Talking About Abortion: The Language and Imagery We Use Matters

During the Trump administration, multiple myths and pieces of misinformation about abortion were widely circulated. While states were gearing up to pass the first round of near total `abortion bans, Physicians for Reproductive Health was building a comprehensive guide to gold-standard language when talking about abortion care. Kelsey Rhodes, leader of communications work at Physicians for Reproductive Health, sits down to discuss how to talk about abortion in the most inclusive, compassionate, and fact-based way and why it’s important.  

Gender inclusivity is incredibly important when talking about any type of healthcare, and particularly so in sexual and reproductive healthcare. Women, indeed, do need to be able to receive full-spectrum reproductive health care, but they do not represent every single person that should be able to access this type of care. Language that only centers “mothers,” and “women,” leave out folks of other gender orientations that also receive and deserve this kind of care, including transgender and nonbinary folks. The fight for abortion rights and transgender rights often intersects, and many abortion providers also provider gender-affirming care. Speaking about abortion means intentionally including the experiences of transgender and nonbinary individuals.

The sound that people will hear at six weeks of gestation (if they are forced to listen to their ultrasound) is the medically proven electro cardiac activity of cells that one day could become a heart. The anti-abortion movement used that sound to signify “life” at six weeks of gestation, underlying the term “heartbeat ban.” “Heartbeat ban” gets repeated frequently by anti-abortion legislators, and by journalists who are reporting on new state-based legislation that restricts abortion. This term is intentionally used to create an emotional, visceral response. Journalists have a responsibility to report accurate information about abortion care and fact-check against myths like “abortion reversal,”

The coat hanger image refers to a time in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, in which people who wished to end their own pregnancies turned to clandestine methods of abortion because they could not access care. Using coat hanger imagery now does not reflect the time in history we are in now, which includes incredibly safe, scientifically advanced, modern methods of abortion care, such as medication abortion. Using coat hanger imagery paints a false picture of the physical safety and reliability of abortion care today, especially self-managed abortion. Similarly, Handmaid’s Tale imagery advances a fictional narrative that doesn’t accurately reflect how systems of oppression in this country disproportionately impact Black, brown, queer, and immigrant communities. The story centers white women and equates a fictional world to the real-time, lived experiences of those whose reproductive health and rights are being systematically oppressed across the country. Lastly, equating abortion access to the Underground Railroad is unnecessary and co-opts the language of other movements. Likening slavery to the modern-day abortion access crisis draws completely false parallels; the centuries-long fight that Black folks have faced in order to liberate themselves in the U.S as compared to ­­­today’s reproductive health and rights issues is completely incomparable.

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

Physicians for Reproductive Health on Twitter
Physicians for Reproductive Health on Facebook
Physicians for Reproductive Health Guide on Language for Reporters
Plan C
Abortionfinder.org
Ineedana.com
Repro Legal Helpline
Repro Legal Defense Fund
Digital Defense Fund

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

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Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, it is a gorgeous fall day in DC right now. We have a nice blue sky and when I'm recording this; we haven't had one for a while so it is very exciting to see and I think I've mentioned this before, but my condo, I'm on the top floor of like one of the last hall buildings in my area. So I have just this gorgeous huge view of Washington DC and I can see all of these trees that are in the middle of changing colors. It's just like this delightful fall day. I'm sitting here this morning drinking some tea, recording my intro. It's just like a lovely morning and it's making me very happy. I guess before we get started, let's do just a little bit of housekeeping. One, you know, now that we have expanded rePROs beyond just the podcast, our social media is even more active. We're not just sharing episodes but we're sharing a lot of other things. So if you aren't already, you should definitely be following us on social media and you can find us on Facebook and Twitter at rePROs Fight Back and on Instagram at reprosfb and Rachel who does uh, helps me and does like producing on this show, but she is also our Public Policy Manager for rePROs Fight Back-- is just killing it on social so it would make her very happy if you are to give us a follow on any and all of your favorite platforms. And same if you like the podcast, it would be wonderful if you could rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. It helps other people find it and it helps us know that you like the show. So it would make me really happy and Rachel too if you were to give us five stars and write a quick review about why you love the podcast. I guess one other like housekeeping related thing is, and you can't hear it too bad right now, but it is fall which means it is allergy season for me. So I have a little bit of a frog in my throat this morning as I am trying to record. However, my allergies were much worse when I recorded this interview so I sound… not great. So sorry y'all, you're gonna have to bear with my voice a little bit in the episode. I'm feeling a lot better now, but I sound not great during the interview. So sorry about the audio challenges but it's just that time of year for me. Let's see here. Oh really important. If you were listening to this episode when it comes out we are one week away from the midterm elections. Make sur0. e to get out and vote. It is really important, it's always really important but make sure you're voting up and down the ballot. Abortion, reproductive-related decisions are made on many different levels all the way down to school board, you know, deciding what kind of sex ed gets taught in schools. It's really important to make your voice heard and you know, show why you care about these issues and why reproductive rights, abortion, sex ed, all of it is so important to you. So voting is a chance to get to show officials that you care. So make sure that you are voting. I am getting ready to cast my ballot. I have a mail-in ballot, it is sitting there on my table waiting for me to fill it out and dropping the mail this week, but make sure y'all get out and vote next Tuesday. And uh, let's shout really loud about why abortion is important. Okay, with that, let's turn to this week's interview y'all. I'm just so excited this has been an interview topic that has been like percolating in the back of my head for a very long time. I have been wanting to talk about why language is so important for a long while so I was really excited to snag Kelsey Rhodes at Physicians for Reproductive Health to talk all about language and imagery and why it's so important that we are using accurate language when we are in the midst of this fight and using representative imagery. It's all important and yeah, I was so excited to have this conversation so let's just turn to it. Here is my interview with Kelsey.

