Quick note, this podcast was recorded before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, and by the time you listen, things may have changed. Hey. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on the show. Today, we're doing something a little different now. Back in December, I sat down with O B. G u i n an abortion provider Dr Goslamoietti, to discuss abortion bands in Texas right after s B eight was introduced. We talked about misconceptions about abortion, the anti abortion movements, roots of it in white supremacy, and how abortion has become more about politics than science in America. Now we know the buzz that is happening around the nation this year, so we wanted to follow up on that conversation and invite Dr Moiety back on the show. Dr Moyetti, thank you for being here again, I promised the third time bringing back his be about something happy. Alright, please please, problem was gonna be puppies. We will bring you back for the puppy episode the scene. Also joining us as the founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. Renee Bracy Sherman, welcome to be on the scenes. Thank you so much for having me. Let's dig in here because we are we have a lot of time pack here. Dr Moyetti. Last we talked, you were based in Texas but traveling to Oklahoma to give care. But now Oklahoma has passed and enacted some of the most restrictive abortion bands in the country. Can you run us through how your work has shifted over the past few months based on how these laws start popping up like wacamole. Yeah, So, you know, up until September of last year, I was providing abortion care both in Texas and Oklahoma. Once sp hit, I transition to traveling to Oklahoma pretty consistently to take care of people there. And for the past you know, nine plus months, um, well six seven plus months, I have been going to Oklahoma and taking care of Texans, Oklahoma's, our kans In's, Kansons, Louisiana's, like everyone from our region has been flooding Oklahoma. And that was really up until April from me, so, I had been planning on continuing to go and work there really until the decision came down and Oklahoma decided to yeehaw one more step past Texas and yeah, I haven't been able to go. And so what's on the horizon for me? I mean, Roy, do you have a job, Like, do you need a daily show abortion provider? Does Comedy Central needs someone? Because it's grim? It's grim? What our future hold with regards to that grim future, Madam Sherman, Let's talk a little bit about the Supreme Court for a second. Now. Now, there was a leaked document, you know, a draft of a Supreme Court ruling that would ultimately, yes a shitty draft, that would lead to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Now, as of that second, that hasn't happened yet, but it seems very likely if Roe v. Wade is overturned. What's the risk of if and when that happens. Everything is that risk when that happens, Um, I think we need to take that draft very seriously. We've always been operating that they would and could overturn Roe v. Wade. That was the goal of installing the justices on the Supreme Court that they did, Um, And that's honestly been the goal that they've been working on for the last decade, they have never lied about what they were trying to do. They always wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade because they saw Row v. Wade as a way to install white nationalist Christian control over people. Right. If they could get that, they could control us on a lot of different things. And so they exploited abortion as an issue particularly to impact black and brown people, low income folks, right. And so when they get that, that is kind of this last piece that is holding our ability to decide if, when, and how to grow our families, how to raise our families to be able to live free of state sanctioned violence and coercion. So when the overturn happens, and I'm happy to be wrong, but when it does happen, what we are going to see is large scale mass incarceration of people who are being surveilled simply because they're pregnant and their pregnancies don't end in a healthy labor and delivery. Right. So this isn't just about people who are seeking abortions facing criminalization and harassment, denial of care, all of these human rights violations, but also we're already seeing it for people who have still births. People who have miscarriages, people who use idea, people who maybe use substances or do things that are deemed questionable during their pregnancies. Right, it really is going to impact all of us who are pregnant, could be pregnant, and and put us under this this mass surveillance under the guise of banning abortion. So this is really really impacting all of us. On top of the fact that Roe v. Wade is the bedrock for so many of our freedoms and right to privacy, and so losing that is going to undermine so many freedoms in the next decade or two to come. Dr moyetty, talk to us a little bit about that criminalization side of it, because I know right now, you know Texas and Oklahoma already you know kind of post Roe v. Wade to nin states have bands there approach their round and third and hated for Home as the song will go in center field. Uh, talk to us a little bit about those criminal liabilities that could start the criminalistic ripple effects. Yeah, I mean they've already started. Just a few months ago, we had a national case case that got national tensioned here in Texas. Lizzel Herrera, a woman on the US Mexico border arrested, held on five hundred thousand dollars bond bail for having a miscarriage. Right, it's not even something illegal yet, but the guys of criminality creates vigilantes, vigilantees among physicians, among nurses, among hospitals, community workers, social workers. We already see this happening, and they're they again, they're telling on themselves. This is their plan. Right in Texas last session and I believe the session before, bills were introduced that would require women people that are pregnant to go talk to crisis pregnancy centers, register with them, if you will, with their pregnancies before they were allowed to make an abortion decision. Other states are passing laws where people have to get fake counseling from religious groups, entering them into pregnancy surveillance. Right, Um, this happens surveillance. Who surveying the religious group? How do we know the religious group is qualified? Tell me that I'm qualified. They aren't. They aren't qualified. Right, it's bananas. One thing I want to add is that again this issue has been posed as like something that's happening to people who want and have abortions and so a lot of people kind of look at it as, oh, well, I'm never have an abortion, so this won't impact me. But the reality is that pregnancies can go wrong at any moment. At any moment, anyone could need some type of medical care that would be close to an abortion, or or could be deemed by some religious institution that we don't do that right. And what's really scary about this moment is that they get to dictate the medical care based on religious doctrine and not the health and safety of the patient and what the medical provider, the nurse, the doctor, or the du lah, whoever, whatever they they see in that patient is best. And I think what's also scary about it. I'm gonna pull out one of my favorite books, Professor Michelle Goodman wrote Policing the Womb, and in it she talks about how um there have been pregnant people who have refused certain types of care and their pregnancies because they didn't feel like that's the way that what they wanted to do UM and it wasn't necessary, and doctors have gone to the courts to judges to compel them to go through with a certain type of medical care. And I think what's scary is that we trust our medical providers to show up for us, not turn us into the cops, or turn us into the courts, or turn us into Christian zealots. And that is not only what some have done for years, because again, people have been arrested for the outcomes of their pregnancies for decades, but what the state in these laws is now compelling them to do. And that is what is so scary about this criminalization of abortion and criminalization of pregnancy. Okay, so then to that point, Madam Sherman, Now you've been on the front lines of this issue for years abortion advocacy, right, and so when we start criminalizing the outcomes of a pregnancy and the people, let's just say, I'm the person who drives my friend to go get the abortion, then I'm in the cross theirs too, Right. Does this pressure on pregnant women also extend criminalistically speaking to the people who assist them and getting the abortion and the medical providers who may or may not take action. Is it possible that medical providers feel the need to report people to the police for fear that they themselves could be arrested if they didn't do everything they were supposed to do by whatever weird health surgeon general bullshit that that state has on the books for pregnancy. So as Dr Mayetti can speak about as well, like there's no medical reason for there's no ethics reasons that a medical provider would need to turn in a patient to the police because they might have self managed their abortion in or because something's going wrong in their pregnancy. Um, what all of these laws are designed to do is to isolate the person who's having an abortion, so they have no one to turn to. So they can't tell the truth to their doctor because they're afraid their doctor might turn them in. They can't go to their friend or loved one because they are afraid their friend or loved one might be sued or you know, also face some sort of criminal charges for helping them get an abortion. So what they're doing is isolating us, so we have nobody to turn to for support. And the state is telling everyone that if someone comes to you needs an abortion, your duty, your role is to turn them into the police, not offer them any sort of love, support and care, which that is not how we build communities, That is not how we build families. Right, they're taking what we've seen in the immigration movement where people can't talk about the fact that they are undocumented because they're afraid someone might turn them in. That is really, really scary. And we're creating this mass surveillance in our communities where the government is telling everyday people that it is your duty too if you see something, say something. Well, we already know that that bullshit program does nothing right. We don't need to be exporting it to our communities and to healthcare into how we show up with love and support for