Reproductive Rights and The Future of Motherhood

Content Warning: This episode discusses death, miscarriage, medical trauma, abortion, and systemic racism.

In this raw, unfiltered roundtable, the Odd Moms crew dives deep into the state of reproductive rights in America post-Roe. Chelsea, Tianna, Courtney, Lindsey, and special guest Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C, unpack the heartbreaking story of Adriana Smith, discuss how anti-abortion laws are impacting their personal and professional lives, and explore what it means to parent while feeling politically powerless. From fertility struggles and medical trauma to raising body-literate kids, this conversation is part catharsis, part call to action.

Key Takeaways

• Adriana Smith’s story exemplifies the tragic consequences of extreme abortion laws on women, especially Black women, in the U.S.
• Reproductive rights legislation impacts far more than abortion access; it touches fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and even mental health.
• Personal stories from panelists show how recent laws have altered decisions around family planning, contraception, and privacy.
• Teaching children consent and body autonomy early can be a powerful act of resistance.
• There is hope in raising empowered kids and breaking generational cycles of silence, shame, and misinformation.

Soundbites

• “What does it mean to choose motherhood when the choice is being stripped away from others?” —Tianna
• “Abortion laws don’t reduce abortion. They reduce safe abortion.” —Tianna
• “No is a full sentence. My daughter knows that and she's two.” —Chelsea
• “Pregnancy is not a health-neutral state. One of the risks is death.” —Courtney
• “Being a woman is political. Existing can feel like an act of rebellion.” —Kara

Got a hot take you want to share?

Send us a message, or email us at Oddmomsoncall@gmail.com. We might just talk about it on the show!

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Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:35)
Hey, you're back with odd moms. We are back with another episode of your favorite odd moms. am Chelsea. I'm host of Quiet Connection, postpartum mental health and stay at home mom of two.

Courtney Ginder (00:51)
Hey, I'm Courtney. I am the face behind Beyond PPD on Instagram and Facebook, and I am a mom of two littles.

Tianna (01:00)
Hi, I'm Tianna. I am founder of Love Served Warm I am a registered nurse and a certified PCOS hormone coach, and I help women with PCOS have weight loss and the pregnancy of their dreams.

Lindsey Basler (01:13)
Hi, I'm Lindsey, a stay at home mom of two and artist, and I make art advocating for maternal mental health. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Lindsey SD Bossler.

Chelsea Myers (01:25)
⁓ And Lindsey is blowing up with the reels and TikToks right now. So if you haven't already followed, like follow everybody obviously, but like Lindsey's reels are fire right now. So anyway, that's my personal plug.

Lindsey Basler (01:40)
That was very generous. Thank you.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (01:43)
name's Kara Kushner. am a mom of one and I am a licensed clinical social worker and therapist based in the Northeast. ⁓ I'm the face behind taking Kara humans with a K, Kara with a K, as well as a work of heart counseling.

Chelsea Myers (01:58)
And we are really excited to have Kara with us today, joining us. She is ⁓ one of our newest odd moms and we love that. Today we're going to dive into a pretty complex and unnecessarily taboo subject, reproductive rights. And we're going to talk about some things that are going to probably bring up a lot of feelings. So that is your content warning.

and that's, mean, that's as good of a content warning as I'm going to give it because these things are really important to talk about and shouldn't need to come with a content warning. But if that's beyond your comfort level, we are okay. If you skip this episode, it's totally fine, but we're here. We're talking about it. We're to talk about things that are happening now, things that have been happening recently and things that have brought us to where we are right now. So.

Tianna (02:33)
Mm hmm.

Thank

Chelsea Myers (02:48)
You might want to stick around because not only are the topics hot and sticky and spicy, but so

is the weather. yeah, if you're watching this on video, please excuse my hot, sticky face. ⁓ So, yeah, let's roll right into it.

Tianna (03:04)
Thank

Lindsey Basler (03:07)
So let's think about what's been grabbing our attention out there. What's been grabbing your attention when it comes to reproductive rights in the news, on social media? What do you guys see right now?

Tianna (03:18)
Can I comment?

Chelsea Myers (03:19)
Yes, please.

Tianna (03:21)
my God, this mom who passed away, she was a woman of color, and they went against the family's wishes, ⁓ the family's responsibility for all the costs, and they basically were using her as an incubator finish her pregnancy. And as a NICU and labor and delivery nurse who went through a second trimester miscarriage,

We need to talk about it. We need to get into it ⁓ amongst other things.

Chelsea Myers (03:54)
Yes, we do. We and her name was Adriana Smith. Yeah, Adriana Smith from Georgia. You are so welcome. ⁓ from Georgia and Georgia's really, really strict anti-abortion laws. ⁓ they actually refer to it as the life act. for a little bit of background, it's living infants fairness and equality act. And it prohibits most abortions after a detectable fetal heartbeat.

Tianna (04:00)
Thank you, Chelsea.

Chelsea Myers (04:22)
defines an unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat as a natural person and includes them in population-based determinations. The only exceptions are for medical emergencies, medically futile pregnancies, and cases of rape or incest if a police report has been filed. ⁓ But even that, most doctors in the state are afraid to even touch anything having to do with

abortion or termination for medical reasons because of this act. So yes, Adriana Smith, I think we all want to talk about Adriana Smith because Chance was just born what a week ago now? What? Yeah, less than less than a week ago.

Tianna (05:07)
so much I wanna say, Chelsea, like...

My sister was born at one pound. She was 22 weeker She is 17 years old and we are going through hospice right now. The biggest, my biggest issue and sometimes, right, sometimes it's truly a lack of not, but in this one, but my biggest issue is the quality of life that Chance will have as a result of not only going through the prematurity, but as a result of not having his

maternal mother not having not ever having heard his maternal heartbeat like you know or like or maybe he did hear the heartbeat but his mom the voice that like there was so much missing that I'm really worried about how what his development is going to look like and I feel like this is something that we haven't take or not we because we didn't have a choice right but the people making the decisions it's something that they didn't take into account his quality of life

Courtney Ginder (06:05)
Yes, and on top of that, on top of that, like, what's, you know, how's he going to feel when he learns that his mother died nine weeks into carrying him? And I mean, like that, I cannot imagine the trauma that he will feel when he discovers that. Like, I don't even want to think about it. It's horrific.

Chelsea Myers (06:05)
Absolutely. I want to hear everybody. Yes. Yes, please.

Well, and Adriana has another son. Adriana has an older son who had to watch her go through this. So Adriana, the medical system failed her from the start. ⁓ And this is not going to be an entire episode on Adriana, but this is so important and it's happening right now. Adriana went seeking medical care and was sent home.

⁓ and then it was later discovered that she, I believe was hemorrhaging or was having a, sort of stroke or hemorrhaging in her brain. Please don't quote me on that. Blood clots in her, in her brain and was declared brain dead. She was neglected by the medical system that was there to protect her and her unborn child. And then kept alive by machines simply to gestate her.

