EPISODE 6 – PRO-CHOICE, BUT NOT PRO-EVERYBODY?
Who gets left out of the national conversation about abortion? Two key groups: people with disabilities, and trans people. In this episode, Renee and Regina get into why that is, and what it costs us. First, Kendall Ciesemier of the ACLU joins the conversation to talk about how the abortion debate has used disabled people as pawns; and then Cazembe Murphy Jackson of WeTestify highlights what the trans and repro rights movements really have in common. Plus, Renee and Regina talk about Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters in There Are Other Books!
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Renee Bracey Sherman: Hi everyone. It’s Renee here. Just a heads-up that this episode includes mentions of sexual assault. Please skip what you need to and take care.
Kendall Ciesemier: When abortion just suddenly doesn’t exist in the state of Texas or Ohio, that’s taking all of our energy. And I think that’s also intentional. We can’t have these bigger, broader conversations where we connect the dots and make people really understand these issues because we’re just spending all of our time playing whack-a-mole these days.
Regina Mahone: Hello and welcome to The A Files, a secret history of abortion, a podcast from the Meteor. I’m Regina Mahone.
RBS: And I’m Renee Bracey Sherman. Regina and I are friends who talk about abortion.
RM: A lot. Today we want to talk about where the abortion rights movement really struggles with ableism and transphobia.
RBS: It’s complicated, but it’s also not that complicated. We just wanted to talk about these two issues in the same episode because when it comes down to it, reproductive justice, trans justice, and disability justice are all about the same fundamental thing, bodily autonomy.
RM: Yeah, people tend to make this seem more complicated than it really is, but what we’re talking about is centering the needs and experiences of those who are directly affected by the stigma and attacks on their bodily autonomy. By that, we mean let trans folks and disabled people tell you what they need and do that.
RBS: We have a lot to unpack here, so we’ve got some help. We’re talking to Kendall Ciesemier and Cazembe Murphy-Jackson about disability justice and trans justice. They are two really great writers and activists who have personally taught us both a lot, and I’m really excited for you to hear our conversation with them both.
RM: And before we get into the interviews, let’s quickly explain what we mean when we say the abortion rights movement struggles with ableism and transphobia. What does that look like, Renee?
RBS: Well I think the most obvious example of transphobia is when people are insisting on focusing on biological women when it comes to talking about abortion rights. I know, it’s so boring. And instead of saying people who have abortions, which is just a fact, because trans men and non-binary folks also have abortions, they insist on saying, “Women, women,” it’s boring.
RM: And then when you don’t say woman, they say it’s somehow erasing the important problems facing women, but no one who is saying people in place of women is seeking to take that experience away from them.
RBS: Yeah, this has been a conversation since I guess the beginning of time. These are the same white suffragette girlies who weren’t allowing Black suffragettes to march with them that Sojourner Truth was talking about in Ain’t I a Woman. They were always policing who gets to be called a woman. No one is literally ever saying that women don’t get abortions too. Good Lord, we know. So that’s just one example of transphobia in the movement. And when it comes to ableism, well, abortion and disability justice get pitted against each other all the time.
RM: Right, there’s actually this book, Dangerous Pregnancies by Leslie Reagan. So in Dangerous Pregnancies, Reagan looks at the German measles epidemic and its role in fueling ableism in this country and in our society, specifically the way children born with severe disabilities from the German measles should be treated. This case, they were taken away from their parents and institutionalized and this created a lot of stigma around having children with disabilities and how that’s navigated in such a shameful way in our society.
RBS: Yeah, it was this idea of whiteness and that what white women in particular deserved was a healthy baby, and so therefore abortion was there so that they could have their two and a half kids and white picket fence and all the things. But I actually still see this narrative today with some abortion rights organizations encouraging storytellers to talk about why they had abortions, particularly for health indications, focusing on fetal disabilities and the way in which this fetus wouldn’t have a life. I think it’s really, really painful for people who are living with those disabilities.
RM: So it comes from within the movement and outside the movement. The anti-abortion movement is always using disability to virtue signal and accuse abortion activists of doing eugenics.
RBS: Which it’s a really, really messy complicated history because unfortunately everyone was doing that around the turn of the century. But whatever, we’ll get into it. All of this is distractions from the shared goal of the disability trans and repro movements, which is simply bodily autonomy and the right to do what you want with your own body.
RM: So let’s get into our interviews with Kendall and Cazembe.
RBS: Hi Kendall. Welcome. Can you introduce yourself for all of our listeners?