one another after the break, Dr Maryetti, I want to get into the rock and a hard place that well, you know it, it ain't a rock and a hard places, so rock and the right thing place it's not hard that a lot of our health care professionals are in and the role that religion plays into how hospitals have decided to treat this whole abortion issue as a whole. We'll be right back. This is beyond the scenes. Now. Let's talk a little bit about the health care system in this country. And you know, we talked a little bit first about the potential people who are affected by this, but let's talk a little bit about the role that the hospitals play in the health of not just pregnant women, but also women who aren't pregnant because these laws that let's just start there. Dr Moyetie talk about how these laws also affect women who aren't even pregnant because the doctors are too scared to prescribe medicine. Yeah. Um, well, right now, in Texas, we had a bill that was enacted, it was passed last year, enacted in December, that made the distribution of medication abortion pills, or any pills that could cause an abortion criminal past seven weeks. So that is not only impacting I mean, we already have this um other abortion band that's p venting abortions at seven weeks. But what we're seeing is that pharmacists aren't dispensing medications that, yes, can be used for an abortion, but are also used to treat other conditions to people that they perceive as women and capable of being pregnant. So that includes chemotherapy medications, rheumatology medications for people that have like rheumatoid arthritis. It includes medications that help someone open their cervix prior to uterine procedure, not in the setting of pregnancy. UM all of that, right, and just because the pharmacist thinks you might be a woman who can potentially get pregnant, they're going to question you about getting your chemotherapy medications. They're refusing to dispense to people because it could potentially be for an abortion, and then the pharmacist could be criminally liable. So it creates this whole system of fear, says suspicion profiling right, gender based profiling Renee. If you could talk a little bit about, like, how do the hospitals themselves, because if it's one thing I know about health care in America, it's not uniform. It ain't McDonald's uniform, and that it sucks well of course, yes, but each hospital got a different rule, each hospital got a different policy. It comes down to the preferences of that particular practitioner. How do the hospitals themselves help determine the kind of care anyone receives, especially when so many of them are run by religious institutions. Right, So, I think what a lot of people don't realize is how many hospitals operate under a religious doctrine, in particular a Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church and and really affiliated hospitals have sort of been buying up hospitals all across the country, and so people don't know that the hospital that they used to go to may have changed hands. And so in an emergency, you might be having a miscarriage or you might want an abortion, whatever it is, and all of a sudden, they say, we don't do that here, and then the care that you need is being held up because you're trying to figure out why don't you do it here? Okay, well where do I go? And this is again not just about abortion and not just impacting women people a non binary people and trans people have abortions, but this also shows up when non binary and trans people are looking for gender affirming care. They go to a hospital and they may say, the insurance company says, yes, we'll do the hystoractor me. Every doctor says yes, we'll do the hystoracted me. Everyone says yes, and then they realize that it is because someone wants to transition to the gender identity that fits for them, right they's a trans man, And then they say, oh, actually, we don't want to do that. They'll hand out hormone replacement therapies. They'll hand out all sorts of estrogen shots and whatever until they realize that you're a trans woman, and then they say, oh, actually we won't give that. So what it's really doing is this gender based care so long as you adhere two extremely outdated ideas of gender identity, sex segregation, and and the ways in which you're supposed to perform feminine nous, womanhood, manhood, all of those things. And if you don't adhere to that, because you do not want to continue your pregnancy, because you'd like to save your life, because I don't even like to save your life, because you'd like to transition your gender, they will say no, because we decided that this religious And let's be clear, this Christian, often Catholic, but Christian doctrine says this, and it's bullshit because Catholic doctrine didn't say this until the eighteen sixties. I've been reading a lot of books on the history of abortion. People doing't been doing abortions for four thousand years. Abortion is older than y'all's Bible. Okay, abortion is older than every single one of y'all's hospitals. So it's simply this preference of forcing us into a white Christian nationalist belief and adherence to the gender binary and whiteness not based on any sort of actual medical care. So to that point, Dr Moyetti, it seems that, well, here's a here's a moralistic question. How do healthcare providers? Because you all went to medical school for eight nine years and then you took out all them loans from medical school four hundred thousand dollars, you get a paper in the spirit of wanting to help people and be a conduit to help people live a better life. But then your place within a health care system and within a government that tells you to withhold care from a patient, how do health care professionals? How are they able to work within that system? How are they able to reconcile that? It really depends on how you come into medicine. And sadly, we aren't really taught in medical schools the social justice aspect of medical care. But for example, me and other of my colleagues, like we went into medicine as an instrument of social justice. I became a physician because I saw that as an avenue to improve justice in my own community. And that is not the framework that we get a lot of times, right, we're just taught that there are these social determinants of health, that maybe some social things could impact you, and not that like literally racism and white supremacy cause poor outcomes. Right, that it's placed on the person, that your individual identity is what's causing you problems and not these systems of oppression that we have to work through. And so it's really on us as um physicians who are already kind of in the work, to be teaching in that way to up and coming physicians that it is your duty to stand up for your community, that health is not just in the exam room, but outside of the exam room, and that it is our duty to speak up. It's our duty to leverage our power for the good of our community. And so really it is on physician educators to be teaching through a social justice lens. And if you don't know what that means, it's your job to learn. Also, how are you treating people if you don't actually understand the things that are happening in their lives and what they're living around. How can you blame somebody for having asthma and not the incinerator that was placed right next to their school. You can't treat people without looking at what is happening in their lives and what's going on, and it's our lives are not in a vacuum or healthcare is just is not separate from these things. And any medical provider that is ignoring that, I fear doesn't really want to take care of their patients as a whole person. They want to treat the tiny issue and move on and not take care of a whole person. Here's a broader question for the both of you. Where is the insurance? Where does the health insurance industry the abolished really because they was getting money. You would think the health You would think the health insurance to be like, yes, go get everything and would charge and then a thousand. No, let's so even they are siding with the government more often than not on this issue, but not wanting to cover the procedures. It complicated, right. Insurance companies, honestly, I don't think they care. They don't. They don't give a ship to be really clear, like they're they're in the in the business of denying coverage for services anyway, because if they have to pay out of it, that actually cuts into their profits. So the way even if insurance does cover abortion. Now, which in the state of Texas, for example, private insurance is by law cannot cover it. Even if the estate does allow for abortion to be covered, they put it under like a little line that will say like outpatient surgery. So a lot of people don't even know that their health insurance does cover an abortion. If it does, and then what's happened with me? I go to the doctor and get a blood panel done, and then the insurance companies like, yeah, we'll kick it back, We're not going to cover it, and then you have to fight with them to get them to cover it over and over and over again. So the more that they can have you pay for insurance and not have to even do the claim or like the denial of the claim, that's better for them because they get to pocket that money and you still have to pay for that abortion out of pocket. Most people who have abortions, even if they have insurance, still pay for it out of pocket. I just went to the doctor the other day, and my doctor and I we're both like complaining about insurance companies because it feels like when you're in the exam room, yes, you both have the government in there. And been an invisible chair, and then you also have this invisible chair of the insurance company because she wrote me a prescription of cream, and then the pharmacists, while I was still in the room, called and said, oh, your insurance isn't going to cover this. And it's wild because I'm sitting there with my doctor telling me. She's like, this is what you need for this ear infection, and the insurance company is like, no, you don't know. It's wild. And so what we're seeing then with abortion too is not only is the invisible government being like, you don't need that, the insurance companies are like, yeah, you don't need that. And even if you think you do, that's cool, you pay for it. We're not going to pay for it. They're not stepping up because they fundamentally don't want to change healthcare in this country. That is why they oppose a national health system. That is why they're not actually doing anything to make healthcare more