(00:00:01):
When I was a 21 year old college student, I got pregnant.

(00:00:05):
I didn't want to be.

(00:00:06):
I had no money to raise a child,

(00:00:08):
no support from my family and no real option other than abortion.

(00:00:13):
In some ways,

(00:00:13):
my abortion did not feel like a freely made choice,

(00:00:16):
though it was a choice I was so grateful to have in a world that hates mothers and

(00:00:19):
children and that punishes pregnant people with poverty.

(00:00:23):
The clinic workers were kind and dedicated, but they were clearly overworked.

(00:00:27):
The clinic was crowded.

(00:00:29):
I felt scared and unprepared for my abortion.

(00:00:32):
And I was not allowed to have a support person with me.

(00:00:35):
There were men screaming at me outside the clinic.

(00:00:37):
It was a bad experience.

(00:00:39):
A bad experience I felt grateful to have because it is an experience now denied to

(00:00:43):
so many women.

(00:00:45):
I have never regretted my abortion,

(00:00:47):
but I have long regretted the political climate in which women have abortions.

(00:00:52):
Now it's even worse as women must travel to seek abortions if they can seek them at all.

(00:00:57):
And that's a big if.

(00:00:59):
It's so clear to me that the point of all of this is to punish us as women,

(00:01:03):
no matter what our choices are.

(00:01:04):
Becoming a mother is wrong.

(00:01:06):
Having an abortion is wrong.

(00:01:08):
Existing as a woman in this world is forever wrong,

(00:01:10):
and they will punish us no matter what we do or what we don't do.

(00:01:15):
Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:01:20):
Just a quick reminder before we get started that you can support this podcast by

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sharing it on social media.

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You can also leave a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

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And those little heart reacts on Substack actually help a lot.

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They bump me up in the algorithm.

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As a lot of you know,

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social media is actively engaged in a war against feminist and leftist creators.

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They push us down.

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They make us less visible.

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They promote right-wing hate speech.

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And the most effective way to push back

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is to give the algorithm what it wants, which is engagement.

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So if you can share,

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if you can comment,

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if you can engage,

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that is a great gift to this podcast that allows it to continue.

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If you have $8 a month to spare, I would love it if you became a paid subscriber.

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You'll get a bonus podcast.

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You'll get access to a support group.

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You'll get the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting this podcast.

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But if you can't or don't want to do that, you're doing enough by listening.

(00:02:15):
And I'm so glad that you're here.

(00:02:18):
This month,

(00:02:19):
October 2025,

(00:02:21):
if you're binging sometime in the future,

(00:02:23):
I'm experimenting with a new model.

(00:02:25):
I'm doing a podcast every week instead of my usual twice monthly schedule.

(00:02:29):
I want to see if this pace is sustainable for me and if viewers like it.

(00:02:33):
So I'd love your feedback on whether you like the more frequent podcasts and

(00:02:37):
whether they've sustained the same quality.

(00:02:40):
So please let me know in the comments.

(00:02:42):
Also, I am just so excited about our guest today, as I told her before we started recording.

(00:02:49):
I literally squealed when her people contacted me.

(00:02:52):
And she's wonderful.

(00:02:54):
And I think you're going to think she's wonderful, too.

(00:02:57):
Marlene Gerber Freed is a longtime reproductive rights activist and scholar.

(00:03:01):
She was the founding president of the National Network for Abortion Funds and the

(00:03:05):
Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts.

(00:03:08):
Currently, she is Professor Emerita at Hampshire College, where she taught for 37 years.

(00:03:13):
She is senior faculty advisor to Collective Power for Reproductive Justice,

(00:03:18):
serves on the board of Women Help Women,

(00:03:20):
and co-chairs the Our Bodies,

(00:03:22):
Ourselves expert panel on abortion and contraception.

(00:03:26):
She edited From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom,

(00:03:29):
Transforming a Movement,

(00:03:31):
and co-authored with Yael Silliman,

(00:03:34):
Elena Gutierrez,

(00:03:35):
and Loretta Ross,

(00:03:36):
Undivided Rights,

(00:03:37):
Women of Color Organized for Reproductive Justice.

(00:03:40):
Her most recent book,

(00:03:42):
Abortion,

(00:03:42):
Reproductive Justice,

(00:03:43):
An Essential Guide to Resistance,

(00:03:45):
co-authored with Loretta Ross,

(00:03:47):
has just been released.

(00:03:49):
Marlene, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:03:51):
It's a real honor to have you here.

(00:03:54):
Zahn, thank you so much for having me.

(00:03:56):
Loretta regrets that she couldn't be here.

(00:03:59):
We're very excited to do this.

(00:04:01):
And as you know, as I told you, this is the first podcast about the book.

(00:04:07):
So it's really special and important.

(00:04:10):
Well, I think it's a great book.

(00:04:12):
I actually just finished it last night.

(00:04:15):
So I want to start by talking about the book.

(00:04:18):
Again, it's Abortion and Reproductive Justice, An Essential Guide for Resistance.

(00:04:22):
And I feel like it's exactly, certainly what I needed to read right now.

(00:04:26):
You know,

(00:04:29):
my own work has included a lot of activism for maternal health and safer birth

(00:04:35):
options.

(00:04:36):
And I feel like too often this doesn't

(00:04:38):
necessarily intersect with abortion,

(00:04:40):
even though they are part of the same continuum of healthcare.

(00:04:43):
So I'm just really grateful for the reproductive justice model that you and Loretta

(00:04:47):
Ross speak so eloquently to.

(00:04:49):
And I think that's obviously what frames the book.

(00:04:53):
So talk to me a little bit about the book and the expansive vision of reproductive

(00:04:58):
justice it offers.

(00:05:01):
The vision,

(00:05:02):
which we did not create,

(00:05:04):
but was created by 12 African-American feminist activists who were at a conference

(00:05:11):
on choice and discussing the Clinton health care bill and found the conversation at

(00:05:21):
that conference lacking.

(00:05:22):
And so they came together and created this idea of reproductive justice.

(00:05:26):
And since that time,

(00:05:28):
it's really women of color who have taken the lead on inspiring and igniting a

(00:05:34):
movement,

(00:05:35):
developing the theory and the concept.

(00:05:42):
But it's for everybody.

(00:05:43):
I mean, it's not a concept simply only for women of color.

(00:05:46):
I mean, simply, I mean, only.

