Welcome to Outlawed
A podcast for people who want the tools to have real conversations with family and friends about abortion at the dining room table.
We officially launch our first 2 episodes Monday November 25th!
1. Why a podcast, why now
Unless you’re living under a rock, you recognize that abortion care is under threat in the US. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about the realities of care. Our goal is to correct some of those myths to help you, the listener, be the most knowledgeable person around their dining room table when you have these conversations with family and friends. In this first season of Outlawed, we aim to get past the screaming and have real in-depth conversations with experts in law, medicine, bioethics, and health research. The most important people you will hear from are the patients, themselves, sharing their stories of what it is like seeking care in a post-Roe world.
2. Who are we?
We’re nerdy, goofy OB-Gyn’s who are also sub-specialists in complex family planning (CFP). CFP is a subspecialty of obstetrics and gynecology that focuses on early pregnancy, contraception, miscarriage, and abortion. We take care of patients with complicated medical problems and face the storm of legislation that makes it very challenging (and in some states, impossible) to do our jobs. We will be your guides as we traverse the landscape of abortion care and wade through the misinformation and myths.
We’ve been giving talks about abortion care to many of our colleagues at our institution and beyond since the Dobb’s decision and people keep telling us that we put on a pretty good show, so we thought, why not share what we know more broadly?
Bev and Jonas giving a talk
3. What to expect from episodes 1 and 2?
In the first episode we will introduce you to Sally, the nurse coordinator of our clinic and talk about the hurdles patients must overcome to get care in NC. In July of 2023, NC enacted SB20, a 46 page bill that further restricted abortion care in our state. Jonas and Bev will also talk about the definition of pregnancy and abortion. You might think it’s straightforward but it legitimately took us 4 takes to get it right and we’re supposed to be the experts! We’ll talk about the importance of getting good care in rural America and what happens when OB-Gyn’s leave smaller towns.
In the second episode, you’ll hear from Brigitte Amiri, JD, deputy director of the ACLU’s reproductive freedom project. She’s generally a badass lawyer and fights to defend reproductive access and bodily autonomy. She’ll explain how her job has changed since the Dobb’s decision and walk us through why legal protections for abortion access are critical.
Photo by Bev: Bev and Brigitte
4. Subscribe for updates and listener guides
We hope you’ll give our little podcast a listen and engage with the community here as we take you through the impact of abortion restrictions seen through the eyes of experts. We’ll be posting listener guides and our perspectives on other interesting media/current events.
Two episodes come out this week, followed by weekly episodes for the remainder of the season. We hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast (on all the places podcasts usually live) and subscribe to this substack for more content about the episodes.
Original art by L. Jamal Walton
5. Who else is on our team?
We’re both avid podcast listeners and we are EXTREMELY fortunate to have podcast producer extraordinaire, Jane Marie from Little Everywhere, working with us on this project. If you don’t know her work, you should check out her newest award-winning show: Finally! A show about women that isn’t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare.
We are also supported by an awesome team of undergraduate students, led by Dr. Wesley Hogan, working on an oral history project to collect the stories of abortion clinicians in restricted states. The project is called Abortion Care Today. You can find our audio archive with short audio clips from clinicians on our website.
Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy!