Changing the Abortion Conversation

Quinn: [00:00:00] 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and yet here we are. So what can we do to make the language around abortion more positive? Every week, thousands of people ask us the most important question in the world: What can I do? And every week I turn around and ask someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about the very same question. Someone who has already answered it for themselves. Someone who's working on the front lines of the future, in this case language, in global health, climate change, AI, food and water, indigenous data, Alzheimer's research. I find out why they're doing the work they're doing and what we, you and I can do to support it.

To join it, to fund their work, to find our own way to the front lines of the future. I'm your host, Quinn Emmett, [00:01:00] and my guest today is Sophie Nir. Sophie is the CEO of the Abortion Positivity Project. The Abortion Positivity Project seeks to destigmatize abortion by more or less overhauling the framework by which we currently understand and discuss it.

I love it. They've developed a training curriculum on embracing abortion positive messaging in partnership with other nonprofit orgs and mission-aligned companies. Their goal is simple: educate everyone about abortion, expand the lens through which we all view abortion and ignite peer-to-peer conversations about reframing abortion discourse.

Sophie is the former executive director of Eleanor's Legacy, as well as the former finance director for New York State Attorney General Leticia James. She's the founder of Vaccine Vigilantes, which is a fucking incredible name, and a veteran of the campaigns of many prominent women elected officials.

As always, for questions or feedback, you can email us at [00:02:00] questions@importantnotimportant.com.

Sophie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Sophie Nir: Thank you so much for having me.

Quinn: So to get started, I have sort of this two part question that the beginning of the show has evolved into a little bit to really help me and help our listeners understand why you're doing this work. And it sounds like it's the same question, but it's two different ones. The first part is why do you have to do this job? So of everyone in the world, why you this specific thing? And then the second part is, why do you have to do this work?

So of all the ways that you could answer the call and all of the many amazing and tough things out there, why do you have to do this work? Does that make sense?

Sophie Nir: Absolutely. I'm gonna actually answer the second one first.

Quinn: Whatever you want, you're in charge.

Sophie Nir: The reason that I do this work is because abortion is my [00:03:00] passion. I love doing this work. I feel so genuinely privileged to be able to work on abortion, to be able to talk about and educate about abortion every single day. It makes me so endlessly happy.

And that's truly why this is the work I do. I think the reason that I do this work is because what we have really seen over the last 52 years is a tremendous failure of this quote unquote pro-choice movement to really highlight and elevate the positive impact of abortion, something that I personally find incredibly easy.

I love abortion. I'm so passionate about abortion, talking about abortion, educating about abortion, and I feel like if what I can bring to this conversation is that abortion positivity then I'm the right person to be having this conversation.

Quinn: I love that. It's fantastic and I'm very excited to delve into all [00:04:00] this. So before we really get into the social good part of abortion. AOC had this great quote last year, and it's really sort of affected our work where she said, we can't just be right. We have to be effective. And we have always tried, I've worked in politics and philanthropy and all the different things, and we try to be really pragmatic in how we advise folks to take action. But that also means we're really big fans of the kitchen sink approach, right? That's how we beat down smoking, right?

Fundraising, investing, legal, journalism, design, all the things. You have chosen a very particular lane of advocacy here, which is language. Abortion, great. All these amazing things about it. You know, controversial, this and that. You could do legal, you could do all this. Why language?

Sophie Nir: That's such a great question. I would say first and foremost, the reason that we work on language is because it's incredibly easy for us to control, and yet we are doing an absolutely terrible job. [00:05:00] It is so incredibly unforced, no reason why we as our own movement are crafting this abortion language that is not only incredibly abortion negative, harmful, and stigmatizing, but also to your point, very ineffective. Look where we are as a country, right? We are in the worst position for abortion advocacy that we have been in over five decades, and yet we still see the same people and the same organizations saying the exact same things that have already failed. When we decided to focus on language, it was very much because we saw all of these people who first of all, wanted to help.

The Abortion Positivity Project works really exclusively with abortion advocates who want to do and say, and advocate for the right thing and have never been given the tools to do so. So when we talk about language, we are seeing people making [00:06:00] mistakes that are undermining their own goals, and we knew we could fix that.

Quinn: I love that. And the pros and cons of, like you said, of being in the worst place advocacy wise in 52 years is after 52 years, the receipts are kind of in, like you said, you can look at things and go, it's not working, right. It's going backwards. And this is in a world where in the US abortion is overwhelmingly supported.

When you poll folks really, any which way, like it's really incredible and yet at the forefront at, you know, whatever they say, the tip of the spear for the actual the lobbying, the advocacy, the implementation, all these different things, whether it's at the state level or the federal level and the legal level.

We're doing such a bad job. It's incredible. Where have you all identified, Hey, here's the disconnects and here's where we're going to apply ourselves, we think most effectively in a world where what you're trying to do is be more effective?

