In this episode, we're joined by Natalie Birnbaum to discuss the emerging challenges of increased abortion restrictions and the unintended consequences of restrictive laws on healthcare providers and patients.
The very real, human, tragic fallout courtesy of the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing assault on reproductive healthcare access and women's rights: in this week’s episode, we’re honored to host Natalie Birnbaum, a distinguished attorney and policy consultant with over a decade of experience in reproductive health, rights, and justice-related advocacy. As the founder of ReproSolutions, Natalie is dedicated to integrating human-centered healthcare systems, destigmatizing abortion and sexual autonomy, and dismantling the systems that uphold and perpetuate systemic inequalities. She dives into the emerging challenges of increased abortion restrictions, the broader implications on healthcare innovation and legal aspects, and the unintended consequences of restrictive laws on healthcare providers and patients while stressing the need for policy reform to address systemic inequities and ensure comprehensive healthcare access for all.
Lastly, we end on an absolute rager of a high note! This is for all the Swifties listening!
Thanks for listening, learning, and being you. And join us back here every Tuesday for all things uterus, in service to you, uterinekind.
Here we are. Continued assaults on female rights to health care. An NFL kicker kicks women's dreams to the curb. And no, the Equal Rights Amendment still has not been published to the Constitution. I'm Carol Johnson, and this is Hello, Uterus.
On the bright side, money's flowing toward female health research, but as we await the innovations, we need to protect the right to medically appropriate care. Sending a woman to the parking lot to bleed out a little more and forcing healthcare professionals to stand by as their patients suffer. These are not the moves of a society that values humans equally.
You don't need proof, but here's some. The commencement speaker at a college graduation, who also happens to be the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, shamed female graduates for dreaming of careers. and told them that their greatest contribution is to serve their husbands and procreate. Gross. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you want women to procreate, support them. Controlling them is not supporting them. Here's some quick hits on where we're at with reproductive health care. Nearly 7 million of the country's 11. 8 million black women of reproductive age live in states with abortion restrictions or plans to implement them. This illustrates the number of black women affected by abortion restrictions across the country. A report was released on Wednesday by the National Partnership for Women and Families and the organization In Our Own Voice.
indicating this incredibly Frightening statistic. Louisiana may soon become the first state in the country to pass a bill adding two common abortion pills to the state's list of controlled dangerous substances, leading individuals who are caught with the drugs and lack a prescription to potentially face years in prison.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James is appealing a county court ruling that removed the Equal Rights Amendment from the November ballot in New York due to a procedural error. I mean, really, the, the quest to keep the ERA from being published to the Constitution is is of epic proportions. The New York State Constitution bans discrimination based on race, color, creed, and religion, but the proposed amendment would add age, disability, gender identity, reproductive health care status, and other classifications to the list.
Pretty good stuff. but it's being blocked for procedural error. So yeah, they're still fighting the ERA. Why is that? Because taking away rights is a lot harder when foundational rights to equality are protected by the constitution. So if the ERA is never published, ratified and published to the constitution, just, it's just that much easier to take away rights from the Constitution.
the population of females, which is over half the population in this country. This is a lot to swallow, but we have to stay on top of it and we have to stand up for our rights and be active in ensuring that the Equal Rights Amendment is ratified and published to the Constitution. We're going to take a quick break.
When we come back, Natalie Birnbaum will join us.
Carol: Natalie Birnbaum is an attorney and policy consultant with over a decade of experience in reproductive health, rights, and justice related advocacy. She is founder of the legal and policy firm ReproSolutions PC, which specializes in blending comprehensive movement lawyering with healthcare regulatory and corporate advising for abortion providers, Telehealth companies and stakeholders.
She is currently policy counsel at RITES, the Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity and Solutions, and of counsel with the LA based healthcare regulatory firm Nelson Harteman LLP. Natalie sees the law as a tool for collective liberation. She's dedicated to integrating human centered healthcare systems, destigmatizing abortion and sexual autonomy, and dismantling the systems that uphold and perpetuate systemic inequalities.