(00:05:48):
but it's a concept for all of us.

(00:05:51):
The thing that you read in the beginning really makes clear the need for thinking

(00:05:58):
about abortion in this broader lens.

(00:06:01):
Manipulating women's reproduction is a project that implicates white supremacy,

(00:06:09):
it implicates racism,

(00:06:11):
it implicates eugenics.

(00:06:14):
All the systems of oppression come together

(00:06:17):
in the efforts to regulate abortion.

(00:06:22):
So in terms of thinking about why did we do this?

(00:06:27):
I took so seriously this question of do we need another book on abortion?

(00:06:33):
And so I really just tried to over and over think about what is it that is

(00:06:38):
important for us to say?

(00:06:40):
What hasn't been said?

(00:06:43):
And even though the idea of reproductive justice existed long before it had

(00:06:50):
language for it,

(00:06:52):
for a lot of people,

(00:06:54):
abortion kept being a single issue,

(00:06:57):
just taken out of context of all other human rights and social justice issues,

(00:07:04):
which of course doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about all the

(00:07:09):
interconnections that are involved.

(00:07:12):
So I think that while we had an immediate impetus for writing it,

(00:07:22):
which is that we started,

(00:07:24):
the idea for this came during the first Trump administration,

(00:07:29):
where we were watching what appeared to be a tsunami of threats to abortion,

(00:07:35):
and increasingly more dangerous and more extreme.

(00:07:39):
And of course, it's only gotten worse.

(00:07:42):
And we were especially struck by the fact that 53% of white women had voted for

(00:07:49):
Trump in both elections,

(00:07:53):
both of his elections.

(00:07:55):
And at the same time, we understood that for a lot of women of all races, keeping abortion legal

(00:08:06):
was important.

(00:08:08):
So there was a disconnect between how people felt about abortion and who they were voting for.

(00:08:17):
So with all due humility, we thought, well, maybe people just don't really understand

(00:08:24):
how much abortion is embedded in the story of race and white supremacy.

(00:08:30):
So we really need to write that story so that people will know it.

(00:08:34):
And for a lot of activists, even in the movement, we don't know our own history.

(00:08:39):
We don't really know about,

(00:08:40):
but we're responding always,

(00:08:42):
all the time,

(00:08:43):
we're responding to threats.

(00:08:45):
So in all those ways, it was very important to us to try and think this through.

(00:08:53):
After so many years of our own activism,

(00:08:55):
we have been co-conspirators for a long time in this movement.

(00:08:59):
We first wrote something in early 1990s, Abortion and Reproductive Freedom.

(00:09:08):
That was how we just thought about it.

(00:09:13):
but for new generations of activists who aren't schooled in a history of reproduction.

(00:09:21):
And anyway, where would you learn that history?

(00:09:25):
Especially now when all such truths are being suppressed.

(00:09:29):
So we really wanted to present to people a way of beginning.

(00:09:35):
And it's really meant to be a beginning.

(00:09:37):
This is a book.

(00:09:40):
It's meant to introduce people.

(00:09:41):
That doesn't mean it's simplistic.

(00:09:43):
It doesn't mean it's basic.

(00:09:47):
It is a complicated analysis,

(00:09:49):
but it contains,

(00:09:51):
it doesn't rely on your already knowing a lot of things.

(00:09:55):
It tries to explain what you need to know, what the tools for understanding are.

(00:10:01):
I love that.

(00:10:02):
And I love having something that I can send listeners to because I feel like

(00:10:06):
there's kind of this disconnect where

(00:10:09):
books on abortion are either, as you said, sort of simplistic.

(00:10:13):
They're arguing for why we need abortion.

(00:10:15):
Or they assume a ton of background knowledge and they're extremely academic and

(00:10:21):
make reference to things that a lot of people have never heard of or about.

(00:10:24):
So I think this really fills that niche nicely.

(00:10:28):
I wanted to ask you about

(00:10:31):
the white women who voted for Trump,

(00:10:32):
I mean,

(00:10:33):
I know that we already give them a whole lot of attention.

(00:10:35):
But the thing that really sticks out to me is that I've been writing about abortion for years.

(00:10:41):
And,

(00:10:41):
you know,

(00:10:42):
every time that there is a Democratic candidate who's running anywhere,

(00:10:47):
who's anti-choice,

(00:10:48):
I've always written about it.

(00:10:50):
And the feedback that I've always gotten until recently is this is a small thing to focus on.

(00:10:57):
And of

(00:10:58):
of course Roe v. Wade would never be overturned.

(00:11:02):
And where did that, why did people think that?

(00:11:06):
Where did that come from?

(00:11:08):
Well,

(00:11:09):
I was one of the people who thought that,

(00:11:11):
but for the reason that there was no need to do it.

(00:11:15):
They were chipping away at whatever rights Roe v. Wade gave people.

(00:11:21):
So I thought, why bother if you're on the anti-abortion side?

(00:11:27):
You're getting everything you want anyway.

(00:11:30):
which I don't think is what those people who said that to you meant.

(00:11:33):
I think for the sort of general wisdom was that people don't vote on what they

(00:11:42):
think about reproduction,

(00:11:43):
which of course may really be proxy for people don't really vote on women's rights.

(00:11:51):
So I think that those ideas are deeply embedded in our culture and deeply embedded

(00:11:59):
in terms of how seriously do we take people who can give birth rights.

(00:12:07):
to be able to control their own bodies and their own,

(00:12:11):
whether or not they're going to have children,

(00:12:13):
which of course is what reproductive justice is all about.

(00:12:16):
It's not just the right not to have children, it's the right to have children.

(00:12:21):
And putting those things together in the same frame, which

(00:12:25):
is part of what the reproductive justice lens on abortion does.

(00:12:29):
It says you can't just look at one side of this because if all you focus on is the

(00:12:35):
right not to have children,

(00:12:36):
then that leads very quickly to population control,

(00:12:41):
eugenics,

(00:12:42):
to forcing some people to be sterilized against their will.

(00:12:47):
So if you really have an expansive liberatory framework,

(00:12:51):
you have to look at both sides of the reproductive coin.

(00:12:56):
Well,

(00:12:56):
and I think there's also,

(00:12:57):
there's such a close connection between abortion access and the ability to have

(00:13:02):
children.

(00:13:04):
So I live in Georgia,

(00:13:06):
which has the worst maternal mortality rate in the country and higher maternal

(00:13:11):
mortality than like,

(00:13:12):
I think it's a hundred other countries.