Courtney Ginder (07:03)
blood clots on her brain. Yeah.

Tianna (07:03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (07:05)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (07:22)
her fetus. ⁓ So and I, I know you probably if you're watching this and you saw my face when I said it that way, I feel a certain sort of way, but we'll get into that. I want to hear other voices.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (07:35)
Yeah, the biggest thing that you just said that I think was so critical to me hearing her story ⁓ and I think is so important for me to say as a white woman is that she is a black woman and therefore the system failed her most likely due to the disproportionate number of black women who are failed by the medical system who are not believed for their pain and their suffering. And that's why the maternal mortality rate is so much higher for black women. And so we can't have this conversation, I think, without stating that and how the implications of these changes in policy are

going to continue to disproportionately harm women of color. So just to be able to put that out there has to be, it just can't be understated. I, and to your point, like I work with, I'm a parent, but I also work with kids. That's where my background is as a therapist. I can't even fathom the amount of support and struggle that these two kids and the rest of their family are going to have now as a result of this and how the intersectionality of their lived experiences with their mom, with this wife, but then also just

because of the systems of oppression and just how deep this is gonna go for them, what that journey is gonna look like. It's really unfathomable.

Lindsey Basler (08:42)
she, you know, she was refused that care. So now they've given her family a higher burden of care for chance. Who is that one pound? Like what, how are they going to sustain that now that, you know, they're already dealing with the trauma of what's happened and now they have this new

further trauma of having to deal with, mean, in, ⁓ you know, there's no great setting to have a premature baby, but in a setting where you, the mother is there, it is traumatic and so hard to deal with and getting any medical interventions that you need is already hard to deal with. So how, how does this continue? How, go ahead, Tianna.

Tianna (09:27)
I don't know how much I can speak on this. It's been like something that honestly has triggered like my PTSD if I'm honest. When I first became a nurse, this is not the first time this has happened. Okay? When I first became a nurse, I worked for a very prestigious hospital system that provided me with a very large scholarship. So I was stuck in on a contract for night shift.

NICU is not a job that you can do at night for long periods of time because it breaks you emotionally and the night shift will break you physically. You're being broken in two ways. So I opted to go to a hospital that was a Medicaid hospital, not knowing that there's a difference between people with insurance and without insurance. Huh!

This is where I developed PTSD and I, okay, ⁓ I had a migrant mom. You guys can probably look her up. I'm sure it's on the news. I just don't know how much I can, but she was pregnant with twins and she passed away. I'm not sure really how she passed away. They kept her, they sustained her until they can deliver the twins. Now, one of the twins came out perfect. One of them came out severely disabled. I want you to know that

And I get emotional because I was so young when it happened. really didn't have the understanding. Dad was a migrant worker. He could only take the well son. The other baby became a ward of the hospital. And so I didn't know at the time, but he was like adopted by the hospital and he would, had this room, he had a TV, would, you know, he was, she was trached was, and everyone knew that his mom was held for time. And I don't never know what happened because I left the system. was, it was.

It's really hard. ⁓ These moms never had maternal care and they deliver to, know, and, it's not the first time it's happened. ⁓ I just don't think it got so much news coverage at the time, but that baby, I think about him so much now, you know, I'm not only him, but so many, like, like Chelsea said, it's not going to be a story only about her. So many, so many women, right? So many women deserve to have their stories told. And I just feel like we,

I just feel like there, it's, it's, and I don't want to, I don't want anyone to take offense, like saying this the wrong way, but I feel like being a woman can be so overly political. like you wake up and you are like in the middle of a political war just by existing. And it's just, ⁓ it's just tough times that we're in.

Courtney Ginder (11:53)
It is, and like you said, this isn't the first time this has happened. This is not the only state where it's happening. I follow the Pregnancy Justice nonprofit organization on social media. And when this story came out, they posted that there are 29 states where advanced directives are restricted during pregnancy. And there are states where no matter

when it happens, survivability of the fetus, your advanced directive is null and void because you are pregnant. And that was terrifying to me, especially because I'm in one of those states where it does not matter how far along you are or the survivability of the unborn baby fetus. My advanced directives would not be followed. And that's terrifying.

Chelsea Myers (12:41)
Tianna, do you remember what year that was that that happened? That experience that you went through?

Tianna (12:45)
Oh, okay.

So it had to be about maybe 14 years ago, maybe 14, 15 years ago. And at this time, the baby had been maybe a year old. So maybe like 16 years ago.

Chelsea Myers (12:54)
Okay, okay.

Okay. Okay. The only reason I ask that is just to sort of, yeah. And I just kind of wanted to get an idea because ⁓ for our listeners that are not in the U.S., like huge sweeping changes have happened in terms of reproductive rights in the U.S. in the last, I'd say two, three years. ⁓ And it's just getting more challenging, but to hear that things like that, that people like bodies are being kept alive.

Tianna (13:05)
And this is in Florida.

Chelsea Myers (13:32)
And I use that term like, yeah, bodies are being kept alive to host fetuses and that it's been happening before any of this. And that's news to me. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I knew that. I did not know that and that's terrifying. ⁓

I want to kind of give a little more context just so that listeners have an understanding of where we're at. So not only is this happening, and this is obviously being sensationalized, which is another added, I don't wanna say complication, but another added stress and trauma on the family that they don't need. It's all over the news.

Tianna (14:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (14:19)
We've talked

in other episodes about medical costs. So the medical cost of keeping Adriana's body alive for months. She was eight weeks pregnant when she went in and she just delivered chance. So cost of that. just see. as of since 2022, when Roe V Wade was being struck,

14 states at that time have near total abortion bans. So, and that's just talking abortion. So, ⁓ and when you say abortion, if you speak to doctors, it's all abortion. There's termination for medical reasons. There's that, there's medical miscarriage. There's things like that. But in terms of,

what you would categorize it if you're filling out like a medical chart, it's an abortion. It's an abortion. So 14 states near total

Tianna (15:15)
huh.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (15:16)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (15:19)
abortion ban, President Trump signed an executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment, which ended federal funding for elective abortions. ⁓ There's also huge legal battles over the abortion pill ⁓ and access to that.

Tianna (15:22)
Okay.

Chelsea Myers (15:38)
is yeah, anti-abortion groups like Rolling Thunder are working to limit access to abortion pills and they are pressuring the FDA and Congress to just get rid of that altogether. This doesn't just affect abortions, you guys. It's IVF, it's perinatal care, it's postpartum care, access to seeing an OB-GYN. These are all being affected by seemingly what is

the issue if you if you if all you hear is they overturned Roe v Wade and you think that that just means like okay abortions are illegal. It goes way beyond that friends. And we'll get to it. I don't want to skip ahead but yeah, we're gonna get into it but that's where we're at right now we are at limited access to to health care, mental health care we didn't have it anyway and it's even worse.

We are now, I say we, I refer to us as uterus owners. We all know that I identify as non-binary. Brit identifies as non-binary. If you own a uterus, yes, it's like your life is not yours right now. But yeah, it's, we're gonna, we're gonna get it. I lost my train of thought. That happens to me all the time. But so if you own a uterus, your life kind of isn't yours right now ⁓ in the U.S.

Tianna (16:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

too.

Courtney Ginder (16:58)
Mm-hmm.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (17:00)
All right, let's talk about how it affects us. So I'm curious how have changes in the reproductive laws shaped your decisions or conversations about motherhood? Because it certainly has affected mine. So I'm curious what everybody else has to say too before I share.

Tianna (17:14)
jump in. think this affected me when I was six months pregnant, had a ⁓ abortion, a missed a missed abortion, right? So my body, my body didn't recognize that the pregnancy was no longer viable. And ⁓ this was some years ago, but I was still under whatever that law was, where I went a week searching for a physician who would touch me, because the local hospitals were like, no, like, we can't help you. And

That situation was so traumatic for me that I left there and ⁓ I learned fertility awareness method. And it is something that I believe that everyone should know, regardless of if you want to have a baby or not, because you can utilize it ⁓ as a form of birth control to know when you're ovulating so that you can abstain during that time. And not only that, I believe that being a NICU nurse, like one of the first things they did was put me in labor and delivery. And I was like, why? I want to see the good stuff.

realize that you have to be able to understand the normal so that you can be able to identify the abnormal. And fertility awareness method really changed me. And even if it does happen, right, I will be the first one to know I have so much autonomy, so much awareness over my body. And I think it's so important, especially now, where Adriana was only eight weeks, most women with hormonal issues, irregular periods, they could go past that and not even know that they're pregnant. Right, so I feel like

This has changed me and created this like awareness and also this hyper privacy where I don't do the flow apps. don't do the, I'm not giving away my ovulation dates and things like that. I've become aware and I've become very secretive because I feel like it is a really political to have a uterus. Like Chelsea says, right? So that has changed me. And it is something that I recommend to every, everyone with a uterus to understand what's the normal so that

when something becomes abnormal, you are the first one to know whether that's pregnancy, disease, or anything else. And in this climate, we've really got to be tied in.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (19:18)
Yeah, for sure. It's interesting. I mean, I'm having pretty wild conversations in my office now that I never thought I'd be having as a therapist. something that really has struck me is the number of conversations I'm having around, I really do want to have another baby, but I really do want to try to do IVF, but and so much fear. it's a time when I specialize in anxiety and trauma, and I can't even

say to folks, this isn't a rational thought. it's not, maybe a decade ago it would have been to be like, maybe this is just your fear talking, there's so much reality. And I'm having these conversations with folks from all different walks of life. Even to that point of having conversations around you think it's not ⁓ the way reproductive healthcare and just reproductive rights is affecting parenthood. ⁓

I have same sex couples who are panicking, I have to make sure my child is adopted because I didn't birth them. And so what's going to happen? And if I do want to have another baby, whether I want to go through IUI, or I do want to have a surrogate, what's going to happen and how this can affect all of that. And it's the level of intensity and decision making that now exists. I think the fear is so challenging. It's, and even watching it, there's a level of vicarious trauma that I think we're collectively going through. I can say I have to do so much debriefing and

regulating after sessions because even as a person of childbearing age, I'm hearing stories and thinking, wow, I don't know if I even want to take this risk. And so, and it's part of why I may be one and done because I'm at that time saying, I don't know if I want to do this again. And I'm going to state where it's, you know, at this point, pretty protected and I still don't know what I'd want to do because I have friends and colleagues who are OB-GYNs and nurses who are telling me how they're so afraid and things feel so fragile. And so,

It's just, it's so heartbreaking to have these conversations and to see that there's validity in the fear and to try to hold space. It is very exhausting because there's not so much that you can say that feels validating except I'm right there with you and I believe you and I see you and it matters. But I'm seeing it too. And I have a sister who's going through the IUI process and she's terrified. What if I do finally get pregnant and then something happens? And it's heartbreaking that oftentimes just as we've been saying,

abortion is healthcare. So if somebody wants a pregnancy, very much so, which happens more than typically somebody who's terminating for a non-medical reason, which is fine in and of itself, in my opinion, but by and large, abortion is because somebody did want a pregnancy and something went wrong. to know that the laws that are supposed to be protecting life are actually disintegrating people's abilities to create their lives is so heartbreaking to watch.

Courtney Ginder (22:03)
coming from, I live in Indiana, so I live in the state that right after Roe was struck down, we were the first state to pass an abortion ban. ⁓ And I know that we are done having kids. We have two. My husband and I have always said we're gonna be done with two.

We don't want to be outnumbered. We don't have the house space for it. We don't have the finances for another one. We know we're done. And I had a very difficult pregnancy with my second. ⁓ I had gestational diabetes. I had severe pelvic pain. I could barely walk by the end of my pregnancy. So I was like, hell no, I'm not doing this again.

And now I have a consultation with my OB ⁓ next month to talk about having my tubes removed. And that's something I never thought I would do. ⁓ knowing where I live and knowing what we're up against right now and how, you know, we keep coming back to this, how having a uterus is political and having a uterus is scary right now, like I don't want to take that chance of something happening that I'm not ready for. So I mean, I'm looking into a drastic option just because I don't want to take that chance. And it's something I

never ever thought I would do.

Lindsey Basler (23:09)
I've gotten with both of you, Kara and Courtney. I wasn't necessarily sure how many children we would have. And ⁓ I had a difficult pregnancy with my first. I had preeclampsia and then ⁓ birth trauma experience. And I had always thought it was more because of that, that I was like, I cannot do this again. I cannot do this again. And probably over the last six months or so when I thought, well,

You know, I'm really feeling like I have overcome a lot of those feelings, but do I want to do this again? And I really don't because now of all the other scary reasons that you know are so far out of your control not that any of other things necessarily are I Feel the same way Courtney I would be terrified right now to become pregnant

I haven't looked into taking any measures to, you know, permanently stop that, but I know how you're feeling Courtney and I'm so with you on that would be very scary. for everybody out there that that is what they're doing right now. Here in Missouri, we had a total abortion ban and then in November we voted to overturn that. in

May, they decided to reverse that and it's back again. So ⁓ in Missouri, apparently it doesn't really matter what you vote for. So it's back here in Missouri. So that's kind of where we are.

Courtney Ginder (24:47)
so mad for you for that, by the way. Like, you guys voted to overturn that. You, like, that is literally, like, the power of the people. You voted that, and they're like, nah, never mind. That's not really what you wanted. Like, Right?

