The Abortion Landscape One Year Post-Roe with Journalist and Podcast Host

GARNET HENDERSON

0:00:00 - Danielle Bezalel

Hello Garnet, how's it going today? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm great. I am eating a banana and drinking my coffee. I'm halfway in between those things. I don't know about you, but before I do a podcast episode, I'm just like I should be better at this because I've done so many. But I just somehow feel like, oh my God, I have to go to the bathroom. I need to go do my things. It's just somehow like a race, like 15 minutes before. What's your routine before? Are you set? You know, every minute? Are you kind of like me? 

0:06:00 - Garnet Henderson

It really depends, especially because on a lot of the episodes of my podcasts I have multiple guests. I do pretty intensive editing to edit those conversations into a montage where you're like hearing from different people in various orders. Sometimes I think that takes pressure off the actual interview because I know I'm going to chop it up so much. When I'm weird is when I'm getting ready to record my voice overs for the podcast. 

0:06:30 - Danielle Bezalel

Okay, tell me about what you do when you do that. 

0:06:34 - Garnet Henderson

I'm also a dancer. I've been a performer my whole life, since I was three. I think that is the kind of thing that I treat as though it is some kind of performance. I do like a vocal warmup, which is an embarrassing thing to admit, but I do what I did not do before this. Maybe if you listen to my podcast and my voice sounds different now, that's why I also record my podcast in my closet, which is for acoustics. Yeah, it sounds better. Apologies to your editor, but it also looks really creepy. It looks like I'm talking to people from a serial killer lair. I don't normally do that when I'm on camera. 

0:07:13 - Danielle Bezalel

Totally understood. Okay, we're trading secrets here. 

0:07:17 - Speaker 3

Yes. 

0:07:18 - Danielle Bezalel

All right. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself? Tell us what you do. We already know that you have been dancing your whole life but tell us about your other life that you live. 

0:07:28 - Garnet Henderson

That's right, my name is Garnet Henderson. I'm the senior multi-platform reporter for Rewire News Group, which is the only national publication that is exclusively focused on reproductive and sexual health rights and justice news. Before I joined the staff at Rewire, I was a freelance journalist for about a decade, also with a big focus on reproductive and sexual health, especially abortion access. I also, as an independent project, host my podcast, which is called Access, a Podcast about Abortion, and I've been doing that since 2020. 

0:08:05 - Danielle Bezalel

Wow, you got that elevator pitch down, fucking Pat. 

0:08:09 - Garnet Henderson

Like a reporter does succinctly. 

0:08:10 - Danielle Bezalel

I didn't realize that Rewire was the only news publication focused on reproductive health justice news. That's really, really important. 

0:08:23 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, it's a little depressing when you think about that, but it is also something we're proud of, in that we are experts and we know that subject matter super well and especially among our staff, there's a real encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of things. Two of my co-workers, Jess Piccolo and Imani Gandhi, have their own podcast called Boom Lawyered, because they are both lawyers turned journalists. We also have that great repro legal journalism angle that you don't get many other places. That is something that we're proud of. 

0:08:58 - Danielle Bezalel

Hell yeah, That's really cool. I've worked with Rewire in the past talking about sex ed on TikTok and the censorship that we have experienced as sex educators on TikTok and what that looks like and feels like Yeah, i just really loved working with Rewire. Just a really fantastic publication. If you haven't heard of them, check them out. Well, not now, but after this episode. Yes, okay, let's talk about your podcast, which is, as you said, access, a podcast about abortion. Tell me how your career path led you to want to create this project. 

0:09:36 - Garnet Henderson

Well, I do love podcasts. I consume a lot of what I would call news commentary through podcasts, not necessarily the breaking news bulletin stuff, but the deeper dives, more in-depth looks at stories that are in the news. I love podcasts with that kind of a focus. I was interested in doing something like that at some point Over the years. I just was coming up against the fact and I'm sure you've encountered this too that most people really just don't know very much about abortion. 

When I would go to parties, for example, and people would ask me what I do, I would always end up talking about abortion because it's something that I was reporting on so much. 

The number one thing that I would hear from people usually who are smart, politically engaged people was oh wow, i had no idea. 

There were just so many stories and just so many different aspects of abortion access in America that people clearly were not hearing about from whatever media that they were consuming. I also found a job as a reporter when I was a freelancer because as a freelancer I had to pitch every article that I wrote. When you're doing that, you have to really sell it and convince an editor that it's something that they want to publish. I was finding that I was having to do so much more explaining when it came to abortion-related articles than I did for other topics. It just took a lot of convincing to get editors to understand why certain stories were important. That's when I had the idea to create a podcast that would really break down this incredibly complex landscape of abortion access in America, one topic at a time, really do a deep dive on something specific in every episode and just answer all of those questions that people might have been afraid to ask or maybe never thought to ask. 

0:11:40 - Danielle Bezalel

Yeah, wow, that's so interesting that even I think about this often, the idea that professionals in a certain field not everyone could know everything or even a little bit about everything. But I feel like with abortion I agree. Often I'll have conversations with really, really smart, well-intentioned people who I view politically as quote-unquote on my side. Yet I had a conversation with some on the other day of being like oh yeah, one in four people in the US have abortions and that used to be higher. 

0:12:17 - Garnet Henderson

It used to be one in three. One in three, yeah. 

0:12:19 - Danielle Bezalel

They literally didn't. not that they didn't trust me, but they were shocked. They were like that's crazy. Why didn't I know that? I'm like, why don't you know that? I don't know? Do you think being in our own social media bubbles contributes to this idea, where people are not really getting this kind of information, specifically about abortion, or what are your top theories as to why don't, let alone the rest of the country? right, but we're talking about people who are theoretically going to the same colleges as we are, reading the same kinds of news sources, voting in the same way as us. Let's start there. Why don't they know that? 

0:13:05 - Garnet Henderson

I really think it all comes back to abortion stigma, because I think this has changed in the 10 years that I've been reporting on abortion access. I will say: But I think even among people who consider themselves politically left, liberal, progressive there's still a lot of abortion stigma. There's still an idea that abortion is a shameful or undesirable outcome. Sometimes you hear people say things that explicitly suggest that, like, oh well, nobody wants an abortion. Or you hear people talking about wanting to reduce the number of abortions in America. Well, why actually is it bad that we have the number of abortions that we do in America? right, And I think that part of that comes from the fact that that was the public health frame for a long time And, like you, having gone to public health school, can speak to that even more than I can. 

But I was just interviewing an expert yesterday and we were talking about this And she was saying like, yeah, you know that actually was not uncommon even just, you know, five or so years ago to talk about reducing abortion as being a desirable outcome. And so I think even people who don't, who wouldn't say that they think abortion is wrong, have internalized some kind of shame about it, And I really think that's where that comes from, Because if it's shocking to you that one in four people capable of becoming pregnant has had an abortion, what that means really is that there are several people in your life who have had abortions and they just haven't told you right. And so why haven't they told you? Why didn't they feel comfortable telling you? 

0:14:52 - Danielle Bezalel

Totally Yeah, and, like you know, we can get into this later, but I do think there's this like moral judgment, like you said, then that goes along with stigma and shame of being like, oh well, when we're comparing a miscarriage right to an abortion, there's this idea of like, well, that was like God's will or that just happened right, and so there's this idea like, when women and people with uteruses make that choice for themselves, for their families a majority of them are already parents, we know the data on this like, then there's this judgment, and so I just think it's so like important for us to really parse that out. Yeah, absolutely Moving on a little bit specifically to the Dobbs leak, which happened basically a year ago, you know, almost today, June of 2022. And you know, I think we at Sex Ed with DB, we talk a lot about abortion in general on this podcast. We've talked about abortion in the media, we've talked about the turnaway study, we've talked about abortion pills, we've talked about what an abortion looks like at nine weeks. 

Like there are many, many ways that we've discussed abortion, but our last episode, really looking at the national landscape around abortion and abortion access, was probably around this time of the Dobbs leak, about a year ago, and so I'm wondering if you can, you know, share what has changed in abortion access since Dobbs about a year ago and who has been the most affected? And now I caveat this by saying this is a very large question. We can talk about this for hours and hours. So maybe, like if there are like three really big trends that you're finding in your reporting or through doing your podcast, like, what do folks need to know? 

0:16:46 - Garnet Henderson

Well, we now have more than a dozen states that have banned all or most abortions, and a few of those states. Things keep kind of bouncing back and forth as different legal challenges make their way through the courts, but those states are concentrated in the South and Midwest, and those are the parts of the country where it was already hardest to get an abortion, particularly for low income people and people of color. So there are the people who have always been most affected by abortion bans and young people as well, I'll add. And they're the people who have been most affected by that loss of the idea that there was a right to abortion in our Constitution. 

