Everyone Loves Someone Who Had an Abortion: Abortion Storytellers Part 3

Your reason is the right reason.

For this incredibly special part three of our storytellers podcast series, tune in to hear the abortion stories of Dr. Brendane A. Tynes and Kiah-- abortion storytellers from We Testify.

For more information, check out: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/2058-two-blocks-from-the-white-house

Transcript

Jennie 0:03

Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, I am just back from vacation when you are hearing this. I haven't actually gone yet as I am recording this. So, I am so looking forward to having some time away to sit on a beach and just read and do nothing. I had like some really amazing vacations last year. I went to Italy and traveled all over, did the British Isles, but both of those trips, while amazing and got to see so many things that I loved and I loved every minute of those trips, they were all like go, go, go, go, go. We had something new every day, and we're doing all the things. And I really needed a, I really need a vacation where I am just doing nothing. So, when you were hearing this, I will have just gotten back from Key West with my mom. We're intending to just like maybe do a couple things while we're there, but mostly sit on the beach and read. I have loaded up my e-reader with so many books. I am just really excited to just have the time away and sit on the beach and unwind and just disconnect from all of the things. So, if anything major happens in the next week or happened last week, that's why I'm not talking about it in the intro because I'm recording this on April 30th before I leave. So, I am very much looking forward to just stepping away from my laptop. I'm not taking it with me. I am going to try to stay off socials and all the things, I'm sure, with varying levels of success, but I'm trying, gonna try to just really disconnect and get some downtime and just relax. So, I am very much looking forward to this vacation and eating all of the key lime pie. The only, like I've really done no research for this trip to think about what we could do, other than I did like a really quick Google search one day and saw that there was a key lime pie walking tour where it was like an hour and a half, stopping at like six different places to eat key lime pie. And I'm like, oh, I think we're doing this. This is my one thing I want to do is: eat all the key lime pie. So, I'm very much looking forward to my trip. I'm sure I'll talk about it after I've actually been back. So, even though I am have been back when you were hearing this, I have not actually left yet as I am recording it. So with that, I think we'll just turn to this week's episode. And I am so excited to share this week's episode with y'all. I really believe in the power of abortion storytellers to combat stigma and change the narrative around abortion. And I am so grateful to have connected with We Testify. You are gonna have hear several different abortion storytellers in the next couple weeks. We got quite a few who are interested in sharing their stories on the podcast. So, I am so excited to today share two of them. They were both wonderful, and it was so great to talk to them. And I really can't wait for y'all to hear their stories. So, with that, let's turn it over to the storytellers. Hi, Brendane. Thank you so much for being here t oday.

Brendane 3:32

Thank you for having me, Jennie. I'm so excited.

Jennie 3:35

I'm so grateful to have you here to share your story. But before we get started, do you want to take a second and introduce yourself?

Brendane 3:42

Yes. So I am Brendane A. Tynes. Some folks know me as Dr. Brendane A. Tynes. I am an anthropologist. I have my PhD in anthropology. I am a poet, a podcaster, a singer, a dancer, a creative. And I'm just very excited to be here today on the other side of my abortion. And the life I have is something that my abortion has afforded me.

Jennie 4:12

So, I love so many of the things you said. I took a couple anthropology classes in undergrad, and I really loved those. So, that makes me really happy to hear that you are in anthropology. And poetry is something that I am newer to. It was one of those things that didn't connect with me for a long time. And I found that I am not a good poetry physical reader, but I really love like listening to the audiobooks or, like, hearing it. Like, I could take it on so much better and have found a new and greater appreciation enjoying it that way.

Brendane 4:54

I have to agree with you. I think that most poetry should be read. And I say most because I think there's bad poetry out there that no one should read. [laughs] But I totally agree with you. I did a lot of spoken word when I was in college. So, I really learned about how to turn poetry on the page into, like, music almost in the way that it sounds. And so I, yeah, I just love poems and poetry. So, that's something I hear that you're getting into. I think it's just a really great way to also express yourself without needing all of the words that folks say you need to share how you feel.