We need like a million people doing that alongside of Natalie. She began her career as an AMLA 100 litigator, authoring legislative policy and amicus briefs, including co authoring an amicus brief on behalf of reproductive justice organizations in the Dobbs case at the Fifth Circuit. She's consulted for leading organizations, including the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Natalie is currently co chair of the New York Bar Association Sex and Law Committee and is a frequent contributor to the American Health Law Association. It is such a joy to have her here with us. Based on that bio, you can quickly understand that we have an expert here who has been, deeply embedded in all things reproductive access and equitable access along with abortion rights and telehealth.
And how the repeal of Roe impacts the ability to access care. Natalie, thank you for joining us on Hello Uterus.
Natalie: Thank you, Carol, for having me. It's such a joy to be here speaking with you. I loved meeting you at the Reproductive Health Innovation Summit a few weeks ago. Of course, right before the Alabama IVF ruling came down, feels like a very long time ago. But yeah, it's, it's a real pleasure to be here.
Thank you. Carol.
Carol: Absolutely. Yeah, that was quite a swinging of the pendulum to go from a week where we were immersed in progress for female health to only then come out of that, conference and walk straight into the essentially outlawing of IVF, which has now been saved by the governor of Alabama, but saved for how long?
You know, one of the things that I hope we, get out of today's call is just a, an understanding of how, the lack of structure to the repeal of Roe and, and the cascade of problems that resulted. actually my lead question to you is what key problems have emerged that legislators in the Supreme Court did not consider when removing access to reproductive healthcare from females.
And I know that there was a clear agenda there, but I wonder did they really think it all the way through? And, and we can use Alabama as an example.
Natalie: Yeah, it's a great question. And, you know, I guess I'll just start by emphasizing like, of course, they thought it through. They have, you know, if you look at like the 2025 plan, anyone can Google out if they want a terrifying, you know, midnight read on exactly what the agenda is here. But, you know, these restrictions have been you. been slowly being chipped away at our bodily autonomy and rights for a very long time. The plan to be clear is to restrict women, femmes and girls of their bodily autonomy. Particularly women, femmes, and girls of color in this country that already have the least amount of access to healthcare resources, And if we look at exactly the policies that have been in place and the different laws that have been introduced and passed even while Roe was good law, we can see a very clear pattern of the degradation of rights and bodily autonomy. throughout the years. So for context, in 1992, there was a case called Planned Parenthood versus Casey, which gave the states back more rights to determine when a pregnant person could get an abortion.
And so this opened the doorway for states, particularly Republican legislators and extreme anti abortion actors to start to legislate targeted regulation of abortion provider laws, which have created these really unnecessary and onerous restrictions around clinics, everything from like zoning laws to unnecessary medical forms to requirements of needing to inform their patient of an ultrasound and having to look at the ultrasound before choosing whether or not to get an abortion banning Medicaid, you know, federal funding for abortions under the Hyde Amendment are not available and obviously this impacts lower income and black and brown communities who are more likely to rely on Medicaid than anyone else.
So These laws have been slowly chipping away at the right to access abortion, even while Roe was on the books. To the point where, when Dobbs actually reached the courts, they were the last clinic standing. it's not like all of a sudden there was access and all, and then there wasn't when Roe fell, right?
Like, this has been a very calculated attack to the point where we look at the, surprise to some people where it got taken to the IVF extreme. Well, how could it be? How could it be that embryos were suddenly included in this calculation? Well, if you've been like in the movement and reading these laws for the past however many decades, it wasn't at all a surprise because there have been legislation introduced in past using language of fetal personhood, which Includes, in some state language, embryos, and I read a law from Ohio yesterday that included blastiocytes.
What the hell is that? It's like, it's like five days after fertilization, and I think they even spelled it wrong. I think it's like blasto, blastocyte,
Carol: they spelled it wrong.
Natalie: it's like not even the right thing, but like, that's the level of extremity we're working with here. So like, when we have laws that create fetal personhood and prohibit Any agency on behalf of the woman or pregnant person from the time of fertilization, I mean, yeah, of course the logical conclusion is then that IVF is going to be banned because we have been said legally that an embryo has more rights than Than a living, breathing human being.
Carol: Yeah. And I wonder if they can define embryo, like if there was a test. With 10 questions of the just general questions and when I say they I just mean people that are legislating or attempting to legislate or judges like Legitimately, do you think that they have? definitions for what Blastocyte is what an embryo is.
