kay got on the ultrasound table for a second
17:59
time. They asked if she wanted
18:01
pictures. No, thank you, she said.
18:04
They played her something they called a heartbeat.
18:07
Technically, doctors say this is not a heartbeat.
18:10
Kay did not want to hear it.
18:12
I hadn't changed my mind. Like hearing
18:14
that was just like another
18:17
sound for me. And
18:19
the ultrasound tech who knew that
18:22
I did not want to keep this pregnancy asked me if if
18:24
I wanted to take pictures home
18:27
with me and I immediately
18:29
was just like, no, I don't want that.
18:32
And she was just like, well, are you sure? I
18:35
was like, yeah, pretty sure. Like
18:38
I was already angry and then
18:41
having her like question me,
18:44
I was just like, you guys really just aren't
18:46
getting this.
18:48
Again, are you sure you don't want pictures? And
18:50
I was like, yes, I am very sure. I
18:52
plan on getting an abortion
18:54
still. I got my pills
18:57
from 8 Access. I bought
18:59
those, so I'm just waiting for those to get
19:01
to my house. She immediately
19:04
just kind of had this like change
19:07
of demeanor to being
19:09
like completely like defensive. And
19:12
that- In what way when you say defensive? Her
19:15
first thing was, oh, well you should be careful
19:17
because you never know what kind of grade pill
19:19
you're gonna get.
19:21
To be clear, there's no such thing as different
19:23
grade abortion pills, and AIDS access
19:25
has been around for years and is a widely
19:28
trusted source. A
19:30
crisis pregnancy center told Kay how far
19:32
along she was. Six weeks and
19:35
three days.
19:36
That meant a couple of things. First,
19:39
Kay could have tried to get an abortion in a clinic
19:41
in Ohio right after her last appointment,
19:44
had she known. It also meant
19:46
that the week before, a trained sonographer
19:49
should have been able to give her some sense of
19:51
how far along she was.
19:53
With Kay's permission, I reached out
19:55
to the Women's Center. It's called Bella
19:57
Women's Center. They wouldn't give
19:59
me an inter...
19:59
but they said in a statement that they don't talk
20:02
about individual patients because of confidentiality.
20:05
They did say they are aware of the timeline
20:07
pressure that comes with a six-week abortion ban.
20:10
And they added that they are committed to quote,
20:13
full disclosure of the patient's options.
20:17
But as far as Kay was concerned, her
20:19
options were dwindling. Kay
20:21
wanted to take the abortion pills by the time she
20:23
was 10 weeks pregnant, because that's what
20:25
the FDA advises.
20:27
She was probably right around six weeks,
20:29
and the pills could take up to a month to be delivered.
20:33
She was running out of time.
20:35
["The
20:42
The Baby.] Meanwhile,
20:44
in Georgia, while Taylor waited, she fixated on one particular
20:46
question. She couldn't find a satisfying
20:49
answer, no matter how many people she talked to
20:51
or how much research she did online.
20:53
Would the abortion hurt the baby? And
20:55
the only people who have ever said
20:58
abortions actually physically hurt
21:01
babies are people who are pro-life.
21:04
She found an anti-abortion forum online
21:06
and wrote a public message.
21:08
Okay. Hi. Okay,
21:10
let me know. Hi, I'm Pro-Choice. We're
21:13
really having second thoughts about my appointment
21:15
next week. Advice? Question
21:17
mark, question
21:18
mark. She writes that she is now 11 weeks pregnant.
21:21
I've just gotten used to being pregnant and have to fly
21:24
to another state to get an abortion. And
21:26
then what happened? A
21:28
lot of people commented on that post.
21:31
I mean, just like, flooding.
21:34
A lot of them were telling me I could
21:37
give my baby away for adoption. You
21:40
know, any option is better to them
21:42
than to murder, quote
21:44
unquote, your baby.
21:46
Anti-abortion advocates online use
21:48
all sorts of different strategies to sway people
21:51
away from abortion, to
21:52
do everything they can to ensure that pregnancies
21:55
are carried to term.
21:56
Actually, this lady asked me if I
21:58
would do an open adoption. Oh
22:01
wow, like to give it to her. Right.
22:05
How did you feel about that? There's no way I would
22:07
do that.
22:08
I think it was probably a little over 200 comments. People
22:12
were offering me money. People were just like
22:15
super involved in making
22:17
sure I didn't go to my appointment.
22:19
How did it feel to read those things?
22:23
There's always a tone of
22:25
coercion in my opinion, but
22:28
it was nice to read them because you just want to
22:31
hear other people's opinions. Just
22:34
hearing that, it was nice to hear the other
22:36
side of it versus just the answer
22:38
to the abortion. But I had no one else
22:40
that was actually excited for me because
22:43
I will say that in the moment, I really needed
22:45
somebody to connect
22:47
with me about how I was feeling.
22:55
When I first started talking to Kay and Taylor, it
22:57
looked to me like they could be swayed
23:00
by people who desperately wanted to sway them. Kay
23:03
was trying out different decisions, auditioning
23:05
them for her boyfriend. And Taylor
23:07
was seeking out guidance from people she didn't even
23:09
know.
23:10
But then I started thinking, They
23:13
actually were actively deciding what voices
23:15
they wanted to let in, who
23:18
exactly they wanted to be influenced
23:20
by.
23:21
In the middle of one of the most polarized debates
23:24
in America, Kay and Taylor were trying
23:26
to suss out what was right for them.