Sophie Nir: Yeah, absolutely. [00:07:00] So, a few things come to mind. First of all journalism. The way that abortion is covered is disastrously towards anti-abortion extremist narratives. So that is like a major place. Another place is among politicians who self-identify as pro-choice, but then the way that they talk about abortion is very much undermining rather than furthering their own stated policy goals. And we have also noticed, particularly among older white women who were very much indoctrinated by the Bill Clinton Safe, Legal, and Rare era, that there is a lot of work to do in that community to rewrite those narratives and sort of undo the damage that language has done.

Quinn: I love it. I mean very recently there was a little bit of news, and this is a little analogous and adjacent. I'm not sure if you're familiar, I'm in Virginia. I'm above a candy shop in Colonial Williamsburg. There's this news that just came out [00:08:00] that said I think it was a Texas school district removed the Virginia flag, I think, or something about the Virginia flag from its educational resources because there's a boob on our flag.

We're standing over the tyrant. It's Sic Semper Tyrannus. Right. Thus always the tyrants. And they said, well, sorry, we're, you know, we're Texas. We're not gonna teach where there's a boob on the flag. And I'm thinking back to how you're saying the journalists just lean towards always by default, this extremely conservative viewpoint.

And you know, my kids are old enough now to be barreling into sex education, family health, all things like that. And you just realize like just the bent in this country is so conservative anywhere it comes to bodies, just to start with. That's a huge mountain to move. That's a huge hole to dig us out of.

So what are you doing specifically to try to effect, for example, journalism?

Sophie Nir: Yeah. So, we really approach this work from a couple of different [00:09:00] angles. First is that we run trainings. We run trainings for advocates, we run trainings for journalists. We run trainings for politicians. And our trainings are all about how to realign the way that we talk about abortion with our own goals.

That abortion should be safe, legal, affordable, accessible, and stigma free. So our training is a huge piece of our work. The other piece is that when we see it, we call it out. We very rarely see a national news outlet, say, have an abortion related headline that we think is abortion positive rather than incredibly abortion negative.

And when we see them, we call them out. Also when our politicians who claim to support abortion talk about abortion in a disparaging way. We call it out, we see these wolves in sheep's clothing and we are here to absolutely call that out. The other thing that we're doing is that we try and look at the way that these conversations are happening and operating and try [00:10:00] and sort of redirect them using more accurate, but also more abortion positive data.

So a great example is a project that we're working on now where we are taking all of the polling, the abortion favorability polling that the national news outlets have run over the last couple of years. And we are translating those questions directly from the anti-abortion extremist narrative abortion negative slants that those questions are written with.

And we are translating them to their direct counterpart abortion positive version, and we’re polling those instead.

Quinn: Ooh, that's interesting. For all of its pros and cons, you know, one of my favorite things about the sort of mid, I guess, peak years of the Daily Show is when someone would say I didn't say that. And they'd go, here's the tape of you saying exactly that.

And so to take their questions and like you said, translate 'em and turn it back that way really, I mean, in a world of, you know, disinformation and a lack of a source of truth, it feels very effective. Right? It's as [00:11:00] close as you can get to firsthand sources.

Sophie Nir: Yeah, absolutely. And we feel like we're gonna have maybe some different results, even though we're asking exactly the same questions but with a abortion positive lens instead of an abortion negative one.

Quinn: Can you talk to me a little bit about, because journalism really has, I don't wanna say is changing or has changed, it has been changed and for a variety of nefarious reasons especially over the past 10 years and over the past three years with, you know, journalists being fired, newsrooms being diminished, and private equity and billion owners and all this.

But also just, you know, people are getting their news for free and this and that. So you've got so many more independent journalists who don't have editors of which can be great and can be problematic and can be unleashing. But you've also got newsrooms that again, are very much run from the top down.

When you're considering training for journalists and newsrooms, do they approach you all? Do you approach them? Do you go to the corporate entity, I mean, social media, do you talk [00:12:00] directly to journalists? Like how does it work?

Sophie Nir: Yeah, both and all.

Quinn: Awesome.

Sophie Nir: If we have a friend who is working for a, you know, national news network which we do, we say can we do a training for your journalists? And if a journalist comes to us and says, I wanna do a better job covering abortion, we say, thank you so much. We love to hear that. And we help them out.

Quinn: That's pretty straightforward. That's amazing. What does training look like?

Sophie Nir: The fundamental point of our training is to help people to realign the way they talk about their own goal of having abortion be safe, legal, affordable, accessible, and stigma free. The way that we run our trainings is that we first talk about sort of the basics of what is abortion.

You can't imagine how many people are either covering abortion or legislating abortion who genuinely have no idea what it actually is. So we talk through all of that, the national abortion landscape. We call it Abortion 101. Then we talk about abortion stigma and how it shows up in [00:13:00] both quote unquote pro-choice spaces, as well as in anti-abortion spaces and how abortion stigma is really corrosive in all environments and to all conversations around abortion. Then we talk about abortion advocacy and abortion messaging, how to realign those things. And then we close by talking about the modern abortion media landscape particularly about the anti-abortion extremist playbook and the specific narratives that we are seeing anti abortion spinning in political campaigns and in media and what to look out for.