Jennie 5:36

Oh, love that. Like I said, I am so grateful that you are here today to share your story. I think it is such an important part of the work that I do around reproductive, sexual and reproductive health rights, and justice. Like if stories work on breaking down stigma, helping people see themselves, they're just so important. And I'm always so grateful when storytellers can come on the podcast to share their experiences.

Brendane 6:05

Yes, I think now more than ever, in an era of extreme repression, we have to come forward and speak. So I'm just very happy and honored to be here as well. So, thank you for this space. Of course.

Jennie 6:19

Okay, so would you like to share your story and start wherever you feel comfortable starting your story?

Brendane 6:26

Of course, yes. So, I think I'll start with thinking about or talking about the stigma and how that impacted my abortion and my abortion story. So, I will say that this story has a lot of twists and turns, but that's the nature of life. I grew up in a extremist Christian cult in South Carolina. We had very strong beliefs around birthing, very strong beliefs around, you know, if you're pregnant, no matter if it was rape, you know, incest, molestation, etc., you would have the child because God willed that child to be in your life. And I saw the effects of that on the girls and the women and the other birthing people who were in the congregation, particularly those who were pregnant at very young ages, who were told, well, this is God's will for your life, you must give birth. And so, I just decided I would avoid sex altogether. I would never have sex, just the fear of all the things, but pregnancy, especially, outside of marriage was something that really pushed me to be abstinent for as long as possible. And that changed when I got to college, of course. And after college, I decided to go to graduate school to pursue my PhD in anthropology. At that point, I had left the faith, had left the cult behind, and was still sitting, though, with that stigma of having an abortion, not giving birth, moving outside of God's will, supposedly, quote unquote.

Jennie 8:15

And that shaman stigma, it sticks around so long.

Brendane 8:19

And even when you think you've decolonized, or whatever folks want to call it, or when you think you've divested, it still sits in your body. And so, I just told myself, well, you know, I'm doing everything I can to avoid getting pregnant. I'm not gonna do this, and then along the way, I also discovered that I was queer. So I was like, oh yes, even better. Like, I don't even have sex that could get me pregnant. But as I started exploring other spiritual paths, I started learning about Reiki and energy healing and participating in circles of other black women and other women of color who were doing that healing work. And one day the practitioner, we're all, you know, sitting there humming, and I'm making a joke out of it, we're not really humming, but we're, you know, sitting there holding our hands in our poses, doing our thing, and she she says, you know, one of you, I hear I'm hearing from God, like one of you is going to have a child. And so I'm I open my eyes, we had our eyes closed. I open my eyes, I look around because I'm like, mmm, not me though, because I'm gay, so I'm not having no child. It's not me, but you know, other people around opening their eyes, looking around, like, which one of us? Because some of the women there were in relationships with cis men, and so in talking to the practitioner afterwards, I was like, mmm, I don't know if he was talking about me. I feel like that's not me because I don't even like men. And the practitioner was like, well, I did say after I said that that this person doesn't even like men, so I'm glad you know when God is calling you. And I said, wait, whoa, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I don't even talk to men or anything like that. But yeah, so I don't know how this is gonna happen. But that was also around the time that I had started doing my research for my dissertation, and I interviewed a man for my dissertation, and he at the end of the interview, he kind of flipped it on me and made it a little kind of romantic, and it was something that I didn't quite expect, but I was like, okay, I'm open to it. And we ended up having starting to have sex with each other, and I ended up pregnant within like a couple of months of that Reiki circle and that and I was really sitting there when I finally found out that I was pregnant. I was in a lot of denial around it. YouTube kept suggesting pregnancy videos for me. I went to which was that was the weirdest thing. Went went to get an ultrasound for some some chronic pain that I had been experiencing around my cycle. And there in the ultrasound, they got a snapshot of the fertilized egg, but no one told me that that's what it was. And so when a few weeks pass and I'm sick all the time. Like that was when I started feeling something was wrong with my body. I'm sick all of the time. I'm nauseous, but I can't throw up.

Jennie 11:26

How did they not tell you?