Jennie: Hi Kelsey, thank you so much for being here.

Kelsey: Hi Jennie. Thanks for having me.

Jennie: So I guess before we get started I'll deal with the elephant in the room of, I sound like I'm dying, my seasonal allergies really flared up over the weekend and yeah there it is all in my throat right now. So sorry that I sound a little terrible y'all.

Kelsey: Just in time for spooky season.

Jennie: Exactly. So do you wanna maybe take a quick second and introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Kelsey: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Kelsey Rhodes, I udr she/her pronouns and I lead the communications work at Physicians for Reproductive Health. So PRH, we organize, mobilize and amplify the voices of medical providers to advance sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. So we do a lot of education advocacy and some strategic communications work to ensure access to abortion care and equitable comprehensive healthcare.

Jennie: They're really great y'all. I love dealing with them and dealing with Kelsey to help get me physicians to come on the podcast. They're really a wonderful voice and you guys have this great new guide for, I mean it's not that new anymore, but like this wonderful guide for reporters about language and things. And I've been really wanting to do an episode for a long time like addressing like language and why we talk about things in a certain way and why it matters. And I kept like putting it off cuz like something more important like would always come up and I was like man, it's now been almost five years. Like I just need to bite the bullet and make it happen. And this was like the perfect opportunity.

Kelsey: Well I'm really glad to be here to talk about it. It was a really fun project. It really is central to the way that we do our work. When we use language to talk about abortion, it's really giving us an opportunity to share not only facts but also the values that bring us to the work. Uh, so I'm really glad that you're doing an episode on it.

Jennie: Okay, so I think you already addressed a little bit. I thought maybe we would start with like why you created the guide and then we can get all into the language.

Kelsey: Sure. So at PRH we originally created this guide actually in late 2019. So it was in the midst of the Trump administration as they were slinging around a lot of harmful rhetoric about abortion, specifically a lot of just lies about abortion later in pregnancy, and language shifts all the time, right? And so because of that we at PRH realized that as we were entering a lot more state bans on abortion, specifically right around Texas's SB8 going into effect last year, we too needed to shift the way that we were presenting how we were talking about abortion. And so we updated the guide in fall of last year and that's when we released it and it ended up being a really helpful tool for a lot of folks, not only reporters, which was our, the original audience we were trying to reach, but also we ended up kind of iterating it to be for policy makers as well. And then one for the general public because we do all have an opportunity to talk about abortion from an informed and compassionate place.

Jennie: Yeah, it's definitely something I've shared, I've shared with people I've heard like in public or on podcasts talking about abortion or shared with colleagues to make sure that when in our writing and talking that we are using the best language. So it's been a just a wonderful resource.

Kelsey: Well thanks for being a fan.

Jennie: Ok. So maybe we'll start with one that people who've listened to the podcast know I've used for a very long time, but I feel like there's again this like pops up whenever we try to talk about it and that's not using gender exclusive language.

