SIO329: Lindsey Shares Her Abortion Story

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:11 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only Under His Eye. Um, how's it going, Lindsey?

0:00:15 Lindsey: Yep, made the Lord open.

0:00:18 Thomas: Yeah, Thomas. I'm you're of Serious Inquiries Only. I don't know how to do, do I have to do that too? You can be on a podcast as long as you're like the registered property of a podcast, I think. I think it's okay. We'll check with Sam Alito, but might be fine.

0:00:19 Lindsey: Yeah, kind of like that actually, yeah. Yeah. SIO actually has a pretty nice ring to it. Maybe this new world won't be so bad. Optimistic. Yeah, I'm not great. I know we all knew this was coming this summer, but yeah. Had a lot of trouble sleeping on whenever it was, two days ago.

0:00:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Oh boy, yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Who the hell knows? I don't know when it was, but yeah, it's awful.

0:00:51 Lindsey: Yeah. Some thoughts. I wanted to talk a little bit about my abortion experience, which was not very dramatic or traumatic. It was very vanilla as far as abortion experiences go. Go. I wanted to talk about it. And I wanted to connect it with how some of the rhetoric has been hitting me about the pro -choice advocacy. It's good. You know, I've seen a lot of people doing really good advocacy and saying really good things. So there's that. But I do have like a concern that I wonder I just wonder if it'll resonate with people. So I saw a good thing. You've probably seen this it's been getting copy and pasted a lot on facebook. Have you seen the post that says, I'm not pro -murdering babies, and then it says I'm pro -Becky, who is in this situation, pro -Susan, who was in this situation?

0:01:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:38 Lindsey: Post. I get the point of it. It's well -intentioned. Most of the things that are illustrated in the post are things like pregnancies when there's an imminent threat of life to the mother, and Pregnancies when it's the result of rape or incest, right? These very extreme cases and cases for that matter. And we tend to focus a lot of arguments around those. And I understand why. I think it's very important to highlight the stories of people who are most vulnerable and represent the absolute highest stakes when it comes To protecting reproductive rights.

But having said all that, I to share what I think is probably the most common abortion story. I think I'm very typical. And I think that there's major additional value in ensuring that experiences like mine are visible and verbalized and normalized. Because if they're not, if we're only ever talking about these edge cases, I really want I really worry that this can end up sort of unintentionally feeding into the way that conservative Christians like spin these pro-life narratives. I don't know, like, this might end up being like preaching to the choir, and maybe it's not new or interesting, but okay.

0:01:49 Thomas: Right. Right.

0:02:44 Thomas: Well, I'm sure it is, but little, like, we in the choir, Lindsay, could use your preaching. So, please deliver us a sermon.

0:02:50 Lindsey: Okay. All right, um, so I had an abortion, uh, eight years ago. Um, actually looked up exactly what it was, so I knew it was around this time, because I, I had to miss my first graduation at my um current institution because I was having an abortion. And I, I looked it up and it was actually on May 2nd, which is when the the thing was leaked, so It Was like a present for me, me. So that was kind of weird, a little spooky. And again, yeah, it was about as benign a story as it could possibly be. I did not have a medical reason to get an abortion. I didn't have any reason to believe that I would be in danger from being pregnant. Wasn't in a financially impossible position. I wasn't in a great position either. But I had a stable job, you know. Yeah, this was like after my first year at my current institution, I was at the very beginning of my career on, in a tenure track position.

0:03:10 Thomas: Wow. I Ask, were you in in an area where this was like pretty easy to accomplish, or were you in an air where, at the time, were you living in an era where this is difficult, or okay?

0:03:48 Lindsey: No, actually here, this is where I'm living now. Right. And it was, it was fairly easy to access an abortion pretty, pretty quickly. Had to jump through the hoops that you might imagine, you know, they have to do the two appointments or whatever, but no, it was fine. My experience with it was pretty streamlined. Yeah, so I had, I was, you I was in a stable job. I wasn't in an abusive relationship. I wasn't raped, none of those things. I was 25. I was in committed long-term relationship with the man that I later married. Had a stable job very early in my career. And I had no reason to think that the pregnancy wouldn't have been healthy. It probably would have been. So I am clearly in all ways not the case that is usually discussed here. I'm not the 10-year-old girl who got raped by a family member, right? Again, I understand why those cases are invoked so much. They are the most vulnerable. They need to be protected.

But yeah, that was not me. I was and am a privileged, relatively privileged, white, middle-class, professional woman. And I knew and have known every day since then that I did not want to have a child. In me for some reason. And I still vividly remember the moment that I saw that positive pregnancy test. And not only did I feel nothing positive, like I didn't even feel any ambivalence about it. Like, like, all I felt was dread and depression and hopelessness.

And when I imagine what that moment might've been like, if abortion had been illegal at that moment, I genuinely do not know what I would have done. I think I would've been willing to take some pretty significant risks to procure an abortion if safe and legal ones were not available. And if I hadn't had that as an option, I don't, I generally don't want to speculate about what I might've done. It was, it felt like my life was ending.

I think that a big part of why I have been uncomfortable sharing this with anyone for a very long time, like for years, aside from my partner, I only told two of my closest friends about this. That was the only people I told. And I've told a few more people recently, but it always felt like a very big deal to tell someone one that I had an abortion until a.m. after this thing was leaked.

And I put it on Facebook because it just seemed like a good moment to do that. But anyway, I think a big reason of the part that I was uncomfortable with telling people about this is that for me, this decision just came down to what I wanted for my life, which I think that a lot of people, particularly Christian conservatives, cast as a selfish and insufficient reason to end a pregnancy. And, you know, abortion is stigmatized, period.