Brendane 11:28

I literally got the ultrasound, if I remember correctly, it was about two to three days after I had sex that got me pregnant. And so, maybe they just- I don't know, but no one told me. No one told me that I had a fertilized egg. They just said- we're looking at your uterus, things seem there are some abnormalities, but it doesn't seem like anything that would cause you this amount of pain. In the weeks that followed, though, just being constantly sick and not even being able to do my schoolwork, not being able to finish writing my dissertation and things like that because I'm just so nauseous. And finally, I'm like, let me just go to Target and buy a pregnancy test. And if it's not- if I'm not pregnant, I do need pads, so let me go get pads. So, I'm in the check out line and I'm checking out pregnancy tests and pads, and the person is like, and I turn and I look at her and I'm like, well, it's gonna be one or the other... like you know, it's gonna be one or the other. And I went home, I took the test, the first test came back positive. I said, this is defective, so I threw it away, and then I took a second one and it came back positive, and I cried. I cried so hard, and I called my friend, and that guilt, the first thing I felt was the guilt and the shame around knowing that having a child would dramatically just shift my life and not allow me to achieve my goals. But feeling that guilt from my childhood, that shame from growing up and saying, well, you know, even though I don't believe in God in this way and I don't think about God in the same way anymore, I've still been told that this is what I'm supposed to do. Gets in your bones, man. And it just so carrying that guilt and that shame, and I should have also recognized in that moment, but hindsight is 20/20. The fact that the first person that I called was my best friend and not the person who had got me pregnant was an alert. My own nervous system knew that he was not a safe person to even have a child with. I eventually told him, after crying to my friends and being confused and being like, okay, I guess, you know, it's true, I am pregnant. And he told me at the time, he told me that he was okay with me making whatever decision I felt was good for my body. And so, I went to Planned Parenthood online. I booked an appointment for a medication abortion and they booked me for early March 2022. And I went in and the process itself was so easy. And I say that with a lot of gratitude and a lot of knowledge that it's not easy for most folks who are birthing to access it. Because I was a student and because I did not have high income, it was free. I walked in, I filled out the paperwork. The person that I was with at the time, my ex, he couldn't come in with me because it was they were doing pretty heavy COVID protocols at the time as well. And so he could not come in, but I was there alone. The nurses, most of them were Black women like me, some of them had locs too, like I have, and so it felt like I was in a community of other women who look like me who would be accepting, and no one was shaming me about my decision. They took me to discuss with one counselor about different options for protection and things like that, which I think they kind of have to do, and then they took me to an ultrasound and they showed me the fertilized egg, the embryo. At that time, I was only about six weeks or so, it was just it wasn't really an embryo. And I, yes, and that process also was very easy. I took my first pill in office and then they told me that I could take the rest um in the safety and the comfort of my home. And one thing that they did not tell me about in office, but I did end up having to do research later was about the fact that the three days or the 72 hours that they say things typically take is not necessarily the norm. That it might be an average, but it's not the norm. And for me, I ended up bleeding alone in my apartment for about 15 days during my abortion. And that was the the most difficult part was being in pain and kind of and feeling my hormones fluctuate and feeling my thoughts and just like feeling out of my mind for that amount of time and also not having that support of the per of the person who played a role in my pregnancy. He essentially ghosted me and abandoned me. I would reach out, he would tell me that he had to go to work or make up all these other excuses um so that he couldn't be there with me. And as an other background, like I live in Maryland now. I don't have family; I don't have close friends who live, and at that time especially, who lived around me who could come and visit me. I did have uh some really great friends who lived further out, and so they all sent me care packages. So I had their care packages, the tea, the heating pads, the herbs, all the things, but no one could get to me uh physically to be with me during that time. And uh later I would learn um uh from the behavior of my ex that uh his abandonment was part of an emotional psychological abuse that he uh played. So he did in fact want me to have the child because he had these fantasies about being a father, and because I did not do that, because I chose myself in my own life in that moment, he decided to punish me by not being around. And I ended up also finding out later, Jennie, that at the time that I told him, so February 2022, when I was like, oh, I am pregnant, I'm having an abortion, he started sleeping with other women. And he did eventually get one of them pregnant and they ended up having a child together and he he left me to be with her. But I'm not saying all this to because I miss him no, but or like anything like that, like it's it's all part of the experience and it's all part of the world that I didn't even really see that I was in until I had to make this choice. I didn't even realize that I was in an abusive relationship.