23:28
So I would read those comments like all day. I
23:31
would read those comments like at night, I would read them
23:33
at work, I would read them when I
23:35
left work. And some of them didn't mean
23:37
anything, but most of them actually meant a lot
23:40
to me. But just
23:42
being able to speak to someone freely and not
23:44
feel like they're
23:46
pushing you to a certain place,
23:49
I mean, they were pushing me,
23:50
but they were also giving me what I asked for, which is a valid
23:53
reason to
23:54
not have an abortion. Ultimately,
23:58
Taylor did go to Florida.
23:59
on a plane to another state for an abortion.
24:02
Her boyfriend picked her up from the airport at 11 p.m.
24:05
And the next morning, it was probably like 6 a.m., but
24:08
my appointment was at like 8. And
24:12
he was just sleeping away. No
24:14
problem, no whatever, but I was
24:16
up. So I kind
24:18
of woke him up a little bit, and we talked.
24:21
And they kept talking
24:22
about their parents, how they were raised, what
24:25
they would want to do the same if they became parents,
24:28
and what they would want to do differently.
24:30
Her boyfriend said he worried his kid would
24:32
struggle in school the same way he had.
24:35
They wondered how much of that was genetic.
24:37
They kept talking and talking.
24:39
Yeah, I kept looking at the clock because it's like, all
24:41
right, it's 6.30. Unless we
24:43
throw our clothes on right now, we're going to be like right
24:45
on time. All right, it's 7. So when it started
24:47
to get like 7.10, 15, 7.30, it
24:51
just kind of worked out in that
24:53
way where we
24:54
just blew through the time and just ignored
24:57
it. Taylor never went to the
24:59
appointment.
25:05
K's pills arrived when she was eight weeks along.
25:08
When K took them, she was in pain, more
25:10
than she'd been expecting, which was
25:12
scary because with all the new laws, K didn't
25:15
feel safe calling a doctor.
25:17
She didn't want to get in trouble. I was
25:19
in a lot of pain. I was cramping.
25:22
I was bleeding.
25:24
I went into
25:27
this little bathroom. And
25:30
I remember being so hot because
25:31
I had
25:34
the light on in the bathroom. The door was closed. So
25:36
this heat was just building up from the light.
25:39
And
25:40
the only thing that I could think of to
25:42
help the pain was a warm
25:44
shower, even though I was
25:47
so hot. And I turned
25:49
the shower on, and I kind of contemplated
25:52
getting in for a few minutes because I was like,
25:55
what if it doesn't help? And I'm just roasting
25:57
myself alive. And
26:00
I ended up just getting in and it was like immense
26:03
relief. It was done. Per
26:06
K. But not for Taylor.
26:16
Caroline Kitchener. As we were putting
26:18
this story together, the legal landscape changed
26:20
a few times in many states including
26:23
Ohio where K lives. Ohio's
26:25
abortion ban was challenged in court. And
26:27
right now there's a temporary injunction, which means that abortion
26:30
is still legal there for up to 22 weeks.
26:33
But abortion pills, like the ones that Kate took,
26:36
may soon be harder to come by, thanks to
26:38
a decision just this week by
26:40
a federal judge in Texas. That decision,
26:43
if it stands, can make abortion pills harder
26:45
to get in other states too.
26:47
Coming up, what happens next
26:49
with Taylor and how
26:51
a video arcade can make almost anything
26:53
feel better? That's in a minute, I'm
26:55
Chicago Bubble Radio,
26:57
when our program continues.
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27:34
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27:59
insurance.
28:02
I'm Kim Barker, host of The Coldest Case
28:04
in Laramie, a show from Serial Productions
28:06
and The New York Times. In 1985, I
28:09
was a high school sophomore in Laramie, Wyoming, when
28:12
a woman was brutally murdered there. The
28:14
crime was never solved. Then a few
28:16
years back, the police arrested someone for
28:18
the murder. A former Laramie cop. His
28:21
DNA was found at the crime scene. But
28:23
then, prosecutors dropped the charges. So
28:25
I went back to Laramie to try to find answers.
28:28
the coldest case in Laramie. Listen, wherever
28:31
you get your podcasts.
28:33
It's This American Life in my Root Glass, today's show,
28:36
nine months later. It's been nine months
28:39
since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Our
28:41
program today is about people who discovered that they were pregnant
28:44
and did not want to be
28:45
right when that ruling came down and
28:47
made abortions largely illegal in their states.
28:50
We're following what's happened to those people in the
28:52
first trimester and now in
28:55
this next part of our show, in the second trimester.
28:59
Back before it fell, the vast number of abortions
29:02
did happen in the first trimester. But
29:04
now, because it can take so long to figure out
29:06
what to do, or for abortion pills to
29:09
come in the mail, doctors say they're seeing
29:11
an increasing number of people seeking abortions
29:13
in the second trimester. There's
29:15
a hotline, the miscarriage and abortion
29:18
hotline, which was started to help patients
29:20
who were taking abortion pills at home. And it's
29:23
beginning a lot more calls from people who are taking pills
29:25
later in their pregnancy than the 10 weeks
29:27
the FDA has approved. Now,
29:30
to be clear, the pills are still safe after 10 weeks,
29:33
but there can be complications. And the
29:35
whole experience can be more intense. People
29:37
call a lot to just say, does
29:39
this sound like it's going okay? Because
29:42
I'm so afraid that if
29:44
I need to get medical care, I'll
29:47
get arrested.