Chelsea Myers (24:58)
I mean, that's our entire political climate right now. Courtney is, this is what the people

want, but it's not what we want. But yeah, that's a different episode. Go back to momocracy episode one, and we'll do a part two on that later. just like you said, Courtney and like Lindsey said too. So I had my youngest in 2022 and there was again in the air Roe V Wade was

Courtney Ginder (25:05)
Right?

Chelsea Myers (25:27)
which is about to be overturned or not over. Yes, it was. Yes. Reversed. And I had a scheduled C-section. And literally as I'm being wheeled in, they go, do you, do you want us to do a tubal ligation for you? And I was like, they're like, oh, nobody talked to you about this. I was like, no. And they're like, well, do you want it? And I was like, yeah.

Sure. I was like, don't want any more kids. And it was nonchalant like that, but it was, it brings me back to like those 90s TV shows when you like go inside the brain and you like into the mind palace. That's Sherlock Holmes. That wasn't 90s. But anyway, like my brain went a million miles a minute and it went like, oh my God, like if something were to happen and I was to get pregnant again and I wasn't able to get healthcare that I needed or this, that and the other. And so I was like, yes, yes, do it.

and they did it. And I still a year ago, had my husband. I didn't have my husband, my husband and I decided that he was gonna also get a vasectomy. Because you can still get pregnant with a tubal ligation, which a lot of people don't realize. It's rare. Yes, it's rare. But hi, have you met me? I'm the Murphy's law of people. And if it's gonna happen, it happens to me.

⁓ so I was like, yeah, no, we're not taking chances. ⁓ so that, mean, that is how it, these decisions have impacted my family. ⁓ I have a tubal ligation. My husband had a vasectomy. So we did, and no, I don't use the apps anymore. I don't, I also don't get a period anymore. ⁓ that's another episode too. Healthcare for, ⁓ perimenopause.

fun stuff. talk about that another day too. But yeah, that's, mean, good stuff, man. That's how it's affecting me and in so many other ways, but like most directly.

Tianna (27:23)
Good stuff.

Chelsea Myers (27:32)
before we go on, I also want to acknowledge something that Kara said really early on, like, and I don't even know if you realized this, and maybe you did, you're very smart, but ⁓

It's not just affecting us on a reproductive level, medically, in and of itself. It goes way beyond that. It's affecting people's mental health. And then you as a mental health professional are dealing with other people's interpretations and consequences of what is happening right now. So it goes way beyond medical stuff.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (28:12)
Yeah, no, mean, it permeates your entire life. I think that that's something that's so incredibly important to not understate. I mean, everything can affect our mental health. Living our lives. think, Tianna you said it beautifully, like being a woman is political. Like, it's just like we just existing is such a challenge right now for so many people. it's because, you know, Chelsea, to your point, I think that.

I say this joke to a lot of my clients with anxiety. I'll say, oh, I don't work with stupid people. And they like look at me and I'm like, if you're anxious, it's because you're thinking about everything that's going to go wrong. You're like constantly looking ahead. You're smart enough to want to protect yourself and to go that way. And that's a blessing and a curse because you're trying to be so thoughtful. It's incredibly exhausting when you see and feel from all sides, different things coming up. And there is so much that goes along with reproductive rights in terms of decision-making.

As moms and just parents, like think about how much pressure we feel in rooted in the expectation of making the right decision and how this could completely transcend and affect your entire life. The lives of existing children of partners, your finances, where you live, are you going to move? you, you know, are we going to sustain this? What happens if somebody dies? Do we have, did we do any advanced planning, food, you know, healthcare proxies, living wills, advanced directive type stuff?

It's like beyond the scope. And so you think about now the whole lifespan in one chunk is sort of coming at you because of this one decision. It's a radically impactful thing and it is exhausting to negotiate with because you can't do it all at once. And it creates a cascade effect of decision making that you feel you have to do.

Tianna (29:50)
What does it mean to choose motherhood when the choice is being stripped away from others?

Chelsea Myers (29:54)
Yeah.

Tianna (29:55)
This is such a good question.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (29:57)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (29:57)
I mean,

all of us are just giving the look right now. If you are watching and listening, you probably just got all of our answers by seeing our faces. But let's talk about it. mean, yeah, let's talk about it. Because I'm sorry, I talk a lot. I know I mentioned before, but like ⁓ with Tianna's specific question in terms of like,

Tianna (30:01)
It's so good!

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (30:02)
You

Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (30:24)
How does it, choosing motherhood while it's being stripped away from others. Let's talk about the people who are experiencing infertility. Let's, unexplained infertility, the people going through IUI, IVF, their embryos, if they are able to make them at all, or there's embryo adoption, there's all of that stuff. That is all limbo right now. What happens to unused embryos? What happens to unused eggs? What like, like,

I just I had a guest on my podcast who had an egg retrieval and an embryo like They made embryos and they dropped the embryos and it's like is that murder? Um Right, like is that a criminal offense? Are you calling that murder? So it goes It goes big guys. It goes big. Don't let me do all the talking talking topping

Tianna (31:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea, when you talk about this population, think about like, pregnancy is the goal, but the reality is that this population is so vulnerable because the quality of their eggs, right? The quality of these things, they've been dealing with whatever issues that they had that couldn't get pregnant naturally, they're at tremendous risk for having the ⁓ miscarriage or laboring early. And I feel like

At this time, where we are so vulnerable, like it puts extra added weight on these women, especially women of color, that the statistics for child labor looks like third war countries. It is like, it's almost like some people are being asked to put their dream of motherhood on the shelf because of our political climate. And it is so, it's just so unfair.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (32:00)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (32:06)
And it's being criminalized if you have a miscarriage. If you have a miscarriage, naturally, there are states that will investigate that to see if you somehow caused it. I'm using air quotes. That is mind blowing to me. That's absolutely mind blowing.

Courtney Ginder (32:11)
Yes.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (32:17)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Basler (32:29)
Like, did you just pay $50,000 to get arrested for this? Question mark.

Tianna (32:35)
Yeah, absolutely.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (32:35)
Right. Yeah.

Courtney Ginder (32:35)
Right.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (32:37)
It's so interesting that I saw this question about like choosing motherhood when it's being stripped away because to your point and like this idea of the infertility community, like when I speak of my sister, like it's my identical twin sister. He was like going through this process and I conceived naturally and she is having a hard time and I had my son in 2021 before this change occurred. And so there was this

Chelsea Myers (32:37)
Well, and it's...