Quinn: It seems like, I mean, the perfect course for advocates, right? Or people who would like to be or adjacent or supporting them in whatever way. How do journalists who, you know, what is the phrase, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted or in reverse.

Some claim to be or supposedly operate under more quote unquote objective principles in the language they use and things like that where you're saying, you're already [00:14:00] not being objective about it, right. Whether from the polling or the scientific standpoint, and again, leaving aside the opinion stuff, when you get into the advocacy side of the training for how to use language and things like that do you get any pushback from journalists going, okay, well, okay, but here's the style we adhere to and here's this and this, and here's our prerogative from corporate. Where does that mix?

Sophie Nir: We always are very open to, you know, pushback from everyone. I know that the way that we talk about abortion is very specific, very intentional, and also can be new and therefore jarring to hear some of the language that we use. Because it's unfamiliar, it's not what they're used to.

It's not the type of language that we have all grown up learning.

In terms of a journalistic style guide, the way that I would handle that situation is I would go through it and I would explain to them why this stylistic language is still abortion negative. And also particularly within journalism, when [00:15:00] journalists think that they are being objective or non-partisan, abortion is an entirely non-partisan issue, but that’s a different conversation. They are still tremendously influenced by the parameters of the national conversation, and our whole mission is to shift the parameters of the national conversation.

I think that like journalists are particularly guilty of pushing this fallacy that half the country supports abortion and half the country doesn't support abortion.

And there are these two equal camps, and that is so, so, so far from the truth. Almost 90% of Americans support abortion. You know, we are a nonpartisan organization, but the polling shows that both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly support abortion. Abortion is overwhelmingly popular. So actually, if you are pushing this sort of narrative that there are like two equal camps and they have equally good points and they're equally resonant with the national public, that is a lie [00:16:00] and that is an anti-abortion extremist fallacy. And that is a narrative that we heavily encourage them to stop pushing.

Quinn: Do you ever stop and ask why they're so committed to this pretty archaic, incorrect version of how they frame headlines and articles and their coverage?

Sophie Nir: I can't say that I do, it's because I'm so incredibly used to it. Not just with journalists, but with everyone.

I am so used to people who claim to support abortion access, talking about abortion in a way that undermines their own goal. I am so used to listening to politicians who claim to support abortion access, talking about abortion in an incredibly disparaging way, and pushing anti-abortion extremist narratives that undermine their own goals.

I am so used to seeing this in every facet of the national abortion conversation that it doesn't surprise me anymore.

Quinn: Right. Yeah. At some point it's become pretty, pretty normalized for you..

Sophie Nir: When I hear someone talk about abortion in abortion positive way, [00:17:00] then I'm surprised that I'm like, wow. Like, where’d that come from?

Quinn: It's gonna be so exciting. Yeah.

Sophie Nir: That's I'm either like I'm doing it, like I’m doing it, I’m accomplishing something or I've stumbled upon a diamond in a coal mine.

Quinn: That's very exciting. So let's talk about how we really grow the conversation. Again, one of the things we really try to focus on here is the concept and really the strategy of what are called co-benefits, right? It's a term has kind of been around. It's really been building in climate.

They're the intended positive side effects of an action or policy, whether that's corporate or public, whatever it may be. One of my favorite examples is I mean, there's two and they're semi-related, so electric school buses, right? They don't just reduce emissions and slow down global heating.

They're gonna make the air cleaner both outside the bus in a neighborhood, basically every neighborhood in the country, but also inside the bus where apparently it's worse for both the driver and the students. So they're healthier, which means reduced healthcare bills, which means students are [00:18:00] going to school more, which means their grades are probably higher.

Better jobs, drivers, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of this is really measurable. There's obviously a long tail where you can start to say, and this and this, and you know, I'm not gonna say it's questionable, but we don't wanna exaggerate it to the point where people don't actually rely on these things and build on these things 'cause when you're looking to a city council or a school board or whoever, and you're saying, I want this policy, you want the firmest place to stand on, but at the same time, the most measurably expansive, right. To say look at all of these different ways free school lunches or electric school buses benefit our community, that are provable.

Right. So talk to me about the idea of abortion as a social good, not just, again, the emergency we always hear about. Talk to me about it again in a pro way is, Hey, this is a social good. This benefits everyone.

Sophie Nir: Absolutely. That's very easy to do because abortion is amazing. So, first of [00:19:00] all abortion saves so many lives. We hear all the time in the media about, you know, stories of people who are in an immediate medical emergency and having abortion save their life in that way. But abortion saves lives in so many more ways.