29:48
That's going to Prine, who helped start the hotline,
29:50
talk with us, and with a medical storytelling
29:53
podcast called The Nocturnus about
29:55
what she's been seeing. She said she to
29:57
answer questions from people in first trimester
29:59
abortions.
29:59
About how much bleeding is normal, how do
30:02
they know if the pills worked. But
30:04
now she says at least once a day she'll
30:06
get a call that's very different.
30:07
It's taken them so long to get
30:09
their pills that by the time they use them they're 14
30:12
weeks, 16 weeks, 20 weeks. And
30:16
we get calls about, you know, the
30:19
fetus just came out
30:22
and I don't know
30:24
what to do about the
30:26
tissue that's stuck. How
30:29
do I do this? There's
30:33
the cord or there's, I think,
30:35
the placenta stuck in my cervix
30:37
or, you know, sometimes they don't
30:40
even have, you know, they don't have the
30:41
vocabulary to explain
30:44
what's happening, but they're just like, I
30:46
can tell there's more tissue and I don't know
30:48
how to get it out and what should I do?
30:50
At that point, you have to walk them through a second trimester
30:53
abortion over the phone. This
30:55
is part of what the second trimester looks like now. complicated,
30:59
more frightening. And the people
31:01
we talked to felt very alone. We
31:03
spoke with nearly a dozen people who were looking for abortions
31:06
in the weeks after Roe fell, and so
31:08
many of them could not decide who to trust,
31:11
who to ask for help.
31:12
And
31:13
there's one other thing the people talked about
31:16
when they talked about what they were afraid of. I
31:19
don't know how I would tell my mom. Katie
31:21
had to travel out of state for her abortion. The
31:24
only appointment she could get was the same weekend as
31:26
her college orientation.
31:28
And there was no way of rescheduling it because I wouldn't
31:30
know how to tell my mom of why
31:32
I wanted to reschedule it. Moms.
31:35
There's no figure we heard about more than moms. People
31:39
did not want to have to talk to their moms about
31:41
their abortions.
31:42
But it's hard. The mom
31:45
called all the time, or asked how they were.
31:48
But they needed their mom to drive them across state lines,
31:51
like Brianna, who said she heard
31:53
over 12 hours the car of.
31:55
I
32:00
was like, you're not helping.
32:03
I wish I didn't have to say anything to my mom at all, but I needed
32:06
the childcare. We needed the help for the weekend.
32:09
Ashley had to figure out what to say
32:11
about why she needed to leave town. We
32:14
just lied. She was extremely helpful
32:16
that weekend as far as like, I think she took the
32:18
kids one day so that my husband
32:20
had to work Saturday, but I had to,
32:22
yeah, like lie.
32:25
I could not tell my mom. This
32:28
is Jessica in Texas. Telling
32:30
her that I was pregnant and
32:33
was not sure if I was going to keep it would
32:35
have probably
32:37
devastated her. There's
32:40
one post-row second trimester
32:42
pregnancy that especially drew Caroline in,
32:45
Caroline Kitchener, the reporter from Washington Post that
32:47
we're doing today's show with.
32:49
This particular pregnancy was in Oklahoma, a
32:51
teenage girl named Lillie,
32:53
who couldn't get an abortion without pulling in her parents.
32:56
In this case, her dad. Again,
32:58
here's Caroline. I met Lily
33:00
a few days after she got her positive pregnancy
33:03
test.
33:04
She was 17 years old and well into
33:06
her second trimester.
33:08
I like Lily right away. She was silly,
33:11
made me feel old, but in a super endearing
33:13
kind of way. Lily
33:15
told me she'd known this boy for a while,
33:17
and they had an on-again, off-again thing since sophomore
33:20
year. I
33:21
don't know how to explain it. He's very funny, and
33:23
he's very sweet and very caring. He's
33:25
a little stupid, but that's okay. And
33:28
yeah,
33:29
we had just started hanging out
33:31
again, I think, because we had been going
33:33
to lunch and stuff because at my
33:36
school, we had gotten like 15-minute lunches. And
33:38
then he was like, hey,
33:40
what you doing? And I was like, oh, dear God. And
33:43
then it all kind of just restarted.
33:46
Lily had no idea she was pregnant through
33:49
the entire first trimester.
33:50
She had just graduated from high school, still
33:53
riding high off prom. She
33:55
was making her own money, working at a sandwich shop,
33:58
staying out late with friends. Somewhere
34:00
down the line, she thought she might go to culinary school.
34:03
Or she had an idea for a business that combined her
34:05
two favorite things, tattoos and
34:08
food. She would call it pies
34:10
and pokes.
34:12
Lily's the youngest of five. The older
34:14
siblings have all moved out already, so it's
34:16
just her and her dad in the house together. You
34:19
know
34:20
what you picture when you picture like
34:22
a single divorced dad? like
34:26
he doesn't know how to decorate. We shop
34:29
nightly for meals. He won't go shopping
34:31
for like
34:32
a lot of things to keep the fridge or the pantry
34:35
stocked. We'll just go as we need or
34:37
we'll go buy food at like
34:39
fast food places or go to restaurants.
34:42
And I just think it's hilarious.
34:44
Here's how Lily found out she was pregnant. She
34:47
was at work and she called her dad
34:49
with really bad stomach cramps. They
34:52
ended up in the ER, where they took Lily's vitals
34:54
and took some urine.