(00:13:14):
And we have had three children and I would really like to have another one.

(00:13:21):
But my partner and I decided that it just wasn't safe.

(00:13:26):
Because what if something went wrong?

(00:13:29):
What if I needed an abortion?

(00:13:30):
What if we had to travel?

(00:13:32):
We cannot risk depriving our current children of their mother.

(00:13:36):
And I hear that from a lot of women making those decisions.

(00:13:42):
And this is not just ringing alarm bells that are made up.

(00:13:47):
We know already that

(00:13:49):
that people are dying from these laws,

(00:13:52):
that people are being deprived of the ability to use conceptive technologies like

(00:14:00):
IVF.

(00:14:03):
We already have so much information.

(00:14:06):
It's not like, oh, if we could just gather more data.

(00:14:10):
We have the data that we need.

(00:14:13):
I'm thinking a lot these days, we're almost at the anniversary of the Hyde Amendment.

(00:14:17):
Not every anniversary is worth celebrating,

(00:14:21):
but the truth is that it's important for us to remember how we got here.

(00:14:26):
And how we got here,

(00:14:28):
of course,

(00:14:28):
is a very long story beginning in colonialism and the effort to make the country a

(00:14:34):
white country,

(00:14:35):
a white supremacist country.

(00:14:37):
But in more recent history, just three years after Roe v. Wade,

(00:14:44):
Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, taking away public funding for abortion.

(00:14:51):
Before the Hyde Amendment,

(00:14:54):
people could get their abortions paid for under certain circumstances.

(00:14:58):
Since the Hyde Amendment, almost no one, 200 people a year.

(00:15:03):
The first person known to have died from an illegal abortion after the Hyde

(00:15:10):
Amendment was Rosa Jimenez.

(00:15:11):
And we're also coming up on the anniversary of her death.

(00:15:16):
She was a single 27-year-old single mother in Texas.

(00:15:23):
She worked in a factory,

(00:15:25):
she was a college student,

(00:15:27):
she was pregnant,

(00:15:28):
and she knew she couldn't have another child.

(00:15:32):
So she took what she felt was her only option,

(00:15:36):
which was to have an illegal abortion,

(00:15:38):
and she died.

(00:15:40):
Now,

(00:15:40):
the Hyde Amendment should have told everybody that the courts and laws are not

(00:15:50):
protecting everybody's rights.

(00:15:54):
But here we are 49 years later,

(00:15:56):
the old story,

(00:15:57):
but the enduring truths,

(00:16:02):
which is that anyone who is already vulnerable because of other forms of

(00:16:06):
oppression,

(00:16:09):
and it's not just about abortion,

(00:16:11):
make it more dangerous.

(00:16:13):
Having children is incredibly more dangerous, especially for Black women.

(00:16:18):
And this is not a story, Rosie's story is not a story about one person.

(00:16:24):
Hers is a story about how things work in this society.

(00:16:31):
Yeah.

(00:16:31):
Well,

(00:16:31):
and you know,

(00:16:32):
the other thing that I like to highlight is we talk about these tragic stories of

(00:16:37):
women who have died and we talk about the statistics and it's easy to read

(00:16:42):
headlines and lose sight of the fact that these women are people and that anytime

(00:16:48):
someone dies,

(00:16:49):
an entire world

(00:16:51):
dies with them an entire world of possibility and opportunities and one death is

(00:16:57):
too many um i want to talk to you a little bit about wealth inequality and how that

(00:17:02):
intersects with all of this because i know you worked with the national network of

(00:17:07):
abortion funds for years and years and years um so i think the statistic is

(00:17:12):
something like

(00:17:15):
50-ish percent of women who seek abortions, their primary reason is economic.

(00:17:19):
And then there was a 2018 study that found that 76 percent of women seeking

(00:17:24):
abortions said they did not have enough money to cover housing,

(00:17:28):
transportation and food before getting pregnant.

(00:17:32):
So clearly we're seeing women are being pushed out of having children that they

(00:17:39):
might otherwise have.

(00:17:41):
and pushed into abortion, and abortion is expensive.

(00:17:44):
So they're also being pushed out of abortion.

(00:17:47):
And now that states are banning or limiting abortion,

(00:17:50):
pregnant people must spare additional massive costs,

(00:17:52):
time off work,

(00:17:54):
travel,

(00:17:54):
paying for childcare for multiple days.

(00:17:57):
Talk a little bit about how the bans are exacerbating all of these issues and what

(00:18:04):
you're hearing and seeing.

(00:18:07):
So I know that you know that everybody is not pushed into the same camp.

(00:18:17):
So people who live in economic insecurity

(00:18:24):
are being pushed out of having children.

(00:18:26):
And that's,

(00:18:27):
of course,

(00:18:27):
a very old story,

(00:18:29):
going back to sterilization abuse,

(00:18:31):
going back to decimating Native American peoples.

(00:18:36):
So who's going to have the privilege?

(00:18:42):
And it's not supposed to be a privilege.

(00:18:44):
It should be a basic human right.

(00:18:46):
Who will have the privilege of being able to have children?

(00:18:50):
these laws are guaranteeing that it won't be white middle class and upper middle class people.

(00:18:57):
It won't be people who have economic advantages.

(00:19:01):
So that's one piece of this kind of yucky scene.

(00:19:08):
I think the other piece of it is that more and more people are vulnerable

(00:19:16):
to the insecurities that are coming with these bans.

(00:19:19):
More and more people are being forced,

(00:19:23):
as you said,

(00:19:24):
to travel if they can,

(00:19:26):
to raise money if they can.

(00:19:28):
I mean, back in the day, people had to rely on friends and neighbors to help them.

(00:19:37):
There were no abortion funds.

(00:19:40):
And the abortion funds themselves

(00:19:42):
Jobs are under tremendous threat by, you know, laws like the ones in Texas.

(00:19:47):
that encourage, turn people in, anyone who helps anyone get an abortion.

(00:19:52):
So the things that I guess I'm hearing are somewhat stories like yours,

(00:19:58):
but mostly to have us all stand back and say,

(00:20:03):
for all these years,

(00:20:03):
abortion is thought of as choice,

(00:20:06):
but is it a choice?

(00:20:08):
Is it a choice if you don't,

(00:20:10):
if all you can do is not have a child when really you would rather have a child?