accessible. It's really really frustrating that we have to figure out how to unfunck this system, but we can't with corporations doing it. Else. To say, one last thing, I hope your listeners don't fall for the bullshit pr from all of the core operations that are like will help pay for our employees to fly out of state to get you know, an abortion if they need it. Here's the thing. Notice that a those companies are all union investing right now, so they're not supporting their workers in the way the workers are asking for. But also they installed the very politicians that passed these laws. You can't make this promise to your employees without getting to the root cause of that. You are giving money to make these laws happen and keep them. This way, you can keep your abortion funding money. Well maybe you should keep it. You should, you still use it. But what would be more impactful on a systemic level would be for them to promise that they will not fund any anti abortion or any anti LGBT politicians. But they won't do it because they know at the end of the day, those politicians are doing their bidding and so they're fine with the status quo. Dr MOETI to to that point of unfucking this system, to undoing this system. Right, are doctors talking to other doctors? What are the options that a doctor has to try and circumvent some of these bands that are going on that you all are talking about. Now, this is a terrible analogy, but you have to understand, I'm a man. I have no experience with women's health care. I remember trying to go to Best Buy to get a TV and they didn't have the TV. And then the employee, like when you're buying something in retail, the employee pulls you to the side. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Circuit City got the same TV. My friend they got him in stock a Circus City. Go to Circuit City. Wink wink. Does that type of world exists or is that also criminal? Because you may be a doctor that works in Texas and you can't do what this patient needs legally. Can you pull that patient to decide and go, hey, I know someone over here, or here's some things you can do. Here's the phone number. Wink wink, I can slip you what what are what are the options for medical professionals to circumvent these bands? Yeah, I mean for years we have been working in this Circuit City Best Buy scenario. Honestly that Like, I work at a hospital that maybe doesn't allow this, but I know my my buddy at Circuit City down the street. Their hospital has said yes for this condition, and so we all in our individual states have these little text networks of like, how the funk do we help people? How do I help this person right here? So that has already existed among our community of providers many of us, and also don't send them to that hospital. They have a crazy doctor there that refuses blood transfusions and shames people and doesn't give them care. So that has existed to some extent. What the future is going to hold is is really we're going to see what these extremists are going to try and push. I mean, we have laws from the eighteen hundreds in Texas. That Brisco Cane, that guy that looks like three children sitting on top of each other in a trench coat, he is saying that those laws still exist, right, that they are still valid laws from the eighteen hundreds. One of them, um says that if you provide an abortion to someone and they die, that it's murder. Now layer that onto. We're not allowed to provide care until you're at the brink of death. So you're about to die, but if you do die and we help you, then it's murder for the physician. Right. What's going to happen, though, you should have never carried that fetus to term because we knew at week seven that it was going to be So they're putting us on the crosshairs directly. There are laws in Texas from before Row, from the eighteen hundreds that said if you help someone get an abortion, help them in any way, that you could be in prison in a state that has the death penalty. Right, so they're trying to say these things still exist. They're trying to gag us from speaking. They're trying to stop us not only from doing abortions, but from even giving evidence based medical advice. And so people need to be really cognizant of that. We need to be pushing our local hospitals. They get your tax dollars, those county hospitals get your money. They're beholden to you. What are they doing? How are you showing up at those meetings and demanding that they care for your community in a liberatory way. Right, Let's let's let's take a break right here, because I want to talk about solutions and if there is any way to get through to some of those people that you're talking about who are taking this message and spinning in a number of different way. As this is beyond the scenes, we'll be right back beyond the scenes. We are back bringing it home a great, great discussion about something that is very terrible and that we hope can get put back on track. That's that's a very interesting point, Dr Maryetti. That these are laws we're still trying to live by laws from the eighteen You gotta update your iPhone every four months, you gotta update all types of stuff. They update, But we don't touch the laws. Let the laws stay the same and be archaic forever. All hell the holy document. Right now, Renee, and we touched on this with you last time you were here. Dr Maryetti, feel free to jump in on this, but I want to get Renee's point of view on this first. Anti abortion activists, how do we get through to them? They are the loudest, they are the most vocal, they are the most demonstrative. They present themselves in this very very scary sounding word or or do you straight up lies? Is there any reasoning with those people? I mean, there's no reasoning with white supremacists, Like it's that's it. The anti abortion movement is the political organizing arm of the white supremacist white nationalist movement. I mean they've literally had Patriot Front Proud Boys and other white supremacists, white nationalists at their marches. So you can't reason with white supremacists. That's that's just not possible, not to mention like they're just completely unhinged and like have their own sense of reality. Like you can't reason with some of the like MAGA people and the Q and on people. That's who they are. They went straight from protesting at clinics to the insurrection, So them right, And I want to be clear that this is not just some random fringe group. Um, They're not just some like folks on Twitter like those. They're real people and they're being given space to air their ridiculous conspiracy theories in the halls of our government. We did a hearing um in mid May. One of our we testify storytellers testified about her abortions. And when I was sitting in the in the in the gallery of it, and when the anti is testified, because they say a lot of really horrible things, I'm scrolling Twitter. I'm going to answer an emails. You know, all of a sudden, my ears perk up because this woman who runs one of the largest anti abortion organizations, the one that writes all of our laws, all the anti abortion laws. She testify twice that she believes that the aborted fetuses are being incinerated and it is powering the street lamps in Washington, d C. I wish I could tell you I was making that up. Yes, maamp post. We just got a Marina on not for a second a moment of what the hell for what you just see it? Okay? Continue, lamp posts in Washington, d C. Are powered by abortion now. It is extremely ridiculous. And as a voter in d C, let me tell you my bill doesn't reflect that. This is what they are testifying under oath at a hearing about a healthcare crisis in this country, and nobody batted an eye. No one said I'm sorry, what fetus lights? That is? That is? There was no follow up, no follow up, no follow up. She said it twice. Roll the tape back. It's real. I'm not being hyperbolic at all. It's interesting this hearing called by by your colleagues on the other side. It's about um grandstanding, fearmongering, UM misinformation, UM falsehoods, UM intimidation. We um shine a light on exactly what Planned Parenthood is doing with the bodies of these children that it aborts, and another abortion industry um players all too all, too frequently they're selling these body parts for um for research, for examination. We have heard even that it's been exposed that they are often even um burned incinerated in order to power our street lamps. Um. That is simply inhumane. That's what's really nuts, because in the decade that I've been in the movement, I'm constantly asked, well, can't you find common ground with the anti abortion movement? Can't you find ground on like, you know, adoption or you know, caring for babies. Yeah, I care about all of those things, but they're side. They're not interested in that right. They vote against making sure people have access to food, and they literally after that hearing, all the Republicans went and voted against increasing access to baby formula. There is no actual middle ground with them and compromising with them because the things they believe don't make sense, they're not based in reality, and they're not supporting politicians who, at the end of the day, actually care about black and brown families, actually really care about people living in poverty, actually care about what it looks like when people place for adoption, which for most people who are placing, is a lot of pain and they would rather parent. If you actually look at the studies, they aren't interested in adoption or in abortion. The reason they place for adoption is because they cannot afford to parent, which is what they would want, but that doesn't fit their narrative right because they actually have to do something about systemic inequality in this country and they don't want to. Dr Moyetti, how how do you or how have you given up on trying to reason with with with baby with baby feet? Is electricity? Data's electricity? Yeah? I Um, it turns out that they don't care about science, they don't care about evidence, and um, yeah, I don't take I don't take interviews where anti abortion extremists will be a counter to my professional views and my expertise because they're literally talking about fetus lights and I'm talking about public health facts, research data, right and exactly like Renee said, like I'm talking about human rights. There's not a compromise on is white supremacy? Okay, where's the middle ground? How much supreme can we be? Like there's it's many things are not black and white, but like white supremacy is bad. That is I mean very clearly black and white, very