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (33:00)
sort of complacency around like, of course, if I need care, if something goes wrong, I'm gonna get it. And so, and not only to your point, is she now investing time and money and resources and also to that point, and maybe this comes up later in this conversation today, her career decisions around like, she's staying like, like, you know, where am I working and what's my health insurance like, and what can I access? And then also, if it goes wrong, what's gonna happen to me? and fortunately she's in in New Jersey with me, so we have a lot of safety, but like,

She's talking, we practice telehealth, we have clients in other parts of the country. So like this idea of I'm able to have this choice and somebody who is literally genetically the same as me is not able to have this experience. And she's terrified from so many angles. And then she's also a perinatal therapist and does work with the infertility community. And so she's holding space for people who are experiencing loss after loss. And it's the idea that we will criminalize people who to the very point of this

this movement around reproductive change in the law. It's like, well, this idea of being pro-life. So we're gonna penalize people who are spending hundreds, like thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially, who want life so badly when something goes wrong, but they actually wanted this. It's something that is just mind blowing to me, this, how we get here. But it's so sad and it is so unfair that people who want to be parents are being penalized because of the way that.

laws are being written without consideration for nuance and actual practicality. That's a huge part of the problem.

Tianna (34:31)
Absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (34:33)
I think too, beyond...

Courtney Ginder (34:33)
And that's what it feels like too,

is they didn't think about the ramifications of where this goes because, I mean, common phrase is, know, abortion is healthcare because it is healthcare. You know, if you need a DNC, you have a missed miscarriage all of these things, that is an abortion. But people don't think of it that way. They think of it, as you're killing a baby and that's not what it is.

Tianna (34:45)
Yes.

Courtney Ginder (34:59)
But yeah, they didn't think of, it's like they didn't think about, you know, how this will impact IVF, how this will impact people that want to be pregnant, you know, or they can't get pregnant, or they have trends trying so hard and now they've had a loss and they need healthcare because they need, their body's not passing that loss on its own, you know, like, and that's just heartbreaking.

Tianna (35:20)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (35:20)
I think,

think because, how do I word this the way that I want to? It goes so much further beyond being pro-life or pro-choice at this point. And I think when it comes to the lawmakers and the people making the decisions, they are standing on a platform of pro-life. ⁓ But in reality,

Tianna (35:33)
you

Chelsea Myers (35:46)
It goes so far beyond that. agree with the right to choose or you don't, the ramifications of these laws being changed and being enacted goes so much deeper and

Completely abandoning the person who

is holding what you are calling life. And yeah, I think There is space at the table for everybody. You can completely be anti-abortion and be the most pro-life person in the world.

Tianna (36:13)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (36:30)
And you can still have a seat at the table because you don't have to get an abortion. ⁓ and you can make that decision for yourself. And that's the whole point of being pro-choice is that there is a choice to be made. But, but as odd moms and like our whole platform is about like, there is space for all of that here, except it's being taken away from us. The table completely is being taken away.

Courtney Ginder (36:36)
Mm-hmm.

Tianna (36:40)
Absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (36:59)
We don't have a table to sit at. There is no conversation. There's no table to sit at.

Courtney Ginder (36:59)
Yeah.

Tianna (37:02)
Yeah.

And these laws, like these abortion laws, they don't reduce the rate of abortions, they just reduce the rate of safe abortions. And I think that's so important for people to know. It's like they're still happening anyway. We're just reducing women's ability to have safe healthcare. And that's so important. And then another point that Chelsea made, I feel like it's not about pro-life, pro-choice. I feel like it's pro-capitalism. Right? It's like, you know,

Courtney Ginder (37:12)
that.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (37:31)
you

Tianna (37:34)
They don't care, they just care what benefits. And so a lot of times we see like two birds, two wings on the same bird, right? And they're really just favoring what benefits pro-capitalism at the end of the day. And we're just like, this is just a natural consequence of that. We're just like.

Courtney Ginder (37:41)
Thank

Tianna (37:50)
political prisoners. I don't know how to say it but yeah.

Chelsea Myers (37:53)
Yeah, I think political prisoners sums it

Courtney Ginder (37:54)
what it feels like.

Chelsea Myers (37:57)
Tianna, you made such a good point and it is political and it relates so much to the future of motherhood in terms of what the Trump administration envisions as what American motherhood is. I'd love to hear what you guys think about that whole debacle.

Courtney Ginder (38:18)
It's insulting.

It's insulting. Like, we'll give you $5,000. That does not even cover the birth of the child. Like, are you kidding me? And then if you have six, if you put your body through the wringer six times, we'll get you a pretty medal. I don't want that. I want affordable childcare. I want affordable healthcare. I want quality childcare. I want quality education for my kids. I want affordable standards of living.

Tianna (38:44)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Courtney Ginder (38:47)
I don't want a medal. Like it's so insulting to me.

Chelsea Myers (38:51)
And it's laughable, like Courtney's laughing. It's laughable. Well, right, but it's so asinine that it is like, what else can you do? I also want to mention ⁓ Germany ⁓ wanted to award medals for having children ⁓ back in the day. So you put those puzzle pieces together. Yeah. You can connect the dots.

Courtney Ginder (38:53)
I am, yeah, sarcastically laughing, but laughing, yeah.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (39:08)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Ginder (39:14)
Mm-hmm.

Tianna (39:15)
History repeats itself.

Courtney Ginder (39:16)
then you can connect those dots for us.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (39:18)
You know, that parallel is

jarring.

Tianna (39:20)
All my neurodivergent friends pattern recognition is in play.

Chelsea Myers (39:23)
Yes.

Yes, we're Neuro Sparkly.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (39:26)
Yeah, I have some really interesting conversations

with my NeuroSpicy clients who point things out. I'm like, I wish you all didn't notice these things because I do not want to notice these things because it is painful. But yes, it is true. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (39:34)
It's like there's so much being thrown at me, stop

throwing more at me. But yes, Tianna, yes, yes. But like, and then penalizing people who want to, like who are childless by choice. Childless sounds so bizarre to me, like child free, yeah, child free by choice. But and even if, yeah, so if you choose to not have children, you would be penalized somehow. It's giving a handmaid's tale.

Tianna (39:38)
Me too, Chelsea, yes.

Courtney Ginder (39:51)
Child free, child free by Joy.

Tianna (39:53)
I like the chalk free.

Courtney Ginder (39:59)
which is again, ridiculous.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (40:02)
Yeah.

Courtney Ginder (40:02)
Yes, because like being, becoming a mom has made me even more, I was pro-choice before I became a mom, but becoming a mom has made me even more pro-choice because like, this is hard. This is so freaking hard. And I mean, I love my children with every fiber of my being, but, I wanted them. I wanted them. And everyone should have that choice because you shouldn't have to do this if you don't want to.

And so to penalize the people that know like, nah, that's not for me. don't want to do it. that, that's infuriating.

So we've talked about how this affects us as mothers. Now let's talk about how it affects our kids. So how do you talk about, how do you talk about and raise kids who respect bodily autonomy and consent in a world and a country that does not?