Kendall Ciesemier: Yeah, so my name is Kendall Ciesemier. I use she/her pronouns. I’m a writer and producer and the host of a podcast by Ms. Magazine called United Bodies. It’s all about the lived experience of health.
RBS: I love it. So you and I have known each other for several years now, and I think you’re such a really smart and thoughtful activist. And in 2022, you wrote a really great op-ed for the New York Times condemning people who try to pit the disability justice and abortion justice movements against each other. For folks who haven’t read it yet, could you talk a little bit about how you feel about the way ableism is used to restrict abortion care?
Kendall Ciesemier: I wrote this op-ed because I specifically wanted to attack the anti-abortion movement and say, “Stop using me as a pawn. Stop using disabled people as pawns and your advocacy. You’re not holier than thou for trying to protect the lives of disabled fetuses. You can’t actually claim a moral high ground.” But at the same time, I also invoked the ways in which I think the pro-choice movement or the abortion rights movement can make me uncomfortable, which I think is in mostly talking about the intersection of disability and abortion as it pertains to fetal abnormalities and advocacy for abortion access in order to accommodate fetal abnormalities. Where I think the pro-choice slash abortion rights movement is missing, what we’re missing in this conversation, is disabled people who can get pregnant and why disabled people who can get pregnant deserve abortion access.
And it seems like we’re so focused on disabled fetuses and not focused on disabled people who can get pregnant, and that is really frustrating. As someone who’s squarely in my own reproductive window and pregnancy poses some level of extra or additional threat to my already existing health milieu, if you will. And so that’s why I wanted to write the piece to really just provide a, “Hey there, what we’re forgetting is talking about disabled people who can get pregnant,” and maybe we should center those folks when talking about the intersection of disability and abortion.
RM: So this has come up a lot on the podcast also in our book writing around this issue, particularly because as you pointed out, the pro-choice movement can often miss the fact that not only do disabled people need abortions, but also that they’re sexual human beings who deserve pleasure and deserve to experience the fullness of life. And so one of the things that stuck out to me from the article was when you talked about the additional systemic reproductive oppressions against people, actual people, not unborn life, actual people with disabilities. So can you just talk a bit more about that and just the way that all of these issues intersect?
Kendall Ciesemier: Yeah, so I think that bodily autonomy is a conversation that applies to disabled people in a way that we don’t often talk about. Both in the fact that disabled people have their own agency and should have their own autonomy and should be able to make choices for themselves, whether that’s sexual or otherwise. I think there’s that lens of it. And then there’s the fact that disabled people are three times more likely than their peers to be victims of sexual violence, and that is because of the way that people have access to our bodies, either out of necessity because we’re put in situations where we need extra support or accommodation or care from other people. So we’re made vulnerable by a lot of those circumstances. You can think about just people who have a lot of engagement with the medical system. I myself experienced child sexual abuse by a doctor when I was very, very young.
I was born with liver disease and I have had a whole lifetime of exposure to the medical system. There’s just an unfettered access, if you will, to our bodies I think in ways that that’s not a conversation that’s I think typically reflected in our dialogue about who’s at risk for getting pregnant through sexual violence or who’s at risk for needing access to abortion or just the complete backward moral about-face ways in which even, for example, Justice Brett Kavanaugh before overturning Roe V. Wade, he in 2007 affirmed the state’s ability to terminate pregnancies in two disabled women who did not want their pregnancies to be terminated. It completely doesn’t line up with logic. You can’t be on both sides of an issue unless you think that disabled people just don’t have lives that are their own and shouldn’t have agency of their own. And I think that’s something that we see reflected in a lot of both government decisions, but also just in dialogue amongst movement people and also just national dialogue about this issue. I think it’s an often overlooked topic.
RBS: We’ve been talking about the way our movement hasn’t shown up in addressing ableism and transphobia. How do you feel like repro activists could show up better for disability justice? How would you like to see people talk about that intersection and what else is there?
Kendall Ciesemier: That’s a great question. I think that people in the pro-choice movement should, I think center disabled voices, disabled pregnant people, because what gets lost in all of the fetal abnormalities conversation is just the fact that disabled people have children, and that is a whole issue. The fact that people don’t see disabled people as people who can be parents because we infantilize disabled people. And also we say that it’s important healthcare, abortion is healthcare, right? That’s very common, but it’s especially healthcare for disabled people because in so many people’s lives, a pregnancy can really, really threaten their life and in ways that are even predictable, whether they take medication that complicates the pregnancy or what have you. And so I think it’s just really about more inclusive abortion stories, and I think you do a great job with that Renee, but I don’t think that that’s always reflected more broadly across the movement.
