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The speaker discusses the topic of abortion in a podcast episode and shares a poem by Ruby Carr about abortion. They express agreement with the sentiments in the poem and discuss the overall ban on abortion, highlighting the negative impacts it can have on individuals and the unfairness of forcing people to have children they are not ready for. They also mention the need for resources to support parents and address other societal issues. The speaker then discusses their research paper, which covers the ban on abortion, the impact on women of color, and the healthcare aspect of abortion. They cite studies that show higher suicide rates in places with stricter abortion laws and reduced maternal mortality in places where abortion is legalized, particularly for black women. The speaker also addresses arguments against abortion and proposes solutions such as legalizing abortion, regulating it, and improving the adoption process. They conclude by expressing the need for legislation to legali Hello, everyone. Welcome back to my podcast. My name is Elizabeth Long, and I'm going to be talking about my newly published research paper titled, Abortion is a Human Right, Not a Luxury or a Crime. But first, I would like to share a poem that I found regarding abortion by Ruby Carr, which everyone knows that they're a very good poet. So yes, I will be saying that one now. They destroy the lives of the living because they say they value the lives of children. But if banning abortion is about saving children, why don't they protect children when they get here? Why don't they give parents resources to raise them or take actions after school shootings or admit the earth is burning and save it so children can keep breathing? This is about them wanting to control over our bodies. They don't ban abortion because they love human life. They ban abortion because they want to own human life. And again, that was by Ruby Carr, who is a very, very famous poet, at least in my eyes. And yeah, I just I agree with everything that was said in that. And I think that it was a beautiful way of kind of being aggressive with the fact of what abortion is really about or what ban on abortion is really about. But yeah, I agree that if we're going to ban abortions, we should give resources so that children can survive in the world that we are forced to raise them in. But now I'm going to kind of go by my research paper, paragraph by paragraph, and kind of explain what I'm talking about. So the first paragraph, obviously, just an introduction, not really much to it, just kind of setting the groundwork. And then I go into the first issue that I see is faced, which is just the overall ban on abortion. I believe that it's just completely unfair, and can cause a lot of detrimental impacts to the person who is having the child as well as the child themselves if they are born. And it's just, it's not, it's not cool to force people to have kids that they're not ready for, especially in situations where the kid is a child of rape, or if the mother knows that they're going to die before giving birth or during giving birth. But yeah, it's just, that stuff is, I just think it's not, it's not cool to force people to do anything, ever. And especially when it's that impactful as having a child. So yeah, that's the first overall issue is just the ban. And I say a lot about like the people who would need abortions. And my main kind of examples are obviously rape victims, people who are impoverished or don't have the resources to raise a child, people who will be severely hurt if or dead if they have a child. And yeah, and just people who are ready or not ready to just have kids in general, just people who aren't fit to be parents or wouldn't be good parents, or at that point in time, they can't raise a kid. Those are the people I'm talking about when I'm saying people who want, or not want, but need abortions. Because they aren't, raising a kid in that environment would be worse than not having the kid at all, is kind of where I'm coming from in this. I'm not talking about the few people who do use abortion as birth control, because I think that's just, that's just not cool. You shouldn't be using a health care service like that over and over again to your own benefit, in my opinion. But yeah, so my first paragraph just kind of goes over the overall ban on abortion. And I thought that it was really interesting that I found that in places where there are stricter abortion laws, there are also higher suicide rates within women who are of childbearing age, which I thought was crazy. And I always knew that there was kind of a correlation that it wasn't very good to have strict abortion laws, because it wouldn't be good on mental health. But I never thought that there would be an actual solid study done and evidence found of that, which I thought was crazy how we know that more people are dying when abortion is banned, and yet we're still banning it. Even though kids are being born because you can't get an abortion, more people are still dying. Which leads to the next point, which was a study done in 2021 that found that there was less maternal mortality in places that had legalized abortion. And by less, I mean, 30 to 40% of black women who were in places where abortion was legalized, 30 to 40% of them were not dead because of maternal reasons. Sorry, I phrased that terribly. I'll just read the quote that I put in my paper. Abortion legalization reduced maternal mortality among black women by 30 to 40%. Which is, again, crazy how once abortion is legalized, less people are dying. But what was funny, or not funny, but what was weird to me, is that white, there was very little effect on maternal mortality of white women. Meaning that obviously abortion and abortion rights way more heavily impact black women and women of color than they do