(00:20:15):
So I think if what we're going for

(00:20:19):
is a world in which people get to make the best decisions for themselves and for

(00:20:26):
their families about having children,

(00:20:29):
how many children,

(00:20:29):
when to have them,

(00:20:31):
under what circumstances.

(00:20:33):
We are getting farther and farther away from that world,

(00:20:37):
which is,

(00:20:37):
of course,

(00:20:38):
not to say that every person who has an abortion would rather have a child.

(00:20:43):
I think that's the other kind of...

(00:20:48):
flipping of the script that the anti-abortion people want to do is that,

(00:20:52):
you know,

(00:20:52):
under any circumstance,

(00:20:54):
any person would rather have a child than an abortion.

(00:20:57):
We know that's not true.

(00:20:59):
We know that people have many complicated reasons for not wanting to have a child

(00:21:04):
at a particular time,

(00:21:05):
just as they want for having a child at a particular time.

(00:21:09):
So to go back to the thing that you said, which is real people in real life situations.

(00:21:16):
which is, of course, part of what was problematic about the whole choice versus life debate.

(00:21:22):
There's no nuance in it.

(00:21:24):
It has nothing to do with how most people live their lives,

(00:21:29):
which is that you're trying to decide how it fits into a much more complicated

(00:21:36):
life,

(00:21:37):
you know,

(00:21:37):
a

(00:21:38):
I always think that in every story of abortion, it's like a microcosm of an entire existence.

(00:21:49):
In the abortion funds, nobody ever just had the problem that they couldn't afford an abortion.

(00:21:56):
It was part of education and housing and job security and family needs.

(00:22:05):
So to try and isolate

(00:22:08):
abortion does not make sense in the context of how we all live our lives.

(00:22:14):
I hope that came close to answering what you were asking.

(00:22:18):
Oh, no, that definitely answers it.

(00:22:22):
So, you know, we talk a lot about choice and keeping abortion legal.

(00:22:28):
But I think my opening vignette touches on something,

(00:22:32):
which is,

(00:22:33):
you know,

(00:22:33):
what does a better,

(00:22:35):
more expansive vision of abortion look like?

(00:22:38):
When I was pregnant with my first child, my parents have a friend who is in her 80s and who was

(00:22:45):
a big abortion leader and ran some clinics and was always part of the movement.

(00:22:50):
And I remember her going with me to tour the birth center where I was going to have my daughter.

(00:22:56):
And she said, Oh, you know, we used to do abortions at places like this.

(00:23:02):
And, and, and, you know, I mean, my,

(00:23:05):
my head might as well have like spun around backwards.

(00:23:07):
I was like, what?

(00:23:08):
You did it all in one place?

(00:23:10):
And just like,

(00:23:11):
oh,

(00:23:11):
and you know,

(00:23:11):
there would be a woman who would hold your hand and,

(00:23:13):
you know,

(00:23:14):
we'd talk to you.

(00:23:15):
And it was a vision that was just completely unfamiliar to me and to my generation

(00:23:23):
because now we're just not even hoping to keep abortion legal,

(00:23:29):
but at this point clinging to like even some women being able to have abortions

(00:23:33):
sometimes.

(00:23:34):
So,

(00:23:35):
I wanted to get your thoughts on,

(00:23:36):
you know,

(00:23:38):
we're always kind of in this defensive posture of clawing back as much as we can.

(00:23:43):
But what would a better world for abortion look like?

(00:23:49):
You know,

(00:23:49):
I mean,

(00:23:49):
obviously,

(00:23:50):
in my mind,

(00:23:51):
I have a vision of,

(00:23:51):
you know,

(00:23:52):
full spectrum reproductive health care and like birth centers,

(00:23:55):
but there's all kinds of lovely ways we could make it better.

(00:24:00):
Indeed.

(00:24:01):
And there was for a time in the 60s and 70s,

(00:24:06):
late 60s,

(00:24:06):
70s,

(00:24:07):
there were these feminist women's health clinics,

(00:24:10):
which,

(00:24:11):
as you say,

(00:24:12):
were delivering...

(00:24:14):
feminist health care.

(00:24:15):
The Jane Collective did abortions,

(00:24:18):
but they also taught you how to look at your own uterus and how to demystify what

(00:24:23):
was going on and learn what was going on with your body.

(00:24:26):
Billy Avery,

(00:24:27):
who was the founder of the National Black Women's Health Project,

(00:24:30):
one of the things that she created in Florida was a center for both birthing and

(00:24:36):
abortion,

(00:24:37):
and just that same caring and understanding that you're on a continuum of care.

(00:24:44):
So I think that the more expansive vision of abortion is a vision that keeps it

(00:24:55):
in place that keeps it that also allows one of the abortion funds is called All

(00:25:01):
Options and it's in Indiana and it provides support for pregnancy as well as for

(00:25:10):
abortion and that's if you ask me that's more walking the walk and talking the talk

(00:25:16):
of reproductive justice and abortion and not just we'll help you get an abortion

(00:25:22):
but after that you're on your own if you're not getting one

(00:25:25):
So,

(00:25:26):
you know,

(00:25:27):
I think that we could I'm hoping I always have hope that we will do better,

(00:25:34):
that we will have a more liberatory future in which abortion and having having

(00:25:41):
children and not having children is something that people appreciate.

(00:25:50):
as a continuum of care and not as an either or.

(00:25:53):
Because we know that most people who have abortions already have children.

(00:25:58):
So it's not an either.

(00:25:59):
I mean,

(00:26:00):
again,

(00:26:00):
the anti-abortion people want to construct a mental world in which there are two

(00:26:07):
kinds of people,

(00:26:07):
the people who have abortions and the people who are kind and compassionate and

(00:26:11):
loving and have children.

(00:26:13):
And we just know that that's not true.

(00:26:16):
Truth is in short supply these days,

(00:26:18):
but that important truth has got to be told over and over again.

(00:26:25):
And one of the ways that, of course, activists have done that is by having

(00:26:31):
people tell their stories by having women speak out about their having had an abortion.

(00:26:38):
And of course that takes courage.

(00:26:41):
The more abortion is under attack, the more courage it seems to take.

(00:26:45):
And these days in a world of extreme violence, it's quite frightening.

(00:26:51):
And we're also not equally positioned to take those risks.

(00:26:55):
And so appreciating that as well,

(00:26:58):
not being frustrated by people who won't step up in that way because they can't.