And so I think just broadening the conversation and really explicitly making those connection points between the trans-bans, gender-affirming care for trans people, and abortion access, we’re talking about the same issue. The states that have banned abortion are the states that have banned gender-affirming care. I think we just need to dig a little deeper, and I think that’s hard, a hard ask sometimes when the emergency light is on, when abortion just suddenly doesn’t exist in the state of Texas or Ohio or we’ve got a ban in South Carolina. That’s taking all of our energy, and I think that’s also intentional, right? We can’t have these bigger, broader conversations where we connect the dots and make people really understand these issues because we’re just spending all of our time playing whack-a-mole these days, which is why we should have had the conversation a long time ago. But now that we’re here, I just think it takes more interesting reporting.
It takes more thorough examination. It takes more time, more energy, and more discussion. Abortion isn’t just a topic that you give just the factual updates every day about how XYZ state has done XYZ thing. I just think that we can be a little bit more sophisticated in how we approach these topics and really break it down for people. I think a lot of publications and journalists think that abortion journalism is just about the politics of it all when the actual lived experience of human beings is so divorced from the politics of it all. It’s so divorced from what XYZ person said yesterday in a press conference. I think we spend too much time on the gamification of it all and less time talking about just the lived experience and all the ways that these things tie into our lives.
RBS: You talked a bit about the way in which disabled people are desexualized or infantilized and aren’t centered when it comes to reproductive and pregnancy support. What do you think it will take for people with disabilities to have full bodily autonomy and actually, what do you think full reproductive justice for disabled people actually looks like?
Kendall Ciesemier: It’s a great question. Actually, I’m a little bit skeptical that we’re even there yet Renee, that we can even really have that conversation because I think we just have a disability 101 problem to be honest. If people can’t use public transportation and they can’t use the bathroom on airplanes and then they’re on airplanes and their wheelchair breaks because the people don’t care about them. If we can’t get access to affordable healthcare and we go bankrupt, and I think Medicare for all would be nice, just healthcare access period, that would help everyone. But I don’t know if we’re even at the next level of that conversation yet where we can be like, “Okay, what does that look like specifically around abortion or reproductive access?” It’s like gosh, I just want people to be able to take their medicine in the morning or get a job that pays them.
I feel like it’s so far away from being something where we can even talk about the specificity of reproductive healthcare, but I think realizing that disabled people have sex is a really good start on the reproductive side. And then it’s like, “Okay, there’s just morbid curiosity about how people have sex,” and I feel like that’s something that people and disabled people share in a lot of ways. I just also feel like a lot of times this education isn’t extended to disabled people. I have always been living in disability. And so being an adolescent, there’s no guide, there’s no conversation. It feels like there’s just no one telling people how to have sex or if you can have sex or what kinds of even contraceptives you can use and what you can’t use. I actually do think a lot of this stems from ableism within medicine and the assumptions that doctors make about disabled people.
And so if you don’t know about some of these issues, it’s just even starting to learn about them and starting to engage in these conversations and realize that it’s really not that far from you. One of the things I always say to people is like, “Oh, you really enjoy work from home, don’t you?” Or, “Oh, you really like a mental healthcare day or to get time off work for therapy or something,” because everyone in New York City’s in therapy. So that’s something that people can really understand.
RBS: If they can afford it.
Kendall Ciesemier: If they can afford it, for sure. But these things, therapy has become very culturally, in a good way, so happy for it, but I’m always thinking like, “Okay, if this is something that you have access to and this is something your job is letting you have time to do or whatever, these wins, these victories if you ever had an accommodation at work, whether that was for pregnancy or for childcare or literally any of these things, a lot of these wins were paid for by disabled people who literally put their bodies in harm’s way to get some of these victories.”
The ADA, what’s so cool is the Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act that just passed, that took forever to pass, it was actually modeled off the Americans with Disabilities Act. These things aren’t so far from us. Even if it doesn’t seem like disability is in your life, I think is really closer than you think. So I think that’s some of the just origins that we need to start with. I just think there’s so much to be done, so it’s hard to give a step one, step two, step three.
RBS: Well thank you so much for joining us, Kendall. I really love Kendall and I’m so glad she could join us to give a little disability and repro justice 101. Next up, we’re talking to Cazembe Murphy-Jackson, who I also really love. He’s a trans activist and abortion storyteller with We Testify and he’s truly wonderful to talk about repro issues with. But first, let’s take a quick break.
RM: So we like to start these conversations just asking our guests, if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself and also explaining a little bit about what brought you to abortion rights and reproductive justice organizing
Cazembe Jackson: I’m Cazembe Jackson. I use He/Him pronouns, and I’d say I’m a southern Black queer trans man, and I think initially what brought me to abortion storytelling and reproductive justice is a group called Sister Song in Atlanta, Georgia. I know it’s been mostly southern Black women that have really held me and kept me in this and sustained me.
RBS: You and I have known each other for such a long time, and I truly love learning from you and your work as a Black trans southern organizer, disabled person, and socialist. Can you talk about how all of your identities and political beliefs are connected to reproductive justice and abortion access?
Cazembe Jackson: I think that it’s connected in so many ways. The rise of attacks on queer and trans people, whether it’s through vigilantes or through the court, but I think it’s connected to abortion access because the same thing is happening. The Supreme Court took away abortion access and then just about a year later ruled that business owners could deny queer people their services based on their religion, which is I think a first step in taking away rights from queer and trans people. We have to be fighting for the liberation of all oppressed people because yeah, people who get abortions, that’s everybody. That means it’s all kinds of folks from all kinds of walks of life, different classes, different genders, even different races that have to come together around our issues in order for us to achieve abortion access and reproductive justice. I believe in collective liberation.
RBS: To me, and I think all of us, it’s so simple that abortion access and trans liberation are connected because they’re both rooted in bodily autonomy and liberation, but not everyone understands that. And so I think generally, what do you think people miss when it comes to that intersection of reproductive rights and trans justice?
Cazembe Jackson: I don’t know if people are missing it out of ignorance, I think people are missing it on purpose. When folks are talking about the fact that there are men getting abortions or non-binary people who have abortions that don’t identify as women, it is made to seem like we’re trying to erase the fact that a lot of women do get abortions, which is not true. I just want to be included in it. I think it’s on purpose because the people who do get that they’re connected, it’s such a simple connection that folks are making every day. And a lot of the reproductive justice organizations, particularly in the South, are very welcoming of trans people and want to include trans identities and non-binary folks in the conversation about reproductive justice. Folks are understanding that it’s an intersectional fight.
RM: I see these as distractions rooted in white supremacy. So we’re going to talk just a little bit more about it because earlier on our podcast, we were talking about how it’s really important not to disconnect the transphobia we see in the mainstream reproductive rights movement with the transphobia and anti-LGBTQ violence and harassment we see in broader society. And it’s just another reminder about how it’s not just the folks on the right attacking trans folks, and even as simple as the way in which trans folks interact in the healthcare system at doctor’s offices, they can’t seem to get patient-centered care right.
Cazembe Jackson: Yeah, I think the medical industry is one that’s definitely racist and a lot of the time transphobic. And so as a Black trans person, it’s like yeah, I don’t know what patient-centered care feels like, but I know what it would look like. I think patient-centered care starts with education and folks really being willing to learn to do something different then what always has been done. Just asking people what their pronouns are and what their name is that they want to be called can make them feel like there’s been a container created for folks like me. So it lets me know I’m welcome in the space and that it’s going to be a safe experience for me.
I think when I’m thinking about patient-centered abortion access, I’m definitely asking folks what their body parts are called as you examine them. I think a lot of folks that refuse to ask pronouns or about different words about body parts and stuff like that are refusing to recognize that trans people exist, like they know us and our bodies better than we do. And that reminds me of a book actually that Bell Hooks wrote called Ain’t I a Woman. And it really just makes me think of being Black and gender being so connected anyway because Black women were never really supposed to be able to fit into this mold of what it meant to be a part of womanhood. And so I think it’s directly connected.
RBS: So one thing that really frustrates me, and I know you and I have talked about this before, is just the conversation around trans race and repro seems to center around how trans people have abortions and just focusing on their presence or phrases like it’s not just women who have abortions, which to me feels like it sort of defeats the purpose because it’s still erasing and not actually centering trans people. They’re literally not mentioned in this race that is about trans folks having abortions.
But overall, simply acknowledging that trans people exist and have abortions feels like the bare minimum at this point. And when you joined We Testify, you and I had this really deep conversation about what it means to have trans people on We Testify. And I remember you were so surprised that you weren’t an only, but trans people and non-binary folks in repro is still few and far between. How can we actually create really thoughtful trans-inclusive spaces and not just asking pronouns? I think if the rest of the space doesn’t feel centering of trans people, to me it seems like what’s the point? What are your thoughts on that?