34:56
And the doctor came in the room with this weird look on his
34:58
face.
34:59
He asked Lily if she was okay talking with her dad
35:02
in the room. Lily was like, yeah,
35:04
of course, talk about what? He
35:07
told her, you're pregnant. And
35:10
I looked
35:13
at my dad and I remember him And
35:15
I remember him getting
35:18
all shocked and looking
35:21
at me. It was good luck.
35:26
He just looked like he was
35:28
definitely panicking, but trying not
35:30
to show me because he knew I was panicking, because
35:32
I was visibly panicking. How
35:35
were you? Like, what do you think you were doing? Oh, I was crying. I
35:37
was crying immediately.
35:39
That's like I literally instantly started
35:42
just sobbing. It
35:44
turned out she was about 19 weeks along. The
35:48
doctor handed her the test results and
35:50
told her that she could put them in her baby book. He
35:53
kept talking, but Lily was just staring
35:55
at her dad, studying his face.
35:58
I just remember being
35:59
scared. I felt
36:02
shaky and I just
36:04
I kind of wanted to know if he was mad
36:06
at me or really
36:09
just what he was thinking about
36:11
honestly.
36:13
He said nothing
36:15
but at one point he did reach out to hold her hand.
36:18
They left the room, walked to the car
36:20
in silence. As they
36:23
were driving home, Lily said he asked her right
36:25
off the bat, Do you know whose it is? And
36:27
I was like, yeah. And
36:29
he was like, well, whose is it? And I was
36:31
like, um, because I don't
36:33
want to tell him, because he knows the guy. And I was like, oh,
36:36
God.
36:38
And did you? Yeah.
36:41
Then he was like, oh, my God, I should
36:43
have your brothers kill him. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
36:46
She rolled her eyes and then the conversation
36:49
was very much over.
36:52
They drove home. She went to her bedroom.
36:55
he went to his. The
37:02
next day, Lily sat in her room while her dad
37:05
went to work. And it really started
37:07
to hit her. She was pregnant, and
37:09
abortion was now illegal in Oklahoma.
37:12
There was no doubt in Lily's mind. She
37:15
wanted an abortion.
37:17
Had she found out earlier in her pregnancy, before
37:20
Oklahoma banned abortion, Lily
37:22
could have driven 30 minutes to a clinic to get one.
37:25
but now she had to find a different way.
37:27
First, she tried clinics in Kansas, but
37:30
the clinic she called told her that she was
37:32
too far along for them to see her. Then
37:35
she tried New Mexico. They didn't
37:37
have appointments for three to four weeks.
37:40
I talked to Lily a whole bunch right around
37:42
this time.
37:43
She was terrified. One clinic
37:45
told her she was so far along they would have to induce
37:48
labor to end the pregnancy. Lily
37:50
told me she couldn't imagine pushing a baby
37:53
out of her 95 pound body. Do
37:56
you think you sounded scared on
37:58
those calls? Probably yeah. I
38:01
was very nervous and I... it
38:05
was not fun to say on the phone repeatedly.
38:09
She kept calling and calling. Eventually
38:11
she found one clinic in
38:13
New Mexico with an appointment the following
38:15
week. She knew she wouldn't
38:17
be able to get there on her own. She
38:20
knew she was going to need her dad. Lily's
38:24
dad is former Air Force. Now he works
38:26
in IT. He loves music.
38:28
Lily likes to describe to describe as dad
38:30
rock. ACDC, Bunchovy.
38:34
He has five kids, three boys and two girls.
38:37
He grew up in a conservative family, believing
38:39
it was wrong to have an abortion.
38:40
Lilly didn't
38:42
know what he would think about her
38:45
wanting an abortion. I was just nervous
38:47
to tell him, honestly. I was
38:49
nervous to see his reaction.
38:52
What were you worried about? I
38:54
just didn't want him to
38:57
be
38:59
disappointed, I guess. A
39:02
few days later, her dad finally asked
39:04
her, so what are you going to do? She
39:08
told him, I'm not going to have
39:10
a kid. He said, you
39:13
know how hard that's going to be now, right? Lily
39:16
knew. Then her
39:18
dad walked out. He said he needed a little
39:20
time to process that information.
39:24
Lily decided in her head that
39:26
what her dad was not saying was that he wanted
39:29
her to keep the baby. It was, it
39:32
was, it was kind of hard because
39:33
like I can handle my dad being mad at me. Him
39:35
being disappointed in me is a whole different story.
39:44
Was he actually disappointed? Did
39:46
he actually not want her to get the abortion?
39:49
What was he thinking when the doctor told them she was pregnant,
39:52
when they drove home that night?
39:54
Lily hadn't asked him. So
39:56
I did. The first thing
39:58
was, who is this kid? Right,
40:00
because there's a butt kicking coming. You
40:03
mean who is this person who impregnated her?
40:06
Yeah, yeah.
40:07
And when she told me, it
40:09
kind of infuriated me a little bit more. Why?
40:13
Well, because so the
40:15
guy had already, he had
40:17
already gotten another like 15, 16 year old girl
40:20
pregnant and had a baby with her.
