In her new book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, Jessica Valenti argues that abortion is not in fact as controversial as abortion ban lawmakers would like their constituents to believe. As noted on the back of Abortion, 81 percent don’t want government regulation of abortion or pregnancy at all.
Valenti, feminist reporter and founder of ‘Abortion, Every Day,’ sat down for a conversation on Monday, Oct. 28—a little over one week before Election Day—about her new book, with moderator True North Research’s Ansev Demirhan (a frequent Ms. contributor), also in conversation with Karen Thompson, legal director of Pregnancy Justice; and Anoushka Chander, youth activist and host of the Ms. magazine podcast, The Z Factor. The conversation covered pregnancy criminalization, fetal personhood, ‘anti-trafficking’ laws and public health.
Watch their 27-minute conversation in full below, or read on for a transcript, punctuated with short clips.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Ansev Demirhan: Hi everyone. We are so excited for today’s session on Jessica Valenti’s new book Abortion, Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths we Use to Win. My name is Ansev Demirhan and I’m a senior researcher for True North Research, the research arm of Court Accountability. Today’s discussion is being co-hosted by the amazing Ms. magazine, and we are so incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to discuss the attacks on reproductive freedoms and the fight for reproductive justice with the panelists that we have today.
I’m going to briefly introduce them and then leave the discussion in their very capable hands.
Facilitating today’s discussion is Karen Thompson. Karen is the legal director of Pregnancy Justice, an organization that protects and advances pregnant people’s bodily autonomy and rights. Prior to joining Pregnancy Justice, Karen was a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Jersey and the Innocence Project. She has decades of experience fighting for civil liberties and racial justice in courts nationwide.
Karen also recently published an incredibly powerful review of Jessica’s book in Ms. magazine titled “The Chronicler, the Microphone, the Billboard.” Jessica Valenti’s abortion book arms us to face of abortion bans. Everyone go check it out. You will not regret it.
Also joining the discussion is Anoushka Chander. She’s the host of Ms. magazine’s brand-new podcast The Z Factor, Gen Z’s Voice and Vote. She’s an intern at Ms. Studios and an assistant producer for the Ms. podcast Torn Apart: Abolishing Family Policing Reimagining Child Welfare. She’s a senior at Harvard and is focused on securing reproductive justice for mothers of color and to that end she has interned for Congressman Jamie Raskin and the Democratic Women’s Caucus focusing on reproductive health post-Dobbs, the child tax credit and support for working women. Anoushka has written for Ms. and the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review.
And last but in no way least, joining us today is the reason we are all here, the author of Abortion Jessica Valenti. Jessica is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author. She’s authored eight books including her latest and is one of if not the foremost expert on attacks against reproductive freedoms and rights in the U.S. Following the overturn of Roe, she has meticulously and passionately shined a light on these affronts in her newsletter ‘Abortion, Every Day.’
And before I hand off the conversation, I just want to say a few words about the book. Every page is powerful and informative, and the book is equal parts inspiring and enraging. It truly does arm the choir with knowledge we need to push back against a relentless and aggressive agenda that continues to come for our bodily autonomy and personhood. Everyone please go buy the book and if you already have a copy, buy one for someone you love because the fight for reproductive justice impacts us all and Jessica’s book is an invaluable resource in this fight.
I cannot thank the panelists enough for being here and I’m so looking forward to this discussion and with that being said, I’ll hand the conversation over to you Karen.
Karen Thompson: Thank you so much and I am the biggest fan, as Jessica knows, so I’m not going to waste any more time just fan-girling and let’s just get into it because we have a short timeline and lots to cover.
So, we talk about preaching to the choir, but let’s talk about why the choir needs to be singing. I think none of this would be happening if we weren’t talking dealing with the question of fetal personhood. So, I think we should start there and just ground all of your work and all of the things that impact our work as an organization that fights pregnancy criminalization. So, can we just start there—with a definition and why it is so important in the work that you’re doing?