Cazembe Jackson: One way to make a more trans-inclusive space is to have more trans people in the space, but I would also say when we talk about making the space inclusive for trans and non-binary people, also just don’t be weird. Don’t be asking people random questions and all of that. Trans people are people. That’s the second part of it – is that we’re people, and so talk to us because just like every other group is not a monolith, I think it’s the same for trans people, and so different trans people will want different things. And even the trans person that you’re talking about where I wasn’t the only person, that person, even though we have so much in common, is totally different than me, totally different and even talks about their abortion in a different way, talks about their experiences as a non-binary person and trans person in a very different way than I do.
And both of our stories are valid and necessary and needed in these abortion access spaces. But I think back to your original question about what can we do to be more inclusive past the formalities, if we’re thinking along the lines of collective liberation, they say if you can’t feel the fire from your ally’s fight that you’re not close enough, so you got to get closer so I can actually help you put the fire out. I’ve got to be close enough for the water to reach. And when I think about Black women, the fight of Black women is my fight. In the world outside of my bubble, people see me as a masculine Black woman. So if Black women are under attack, so am I. That’s my fight. And I think it’s the same thing for trans people. One, because you never know if you’re going to end up trans. It’s a progression and a journey, number one. And two, if you never identify as trans, it’s still your fight because they’re going to come for you and the identities that you hold one way or another.
RM: The right is waging this very real fight against trans people, and the tactics they’re using are extensions of what they’ve been using to ban abortion, but also what they’ve been using to defund resources for people with disabilities. And so we just would love to hear you talk more about what you think the response should be from organizers who aren’t already fighting for trans rights and disability justice, and also from Democrats in office, right?
Cazembe Jackson: Yeah, the Democrats in office are embarrassing.
RM: To put it simply, yes.
Cazembe Jackson: To put it simply, and this is not what we elected you to do for the most part, so do better. But yeah, I think what organizers should be doing or talking about, I’m a trainer and really believe in political education as the backbone of movement-building behavior. There’s mad books on queer and trans folks, mad books on abortion access, reproductive justice. Organizers need to be getting familiar with what has gone down because I think history is cyclical. And so if we’re familiar with what has happened and what people have done to fight it, I think it makes us more prepared to be able to understand the issue and fight it. And I think if we can zoom out and see more than just this moment, but see what became before this moment, then we can actually start to envision what can happen in the future.
Also, one of my other organizations that I’m a member of, Southerners on New Ground, part of the slogans they say is that you have to be willing to be transformed in the service of the work. That could mean a whole lot of things, but to me, I think it means if you started organizing around reproductive justice 10 years ago, you shouldn’t be on the same stuff anyway. You should have transformed by now and be willing to learn new things and to do new things. I’m not the same person I was when I first came to We Testify, and I think that’s what has to happen because doing the same things with the same people and the same thinking is not going to bring us new results.
RBS: Something you’ve talked about so brilliantly is the difference between wealthier white folks asking for insurance to cover IVF, IUI, and whatever other reproductive assistive technologies that they might need to become pregnant or build families, but a whole bunch of Black and brown people don’t even have insurance or the money to afford those services. Why is it bullshit that if people are sitting here asking for insurance to cover all these reproductive technologies, but people don’t even actually have insurance, living wages, all of those things?
Cazembe Jackson: I feel like that’s a loaded question. It’s heavy because there’s a lot of people who want to make families, and it definitely is harder. I think in my opinion, it’s harder for queer and trans people and disabled people, and it really to me does boil down to bodily autonomy and self-determination for all of those groups of folks. I think when we talk about how many folks don’t have insurance or a way to get fertilization treatment and all of that, Black and brown people are creative and queer people too. I don’t know how long it has been, but definitely, in the time that I’ve been queer in the last 30 years, I have definitely seen us be creative, lesbians partnering with men to have babies, and I mean trans men and trans women being in relationships.
I don’t think that it’s just to get pregnant and have babies. Obviously, trans people are hot and they fall in love with each other, so that happens. But also it’s a creative way to beat back at the system to be able to make our own families when that’s what we want. But I think the contradiction of white people with insurance, Black and brown people without insurance wanting the same things is another symptom of capitalism because capitalism says somebody’s got to be at the bottom being withheld their rights and resources in order for the system to work.
RM: You’ve offered some really great call to actions already, but in every episode we do directly also ask folks to give a call to action to our listeners. Is there a resource you think people listening to this podcast should absolutely check out or contribute to?