clear, very clearly, literally quite literally, Renee, you run. We testify Now, this is an organization that allows people who have had abortions to share their stories, to tell their stories. Why is it important for people to hear those stories? Especially now? Like you said, we testify as an organization that's dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. Um. I operate under a really simple belief that people who have abortions are our future and we deserve to be in leadership in this movement and this moment and throughout history. People have been having abortions for thousands of years, and usually it was just kind of we talked about it with each other. Hey, God, drank this tea. Yep, the witch down the street, she's got it. And it was just it was just normal, right, It was part of all of our reproductive decision making. But when it was criminalized in the eighteen hundreds, it was forced as a secret. And then in the thirties, forties, fifties, a lot of times the only times you heard abortion stories were after people were trying to criminalize a provider. So police were compelling people to share their abortion stories. So we weren't sharing our stories on our own terms, and we were that our stories could incriminate us or the people who provided our care. In the last like fifteen years, we've really pushed back on the stigma that has told us that we should just shut up are about our abortions, go get it and don't talk about it, don't tell anyone about it. And so that ended up with people like me. When I had my abortion at nineteen, I didn't know anyone who had an abortion. I knew one cousin and that's oh and the Robbert Lokim shout yeah that bit like I knew that, and so, but I still felt really isolated. I started sharing my story so that other people would feel like they weren't alone, and to get everyone to realize that everyone loves someone who's had an abortion. And I would have people come up to me and tell me, yeah, I had an abortion too. I didn't know anyone else who had an abortion, and it started to be this ground swell of us talking about it. Then I started to realize how much I still, even as doing this work didn't talk about it in my own family, to the point that I've been doing this work for four years and my mother had not even told me that she'd had an abortion before she had me. And so I am here because my mother was able to decide if one and how to grow her family because she had an abortion. And so it really has gotten me thinking, what does it look like for us to create a space where people who have abortions feel supported, to be able to talk about it over the dinner table with our loved ones as we're going through it, and of course yes at rally's and the halls of Congress. Let's talk about this and also talk about all the things that are stigmatized that we don't talk about in our families, whether it is mental health stigma or you know, postpartum depression or menopause or anything else that really infertility for all of us, no matter or your gender identity. Right Like, let's talk about all of the things that come with our reproductive health, our family building. Let's not make it a secret, and let's show up with love and support. And so what really felt important to me also if we testified work, is that the majority of our abortion storytellers of them are people of color. That is intentional because the majority of people who have abortions are people of color, almost two thirds. So what we wanted to do was make sure that the stories that you hear are reflective of who actually has and has abortions, and that those folks who are having abortions today see someone who looks like them, standing tall, talking about their experience and receiving nothing but love and support, knowing that even though this moment is really really scary and chaotic, that their voice deserves to be heard, that their deserved, that their decision deserves to be loved and supported, and that there are people just like them who've had abortions too. Where do we go from? So at the end of the show that this this is this part of podcast or no where I ask you how do we solve this? And then and then one of us says, vote, I mean yes, vote vote, and that's just the end of the podcast. But let's be real, is voting effective? Is that going to be does that have the efficacy needed to solve this problem? Or are there other aspects in Dr Marietta feel free to chime in on this as well, like where do we go from here on this? Who can we support? What do we do? I've been voting. I voted, I voted, the vote harder, I vote. I pressed it really hard, and I voted get a fake ID and get you on, get on seven different voting rules. They won't Kitchen not suggest an Iranian abortion provider is fake voting in Texas. Peace, I'm already on a cross. I'm from Chicago. We vote early and often. UM. I think this is this is really important, right because I've been talking about this a lot where I've said that voting can't be the only solution. Okay, we've been voting. In fact, the candidate who supported not only making abortion more accessible but also overturning the racist, discriminatory High Amendment High Amendment, which bars medicaid from coming and covering abortion care. She won the presidential election, but because our system is jerrymandered and so fucked, she didn't. And so this idea that like voting is the only way out of this is not correct. Voting is important, and I think everyone should be out there to go vote. I vote. I love it. It's actually really fun. We're getting on my ballot in DC right now. Um, it is a harm reduction tool. Because if the only solution to this crisis right now is to go vote in November, what are you saying to every single person who needs an abortion before that? What are you saying to the clinics that are going to have to close between the time the decision has come down to when the election happens. But also it's actually a couple of months after that because you have to get the new Congress warning. But then also you have to actually negotiate a bill and vote on it. So actually, what you're asking people by saying, oh, voting will just solve this, you're saying, cool, wait and take a chance that hopefully in a year we will have the mar gens to be able to do this. Because I was told that if we won the Senate, they would protect abortion, and that is not what's happening right now because of Democrats who are anti abortion, like Joe Mansion or Kirsten Cinema, who won't get rid of the filipbuster right So it can't be the only solution. We need actual, real ideas from the federal government, from the President to show up and protect abortion right here and right now. And I'm seeing a bit of a lackluster on those ideas. I'm happy to meet with the president whatever he wants to, to share all of my ideas of what he can federalize. I mean, I'd honestly say that I wish that the President Biden would take a playbook out of Trump that pays Trump's playbooks and just do executive orders for whatever. Because we thought half the ship Trump was doing wouldn't actually stick and it it, and so why are we not just saying let's try it all? Because this is an emergency, this is a public health emergency. We cannot leave clinics to close because we're waiting on vote returns to come back. I mean, that's exactly what we have been asking for in Texas and September. What can the president do right an executive order right now? The last president put children in detention centers, stripped them from their parents through executive order. We can't make healthcare available through executive order and figure it out later. Why why can't we? I'm sorry, I cannot believe that. It's like the man who got called the most pro life president in history by the anti abortion movement put a whole bunch of babies in in cages and like was allowed to do that, And yet we cannot figure out how to make healthcare more accessible, and we're being asked to use a system that is fundamentally broken. They did not fix voting rights. They promised us if they had the White House, Senate and Congress that they would do that, right, they didn't, and so you're asking us to rely on a broken tool that is impossible. We've been voting at some point. We need you to do your fucking jobs. Yeah, I will vote in November, and I swear to God if anybody it comes to me and says that I'm adding to vote or suppression, which I am not. Brian Kemp, Okay, I am saying I want you to vote, and I need you to do something else in the meantime. Well, are we allowed to say bitch on this podcast? We've been talking this whole episode. Can I say one thing before we go, just to everyone who's listening, We need you so bad right now. We need you donating to your local abortion funds. We need you donating to keep our clinics dot org. We need you sharing your abortion stories. We need you knowing what the self managed abortion Protocol is it's either one metho prestone pill and four miles aposto pills twenty four hours later, or a series of twelve miles aposto pills every three hours, four of them eat right. It's real simple. Know this information. Know how to get an abortion where your nearest clinic is. Because even if you think it's not something you'll need, someone you love will need it. Be ready to show up with them with love and support, and be ready to listen to their abortion stories, because honestly, this is all we've got in this moment. It's really scary, and we need everyone to take this so seriously, and we need you to get involved and yes, go vote. Yeah. And I'll say, physicians, you're not agents of the state. We are going to be called on to be enforcement and that is not your duty. Your duty is to care for your community. I think that's as good a place to end it. So we can all three of us get our blood pressure down just a bit. I will say that this has been a great discussion. It has been enriching discussion. I hope to never talk to either of you again on this issue. That is my hope for this world. Puppies, puppies when you come back on the show. Dr Marietti, Renee Bracy Sherman, thank you both for going beyond the scenes with me this week. Thank you, and I want that night. That's a nice shirt. Also, Renee, I want one of those extra large I can get one. That's a wrap on season one of Beyond the Scene. Stay tuned over the next few weeks. I'll be recapping some of my favorite moments over the past year. We're going beyond the scenes and beyond the scenes, We're gonna beyond, double beyond. New episodes start back up in August, and they will always be available wherever you get your podcasts. M HM.