0:17:29 - Danielle Bezalel

The loss of the idea is important. 

0:17:31 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, exactly Because, really, people in the same states that have now banned abortion were already living a post-row reality. But we do have an estimate that there may be around 32,260 people who have not been able to get abortions, and that's an estimate that the Society of Family Planning made, and they did that by looking at the decline, really the complete fall in the number of abortions in states that have banned abortion And the increase in the number of abortions in states where abortion is still legal. So basically, they used that data to estimate the number of people who seem to have traveled to another state and gotten their abortion, and then that 32,260 is basically the number of people who normally would have gotten an abortion in that same time span, and that's how many fewer abortions there have been. So over 32,000 people may have been unable to access a legal abortion. Some of those people, of course, might have bought abortion pills online or gotten them from a friend and self-managed their own abortions at home, and on one hand, that's a positive outcome, because illegal abortions can be safe thanks to medication abortion, and that's something that is so important and so different from the time in the United States prior to Roe vs Wade. But along with that comes concerns about criminalization, because self-managed abortion is only specifically banned in a handful of states. Most places it is not illegal, but we know that people have been criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes again, especially black and indigenous people and all people of color and low income people, even when Roe was in place. 

There are lots of cases where prosecutors have used laws that really were not intended to criminalize abortion, but they have used them that way, and the most prominent example of that at the moment is that there's a teenager in Nebraska and both she and her mother are facing criminal charges because she self-managed an abortion, allegedly with pills, and that girl took a plea deal. 

She faces years in jail And her mother is actually facing even more time. They're basically prosecuting her mother as though she was a drug dealer rather than just someone who got her child abortion pills. Yeah, so that's really disturbing. And then, of course, we are likely to see an increase in the rates of pregnancy related death, which already are abominably high in the United States, especially for black women, and we're seeing a lot of stories about people who experienced really dangerous medical complications because they were denied early abortions, and unfortunately, we're just also going to see a lot more people carrying pregnancy to term, and pregnancy is inherently risky, especially if you are a low income person of color in the South or Midwest, where again, access to health care was already worse than everybody else, than everywhere else in the country, and now you can't access an abortion. So we're going to see more people dying in childbirth as well. 

0:20:54 - Danielle Bezalel

Oof. Yeah, I mean, I think of this idea and we try to say this so many times on the podcast, so I really hope it gets across. But, like before Roe v Wade was overturned, like many people were living this reality where things were challenging Already for many people, specifically BIPOC and low income people, to access abortion without the illegalness of it. Now, Right. 

And so I think it's like it's a big wake up call for everyone. but it should have happened a long time ago, and so I don't know, in a way, like many experts have been, like trust me, like this is going to happen, like just wait. 

0:21:38 - Garnet Henderson

And then it did. 

0:21:39 - Danielle Bezalel

And now I wonder, like what do we do about it? Like what do we do to kind of ensure that we fight back against this and that it doesn't kind of just become like a one off thing, but that it needs to be ingrained in us in order to fight for reproductive justice and rights for people who need them? 

0:22:03 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, you're exactly right that Roe was never enough. It never ensured And specifically in our lifetimes it really never ensured that everyone who needed an abortion could get one. And so, again, I actually think a lot of this comes back to abortion stigma, because a lot of people still have an idea that it's reasonable for there to be some kind of restrictions on abortion access. We see in polling that even a lot of people who believe that abortion should be broadly legal believe it's reasonable for there to be some limits. And the thing is, a limit is really just a ban by another name. Any limits on access to abortion make it harder for people to get abortions, delay them, mean that they're seeking an abortion later in their pregnancy, oftentimes than they really wanted to be. So any type of limit is always going to mean there's somebody who needed an abortion and didn't get one. 