Abortion saves the lives of people who are in relationships that are harmful to them, who are trans or non-binary, in literally immeasurable number of situations where their abortion would save their life. Also and I will say equally importantly, abortion allows people and women in particular to determine their own destiny.

I think that is something that is so undervalued by our society, but if you are able to access abortion care for any reason, whether it's elective or a medical emergency, or somewhere in between, you get to decide what your life looks like. And that is a fundamental value of freedom.

Quinn: Absolutely. I mean, like you said the options to choose from here are endless, [00:20:00] but we are very good historically and currently at designing these intricate, complex, comprehensive systems that trap people and make it so they do not have agency, usually not people that look like me, of course but basically everybody else.

And again, they can be so comprehensive, it feels like you cannot escape from them, whether that is simply turning off birth control by mail to not being able to have the emergency surgery you need or if you've had a miscarriage of whatever kind. And like you said the negative second order effects of not being able to escape that system, whether you ever think you're gonna be part of it or not, and you probably will, are so harmful in so many different ways.

Sophie Nir: Absolutely. And women and all people deserve to have the freedom to determine their own destinies and save their own lives and there is absolutely no reason why the government should be forcing someone to be pregnant or give birth against their will. There is no reason at all [00:21:00] why that should ever occur.

Quinn: A hundred percent I live again in Virginia. We were red for quite a while, and then briefly pretty blue. And then purple, which is annoying. And now we're trying to get it back to blue this November. We've actually got reproductive rights in the state constitution, along with a couple other big ones.

There was a report a couple weeks ago, Virginia, this is not, I don't think a surprise to anyone at this point at the greatest increase in clinician provided abortions. I think we're at about almost 40,000 now, and the number I guess the percentage of outta state went from something like 10 or 15 to 25%.

We're the last southern ish, Mid-Atlantic, whatever state without a post-Roe ban or waiting period or anything like that. So again, every house seat's up in November, the governor is up finally, at the same time you are a nonpartisan 501C3, which is obviously a difficult needle to walk these days, but at the same time very advantageous in a lot of ways.

How do [00:22:00] you navigate that with, I mean, I guess do you participate in any sort of get out the vote stuff at all with any candidates, anything like that? How do you manage that on a day to day when you're going like, no, I wanna put the people in office who are gonna do this, who cares what their label is?

Sophie Nir: That's a great question. So I will say I find it easy to be non-partisan for one reason, and that's that both Democrats and Republicans are overwhelmingly hostile to abortion. I find that the way that the Democrats talk about abortion is not what I am looking for out of a political party.

Quinn: That’s such a gentle way of putting it.

Sophie Nir: Well, I'm trying to be nonpartisan.

Quinn: Yeah. Yep.

Sophie Nir: So I just don't struggle to think like, Ugh, I really wish I could come out in strong support of, you know, this political party because they really have it, right? Because they don't.

So I focus much more. I mean, I think [00:23:00] voting is incredibly important. I will say I have a tattoo on my shoulder that says vote.

Quinn: Fuck yeah.

Sophie Nir: I believe very strongly in voting and knocking doors and getting out the vote for your candidate and every sort of good thing like that. But from our perspective, what we are working on in the political sphere is really changing the political conversation around abortion from one where absolutely no one is talking in an abortion positive way to one where hopefully someone and then eventually everyone.

Quinn: We're a long way from normalizing it, but at the same time, again it starts with one. And I feel like it's funny, as you were answering that, I was like, oh, she passed the test. I didn't realize I had set up, which is I asked you about all these other things you could be doing, and you're like, no, we're still just focusing on language in the conversation.

We're not knocking on doors. That's not the point. So do you work ever specifically with any candidates, does anyone come to you and say we want to do a better job. We are open to the idea of changing our language and how we speak about these things 'cause of where we are.

Or again, it could be a state like this one where, [00:24:00] you know, we have a chance to really put things in motion here, and that stuff matters. Language matters.

Sophie Nir: The answer is yes. And also some of my favorite trainings that we do are trainings in partnership with organizations that work directly with candidates, and we do trainings for the candidates that they directly work with. So we are reaching candidates with our language that way.

Quinn: So going back to the pushback you might get from newsrooms or the corporate entities that own them, how does a campaign apparatus respond to your training sometimes or go, well, this doesn't pull this way, or we can't use these words, or whatever it might be, which is the entire point of your training.

Sophie Nir: So we just will show them very explicitly that they are wrong. The assumptions that they are making about what language around abortion is resonant are wrong. We know that the abortion language of the last 52 years is not resonant because it's not resonating, because we aren't where we want to be [00:25:00] because we continue to cede and lose ground, right?

So if someone says to me, well, you know, my constituents, they don't actually support abortion. I say that's not true. Abortion is overwhelmingly popular. The vast majority of American support abortion, your constituents included, maybe, likely, your constituents are quiet about abortion because of the shame that they have been taught to have around talking about abortion.

But your constituents like everyone support abortion. And we are not going to continue to operate from a fake low ground when we have the overwhelming majority support.