But I think that I look a lot like the Christian stereotype of an immoral woman who is avoiding the consequences of her sins. And even though I'd been an atheist for many years prior to having an abortion, it is very hard to shake those feelings. And you know I've had to work through a lot of internalized shame around that.

By the way, shame was was not helped by the fact that I experienced some pretty blatant condescending sexist bullshit from the male physician that actually dispensed the abortifacient most.

0:06:45 Thomas: It is, I knew there had to be some, some experience In the medical system, it's Hard to get through Totally unscathed since

0:06:48 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like most, it's true. It's true, but you know, I went to Planned Parenthood and the vast majority of folks who were helping me through this process were amazing. I had a good experience, but yeah, the actual physician who dispensed, the abortivation felt the need to explain to me what the barrier method was, because obviously anyone seeking an abortion must need a lecture on how condoms work. So that was really nice. That was great. I was like, motherfucker, I've been having sex for a lot of years.

0:07:16 Thomas: Before you were born, son. Oh, no, that doesn't, probably not, he's Probably 80, oh

0:07:21 Lindsey: Well, no, actually he was a young guy, but Yeah. So, that was a really nice moment for both of us. That really felt great. But anyway, being, kept this private for a long time because some significant part of me believed that that I am not the person that abortion rights are designed to protect. You know, I felt like I was freeloading off of a system. It was not really designed for me. It was designed for The people who are in these more extreme circumstances, you know, who don't, it's not just that they don't want to be pregnant, it's that they can't be pregnant. And I wonder how many other people feel like that and how helpful it would be to have more folks talking about their very vanilla abortion experiences, because it turns out that I'm incredibly typical of the kind of person who seeks an abortion in the United States. People are in their 20s that have abortions.

People from all different socioeconomic and educational backgrounds get abortions, and most importantly for the point that I want to make here is that the majority of people who seek abortions do so for reasons that look very much like mine.

Just don't want to be pregnant for some reason, either at that point or just ever, um, like the majority of the time it's, it's like financial reasons, having a kid at that time would be too expensive or would interfere with education or work or something, um, it's relationship issues, and but, but a lot of people are just saying some version of they just don't want to be pregnant, um

0:07:23 Thomas: Okay, interesting.

0:07:44 Thomas: And I believe a majority, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, are people who already have one or more children and For whatever reason don't want to have another one, you don't feel like they're in a position to have another one. Yeah, right.

0:08:48 Lindsey: Correct. Yeah, yeah. Um, that that is, that is the most common thing, right? The number of abortions that are the result of rape and incest in these other kinds of forensic cases, a very, very small percentage. And I'm not saying that at all to diminish the importance of those cases, but to highlight the fact that access to abortion is important in a much broader way than those cases might suggest. And I'd like to see more rhetoric focused on that point. It was the most important thing in the world to me that I'd be able to access a safe abortion at that point. And it remains one of the most important decisions I have ever made in my life. And I mean that in an unequivocally positive sense. What I've been mulling over for the past few months as we've been waiting for this decision to come out is the fact, like I've be turning attention explicitly toward the fact that like, actually not wanting to be pregnant is enough of a reason to not be pregnant. It's not selfish. It's an active choice about literally the rest of your life.

0:09:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:56 Lindsey: And, you know, my concern and only focusing on the edge cases is that those are the easiest cases for us to find common ground with Christian pro-life activists. And I don't know if that sounds counterintuitive as a concern, but I can explain. Blaine. Like, see my experience represented in this debate. And that feels very pointed, given that my experience is so incredibly common.

And it feels to me like the implicit message there, intentional or not, is that it's difficult to defend my decision to have an abortion. And I think that if you really inspect where that comes from, it comes from the terms of the argument as conservative Christians have defined it. Like to them, burying children is a fundamental sacred duty, to them, people who have sex under circumstances that they don't approve of deserve to be punished with pregnancy and parenthood.

I, and you know, I don't need to say that that's not hyperbole. I saw people arguing on in Facebook comment sections all day yesterday about how if people aren't prepared for the consequences of sex they shouldn't have sex. And fuck that, like, is a fundamental human experience and I'm very grateful that we, we have technology that makes that separable from parenthood.

0:11:03 Thomas: That we've been using since time immemorial and Also, by the way, when you say people there, too, they mean obviously mainly women, the person who can become pregnant, who Will end up with the, and consequences, face the consequences. Mean, women face the consequences, essentially, now.

0:11:05 Lindsey: Yeah. Correct. Exactly. I know, I thought it was worth talking about this in this moment, because I, I think, I think that we need to make pro-life advocates say explicitly what they really think here.

And think that it's very hard to explain to a person like me, why I should have been forced to completely derail my life in a completely permanent way without making arguments that are explicitly about the oppression of women and or explicitly about imposing specific Christian doctrines on me that I don't believe in, that I do not share.

And I think they need to be forced to say that out loud because we all know that this argument cannot legally rest on discriminatory ideas or ideas that impose specific religious beliefs on people. That's illegal and conservative lawmakers know that, and I think that that's why they've shifted their language to this apparently secular space of arguing where, when life truly begins, and making these vaguely scientific sounding claims about when the heartbeat develops or whatever. And this has never been about that.