(00:27:04):
So for those of us who can, that's what we need to do.

(00:27:08):
And it will provide cover for other people.

(00:27:13):
I love that.

(00:27:14):
I remember, I think it was around the end of Roe v. Wade, there were a lot of

(00:27:19):
social media posts urging women to step up and tell their abortion stories.

(00:27:23):
And some of them had kind of a shaming tone of,

(00:27:25):
you know,

(00:27:26):
if you're not telling your story,

(00:27:27):
you're being cowardly.

(00:27:30):
And what I thought is, why are we asking men to tell their abortion stories?

(00:27:34):
Because, you know, we're saving men with this too.

(00:27:38):
Yeah, exactly.

(00:27:41):
And I think this idea that

(00:27:45):
Do women always have to do it?

(00:27:46):
Do women have to bear the burden of the oppression and then at the same time be the

(00:27:52):
only people who are fighting to get rid of the oppression?

(00:27:55):
I think that's part of what this is.

(00:28:01):
But I also think that it's critically important for people, even if you're not going...

(00:28:09):
in the public sphere,

(00:28:11):
but just in your own spheres of friendship and family to tell your stories.

(00:28:17):
So many people don't know what their own family history of reproduction is.

(00:28:24):
Many people have had the experience of finally being told,

(00:28:31):
well,

(00:28:32):
aunt so-and-so or your grandma had an abortion.

(00:28:37):
And again, the shame.

(00:28:38):
I mean, the shame of having an abortion, the shame.

(00:28:44):
The shame put on people by society.

(00:28:47):
The shame of keeping it a secret.

(00:28:49):
The shame of not telling.

(00:28:50):
All of these ways in which women especially are shamed by society for not fitting a

(00:28:59):
certain image of what a woman should be.

(00:29:02):
Absolutely.

(00:29:05):
And

(00:29:05):
Those stories, you know, they're often presented in sort of like hushed, shameful tones.

(00:29:11):
I have a good friend whose grandmother died having a botched abortion.

(00:29:16):
And but she had a number of daughters before this happened.

(00:29:20):
And she obviously has my friend as a granddaughter.

(00:29:23):
And so every year on Mother's Day,

(00:29:25):
my friend tells this story of,

(00:29:27):
you know,

(00:29:27):
think of how much more my grandmother could have given and done if she had had

(00:29:32):
access to safe and legal abortion.

(00:29:34):
And I just think that's really lovely and a beautiful way to memorialize her grandmother.

(00:29:41):
Yeah, I love that.

(00:29:42):
And I hate that.

(00:29:43):
It's making it's bringing a tear, of course.

(00:29:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's hard not to but you know, the stories are so important.

(00:29:51):
So I'm going to tell you what gives me hope,

(00:29:54):
which you're gonna you might think this is a little strange.

(00:29:57):
So I want to get your thoughts on this.

(00:29:59):
So I think the latest statistic says that 64% of Americans say abortion should be

(00:30:04):
legal in all or most cases.

(00:30:06):
And about 90% say it should be legal in at least some cases.

(00:30:11):
So the extremists who want to ban abortion are an extreme minority.

(00:30:17):
And yet they spent the last 50 years fighting for something that was deeply

(00:30:22):
unpopular and that a lot of people thought they would never attain.

(00:30:26):
And they just kept going.

(00:30:28):
They organized, they built solidarity.

(00:30:31):
They worked with people they hated otherwise to just doggedly win this fight.

(00:30:38):
And

(00:30:39):
impose their will on the rest of us.

(00:30:41):
And I think the lesson from that is that it works to keep fighting because I think

(00:30:47):
that it seemed hopeless to them for many,

(00:30:49):
many years.

(00:30:49):
And then all of a sudden it worked, but it required like 50 years of discipline.

(00:30:57):
and of getting control of the major institutions of healthcare and justice that are

(00:31:03):
criminal justice and courts.

(00:31:06):
So it does, I remember when the decision for gay marriage came out

(00:31:12):
And somebody was interviewing a priest and they said to the priest,

(00:31:18):
well,

(00:31:18):
I guess you feel like this is the end for your movement,

(00:31:22):
the movement to only allow heterosexual people to be married.

(00:31:27):
And the priest smiled and said,

(00:31:29):
well,

(00:31:29):
no,

(00:31:30):
actually not,

(00:31:31):
because it's taking all these years to overthrow Roe v.

(00:31:36):
Wade,

(00:31:36):
to get to Roe v.

(00:31:37):
Wade and we're going to get there.

(00:31:40):
And similarly, that gives us hope for turning back gay rights.

(00:31:45):
So,

(00:31:45):
you know,

(00:31:45):
what you're saying is,

(00:31:46):
well,

(00:31:46):
let us keep that hope on the other side and see the possibilities here.

(00:31:52):
We know that we can't, you never know if you're going to succeed.

(00:31:57):
And on the Good Trouble Day of Action recently this summer,

(00:32:04):
one of my favorite state level politicians

(00:32:09):
She's a woman of my generation, and she's been fighting the good fight for many, many years.

(00:32:16):
And she said, look, you never know that you're making history when you're doing it.

(00:32:21):
You're just resisting.

(00:32:22):
You're just fighting for what you think is right, and you have no choice but to do it.

(00:32:28):
And again, I really agree with her because...

(00:32:33):
None of us ever knew.

(00:32:35):
We didn't know that we would have an impact on the war in Vietnam.

(00:32:38):
We didn't know that there would be a Civil Rights Act.

(00:32:41):
We didn't know that abortion would become legalized.

(00:32:46):
And just so we didn't know that it would be undone.

(00:32:50):
And I used to think, I can't believe we're still fighting these fights.

(00:32:55):
But of course, you see that history is not a straight up trajectory.

(00:33:00):
So the people who are opposed to human rights and social justice aren't going to

(00:33:06):
give up when they lose.

(00:33:08):
It's like those cults that believe in the end of the world is a certain date and

(00:33:12):
then it doesn't happen.

(00:33:13):
And what happens?

(00:33:15):
They just get even more resolved that the world is going to end.

(00:33:19):
So the people who are on what I would consider the wrong side of history are not

(00:33:27):
giving up,

(00:33:27):
and we can't either.

(00:33:30):
And for me, you know, I've been an activist since I was a much younger person.

(00:33:39):
It's shaped my whole life in positive ways as well.

(00:33:43):
It's given me community.