Jennie 18:39

But it's all part of the experience.

Brendane 18:41

Until I made this choice, I didn't even know or realize like the relief I felt at no longer being pregnant was not just because of what I could see for my future and that being eclipsed by having a child, but literally given what I know about this person now, having an abortion saved my life. Given what I know how he deals with in relationships now, it's like having this save me from having an abortion save me from a lifetime of being tied to someone who would continue to violate and abuse me. And who would have no doubt have used a child as a bargaining chip and tool in that. And so the stigma came comes back into the picture now in in how I was so afraid for so long to even tell folks that I had an abortion. No one in my family knows, or if they do know, they're not talking to me about it. And this ended up really being a moment for me, especially last year when I joined We Testify's a storyteller cohort around the same time that my grandmother had transitioned, she passed. And when I was pregnant, my grandmother called me and she sounded so excited. She was like, I had a dream that you were pregnant, and we were going to buy all these things, and we're going to buy curtains and buy this and that. And I had to lie to her. I had to lie to her and tell her I can't, I'm not, grandma. I don't I don't know, maybe you saw something way in the future. I'm not pregnant. And she was just like, I'm like, okay, well, I'm just really excited about that. Like, yes, and I knew that the shame of my upbringing, the stigma from my upbringing, me saying, well, yes, I am pregnant, but I'm choosing not to have a child that would have deeply enraged her, would have deeply enraged the women in my family because they would all believe that I'm going to hell, dying and going to hell for that. And so when my grandmother died, I felt so much guilt. I remember being at the storyteller cohort, our retreat, and talking about it, because I went to the retreat right after our funeral and saying, like, I was in tears saying, part of my shame around this is that I can't be open with folks in my family about it. I actively lied to my grandmother, and now she will never know the truth. And now I now that I've moved in a different space in my grief, I understand that you know, that was me trying to, I guess, self-flagellate, but use my grandmother as a proxy for that. There is no shame in my decision, and there's no shame in the fact that I wanted to preserve my relationship with my grandmother, so I did not tell her the truth. And but it's hard because I have to hold those two now. With the joy that I have that I am not tethered to this man or having to care for a child alone. Yeah. It's been such a beautiful journey, though. It's been such a beautiful journey.

Jennie 22:07

I, first, thank you so much for sharing your story. I truly appreciate it. It hits close to home in a couple of really important ways. While I did not grow up in a cult, I grew up going to Catholic school, K through eight. I've talked about on the podcast. I literally had sex ed from a nun. So, all of that shame and stigma around sex and purpose of have your your purpose is to have kids, like it just, it just gets baked in. And even doing this work, I have to like check in with myself around easy to believe about other people and like totally accept the fullness of it, but like within myself and like dealing with the personal is where I find I struggle the most. And it has been the process of like unlearning and getting rid of like all of that harm, because really that's that's what it is, is harm that was done. And then the other part that like really stuck with me is the intimate partner violence and how unprepared we are and how little understanding um young people have in particular of the full range of what it looks like. Absolutely, especially around when I was young, like it was like intimate, like violence is like physical, and that is like that was it. So, you're in an abusive relationship if you you're like being hit, not this emotional and financial and all of these other ways that violence can show up. So when I was in younger, I was in an abusive relationship that I did not see at the time because I did not have the tools to see it until I started doing this work. And like you look back and you're like, oh shit, okay, so that's okay. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 24:13

Like, that was that, yeah.

Jennie 24:16

Yeah, it it hits so many notes that I I can just feel in my bones. And like when you talked about the call from your grandma, like, my stomach just dropped because like I could just imagine the emotional feelings I would have had if something like that were to have happened.

Brendane 24:31

Like I just yeah, it was it was really on one hand, it was like, okay, this is one way to find out that my grandma's kind of psychic. Okay, cool, cool. Good to know. Yep, grandma, give the powers to me, thank you. Um, but also just like the um, I think it was the the joy in her voice, like the just pure elation because yeah, and I can say this now because she's not here, but like, you know, I was her favorite grandchild. Like, I know, and so I know for her it was really like this moment of just like wow, like the expansion of this love that she felt for me and being able to extend that to another being. And yeah, when I was really deep in my self-loathing and my blame around it, and in that moment of grief, it was just like wow, I took that from her. As if, you know, this is a Rumpelstiltskin. Like it was yeah, like you know, like Rumpelstiltskin story. Like, no, like my grandmother would not have been experiencing the hardship that giving birth at that time in my life would have brought me. I would not have been able to graduate when I did. I would not probably would not have graduated at all. I would not have my PhD, I would not have like I own a home. I have you know things in my life that I enjoy, I can travel, I can be devoted to myself in ways that folks who are mothers or parents just can't because that's the job, right? And if you and if you are then you're probably not a good parent, like in the same way. So it's, like, all these freedoms that I experience and the joys that I experience and having to sit with wow, at a moment in time I was weighing the joy of someone else high above my own. And I know that for so many folks in abusive situations, that's also the thing if they're not if they don't want a birth, but their partner does, and it's kind of you know that you have to devalue yourself and your own needs in order to stay in that relationship, and I think so many of us don't know abuse because abuse has to function in order for society to function, like, it has to be here in order for society to function. So if we knew all the ins and outs of oh, well, if someone says they don't like the way you look, the way you dress, the this and that, then you are in an abusive situation. If that were more common knowledge, I think there would be groups of people who would be lonelier than what they are. You want to talk about the how folks are trying to mobilize loneliness as this need to be in relationships with people could cause harm with you. Like, I think one of the things that I've been grateful for at this stage of my life is that I survived the abuse that I've experienced and that I can share that with younger folks, but I never imagined, I never- 18-year-old me, 15-year-old me, 12-year-old me would have never imagined that at 28, I would have been in that position and making these kind of choices, but I know for sure here, now, I'm so glad that I chose me above all else.

Jennie 27:57

Yeah. Oh, that feels like such the perfect spot to to wrap it up. But I do want to give you the opportunity if you have anything final you want to add in, but don't feel like you have to.

Brendane 28:08

Yeah, I think the thing that I continue to affirm throughout my life and now and throughout my storytelling, is that for so many folks understand abortion to only be life-saving if the baby is endangering or the fetus is endangering the mother's life and or the birthing person's life, excuse me. But I think so much about women, mothers, birthing folks in particular, who are tied to abusive people who use children against them. I think about the story recently of a woman who gave birth, survived the birth, and her husband came and shot her dead in the birthing room. And I think about: what if she knew that abortion was a choice? What if she knew that she did not have to tie herself or tether herself to someone who would harm her till the end of her life? And she was 24 years old. Yeah, so abortion does more than just medically save lives. Is it is a life-saving choice, and I will always affirm that for myself and for others.

Jennie 29:29

And we know that to be true with data too, right? The Turnaway Study showed that people who did not get the abortion that they wanted because they were turned away were more often still in contact with the with their abuser, and that is dangerous.

Brendane 29:47

Dangerous. I just I can't stress it enough. Can't stress it enough. And just growing up a Christian, it just there's just so many things in Christianity and in Catholicism about that normalize abuse, normalize self-denial. And so yeah, I just see my choice to have an abortion as like self-reclamation in in a form of ruthless self-devotion that I won't ever deny anymore. Like, I'm speaking in from the rooftops.

Jennie 30:22

I mean, even if you just want to be honest, like about women not having power, period.

Brendane 30:26

Literal patriarchy.

Jennie 30:28

Putting that out there. Talk about the literal patriarchy.