Quinn: I feel like we could do a whole other conversation here, but it's incredible how much shame is a part of how this country socializes and governs and legislates, and educates and all of that. It's incredible how much that drives whole, the whole thing.

Sophie Nir: And what's so interesting to me is the way that people assume that shame is inherent when it is [00:26:00] so obvious to me that shame is taught.

So people say to me all the time oh, well, you know, but people feel this way about abortion. I say, people were taught to feel this way about abortion, and they can unlearn that, and they can think something that is better, right? Instead of thinking about abortion through the anti-abortion extremist lens, they can think about forced birth and how evil forced birth is, and how anything that we can do to avoid the evils of forced birth is the right thing to do, right? We can just change the way that we think about it. To a more accurate way.

Quinn: One of my favorite phrases is just that poverty is a policy choice. doesn't have to be that way. You know, just a long list of decisions made over and over to reinforce that system has made it that way. And we can, like you said choose to build something different.

We've had glimpses of that, right?

Sophie Nir: I was listening to the audio book of Everything is Tuberculosis.

Quinn: So good. Yeah.

Sophie Nir: So good and like very much about that, how like poverty and malnutrition and disease are like very much like societal choices that we are [00:27:00] making.

Quinn: It makes me pretty angry. It's crazy. And that stuff is so necessary and it really does turn me into the Hulk very quickly, but go, actually going back to that, so, you know, we had this brief glimpse where and this is again really in sort of a social good measurable stuff second order impacts. You know, we had the Child Tax Credit, worked so well for such a brief time and we just decided to not do that anymore.

A bunch of states have adopted different versions of it which part and parcel with federalism. But I'm curious how much you interact with the very real statistic that birth rates are going down in a lot of places and obviously so much of that is because, at least in the US, among the, you know, developed or global North or the West, whatever, our support systems, if you even wanna call it that, people who wanna have families, pregnant women, people who've recently had abortions or miscarriages or new parents, but I mean, truly name it, working parents whatever.

They basically [00:28:00] don't exist. You know, at best. And otherwise we punish folks. Versus actual reinforcing systems that build on themselves like, you know, equity and medical ethics and autonomy and, you know, redistributive politics and again, direct cash payments, whatever it might be. How much is that part of the, we can do so much better on all of these things to support people who do want to be pregnant or do want to have families, or we can do both of these things at the same time, which is make the language around abortion as positive as we can because it is a social good and also we have to do these things. Do you encounter that much in your work at all, or is that mostly left to other organizations?

Sophie Nir: I have certainly encountered the mindset and the ideology behind it. And what I will say is that I think that it is based on the false narrative that wanting to be pregnant or wanting to have a baby or child [00:29:00] is morally better than having an abortion. And that is something I very fundamentally do not believe, I believe that wanting to have an abortion or not wanting to have a baby for any reason at any time in life is an equally moral choice to wanting to have a baby or wanting to have a child. As a person, I think that having, you know, a society that is set up to make it as hard as possible for families to thrive is probably bad. But it is not because it would prevent or avoid abortion. I have no interest in preventing or avoiding abortion. I think that abortion is a moral choice whenever it is made.

Quinn: Thank you. That was the world's most confusing question. I appreciate you navigating your way through that. Well done. I guess what it really comes down to is it seems like the lack of systems for, again, people want to have kids or want to try to have kids or adopt kids or young families, whatever.

And banning reproductive rights and birth control and abortion all seems to come well, certainly it comes from the same people and it seems to come from the [00:30:00] same need for control. I mean, it seems like they're trying to, you know, just wrap this net around everyone, I guess women especially.

Sophie Nir: Yeah. I mean, there's a big societal shift around what you're describing as sort of like pronatalism and also this very like TikTok men's rights narrative.

Quinn: It is so dark.

Sophie Nir: It's so dark, around like basically the idea of supporting abortion not because of a moral or religious reason, but because it is fundamentally bad for men for women to have choices or options. Other than like marrying them and having, you know, marriage dynamics that look identical to the inequitable marriage dynamics of their parents or grandparents. These are some dark forces that are really starting to take hold. I think that obviously like for [00:31:00] much of American history, the anti-abortion narrative was based in like a religious moral argument.

I think that argument is both false and not my problem as it is not my religion and not my morality. But seemed to not resonate with younger people. And now this new misogynistic, you know, TikTok men's rights narrative seems to be really grabbing hold of Gen Z men, which is scary.

Quinn: It is amazing how men's rights and like misogynistic really just almost feels like it doesn't go far enough, like for some of the shit that's out there. Besides these more formal trainings, how do you guys use social media, which is a dumpster fire, for good? Around, because again it's language, right?

I guess less how do you do it and more have you found anything that's really effective?