(00:33:45):
It's given me a moral compass.

(00:33:49):
So I don't think of it as a burden.

(00:33:53):
I think of it as a privilege to be able to fight for justice.

(00:33:59):
One of the things that Loretta always says is fighting justice

(00:34:05):
against fascists is difficult, but fighting for democracy should be fun or something like that.

(00:34:14):
Basically,

(00:34:14):
we should grab a hold of the arc of history,

(00:34:18):
which is not,

(00:34:19):
unfortunately,

(00:34:20):
just going to bend all by itself towards justice.

(00:34:23):
It needs us, all of us, to be pushing on that arc.

(00:34:28):
I love that.

(00:34:29):
One of the things that my mom used to say is that

(00:34:32):
We get free over generations and you do as much as you can and then you pass it on

(00:34:37):
to the next generation.

(00:34:39):
I had a friend this morning who posted on Facebook and she's been advocating for

(00:34:46):
her transgender child at school and it's gone poorly.

(00:34:49):
And she posted something along the lines of, you know, all this rage used to be hope.

(00:34:56):
And I said to her, I actually think the rage is hope.

(00:35:00):
And,

(00:35:01):
you know,

(00:35:01):
I think that's I think you're feeling that rage because there is always going to be

(00:35:05):
hope as long as you feel it and you push on.

(00:35:07):
So you mentioned a lifetime of activism.

(00:35:11):
And I want to ask you about that because you've been doing this for longer than

(00:35:17):
many of my listeners have been alive.

(00:35:19):
I am 40.

(00:35:22):
And so I've been doing this for a little while, but not nearly as long as you.

(00:35:27):
And I got to tell you, I already feel tired.

(00:35:30):
You know, feminist activism can be really demoralizing.

(00:35:34):
And I think that there are a lot of dynamics in this kind of activism that make it

(00:35:38):
harder than it needs to be.

(00:35:40):
But we have to sustain hope because that's the only way we keep going.

(00:35:44):
I'm sure that you've been through many cycles of demoralization.

(00:35:48):
What have you learned about keeping this going for a lifetime and just continuing to press on?

(00:35:54):
How do we sustain a lifetime of feminist activism?

(00:35:59):
I think you need your community.

(00:36:00):
You need your people.

(00:36:02):
You know,

(00:36:02):
we're still aware of who is not with us,

(00:36:06):
but we need,

(00:36:07):
and your people don't all have to be activists.

(00:36:10):
They can be the people you listen to music with or the people you cook with or the

(00:36:14):
people that you go to play sports with.

(00:36:20):
But you need your community and you need to be able to have some balance in your life.

(00:36:25):
I was thinking there was a time when I went to a meeting every single night.

(00:36:29):
I don't know why my children didn't divorce me, really.

(00:36:34):
But there's some way in which you might need to pace yourself.

(00:36:39):
to do it in ways because you know that you're not the only one.

(00:36:42):
I mean,

(00:36:42):
if you're the only one doing it,

(00:36:44):
there's something wrong with you and with that movement.

(00:36:47):
And you're not.

(00:36:49):
As your mother said, you pass it on.

(00:36:51):
But even in the moment, you're doing, you're activist with a lot of other people.

(00:36:58):
And I also think that it's very important to celebrate the wins at whatever level.

(00:37:05):
And part of the work of the abortion funds came out of a feeling that,

(00:37:10):
you know,

(00:37:10):
you write a letter to a congressperson or you make a phone call and it's just into

(00:37:16):
the stratosphere,

(00:37:17):
didn't do anything.

(00:37:19):
But at the end of the day in the abortion funds, some people got the abortions they needed

(00:37:26):
and wouldn't have otherwise.

(00:37:29):
And we never lost sight of that, of the importance of every single person.

(00:37:36):
So you could say, oh, what's the impact?

(00:37:38):
What are the big numbers here?

(00:37:40):
But an individual person is an important number of one.

(00:37:46):
So I would say that.

(00:37:48):
I would say that also for me,

(00:37:52):
doing this work and learning especially about our own history of activism.

(00:37:59):
So we have a friend,

(00:38:01):
colleague,

(00:38:03):
who's also at Smith College,

(00:38:05):
who has this project called The Roots of Reproductive Justice.

(00:38:09):
And it's a timeline of 500 years of reproductive justice activism.

(00:38:15):
So I always say, well, if you think you're tired, think about that.

(00:38:20):
But it's cool.

(00:38:20):
I mean,

(00:38:21):
it's devoted to telling the untold stories,

(00:38:25):
to lifting up the things that we don't know of people who resisted sometimes as

(00:38:31):
individuals,

(00:38:32):
sometimes as part of a social movement,

(00:38:34):
but they just didn't put up with it.

(00:38:37):
And we know this.

(00:38:38):
We know this from enslaved women,

(00:38:41):
you know,

(00:38:41):
people who live in really in other countries who are living in under even worse

(00:38:47):
conditions than we are.

(00:38:49):
So I think that's where I get inspiration is from thinking about ordinary people.

(00:38:59):
My friend Laura Kaplan wrote what I believe is the only book on the Jane Collective.

(00:39:06):
And she says, we were ordinary women living in extraordinary times.

(00:39:13):
That wasn't like we were amazing.

(00:39:16):
Yeah.

(00:39:17):
I made us amazing.

(00:39:20):
That's a really beautiful sentiment.

(00:39:22):
So you telling, you sharing this has reminded me of a story.

(00:39:28):
I love the idea of connecting with feminist history and with our ancestors,

(00:39:33):
because I recently had this really profound experience where my great grandmother

(00:39:40):
didn't really know anything about her as a person.

(00:39:43):
And,

(00:39:44):
you know,

(00:39:45):
kind of didn't really think of her as a person in the way I think of,

(00:39:48):
you know,

(00:39:48):
the people that I know,

(00:39:49):
because it's easy to get distanced from other people.

(00:39:53):
And then I started doing some genealogy research,

(00:39:56):
kind of like not really for any reason just to pass the time while I was nursing a

(00:40:00):
baby.

(00:40:01):
And I looked her up.

(00:40:05):
And I found her first voter registration card.

(00:40:09):
And I just like immediately burst into tears feeling so happy for her that like she

(00:40:16):
got to register to vote.

(00:40:18):
And, you know, it's it's it's she's dead and gone.

(00:40:21):
And the joy that she felt about that is dead and gone.

(00:40:24):
But like something about that.