Do they know, in what cases abortion, which is health care is brought to bear in order to, to afford someone access to healthcare. Like, do they know what they're talking about?
Natalie: Yeah, I mean, I love that. Just gonna highlight abortion is healthcare. Love that you said that. Do they know what they're talking about? What they know is that they're assigning something else rights and sovereignty that isn't a woman or a pregnant person. So to them that is the goal. But You know, that is the group of extremists, and I, and this isn't a binary, right?
Like, there isn't just, like, the evil antis and, like, the do gooder, like women that want to access their, their livelihoods. There's a whole group of people in the middle that really, like, don't know what's going on, and when they hear things like pro life, they're like, yeah, of course I'm pro life. Like, of course, I'm pro life.
Like, I am. But what does that mean? Right? Like, that means, like, I'm pro the living. I'm pro the perpetuation of a life. I'm, like, in the reproductive justice framework, I'm pro a life where, you know, I have the right to choose to become pregnant. I have the right to choose not to become pregnant. I have the right to have children.
And I have the right not to have children. And I have the right to live in a life Where I have bodily sovereignty and integrity and can live with dignity. And that's what I mean when I say that I'm pro life, but you know, now what we see happening, in fact, to your first question of like, what are the unintended consequences that I think a lot of people in the middle, or maybe people that were like, well, it's not my key voting issue.
Or yeah, okay. Like, I don't think, I don't believe in the murder of babies, like in that mindset, like that's not what we're talking about here. So I think people in that. Area, maybe those unintended consequences that we didn't consider are like restrictions on IVF and also the impact on women's healthcare and maternal healthcare more broadly, there are OB GYN units closing all throughout the country, and particularly in rural areas.
Hospitals are closing their maternity services and there are. Already maternal care deserts, but they're being Exacerbated, you know in tenfolds and even more Terrifying than that is down the road There are much much fewer choices for medical students that want to match in ob gyn programs and learn abortion Which by the way, you need to learn how to give an abortion If you are learning how to deliver a baby, it's like how, like you don't like learn a heart surgery, like how to do heart surgery without learning like what to do if it goes wrong.
Right. Like so because of these laws and criminalization risk, like it's just not being taught to med students. So even like where we're already in a place where there are maternal care deserts and abortion care deserts. We're just not going to have doctors that are trained to provide women's health care.
Carol: Yeah. And, I know that we've been chipping away for at a state level at these laws But when I think about physicians and the physicians that I've spoken to in their world They are so Overwhelmed With their jobs and with the administrative burden that they have to deal with
and now you layer on legal complexity and you layer on changes in the standard of care. And these are changes that have not gone through proper channels. They're, they're changes in the standard of care that have been dictated from people who are not clinicians. And so to your point, you know, when someone is looking at, well, should I be an orthopedic surgeon?
where I'm going to make, make X amount of money and I'm going to have access to the OR and I'll have the support of my health system because I'm a valuable provider for them, or am I going to pursue OBGYN where I don't know if I'm going to be able to practice healthcare. I don't know if I'm going to get shut down.
And you know, I want to talk more about this cascade of, unintended consequences, or maybe it would, maybe another word would be or another phrase would be they simply didn't care about.
Natalie: Mm.
Carol: I don't know that they thought about What happens to innovation and funding?
Like people have to look at how they're going to direct. their dollars. And so are you going to support advancements in, and boy, do we need these? I mean, we've been on the same 52 flavors of birth control for decades, right? So what, are we going to get advancements in birth control if there's the potential that birth control will be banned?
Are we going to have advancements in IVF if there's the potential that at any point in time, IVF could be halted in, in one or more states? These are the questions that the people with the money to fund the innovators are asking or having to defend. And my fear is that, you know, again, another, another pendulum moment here, we're at, at a point where through the White House initiative on women's health research, we're getting access to hundreds of millions of dollars to direct toward research.
And, and then I wonder, well, what happens if. If the administration changes and we don't have access to healthcare, I mean, Natalie, can you help us try to, to come to a center point where, because right now I sort of feel overwhelmed by the swinging of this pendulum and it makes me feel concerned that I'm not directing or we're not directing our efforts in the right place.