40:23
So yeah. The
40:27
next thing in my mind is I'm calling the three
40:29
brothers and this is getting handled. That
40:31
was the immediate, you know,
40:33
you've ruined your life. You
40:36
know, you're 17 years old, you're going to have a baby
40:38
now. A, how are
40:41
you going to take care of this baby? You don't even have a job. No,
40:43
I think she was working at that point. You're working at Jersey
40:45
Mike's making minimum wage. You know,
40:47
I
40:48
have just gotten out of finally
40:50
paying off your medical bills for your broken leg,
40:52
which was also the result of a horrible
40:55
decision on your part. What were
40:57
you thinking?
40:58
When Lilly told her dad, Justin, that she wanted
41:00
an abortion, she imagined he was
41:02
angry or upset. But
41:04
he told me he wasn't. He was really
41:06
just surprised. I
41:09
didn't think, knowing Grace, that
41:11
it was gonna be an option for her. Grace
41:14
is his nickname for Lilly. He's always called
41:16
her that. I don't know why, it just,
41:18
that was my first instinct was, she's gonna
41:20
have his baby. I don't know why I thought
41:22
that.
41:23
Cause she, I mean, when she talks
41:26
about it, like there was no room for that. So it's
41:28
interesting that knowing her as well as you do, that's,
41:31
you know, that's kind of where your mind went.
41:33
This may sound terrible, but
41:36
it probably was a result of
41:38
how nurturing she is. You
41:41
know, she doesn't even like to step on spiders. You
41:43
know what I'm saying? So I just never
41:45
thought that that
41:47
would be an option for
41:48
her.
41:51
But Justin quickly moved past shock and
41:53
into action mode. He assumed that
41:56
this was something that he needed to make happen for his
41:58
daughter. The Daily...
41:59
told him she wanted an abortion. Justin
42:02
went to work and researched. He
42:04
looked up clinics. He had no idea
42:06
that Lily, his baby, now
42:08
his anxious and somewhat irresponsible teenager,
42:12
she was way ahead of him.
42:13
I didn't really hear from her much that day. And
42:15
I get home fully, she's laying
42:17
on her bed, she's got her little notebook out,
42:20
she's got some kind of gangsta
42:22
rap going on on the freaking
42:25
Alexa and she's
42:27
called 14 different places.
42:29
She's called the Roe v. Wade Fund. She's
42:32
called everything and she's basically got
42:34
a plan in place and I'm like, oh, wow.
42:37
So you thought you were going to be the one making the phone costs.
42:40
I did. I absolutely did. It
42:42
amazed me because that is not a
42:45
trait she had displayed before and
42:47
her calmness during it. That's what really stood
42:49
out is like she didn't, she didn't panic.
42:51
She wasn't like, oh, dad, help me. She was like, okay,
42:54
well, I gotta call this guy. I gotta call this guy.
42:56
What did you want her to do? What
42:58
decision did you want her to make? That's
43:05
a great question.
43:07
I Think
43:10
if you had to say what was your top choice, I
43:12
would have said yeah keep I
43:15
wanted her to keep the baby
43:17
Why do you think your top choice was for her to
43:19
keep it? That
43:22
is, that's probably a very,
43:26
that probably is very psychologically deep.
43:30
And it probably has to do with Grace
43:33
getting to the point where she's gonna leave
43:35
and feeling,
43:38
you know, all my children are out. Kinsey
43:40
has her own kid, Michael's out there
43:42
in the world doing his thing, Christopher and Brady
43:44
are out in the world. So, Grace is
43:46
all I have left, right?
43:49
that I know
43:50
needs me, right? Like her daily
43:52
survival
43:54
to some degree
43:55
depends on me.
43:57
And I've gone
43:59
almost longer in my life with
44:02
that than without that. So I don't
44:04
know how to be the
44:06
me before the kids, right? I've
44:08
always had, for the last 27 years, always
44:11
had somebody that needed me. So
44:14
I know if Grace has this baby, I
44:16
got another at least 18 to 20 years of being needed.
44:22
And that may be purely selfish,
44:25
But I hope that my
44:27
concern for her outweighed
44:30
my selfishness
44:32
in that situation. Justin
44:37
wasn't sure he could trust his own impulses or
44:39
his own feelings. That's why he
44:41
didn't talk to Lily. To
44:44
her, it seemed like disapproval. But
44:46
Justin was really just trying to give her space, not
44:49
share too much of his own complicated thoughts. He
44:52
knew Lily would have a hard time ignoring anything
44:54
he said. When Lily asked
44:56
him to drive her to New Mexico for the
44:58
abortion, Justin said yes. She
45:01
got in the funds, she'd made the appointment. She
45:04
had a plan. Lily
45:12
was 20 weeks pregnant when she and her dad
45:14
loaded up the car to drive to New Mexico together.
45:17
They stocked up on her favorite road trip snacks, Pringles
45:20
and pudding cups.
45:21
It was their first road trip together, just the
45:23
two of them. And Justin told me
45:26
with everything Lily had been through, he
45:28
wanted to make sure they did something fun
45:30
along the way.
45:32
Which was funny because Lily told me this
45:34
about heading out on that trip with her dad. I
45:37
wanted him to have like at
45:39
least some sort of fun while he was out here. I
45:42
thought it was really sweet that he was trying to make me feel better.
45:45
And I mean,
45:46
obviously it's not fun for me, but
45:49
I know it's not fun to have to see
45:51
your kid. Like I wanted him to have some
45:56
good memory. When
45:58
it was time for the procedure It took two
46:00
days. Because she was so far
46:02
along, the doctor had to insert
46:05
dilation sticks to soften and open
46:07
her cervix.