(00:40:26):
lived on and made me realize like, okay, that was her fight.

(00:40:31):
I hope it doesn't become mine, but if it does, we'll do it.

(00:40:36):
That's such also a precious memory.

(00:40:39):
I mean, the importance of those documents.

(00:40:44):
I mean,

(00:40:44):
it's important to document what people who did and to have whatever we can preserve

(00:40:51):
of those struggles.

(00:40:53):
And I was also thinking about

(00:40:56):
Voting, you know, like voting is not all there is, blah, blah, blah.

(00:41:02):
And I think it was Patricia Williams who once said,

(00:41:05):
the right to vote is only not important to the people who already have the right.

(00:41:10):
For people who don't have that right, it is critically important.

(00:41:14):
And I remember when apartheid was overthrown in South Africa and when people

(00:41:20):
actually got to vote,

(00:41:21):
people of color,

(00:41:23):
and sometimes people waited in lines for three days to vote.

(00:41:28):
So what a struggle means is really contextualized in a particular moment,

(00:41:37):
in a particular country,

(00:41:38):
in a particular time.

(00:41:39):
And it kind of gives me the chills often to think about what people have done that

(00:41:49):
has seemed so impossible.

(00:41:53):
And I know this is a hard time.

(00:41:55):
How do we keep the hope?

(00:41:57):
To go back to the question that one of your listeners had raised.

(00:42:04):
It is hard.

(00:42:08):
The idea that hope is a discipline, I feel like you have hope muscles.

(00:42:13):
You have to exercise them all the time.

(00:42:16):
Otherwise, they will become flaccid, just like all your other muscles.

(00:42:21):
But the idea of holding on to hope is the only thing that will keep you going.

(00:42:28):
Otherwise, you'd just be...

(00:42:31):
It wouldn't make any sense.

(00:42:32):
Like, why do these things if they're not going to produce anything?

(00:42:37):
So I still have hope.

(00:42:39):
I still think that things will change back.

(00:42:43):
Burning it down as we're learning is not hard.

(00:42:49):
The Republicans and Trump are showing us that it's just so easy to tear it down.

(00:42:55):
And I remember I often would in my classes,

(00:42:59):
I would talk with students about how can we make things better.

(00:43:03):
They burn it down, get rid of everything.

(00:43:08):
Yes, go.

(00:43:09):
But of course, we wouldn't ever burn it down this way.

(00:43:12):
I mean, this is just like a way of without any care for people or what things mean.

(00:43:23):
So it's going to take a long time to build it back better.

(00:43:29):
But I think we will be able to.

(00:43:30):
I mean, with abortion, for example, since Roe was never enough,

(00:43:36):
Roe was never what we wanted.

(00:43:39):
We needed abortion access.

(00:43:41):
It's one of the only countries in the world where there gets to be an abortion law

(00:43:46):
and there's no provision for helping people pay for them,

(00:43:50):
get them.

(00:43:51):
So...

(00:43:53):
Now we know that's not a good way to proceed.

(00:43:56):
And if we fight for getting abortion back, we better fight for access.

(00:44:01):
If we're fighting for the rights of pregnant people, it better be equal.

(00:44:07):
It better not be that the mortality rates for African American women are skyrocketing.

(00:44:15):
Some of the ways in which we've told the story

(00:44:21):
It's only been as if there's one story, but there isn't.

(00:44:25):
There are the stories that are shaped by race and class.

(00:44:30):
And it's just painfully obvious as we go through history,

(00:44:34):
how this keeps raising,

(00:44:37):
they never stop raising their ugly heads.

(00:44:41):
But I'm hoping we'll learn from that.

(00:44:43):
Yeah, I think we can.

(00:44:47):
I love this idea of hope as a muscle.

(00:44:50):
I am going to write this down.

(00:44:52):
I'm going to put this on scraps of paper and cover my house in it.

(00:44:55):
And I'm not even remotely joking.

(00:44:58):
My kids are going to very much tire of hearing that very soon.

(00:45:02):
I hope they become a physical therapist so they can help people take care of their hope muscle.

(00:45:10):
Oh,

(00:45:10):
they're,

(00:45:10):
I,

(00:45:10):
you know,

(00:45:11):
I have,

(00:45:12):
my kids are little,

(00:45:13):
but they're already activists in a way that just gives me so much hope for the

(00:45:17):
future.

(00:45:18):
And all of their friends kind of are too.

(00:45:21):
These little people are going to save us.

(00:45:24):
Yeah.

(00:45:24):
And they're also going to stress you out because they're not going to,

(00:45:28):
you know,

(00:45:30):
they're going to question your authority too.

(00:45:32):
And hard as that is, that's what you want.

(00:45:36):
Yeah.

(00:45:37):
I, it's, it's funny because, um,

(00:45:39):
My toddler was up literally all night last night.

(00:45:43):
You know, sometimes they do that where their brains just get out of control.

(00:45:47):
And,

(00:45:48):
you know,

(00:45:48):
it's like you're doing the deep breathing and trying not to get mad and trying to

(00:45:52):
be the parent that you want to be.

(00:45:54):
And, you know, at some point I was like I was really starting to lose it.

(00:45:58):
And then I listened to her and she was singing all these songs to herself about

(00:46:04):
friends have empathy,

(00:46:05):
care about people who are different,

(00:46:07):
like all of these just really nice messages that she's repeating to herself at 4

(00:46:12):
a.m.

(00:46:13):
And I thought, well, if she has energy for these messages at 4 a.m., that's that's pretty good.

(00:46:17):
Like we're doing well.

(00:46:19):
Yeah, that's really great.

(00:46:21):
I love that.

(00:46:22):
And I'd love to hear her singing.

(00:46:25):
Well, I may have to, hopefully she will not be up at 4 a.m.

(00:46:29):
again.

(00:46:29):
I don't want to hear it at 4 a.m.

(00:46:30):
Hopefully she will not afford me an opportunity to record her tonight, but she's pretty intense.

(00:46:36):
So she might, it could happen.

(00:46:39):
Speaking of children, you know, you mentioned people asking about children.

(00:46:43):
And when I asked listeners about their questions for you,

(00:46:49):
you know,

(00:46:49):
I got a lot of like very specific questions,

(00:46:51):
but overall the theme was,

(00:46:53):
I have a daughter and I'm scared and sort of like,

(00:46:56):
what do,

(00:46:57):
um,

(00:46:58):
you know,

(00:46:59):
and you could almost like in the writing of the questions,

(00:47:03):
you could see them getting more frantic,

(00:47:05):
like as the writing went on,

(00:47:08):
just thinking about things.