So I think it's really time to rethink the idea that it's reasonable for the government to limit access to abortion at all, and in a way that's actually returning to a much earlier idea. That's actually what the lawyers who argued Roe versus Wade were arguing for. They were saying that the state, the government, has no compelling interest in regulating pregnancy And it was the Supreme Court justices at that time, in the 1970s, who decided they needed to create this really complicated compromise. So it's important to remember when you hear the notion of a compromise like now we hear, you know that a 15 week ban, for example, or a 12 week ban, as was recently passed in North Carolina and Nebraska, that that's a compromise. But Roe was actually a compromise. So I think it's really time to reimagine our whole idea that it's reasonable to regulate abortion and advocate not just to restore Roe, which is the big rallying cry with a lot of Democratic politicians right now, but to simply remove all legal limits on access to abortion. I think it's really time to be bold and be radical. 

0:24:18 - Danielle Bezalel

Yeah, break the whole fucking thing down. 

0:24:20 - Garnet Henderson

Exactly, and rebuild it. 

0:24:23 - Danielle Bezalel

You know, it's really interesting too that that's coming up for me is thinking about this idea where in, like the I don't know when this started, but I'm going to say like maybe the 40s, 50s, 60s, where doctors and medical professionals were really seen as like god's right, yes, like they were very much revered. It was kind of like whatever the doctor says goes, like this is such a profession that we want all of our kids and our kids' kids to be right. 

And there's this idea where, like and I'm a little biased because my mom is a no big UAN and I hear a lot of her stories But like doctors are not revered in the same way anymore. In fact, state legislatures theoretically have more power to regulate someone's body and say what a woman or a person with a uterus can or can't do with that body, compared to what a doctor would say. And the doctor has the research and the years of medical training and you know, of course, not all doctors you know believe that abortion should happen. And yet, like We're not really viewing doctors and medical professionals in the same way as we used to. Is that what you do? reporting on? like the idea of doctors, Like what does that look like? 

0:25:41 - Garnet Henderson

I certainly think it's true that the way we view doctors is really different, but I also think what's important is that, most of all, we're not listening to patients. We're not listening to people who are pregnant or can become pregnant when they tell us what they want and what they need, because I do think there are so many wonderful doctors out there. I'm lucky enough to interview them all the time, and especially when we're talking about abortion providers. These are people who are risking their lives to provide abortion care And they know that every single day. Just two days ago was the anniversary of the murder of Dr George Tiller, actually, who was assassinated in 2009 because he was an abortion provider. He had survived an earlier assassination attempt in the 90s and then was killed in 2009. That's not very long ago, but you know, a not so fun fact is that abortion bans in the United States were actually originated by the American Medical Association. 

0:26:47 - Danielle Bezalel

Oh, really bad. Okay, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? 

0:26:52 - Garnet Henderson

So this is something I've reported on quite a bit. The American Medical Association president is not a fan of mine, and yeah. So if you think back before the 40s and 50s, we're talking about the mid-1800s now. Oh my, when university trained physicians first really became a thing, and at the time people did not respect them. People were still going to the medical providers they had been going to for generations. Sometimes those were skilled midwives, but they also were people like barbers you know who would do bloodletting homeopaths, just straight up snaggle oil salesmen. There was a very bizarre landscape And university trained physicians were like we have to do something about this, and they were particularly threatened by the midwives, because those midwives were skilled and they did have generations of knowledge about how to care for people who were pregnant and giving birth and also about how to provide abortions. 

And so the American Medical Association identified abortion as their wedge issue And they started going around to every state and painting abortion as something that was incredibly dangerous. Midwives as these dangerous, unskilled practitioners. Of course, it's not a coincidence that a lot of midwives were women of color, particularly in the black community. Right Enslaved people did not have access to good medical care, so people became their own doctors and their own midwives for their community, and so, basically, doctors set out to put midwives out of business, and they did that very successfully, and within just a matter of decades, every state in the US had banned abortion. So when you hear about pre-roh bands being in effect in some states, you have the American Medical Association to thank for that. So the medical field actually has a lot to answer for when it comes to the history of the legality of abortion in our country. 

0:28:57 - Danielle Bezalel

This is complex. I did not indeed disappear going back and back. You're totally right, and yeah, we could go on. We can have a whole episode about like terrible, you know, the medical industrial complexes and all of the shit that doctors do wrong. 

And at the same time, I think, in our current landscape, where we are today, I just find it very interesting this idea that we're not listening to science. I guess I shouldn't even be talking about doctors, because doctors should be advocating for science and for the facts, and that's really, I think, the point that I'm trying to get at. 