How do we deal with this chaos?
Natalie: right. It's a, great question. And, and the context of all of these unintended consequences or far reaching impacts that go way beyond just the question of abortion is really critical to understanding, you know, our present moment and our future. So what I'm hearing is the two areas here that.
And what I understand, the two main areas that I focus on that are really impacted are health care, well, health care generally and innovation. And when we talk about health care, we're talking about, you know, particularly women's health care, maternal health care but also just health care generally, right?
Like And so starting there, we can just look at the Mifepristone case which is Alliance for, Hippocratic Medicine versus the FDA, which is going to be entering the oral arguments next week on March 26th, This case is essentially a group of anti abortion extremists specifically set up an entity in a jurisdiction called Armadillo, Texas, where there was a federally appointed judge, a Trump appointee, that If they set up little shop in this district, then they would have the opportunity to bring this case before this Trump appointed judge, right?
So they do that. Great job. Very innovative. there's one type of innovation that's thriving.
Carol: Yeah
Natalie: so anyway, so this case calls into question, the FDA's entire new drug approval process. The standards in which they have done so, the research they relied on, and essentially is asking the Supreme Court to say, you know what, the FDA's process is shit, they're wrong, and Mifidpristone should either be taken off the market or the restrictions from however many years ago should be put back on because we don't agree with the FDA's decision making process.
So, that is like, the goal there is to, wow, we want to make sure that no one can access Mifidpristone, because in 2023 alone, over 63 percent of abortions in the United States were done by Mifidpristone. And since Dobbs fell, you know, while surgical, like, DNEs have become even less accessible.
Mifepristone has become more accessible. Okay. So the antis are freaking out. They're like, what do we do? We need to get Mifepristone off the market. So in that narrow focus. They have forgotten about the far reaching consequences on innovation. I mean, what pharmaceutical company is going to invest millions, if not billions of dollars in R& D, to get their drug approved if there's no longer a structure which can be relied upon?
Right? So this isn't just about women's health. I mean, this is one of the rare times that I think, you know, women's health organizations and feminist organizations and anti capitalist groups are aligned with, pharmaceutical companies because we actually have a common interest here, which is In this scenario, upholding the FDA's integrity and approval process and not subjecting it to the whims of political extremists.
So that's like one piece of the innovation of just like the United States. innovative capacity is going to be completely harmed if we don't have this reliable structure. The second piece is just drug research generally. I mean, Mifepristone, there are trials currently being run to see how Mifi can be used to, you know, to deal with PCOS and as birth control.
And there's So much potential for this drug in other areas of women's health care that we just can't touch. And then the third piece is like beyond innovation. We are going a million steps backwards into like coercive surgeries as a result of these abortion bans into Forcing women into near death experiences.
Doctors in Texas are so afraid of being accused of giving an abortion that they are sending women to the parking lots, waiting them to go into septic shock and then saying, Hey, come back in. You're near death enough that I can feel legally safe to give you an abortion. And, you know, like Louisiana is another great example.
NPR just came out with this story how in Louisiana, Louisiana. There has been an increase in forced C-sections for women that are miscarrying or that need abortions because they refuse to go in and give a DNE or cannot give the pill. So the only way is to give a woman a major abdominal surgery when they could either take a pill or have a DNE, which is a relatively simple procedure.
Why are doctors doing this Well in Louisiana? You can face up to 15 years of prison and over 200, 000 in fines for giving an abortion. And that's pretty common, like, numbers in abortion states. And DOBS, I think maybe it was South Carolina that even introduced the death penalty for abortion providers.
So, like, it's crazy. But to that point, right, like, it's important to remember that the abortion bans, what they're really banning is the provision of care. And they're not directly targeting in the most, in most states the patient themselves. And that gives me a bit of hope because women are resilient and we will figure out ways to get the care that we need and we'll continue to fight.
And you know what you said about innovation as well, then like there are some lights, right? Like CVS and Walgreens have started distributing mifepristone in a select number of states in the past two weeks. Opio, the first over the counter birth control is now available. So there are There are still innovations that are kind of like peeking through the cracks of this cement sidewalk, but it is, it's a challenge and, you know, we'll see what happens with this Miffy case, but, hopefully the Supreme Court will rule on the right side of forget abortion, but just like regulatory policy.