Quick note, this podcast was recorded before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, and by the time you listen, things may have changed. Hey. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on the show. Today, we're doing something a little different now. Back in December, I sat down with O B. G u i n an abortion provider Dr Goslamoietti, to discuss abortion bands in Texas right after s B eight was introduced. We talked about misconceptions about abortion, the anti abortion movements, roots of it in white supremacy, and how abortion has become more about politics than science in America. Now we know the buzz that is happening around the nation this year, so we wanted to follow up on that conversation and invite Dr Moiety back on the show. Dr Moyetti, thank you for being here again, I promised the third time bringing back his be about something happy. Alright, please please, problem was gonna be puppies. We will bring you back for the puppy episode the scene. Also joining us as the founder and executive director of We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. Renee Bracy Sherman, welcome to be on the scenes. Thank you so much for having me. Let's dig in here because we are we have a lot of time pack here. Dr Moyetti. Last we talked, you were based in Texas but traveling to Oklahoma to give care. But now Oklahoma has passed and enacted some of the most restrictive abortion bands in the country. Can you run us through how your work has shifted over the past few months based on how these laws start popping up like wacamole. Yeah, So, you know, up until September of last year, I was providing abortion care both in Texas and Oklahoma. Once sp hit, I transition to traveling to Oklahoma pretty consistently to take care of people there. And for the past you know, nine plus months, um, well six seven plus months, I have been going to Oklahoma and taking care of Texans, Oklahoma's, our kans In's, Kansons, Louisiana's, like everyone from our region has been flooding Oklahoma. And that was really up until April from me, so, I had been planning on continuing to go and work there really until the decision came down and Oklahoma decided to yeehaw one more step past Texas and yeah, I haven't been able to go. And so what's on the horizon for me? I mean, Roy, do you have a job, Like, do you need a daily show abortion provider? Does Comedy Central needs someone? Because it's grim? It's grim? What our future hold with regards to that grim future, Madam Sherman, Let's talk a little bit about the Supreme Court for a second. Now. Now, there was a leaked document, you know, a draft of a Supreme Court ruling that would ultimately, yes a shitty draft, that would lead to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Now, as of that second, that hasn't happened yet, but it seems very likely if Roe v. Wade is overturned. What's the risk of if and when that happens. Everything is that risk when that happens, Um, I think we need to take that draft very seriously. We've always been operating that they would and could overturn Roe v. Wade. That was the goal of installing the justices on the Supreme Court that they did, Um, And that's honestly been the goal that they've been working on for the last decade, they have never lied about what they were trying to do. They always wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade because they saw Row v. Wade as a way to install white nationalist Christian control over people. Right. If they could get that, they could control us on a lot of different things. And so they exploited abortion as an issue particularly to impact black and brown people, low income folks, right. And so when they get that, that is kind of this last piece that is holding our ability to decide if, when, and how to grow our families, how to raise our families to be able to live free of state sanctioned violence and coercion. So when the overturn happens, and I'm happy to be wrong, but when it does happen, what we are going to see is large scale mass incarceration of people who are being surveilled simply because they're pregnant and their pregnancies don't end in a healthy labor and delivery. Right. So this isn't just about people who are seeking abortions facing criminalization and harassment, denial of care, all of these human rights violations, but also we're already seeing it for people who have still births. People who have miscarriages, people who use idea, people who maybe use substances or do things that are deemed questionable during their pregnancies. Right, it really is going to impact all of us who are pregnant, could be pregnant, and and put us under this this mass surveillance under the guise of banning abortion. So this is really really impacting all of us. On top of the fact that Roe v. Wade is the bedrock for so many of our freedoms and right to privacy, and so losing that is going to undermine so many freedoms in the next decade or two to come. Dr moyetty, talk to us a little bit about that criminalization side of it, because I know right now, you know Texas and Oklahoma already you know kind of post Roe v. Wade to nin states have bands there approach their round and third and hated for Home as the song will go in center field. Uh, talk to us a little bit about those criminal liabilities that could start the criminalistic ripple effects. Yeah, I mean they've already started. Just a few months ago, we had a national case case that got national tensioned here in Texas. Lizzel Herrera, a woman on the US Mexico border arrested, held on five hundred thousand dollars bond bail for having a miscarriage. Right, it's not even something illegal yet, but the guys of criminality creates vigilantes, vigilantees among physicians, among nurses, among hospitals, community workers, social workers. We already see this happening, and they're they again, they're telling on themselves. This is their plan. Right in Texas last session and I believe the session before, bills were introduced that would require women people that are pregnant to go talk to crisis pregnancy centers, register with them, if you will, with their pregnancies before they were allowed to make an abortion decision. Other states are passing laws where people have to get fake counseling from religious groups, entering them into pregnancy surveillance. Right, Um, this happens surveillance. Who surveying the religious group? How do we know the religious group is qualified? Tell me that I'm qualified. They aren't. They aren't qualified. Right, it's bananas. One thing I want to add is that again this issue has been posed as like something that's happening to people who want and have abortions and so a lot of people kind of look at it as, oh, well, I'm never have an abortion, so this won't impact me. But the reality is that pregnancies can go wrong at any moment. At any moment, anyone could need some type of medical care that would be close to an abortion, or or could be deemed by some religious institution that we don't do that right. And what's really scary about this moment is that they get to dictate the medical care based on religious doctrine and not the health and safety of the patient and what the medical provider, the nurse, the doctor, or the du lah, whoever, whatever they they see in that patient is best. And I think what's also scary about it. I'm gonna pull out one of my favorite books, Professor Michelle Goodman wrote Policing the Womb, and in it she talks about how um there have been pregnant people who have refused certain types of care and their pregnancies because they didn't feel like that's the way that what they wanted to do UM and it wasn't necessary, and doctors have gone to the courts to judges to compel them to go through with a certain type of medical care. And I think what's scary is that we trust our medical providers to show up for us, not turn us into the cops, or turn us into the courts, or turn us into Christian zealots. And that is not only what some have done for years, because again, people have been arrested for the outcomes of their pregnancies for decades, but what the state in these laws is now compelling them to do. And that is what is so scary about this criminalization of abortion and criminalization of pregnancy. Okay, so then to that point, Madam Sherman, Now you've been on the front lines of this issue for years abortion advocacy, right, and so when we start criminalizing the outcomes of a pregnancy and the people, let's just say, I'm the person who drives my friend to go get the abortion, then I'm in the cross theirs too, Right. Does this pressure on pregnant women also extend criminalistically speaking to the people who assist them and getting the abortion and the medical providers who may or may not take action. Is it possible that medical providers feel the need to report people to the police for fear that they themselves could be arrested if they didn't do everything they were supposed to do by whatever weird health surgeon general bullshit that that state has on the books for pregnancy. So as Dr Mayetti can speak about as well, like there's no medical reason for there's no ethics reasons that a medical provider would need to turn in a patient to the police because they might have self managed their abortion in or because something's going wrong in their pregnancy. Um, what all of these laws are designed to do is to isolate the person who's having an abortion, so they have no one to turn to. So they can't tell the truth to their doctor because they're afraid their doctor might turn them in. They can't go to their friend or loved one because they are afraid their friend or loved one might be sued or you know, also face some sort of criminal charges for helping them get an abortion. So what they're doing is isolating us, so we have nobody to turn to for support. And the state is telling everyone that if someone comes to you needs an abortion, your duty, your role is to turn them into the police, not offer them any sort of love, support and care, which that is not how we build communities, That is not how we build families. Right, they're taking what we've seen in the immigration movement where people can't talk about the fact that they are undocumented because they're afraid someone might turn them in. That is really, really scary. And we're creating this mass surveillance in our communities where the government is telling everyday people that it is your duty too if you see something, say something. Well, we already know that that bullshit program does nothing right. We don't need to be exporting it to our communities and to healthcare into how we show up with love