46:08
Then Lily and her dad went to the hotel.
46:11
And they went back to the clinic in the morning, and
46:13
the doctor used suction to empty the uterus
46:15
for about 20 minutes until the fetus was entirely
46:18
out.
46:19
Lily said the nurse woke her up and told her,
46:22
you're done.
46:23
You are no longer pregnant.
46:25
She immediately noticed that her stomach didn't feel
46:28
full anymore. She said it felt flat
46:30
again. Afterward,
46:33
Lily told Justin she wanted to go to the arcade
46:35
in the mall. She wanted to try the DDR
46:37
machine, but mostly she
46:39
wanted to go because she thought her dad would love it. But
46:42
I was incredibly
46:45
nauseous and like in a bunch
46:47
of pain, but we still went because, you
46:49
know, ball out. So
46:52
she was sick in the car in the parking
46:54
lot when we pulled up in the mall,
46:57
but she was determined that she wanted to go the arcade.
46:59
So I'm like, all right, well, we'll
47:01
go.
47:07
Was there any part of you that was like, really? Like, why
47:09
do you want to do this when you're like, actively sick
47:11
of throwing up? I was just,
47:13
I was kind of proud.
47:16
I'm like, all right, yeah, we're not gonna, yeah,
47:18
a little vomiting gonna stop us from playing some games.
47:20
And after she threw up, she felt better. So
47:23
you know, we're walking around and for a while, it was fun. We're
47:25
playing games, we're winning toys and such.
47:27
We ordered like some, I think we
47:29
were like a pretzel or something, maybe from the little snack
47:31
bar or whatever.
47:32
And we played a bunch of claw games
47:35
and my dad won me a little like duck
47:37
in a hoodie. It's really cute, I still have it. I
47:40
named him Mr. Quacker. Um.
47:43
Ha ha ha.
47:49
But then, Lily started feeling sick
47:52
again. And so we're walking around trying to
47:54
find the bathroom and she's like, I am
47:56
not gonna make it. And I'm like, well then just go hide
47:58
behind one of the arcade machines.
47:59
And she sure enough made it to the side
48:02
of one of the arcade machines and then she just launched
48:05
it. And I'm like,
48:07
yeah, we should probably go ahead and head home.
48:09
I was like, sort of walking away to go find
48:12
a worker to tell someone. Like, hey, I
48:14
just broke on your ground. I'm so sorry.
48:17
My dad, my grown man, dad,
48:19
goes, no, it's fine. They deal with us all the time.
48:22
Let's just leave.
48:23
And we just left. She's
48:25
like, do I need to tell somebody? and I'm like, I'm sure
48:27
they're going to figure it out. Yeah.
48:34
It was an eight hour drive back to Oklahoma.
48:37
They left at 5 a.m. the next morning. Justin
48:39
drove. Lily slept in the passenger
48:41
seat. By
48:43
afternoon, they were home. Back
48:45
to regular life. Back to their routines.
48:49
still just the two of them. Third
48:58
trimester. Now that
49:00
we're nine months out from the Supreme Court decision, this
49:03
first group of people who wanted abortions, but they
49:05
live in states with abortion bans, have
49:07
had time to think about where they landed,
49:10
how these laws affected them,
49:12
people who had very different takeaways. One
49:15
woman in Mississippi told us she thinks her abortion
49:17
saved her life And the laws just stood in her way.
49:21
She had a medical condition that made her pregnancy life threatening.
49:23
A woman in Texas said the
49:25
experience made her swear off men. Another
49:28
woman in Texas said it made her swear off Texas. The
49:30
anti-abortion forces and laws in the state seemed so
49:33
menacing. She didn't even want to reveal that she
49:35
was pregnant on the standard medical form
49:37
that you fill out at the chiropractor's office.
49:39
I didn't want to let anybody
49:41
know I was pregnant. And
49:43
I was afraid that I was gonna be
49:45
reported. I don't know how
49:49
they handle it. People
49:51
were afraid of period apps, for God's
49:53
sakes, putting down that they were
49:55
missing periods.
49:57
She left Texas for months.
50:04
The contrast between Katie told us that the biggest
50:06
after-effect of her abortion and the new laws
50:09
said it led to a lot of awkward conversations with family
50:11
and friends because she didn't want to tell everybody about
50:13
her abortion.
50:14
She wanted to be one of the millions of people who have had abortions
50:17
and were able to put it away, move on, not
50:19
think about it again. This
50:21
was not the year for that. Abortion
50:23
was constantly in the news. People were talking about it
50:25
all the time.
50:26
His roommate talked about how annoying the anti-abortion
50:29
protesters were in the quad. Katie
50:31
wanted to agree, but without disclosing
50:33
too much about her own abortion.
50:35
And I told her that I had a friend
50:38
that had to go to Louisiana and
50:40
Washington and all this stuff because of
50:42
Roe v. Wade got overturned. And if Texas
50:44
didn't have all these laws, like, it would have been so much easier
50:47
on her. But she had to wait so
50:49
long just because of Roe v. Wade.
50:53
For
50:54
Ashley, the new laws dominated
50:57
a lot of her last year. She
50:59
was in the unusual situation that under the abortion
51:01
ban, she left the state to get an abortion.
51:04
And then, months later, she
51:06
discovered she was pregnant again. Everything
51:09
about how she felt about this new pregnancy was
51:11
shaped by that first post-row abortion.