If it, if it were, and I'm plagiarizing this point from you, I've heard you say this several times, and I, it's, I think it's really important, if it were about that, then rape exceptions would be a complete non-sequitur. It would make no sense, because it's about the fact that that's a life and you can't murder it, right? Argument is explicitly about restricting the autonomy of women.

And for many, if not most, pro-life activists, it's explicitly about their personal Christian beliefs and wanting to codify those into law. And for those of us that are active in the secular and humanist and atheist spaces, keeping that point as central and explicit in our discussions as we can, I think is super important. And maybe that entails defending people like me. I don't know.

0:13:05 Lindsey: Take a breath.

0:13:06 Thomas: I think you're right on with everything you've said, I mean, you don't need me to say that, but since I'm on the show here with you, yeah, I mean, totally. You think it's a parallel with stuff like gay rights for, I think that early in the gay rights conversation, it, it was all about like, well, they don't have a choice, you know, like people are born this way and there's nothing. And it was about proving there's something that they can do about it, you know?

And I, it's like, we go to that because I, we're forced into that, you, we're like, all right, what's the, we got to find like the most, um, it comes to, you know, these abortion exceptions or whatever, we've got to to find like the most egregious examples to really try to like emotionally drive home the problem with force, with having someone other than the person make this decision.

And, and with gay rights, I think, as we progressed, uh, thing, side note, that could be undone at any moment by the Supreme Court, but we'll see, as we progress, I mean, I think things have, um, know, the arguments have changed, we have less relied on like, well, there's no choice, and shifted more to like, yeah, also people could just have sex with anyone because they want to, doesn't

0:14:13 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:14:14 Thomas: Matter, they Could literally just do that for fun because we're all just humans and animals here doing whatever, and Maybe they're, that's kind of the parallel. And, but also, I wonder if it does it feel to you like, over the years, the abortion arguments haven't moved on at that same kind of rate that the, that LGBT arguments have moved on? You know, it seems like it's been longer that we've had Roe, and it Feels like we've been maybe more stuck still on these same arguments that you're talking about.

0:14:15 Lindsey: Right? Mm-hmm? Yeah. It does feel that way to me. I don't want to say that I haven't seen lots of people saying good things that are along The lines of what I'm saying. But it does, it does feel like the rhetoric is stuck in these, in these places of these, these kinds of cases that, you know, most people would would argue for exceptions for. So I, I'm not sure why that's stuck there. I don't know.

0:14:52 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:15:08 Thomas: I wonder if it's just like, we just search for the thing that, whenever, like, you're in a debate, and I've been in these debates with a religious person, you're like, okay, but what about this thing? Surely, dummy, you can't deny this fucking thing. Like, you don't know what it is. You know, the typical horrible case that you're even addressing. And I guess maybe that's what sort of this like easy way to get to this obvious point, point, but as you say, maybe, I mean, over the years that's still kept it in their framing. I

0:15:38 Lindsey: It does. Right. Think that you're right about the, the, LGBTQ issue being, being a good parallel in that respect, because it does sound like we're, we're agreeing that like, yeah, abortion is bad, but maybe it's, but it should still remain permissible because of these, these edge cases. And I just, I think, I I think that there's a lot of value in trying to move the conversation into a different space entirely. Know. I could be wrong about this. It's possible that rhetorically it's more useful to keep the focus on those more clear cut cases. I don't know. But I do know what reaction I have when I see that being the only thing represented in this conversation.

0:16:20 Thomas: Will say that, I, risk of that is that the other side may just bite the bullet on that, and we've seen that already in some of the proposed legislation. I

0:16:29 Lindsey: Well, kind of like that. That. I don't mean that I want them to restrict those things. But I kind of I kind of want them To have to own that stronger position and argue for it. Because again, I think that I think that that's where we get them to show their hand.

0:16:45 Thomas: Hear you, but it's one thing to be arguing about it and it's another to be actually stopping incest victims from getting abortions. It's just like such a tough, you know what I mean? Like, it's, I see what you're saying, and and maybe that ultimately will happen and it'll illustrate the absurdity of the position, but that's where we're headed. They're going to be states, if there aren't, there probably already are, the minute, you know, the trigger laws take effect when Rose officially, uh, struck down, that will be restricting all kinds of abortion no matter what. Yeah.

0:17:14 Lindsey: With you. I don't I don't want that either. Maybe very naive hope is that is that if they are forced into that position, it will be harder to actually implement those things. But that may in fact be very naive. And a consequentialist way, I don't want that to happen, obviously.

0:17:30 Thomas: It's, I think, I, I was agreeing with your point by saying that, is another move that they can take, you, if we keep it on those terms. Well, What about these horrible exceptions, they can be like, oh, yeah, you're right, no, that, I guess we should not allow those two, and then what are you left with, and I think that all these, you know, I've lamented this before for a long time, actually long before there were so many other problems that it paled in comparison, but like I remember back in the day thinking, when I was first getting into politics, why wish, well, this is quaint to say, but I wish it was better political TV.

Remember back in like 2012 when this like kind of made sense as a thing to say, now it's just like, yeah, now everything sucks, it's terrible, there's no point. But like back then it was like, why don't we get any long form, uh, or discussions on personhood on the, type, uh, thought experiments on reasoning behind that. I, it would have helped me get there sooner. You know, I, I didn't get there philosophically until embarrassingly late, um, because I bought into like the whole personhood or not personhood thing. Uh,

0:17:36 Lindsey: Right? Yes. Yeah.