and support for one another after the break, Dr Maryetti, I want to get into the rock and a hard place that well, you know it, it ain't a rock and a hard places, so rock and the right thing place it's not hard that a lot of our health care professionals are in and the role that religion plays into how hospitals have decided to treat this whole abortion issue as a whole. We'll be right back. This is beyond the scenes. Now. Let's talk a little bit about the health care system in this country. And you know, we talked a little bit first about the potential people who are affected by this, but let's talk a little bit about the role that the hospitals play in the health of not just pregnant women, but also women who aren't pregnant because these laws that let's just start there. Dr Moyetie talk about how these laws also affect women who aren't even pregnant because the doctors are too scared to prescribe medicine. Yeah. Um, well, right now, in Texas, we had a bill that was enacted, it was passed last year, enacted in December, that made the distribution of medication abortion pills, or any pills that could cause an abortion criminal past seven weeks. So that is not only impacting I mean, we already have this um other abortion band that's p venting abortions at seven weeks. But what we're seeing is that pharmacists aren't dispensing medications that, yes, can be used for an abortion, but are also used to treat other conditions to people that they perceive as women and capable of being pregnant. So that includes chemotherapy medications, rheumatology medications for people that have like rheumatoid arthritis. It includes medications that help someone open their cervix prior to uterine procedure, not in the setting of pregnancy. UM all of that, right, and just because the pharmacist thinks you might be a woman who can potentially get pregnant, they're going to question you about getting your chemotherapy medications. They're refusing to dispense to people because it could potentially be for an abortion, and then the pharmacist could be criminally liable. So it creates this whole system of fear, says suspicion profiling right, gender based profiling Renee. If you could talk a little bit about, like, how do the hospitals themselves, because if it's one thing I know about health care in America, it's not uniform. It ain't McDonald's uniform, and that it sucks well of course, yes, but each hospital got a different rule, each hospital got a different policy. It comes down to the preferences of that particular practitioner. How do the hospitals themselves help determine the kind of care anyone receives, especially when so many of them are run by religious institutions. Right, So, I think what a lot of people don't realize is how many hospitals operate under a religious doctrine, in particular a Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church and and really affiliated hospitals have sort of been buying up hospitals all across the country, and so people don't know that the hospital that they used to go to may have changed hands. And so in an emergency, you might be having a miscarriage or you might want an abortion, whatever it is, and all of a sudden, they say, we don't do that here, and then the care that you need is being held up because you're trying to figure out why don't you do it here? Okay, well where do I go? And this is again not just about abortion and not just impacting women people a non binary people and trans people have abortions, but this also shows up when non binary and trans people are looking for gender affirming care. They go to a hospital and they may say, the insurance company says, yes, we'll do the hystoractor me. Every doctor says yes, we'll do the hystoracted me. Everyone says yes, and then they realize that it is because someone wants to transition to the gender identity that fits for them, right they's a trans man, And then they say, oh, actually, we don't want to do that. They'll hand out hormone replacement therapies. They'll hand out all sorts of estrogen shots and whatever until they realize that you're a trans woman, and then they say, oh, actually we won't give that. So what it's really doing is this gender based care so long as you adhere two extremely outdated ideas of gender identity, sex segregation, and and the ways in which you're supposed to perform feminine nous, womanhood, manhood, all of those things. And if you don't adhere to that, because you do not want to continue your pregnancy, because you'd like to save your life, because I don't even like to save your life, because you'd like to transition your gender, they will say no, because we decided that this religious And let's be clear, this Christian, often Catholic, but Christian doctrine says this, and it's bullshit because Catholic doctrine didn't say this until the eighteen sixties. I've been reading a lot of books on the history of abortion. People doing't been doing abortions for four thousand years. Abortion is older than y'all's Bible. Okay, abortion is older than every single one of y'all's hospitals. So it's simply this preference of forcing us into a white Christian nationalist belief and adherence to the gender binary and whiteness not based on any sort of actual medical care. So to that point, Dr Moyetti, it seems that, well, here's a here's a moralistic question. How do healthcare providers? Because you all went to medical school for eight nine years and then you took out all them loans from medical school four hundred thousand dollars, you get a paper in the spirit of wanting to help people and be a conduit to help people live a better life. But then your place within a health care system and within a government that tells you to withhold care from a patient, how do health care professionals? How are they able to work within that system? How are they able to reconcile that? It really depends on how you come into medicine. And sadly, we aren't really taught in medical schools the social justice aspect of medical care. But for example, me and other of my colleagues, like we went into medicine as an instrument of social justice. I became a physician because I saw that as an avenue to improve justice in my own community. And that is not the framework that we get a lot of times, right, we're just taught that there are these social determinants of health, that maybe some social things could impact you, and not that like literally racism and white supremacy cause poor outcomes. Right, that it's placed on the person, that your individual identity is what's causing you problems and not these systems of oppression that we have to work through. And so it's really on us as um physicians who are already kind of in the work, to be teaching in that way to up and coming physicians that it is your duty to stand up for your community, that health is not just in the exam room, but outside of the exam room, and that it is our duty to speak up. It's our duty to leverage our power for the good of our community. And so really it is on physician educators to be teaching through a social justice lens. And if you don't know what that means, it's your job to learn. Also, how are you treating people if you don't actually understand the things that are happening in their lives and what they're living around. How can you blame somebody for having asthma and not the incinerator that was placed right next to their school. You can't treat people without looking at what is happening in their lives and what's going on, and it's our lives are not in a vacuum or healthcare is just is not separate from these things. And any medical provider that is ignoring that, I fear doesn't really want to take care of their patients as a whole person. They want to treat the tiny issue and move on and not take care of a whole person. Here's a broader question for the both of you. Where is the insurance? Where does the health insurance industry the abolished really because they was getting money. You would think the health You would think the health insurance to be like, yes, go get everything and would charge and then a thousand. No, let's so even they are siding with the government more often than not on this issue, but not wanting to cover the procedures. It complicated, right. Insurance companies, honestly, I don't think they care. They don't. They don't give a ship to be really clear, like they're they're in the in the business of denying coverage for services anyway, because if they have to pay out of it, that actually cuts into their profits. So the way even if insurance does cover abortion. Now, which in the state of Texas, for example, private insurance is by law cannot cover it. Even if the estate does allow for abortion to be covered, they put it under like a little line that will say like outpatient surgery. So a lot of people don't even know that their health insurance does cover an abortion. If it does, and then what's happened with me? I go to the doctor and get a blood panel done, and then the insurance companies like, yeah, we'll kick it back, We're not going to cover it, and then you have to fight with them to get them to cover it over and over and over again. So the more that they can have you pay for insurance and not have to even do the claim or like the denial of the claim, that's better for them because they get to pocket that money and you still have to pay for that abortion out of pocket. Most people who have abortions, even if they have insurance, still pay for it out of pocket. I just went to the doctor the other day, and my doctor and I we're both like complaining about insurance companies because it feels like when you're in the exam room, yes, you both have the government in there. And been an invisible chair, and then you also have this invisible chair of the insurance company because she wrote me a prescription of cream, and then the pharmacists, while I was still in the room, called and said, oh, your insurance isn't going to cover this. And it's wild because I'm sitting there with my doctor telling me. She's like, this is what you need for this ear infection, and the insurance company is like, no, you don't know. It's wild. And so what we're seeing then with abortion too is not only is the invisible government being like, you don't need that, the insurance companies are like, yeah, you don't need that. And even if you think you do, that's cool, you pay for it. We're not going to pay for it. They're not stepping up because they fundamentally don't want to change healthcare in this country. That is why they oppose a national health system. That is why they're not actually doing anything to make healthcare more accessible. It's really really frustrating that we have to figure out how to unfunck this system, but we can't with corporations doing it. Else. To say, one last thing, I hope your listeners don't fall for the bullshit pr from all of the core operations that are like will help pay for our employees to fly out of state to get you know, an abortion if they need it. Here's the thing. Notice that a those companies are all union investing right now, so they're not supporting their workers in the way the workers are asking for. But also they installed the very politicians that passed these laws. You can't make this promise to your employees without getting to the root cause of that. You are giving money to make these laws happen and keep them. This way, you can keep your abortion funding money. Well maybe you should keep it. You should, you still use it. But what would be more impactful on a systemic level would be for them to promise that they will not fund any anti abortion or any anti LGBT politicians. But they won't do it because they know at the end of the day, those politicians are doing their bidding and so they're fine with the status quo. Dr MOETI to to that point of unfucking this system, to undoing this system. Right, are doctors talking to other doctors? What are the options that a doctor has to try and circumvent some of these bands that are going on that you all are talking about. Now, this is a terrible analogy, but you have to understand, I'm a man. I have no experience with women's health care. I remember trying to go to Best Buy to get a TV and they didn't have the TV. And then the employee, like when you're buying something in retail, the employee pulls you to the side. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Circuit City got the same TV. My friend they got him in stock a Circus City. Go to Circuit City. Wink wink. Does that type of world exists or is that also criminal? Because you may be a doctor that works in Texas and you can't do what this patient needs legally. Can you pull that patient to decide and go, hey, I know someone over here, or here's some things you can do. Here's the phone number. Wink wink, I can slip you what what are what are the options for medical professionals to circumvent these bands? Yeah, I mean for years we have been working in this Circuit City Best Buy scenario. Honestly that Like, I work at a hospital that maybe doesn't allow this, but I know my my buddy at Circuit City down the street. Their hospital has said yes for this condition, and so we all in our individual states have these little text networks of like, how the funk do we help people? How do I help this person right here? So that has already existed among our community of providers many of us, and also don't send them to that hospital. They have a crazy doctor there that refuses blood transfusions and shames people and doesn't give them care. So that has existed to some extent. What the future is going to hold is is really we're going to see what these extremists are going to try and push. I mean, we have laws from the eighteen hundreds in Texas. That Brisco Cane, that guy that looks like three children sitting on top of each other in a trench coat, he is saying that those laws still exist, right, that they are still valid laws from the eighteen hundreds. One of them, um says that if you provide an abortion to someone and they die, that it's murder. Now layer that onto. We're not allowed to provide care until you're at the brink of death. So you're about to die, but if you do die and we help you, then it's murder for the physician. Right. What's going to happen, though, you should have never carried that fetus to term because we knew at week seven that it was going to be So they're putting us on the crosshairs directly. There are laws in Texas from before Row, from the eighteen hundreds that said if you help someone get an abortion, help them in any way, that you could be in prison in a state that has the death penalty. Right, so they're trying to say these things still exist. They're trying to gag us from speaking. They're trying to stop us not only from doing abortions, but from even giving evidence based medical advice. And so people need to be really cognizant of that. We need to be pushing our local hospitals. They get your tax dollars, those county hospitals get your money. They're beholden to you. What are they doing? How are you showing up at those meetings and demanding that they care for your community in a liberatory way. Right, Let's let's let's take a break right here, because I want to talk about solutions and if there is any way to get through to some of those people that you're talking about who are taking this message and spinning in a number of different way. As this is beyond the scenes, we'll be right back beyond the scenes. We are back bringing it home a great, great discussion about something that is very terrible and that we hope can get put back on track. That's that's a very interesting point, Dr Maryetti. That these are laws we're still trying to live by laws from the eighteen You gotta update your iPhone every four months, you gotta update all types of stuff. They update, But we don't touch the laws. Let the laws stay the same and be archaic forever. All hell the holy document. Right now, Renee, and we touched on this with you last time you were here. Dr Maryetti, feel free to jump in on this, but I want to get Renee's point of view on this first. Anti abortion activists, how do we get through to them? They are the loudest, they are the most vocal, they are the most demonstrative. They present themselves in this very very scary sounding word or or do you straight up lies? Is there any reasoning with those people? I mean, there's no reasoning with white supremacists, Like it's that's it. The anti abortion movement is the political organizing arm of the white supremacist white nationalist movement. I mean they've literally had Patriot Front Proud Boys and other white supremacists, white nationalists at their marches. So you can't reason with white supremacists. That's that's just not possible, not to mention like they're just completely unhinged and like have their own sense of reality. Like you can't reason with some of the like MAGA people and the Q and on people. That's who they are. They went straight from protesting at clinics to the insurrection, So them right, And I want to be clear that this is not just some random fringe group. Um, They're not just some like folks on Twitter like those. They're real people and they're being given space to air their ridiculous conspiracy theories in the halls of our government. We did a hearing um in mid May. One of our we testify storytellers testified about her abortions. And when I was sitting in the in the in the gallery of it, and when the anti is testified, because they say a lot of really horrible things, I'm scrolling Twitter. I'm going to answer an emails. You know, all of a sudden, my ears perk up because this woman who runs one of the largest anti abortion organizations, the one that writes all of our laws, all the anti abortion laws. She testify twice that she believes that the aborted fetuses are being incinerated and it is powering the street lamps in Washington, d C. I wish I could tell you I was making that up. Yes, maamp post. We just got a Marina on not for a second a moment of what the hell for what you just see it? Okay? Continue, lamp posts in Washington, d C. Are powered by abortion now. It is extremely ridiculous. And as a voter in d C, let me tell you my bill doesn't reflect that. This is what they are testifying under oath at a hearing about a healthcare crisis in this country, and nobody batted an eye. No one said I'm sorry, what fetus lights? That is? That is? There was no follow up, no follow up, no follow up. She said it twice. Roll the tape back. It's real. I'm not being hyperbolic at all. It's interesting this hearing called by by your colleagues on the other side. It's about um grandstanding, fearmongering, UM misinformation, UM falsehoods, UM intimidation. We um shine a light on exactly what Planned Parenthood is doing with the bodies of these children that it aborts, and another abortion industry um players all too all, too frequently they're selling these body parts for um for research, for examination. We have heard even that it's been exposed that they are often even um burned incinerated in order to power our street lamps. Um. That is simply inhumane. That's what's really nuts, because in the decade that I've been in the movement, I'm constantly asked, well, can't you find common ground with the anti abortion movement? Can't you find ground on like, you know, adoption or you know, caring for babies. Yeah, I care about all of those things, but they're side. They're not interested in that right. They vote against making sure people have access to food, and they literally after that hearing, all the Republicans went and voted against increasing access to baby formula. There is no actual middle ground with them and compromising with them because the things they believe don't make sense, they're not based in reality, and they're not supporting politicians who, at the end of the day, actually care about black and brown families, actually really care about people living in poverty, actually care about what it looks like when people place for adoption, which for most people who are placing, is a lot of pain and they would rather parent. If you actually look at the studies, they aren't interested in adoption or in abortion. The reason they place for adoption is because they cannot afford to parent, which is what they would want, but that doesn't fit their narrative right because they actually have to do something about systemic inequality in this country and they don't want to. Dr Moyetti, how how do you or how have you given up on trying to reason with with with baby with baby feet? Is electricity? Data's electricity? Yeah? I Um, it turns out that they don't care about science, they don't care about evidence, and um, yeah, I don't take I don't take interviews where anti abortion extremists will be a counter to my professional views and my expertise because they're literally talking about fetus lights and I'm talking about public health facts, research data, right and exactly like Renee said, like I'm talking about human rights. There's not a compromise on is white supremacy? Okay, where's the middle ground? How much supreme can we be? Like there's it's many things are not black and white, but like white supremacy is bad. That is I mean very clearly black