Jessica Valenti: Sure. First of all, thank you so much for the super kind introductions. I really appreciate it and I can’t imagine sort of a better group of people to be having this conversation with and I can’t imagine a more urgent time right now as we’re recording one week away from the election, which feels insane.
I guess for folks who don’t know what fetal personhood is, it is establishing constitutional personhood for an embryo, fetus, essentially giving them the same rights as any other person or, in the case of pregnant people, giving them more rights than the person who carries that pregnancy.
Actually in anticipation of this conversation I was thinking about how strange it is that we haven’t heard more about fetal personhood in the lead up to the election, right, and I don’t know if that’s because we’ve been so overwhelmed with the horror stories or you know thinking about ballot measures, thinking about like the horse race election. But it’s not something that we’ve heard a tremendous amount about at all. Like it really is something that is … I don’t know, it’s not in the media. We’ll hear about it very, very occasionally but it’s clearly something that is very much on Republicans’ minds. They won’t say it explicitly. It just is like the undercurrent of everything that they do.
Thompson: Anoushka, I don’t know if you want to follow up on that.
Anoushka Chander: Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for having me on this discussion and it’s an honor to be here with these amazing panelists and activists.
I think that the fetal personhood conversation is one that I’ve been thinking about a lot. One of my mentors, Professor Michele Goodwin at Georgetown Law and at Ms. magazine, she writes about this issue and it’s kind of like this sleeping giant. It’s the conservative weapon that’s going to take away bodily autonomy fully. Hopefully not, but if conservatives are able to get these statutes passed… and actually right now I think Guttmacher Institute has reported that there’s several states that are considering fetal personhood bills in the state legislatures as we speak.
Some politicians have come out in support of a national fetal personhood law and so it really is this underlying threat that targets all of bodily autonomy for women and people who can become pregnant. I also think the statistics that we’ve seen that Pregnancy Justice has come out with around fetal personhood and around fetal endangerment laws that are in place right now, we’ve seen that those laws are disproportionately used to criminalize poor women, you know women who engage in quote unquote ‘risky behaviors,’ for things that they can’t control like miscarriages or stillbirths. And so, it really is this weaponization of people’s ability to have a pregnancy that is…it’s just very scary what’s coming up in the future.
Valenti: Karen, I was just going to say I’m so glad that we’re talking about your report because I think it is a really good reminder that this is not just some legal standard, right? It is a weapon. It is meant to be used to punish. That is very much the point and the fact that they are really trying to hide it in this way.
I was thinking about the GOP platform and the fact that there was all of this news coverage about… they removed language from the GOP platform about a national ban, but meanwhile they included language that would give constitutional protections to embryos and fetuses, as if that is not the same thing as a national ban, as if that is not the same thing as enabling the punishment of pregnant people. And so, I’m so glad that we’re talking about it in that way, that this really is not just a legal standard but a tool.
Thompson: And it’s one that moves. That’s the thing that’s so deep about it too because we’re talking about rape and incest exceptions but that requires that someone be violated to get the care they need, and I think what fetal personhood does is, is it just says, it doesn’t matter what’s going on, we just have access. We get to have the government in at the moment of fertilization period—and that just feels like beyond the Rubicon as everything in your book points out.
So, to transition on that point, you talk about canaries in the coal mine in the book Jessica, and I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about the focus on teenage girls. What is that about? Why is it so specific and what’s the end game there?
Jessica Valenti: I mean it really is so nefarious because because you’re talking about a very marginalized group of people who can’t advocate for themselves, right? You’re talking about people who can’t vote largely, right? If you’re under 18 you can’t vote. Who don’t have a credit card. Who don’t have the ability to leave school to go get care, right? They’re not taking days off. So you’re talking about a very marginalized group.
Then on the cultural level it’s this really deliberate decision because they think that this is how they’re going to get away with enacting restrictions, by saying we’re just trying to protect this marginalized group, right. We’re just trying to protect teenage girls and don’t we all want that and that’s why they’re using language like anti-trafficking and consent, right? Like it is all done under this framework of ‘protection’ when in fact they’re attacked and that I think is what is so sort of insidious and horrible about the whole thing.