0:18:36 Thomas: I think on the show very publicly or not this one, but you know, like, like, it would have helped me to have more exposure to those ideas. So, totally agreeing with you, we should talk about cases, yours, and the philosophical arguments of why that's okay and why it's not right to force someone into not only the toll on their bodies for over months, but the toll on the rest of their lives and their conscience and their mental well-being, everything, everything like that. I was going to bring up to you, you know, when Amy Coney Barrett takes the attitude of, well, you just give it up for adoption though.

0:18:36 Lindsey: Oh,

0:19:13 Thomas: It just solves everything. How would that have gone for you?

0:19:13 Lindsey: My God. Yeah? Really? Well, I that, yeah, I was actually thinking through this yesterday that, you people do say, well, no, it's not committing you to parenthood. I'm like, OK, so as a first as my first year in my position and trying to think through like how much fun it would have been to deal deal with pregnancy, you know, become like obviously pregnant to people and then have to have to you would have to explain over and over and over that like no like actually I'm I'm doing this this adoption thing instead like it's I mean you know the physical the physical stuff is part of it but like the idea that it's not disruptive just to be pregnant for for nine months but not just disruptive that's that's putting it way too lightly the idea that that doesn't make it yes the idea of that doesn't make the entire experience like way more traumatic at every level is just ridiculous I mean

0:19:57 Thomas: It's hell.

0:20:07 Thomas: Then by the end, when all the brain chemistry kicks in, like who knows if you'll be able to make that decision and maybe you still can make that decision, but it'll be that much harder and feel that much worse. That's a terrible idea. Instead of stopping the pregnancy when it's, you not a person or even close, let's produce a person that then gets to be from birth unwanted by their biological parent. Like, I just can't. It's so morally backwards.

0:20:10 Lindsey: Exactly yes yes exactly yes Right, it does seem like there there are very very straightforward consequentialist arguments to to be made about why abortion is obviously a good thing to have right know know, and you mentioned that this is not a new thing. Like people have been terminating pregnancies for a very, very long time. I didn't know that until recently. I listened to something a few months ago. Yeah. I didn't realize that there were like reliable abortifacients that were used until like the mid 1800s or something when this all started to become an issue. There and was no stigma around it apparently either. It's just like, yeah, no, that's um

0:21:04 Thomas: Yeah. I Bet you it was something that men didn't even know about. You know, like, it'd probably just be like, yeah, this is kind of taken care of and nobody but he really looks into it too hard because you know women's stuff I don't know like who knows They literally back in the day they used to make menstruating women leave the village like people men have long not wanted to take any role in this in in reproductive issues and get as far away from them as possible for some reason and

0:21:21 Lindsey: Well yeah Women started to become educated and more autonomous and then boy did people become interested in it Um yeah it was it was interesting I think um think the way she was talking about it was like if if stopped menstruating it was like a sign of like dysfunction or something like not that it wasn't clear that it could could have been a pregnancy but like the the abortions or you know the abortations that would happen essentially would happen like before they felt that before they knew they were pregnant essentially I don't know I'll have to find a link to it it was really interesting and so the the administration of like herbs and things that reliably you know induced miscarriage were seen scene is like getting somebody back into their natural like

0:21:37 Thomas: Right right yeah huh right right right they

0:22:15 Lindsey: Rhythms or whatever

0:22:15 Thomas: Would start like right away possibly if they missed a period or whatever like and not not as like I'm gonna kill a child but like this is a thing I do to get back to my normal cycle yeah that's interesting I think I've I think I've heard that too oh

0:22:16 Lindsey: Yeah mm -hmm yeah yeah It was it was pretty interesting um I did have a have thought that I was kind of interested in here because this may be another thing that I'm being too too optimistic and idealistic about um

0:22:38 Thomas: I would love to shut that down yeah sure biome that's

0:22:39 Lindsey: Fantastic that's that's I depend on you for that so is it possible possible because I mean it seemed no oh okay all right well

0:22:42 Thomas: What I'm here for okay oh here get ready ah no no no it's all right I'll wait I'll do okay I'll hear what you have to say yeah

0:22:49 Lindsey: Okay I mean the midterms are coming up and it seemed it seemed like I I was not very optimistic about the midterm's going well for Democrats and part of me thinks like that this is an important enough issue to enough people like a pretty significant majority in the U.S that maybe Republicans just fucked themselves out of sweeping a bunch of seats does that seem possible to you yeah

0:22:54 Thomas: Absolutely If if you would like this is something I've been thinking a lot about and I actually forgot because I was really I just wanted to to hear you tell your story and stuff I forgot about it do you mind if I do my my kind of my five my type five on the no who knows how long long it'll be but um yeah is truly a sign that the the next generation that are in the court are worse than Roberts and are just purely bent on their agenda to to the extent extent that they, make so much more fucking sense for this court as Republicans to wait until after the midterms to do this.

0:23:26 Lindsey: Please right

0:23:55 Thomas: And they weren't even going to do that. And by the way, just, just in case anybody's not up into the weeds of this as, as you and I are, I'm sure the leak didn't matter. This would have come out in July, June or July. So like either way, it would have been before the midterm.

So that, that means like, so the leak, we can talk about of that actually a separate issue too but either way this was going to come out before the midterms which means they're fundamentalists I mean they're so hell -bent on their agenda of overturning Row like for a while for a long time we got the more Roberts type which was actually arguably more effective like Roberts perhaps more effectively ruined our fucking lives by constantly undermining Roe without ever saying Roe was wrongly decided from the beginning and overturning it. Like really, I mean, it's hard because I think there are states where it's complicated issue. You know, like there are states where I think it be the same because Roberts already had ruined Roe. And there are states where I do think the actual undermining of Roe will make things worse.