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (40:49)
I have been asked this. I've had, and it's interesting because I'm asked this by parents with children who are younger. They're just sort of projecting and thinking about the future and worried understandably about, know, especially, especially I will say if they have ⁓ female children, ⁓ especially, but I think that the conversation with them has often been. ⁓

If we don't agree with something, that doesn't mean that we go along with the status quo and the values that we go with. So we teach them the same thing. We teach them the values that we hold, that we feel are in their best interest for their safety and ⁓ are rooted in evidence and rooted in the values that we hold. And we do that in order to foster what we believe should be a sense of autonomy and self-respect and control and healthy decision-making.

even if the world isn't friendly to that. And we teach them to recognize that and to notice the incongruencies and how to advocate. Because if we don't do that, then what's the point of what people are doing now with trying to advocate for the change? We hope it will change so that choice and opportunity and whatever they come across in terms of decision-making, whether it's health decisions or social decision-making, et cetera, that there's more access to options and that it feels more from a place of empowerment than it does now.

So we aim for that. That's sort of what I try to teach them. know, supporting your children with living out the values that we hope that the world will mirror is an act of resistance against the machine that you don't feel a part of when you feel that you are not being represented. So that's something that I always try to encourage parents to feel empowered about.

Lindsey Basler (42:19)
I think sometimes people see that when you are trying to like teach consent to, like I have a four year old and I think sometimes people get bogged down in like the lesson of it. Like it doesn't have to be a lesson. It is a lived action that they just see through you. Just like you said, we're mirroring that. I've seen so many like silly debates online saying, you you should ask your baby before you change their diaper. I'm not saying that you're sitting there verbally.

Chelsea Myers (42:20)
that so much.

Lindsey Basler (42:49)
waiting for them to say yes or no, it's just a simple act of saying what you're going to be doing and just practicing doing that. And I think if we as parents are just getting in the practice of doing things like that, practice doing that. worked in special education and was changing adult high school students' ⁓ diapers. And even though most people would probably say they didn't know what I was doing, I was still telling them what I was doing.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (42:56)
Yep.

Lindsey Basler (43:18)
I'm going to take your pants off now. I'm going to wipe your backside now. And I don't know if they knew, but if they did, I hope they appreciated that I was telling them what was going on with their body when they couldn't control it. And I think if we're doing that, you know, with your four year old, they're going to grow up with those habits. And then when it becomes, you know, something important, a time when they don't want someone doing something to their body or when it...

comes to a time where they can help advocate even more for things like their own reproductive rights, then they've grown up with those habits. ⁓ I know we're kind of leading into like with sexual education. I think using all of the appropriate words for things like period, vagina, penis, all of those things. And are you guys familiar with the Meet Baby Olivia video that is in? Okay, I didn't know about this either.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (43:53)
Yeah.

Yes.

I think I've seen it before.

Lindsey Basler (44:15)
until it's not brand new. This is not a new thing, but there is a Meet Baby Olivia video that is in a couple of states laws, and I lost how many states? Let's see, it is in one, two, three, four, five, six states right now, and their laws, they have to teach this video that was made by a pro-life group called Live Action, and that is part of their...

sexual education. I feel like that is something else we should talk about. Sorry, we maybe talked about it too soon. Okay.

Chelsea Myers (44:50)
Well, no, tell me about like, so I was, I was going

to say, I agree with you 100%. Our kids know, like my daughter knows what a vulva is versus a vagina. And again, like, so I'm, I'm going to be completely transparent with you here. Like I grew up calling my vagina a pee pee because that's what my parents told me it was like, wipe your pee pee or don't touch your pee pee or, and boys had pee pees and girls had pee pees. Well, we don't have pee pees.

We have penises and vulvas and vaginas and uteruses. And my children, my nine year old, who is almost 10, knows all of the correct terms for her body, breasts, vulva, everything. And so does my two year old, because just like what you were saying, she is so, again, maybe TMI, but she struggles with constipation.

And when I'm wiping her, I want her to have the language to tell me what hurts. So she literally will say to me like you hurt my vulva. And I will say I am so sorry, I am going to like we're gonna put some cream on like I'm explaining to her everything. I'm like, you're right. Like that's really close to your bottom. That's where you got hurt because it was hard for you to poop. And I'm so sorry.

We talk about it. I want her to tell me where it hurts so I can fix it. I don't want her to say my my peepee hurts. ⁓ so maybe that's just me and I understand. But please tell me about this video because is it not teaching them the correct terms or is it teaching them the correct terms?

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (46:16)
You

Lindsey Basler (46:26)
So it is a fetal development video and some of the criticism is that it's not medically accurate. You can watch the video if you just Google me baby Olivia, you can watch it online. And some of the criticism is that it's not starting the, I guess, fetal gestation. Like it's not starting.

on the date of the last menstrual period and it's starting a lot further out. So it's making it seem like there's like immediately this heartbeat and this baby, like the imagery is just very much here is this baby in you as soon as things are happening. ⁓ Like from the moment of conception.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (47:10)
It's very accurate.

Chelsea Myers (47:10)
So it's not a language

thing. It's not a language thing. It's a conception thing.

Yes.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (47:16)
one quick thing? I just want to

say, I think it's so important that you guys are both talking about this, though, because accurate information and consent and understanding of the body and understanding of the life cycle from a medical and health standpoint is not just about understanding reproductive health. It's understanding abuse prevention. It's helping kids to understand themselves when things go on medically so that they can speak up and get what they need. ⁓

Tianna (47:35)
Yes.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (47:41)
everything gets made into sex and it's not all about sex and it's all about intimacy and it's like, we're not showing kids pornography in schools. actually, started out working in schools too as a school social worker and I would have families who were like, I want to pull my kid out of sex ed and that kid was at a disadvantage because they now did not know something. ⁓ So it is really unfortunate there's such misinformation. I think that video actually, Lindsey, that you shared is a beautiful example of that, the misinformation and how.

adverse the effects can be on kids. They're more likely to then not know their bodies. They might have an unplanned pregnancy. They may actually come into having these conversations. They might need to see a provider, not know what to say. If someone's touching them, they can't report it. It's so layered and complicated. So I think that just empowering kids to know what their bodies are, the language and what happens is abuse prevention, it's empowerment, and it's just helping them fight the machine in a very minimally invasive way.

Tianna (48:35)
Absolutely, you'd be surprised how many women come to me and they don't know their basic like Anatomy as women and they want to get pregnant and they they're like ovulation what does that mean? I'm supposed to be doing that one. I got a period Is that not like obvious and at first it was like kind of like this inside joke where I'm like Do they really not know but as I'm I'm like, wow, we are severely at a disadvantage

And sometimes I'm like, is this intentional? Everything relates back to capitalism for me. Is this intentional capitalism? Do we keep women like unaware of their body so that they can be the perfect, like it's a pipeline into healthcare and to IVF and that's just my thinking because there are certain tribes when there is not a word to express something, they cannot articulate, they cannot think of it. Like it's so important word expression.

And for kids who don't have the means to express themselves, it just leaves them so open and we have no like, there's no like report card system. These grow up into women who don't know, ⁓ or uterus holders, you who don't know how to self pleasure, how to what works within them. And it leads them, it puts them at a disadvantage for, as Kara said, for abuse, for so many other things.