Carol: exactly. The, the ability for people, for consumers at, at some point who may become patients to know that they're able to access the best available treatments, not just the ones that a certain segment of the population deems appropriate. you know, just speaking about the complexities, right?
How, what doctors have to navigate, what patients have to navigate. There was a story this week about a 12 year old who was the victim of rape and became pregnant and her mother did not know, did not understand the regulations so when she went to access care for her daughter. her child.
the physicians were, sort of disengaged because they didn't want to put themselves in any position that could be problematic where they'd end up in jail. And because she wasn't educated, she couldn't advocate and she didn't know how to navigate the law. that seems by design, is that accurate?
Natalie: of course, you know, of course these laws, they're, they're written in a way that is so specific and so confusing that, you know, as a lawyer working in this issue, it takes me, I, I can't tell you what these, what the law, what these laws say. They're like, written so, so complexly and so nuanced that it takes so long to just try and discern meaning.
And then they're, they conflict in, This portion of the law conflicts with that portion of the law. And yes, the confusion is the point because confusion freezes care. Confusion freezes your willingness to take your life and your actions into your own hands. And particularly this is targeting people that do not have access to information because they essentially what, the impact is, is, you know, there isn't.
by any means, adequate sex ed education in this country, there isn't easy access to discerning what laws say. You just hear that abortion is banned and you're terrified and you, the majority of the people that are impacted are already living in heavily surveilled populations. So again, going back to the example of Louisiana, Louisiana has the highest carceral population in the country.
And there is no way to get an abortion there, legally, unless, you know, you order the pills online, and there are different ways of doing that, but there's no way for a provider in Louisiana to give you an abortion legally. And, of course, there There is a clear pattern here between the populations being targeted.
I mean, why, why is it that you can't get funding from Medicaid for abortion care, right? Like, coastal people with access, or people with money and access, will be able to travel. They will be able to have the legal defense needed if it comes to that, to get the care that they need. But, Immigrant populations, non English speakers, lower income populations, black and brown women.
Black women have three times higher maternal mortality rates in this country than white women. I mean, It is intentional. And from like the movement lawyering side like we are busy trying to understand and decipher. What does this say? What does that say and that you know, unfortunately Keeps us largely in a reactive headspace trying to figure out what's legal and what's not because the stakes are really high We don't want another person going to jail.
We don't want a woman to be criminalized for her pregnancy outcome So we don't want to give the wrong advice
Carol: there's two things that I want to follow up on. One, one is the education. I'm so glad that you brought that up because I, I think that that is a real part of the problem here. But before we talk about education. When you look at the way these laws are written, the perspective of a lawyer, could you defend, like, do you feel confident that you would be able to defend someone?
Or, based on how the laws are written, did they make it such that you can't adequately defend someone?
So if a physician made a decision to not send a person out to the parking lot and, some series of events happened where she spontaneously aborted, but you know, there was a physician in the room, like there's a thousand scenarios of How a patient can be impacted by either you know, a pregnancy that's gone awry or you know, needing to access abortion.
And then the physician is sitting there saying, okay, we need to do something to help this person. Like, do you feel that the laws were written in such a way that even if someone legitimately followed them, that there could still be the possibility that they would go to prison?
Natalie: well, yeah, of course, like, listen. It depends on what jurisdiction you're in, it depends on who the prosecutor is. Like, if you are in a jurisdiction where, like, there are anti abortion extremists in charge, they will jump through whatever hoops they want, including calling a embryo a human being to, make sure that there is no access to abortion care.
That being said, Of course, a provider, a healthcare provider and clinician should be able to make the decision that is in line with the standard of care to serve their patient. that's why you have, different organizations asking state medical boards, like the state of Texas, to clarify what they mean by these abortion bans, because something you mentioned earlier was this, like, false language that's being created by lawyers and legislators.
that's interfering with medical care. And that's exactly it, right? Like what is a viability standard, right? Like what is a heartbeat band? What are we talking about here? Like doctors and clinicians have a different language for these things that are in line with their standard of care. And because there is this confusion of like what they know the vocabulary and vernacular to be and what the laws say, that confusion creates that freeze of care.