And then the other thing that I try to remind people, obviously you should care about this because teenagers are people too and you should care about their rights, but what happens to teenagers today is coming for us all tomorrow. They really are treating teenagers like a testing ground for these extreme restrictions, whether it’s consent laws or travel bans. They’re trying them out. They’re trying them out on teenagers, on people who don’t have the same ability to speak up and advocate for themselves and then it’ll come for us all.
They really are treating teenagers like a testing ground for these extreme restrictions, whether it’s consent laws or travel bans. … They’re trying them out on teenagers, on people who don’t have the same ability to speak up and advocate for themselves and then it’ll come for us all.
Jessica Valenti, author of Abortion
Thompson: Can you give us a little example of how it’s kind of jumped from like that focus to the broader community?
Valenti: Sure. I think probably the best example is the so-called anti-trafficking laws that we’ve seen. Both Idaho and Tennessee have passed—and other states are looking at—what they’re calling an anti-trafficking law, which they say prohibits adults from taking minors across state lines to get an abortion and it’s supposed to be to protect teenagers from predatory adults. The way the laws are written it’s not just that an adult, even a trusted adult, like a grandmother or an aunt can’t take someone across state lines for an abortion but they can’t help them get an abortion in any way—you know, lending someone gas money, sending them the URL to a clinic website, that all could be considered abortion trafficking and it’s this we just sort of criminalize community and family support in care, right?
So, if you’re a grandmother who is helping her granddaughter leave the state to get an abortion, all of a sudden you’re an abortion trafficker. The way that we’ve seen it make a jump is in Texas, I think at last count it was five or six counties. They have passed anti-trafficking ordinances that apply to people of all ages, right? This actually ends up getting back to fetal personhood. It applies to people of all ages, adult women, you know that you can bring a civil case. You can sue people if they take someone out of state for an abortion.
One thing that is so interesting and telling is that when they interviewed the antiabortion activist who is behind this effort and said, well why are you still calling this trafficking if you’re talking about adult women making their own decisions? He said the fetus is always being trafficked—and that is the heart of it, right? Like once you are giving fetal personhood then yeah, of course, if you’re leaving the state, then you are trafficking that fetus. We saw the same thing with Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshal, who wrote a legal brief not too long ago saying Alabama doesn’t yet restrict pregnant people’s ability to travel but we could if we wanted to, in the same way that we could restrict a sex offender’s right to travel because, in the same way the state has an interest in protecting potential victims of a sexual offender, the state has an interest in protecting the fetus from the pregnant person carrying it.
You can always wrap it up in a nice bow of fetal personhood. That’s always what it comes back to.
Thompson: So, what are the impacts on public health? Anoushka, can you talk a little bit about child separation and how does what Jessica just said kind of bleed into the work of your experience?
Chander: Yeah. So, I want to just jump in about how conservatives are using young people as scapegoats. This is all in line with the arguments about parental rights in schools, whether it’s about, quote unquote, ‘men in women’s sports,’ this horrible anti-trans rhetoric. Whether it’s about critical race theory, whether it’s about menstrual products in bathrooms. This is a myth that conservatives are relying upon to say they’re protecting young people.
I spent my summer working at the Democratic Women’s Caucus and I was listening to Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives rail against men in women’s sports, quote unquote, being ‘dangerous for women’s rights’ while at the same time blatantly voting to defund sexual violence prevention programs, defunding Title IX.
They don’t actually care about protecting young women or young people. This is all just part and parcel of a strategy because they know, and I think Jessica has talked about this before, but they know that being virulently antiabortion is not popular with the American conscious, with the American people. But saying parents should have control over what their kids are learning in school and what’s happening to their kids in school is a message that they’re trafficking all of these very harmful policies through.
And so, I just want to stand up for people my age and my generation, folks in high school and college, and say we are aware that our generation is being used as a scapegoat in all of these things and we’re coming out to vote a week from now. So, just be aware of that.
I just want to stand up for people my age and my generation, folks in high school and college, and say we are aware that our generation is being used as a scapegoat in all of these things, and we’re coming out to vote.