Sophie Nir: I mean, yeah. The thing that I think is most effective is collaborating with people that [00:32:00] already have the ears and trust of their own followers and bringing our message to their followers as is through that sort of like conduit, trusted source. So like, I mean, this isn't social media. This is a podcast, but the fact that your followers who trust you are going to listen to this episode and learn about abortion positivity and hear abortion positive language that, I think itself is like an incredibly effective way to bring this new language to people.

We also, you know, we have a social media presence. We have an Instagram, please follow us. We have a TikTok and we make and push abortion positive content and we also try and collaborate with any social media co-creators, influencers, podcasters, whatever that want to work with us to bring abortion positive content to their audience, even if it's like very far from their usual content. And I think that's effective.

Quinn: I love that. One of the [00:33:00] very first lessons I picked up on and have really have tried to build straight into this work, at least on the podcast side most specifically 'cause it's obviously so one-on-one, was one of my very first guests, I mean, it feels like 700 years ago at this point.

Oh my God. Was a gentleman who is in the clergy and he works to bring environmentalism to the clergy. And basically to his fellow clergymen and their flocks. And, you know, one of his big points was you know, you can read the Bible one of two ways, which is the earth is ours and it's our job to take care of it, or the earth is ours and it's our job to use it and exploit it. Right. And he says, why on earth wouldn't you lean towards the former? And obviously the receipts are in, we've gone the other way. And I remember in one of the very first examples of me saying like, how can we help? What can we do? And he was like get out of the way because I am the messenger that's gonna matter to these people.

You talking to people from, you know, your perspective [00:34:00] as like an atheist monster, isn't gonna move them as much as like, support our work, which is really specific, like the messenger really does matter. Right. And like you said, if you can work with even someone who it might seem not outta left field, but not in their usual content, but their audience might at least be, if not primed for that, then at least comfortable with it.

Right. And there's a level of trust there, then that does seem very advantageous as opposed to just like you blasting out stories all the time, which is great. Right. But it's gonna be a pretty specific audience.

Sophie Nir: Totally. And that's also like why we don't throw trainings. If we figure that if we threw a training that anyone who would come to our training wouldn’t need to be there. We partner with organizations and like they host trainings with us for their members or their staff, whatever, whoever it may be. Because it's exactly what you said. If someone is already in the choir, that's amazing, but we need to reach beyond that.

The best way to do that is [00:35:00] through creators or organizations or anything that already has their ear and their trust.

Quinn: This is a ridiculous analogy but it reminds me of, you know, back before it kind of tanked again but as plant-based food was really taking off you know, I guess it was early 20, you know, 2019, 2020, 2021 and plant-based meat and chicken nuggets and all these things and Tesla, for lack of a better word, was it can't just be a healthy, like it's gotta be a better burger, right?

It's gotta be a better car. If you wanna reach like car enthusiasts with your electric dreams, like they don't give a shit about all that other stuff. Like half these plant-based people, they're just like, I want a great burger. I'm a burger person. And for you to reach burger people you gotta make something that's actually just really good.

They're not gonna be sold on, oh, it has you know, this and this. It uses fewer water. They don't give a shit about that, you know? But if you can put it in the restaurants, the people who serve the best burgers, then that's gonna go a long way. This is a ridiculous comparison, I realize that. But I try to think about it as again, trying to be as [00:36:00] effective as we can be.

Sophie Nir: Absolutely. And like I wholeheartedly believe that abortion positivity is a much better product than abortion stigma. And I'm more than happy to sell it. Right? Like I think that the idea that the way that we have been advocating for abortion is like apologetic and this narrative of you know, this thing is really bad, you know, we should support it anyway. That is so obviously ineffective. It is so obviously the worst way to get someone to support anything. Right. Look at where we are and we can't even be surprised at where we are/ We've done this to ourselves.

Quinn: Sure.

Sophie Nir: So we have to sell a better product. We have to do this a better way.

Quinn: Have you seen the show, it's imperfect, but I thought was wonderful, Sex Education came out, it was on Netflix.

Sophie Nir: I love that show.

Quinn: I loved it and I just thought well, again, like there's very emotional things and there's sad and there's hard things. And as it expands it tells a million different, wonderfully inclusive stories, but just the positivity around it all 'cause you're like, well, that's that age. And you look [00:37:00] around and kids aren't having sex. They're not, I mean, forget having sex. They're not hanging out. Right. They're so isolated and isolating themselves. And I saw an interesting thing online that someone said, you know, we've replaced different sexes hanging out together in basements or on the stoops with not just guys who are alone online getting this, like you said, misogynist perspective, but also like anti female, anti feminine, whatever it might be.

It's gone so far to the other side simply because we don't have that. And if you don't have that, then you're not having sex and you can't have the joy and you can't have the support of all that much less get to abortion positive. Right. It just seems like we've built these layers that are, yeah. I don't know. It's a tough one. So anyways, that's why I was so excited to see Sex Education. I was just like, it's out there. This is amazing.

Sophie Nir: I know, I love that show. Season three of that show was a perfect season of television.