Because we're speaking two different languages, because it's not, it's not really reconcilable. And so there's this fear that the way a judge will interpret this will be against that provider. And, and even more so just, doctors are doing high risk stuff already. Like, they don't want to get embroiled in, in the law and lawsuits and risk losing their entire practice.
Carol: Yep. Absolutely. And you know, it's, it's, it's wild. There's a situation happening right now with endometriosis and ACOG creating codes so that physicians, surgeons can get properly compensated for excision surgery of endometriosis lesions. And it's taking, it's going to take them until 2027. So they've been working on this Standard of care that then, is able to be related to codes that, that indicate how much surgeons will get paid.
They've been working on it for years.
Natalie: right.
Carol: this stuff doesn't get cracked overnight and implemented the next morning. And that, that while there was this ongoing effort to chip away at these rights from a, from a provider's perspective, it's still to a degree felt like an overnight change in how they operated.
You know, they're seeing 20, 30 patients a day, their days are, completely stacked and they're, they're not sitting there going, Hmm, okay, let's see, how would I change my standard of care? And how can I plan for that? And let's meet as a, as a health system, you know, like there was no planning going on.
Carol: So it's just remarkable to me, the disregard of, proper procedures in light of the seriousness of this. And I guess that that speaks to the agenda and the intention of those who fought so hard to repeal our right to, or to limit our access to healthcare. I wanted to talk about education.
One of the Things that I think about often is the power of words and how words shape our reactions to things. And when, when I look at abortion, I feel like the word abortion was hijacked and weaponized and used in, in tandem with murder rather than the clinical procedure that it is.
And, and then I also think about the, the word miscarriage and how that is such a, such a clear representation of, of so much that is wrong with our society and how they view women and girls that, that it, it is the fault of and Blame should be placed on the pregnant person for not being able to carry to full term this pregnancy when, in fact, what it is is a spontaneous abortion.
And we didn't use those two words, spontaneous abortion. And people don't even know, like, they think of, especially in the United States especially among privileged populations, they consider pregnancy to be, like, unicorn glitter and rainbows, but it is one of the most dangerous experiences that we can have as females.
It is, a lot can go wrong and a lot does go wrong with pregnancies, especially in underserved populations. And so I feel like when we don't have a good foundation of education, around our bodies, then we become much more manipulatable.
Natalie: Mm.
Carol: so can you speak to, your thoughts on not just sex ed, but, but also just the education around the female body?
And, and how it is it's been de prioritized in favor of extreme focus on the exterior of the female body, rather than educating on the interior so that we can make choices for our for ourselves and specifically healthcare choices.
Natalie: Mm. Oh my god, Carol. There's so much I want to say here.
Carol: I cannot wait to hear it. This keeps me up at night because it is you know, education is not shiny, right? It's something that gets kind of tacked on at the end. Like, Oh, we should maybe do a, an infographic on this. And I'm like, Oh boy, we have a lot more than that to do.
Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen. I, firstly. What you said reminded me of something my rabbi said, which is words create worlds.
Carol: Oh gosh. Yes.
Natalie: yeah, it just, it rings so true. And the, you know, going back to something you spoke about earlier is like the, even the division of pro life and pro choice, you know, pro choice also falls short, right?
It's not, it's not necessarily your choice. You may not want to have an abortion, but you have survived a rape. Is that a choice? You know, you have three kids and you're living under the poverty line. You don't want to have an abortion. Is that a choice? Like, what do we say when we're talking about choice here?
What do we say when we're talking about life? But these are the narratives in which we are framing it. And I, I'm really struck what you said about miscarriage. Yeah. Like I read this article. that was studying medical language in England in like the early 1990s and 1980s. And at that point, they were only using elective abortion and spontaneous abortion. And that, like just the word spontaneous abortion, I feel in my body like, ah, I didn't even know, like until you said that, how much the word miscarriage actually impacted me. And what that does is it really devalues my life, my worthiness, right? Like, and something that really struck me at the conference that we, that we met at was there was so much focus on dealing with the stigma of infertility, dealing with the impact of not being able to have children that were so much focused on IVF, which is so important. Again, if we're not also including abortion in those conversations, what that signals to me is that we're still orienting ourselves in a world where a female body's worth revolves around their ability to produce and become a mother.