And it's just, gets to be that easy. So I am open to that. I love the idea of educating children and naming the parts. And I feel like we have to question the lens in which we view this from because the over-sexualization of children, it's really gotten out of hand.

Chelsea Myers (50:15)
I mean, consent, we teach consent in our house with literally everything. And you can think we go over the top, but like, I don't force my kids to hug their grandparents. I don't force my kids to hug me. I don't force my kids to give me a kiss or say, love you. I will say that to them or I will ask them every night before bed. Do you want to hug? Do you want to high five? My freaking two year old has a whole ritual and I've got OCD. So let's not diagnose early, but every night she goes, hug.

Kiss, nose nose, high five, fist bump every single night. But that's because we've taught her that that's what her options are. has choices. So it's like, no, you don't have to hug grandpa. You can wave or like you don't have to, you don't have to play with your sister. You can play separately. Consent is anything. And no, we're not like, do you want to eat your vegetables? Yes or no? It's not like that. Like you're going to eat your vegetables. But yeah, consent, consent is not sexual.

Tianna (50:55)
Right.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (51:13)
It's just, it can be, but it's, yeah.

Courtney Ginder (51:16)
We do the same thing, Chelsea.

I was really proud of my daughter the other day, because she's five now. And so we've drilled that into her head from the beginning. You don't have to hug people. You don't want hug. You don't have to kiss people. You don't want to kiss. And we've started to consent from a very early age. We're tickling her. And she says, no, no, stop. We immediately stop and back off, because she said stop. And we were leaving her daycare. And one of her friends comes. She can I have a hug?

My daughter goes, I don't really want to hug right now, but can I give you a fist bump? And I was like, yes, girl, that's what we want. yes. ⁓

Chelsea Myers (51:48)
She's empowered.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (51:52)
so we're talking about all the hard stuff. What gives you hope in this fight? What's something that you wish more parents understood? What's something you're holding onto that's pushing you forward?

Chelsea Myers (52:02)
It's like what Courtney was just talking about. Like we are raising kids, whether it be our daughters or I think a lot of us have girls. I don't have any boys, but a lot of us have girls and some of us have boys as well. ⁓ But we're raising our kids to be more knowledgeable about their bodies, more knowledgeable about consent, feeling safe in

advocating for themselves, feeling safe in knowing their bodies and that knowledge like watching. And again, like I'll go back to something Tianna said earlier, like we're a neuro sparkly household, my kids and we're all neuro sparkly. But to see my nine year old struggle the way that she struggles and still feel empowered enough to to say no.

No is it and I know this is another one of those one liners. No is a full sentence. But like she can say no. She can tell us what's it should we are approaching puberty you guys. We've got Riley's alarm going off from inside out. It is scary at our house. We're NeuroSparkly and gonna start our period. What the hell am I supposed to do? But she knows she knows what it is. She knows what it means. She knows the signs to look for. She's not scared.

That gives me hope because that wasn't me. I didn't have any of that knowledge. So, yeah, I don't know.

Courtney Ginder (53:30)
Right.

Right,

like I mean, I grew up, again, I'm in Indiana, so very, very red, very conservative, very religious. I grew up, and my sex ed at school was, you know, they called it creating positive relationships. I'm using air quotes here for those of you not watching on video. But it was very much purity culture. And, you know,

you know, the whole chewed gum metaphor. Like that was my sex ed in school, which is terrifying because I went to public school. But knowing that like I'm not raising my children that way, like my daughter will not view herself that way. My son will not view people that way and like treat, you know, raising them to be respectful and to know their bodies and to know what consent is and to not be afraid of what's happening to them. Like I fully agree, Chelsea. Like that makes, that makes me hopeful that there are kids that are not going to grow up the way that we did as, know, my fellow millennials probably understand what I'm

talking about here.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (54:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I will say, I don't know if I'm the lone wolf in here, but as a mom of one, I only have a son. And ⁓ I even feel like a heightened responsibility as a parent of a boy to be really intentional about what I teach him around consent. ⁓

And he's got his own like neuro spiciness. So we're really working on like, you know, keeping our hands to ourselves. We're in preschool, so that's par for the course anyway. but I think that being able to start there, like to, to just think about how in your interactions, how are you teaching your kids to respect other people? How are you teaching them to respect themselves? Like if we kind of siphon it down into like, what do we want our kids to do and that we can do that as parents and start somewhere and that that is a place of empowerment that you can be so intentional with your kids and then continue to have it evolve.

can be a very heartening thing to recognize because it means you have some control over something. And that's helpful. ⁓ I also want to say too, like, I'm a perinatal mental health professional, but I started out in PEDS and I do still work with kids. And I am like, so impressed and and blown away all the time by the kids that I talk to because there I have so much hope like Gen Z gives me so much hope. think Generation Alpha is going to give me hope like they there's so much awareness of

you know, and they get they get made fun of of like, you know, being woke. And I think that the reality is like, I want us to wake up because I think that they have a lot to say that's really, really beneficial around, hey, let's just like treat each other like good human, know, kind human beings and be respectful and see where it goes. ⁓ And that piece is really valuable. That's at the heart of what I think going back to this whole discussion of like pro choice and accessing what you need being able to be an informed patient and informed human being. They're really advocating that we

all deserve to feel empowered, heard, valued, have a place at the table and that the table has to be there for us to speak at. So I feel good about where we're going with some of the kids that we have and I think that that's something that I hold on to.

Tianna (56:22)
I love that Kara. feel the same. I teach my son that consent can be withdrawn at any moment. And that ⁓ if he is the only one laughing or if he's the only one smiling, likely the joke is over. And I'm very, very hard on him with that because my son is neuro-spicy. And it's easy just to get caught up in it and for him not to realize that the person is no longer laughing, a lot of times his sister. So I'm very, very hard on him with that.

on the read the room, read the room. And my mom is like, come on, Tianna, come on. And I'm like, absolutely not. Because if it's not a lesson that you learned here with mommy and the safeness and the warmth of mom, he's going to learn it in a way that I don't want him to learn outside. I'm like, consent can be withdrawn at any moment. If at any moment you feel like she doesn't or he or whatever my partner, it's not the way it was immediately withdraw yourself immediately. And I think that, ⁓

From that perspective, we're creating the world a little better place, surely, right? We're doing the work that needs to be done and we will see the natural consequences.

Lindsey Basler (57:31)
Now, something that gives me hope is seeing people sharing their stories. And I personally had someone reach out to me and say, hey, I kind of a friend of a friend situation. I saw you share that. I honestly, they're like, I've never thought about abortion as being health care. I just really didn't know a personal story. And that really changed my perspective. Now, granted, that was one person that said that to me, but that's one person who stopped to kind of question how they've been talked to think and how they've been thinking. So.

That's something that's given me some hope.