white women, which I didn't really know about. I guess I never really thought about it. But that's really interesting to know that that that happens. And that's a thing because of internalized racism and how the system is set up and how the states are and stuff like that. It's just crazy to think about how even in this aspect of this is a women's issue, there's still racial aspects of it that are discriminatory towards people of color, which is just crazy because the one thing you'd think like, oh, this is just, this is bad for all women. It's bad for all women, but way worse for women of color. And then that's what my second paragraph kind of goes into, or my second like body paragraph kind of goes into, which is just how women of color are unfairly affected by this. And then the next paragraph here, I'm looking at now is how abortion is just strict, it's strictly health care. And another crazy fact that I found is how, since there's bans on abortions, OBGYNs and like other health care professionals are just, just not, it's like learning how to, how to give abortions. Like how, like, how is that, how is that possible? That like, it's a surgery just like any other surgery, in my opinion. And then obviously there's the debate on, oh, well, an abortion is killing a human life. And I completely see how some people could like see that. But another thing I found when I researched for this is that an embryo is, is not really a human being, because there's no consciousness, there's no living. You take that embryo out of the mother, it's, it's dead, like a parasite almost. But obviously, as in like late term pregnancies, that the fetus can kind of start to be conscious kind of, it's a human being, you know, at that point, which is why very, very few women get late term abortions, unless they, their lives are in danger, which again, is should be up to them, even though it is killing a life. Why should, why should the woman die? Why should the mother die because of the baby that's not yet born? And then another thing of like, oh, well, this baby could grow up to cure cancer. The baby could also grow up to be like a serial killer. Like that's, that's a completely ridiculous argument. Anything could happen to any kid ever. That's just how it works. Like there's no, there's no telling what people can and cannot do. And you shouldn't be forced someone to have a kid just because that kid could possibly do something, but it's very, very unlikely. And going back to the whole like, oh, it's a human life of debate. It's just, if you believe that, which completely under understandable to believe that, but if you believe that, then just don't have an abortion. You don't need to push that on other people. There's no need to. But going back to the paper, after all of all of these things, all of these problems being said, I go into solutions. And the most obvious solution would be just legalized abortion. But that's not very realistic, especially now, in what we're dealing with as the government, which is just, again, pretty ridiculous. But yeah, just legalizing it would be great. That would fix pretty much every problem ever just reenacting or reinstating Roe versus Wade, which is crazy how it got repealed after all of the time that was spent putting it into action. And then RBG dies, and it's, and it's gone again. Like that's that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make any sense ever. Like, just because the people who enacted the anti slavery acts and stuff just because they died doesn't mean we should start like owning slaves again. Like that's crazy. So that's just that's wild, how that happens. But obviously, since legalizing abortion is kind of farfetched, and probably won't happen for a long time, sadly, but I hope it does happen. Another one would just be regulating it kind of making a set list of this is what we can do for abortions. And this is what we cannot do. Like if someone comes in is like, I just don't want this baby be like, okay, that's not really a good reason. Especially if they can care for the baby if they have the wealth, the resources, whatever. But if someone comes in and is like, I do not even have enough money to support myself, I can't support this kid, that should be reason enough to have an abortion. But again, that might take some time. And then lastly, which I think this is this should happen, nonetheless, is just making adoption processes way more reliable. Because a lot of a lot of arguments towards this is like, oh, just have the baby and put put the baby up for adoption. Okay. Children who are in the foster care system and who have been put up for adoption, oftentimes don't have the best lives. And that's just how it goes. Because the foster care system is a little bit broken. So making that better and making it almost 100% positive that if a kid goes into the system, the kid will have a good life, even if they don't get adopted, then I guarantee so many more people will be willing to put their children up for adoption. But why would you force someone to have a kid just to go live a very crappy life with no family? Like that's that's no way to live. And personally, I would rather not live at all than have to like be forced to with bear like these conditions that are just not not fair. But yeah, that would be my final solution. And then obviously my conclusion just goes kind of into it. But I just think that obviously legislation needs to be passed that that legalizes abortions. And Roe versus Wade should have never been overturned. I have no idea why all of a sudden people were just having a huge problem with it again, after RBG's death. And I don't know, it's just crazy for me to think about but what are your guys's opinions? And how do you guys think this should happen? And what are your solutions? But other than that, thank you for listening. And I hope you all have a great rest of your day.