Carol: Yeah.
Natalie: that's not the framing I choose to live in or want to live in.
I want to live in a world where our pleasure is centered, right? Like, what if we actually learned about female pleasure? How much we would fall in love with our bodies instead of being so afraid and ashamed of them. So, I mean, that's like totally on, it's one thing to learn about the option of abortion in a sex ed class and not be, you know, mired to an abortion sorry, a abstinence only context or content.
But there's another thing to actually, like, learn about the pleasure and the joy that is the female body, just on its own, without its reproductive capacity. And I believe that the more we can, as femmes and women and girls, get in touch with our love of our bodies and our pleasure, the more curious we'll become because like, pleasure invites curiosity, right?
And we're not living in a world where that's handed to us. Quite the opposite. We're not educated about our bodies. We're not educated about sex. Especially if you're living in states with again, abstinence only or abstinence plus sex ed policies. But even if you're living in a state like New York, like, what's the sex ed policy here?
Carol: Yeah, it's something really, worthy of sitting with this information and allowing oneself to, to kind of follow the cascade that it's been the theme of our talk today, right? Like one, one decision throws off just, a tremendous amount of friction that then just scurries out throughout society and it ends up the thing that is so, not surprising, but very hard to metabolize is that it ends up reinforcing shame and hatred for our bodies, right?
Like imagine, imagine the experience that someone goes through. Like I know deeply from, from just a disease state, right? You have fibroids, you have endometriosis, you have PCOS. Having those conditions can create an environment where you, you are mad or angry or hate your body.
now layer on. the complexity of not being able to access healthcare, regardless of the situation, right?
decision to not be pregnant is not a decision now that people are allowed to make on their own. I cannot, I cannot. And that basically says, and this might be for when you and I have part two, um, that, that basically says that you are a second class citizen, your rights are not important. and then.
What happens when, people don't have access to healthcare, they've, they are now potentially not being able to access birth control. We have to be thinking about this, right, that this is a potential, so they can't access birth control. And so now people are becoming pregnant without necessarily having a say in it.
And then we have a situation where women are not able to participate in the workforce. And so now they're, they're not in jobs. And the jobs that they can be in would involve things like neighborhood child care and things like that. And so now we have her back in the home and dependent upon a male figure.
and this is where I think, late at night in certain circles, I think this is, this is the holy grail conversation that they're having, that her right to vote will be tied to a male member of her household. Whether that's a partner or it's a relative and, you know, people can say like, Oh my gosh, like you're being ridiculous right now.
And it's like, really, am I? Cause, this happens in other countries and,
Natalie: Yes, this happens in our country. If you look at the disenfranchisement of black and brown populations and gerrymandering and, like, the inability to get a black vote to actually count in the states like Mississippi because of the way Districts have been restructured like this is already voter suppression is alive and well in this country and now it's coming for women and now it's coming for white women.
So, you know, like we have all of the data in front of us. We have places within our own country and populations in our own country that we can look to, to see, oh, this, this is what happens. This is what's happening. And. We can get, we can, you know, expand our own circles and collaborate and work together to, to take back our power.
But realize this is not happening in a silo. This is not something new. conservatives, the extremists are broadening their circle and we have the opportunity to broaden ours as well. And there are a lot more people in our circle. Uh, Uh,
Carol: wrap this, this really fascinating conversation that's going to stay with me for a long time. is that, We do have power, but we have to execute on that. We have to use it and become involved in, in whatever way that feels good to you.
And from that perspective, Natalie, can you recommend any places that people can go to either learn more or to become involved, to be able to do something in their local community? That, that is educational, right? So it's, yes, vote, but what else can we be doing to educate people so they understand the impact of what's happening and how they can play a role in alleviating the problems?
Natalie: it's a great question. I think the first thing I would say is vote, vote, um, We may not like who the candidates are. We may have disagreements, but there are really, really clear and severe consequences if we get a Republican in any office at this stage in the game. So vote for pro choice candidates.
And elect them and stand behind them because that is a direct line to your autonomy in this country. So that's the first thing. Second thing is donate to abortion funds. You can look up who the local abortion funds are in your state. You can go look at ReproCare's website, RHAP the Reproductive Health Care Access Project.
And just stay up to date from like the Center for Reproductive Rights. Go to Plan C Pills. You can find out where you can get, depending on your state, where you can get care, where you can get pills from and the different ways you can do that and have conversations about your body. And it also starts in the home, right?
Like talk to the men in your life. Get them on this team. Talk to your father, to your husband, to your partner, to your brother, to your friend. Have the conversations, because if we're not having the hard conversations with the people we trust, with the people who love us, with the people that love our bodies, then no one else is gonna, no one else is gonna do that.
Carol: Absolutely. And, and if we, and, and what's keeps us from having those conversations are societal conditioning that's been going on forever. We need to step outside of that, get over the, the taboo and the discomfort because it's not real. It's, it's been, it's been sort of slathered on us as opposed to allowing us just to talk openly and from a place of, of ridiculous excitement because these bodies are wildly cool.
And, and it's so, yeah, the thing that really makes me mad is that, that as females, we have not been allowed to walk around and feel how cool these bodies are. We only are allowed to experience that sense of, Sort of, you know, delight or thrill at being in the body if we're if we're You know, wearing short skirts and high heels and we're out there, you know, falling into the sort of patriarchal view of what the female body exists for.
I think that the thing that, I get excited about, and I'm someone who has very frank conversations with my 16 and 18 year old sons who know everything about the menstrual
Natalie: Amen. Amen. Amen. Cool.
Carol: I sit them down and, and if it starts out making them listen, and what ends up happening over a period of time, is that they just are naturally educated and so none of it's weird.
None of it's weird. If their friend is like, Oh, you know, does anybody have a tampon? Like my kids are not weirded out by that stuff. And no one should be. It's a tampon. We all menstruate. What's like, what is the deal here? How did we get so, get, get so lost? You know? So we, and I, and we all know the answer to that.
So yes, have conversations that like, just, it's really fun. And so getting over that first uncomfortable feeling, if it exists at all, do it, go for it and talk openly with with your community about, The, the, the female body and, and then work your way toward getting educated on the conditions that impact it and what's normal and not normal with menstruation so that we can get back on a solid footing and be able to advocate for our right to healthcare and abortion is healthcare.
It always has been.
Natalie: Amen.
Carol: Natalie Birnbaum, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. I want to let you know that you can connect with Natalie via LinkedIn. You can also visit her website, ReproSolutions. co, and you can also Follow her on TikTok at Repro underscore Nat with one T N A T. This has been fabulous.
Thank you for everything that you are doing to protect the right to access to healthcare for females. Natalie,
Natalie: Thank you so much, Carol. It was great being a guest on your show. And connecting with you and your audience.
We'll be right back with ending on a high note.
Female Rage the Musical may be coming to the stage. So Taylor Swift, if you've been under a rock, has released a new album called The Tortured Poets Department, and there is a track on there called Who's Afraid of Little Old Me. After she played it live in Paris, she jumped on social and dropped the phrase, Female Rage the Musical.
Actually, somebody else on social might've dropped it before her and then she got on the bandwagon, but people responded. Why? Because there's a lot of female rage right now. And sure enough, within 24 hours, someone on Taylor's team went to USPTO. gov and registered a application for Female Rage the Musical.
There's enough rage to go around for a multi hour extravaganza of epic proportions. I can't wait for this, actually. It's going to be really cathartic. I think, I think we could all write multiple songs just based on the last few years alone that get at why we're mad.
And we have a right to be mad, but we also need to be focused and, not allow the events that are happening specifically with regard to taking away rights from the female population to take away our spirit, to deplete us. We can't do that because we need to stand up and support each other, all of us, we need to stand up and support all of the people who are struggling to access care and to live a high quality life in a society that is working very hard, some of them in the society are working very hard to take those rights away.
So we're here with you to support you and, keep you informed. I want to thank Natalie for joining us, Angel for being the best producer, our team at UterineKind and the thousands of members using the UterineKind app for free. So go download it and allow it to assist you in taking control of your healthcare.
We'll be back with another episode of Hello Uterus. Till then. Be well, be cool, be kind.