Kelsey: I love starting with this one. Right. So gender inclusivity is really important in any area of healthcare that we talk about, but specifically reproductive healthcare. Reproductive healthcare and abortion care has become just unnecessarily gendered. And what I mean by that is that we end up always using almost woman language, woman terms. She lots of talk about moms, lots of talk about ladies, women, and a lot of those people do have abortions, do get pregnant, do access full spectrum reproductive healthcare, but they're not every person that accesses that kind of care. And so we at PRH and I think everyone in our movement is really adamant about being inclusive about everyone who needs abortion care and that will always include trans folks and non-binary folks. If we only use like feminine language and we only use gendered language and talk about women and use she/her pronouns in everything we do, we're actually intentionally erasing quite a large group of folks who need access to the care that we all care a lot about. So that was the driver there. And then I have the privilege of working with so many abortion providers who also provide gender affirming care. These fights for trans folks and also for abortion access are one and the same. And so we will always be really intentional about including trans and gender non-binary folks in our, in our conversations and in our work.

Jennie: Yeah and I think it's just like really important as a group that puts out papers and, and does research that like being very clear like about being gender inclusive but like sometimes the data you have isn't, and so when you use that data you have to use “women” but that always making sure to like flag that like this is why we are using women in this instance.

Kelsey: I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah if we think about like the one in four step that we always talk about, one in four women will have an abortion, but that's actually missing a lot of folks who have also had abortions who don't identify as a woman.

Jennie: Yeah. So I think it's, it's sometimes hard when you're like looking through things you're reading like going back and forth, but like there's really an important reason we're doing that because we want to be inclusive but you also have to represent the data correctly.

Kelsey: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, I, I wonder a lot when I seek a lot of the conversation and the rhetoric on social media, people get so mad when we use the term “pregnant person” or “pregnant people” and I don't get it right. Like that's actually accurate. Yes you are a pregnant person and I don't know why they always want us to say “moms” “mother”, all of these other terms that end up excluding a large group of people.

Jennie: For sure. Okay, so I think the next one that really bothers me and I'm so glad y'all took it on, was dealing with heartbeat bans.

Kelsey: Oh geez, here's a good one.

Jennie: Like I just, it's so annoying cause that is how they get reported everywhere and how they get talked about and like every once in a while, because you hear it so much, like it comes out of your mouth and you're like, “shi, that is not what I wanna be talking about.” And yeah.

Kelsey: Yeah. This one gets repeated really frequently, not only by anti-abortion legislators but also by journalists who are covering anti-abortion legislation that's getting introduced. And this was an invention by the anti-abortion movement. The phrase “heartbeat bill” was completely made up by folks who were really intentional of wanting to create some kind of like visceral emotional response. I'm really privileged to work with physicians every day who take care of folks, um, at all different stages of their pregnancy, whether they want to be pregnant or not, and help them get abortion care. And what we know is actually driven by science and evidence is that the sound that folks might hear if they're forced to listen to their ultrasound over the course of their abortion care is actually cardiac activity. Like electro-cardiac activity from the cells that one day could become a heart. We know they might not, right? Like fetal development is really unpredictable and so it's, that's the sound that people are hearing, and that sound ended up becoming almost the soundtrack of the anti-abortion movement, right? They wanted to have that be something that signified “life” instead of what it really is, which is just some fuzzy radio electrical sound.

Jennie: Right? Like it's, they want that like emotional like, I mean they use it for so many things. You know, we can talk about like, you know, “later term abortion bans” and like things like that where they try to use that language to like cloud the issue and try to get an emotional response instead of a like factual data response.

Kelsey: You know, it, it's just as interesting to me that this language was derived by folks who are the ultimate hypocrites when it comes to language. This is a side that likes to identify as being pro-life and even that is a lie. I think that if we think about what we all would consider being pro-life, that would be valuing the life, the goals, the dreams, the desires, the identities of people, of pregnant people and respecting whether or not they wanna be pregnant or not. You know, people who are pregnant are the ultimate experts in their own life and anyone who thinks otherwise, anyone who thinks that they are can know more about someone's life than the actual person who's living it. I mean that just shows themselves they are all about control, right? They're all about coercion and those are the roots of the white supremacy movement is how can we control and coerce other people's bodies and lives.

Jennie: Yeah that's the root of it, right? Like it all comes down to wanting to control people's bodies. And I think you saw this conversation coming up around not to get political, I mean political, but like around the Herschel Walker abortion story. And people were like, that's not a contradiction, right? It was about him having the control over who could have an abortion, which is no different than these abortion bans. So they're not so contradictory as you might feel.