51:14
She'd had her mom watch her three kids when she went out of state, but
51:17
lied to her about where she was going and
51:19
what she was doing. you turn to
51:21
an abortion fund to help pay for it last time
51:23
around. Now pregnant
51:25
again and
51:26
thinking about a second abortion.
51:28
I felt selfish. I felt
51:30
like I was taking, ooh, I
51:33
felt like I was taking the fund resources
51:35
away from the 17 year old who needed it way
51:37
more than me. I just felt horribly
51:39
selfish. And
51:41
I didn't feel like it was a situation
51:44
that I could like put myself and my whole family
51:46
through again. I can't travel
51:49
another 1800 miles and lie to my family
51:51
and my kids
51:52
about where mommy is when
51:55
I have a spot in my van.
51:57
And we have a happy home. And we
51:59
have. love, space, and love.
52:01
So, basically
52:03
I just didn't
52:06
feel like I could do it again and still
52:08
feel good about it. So
52:10
she was keeping the pregnancy.
52:12
Even though her reasons for the first abortion still stood.
52:15
She still had three kids on Medicaid,
52:17
her husband still didn't make enough money, and
52:20
she still did not want to be pregnant.
52:22
Then it made me start to realize like how many mothers
52:24
of multiple children have to
52:26
just pile another kid in there when
52:28
they really didn't want to.
52:30
Sometimes it's people that already have
52:33
a minivan and have the space and have
52:35
the love, which makes us feel
52:37
even worse. But just because we have the
52:39
space and we have the love
52:41
doesn't mean we wanted to do that.
52:50
Which brings us to the most consequential
52:52
result of the new laws. The
52:55
first group of post-robe babies, babies
52:57
who never would have been born if the Supreme Court had not acted
53:00
or not coming into the world. One
53:03
of those babies is Taylor's. You heard
53:05
Taylor earlier, the Reddit nerd in Atlanta
53:08
who flew to Florida for an abortion
53:10
but in the end didn't go to her appointment.
53:13
Caroline has been tracking what's happened since then.
53:16
And that's where we're going to today's show.
53:19
By the time Taylor entered her third
53:21
trimester, she was very alone.
53:24
It happened week by week. When
53:27
she was 13 weeks pregnant, coming home to Atlanta,
53:30
Taylor's mom and sister wanted to celebrate. They
53:33
asked, can we rub your belly? Can
53:35
we throw you a baby shower?
53:38
No and no.
53:40
Taylor was not interested. I
53:42
didn't want people to get me things I didn't want. I didn't
53:44
want my family to feel responsible for something
53:46
that I really didn't plan to do. If I
53:49
was married or something, I'd have a baby shower.
53:51
But this is not the same type of situation. So
53:54
I didn't want to ask anyone for anything.
53:57
It was almost like she had decided this was
54:00
her thing. She got pregnant without
54:02
planning to, so she was going to
54:04
deal with it all by herself.
54:07
Taylor's family was offended, which
54:09
made Taylor want to pull away even more. By
54:12
the time she was around 16 weeks pregnant, Taylor
54:15
and her mom were no longer speaking. Eighteen
54:18
weeks, Taylor and her boyfriend were fighting.
54:21
She wanted him to move back to Atlanta. He wanted
54:23
her to move to Florida.
54:25
They broke up.
54:27
At 22 weeks, Taylor was trying
54:29
to take control of the situation. She
54:31
would buy all the right baby things, line
54:34
them up in all the right spots in her house, a
54:36
mini fridge by the bed to store breast milk, small
54:39
stacks of diapers in every room so she
54:41
could reach every little thing she needed when it was just
54:44
her and the baby. This way,
54:46
she thought, she could do this alone.
54:48
At 24
54:50
weeks, Taylor lost her job. She
54:53
needed to pass a test to keep it. And
54:55
with everything that was happening with the baby, she
54:57
said she just couldn't focus.
55:00
Twenty-five weeks, Taylor asked her
55:02
ex, what role do you want with this baby? He
55:05
said, I want to be involved,
55:08
but there's wanting to be involved and being
55:10
able to. She
55:12
took that to mean
55:14
he's out.
55:23
So as she entered her third trimester, Taylor
55:25
started imagining herself alone in the delivery
55:28
room. She would Uber herself
55:30
to the hospital.
55:31
She scheduled a C-section.
55:34
Four days before the date, I caught Taylor running
55:36
around, getting ready. At
55:39
that point, she said she didn't want anybody with her, especially
55:42
her family.
55:43
Yeah, because I don't want everybody prowling
55:46
me right after the birth, and then
55:48
I don't want everybody in my house at the same
55:50
time.
55:53
you know these are going to be like my first moment
55:56
learning how to be a mom Yeah.
55:58
And I want to do that in front of you.
55:59
anybody either.
56:02
On March 24th Taylor gave
56:04
birth to a baby boy exactly
56:07
to the day nine months after the
56:09
Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It
56:12
went so freaking well.
56:15
I called her when she got home from the hospital.
56:18
Let me tell you something the
56:20
weirdest part about it is how
56:23
fast it was it was like 10 minutes that
56:26
they pulled this kid out of me. Like I felt
56:28
pressure. And then the next thing you know, there's
56:30
a fucking kid. It was crazy.
56:33
I don't think there will ever be anything
56:35
that will measure up to how surreal it felt
56:38
to see a child come out
56:40
of your stomach. It's just like,
56:42
whoa, like I created that.
