The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Lindy West on "Shout Your Abortion"

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

From November 2018, Lindy West discusses "Shout Your Abortion," a book based on the 2015 movement of people sharing their abortion experiences and using truth to fight anti-choice rhetoric. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You're listening to Comedy Central. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. This is a book that was based around a movement. I remember this trending online. I remember the debate that this started. Shout your abortion. It immediately jars a lot of people but what is this movement all about? So it started in 2015 when I don't know if you remember but the Planned Parenthood sells baby parts videos we're going around? Right.

Big hit. And my friends and I were perturbed and trying to figure out, is there something that we can do? Is there some way that we can counteract this like crazy nonsense? And my friend Amelia went on Facebook kind of spontaneously and wrote a beautiful post that said I had an abortion at Planned Parenthood and it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I felt nothing but relief. And I'm a good person, and my abortion made me happy. And so I took that, I screen grabbed it, and I threw it on Twitter,

and I added, Shout Your Abortion, and then the internet exploded. And some people said they were going to kill us, but a lot of people joined, joined and started telling their stories with the hashtag and it was really kind of gorgeous it was like this huge outpouring of just just truth right you know some people had experiences that were traumatic and some people had experiences like Amelia's that were that were they just felt gratitude and a lot of people people told us stories

about having abortions before Roe v. Wade. And it was, you know, we got letters from religious people and conservative people because the reality is that people are having abortions, Trevor. Whether, you know, really across party lines, across geogic lines, it's the reality and the conversation has really been dominated by what's essentially a fringe opinion.

You know, anti-choice rhetoric is not actually the norm. So, you know, 71% of Americans support Roe v. Wade, and that's not a controversial thing, and yet we're all sort of back into this corner to talk about not a controversial thing. And yet, we're all sort of backed into this corner to talk about abortion as, like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess it is kind of murder. Like, even people who are pro-choice get sort of trapped in that paradigm, which is propaganda. But how do you, how do you move people away from the negative ideas surrounding abortion? Because the paradox of abortion is that it isn't something that is taken lightly, it's not something that is benign or flimsy,

but at the same time, it is not what many anti-abortion activists have started to speak about it as. You speak about the fact that it is not a partisan issue and shouldn't be one, but it has become one over time. And we know that, you know, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, the church, like, the church, like, like, like, like, the church, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like And we know that, you know, the church, like the Catholic Church, for instance in America, did a really good job of reshaping that idea in the minds of politicians. So, how to shout your abortion try to take us in a different direction? It's just people telling the truth about their experiences, and experiences that we've been taught tot to to to, which is really engineered by the evangelical right, deliberately, you know. And so all

this is, it doesn't, it's morally neutral, you know, it's just people telling the truth, here's what happened to me, here's why I made this choice, here's why I had to terminate this desperately wanted pregnancy. Or if people talking about having had multiple abortions for every different kind of reason. And so I think, you know, when you let, such a common experience, one in four, people who can get pregnant will have an abortion. That's huge. That means that everyone knows and loves someone who has had an abortion, that's just reality. It's interesting because I've noticed in your speech and also in the book, you stray away from using the term women

or women's issue. Is that something intentional? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just more important now than ever when this administration is openly hostile to trans people. I mean, I think those of us who are trying to be on the right side of history and who genuinely care about other human beings try to be inclusive in our language and the fact is that it's not only women who can become pregnant, trans men and non-binary people can be pregnant and that's just reality. So why would we, why would I be deliberately inaccurate in the way that I speak? When you, when you look th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. to to to to thi. to to to to to to to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be to be th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the th. th. the the the the th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. t. t. te. te. try. tha. the. try. to. to. to. to. to. the t I speak? When you look through this book, what I really found interesting and beautiful about it is

that it is stories from individuals who are telling you their individual experience about how and why they had an abortion. Some are painful, you know, some are stories where the person didn't want to have an abortion but had to, you know, because of circumstances. You have all of their images in the book. That's a very deliberate thing to do. Do you think that that adds to the stories putting a face behind it? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think it's really easy. Again, when you have this tiny fringe group controlling the narrative, they're the only one saying abortion out loud. And if we're never saying abortion out loud and we're never telling our stories because we're shamed into silence, and when we talk about abortion, we say, we're so sorry, we're so sorry about this constitutional right that we have and we know it's wrong and bad, but can we please keep having it maybe? Like, how is that a compelling political argument? But when you tell the truth and you love me and I've had an abortion, and it's normal, and it's happening all the time. I mean, that's just so, it's so powerful and it really breaks down that argument.

And it really shows you that anti-choice people are not trying to stop abortion. They're trying to legislate who can and cannot have abortions. Because conservative politicians, their wives and mistresses and daughters are always going to be able to go get an abortion somewhere. And really, all anti-choice rhetoric does and attempts to criminalize abortion or to overturn Roe, all that's going to do is keep people trapped in poverty

and drowning in poverty for generations. That's the goal. And if it wasn't the goal, they would spend the time time time time time time time time time time time time time time time their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their the in poverty for generations. That's the goal and if it wasn't the goal they would spend their time and money on comprehensive sex education, free birth control, free contraception, all the things that actually pro-choice people spend their time on that actually do affect their abortion rate, so you know, I don't know. So, please. It's a beautiful book with an amazing movement behind it. Thank you so much for being on the show. The book, Shout Your Abortion, is available now.

Lindy West, everybody. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Ears Edition. Subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968, there was nothing like it. This is 60 Minutes. It's a kind of a magazine for television. Very few have been given access to the treasures in our archives. But that's all about to change. Like, none of treasures in our archives. You're rolling?

But that's all about to change. Like none of this stuff gets looked at. That's what's incredible. I'm Seth Done of CBS News. Listen to 60 Minutes, a second look, starting September 17th, wherever you get your podcasts.