0:29:36 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, and I do agree with that, and I also think that hospitals are not supporting doctors, and that's a really important thing to understand. So when we hear these horrible stories of people who are experiencing life-threatening pregnancy complications and they get turned away, they get told this isn't bad enough. Yet that's because that hospital's legal team has decided to interpret the state's abortion ban in the most conservative way possible. So the doctors are afraid to care for that patient then because they don't want to A go to jail or, b lose their license, and instead hospitals because who has the real money and power now? it's hospitals, right, and instead hospitals could be using those lawyers to stand up and say no, we're not doing this, nobody is going to die on our watch, sue us if you want, come get us. Right. They could be offering doctors the protection they need in order to do their jobs, and they're not doing that. So I think really, you know that's where. That's where we need to be pointing the finger. Is that hospital administrators? 

0:34:49 - Danielle Bezalel

We talked about this a little bit before, but with the idea of self-managed abortion with abortion pills, right. I think, like in the past year, especially after Roe v Wade was overturned, there have been a lot of headlines and court rulings and misinformation about abortion pills. And I want to know from you where are we now with abortion pills and what do people need to know about them? 

0:35:42 - Garnet Henderson

Well, first of all, they need to know that abortion pills are really safe. Serious complications happen less than 1%. It's less than one half of 1% of the time with medication abortion. Okay, So it is very safe. 

There is a legal battle right now regarding access to mifepristone, which is one of the two drugs that is, you know, is typically used in medication abortion And right now access to mifepristone remains unchanged, So it is not available legally in states that have banned abortion, but it's available everywhere else And even if you live in a banned state, you can still get abortion pills online. But there is a case that was filed in federal court in Texas. It has bounced all around through various levels of appeals. Most recently there were oral arguments before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals And we're waiting on them to decide and see what they're going to do. But the good-ish news is that the Supreme Court has basically issued a stay, which means they've put any changes on hold until the case is fully resolved, And this is something that we absolutely expect will make its way back to the Supreme Court. 

It could be as early as their next session, which starts in the fall. So June is the end of the season where the Supreme Court issues its decisions And then they leave. They're done for the summer and they'll be back in session in the fall. So depending on how quickly this case moves through the courts, it could be back before them in their next term. It's possible, if it moves slowly enough, maybe it would be the term after that. But either way, we are probably going to get a pretty bonkers opinion from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals because they are notoriously conservative. But no matter how wacky and out there their opinion is, nothing's going to change until this case gets back before the Supreme Court, at least. 

0:37:49 - Danielle Bezalel

Right And, like you said, i talk a lot on social media about plan C pills and just the way in which someone can access abortion medication. There's carofem, there's a lot of different, hey Jane. There's a lot of different organizations that we talk about And I just feel like the more information and the more facts you can get about medication, abortion the better someone who might need to take it or want to take those pills might feel about the way in which that their body might react, what they can do if something doesn't feel right, who they can talk to after the fact. So I think it's equally as important to talk about the facts and the fact that it's safe, as well as that criminalization as we see this mom and daughter in Nebraska is a very real and scary thing, and this does not come without risk, especially depending on where you are. 

And so, yeah, abortion funds are really really important. I know the Yellowhammer Fund for folks in the South. If you're there, definitely check them out, See what other kinds of abortion funds that there are out there, because it can be a very expensive, challenging process for folks who have children, who need to take off work, who need to do X, Y and Z in order to take care of themselves, And so, yeah, I just I really feel for people who are in those positions and it's really really important that we cover all sides of this. 

0:39:33 - Garnet Henderson

Absolutely. I think I Need an. A is also a great resource. It's called NeedanA.com. It's a directory so you can find abortion clinics, but also telemedicine services. You know places that will mail pills to you And they're introducing a lot of really cool advanced search tools to help you figure out what especially if you want to go to a clinic in person what clinic, if you have to travel out of state, is going to be not just closest but most convenient for you, based on you know if the other states you might have to travel to have waiting periods or they have parental notification laws if you're under 18. So they're introducing a lot of amazing search tools and they also can connect you with abortion funds and practical support networks and other resources too, like the if, when, how, repro legal helpline, and there's also the miscarriage and abortion hotline. If you have taken abortion pills and you're worried about something, you can call the M&A hotline and an actual medical professional will help you out. 

0:40:35 - Danielle Bezalel

Amazing. I also just want to cover this idea really quickly that you know there's a lot of misinformation that spreads, obviously about abortion, but I think one that I really want to hit home for people that is not true is that people who get abortions, uh, regret them. I wonder if you can talk about the studies and the data that show otherwise. 