0:23:54 Lindsey: Yeah yeah right right yeah yeah

0:25:01 Thomas: But, I don't know, like you could, I could conceive of a set of facts that that's not very far-fetched at all, that this is not that much worse than what Roberts had already done and only has the effect of galvanizing us and showing their hand in a way that Roberts didn't do, smartly didn't due for years, for, for, I don't know, decades. Two decades.

0:25:24 Lindsey: Where my head's out too yeah

0:25:25 Thomas: And so isn't other thought is the people who are making these decisions are people with lifetime tenure on a court that they know we can't do anything the fuck about forever. You know, like I don't want to be, I'm not trying to negatron us into not do it trying. We should absolutely try. And if we get, if by some chance we can keep this energy and get, I don't know what it would be, 54 senators, senators 50th, there's some number and it's not, it's not 60. There's some number below 60, but above 52, I would say at which we could have fucking our heart's desire.

You know, like we would only be limited by what Joe Biden wouldn't sign, which is actually quite a lot like I know people laugh at that, but he would sign quite a lot. I firmly believe quite, think he would sign if the Senate were able to pass it and get rid of the filibuster to pass court reform and and pack the court. I think he would sign that. I mean, he might do some sort of centristy thing to it, but I think you would sign it. It's it's bad enough, over, it doesn't get much worse than overturning Row. Like that's literally the fucking

0:25:50 Lindsey: Yeah yeah no

0:26:25 Thomas: Word that is the perennial example short of Brown v. of Education, which I don't think they, they're gonna go that far, especially, yeah, I can't imagine Clarence Thomas signing out of that, but maybe, I, you never know, um, yeah, like we could could achieve quite a lot in that way.

But cynically, and I think if I'm getting myself into the minds of these fundamentalists on the court, which is hard to do, and I might not be doing it well, they're either just so fundamentalist about it, they're just so zealous about their cause that they don't care and they're just doing what they came to do. Which I think is, that's honestly probably more true.

Or, and or, maybe for some of them, maybe this varies depending on who you're were talking about, they realized that like, yeah, okay. Republicans will come and go. Democrats will come in and go, we're here for life now. So what the fuck are you going to do? I don't care. Oh, we lose the midterm. Who cares? Doesn't matter.

You don't think Clarence Thomas is that way because it seems like he and Ginny are so, now that we know the kind of the inner workings of their minds with all these leaks about their, sorry, not leaks with all of these, well, I guess they're kind of leaks, like the texts obtained by the Jan 6th committee and all all that. That we know what's going on, they are deeply more political than even I would have thought.

I would've thought, yeah, they're political, but he's got a lifetime of tenure. He's in there making decisions. He's not going to be up in all the latest QAnon. Nope, they're up in the latest QAnon electoral politicky stuff. It's incredible.

0:26:25 Lindsey: Yeah Yeah.

0:27:49 Thomas: So I kind of could go either way. I think maybe Amy Coney Barrett is just so zealous that she was going to do it no matter what. But for example, she's, I don't know, she just, maybe I'm being unfair, but she seems more like that, you on her, her background and stuff. Anyway, the point is, I, I think that there is a chance that this does shoot them in the foot and there's also every chance that there's we, five months, uh, what, six months until the midterms. This is a big enough thing that I don't imagine we're going to lose steam, but we're gonna lose some steam. Like there's going to be six months of fucking inflation and the Democrats are, who knows, you know, some bullshit, but this may be bad enough that we, that, that I think you're right. Like, I, I think this could have handed us, I'll tell you, I don't think we had virtually any chance of winning the midterms before this. And now I think we have like a 40 % chance of keeping our trifecta.

0:28:14 Lindsey: That's That's where I'm at, I mean, yeah, I don't, I don't think that people want to have this taken away from them, um, think that this should be hitting people at a sort of immediate, visceral enough level that this really could give us some sustained energy. So, I don't know, I've been seeing things about, you, abortion rights, you, now, into law and stuff. And I think that if Democrats are smart, that'll be something that they keep focus on.

0:28:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:05 Thomas: I mean, they can't, they, they should try, they Should do everything they can, but that That requires filibuster reform and Manchin's not going to do it. And further, I don't even think Manchin is pro-choice. So we don't have, sorry,

0:29:06 Lindsey: Right. Right.

0:29:16 Lindsey: Yeah. But, but that's, but I mean, but, I mean like, well, you know, I don't expect this to happen before the midterms, but like that could be a talking point that they use to try to generate momentum in the midterm.

0:29:17 Thomas: God. Okay, go ahead. Oh yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Sorry, I launched into another thing. You're totally right. I'm just, I'm so, Lindsay, I am so tired of the strategic incompetence of people on the Left. That people voluntarily turn themselves into idiots in order to undermine the left from the left and I can't take it anymore, it's so frustrating. Like I'll see a a tweet with you 80 hundred thousand million likes and shared by every leftist on Twitter that's like, "Joe Biden, do something." Literally, that was a tweet. I said, what? Okay, he'll just go beat him up, like what is he gonna do? I don't understand, like we didn't, you're, I get I'm sorry, I'm just so mad about this lately, like the the, it's so fucking easy to play dumb and be a little child and say, "Democrats aren't doing anything." Okay, I that. I get that on of people are going to think that. I understand that that is a consequence of our shit system that doesn't allow a majority to actually rule.

However, I'm talking to you are, when you have told me this, when we are arguing about this and you launch into the Democrats haven't done anything, you are sort of, I think, forfeiting your ability to claim you're just one of the idiot masses that doesn't know how the system works. Like you actually know how it works.

I know you know how, I'm seeing you, I see you right now in person, I'm talking to on Twitter and you, you know it works, so you don't get to just sit there and like "Joe Biden, do something." No, you know. So you're an idiot? Do you not know how anything works? Like they just

0:29:34 Lindsey: Yeah, yep. Yeah I do.

0:30:54 Thomas: Do this constantly where they play dumb, they get to play, one of it's like, like they go join the crowd and chanting stupid things that are wrong just because they know they can, and I can't call them on it because the crowd's there. Like, yeah, no, here's got in a huge online trouble for saying vote in response. Do you know, did you see that, some guy, I don't know, there's some guy that's like a some sort of something, sorry, I don't know, so some people know what I'm talking about, actually. He's like, got a brother who was like defending him. Anyway, he got in trouble because someone said, "Hey, what should we do?" This is pre the Roe thing. He said, "Well, what we should, should we go, what should we, what do we do about climate change?" And he said, "Vote." He got like roasted for this by the whole left, because that's the thing.

Like you're allowed, if you are a leftist, you're allowed to forfeit your ability to reason and just say, no, voting didn't work because we did that and it hasn't worked. Worked, than taking the responsibility to actually learn the problem, which is, yeah, no, we vote. It's so fucking frustrating because

0:31:14 Lindsey: Some version of it. Yeah Jesus.

0:31:54 Lindsey: Yeah

0:31:54 Thomas: They get to point to, we have exactly the worst amount of power right now as Democrats, like second to no power. I guess no power is the worst. We have the second worst power, which has 50 votes subject to one Republican who caucuses with us, which very good that he does because we got a justice out of it. We got tons of federal judges. And if you, I mean, this is massively important that we had this 50th vote for several things, for lots of things that are life -changing things, that are significant, monumental things. But other than that, he's not a Democrat. He's not Bernie Sanders.

So you don't get to say Democrats aren't delivering. No, you don'T get to do that. You don'T Get to not hand them enough enough power to actually do the things that quote unquote Democrats want to do. You have not given them the chance. Voting doesn't work. We just vote in a on paper technical Democrat majority by the lowest margin physically possible. That is 50 plus the vice presidential vote and then say Democrat, that didn't work, sorry, voting didn't worked. No, we need to vote in enough people who change we want. That is the plan. Vote in enough people who support the change you want. We haven't done that.

0:31:54 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm hmm. Right. Yes. Right? Yep. Yep.

0:33:13 Thomas: And you get to sit there and pretend we have and that it didn't work. No. I'm so fucking sick of it. They know better. These idiots know better. I get that there are a lot of people in the world who don't follow it closely enough who don't know better, and they are going to think that Democrats didn't deliver because they're in power. I get that. That's a lot of people. I understand that. And it's fine to acknowledge that. It's fine to say yeah, no, I get why it looks shitty when Democrats control all branches of government, but then you get sophisticated people who I know know better boosting, boosting that message. Democrats control all three branches of government, and they let this happen. What the fuck can they do about it right now? God, Joe Manchin, which also is dumb because he's in West Virginia. It's a red state. If we get rid of Joe Manchin, now we have of 49. Great. Now we don't have any justices and we have nothing. Is that, that makes it better?

0:34:02 Lindsey: Yep.

0:34:03 Thomas: That solved the fucking problem, assholes. Sorry. I can't take this anymore. I'm losing my mind. Lindsay, I'm loosing my mind, okay.

0:34:03 Lindsey: Yes, no, I'm with you. I'm with you 100%. Yep.

0:34:10 Thomas: God, I am sick of the strategic stupidity from people who know better. That's what I'm just tired of. You actually wanted to make things better, you do is you take all these facts on board and realize, shit, here's where we actually are. Where we actually are is we need, you know, two, three more senators. And so do every fucking thing you can from where we are right now, not from where we would have hypothetically been if Bernie Sanders had been the candidate, because that doesn't matter anymore. Do everything we can right now to get to there. How do we get to two to three more Democratic senators?

0:34:45 Lindsey: Is it voting?

0:34:46 Thomas: It voting? Or, Lindsay, is it constantly undermining the party by saying Democrats don't deliver liver and putting it bolstering. Oh, does that do it?

0:34:52 Lindsey: Right? That one? I think it's that one.

0:34:54 Thomas: Will that do it? Awesome. Great. Then we're going to do it. I think we're set then.

0:34:54 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah? I mean, I mean, these are these are existential, like problems that we're facing. And like, hey, if there's something other than voting that they want to do, they can do that too yeah

0:35:07 Thomas: Oh name it. Yeah. Tell me the thing, your plan. Just give me your plan. Plan is, no, I can fold my arms and focus more on my personal indignation that things didn't go the exact way I wanted them to and be mad because I'm not going to be affected by Roe being overturned in their minds. That's what they get to do. God.

0:35:28 Thomas: It's so frustrating but On the other hand, all this frustration, Lindsey, I wonder if I still don't know how big that group of people is. Like, I'm still, you know, there are major, as I say, major sophisticated commentators on the left who know better who are playing dumb on purpose that I hate and I'm mad about, but I thing, don't, about our shit system is, as I've always said, I think we've talked about this a lot of times, where, where does the the rubber meet the road of who do we actually need to get to vote to get those two, three senators? Who is it? I don't know. Got to find,

0:35:08 Lindsey: Mm -hmm I know well I

0:36:00 Thomas: I guess we should actually look at the map. And in looking at the Senate map on paper, it should be a great map for us because at 33, the seats are up every two years, or whatever, of the Senate. And if you do some math, this was also the map we had in 2016, which I remember actually it was a generous uh map for the for Democrats and we lost anyway.