Brendane 30:31

I guess to add to more of the lore, as the kids say, I'm learning some things. As u I in my spiritual journey have also done a past life regression, and uh in one of my past lives, I was a a breeder on a plantation, and so for folks who don't know, there were plantations that um housed folks who birthed for the primary purpose of that. So these were folks usually uh female, and I used female intentionally because slaves were not given the same gender status as um folks who were not slaves. So, if you were a female slave, you know, you were raped, etc., and forced to give birth. And so, that was my job on a plantation, and I kind of regressed back to that life. And one of the things that I was doing because I didn't fuck with it, was helping other female slaves have abortions, helping them, and then if they didn't end up giving birth, then you know, infanticide on the other side of that. And one thing that and that came to me when I was really trying to unravel my grief and my shame in that moment, I had that past life regression, and then it hit me, like, I didn't have this choice in a past life. Now I do. And there's a piece of me that I can reach now and comfort now and give something to that she didn't have. And then I then it also hit me like, oh wait, I have been doing this work for centuries. What when we think about the power of the patriarchy, right? We can think about this work as something that women, birthing people have been doing for centuries. We have been pushing back against this power for centuries. And I just, I get so excited thinking about the the future, what my life can hold, and how how many more ways can I exercise this power to have claim and rights over my own body? But yeah, it was a little spooky, a little spooky moment for me, but it really brought it all together. Just, like, wow, like I can let go of this stigma and hold on to the fact that this has been a part of my life path and purpose for many lives. Yeah.

Jennie 33:00

Brendane, thank you so much for sharing. I truly enjoyed talking to you and getting to hear your story. So thank you, Brendane, for being here. Hi, Kiah. Thank you so much for being here today. I would you like to take a second and introduce yourself before we get started?

Kiah 33:19

Yes, my name is Kiah. My pronouns are she/her. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, born and raised, and I'm still currently um in Atlanta, Georgia. So this is home for me. Oh, wonderful. I feel like we had another storyteller who is also from Atlanta. Oh, yay! So I'm very grateful that you were here to share your abortion story today. Would you like to tell us your story?

Speaker 33:43

Yes, certainly. So my story starts in 2021. I was 26 years old, I believe. So it's been five years now. So, August actually makes five years for me. So August will be my abortion anniversary. So that's really crazy to think about, actually. So my story it starts in 2021. I would say before I found out I was pregnant, I think a bit of context to my story is that I was very much raised in the church. I come from like a family of like believers. So I grew up with a lot of like purity culture indoctrination, the sin and the hell and all of those things. I've since deconstructed and kind of walked away from religion at this point. But that was kind of, I guess, my that's a lot of work. Yeah, a lot. It's still a lot of work. So, that was kind of my framework leading up to me finding out that I was pregnant. So, all of the stigma that I grew up with, all of the things that I grew up hearing people say, specifically within my family, about people that have abortions, about how abortions are bad and sinful and all these things, all of those things kind of hit me all at once the second I looked down at like that positive pregnancy test. So I think I never had a moment of regret finding like out, or not finding out, making the decision to have an abortion, but all of the external shame, isolation, just those feelings of like loneliness stemmed from so much of like what I had learned, what I had grew up with. And I feel like that's what ultimately made my abortion so heavy for me. The only lightness was the me having the autonomy to decide for myself, like this is what I didn't want to do. I'm not ready to become a parent. I'm not ready to put my body on the line to go through with a pregnancy. So, this is what I'm deciding to do. Everything else outside of that was may have been probably the loneliest I've ever felt in my life. There was no one around to support me in the way that I felt like I needed. I had friends, but when they don't necessarily understand exactly my experience or they haven't had the same lived experiences as me, that support can only go so far. So, I turned to the internet a lot. That's where a lot of my my new framework in terms of like abortion access, reproductive justice, that's kind of where it began for me was turning to the internet, trying to find resources. I literally felt like I was clawing at every corner of the internet to see just what I could find. If I was able to talk to anyone, I was able to use Exhale [Pro-Voice] as a resource at their text option. So, in the first like few months after my abortion, that was pretty like my only outlet to have someone to talk to that understood what it was exactly that I was going through. I think the I think the months leading up after it were are kind of just a blur. Honestly, they're still a blur a little bit, like even five years out, because I was trying to put I guess I was trying to put myself back together. And I know now personally, I don't- I like to hear abortion stories that are pretty straightforward, like, hey, this is the decision I wanted to make. It doesn't have to be, like, super heavy, but during that time that it it was pretty heavy for me. The decision to terminate my pregnancy wasn't heavy, it was the after effect. And I know, like, abortion stories are so complex, they're nuanced. So for me, I had no knowledge of after support and what that looked like, what the coming months, years would look like after that. I think for the first two years, I kind of blocked it out to the point where I didn't realize how much of it I was still holding on to because of all the external shame and stigma and all of the I felt, like, right after I made the decision to have my abortion, the news cycles were it just felt like, okay, now all this is the Dobbs decision, everything was just happening like right at the time that I decided to have an abortion. So I'm just like, okay, like, I can't escape it. It's all around me. I can't talk to anybody. So it was just, it was a lot. It was a lot to process. I will say five years out, I'm definitely in a much better position in life to be able to do things like this where I can talk about my abortion. I talk about it openly, especially within my family. I have a lot of younger cousins, so I make a point to share it with them if they ask or if I just happen to stumble upon it in conversation with them so that they know that, hey, not only am I here for you, but like you know somebody with this experience. Now I have the knowledge that that I have. I also recently became an abortion doula, so that was really important to me to do that and to be involved in my community in that way. So I guess like the more I think about it, my abortion like opened up my life so much to new knowledge, community, um, a new version of myself. And now it's like, okay, five years later, I'm reaping the benefits, if you will, of the decision I made for myself. And if I could go back and tell myself like five years ago at 26 years old, like, girl, just to wait to see what's like around the corner. I would love to do that because I know she was she was down bad. But I'm so happy for the version of myself that is now able to sit and tell my story, to sit with other people, to work with organizations like We Testify and Repro TLC and all these other like amazing organizations that have taught me so much, and I'm still learning and growing. So that's been very like special to me.