0:41:01 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, I actually dedicated a whole episode to this. It's episode 8. It's called reframing abortion regret. If you've spoken about the turnaway study on the show, then your listeners might already know. There's a statistic from the turnaway study where they found that 95% of participants said they did not regret their abortions. And what I learned from talking to the researchers behind that study is that even that 5% of people who said they felt regret often didn't regret having the abortion. They regretted the circumstances around it, if that makes sense. They regretted being in a position where they had to make that choice. 

So I interviewed someone on that episode whose story has always really stuck with me where she had just ended a relationship. She had just broken up with her partner when she found out she's pregnant. She's in her mid-30s. She's someone who really wants to become a parent, so she really considered continuing that pregnancy because she was worried she might not be able to get pregnant again. 

But her former partner basically made it clear that he was going to make her life really difficult if she did that, and so she made the choice to have an abortion because she knew that that was what was best for her and also that that wasn't a good situation to bring a child into. So she feels good about that decision, but she regrets the circumstance, right, she regrets being faced with that choice. She feels sadness around it, but it's not because something about having an abortion inherently damaged her. It's just that she was at a difficult point in her life and abortion was the solution and she still feels sad about that, which I think is really understandable. I think it's so important to make space for the fact that people sometimes have complicated feelings about abortion and not always right For a lot of people. I've interviewed so many people who said, no, it was such an easy choice, right. But also some people do have really complicated feelings, and that's okay And we can talk about that, i think, without playing into that anti-abortion narrative that abortion harms women. 

0:43:09 - Danielle Bezalel

Yes, Yeah, like. are we not allowed to feel a full array of feelings? based on a thing that you maybe know is right, but is still challenging and hard and could be sad. 

0:43:22 - Garnet Henderson

Exactly. We make decisions like that as adults all the time. That's life Totally. 

0:43:28 - Danielle Bezalel

Yeah, yeah, I'm really glad that you talked about that. Let's talk about your piece that's coming out soon on anti-abortion violence. Tell us about that. What is a really critical topic that most people should really be aware of, which I just don't know that we're talking about enough. So I'm glad that you're doing a piece on this. 

0:43:52 - Garnet Henderson

Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, we have a big content drop coming up at Rewire. We do these quarterly special issues that we think of like a digital magazine, and this next one is called Dobbs and Democracy. So we're looking at the erosion of abortion rights and how that affects our democracy here in the United States, and I looked at anti-abortion violence, because anti-abortion violence is so deeply tied to far right political violence in this country. So many abortion providers have told me a similar story, which is that on January 6th 2021, they were all so confused because they looked outside their clinics and the people who are normally standing out there screaming at patients as they come in, harassing people trying to block the doors, just weren't there. And then, when the news of the attack on the Capitol broke, they turned on the TV and they recognized all of their regular protesters. 

Oh, there's Joe and Jerry, that's right. So many, I mean the list is long. Many prominent anti-abortion activists participated in the insurrection And, yes, that might sound surprising but it actually really tracks, because the anti-abortion Yes, the anti-abortion movement is deeply tied to white supremacy and Christian nationalism. All those same groups that stormed the Capitol are often sending people to scream at people outside of abortion clinics. They're all connected And you know, in the late 80s and 90s in the United States, there were lots of mass clinic blockades where thousands of people would show up to block access to abortion clinics, and there was a law passed in 1994 called the FACE Act the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act that made it a federal crime to do that, as well as to harass, intimidate, threaten, harm anyone who works in an abortion clinic or is seeking abortion care, and so that did cut down on those really mass demonstrations. 

But actually other forms of anti-abortion violence have continued to increase over time And there was a huge spike around 2016, 2017, which happened then? Donald Trump got elected president, right? So a lot of abortion providers connected back to that. I've heard really disturbing stories People showing up to clinics with AR-15s Oh my God. Yeah, in the last year in particular, there's been a really big increase in bomb threats And also there were four in 2022, four anthrax or other bioterrorism threats at abortion clinics. That's also something that hasn't been seen since the 90s. 