Chelsea Myers (58:03)
I love it. I want I say that a lot. I love it. Um, anyway, I want to highlight as we are coming coming towards where we have to give up being odd moms for a little while even though we're always odd and go back to real life. I want to acknowledge that while it seems like many if not most of us in this conversation are pro choice.

That doesn't mean, just like Kara said, that we don't want, that you don't belong at our table or that you don't have a seat at our table. Odd Moms is, we're all odd moms and the table has to exist. And so we need to make sure that that table stays there because you do, you can sit with us. You can sit with us. You can talk to us. And on that note, like if you want to learn more about

things and I think you should, especially if you are a uterus owner and especially if you are raising uterus owners. It sounds like a used car salesman, but some really great resources to check out. ⁓ Learn more about plan C pills and plan B pills. Just do your research. Do your research about them. It doesn't mean go buy them. I'm not telling you stock up, maybe stock up, but learn about them. Learn about.

your body. Learn about even if you are a male, learn about your body, learn about your reproductive health, learn about your health in general, learn about what kind of access you have to care where you live, what doctors are under your insurance, what insurance you have. ⁓ Educate yourself, check out the National Network of Abortion Funds. ⁓ Again, that's talking a lot about abortions and and things like that. But

At the core of it all, do your research. Do your research into trusted, vetted sources. ⁓ I know we all like to, and there is value in hearing from grandma or the auntie, and there is value there, but you also have to look at the scientific research and learn as much as you can so that you can make informed consent and you can make decisions about you and your body.

Yes, so I'm gonna toss it to Lindsey with our hot take and we're all gonna get our little 30 seconds of response. This is a good one, strap in.

Lindsey Basler (1:00:34)
So here's our hot take for this episode. Men should have a say in abortion decisions. What do we have to say about this?

Chelsea Myers (1:00:44)
Don't make me go first.

Guys, don't make me go first. Don't do it.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (1:00:48)
I I'll

Lindsey Basler (1:00:48)
Well,

let me tell you about some of the comments that I got.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (1:00:49)
go first.

Courtney Ginder (1:00:50)
I'm trying to formulate my thoughts here.

Lindsey Basler (1:00:52)
Real quick, I have been posting some things on TikTok, just trying to stir up a little bit of commentary to find out some other people's opinions, just kind of step outside the box there. And a few of the comments I got were, do men belong in the space where the policies are being made? And then a lot of the comments I got were, should men have a say in the abortion decision itself? And most of the comments I got, I...

don't want to assume, but it was leading the way that it was probably men making these comments saying that they absolutely should have a say in it. And there was pretty much take it at face value, no matter what we should have a say in what is going on. So there wasn't a lot of context around it. That was kind of the end of the sentence.

Kara Kushnir, LCSW, PMH-C (1:01:43)
My hot take on

really like men being a part of the conversation is really just what we've talked about already today, which is like, I think that we need men to be at the table to have the conversation so that we can advance decision-making collectively as a country, as a people. I think that that is part of it. And I don't think we're gonna get very far unless we do find collaboration amongst people of all gender identities, just to be a part of the conversation. But I think that from a perspective of decision-making when it comes to on the individual basis,

my philosophy would be that we have to really provide that autonomy to the individual that it is going to affect most, which is the person who would birth, ⁓ because it will, by and large, have far reaching implications and effects on that person more than it would to the person who contributed the semen. Like it's just part of the I think the way that it will unfold. So from a collectivist perspective, I absolutely think men should be part of the conversation. And I think that if it's feasible or safe for them to be a part of decision making on an individual level, and that's what the birthing person

or the pregnant person would want, then yes. And at the end of the day though, I think the person who's pregnant is the one who ultimately has to make the decision about their body because it's so nuanced and individual.

Courtney Ginder (1:02:52)
And I agree with that, Kara My take is very similar to yours in that, you know, like my husband and I had conversations about, you know, if something were to go wrong, what would be our next steps? And if that, you know, on an individual level, that was a decision that we would make together because we're a team, we're partners.

But in the end, I know that he would defer to me because I'm the one that's on my body is the one that's going through this and I mean as someone who I mentioned earlier I had gestational diabetes, which is not caused by Lifestyle or diet or anything like that is purely hormonal But because of that I now have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes down the line So, mean that's something that is permanently changed for me because I had children and so I agree that you know, we need to

on

a large, there's layers to this. On a top layer, overarching, like we're making the laws about this. Everybody needs to have a seat at the table. I have a lot of issues with people who going back to like, you know, learning our bodies and both men and women need to learn their bodies. And obviously not just men and women. We have non-binary individuals. We all of that. We all need to know what our bodies look like and how they function. But I have a hard time with people telling me what to do with my body when they don't know how my body works.

Mm, that gets me. But on an individual level, I agree with Kara that this is, it should come down to the person whose body is actually on the line here. And pregnancy is not a health neutral state. There are a lot of risks. And I mean, one of those risks is death, to be honest. And that's something that the person who's actively going through that should be the one to make that choice.

Lindsey Basler (1:04:31)
100 % I think we forget that a huge risk of pregnancy is death, but I agree with you guys a lot and that it really comes down to the individual person and what your trust relationship is like. But ultimately, I think the birthing person is the one who makes that final decision.

Chelsea Myers (1:04:50)
I am glistening y'all. My hot take, it feels a little spicy. Like I feel a little spicier about kind of like what you said Courtney, like someone who doesn't understand how my body works and acknowledging like this isn't our gender episode, but I recognize that I'm biologically female. I'm not like, I understand that.

That's not my gender, but I understand that. So having someone who doesn't understand my physiology and my body try to dictate what I do with it or what happens to it. Ooh, that's why I didn't want to talk first because that was my initial jump was like, no, my initial jump was hell no. But I wanted the space to decompress a little bit because I do agree. I agree that

We all need to have a seat at the table and that we all need to be able to talk about it. But at the end of the day, it should be the individual's choice. What happens to them in whatever form that takes. ⁓ And I don't think that that should be controversial. ⁓ Y'all, it is hot. This has been a...

Big conversation. This has been one of our heavier topics. And I just want to acknowledge and thank everybody that's here and those who had to leave early for coming to the table and for bringing your lived experience and for bringing your perspective because that's what we're here for. And as Lindsey says, we just keep getting hotter. that's our new tagline, especially today. ⁓

Lindsey Basler (1:06:38)
I got so hot, got heat exhaustion this week, guys. So drink some water, you hot moms. Drink some water.

Chelsea Myers (1:06:41)
⁓ no! Hot moms!

Courtney Ginder (1:06:44)
Our air conditioning went out this

week like Yeah. Water.

Chelsea Myers (1:06:47)
Drink water, take a nap, take a breath. ⁓ We will be back with another episode when we're back. You never know when we're gonna drop, but thanks for hanging out with us. We've got to go back to real life and we'll catch you on the next one.