56:45
Like you're just in shock. Like this
56:46
is me. This is all me. I
56:48
created this. And
56:50
he came out with his eyes wide open.
56:53
He's very aware. He's
56:56
beautiful. He's quiet. He's not like
56:58
a normal baby. He's just like a
57:00
super baby. Black, dark black
57:02
hair. He's really perfect.
57:06
If you wanted a kid, he'd be like the
57:08
blueprint.
57:16
In the end, Taylor wasn't alone in the
57:18
hospital. She asked her cousin
57:21
to give her a ride to the hospital. The
57:23
cousin stayed and took a video of the birth. And
57:25
Taylor says the cousin must have called
57:27
other people in the family because the day she gave
57:29
birth. My father came
57:31
same day. He also showed
57:34
up the next day. My mom
57:36
came
57:36
the next day, and
57:39
she stayed the night every night after that.
57:41
And then I also had family that just won't leave. They're
57:43
like, I won't say or do anything. I
57:45
just want to be here, you know? So
57:49
I've come down off of my high horse because
57:51
it's such a huge thing. And
57:53
I think I underestimated probably like
57:56
how huge it was. You know what
57:58
I mean? to relieve. I just
58:00
need to humble myself and be
58:03
okay with people helping me.
58:05
I get like two hours a night of sleep. So
58:08
I
58:09
just needed help, you know? Back
58:12
in his pacifier came out.
58:18
The
58:21
baby wakes up while we're talking. Cole
58:24
Anthony. He's six days old.
58:35
For months,
58:36
I'd been thinking about Taylor and wondering about
58:38
two things. Would she let
58:40
people in once she had the baby? And
58:43
also this question.
58:45
If this,
58:48
if these abortion laws
58:50
were not in effect, like if Roe had not
58:52
been overturned, Do you think you would have this baby
58:54
now?
58:56
No. Wow. How
59:01
does that make you feel?
59:03
It makes me feel bad.
59:05
Makes me feel bad, but I
59:07
know for a fact that
59:09
I've spent so much money on this
59:11
kid. I've had so much anguish. I've
59:14
lost relationships. Had
59:17
to switch jobs. My
59:20
body has changed. my
59:22
mind has changed.
59:26
I kind of underestimated what I would
59:29
have to sacrifice to like totally
59:31
go through with it. And I feel like, although
59:34
my baby is perfect, I
59:37
just,
59:38
just because I have my baby doesn't mean
59:40
that I'm happy that
59:43
well versus way that changed because
59:45
I'm never gonna, you know, my life is never gonna be the
59:48
same. And I don't like that there's
59:50
a piece of it
59:52
that was impacted by a
59:54
force that wasn't myself, you know?
59:57
Like if I just decided to do it, I
59:59
would.
59:59
maybe it'd
1:00:00
be one thing.
1:00:02
But to know that any part of it was
1:00:04
challenged by some outside force,
1:00:07
I mean, it's so messed up.
1:00:10
And although right now everything's happy, giggles,
1:00:13
you know, newborn
1:00:15
stage, like, this is my
1:00:17
life now. Like, my
1:00:20
whole life, not just 18 years. But
1:00:22
this is just, I mean,
1:00:24
things are really going to
1:00:25
change.
1:00:35
There will be some moment, probably
1:00:38
soon, when we'll all just get used
1:00:40
to the idea that people travel hundreds of miles
1:00:42
and cross state lines to get abortions.
1:00:45
That'll just seem normal, if it doesn't already.
1:00:49
It tells me normal that people have second trimester abortions
1:00:51
at home, that some people will panic
1:00:54
and not know what to do with the fetal tissue or
1:00:57
feel too scared to seek medical attention.
1:00:58
At some point in the
1:01:01
future, that fear will not be
1:01:03
remarkable.
1:01:05
And we will also get used to this notion
1:01:07
that for many people, if you
1:01:09
get pregnant in a state where abortion is banned
1:01:12
and you do not want a baby, you
1:01:14
may still wind up with one.
1:01:16
We are rapidly moving into
1:01:18
that future where all of this is normal,
1:01:21
which means right now maybe
1:01:24
the last time we can truly feel how much
1:01:26
has changed.
1:01:28
For the people who wanted abortions nine months
1:01:30
ago, the gap between what was
1:01:32
and what is
1:01:35
is very clear. Caroline
1:01:46
Kitchener.
1:01:46
She's a reporter at the Washington Post.
1:02:01
Even some
1:02:03
never to be found Might
1:02:07
get a funny feeling Some
1:02:11
things been overlooked
1:02:15
But it was journey
1:02:17
forward To
1:02:20
run But
1:02:24
one you too Ashley
1:03:28
Dory says God was like,
1:03:29
Hey, what you doing? And I was like, oh, dear God.
1:03:32
I'm out of glass. Back next week with more
1:03:34
stories of this American
1:03:36
life.
1:04:07
Next week on the podcast of This American Life,
1:04:10
Broadway's longest-running show ever is
1:04:12
finally closing this week. Are
1:04:15
the people who were squeezed into its orchestra pit doing
1:04:17
the exact same thing night after
1:04:19
night for 35 years together?
1:04:22
I was complaining about something which I imagine
1:04:24
was that it was really cold and then someone
1:04:27
else from the orchestra
1:04:28
said,
1:04:31
just so tired of the sound of your voice. This
1:04:34
next week on the podcast, we're on your local public radio
1:04:36
station.
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