The rate of assault and battery really spiked during the pandemic outside abortion clinics, and the National Abortion Federation, which is a professional organization for abortion providers, releases statistics every year on violence and disruption at abortion clinics, and their most recent report on their 2022 statistics shows that there was a really significant increase in violence at clinics in states where abortion is still legal. So that is something that providers had told me. They were afraid that as more patients travel to those legal states, the violent protesters will come along with them, and that does seem to be what's happening. So states like New York, California, Washington, places that didn't used to see the most aggressive protester activity, I would say have really seen an uptick in that kind of aggressive activity and violence, and so I think that's something that's really important to understand. You know, the anti-abortion movement is not going to stop at making abortion illegal, right? They really want to make abortion providers afraid to go to work and they want to make people afraid to go to abortion clinics. 

0:47:52 - Danielle Bezalel

What do we do? What do we do about this? I understand that this is a very complicated thing. That's not like, oh well, just do this thing and it's going to fix it, but I feel like I don't really know how to grasp it. Obviously, it's the easy access to guns. It's what people are learning in religious school. It's what people are learning in their public schools that are taught by whatever. You know what I mean. There's so many pieces to it and I just feel do you ever just argue like what the fuck? I don't know, I don't know what to do here. 

0:48:33 - Garnet Henderson

Yes On this often, yes, all the time, and I'm aware that you know it's hard when everything is doom and gloom because you do not want people to tune that out, and I think it is tempting to tune out when all the news seems bad. But I think the good news is that at least what I always remind myself of is just the people I talk to. I might actually cry. The people I talk to every week are literally moving heaven and earth to get people. Abortions are just incredible and they're really brave and they shouldn't have to be, but they are and they're out there every day doing it And that's something that gives me hope. But on the subject of violence, specifically back to hospitals, I love to hate hospitals because they could be helping out. 

Only 5% of abortions in the US happen in hospitals and private doctors' offices, 95% in clinics. So hospitals often and OBGYNs in private practice are often just referring their patients out to a clinic for abortion care, when they could do that. And they're not going to get an abortion themselves, especially OBGYNs, come on Right. So more doctors in private practice and more hospitals could just be offering their own patients abortion care. That would decrease some of the load on those clinics and take at least some of that target off their backs Right, particularly in communities that don't have a lot of clinics. If you know, everybody who gets an abortion has to go to this one clinic. It's so easy to target it. There were 5 places because there were 4 hospitals. That would really help right Especially because hospitals are big buildings. It is Harder to harass people going in and out of a hospital. 

0:50:25 - Danielle Bezalel

Not that it doesn't happen, that's very true. 

0:50:28 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah. 

0:50:29 - Danielle Bezalel

And then you talk about oh well, some are Catholic hospitals so they're not going to change. That's right. Oh my God, that's a whole other thing. We can't even talk about that anymore, but yes, totally agreed that, like there are so many more people who have power and access who should be contributing positively to this cause and they're not, and I think, like putting pressure on those institutions and continuing to talk about abortion whenever we get the chance and donating money to our abortion funds and doing an array of things is what we can do. 

0:51:04 - Garnet Henderson

Yeah, absolutely. 

0:51:07 - Danielle Bezalel

Garnet, this has been so cool to have you on. I wonder if you can just share some recommendations for people to find up to date, accurate information about abortion care and rights, and where can people find you if they want to check out your stuff. 

0:51:21 - Garnet Henderson

Absolutely. I think it's always a great idea to get plugged in with your local abortion fund, like you were saying, danielle. Obviously they help people, they pay for abortions, but they also are the ones who tend to have that minute by minute information about what is going on in your community with abortion access. So don't clog up their hotlines. People who need help paying for their abortions are the ones who need to be able to call them. But find your local abortion fund on social media and start following them and pay attention to any calls that they put out for help or other action items. 

I think that's a good way to stay informed and to get more involved if you want. And of course, I have to plug Rewire because we are focused on reproductive and sexual health. We do have a lot of abortion news, so you can find us at RewireNewsGroupcom. We are also at Rewire News Group on Instagram, twitter and TikTok. I am @GarnetHenderson on Instagram and Twitter and you can find my podcast Access, wherever you get your podcasts, or at AccessPod, also on Instagram and Twitter. 

0:52:34 - Danielle Bezalel

Another fantastic elevator pitch. Thank you, Garnet, for being on. This has been really, really enlightening and just such an important conversation, so thank you so much. 

0:52:44 - Garnet Henderson

Thanks so much for having me.