Kelsey: Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Jennie: Okay, let's see here. I think another one that I think is really important to be talking about right now and as you see people out protesting and stuff is imagery or even things that do get covered and used in reporting. And so one of those things is the coat hanger imagery, and like why that is so problematic.

Kelsey: Hmm. Yeah. So we've seen the coat hanger, like you said, on a lot of protest signs. We've seen those pictures of protest signs then included in a lot of reporting about the moment that we're in right now for abortion access. So I don't know, I'm assuming your audiences that are listening are pretty familiar with the root of the coat hanger. But I will just start from the beginning in case they aren't. But the coat hanger image refers to a time back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, of the 19 hundreds, let me be clear, that people who were pregnant and didn't wanna be pregnant would turn to some dangerous and scary methods to end their own pregnancy because they didn't have access to safe abortion care. And so the coat hanger was thought of as some image of what women, and I'll use that phrase intentionally, would turn to to end their own pregnancies. This was pre-1973 pre-legalization of mifepristone, pre-the understanding and advancement of a lot of procedural abortion care that we have today. And so unfortunately if we use the coat hanger now, we're not accurately reflecting the time and history that we're in now, thank goodness for science. Right? Thank goodness for the invention of these different medications and different procedures that now give folks access to different methods to end their pregnancies that are known to be incredibly safe. Like they have enviable safety records compared to many other medical procedures. And so it's just actually painting a very false image of what abortion care, and specifically self-managed abortion care, looks like today. Folks who are self-managing their abortions today are doing so very safely because they have a lot more information, resources and support available to them than they did before Roe. What that looks like today oftentimes is medication abortion. So accessing the pills that are used for medication abortion, which is mifepristone, misoprostol, and taking those pills in the comfort of their own home or with their family or friends and ending their pregnancy that way. So the real threat now when it comes to self-managed abortion is no longer physical harm, but instead this legal and criminal threat.

Jennie: That's so important. That's so important to point out, you know, we don't need to be scaring people about what the reality of self-managed abortion is now. And you're right, like the real threat is having to worry about criminalization, which I mean that's, I don't know, I mean that's still really scary and it is gonna disproportionately impact marginalized communities. Absolutely. But like that's a huge difference from earlier times when abortion was banned, that you can be able to access self-managed abortion that is gonna be safe.

Kelsey: Yeah, I mean it reminds me of the headline that we see now that's still rooted in so much shame and stigma, which is like, “women will die.” Right? Again, that's rooted in this narrative of way back when we're in such a different moment and if we see people's lives being harmed or lost, it'll be because of this maternal mortality crisis that we're facing and that people are going to be forced to remain pregnant against their will that does a lot of harm to someone's life.

Jennie: And I guess my only flag since this podcast does talk global and domestic, that this is definitely a domestic-focused conversation and right, like the realities of illegal abortion in other countries is different than what we're talking about here. That's so just, just to draw that distinction that that is not the conversation we're having at the moment.

Kelsey: Yeah, thank you. No, I really appreciate you bringing that up because I only work with folks who are providing abortion care here in the United States and I know that we're facing a different set of challenges, the folks around the world.

Jennie: Okay. So, and I think that like links to, so we talked about like the coat hanger, but you also see I think we all have done a great job of like stamping it out, but you still see it pop up like on Twitter and like people talking about it about like back alley abortions, you see that coming up as well is basically the same conversation we had just had, but similar.

Kelsey: Yeah, I know and back-alley abortions again actually brings in that there are these like sneaky behind the scenes detective abortion providers, like back alley abortion somehow insinuates that there are folks providing care in a really unsafe way under the radar, practicing outside the law. The folks that I work with and that I'm really proud to work with, they're devastated that they can't offer abortion care at this time in certain states. All they want to do is take care of their communities. All they wanna do is show up for their communities and if they were to act outside of the confines of the law, they could actually be putting a target on their back to lose their license to perhaps get arrested. And all that would do is prevent them from being able to keep performing the other health services that they provide. They're still able to give, you know, other full spectrum comprehensive healthcare, contraceptive care, birth care, pregnancy management, and they're really putting their careers, their lives, their families and their communities at risk if they were to work outside of the legal confines of what's going on in their community.