and white, very clear, very clearly, literally quite literally, Renee, you run. We testify Now, this is an organization that allows people who have had abortions to share their stories, to tell their stories. Why is it important for people to hear those stories? Especially now? Like you said, we testify as an organization that's dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. Um. I operate under a really simple belief that people who have abortions are our future and we deserve to be in leadership in this movement and this moment and throughout history. People have been having abortions for thousands of years, and usually it was just kind of we talked about it with each other. Hey, God, drank this tea. Yep, the witch down the street, she's got it. And it was just it was just normal, right, It was part of all of our reproductive decision making. But when it was criminalized in the eighteen hundreds, it was forced as a secret. And then in the thirties, forties, fifties, a lot of times the only times you heard abortion stories were after people were trying to criminalize a provider. So police were compelling people to share their abortion stories. So we weren't sharing our stories on our own terms, and we were that our stories could incriminate us or the people who provided our care. In the last like fifteen years, we've really pushed back on the stigma that has told us that we should just shut up are about our abortions, go get it and don't talk about it, don't tell anyone about it. And so that ended up with people like me. When I had my abortion at nineteen, I didn't know anyone who had an abortion. I knew one cousin and that's oh and the Robbert Lokim shout yeah that bit like I knew that, and so, but I still felt really isolated. I started sharing my story so that other people would feel like they weren't alone, and to get everyone to realize that everyone loves someone who's had an abortion. And I would have people come up to me and tell me, yeah, I had an abortion too. I didn't know anyone else who had an abortion, and it started to be this ground swell of us talking about it. Then I started to realize how much I still, even as doing this work didn't talk about it in my own family, to the point that I've been doing this work for four years and my mother had not even told me that she'd had an abortion before she had me. And so I am here because my mother was able to decide if one and how to grow her family because she had an abortion. And so it really has gotten me thinking, what does it look like for us to create a space where people who have abortions feel supported, to be able to talk about it over the dinner table with our loved ones as we're going through it, and of course yes at rally's and the halls of Congress. Let's talk about this and also talk about all the things that are stigmatized that we don't talk about in our families, whether it is mental health stigma or you know, postpartum depression or menopause or anything else that really infertility for all of us, no matter or your gender identity. Right Like, let's talk about all of the things that come with our reproductive health, our family building. Let's not make it a secret, and let's show up with love and support. And so what really felt important to me also if we testified work, is that the majority of our abortion storytellers of them are people of color. That is intentional because the majority of people who have abortions are people of color, almost two thirds. So what we wanted to do was make sure that the stories that you hear are reflective of who actually has and has abortions, and that those folks who are having abortions today see someone who looks like them, standing tall, talking about their experience and receiving nothing but love and support, knowing that even though this moment is really really scary and chaotic, that their voice deserves to be heard, that their deserved, that their decision deserves to be loved and supported, and that there are people just like them who've had abortions too. Where do we go from? So at the end of the show that this this is this part of podcast or no where I ask you how do we solve this? And then and then one of us says, vote, I mean yes, vote vote, and that's just the end of the podcast. But let's be real, is voting effective? Is that going to be does that have the efficacy needed to solve this problem? Or are there other aspects in Dr Marietta feel free to chime in on this as well, like where do we go from here on this? Who can we support? What do we do? I've been voting. I voted, I voted, the vote harder, I vote. I pressed it really hard, and I voted get a fake ID and get you on, get on seven different voting rules. They won't Kitchen not suggest an Iranian abortion provider is fake voting in Texas. Peace, I'm already on a cross. I'm from Chicago. We vote early and often. UM. I think this is this is really important, right because I've been talking about this a lot where I've said that voting can't be the only solution. Okay, we've been voting. In fact, the candidate who supported not only making abortion more accessible but also overturning the racist, discriminatory High Amendment High Amendment, which bars medicaid from coming and covering abortion care. She won the presidential election, but because our system is jerrymandered and so fucked, she didn't. And so this idea that like voting is the only way out of this is not correct. Voting is important, and I think everyone should be out there to go vote. I vote. I love it. It's actually really fun. We're getting on my ballot in DC right now. Um, it is a harm reduction tool. Because if the only solution to this crisis right now is to go vote in November, what are you saying to every single person who needs an abortion before that? What are you saying to the clinics that are going to have to close between the time the decision has come down to when the election happens. But also it's actually a couple of months after that because you have to get the new Congress warning. But then also you have to actually negotiate a bill and vote on it. So actually, what you're asking people by saying, oh, voting will just solve this, you're saying, cool, wait and take a chance that hopefully in a year we will have the mar gens to be able to do this. Because I was told that if we won the Senate, they would protect abortion, and that is not what's happening right now because of Democrats who are anti abortion, like Joe Mansion or Kirsten Cinema, who won't get rid of the filipbuster right So it can't be the only solution. We need actual, real ideas from the federal government, from the President to show up and protect abortion right here and right now. And I'm seeing a bit of a lackluster on those ideas. I'm happy to meet with the president whatever he wants to, to share all of my ideas of what he can federalize. I mean, I'd honestly say that I wish that the President Biden would take a playbook out of Trump that pays Trump's playbooks and just do executive orders for whatever. Because we thought half the ship Trump was doing wouldn't actually stick and it it, and so why are we not just saying let's try it all? Because this is an emergency, this is a public health emergency. We cannot leave clinics to close because we're waiting on vote returns to come back. I mean, that's exactly what we have been asking for in Texas and September. What can the president do right an executive order right now? The last president put children in detention centers, stripped them from their parents through executive order. We can't make healthcare available through executive order and figure it out later. Why why can't we? I'm sorry, I cannot believe that. It's like the man who got called the most pro life president in history by the anti abortion movement put a whole bunch of babies in in cages and like was allowed to do that, And yet we cannot figure out how to make healthcare more accessible, and we're being asked to use a system that is fundamentally broken. They did not fix voting rights. They promised us if they had the White House, Senate and Congress that they would do that, right, they didn't, and so you're asking us to rely on a broken tool that is impossible. We've been voting at some point. We need you to do your fucking jobs. Yeah, I will vote in November, and I swear to God if anybody it comes to me and says that I'm adding to vote or suppression, which I am not. Brian Kemp, Okay, I am saying I want you to vote, and I need you to do something else in the meantime. Well, are we allowed to say bitch on this podcast? We've been talking this whole episode. Can I say one thing before we go, just to everyone who's listening, We need you so bad right now. We need you donating to your local abortion funds. We need you donating to keep our clinics dot org. We need you sharing your abortion stories. We need you knowing what the self managed abortion Protocol is it's either one metho prestone pill and four miles aposto pills twenty four hours later, or a series of twelve miles aposto pills every three hours, four of them eat right. It's real simple. Know this information. Know how to get an abortion where your nearest clinic is. Because even if you think it's not something you'll need, someone you love will need it. Be ready to show up with them with love and support, and be ready to listen to their abortion stories, because honestly, this is all we've got in this moment. It's really scary, and we need everyone to take this so seriously, and we need you to get involved and yes, go vote. Yeah. And I'll say, physicians, you're not agents of the state. We are going to be called on to be enforcement and that is not your duty. Your duty is to care for your community. I think that's as good a place to end it. So we can all three of us get our blood pressure down just a bit. I will say that this has been a great discussion. It has been enriching discussion. I hope to never talk to either of you again on this issue. That is my hope for this world. Puppies, puppies when you come back on the show. Dr Marietti, Renee Bracy Sherman, thank you both for going beyond the scenes with me this week. Thank you, and I want that night. That's a nice shirt. Also, Renee, I want one of those extra large I can get one. That's a wrap on season one of Beyond the Scene. Stay tuned over the next few weeks. I'll be recapping some of my favorite moments over the past year. We're going beyond the scenes and beyond the scenes, We're gonna beyond, double beyond. New episodes start back up in August, and they will always be available wherever you get your podcasts. M HM.