Cazembe Jackson: When I’m thinking about call to action, I’m like donate to your local abortion fund and check out a training on how to become an abortion doula. Go volunteer. Drive somebody to an abortion or hang out with them afterwards. It’s so many different ways that folks can be involved that doesn’t have to be telling your story, but also tell your story. Because the more of us that are telling our stories about our abortions, the more normalized it becomes and it helps to remove the stigma that so many people place around abortion.
RBS: I love that. So thank you so much for joining our podcast. It’s so good to chat with you. And now it’s time for our segment. There are other books where we go where no person has ever gone before in exploring a book related to abortion that is not the Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a hard task, but someone has to do it and we’re up for it.
RM: We have to do it.
RBS: We’ll do it. Today we are talking about Detransition Baby by Tori Peters. And before we started recording Regina, you were just telling me that you just finished reading it.
RM: Yes, like last night, like a minute before I went to sleep. I really enjoyed this book, but it took me forever because there’s so much sex in the book. I normally listen to books while I’m driving around town with my three-year-old. I started listening to this book without realizing it is very much an adult book, so I had to keep stopping it and only listening to it when I was alone. But there is so much here to unpack. But first, Renee, can you tell the people what the book is about?
RBS: Detransition Baby is the debut novel and national bestseller by Tori Peters. It is one of the few bestselling books by a trans writer. The book centers on three characters. Ames, a white person who recently detransitioned from a trans woman. Reese, Ames’ white ex-girlfriend, who is also trans. And Katrina, a biracial Asian cis woman and Ames’ boss who Ames has an office affair with that turns into something a bit more complicated when Katrina realizes she is pregnant. When Ames and Reese were together, they wanted to have a child together, but they broke up in the past. And so as Ames is deciding about his parenting role with Katrina, he explains that he does want a parent, but he also wants to do it with Reese as well.
So they’re trying to figure out whether this triad of people can be parents together as Katrina and Reese are just meeting each other. To me, the story was so beautiful because it’s really about choosing family and the entire book centers on trans identity, womanhood, and a pregnancy decision, and whether these three people want to parent this child together or whether they should all go their separate ways. It’s so beautiful in thinking about quote unquote choice as a concept and people and the families that we choose.
RM: Yeah, and one of the most powerful aspects of the book for me was how the pregnancy brings up questions about identity for all of the characters. We don’t get that often because there’s so much emphasis put on the pregnancy and not necessarily the impact of the pregnancy and the life of the child being born and how that’s going to shift how a person even understands themselves and how they interact with the world. And so I just really appreciated how the book explores this in particular, through the lens of trans and queer folks, which we don’t get often.
RBS: I also just really loved the exploration of womanhood throughout the book in all of its forms, everyone’s experiences with it. It was really great. So there we go. There are other books.
RM: There are other books written by trans people too.
RBS: Written by trans people with abortion in it. Love it.
RM: Well thank you again for joining us for another episode of The A Files. That’s it for our episode today. For links to any of the articles and books we’ve mentioned, you can visit our website at wearethemeteor.com/theafiles.
RBS: See y’all next time. The A Files is produced for the Meteor by LWC Studios. Our hosts are me, Renee Bracey Sherman, and Regina Mahone. Our executive producers at the Meteor are me, Renee Bracey Sherman, and Regina Mahone, Cindi Leive, and Tara Abrahams. At LWC Studios, our executive producer is Juleyka Lantigua. Paulina Velasco is our managing producer, and our producer is Anne Lim. Kojin Tashiro is our sound designer and engineer.
RM: This podcast is produced with support from the Meteor Fund, the Meteor’s non-Profit Initiative. Additional thanks to Pop Culture Collaborative for their support. You can subscribe to The A Files wherever you get your podcasts. And please take a second to rate us. Five stars please. And leave us a review, it would mean a lot.
RBS: For links to any resources mentioned in this episode or for more information, visit our website at wearethemeteor.com/theafiles. You can follow us on social media @RBraceySherman on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter and @ReneeBraceySherman on Instagram for me. For Regina, she’s @byReginaMahone on the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter and Instagram, and you can follow the Meteor, @TheMeteor on all platforms. Thanks for listening. Thanks for saying the word abortion. And remember, everyone loves someone who’s had an abortion.
CITATION:
Bracey Sherman, Renee, and Mahone, Regina, host. “We’re Past “Safe, Legal, and Rare.” The A Files, The Meteor and Lantigua Williams & Co., February 14, 2024. Themeteor.com/theafiles