Um, there are right now, of this, of the 30, 30, whatever seats that are up, it says, it says 35 are up. I don't know if that's because of maybe special elections or something, but it says 35, uh, I'm on Cook Political right now, so I'll take their word for it. 14 are Democrats, 21 are Republicans. You would think that would be good because only 20, 14 of our seats are up and 21 of their seats are out, so just probability wise that would favor us. However, when you look at the breakdown of like the likely you sides, or or whatever, we have nine that are solid of our 14. They have 16 of their 21 that are solid. So it's looking like there are five toss-ups out of those. So like essentially 19 of their 21 are pretty solid. I guess three of them are a lean, but like we have to do well. Like, like we have to win our couple toss-ups and then we need to win, let's of our close ones and three of the toss-ups that stay the same.

0:36:40 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah,

0:37:17 Thomas: So we need to basically run the table and win the five toss -up seats that, according to Cook Political. So that looks like Arizona and Kelly. I think chances should be good there. Warnock and Georgia, I don't, I think chances are terrible there. There. I think Georgia, I shouldn't say terrible, but I, you know, it doesn't look good based on the numbers I've seen. Let's see. I there's an open seat there. Wisconsin, those are red, so maybe Wisconsin, perennially Wisconsin, so those are the five. Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That, our toss-up, by the the way, that means keeping our, well, okay, we should be fine because our solid ones we're going to keep, otherwise things are really wrong.

We have a likely D in Colorado and then a lean, a close one in New Hampshire apparently. So if, if you add up the solid, likely, and lean, that's 11, and remember we have 14 up, so we We have to win 14 to stay the fucking same, we need three of those toss-ups. Maybe Kelly in Arizona, would have to keep exactly the same lineup. Essentially, we'd have to winner Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. I'll say this one thing about the map is, once again, the ones that we hold for the most part, except for I think a couple of the special ones, the ones that we hold that are up for reelection means we won those in 2016, even when Trump won. And it was, you know, so like that's somewhat good news.

0:37:17 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. Okay, right,

0:38:42 Thomas: That's why the map is favorable for us. But I honestly, if I had to put my money on an outcome, like if I was forced to, I would say that we might keep the Senate and lose the House. I think that's what I put my money on. Was good redistricting news, but then it was ruined by um some court decisions, but on our own side, by the way, um, Opening Arguments listeners will remember some principled judges actually ruled probably correctly but inconveniently for us that their state constitutions um allow us to gerrymander as much as we need to to produce a fair map by the way on national level.

So anyway, all the point of all this little quick examination of these races is there are times when I get so mad at the things I see, which, you as a psychologist, you have a word for, availability, I don't know, something, I like the people around me that I see, I get mad about these idiots yelling online. But really, what matters more than anything else are the the margin voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, because of our bullshit system. It's not, you, another thing, it's things to be better, so I'm dealing with the fucking facts as we have them. I know the system sucks, I want a different system, I want not the abolish the Senate, get rid of the Electoral College, that I would be way happier, but

0:39:19 Lindsey: Right, yes, mm -hmm,

0:40:03 Thomas: Like within this system, which is the only chance we have for now, unless somebody wants to present me with a better plan, that, and then we can argue about whether or not it is a better plan or whether it's a pipe dream that will actually would never fucking work or do anything. This is what matters. We need to get to voters in these five states. And if we won ours and all our toss-ups, what did I say that gives us? That gives us two additional seats, 52. That would be very close. So that would get us to essentially 50 real Democrats. And then we could ignore Sinema and Manchin. They would no no longer matter. How fucking amazing would that be?

0:40:03 Lindsey: Right right. That would be

0:40:36 Thomas: That should open your goddamn wallets and your activism just for the hopes that we don't have to ever talk about Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema again. They would never be relevant again if we just elected two more fucking senators. So are you doing everything you can for that reasonably with the time that you have, listener? Or are we bitching at each other? I fall victim to this too. I shouldn't say victim. I, I do this too. I that's what we should be doing.

0:40:36 Lindsey: Pretty cool. Mm

0:41:05 Thomas: If we're putting any time into this, if we actually care about outcomes, making things better, we need to win these five at a minimum. I done the whip count of who actually supports getting rid of the filibuster. I don't know what that number is. I think it's, I've tried to look at that up before, and I don't know if they've been able to get everybody on the record. You know, like I think there are many senators who support it, but I don't know if we have a firm count yet, um, some of that may be like they don't want the bad publicity of saying they support it, and there's other reasons for that, but it's plausible that 48 might do it.

Uh, 48 now meaning if we add two more, um, that might, do that might accomplish it, uh, and then the other seats that are close, so like lean Republican, Florida, Rubio. Oh my God, imagine if we can get rid of Marco Rubio, North Carolina and Ohio. If you want to make it, if you want to fix it, I'm just saying, I'm Just sitting here telling everybody yelling at Joe Biden that, hey, if you, okay, if your done, if feel better emotionally from saying Joe Biden do something, a man who literally has nothing the fuck he can do about this, Joe Biden could do an executive order that that says fucking, oh, please do, the abortion is fine, and it does nothing. And

0:40:47 Lindsey: -hmm yes, yeah yeah, right yeah

0:42:15 Thomas: It'll get struck down immediately if it did do anything. And then you'd be like, God, he's so ineffective. Yeah, that's all he can do. That's the system we live in. That, if you feel better, now that you've raged like a child against Joe Biden, you can't actually do anything about this, try to elect Democrats in these seats and keep our House seats, which is is possible. It's not looking great, but it's also not as bad as we thought it would be because some of the redistricting went okay. Keep those seats. That's our ticket. Get to 53, get to 54 even. I said not realistic, but 53, I think is realistic, maybe. There and we'll fucking rage a bit. Then we won't have Joe Manchin to rage at. We'll have a Democrat who might actually be subject to raging. There will be some Democrat, let's say, if they don't support, uh, the filibuster, maybe they're up in 2024, and we can be like, hey, guess what, you're gonna get fucking primaried if you don't report this anyway.

0:42:46 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:16 Thomas: Sorry, I just- you shouldn't ask me a question about- politics.

0:43:16 Lindsey: Nope. It's important. Yeah, I have. I should have indeed, because like, I think I think we need something to do with the with the energy around this. And like, it's not only that the stakes are incredibly high right now, but like, It really does seem like the midterms could make a massive difference in what happens next. So yeah, I hope people are turning an eye toward organizing with your, your local radical Democratic-

0:43:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Uh Andrew said this on the special opening arguments- we did, and I, I was, I am, I even, I negatron, sweet summer child, didn't even occur to me that the minute Trump is back in office in 2025, January, uh, whenever the fuck they do the thing, um, will codify the opposite of Roe. They will do a national abortion ban in law. And they will do that. There's no question in my mind that ourselves as the left and infight ourselves into losing all three branches, I say branches, sorry, both chambers of and the the presidency, then not only will we not have codified Roe or court reform or any of the things that we could do if we elect, you know, three, four or five more senators, we will have the opposite of that. We have a national ban on abortion. We will, it will happen.

0:43:45 Lindsey: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep.

0:44:37 Thomas: So like, I'm I'm tired of your do something Joe Biden tweets. I'm tried of that, that's nothing. Only that, I will say another thing about the midterms. Here's the other thing that could shake it up. I've said this for, I don't know, a year or more. I think Joe Biden was saving the student loan relief for the midterms. And I think he is going to do that. That would be my prediction. Some form of student debt relief right the midterm. And you know what? Fucking perfect. That is what you have to do. I'm sorry that's the world we live in. And as as that's playing playing political football, they have delayed the moratorium. So it hasn't really costed anyone, I don't think, to have him wait. And if he had done it in 2021 or now, we would fucking forget about it because we're idiots. Sorry, I shouldn't blame him. The media ecosystem and the information ecosystem is so terrible that we can't keep focus on anything. Rightfully so, we have too much fucking going on. We're overwhelmed. Have you seen the quality of doom lately, to quote the meme.

0:45:11 Lindsey: That is correct, yes.

0:45:24 Lindsey: Yeah

0:45:36 Thomas: So he's going to wait until closer to the midterms. If I had to predict, I think he won't do it right before. They'll try to find like a plausible enough time that it doesn't look transparently political, you know, but it'd be like a month or something or a month. Yeah, I don't know. But I believe he will do that. So that and this, maybe that will give us the energy we need to the midterm and be able to do something about this. That's it's the optimistic case.

0:45:32 Lindsey: High quality doom Yeah.

0:45:49 Lindsey: Yeah yeah yeah right, and I think this is the right kind of optimism. This is, this is optimism that specifically motivates action because none of this happens if we don't, if we don't do what we can to organize, and we don't vote ourselves and all that good stuff, so

0:46:07 Thomas: Yeah. Let's return, before we go here, want I to return and reiterate your message, if you don't mind, so that it doesn't get lost in my ramblings and my raging about the political situation.

0:46:20 Lindsey: Yeah. My top line is that I hope that I like to see sort of like the common kind of experience of abortion out there. And statistically, there are a pretty big chunk of people listening that have experiences that are very similar to mine. Hopefully, it was helpful to hear somebody else share this. And I feel like, yeah, people being sort of more visible about these things, if you can, I understand it's a hard thing. I think that that really does add something important to the conversation. So that would be my thing. Yeah I

0:46:52 Thomas: Have an idea if you would like to tell your abortion story email me and we could do if if you want to I'm you know this is obviously this is your story this is you keep it to the to the grave or you share it everywhere I'm not going to tell you what to do with your story but if you would like to share your abortion story, email me ThomasAndSeriesPod .com and maybe we put together a special episode I

0:47:14 Lindsey: Love that I love that idea yeah

0:47:16 Thomas: Too, I would love to hear these stories and I would would love to, put to them together. I would love to, you then, and then we can tell the story of why this is so fucking important, you And just really, really illustrate that in, I think that would be really valuable. So shoot me an email. We'll see if we can arrange something. Pressure on anybody to share something they don't want to share, of course. But if you do, and I also, I really want to thank Dr. Lindsay Osterman for sharing your story. I know that's in our, in today's society, it's not an easy thing to do so really indebted to you for that as listeners and as host co-host, um, really appreciate it. So yeah, do that follow up, people. If you, if you would like to tell your story, I would love that. And, um, thanks Lindsey for sharing. And thanks for listening everybody. And, uh, go, good luck everyone. How do you sign off of anything these days? Hey, keep on tracking. I don't fucking know. I don't know. Bye.

0:47:18 Lindsey: Mm -hmm thanks yeah it's tough but yeah

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