Anoushka Chander, youth activist and host of the Ms. podcast, The Z Factor
Thompson: Thank you, deeply appreciate that. To that point because it’s really about language, right? It’s all about how we are phrasing these things.
How does abortion trafficking really just kind of ignore what the core issues are? Can we talk about language and how it’s being manipulated, what it’s being manipulated to do, and how do we puncture that because obviously we are in a fight right now for understanding reality. Everybody’s operating in different planes. If the language is messy, if the language is imprecise, how do we get to some sort of precision that allows us to name what’s going on and then fight against it?
Valenti: I could talk about language forever and I’m fully obsessed with conservative messaging and the way that they’re weaponizing language, and frankly, the way that Democrats are not doing a good enough job of pushing back against a lot of this language. I think really when it comes to abortion specifically, we have let them frame the debate for so long when it comes to everything. It really is time that we are, as you said, more precise and talking about this as they actually are.
That’s why I was so glad, Kamala Harris said in her most recent speech in Texas where she called travel bans, travel bans. Sometimes it is as simple as that. Call the thing what they are. We do not need to repeat the nonsense rhetoric of antiabortion politicians and pundits and activists.
Something that I’m hyperfocused on is the role of mainstream media accounts, media outlets, and the way they sort of enshrine these terms into the public consciousness and give them the credibility that they are so desperately seeking.
I think probably one of the best examples is the word ban. The words “minimum national standard,” how those two things are actually the same thing but Republicans are trying to differentiate and they’ve been successful when you have, you know, major publications like the Times reporting that JD Vance opposes a national ban because he says that he supports a minimum national standard instead.
That’s a real issue and I think that in part getting to that place where we’re seeing accurate reporting of the language means investing in reporters, investing in an editorial product that understands this issue, that understands abortion, having people in the room who understand what these words mean, who’ve been paying attention to what kind of language that they’re using.
I also think that this is something that we have the ability to do something about on a smaller local level, right? Like we don’t always need to be calling out the Times, calling out the Washington Post. You are going to see this sort of attack on language in schools, in your community health center, right? Crisis pregnancy centers, which are just populated everywhere.
They’re using that language and they really are very good at embedding themselves in local communities and getting the word out that way and framing the debate. So, I think it’s just so incredibly important that we think about how we throw a wrench into that and how we intervene in that way, in a way that’s not just on the defensive and fighting back against that language, but proactive and defining words for ourselves for once, and using language that is accurate and comprehensive and forward thinking.
Chander: You know I want to add to that by saying, there’s an activist that I really look up to. Her name is Olivia Juliana. She’s from Texas. She does a lot of work on reproductive justice and she said in an episode of our podcast, that these bans are not pro-life. They’re pro control and anti-women and I think those kind of… that is a precise calling out of the actual problem that we need to engage in more.
I think another language change that has been impactful for me to see is Kamala Harris’ campaign using the language of reproductive freedom, rather than just abortion rights. Because she’s centering reproductive freedom, because it’s not just about abortion. It’s about contraception and IVF and maternal health and sexual health and LGBTQ+ health. All of this is falling under reproductive freedom, and I think that kind change in language creates a more expansive view of what we’re talking about in these conversations, and I really appreciated how the campaign has centered freedom as part of the conversation about reproductive health and rights.
Valenti: I couldn’t agree more and I think in part what makes us so powerful is knowing that the antiabortion movement is working so hard to separate out abortion from all other kinds of reproductive healthcare and reproductive health issues, right? Like they really do want to distinguish it. It’s so important that we’re bringing it back into the fold that this is all part of one continuum.
We need to have a ‘yes and’ attitude to how we discuss reproductive freedom and abortion rights because for young women of course it’s a health issue and it’s about maintaining our own bodily autonomy, but it’s also an issue of economic justice and the ability to plan our own futures.
Chander
Thompson: Is there any danger there though in… which I one hundred percent agree with you both. Like is there a danger in the, ‘oh what about all of those jezebels who are just having abortions every month?’ It’s okay for someone to just have an abortion because they just want an abortion. Is there something to be said about linking things really heavily to healthcare, when abortion should just be available and the fetal personhood question is actually what we need to spend some more time drilling down on.
Valenti: I think a lot of the common political wisdom says that there’s a danger in being too open about it and talking about abortion that way… that the safest thing to do is to talk about health. I don’t think that’s true.
I think that there is so much power and it really resonates with voters when you talk about freedom, when you talk about lack of government interference, that you don’t want the government involved in these decisions. I think that is a message that actually sort of cuts across parties and so I understand that inclination, and I think Democrats have been there for a long time because there’s this fear of going further, but I think it’s almost like we need to learn how to win better because we are winning on this message culturally.
And so, why would we be tentative now, right? Now is the exact time that we need to be talking about and pushing for the policies and the language and the future that we actually want. That doesn’t mean not talking about health. Obviously it does because we can see the extreme health impact that bans are having across the country, but it also means talking about lack of government interference, talking about what it means when you have government interference, what it means when you have fetal personhood, what it means for our own personhood.
Chander: I completely agree. I also think we need to have a ‘yes and’ attitude to how we discuss reproductive freedom and abortion rights because for young women of course it’s a health issue and it’s about maintaining our own bodily autonomy, but it’s also an issue of economic justice and the ability to plan our own futures. And so, just saying, yes, this is a health issue and it’s an economic issue and it’s an issue about whether or not we’re going to be able to stay in school and get the education that we need or have a job promotion and all of these things.
So, you know, it’s focusing the conversation on health because it is so salient and because every report coming out of all these states is on the destruction of women’s health right now in states with abortion bans. I think, of course that is incredibly important but then it’s a ‘yes and.’ There’s so much more to it as well.
Thompson: The very first sentence of chapter two of Abortion is, ‘One of the biggest myths about abortion is that it’s controversial.’ So, let’s talk about what’s not controversial about abortion.
Valenti: It is shockingly uncontroversial.
If you just read newspapers and magazines, if you just listened to the national debate on abortion you would think that this country is irrevocably polarized on the issue, that we’re evenly split. Nothing could be further from the truth. That hasn’t been true for decades in fact, right?
For decades the majority of Americans have wanted abortion to be legal, but since Roe was overturned that support has grown even more which is incredible. The stat that I love, that I mention in the book, is 81 percent; 81 percent of Americans want zero government regulation of abortion and pregnancy—81 percent.
I can’t think of anything that has 81 percent support in this country, right? That is a tremendous level of support and that’s why I think it’s so important that we are talking about abortion in accurate ways. When we don’t talk about it as something that Americans overwhelmingly support, we’re also doing a disservice to this very huge political story, which is Republicans are passing laws, this small minority of extremist legislators, are passing laws against the wishes of the vast majority of voters. That goes beyond healthcare. It goes beyond… that is a democracy issue. This is a fundamental democracy issue that we are not addressing when we allow this myth to proliferate that abortion is somehow controversial.
I can’t think of anything that has 81 percent support in this country, right? That is a tremendous level of support and that’s why I think it’s so important that we are talking about abortion in accurate ways.
Valenti
Chander: Absolutely. The statistic that I think about when people say abortion is so controversial and we just can’t agree is in a class that I took on reproductive rights and health. The professor said, if a woman is facing a pregnancy test, she knows before she gets the results of the pregnancy test whether or not she wants to continue that pregnancy. … There is absolutely agreement upon whether women should have the right to bodily autonomy and that happens before you even know you’re pregnant. You know what the decision will be for yourself.
Valenti: Yeah. And I also have to point out that like it is extraordinarily strategic for Republicans to claim that this is something that the country is split on—because they don’t want anyone to know that they’re enforcing these laws against the wishes of the vast majority of voters. It’s strategic. It’s strategic. They don’t want people to know that this is what they’re doing. They are desperate for voters to believe that they’re alone in being pro choice, that their communities don’t support them, right? It really is one of the most foundational things I think if we could just skew that back to where it should be, we would be in much better shape.
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