Quinn: God. When she dances out on stage, you're like, oh, she's gonna be really great. And it turns out it's so bad.

Sophie Nir: And then she pulls like three kids on stage and makes them put like signs around their necks. I thought that was [00:38:00] like the most that I was like, on the edge of my seat. That is like most exciting scene of television I've ever seen in my life.

Quinn: It was so dramatic. I was so upset. Yeah, that's a really great point. Yeah. It's funny. My oldest is 12 and I'm like, yeah, we might do it soon. I mean, he's fully into the whole thing now. So yeah, it's great. Why not start there?

Sophie Nir: How old's your daughter?

Quinn: My kids are well, they think they're in their twenties.They're not.

Sophie Nir: We all think we're in our twenties.

Quinn: I know it's not great. My body doesn't feel that way. They're 12, 11 and 10. She's in the middle. She's gonna be 11 in, you know, a few weeks or something like that. I think she thinks she can live in an apartment by herself at this point.

Sophie Nir: I'm sure she does. I bet she could.

Quinn: She would have to get to school on time one day. And they're all 0 for three on that every day, so.

Sophie Nir: How does having a daughter who is like approaching teendom inform the way that you are thinking about abortion. I mean, the youngest person who had abortion in [00:39:00] America last year was 10.

Quinn: Oh yeah. No, we try to be really open about it as much as we can. We try to be as open with it about the boys as well, just as important, especially, again, we get a lot of lectures from all three of them about catastrophizing as they say, like drive by, they're just trying to eat their dessert and we're like, this thing is terrible in the world. And they're like, that's great, but I wasn't even doing that. Right. You know? So trying to do that in a constructive way is, an open but constructive way 'cause again, you want them to actually be in a place where they're not gonna tune you out.

There's not tune you out. There's neutral and there's, Hey, we're actually eagerly gonna listen to you. And you know, when they're that age, it's a fine line. 'cause we've realized especially and she's gonna be there, she'll be middle school in a couple years and man, when they get to middle school, like as everybody knows, everything changes and their brain is so full of what they think is existential drama every day. You remember, every moment and choice [00:40:00] feels like it's live or die and that's just the eight hours you're at school. So when you try to talk to 'em about abortion or climate or fascism or things like that, they're like, listen, that's great, and like we care. And sure we're like woke.

But also I got a lot going on. But at the same time. You know, their body stuff does matter. Whether we're talking to 'em about food, you know, we again, we try not to talk about it just negatively. Hey, sugar's terrible Easter. Don’t eat all the bunnies, but also look at all this incredible stuff it can do for you.

'cause you love to do things with your body and, you know, sex and abortion and menstruation and all that stuff is part of that. And again, same thing with the boys, which is hey, it's, it feels great to touch yourself, but also touch yourself, you know, and consent and all of the million different things.

There's some really great resources that are out there now. There's a few books I've got on my list that I need to read ASAP besides your Sex Educations and things like that I think are talking about it in a much more open, positive, constructive way. Again, because I think when you are [00:41:00] fighting YouTube and podcasts, again, that battle of what are they actually gonna listen to if they're even gonna take anything away from this conversation, knowing you're really trying to pick your battles on the time you have with them, much less the energy and the receptivity. 'cause then they're gonna go to school, even in a great school, great kids, great families, whatever, internet access, it is never in isolation, I guess is the point.

You know? And so we try to think about that as much as we can, you know, because I'm well aware of how it feels to just tune your parents out and say fuck 'em. You know, but the incoming information you and I had when we were younger is just so much different and of such a different volume than it is now.

So that's gnarly for sure. But we're thinking about it a lot. You know, we've had the conversation with all of 'em. The 9-year-old was like, what on earth are you possibly talking about right now? That can't be the way it works. We're like, it is. The older two are getting it. But yeah, you know, we try to be again, be like [00:42:00] sex positive and gender whatever.

Like who cares? But at the same time, it's the real world and you're gonna see a lot of stuff and a lot's going on and this stuff matters. So anyways it's complicated right now. It doesn't necessarily feel like a losing battle, but I think if I spent more time seeing the things that they are privy to, I could feel that way for sure.

So just the intellectual awareness of what's going on, trying to be smart about it. So conversations like these, anything like that. I have a friend of a friend who runs really great, not new, God they're like seven, eight years old, a sex products company called Maude, M-A-U-D-E, really nice, classy stuff.

Same thing. They're just like, someone's gonna make this stuff. We should do it in an inclusive way, in a positive way. So it's for everybody. Starting from this is the, you know, biggest allergen. Like, why wouldn't we just take this out? You know, it seems so superficial, but at the same time to just, again, they send out newsletters and again, it should be positive.

They were actually just in the Louvre with some of the things they've made, which is crazy. And you're like, great. Put that [00:43:00] stuff in the Louvre. 'cause it matters. 'cause they'll, they will find a version of the information elsewhere is, I guess what I'm really getting at.

