Feminist Kept Avoiding This Question
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
226.68436
Summary
In this episode, I speak to a woman who was a sexual health advisor for the largest trust in the UK, the British Pregnancy advisory service, the BPA. She talks about her experience working with women who were having abortions and how she dealt with the stigma surrounding abortion. We also discuss the pro-life debate and the difference between pro-choice and anti-abortion.
Transcript
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that is very so i was a sexual health advisor for the largest trust in the uk
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bpass who are the british pregnancy advisory service i'd also the number one i'd also like
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to say every single person that i know that's had an abortion it was like just them being
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irresponsible like it was literally just them being like i don't know a single person well i
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i've in my time in my position i'd only spoken to one girl who was like oh yeah i need an abortion
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but i used to know the bpass number but off by heart it's something like oh 300 300 800 or oh
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300 800 oh i mean i knew it off by heart but the first woman i ever spoke to an assistant in
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abortion she was a married woman she had two kids her oldest son was um disabled um she was like
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even my daughter that we had was like an accident but a happy accident and she was like she was
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sobbing to me on the phone she was like in her late 30s and she was like something maybe say that's not
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really like natural if we're like sobbing like like if that's your reaction to it yeah yeah no no not at
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but then i was like you don't need to explain yourself to me i was like it's not my business
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i was like it's not my business it's not my opinion i was like you like you've clearly had
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like a nice night with your husband your family like you've got a lot of shit going on i was like
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it's not my business i was like if you want an abortion get an abortion yeah but then i've also
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spoken to some women who were like really chill like hey i need an abortion as if it's birth control
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yeah and i'm there like honey like that's just go just go on proper birth control you know you
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know my mom was in a position where she like like most people would have advised her to get an
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abortion because she was 17 and she got pregnant but um by my dad actually at the time and they
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actually ended up like giving up that kid for adoption and he like he ended up being like a
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really successful like sales software engineer he just got married that's why i actually have a really
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hard time with it because i feel like if anyone was going to get it it could have been my mom
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like she was broke she was 17 so this is very interesting um i studied under professor roger
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ingram if he's ever watching which he might not be so i studied um psychology of sexual health
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and we did um my personal project was outcomes of teenage conception yeah and it's proven all of the
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research and you have to obviously look in the bias all the research shows that it's more
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harmful for the woman the bearer of that child to have a child and give it up than it is to have
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an abortion what do you what what does that mean it's more like so the woman for the rest of her
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life will be like did i make the right choice is my child okay rather than being like i'm gonna have
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an abortion and this is why and so i think i think a lot of times like again we're making it about us
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when it's really it's not about you because there's a kid in the picture yeah so you can't you can't
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you can't you can't then but then it's like why is that kid more important than you why i mean i
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think in my mom's case like he grew up to like have a really great life yeah yeah like and so
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it's it kind of like rubs me the wrong way we don't use the word i think i think that's like why
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it rubs me a wrong way a little bit when people are like make it not a life because like my brother
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grew up and like yeah did all these like amazing yeah and that's always gonna be but this is why so
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uh roger and groom he's a professor he's a professor he's like the best in his field um he so he
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literally told everyone he was like we don't use the term pro-life right to be pro-life you would have
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to be a vegetarian a vegan you won't step on an aunt but you would care about that woman yeah telling you
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i want an abortion because i mean you're you're either pro-choice or you're anti-abortion you're not
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pro-life because to be pro-life i need you to clarify that so because i step on ants yeah pro-life
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that doesn't really make sense so because that's well then you're not pro-life because that's a
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life that's that's not a human life so then you're pro-human life but then if you're pro-human but
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like i think it's like easily implied like like everyone everyone you know you know okay okay let
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me just let me just let me just ask you do you do you think there's a difference between a human life
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and an ant yeah i do but then it's still a life it's all right but i know but like is you just kind
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of trying to get like a gotcha question like oh it's a low one clearly everyone everyone knows the
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i want an abortion yeah why is her life less important because i don't think just because
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you have a kid your life is over i also think i also think the argument is that she's in that
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situation because of the decisions that she's made whereas the consequences happening to the child
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which is the only innocent party arguably does that make sense but again it's like if it's a ball of
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cells but also okay what if she's on contraception and she's taking it's not even just like it has
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a unique dna sequence yeah like a very like you can see but then why is it valuable if she doesn't
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value it why is it valuable to everyone else and then we go on to adoption okay if these kids are
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valuable why are we overrun in every western community of like children get that's it they get
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your so you think the kids aren't valuable if they're poor i think they're valuable but they're
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not being adopted by people who are pro-life they're they are they're my parents are pro-life
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they adopted three kids and gave up one but that's but that's just your personal experience
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right there's a lot of people that want to adopt like even now like yeah it's it's but then there's
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a lot of life but could you let me finish um but the problem is that like the legal systems are
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aren't don't make it easy yeah no no so a lot like there's families that have been waiting for years
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to adopt but like they want a baby they don't want a kid that's been waiting for years oh for sure
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that's i mean i've seen like i've actually seen the negative like consequences of getting a kid
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that's too old it's really hard to d like if you if you get them past a certain age a lot of them come
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with a lot of issues yeah like this is it yeah professor was drinking all of the research shows so i
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think ideally i think ideally like it would be better if the kids were adopted earlier rather than like
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growing up in foster care like that's not good for any kid yeah but then they don't get a choice in
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that they don't get a say when they're born that's just a decision made for them by being
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forced to be born and there's a lot of people who will joke and be like i didn't ask to be born so
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i was suicidal for three years and i was like i didn't ask to be born and my mom will say to me
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my mom is quite unwell at the moment my mom will say to me i wish i bought she's like i wish i bought
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you yeah that's really sad that's really sad but i know she doesn't mean it i know she lost me but
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she's like i have so much guilt and she was a mom who carried us to term who looked after us and she's
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like i still feel like i can't provide for you and i'm like no i get it i understand that you would
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not have a lot of guilt you wouldn't have a lot of like responsibility like x y z
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um but i'm again it's like it's also a difference i'm like i understand that for a lot of people
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their successful stories for a lot of people um but for myself individually yeah i'm very i'm very
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pro-choice yeah it's not black or white it's just like almost like we focus on like the negative
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stories rather than the positive like even even when me and you talking about this now like your
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focus immediately is well there's all these kids in foster care that can't get adopted rather than
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like the story i just told you of the three dot like right you know it's just weird how like that
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that's your immediate focus rather like there's both you know what i mean just banned on tiktok
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