(00:47:10):
So what,

(00:47:10):
what do you tell this generation of parents about how we can just manage to not

(00:47:18):
lose our minds looking at our kids' futures?

(00:47:21):
Yeah.

(00:47:22):
Um,

(00:47:24):
A former student of mine who worked on our book with us for a while at one point

(00:47:30):
looked at me and said,

(00:47:31):
you just don't get it,

(00:47:32):
Marlene.

(00:47:33):
My generation doesn't know if we will even have a future.

(00:47:38):
So back to the hope muscle there.

(00:47:41):
And as we've been talking about in the bigger picture,

(00:47:45):
people really do need to continue to resist and fight and whatever.

(00:47:50):
But how to keep your sanity in all of that when you're thinking of your own children and family.

(00:48:01):
I'm really committed to the spreading of information about abortion pills.

(00:48:08):
outside the formal medical system and the formal legal systems.

(00:48:13):
I feel like that genie is not going to go back into the bottle.

(00:48:19):
But the problem is that many people don't know about them

(00:48:24):
They don't know how to get them.

(00:48:28):
They're pretty cheap, so you could, you know, in some places and in other places not.

(00:48:33):
So I guess for me,

(00:48:36):
I want to make sure that everybody knows that there's no need for anyone to die

(00:48:47):
from an unsafe abortion.

(00:48:49):
There's just no need anymore.

(00:48:51):
The tools exist.

(00:48:53):
Rosie Jimenez lived in a time when those tools did not exist, but the tools are there.

(00:48:58):
So to spread the word, which is also empowering.

(00:49:05):
I think there's a project here

(00:49:09):
which sends abortion pills to states where there are bans.

(00:49:15):
And people, volunteers come once a week, pack them up, send them off.

(00:49:20):
And I think,

(00:49:21):
again,

(00:49:21):
like the abortion funds,

(00:49:23):
feeling like you can actually implement some change before the big change.

(00:49:31):
The big change is going to be a long time off right now.

(00:49:36):
I don't think I'm going to see it in my lifetime,

(00:49:39):
but these other smaller changes that keep people going and alive,

(00:49:45):
really.

(00:49:47):
Because these issues of reproduction are life and death matters.

(00:49:51):
Both, you know, the pregnancy and abortion and contraception and, and, and.

(00:49:57):
So to kind of be able to participate in

(00:50:03):
in keeping people sane and healthy is probably the best we can do.

(00:50:12):
Well, and that's not small.

(00:50:14):
That's something.

(00:50:15):
Exactly.

(00:50:15):
It's not small.

(00:50:17):
And I think we sort of come to think,

(00:50:18):
I mean,

(00:50:19):
the craziness of the moment we're in is as the Republicans rip everything apart,

(00:50:28):
it's just like,

(00:50:29):
oh,

(00:50:29):
wow,

(00:50:30):
how are we going to fix that?

(00:50:33):
And first of all, I think they're overreaching.

(00:50:36):
So let's remember that.

(00:50:38):
I think it's hard to remember in this moment when the right wing is on the

(00:50:45):
ascendancy and patriarchy and...

(00:50:53):
the death of democracy are like really just right in our faces all the time.

(00:51:00):
I think it's hard to remember that I don't believe most people want that world.

(00:51:06):
And I think the more they get of it, the less they're going to want it.

(00:51:10):
And I think that's what we began to see with the attacks on abortion in the States.

(00:51:16):
People don't like them.

(00:51:20):
people don't say, oh, great, that's exactly what we want.

(00:51:23):
I mean, there are some people who do like them, but these are minority positions.

(00:51:29):
And I don't believe that minority positions forever can hold sway.

(00:51:36):
Yeah, I agree.

(00:51:37):
I think you're right.

(00:51:38):
I hear a lot of people saying, we're already on our way to

(00:51:42):
Nazi Germany, or it's inevitable.

(00:51:44):
And the thing I always say is,

(00:51:46):
well,

(00:51:46):
okay,

(00:51:47):
even if that is inevitable,

(00:51:48):
Nazi Germany no longer exists.

(00:51:50):
There's another side that we can get to.

(00:51:52):
Right, right.

(00:51:55):
But I think it's probably important also to...

(00:52:02):
I don't want to say embrace, but take that in.

(00:52:05):
I mean, are we the good Germans?

(00:52:08):
You know,

(00:52:09):
like we keep saying,

(00:52:10):
oh,

(00:52:10):
my God,

(00:52:11):
I see this train of totalitarianism coming down the pike,

(00:52:16):
and I don't know what to do to stop it.

(00:52:18):
And we're like the man in Tiananmen Square holding up his hand against a tank.

(00:52:25):
That's what it feels like a lot.

(00:52:27):
But I also think it's important to be clear-sighted that there is an endgame

(00:52:35):
of authoritarianism, and we don't want that.

(00:52:39):
So I think people need to see it and appreciate it.

(00:52:41):
You know, in the first Trump presidency, a lot of people thought he was a joke.

(00:52:46):
They didn't take him seriously.

(00:52:47):
He doesn't know what he's doing.

(00:52:48):
He's bored.

(00:52:50):
He's not, you know.

(00:52:51):
This time around, none of those messages can be comforting or accurate at all.

(00:53:00):
And so we need to take seriously how big the threats are and at the same time,

(00:53:05):
not be daunted by that.

(00:53:08):
And so, you know, we have to also work our not being daunted muscles too.

(00:53:15):
There's a lot of body work here.

(00:53:17):
It's a full workout.

(00:53:19):
There's so much to do.

(00:53:20):
And, you know, I already have this exercise thing that I'm doing.

(00:53:24):
And now you're telling me I've got at least two more muscles I have to work on.

(00:53:27):
Yeah.

(00:53:28):
You know, we even call this beyond the stationary exercise bicycle.

(00:53:34):
I love it.

(00:53:35):
I love it.

(00:53:36):
All right.

(00:53:36):
Well, I think that's a good place to leave it.

(00:53:39):
Marlene, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

(00:53:42):
Oh, thank you.

(00:53:43):
It's been great to talk to you.

(00:53:45):
Yeah.

(00:53:46):
Thank you for your decades of important work.