Abortion as a part of "Revolutionary Motherhood"
This week’s guest is Emily Likins-Ehlers. They “fiercely” support pregnant people in all the ways, as a doula and educator. Emily is a trauma-informed reproductive justice advocate, an abolitionist who believes in the power of harm reduction as a modality for collective liberation, and a genderqueer anarcha-feminist.
Find Emily on Instagram at Revolutionary Motherhood
and or Trauma Informed Doula
Show Notes:
3:15 “We’re not trying to debate whether it’s right or wrong”
4:30 Abortion is.
4:48 Abortion happens.
5:20 How do we want to make this a part of the conversation for people with wombs?
5:56 Abortion existed before Margaret Sanger
6:07 “Abortion has been used to control and oppress”
6:19 “We’re so fiercely deafening ourselves for those who would rather we stay pregnant”
7:25 Emily’s story, starting with her parents struggle with secondary infertility
10:11 Abortion in college
10:20 “I didn’t wanna be pregnant… it was an excruciating decision for me because I loved babies, I loved birth, I knew I wanted to be a mother”
10:44 “Is this God or fate or the great beyond signalling me that this is the time to step into mothering?”
10:57 Options Counselling at Blue Mountain Clinic in Montana- Fully integrated health care
13:16 “It was obvious to me that I couldn’t logistically handle a baby… all the factors in place I felt I had a responsibility to my baby”
14:44 “He said all the right things and did all the right things, he was just sort of an emotional potato”
14:51 The moment Emily realized abortion was the right choice for her
15:29 “This isn’t just can I afford diapers? This is teaching someone how to use the toilet but also how to deal with heartache… teaching someone how to talk, but also how to be kind…”
16:16 “I had the abortion, but I felt awful about it… but I felt like I couldn’t claim sadness, grief… it was a silenced experience”
17:19 Pregnancy Option clinics “far more traumatizing than the procedure itself”
14:49 “I was already consciously divorced from my catholicism”
19:00 “... the messiness of birth, the messiness of abortion, the messiness of pregnancy; It’s a messy thing. You have to sort through your own ideas of what is right…”
20:07 The Abortion Monologues
20:30 Lindsey
23:25 PlanC episode
24:01 Blue Mountain Clinic Abortion Doula continuous care
25:35 “Investing in your patients long term mental health… it’s common business sense”
26:06 “... 1:1 malleable care, for whatever people need”
27:26 Union and Labor Organizing
27:52 “I was a wreck after my abortion… I struggled for a while thinking ‘oh no did I not do the right thing?’”
29:25 “there was no pro-choice community to connect with”
29:29 Jane Cawthorne The Abortion Monologues
30:00 “That was when I really started feeling my healing, when I started paying it forward”
30:12 Postpartum Depression
30:38 “After the abortion it’s assumed that we are going to get back our normal lives, and that’s what we all want, but there’s often unresolved issues that we just carry silently because we don’t want to be judged for feeling regretful or feeling sad. But it’s okay to be sad about things you have to choose; it’s okay to be sad about having to choose abortion or wanting to choose abortion.”
31:15 “It was the right thing to do, but I’m still sad about it”
31:28 “As a trauma informed birth work, I know that it’s literally physiologically impossible for the brain to hold two simultaneous but conflicting thoughts when you are under the influence of post traumatic stress disorder”
31:46 “...understanding how people’s past reproductive experiences impact the way they perceive their abortion”
33:02 The Turnaway Study “people’s mental health before their abortion is the greatest indicator of how they’ll feel after their abortion”
33:20 When we have instability in our lives “it lowers our resilience to trauma and trauma is simply about perception”
34:32 “The thing that we know clinically about PTSD is that the antidote to trauma is connection” “rest and digest”
35:28 “The first 40 days after you end a pregnancy, no matter how, or where, or when it ends, is a sacred time”
36:18 “Even if you don’t have emotional conflict, you’ve still been pregnant”
36:51 So many open doors for people to step into in the abortion arena
37:44 Emily describes Revolutionary Motherhood- “I believe that abortion is a parenting choice and it was a very important parenting choice for me to make”
38:22 “I’ve been propelled toward growth”
38:38 “I had to become the person I needed to be”
39:07 “I feel like motherhood has been a revolution for me because it’s been an impetus to explore and heal my ow trauma”
39:29 “Everytime we allow someone the choice to opt out of parenthood we are making choices not just for ourselves but for the next generation”
39:52 “I didn’t want to create a life for my children at any point that they would have to recover from… that was more important to me than figuring it out”
40:40 “In sacrificing that option of motherhood, in saying no to motherhood in that moment I created fertile ground for me to go forward and have a motherhood that matched my ideals”
41:21 That choice opened a container for new work for you
41:30 “Abortion was how I parented that pregnancy”
41:54 “It sucks for kids to be born when the situation is not ready for them”
43:45 “One I became a counselor at the clinic I talked to people who had driven 12-16 hours to get our clinic”
44:34 “There’s nothing quite like the abortion stuff”
45:29 Post Abortion Reflective Practice