Jennie: And that care becomes, I don't wanna say more important cause I don’t know that that's quite the right way to say that, but like is like just as important to ensure that people are able to access it in a state where abortion is banned. Like to have somewhere they can reliably go to get contraceptive care, to get all of that other sexual and reproductive healthcare they need is really important. And some of those clinics right now are struggling. So it's really, if you are able, we always talk about the importance of donating to abortion funds, but there's another great one called Keep Our Clinics, which donates to clinics to make sure that clinics can keep their doors open.

Kelsey: Yeah, I love Keep Our Clinics because it's supporting abortion clinics, independent abortion clinics. Shout out to our friends at Abortion Care Network. We love them. We know that most abortions actually do happen in independent clinics. That's who's serving the most folks in our communities. And so I agree, support them as much as you can. They are continuing to provide really essential healthcare even if they can't provide abortion care right now. And we don't wanna lose any more of them that we already have.

Jennie: Okay. So I guess that brings me to like the next imagery that has been like all over the place. I know you could already see, I could already see Kelsey, like man, I have to have this conversation again… Handmaid's Tale.

Kelsey: Yep, yep. Just waiting for you to say that. Yes. So Handmaid's Tale is a narrative that's been around for a while. We had the book, now we have the TV show. There are still new episodes coming out just this week.

Jennie: Oh really? Oh.

Kelsey: Yeah, there's, there's more Handmaids Tale all the time. What we have when we're looking at Handmaids Tale is a fictional narrative that has yes, told a story of attack on bodily autonomy and about controlling people's lives. But what they've kind of missed out on in this narrative is the way that our systems of oppression in this country really do inequitably impact Black, brown, trans folks. And that narrative is not played out in Handmaid's Tale. We see a lot of heroes that are white women. We see mostly white women characters that are portrayed in the show. And again, it's a fictional world that we're not living in. And to equate what real folks are going through in this country right now, people in homes across the country to something that's like a scripted television show that a TERF-y white woman wrote is just very problematic.

Jennie: Yeah. Nope, I that's, I think that sums up that is all we need to say about it.

Kelsey: So leave your costumes at home y'all. No more red capes.

Jennie: Yes. The other thing y'all can leave is Underground Railroad references to trying to get people access to abortion out of states.

Kelsey: Yeah. There's just no need to co-opt the work of other movements. Equating the struggle to end slavery to the moment that we're in right now, again is just like drawing false parallels. We are devastated by what's happening with this abortion access crisis today, but that's not at all the same fight that Black folks led to liberate themselves in this country. Just stop. Just stop. Just stop.

Jennie: Yeah. I feel like those are the big imagery ones. Are there any other like image related things that I'm missing? Those are the ones I thought of kind of just off the top of my head.

Kelsey: No, I think that's it.

Jennie: I think another thing that is really important, and we, we kind of touched on this with other things, is kind of the anti-science between the anti-choice side and then their frame being regurgitated as truth and like letting them get away with that. So I think one of the big things that was happening, I feel like a couple years ago, was abortion reversal.

Kelsey: Oh geez. Yeah.

Jennie: And like seeing that just get covered as like it is a thing.

Kelsey: Yeah. So it's not a thing-- so called “abortion reversal” is a really dangerous intervention... There was a very, you know, this anti-abortion researcher who was trying to see if they could stop the process of a medication abortion midway through; there was a study that tried to duplicate this man's work and through trying to duplicate it, it actually put a lot of people in danger. And so when it comes to this so-called “abortion reversal,” I really think that they were trying to prey off of people who were going to get an abortion and who were carrying the weight of all of the shame and stigma the anti-abortion folks put out in the world that make people think that they should perhaps regret their abortion, that they might feel guilty about their abortion. However you feel about your abortion is the right way to feel for you and you should not take on any blame, shame, fault from anyone else. And I do think that they were trying to prey off of folks who were feeling [complicated emotions]. Yeah, no, but I think that “abortion reversal” was an invention to try and make people feel worse about the choices that they were making for their life. And it's dangerous. It's dangerous. I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I live right on the border of Missouri and Kansas and when I am on the Missouri side, I see horrific billboards that are put up and I have to say they're gross. It's like pictures of six-month-old babies that they somehow have given full sets of teeth. No. Which just developmentally is not real. So these like six month old babies are smiling down on me and like everybody should know that, Right? People have seen babies. I mean it would be scary if infants had that many teeth, but okay, this fully formed smiling baby looking down on me from the billboard on the freeway and it's like, “Save me. You don't have to go through with this, reverse your abortion.” Now the money and resources and time that's spent trying to make people second guess what they know about their lives and their families is just embarrassing.

Jennie: It makes me think of a couple things. I went to undergrad at University of Wisconsin at Madison and like there were the family that came like every Friday or whatever to the like library that had like the giant signs with like the dismembered fetus that were like—[everyone has] seen. So it like makes me think of that like again from Wisconsin. So like, similar kind of vibes. I think that I haven't seen billboards in Wisconsin, but I could just not be in the right areas when I'm home cuz I am not that far from Madison. So like maybe not the right areas for it. Yeah. And I had something else and it was gone so-- Oh yeah. When we did the episode where we, we had two episodes where we had We Testify storytellers come on and tell their abortion stories. And like that external shame that like got put on people was like this key thread through like all of the stories was like the people didn't necessarily have like those feelings for themselves, but they could feel all the external [feelings] from either the protestors or just like in the atmosphere that was impacting how they were processing their abortions, which just is tragic.

Kelsey: Oh it makes me so sad. Like hearing you say that and thinking about all the folks that I know who also have been impacted by these pressures that are on all of us to just be a certain way, look a certain way, have our lives play out a certain way, meet the like “American dream” and what a perfect family is supposed to look like. Like all of that is defined entirely by white supremacy and capitalism. And so if we see white supremacy is part in that situation, right? Like someone feeling shame and guilt for acting on their behalf and what was best for them. White supremacy teaches us that we can't have self-interest, right? That like we have to be acting in the interest of people who are in power and that makes us feel smaller. It makes us second guess our own self-worth, our own ability to build the life that we dream of. So what I love about working in this movement work and being in community with so many folks who realize that there's another way is that we actually are already on this path, right? To building the communities that we need. We have what we need already. We have the tools we need, we have the community we need, we have the power and energy that we need and it's just a little slower, right? The urgency that capitalism teaches us, the productivity that capitalism teaches us, is that we have to go to work and grind and make us something—a widget . And the fact that we right now are working on something a little bit more tangible, right? Like, sorry, a little bit less tangible, creating safety, creating care within our communities, that's actually a disrupting force to the white supremacy that this country's built on.

Jennie: I feel like that's like a really solid like wrapping up, but I don't wanna stop if there are other like language things that we haven't talked about yet. There are so many things that are, the bottom line is language matters, and like how people hear about abortion or hear of the story told can influence the way that they are thinking and feeling about it. So it's really important to get it right.

Kelsey: I think that's right. Listen to people who have had abortions, listen to people who provide abortions. Really do some solid listening. Slow down and learn about the words that you're using. Learn about the words that you're repeating and publishing. And I think we all have the ability to shift the way that we talk about abortion in a direction that's more compassionate, more inclusive, and really just more based on the facts.

Jennie: Okay. So we always end with like what can our audience do? But I kind of feel like we talked about language and like this was all like what the audience can do. But I definitely wanna give you the opportunity if you have anything else…

Kelsey: You already did such an awesome call to action. I love that call to donate to indies, to indie clinics in your communities. Donate to the abortion funds in your communities and listen and pay storytellers for the work that they're doing.

Jennie: And also PRH has some pretty amazing merch. So like make sure you can get some t-shirts. I think there's like, I love my abortion provider or love abortion providers or something like that.

Kelsey: Ha. And we have some new ones dropping soon just in time for the holidays.

Jennie: Things I don't need to hear, but will then definitely go buy. Well Kelsey, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Kelsey: Thank you, Jennie. Thank you so much for having me.

Jennie: Okay y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kelsey. It was so wonderful to get to talk about language. It's something that is, I know it can be a little bit nerdy, but it's really important because it impacts how people see our issues, right? So if they're only hearing from the pro-life movement and not hearing that, no, they're anti-bodily autonomy, they're anti-abortion, we can't let them set the narrative on this. We need to make sure that we are being loud and clear and something I feel like we've talked about on the podcast before, but unafraid to say the word abortion, right? We don't need to be, I'm pro-choice. You can be loud and proud. I am pro-abortion and your reason for having an abortion is the right reason because it is your reason. And I, I don't need to know it. It's not my business. It's just language is so important. It makes a huge difference to validate people's experiences, to make sure we are being reflective of the science, reflective of the reality that people are experiencing. It's all just so important and that we are being as inclusive as possible. So I'm just so grateful to have Kelsey on to talk all about language and imagery in the repro movement.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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