Jennie 40:13

Oh, I really love your your arc. I grew up going to Catholic school K through eight. I've talked about like having sex said from a nun. So, I know the like unlearning you've had to do and the like getting rid of all of that shame and stigma and like you having it stops you from like reaching out to other people. So, I totally see your story where you were struggling a little bit dealing with all of that shame and stigma that was not yours, but that you were carrying because it was put on you and prevented you from getting some of the support you may have needed to now you're an abortion dual. Like, that is an amazing story.

Speaker 40:55

Yeah, yeah. I don't know, I just think it's it's looking back and realizing how much of the stigma that I internalize, I think that's the part that still stings to this day, especially because I'm still surrounded by like family members, just surrounded by people in general that, you know, don't see abortion as something that just is just simple health care, like, and everyone deserves access to this health care no matter the circumstance, no matter the story. So I think that will always be something that I kind of carry. I try not to harp so much on the fact it sticks. Yeah, it does. It does. It really does. I try not to harp so much on the fact that they're, you know, like I'm not gonna be able to reach everyone. And, you know, the the further I go into being a reproductive justice advocate, into, you know, advocating for abortion, but I just wish I wish that stigma wasn't there for the people that come after me for my family members that may need access to abortion. Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest things that still I hold on to is I internalized stigma. Just like the you I you see so much online, you hear so much just in with people not knowing that, like, hey, you actually know and love someone that has had an abortion, but the things that you're saying are like harmful and and very hurtful. So yeah, that's still something that I still find myself like wrestling with. I try not to again internalize it so much because I want to, you know, be able to stand confident in telling my story and not let those people and those opinions sway me.

Jennie 42:44

Well, Kaya, thank you so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate you taking time to do that. Thank you. Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversations with Brendan and Kaya. They were both such wonderful storytellers. I am so grateful to them for sharing their story with me and with y'all. I really do believe that storytellers can change hearts and minds. So I am so grateful to both of them for taking time out of their day to share their stories with us. And I can't wait for y'all to hear the other storytellers that I have lined up to share their stories on the podcast in the next couple weeks. Okay, with that, I will see everybody next week. If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at Jenny, J-E-N-N-I-E at ReprospiteBack.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at ReprosfightBack on Facebook and Twitter, or ReprosFB on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all.