Sophie Nir: That is very true. Yeah. And like those narratives will take hold.

Quinn: A hundred percent. Whether it's about abortion or vibrators or whatever it might be. Like it's coming much earlier than we all had it. And we have so much less control over it. So anyways, I dunno, doing what I can. That's the short answer.

Sophie Nir: That's great. That’s all you can do.

Quinn: Oh yeah. It's a lot. Okay. Speaking of what I can do. So that's what we do here. What can we do? You're a 501C3. Let's start by supporting literally your work. Where are people going to support your work most directly?

Sophie Nir: That is so kind. Our website is abortion positivity.com. There's a big donate button right on the front page, and we would be incredibly grateful for your support.

Quinn: Awesome. Love that. Does most of your funding, is it institutional? Is it grants, is it small donors? How does that come through these [00:44:00] days?

Sophie Nir: Yeah, it's a combo. We have small donors that we're very grateful for. We have grants and foundations that support our work and we are always on the hunt for more.

Quinn: Great. That seems about as reasonable as it can get. What about volunteering or organizing with or for you? On whatever level, whether it's social media or with our bodies, whatever it might be, the training.

Sophie Nir: Yeah, absolutely. So, on social media, please go follow us on Instagram. It's at abortion positivity on TikTok, at abortion positivity. Please do go follow us and share our content to your followers. Even if you're thinking, I don't have a huge audience, that's just fine. Your speaking in a more abortion positive way will be a tremendous step in creating the world that we're trying to see.

So, yeah, sharing our content is a huge help. If you have a relationship with a organization that you think would be good to partner with on training, please reach out to us. There's a contact form on our website. Those go directly to my email, and I would love to hear from you. We would love to schedule a [00:45:00] training.

We can do trainings with organizations, 501C3s or companies or friend groups, or anyone that you think would benefit from learning more about abortion positivity. We also, you know, we do all sorts of social media and podcast collaborations. We think that's a tremendously important way to get the message out. If you are listening to this podcast and you want us to be on your other favorite podcast please let us know and we would love to do it.

Quinn: Awesome. And what about sort of direct educational resources for myself on the couch? Are there things on your website to go through that, or does it require, you know, going through a training?

Sophie Nir: I don't think there's direct resources on our website. I think there's direct resources on our Instagram and we have resources that we are more than happy to share, and I will send them your way. We have great merch. There's merch on our website if you want an Abortion Saves Lives sweatshirt, which I know you do. They're very soft and cozy, great to wear in an airport, in a state with an abortion ban. Please, you can go to our website and buy them with our pro, our partner [00:46:00] Social Goods.

Quinn: I love that. I have a really great, is it, what's the sweater shop, the hand knitted Lingua Franca, I think it might be called. I have a climate feminist one that's very small on me 'cause I ordered the wrong size. So it'll go great with that. Okay. This has been amazing.

Last question I'm gonna ask you. In all of your time you're spending on podcasts and doing all this training, what is something you've read, a book in the past year or so maybe opened your mind, changed your thinking, or could just be a coloring book or anything because everything is a lot.

We get a whole list on Bookshop and people love to check that stuff out.

Sophie Nir: Okay, so I love this question. I run a book club.

Quinn: Fuck yeah.

Sophie Nir: Just, you know, for my friends, for our life. But can I give two recommendations?

Quinn: You can do literally whatever you want.

Sophie Nir: Slay. Okay. So, my fiction recommendation, the best fiction book that I've read recently by far was In Memoriam by Alice Wynn. Which is, it takes place during World War I, and it [00:47:00] is a sort of half queer love story, half war atrocity novel, and it's gorgeous and it's perfect.

Quinn: I think my wife, it's about two guys?

Sophie Nir: Yeah,

Quinn: My wife read that. She said it was unbelievable.

Sophie Nir: It's unbelievable. I've cried at two books in my entire life. One of them is Harry Potter seven, and one of them is In Memoriam.

Quinn: That's incredible. And also it's a great look into World War I, which most people forget about, but holy shit.

Sophie Nir: World War I, this is really unrelated to abortion, World War I was really not good.

Quinn: Not great, they were like, this is, we're never doing this again. This is not great.

Sophie Nir: And then they did it right away. They just, like spoiler alert for In Memoriam. They just took like everyone and they just sent them to war and then they died. Really bad vibes.

Quinn: Without penicillin.

Sophie Nir: So true.

Quinn: Yeah, not great. Much worse.

Sophie Nir: Just awful. Okay. So that's my fiction recommendation and truly [00:48:00] like six stars. Incredible novel.

Quinn: Okay.

Sophie Nir: And then if you wanna learn more about abortion my nonfiction abortion book recommendation is Abortion by Jessica Valenti. It's Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies and The Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti.

Quinn: Love it.

Sophie Nir: And this is my abortion non fiction book recommendation.

Quinn: Fantastic. Well that's great. Any others you have, you can send our way and we will throw on there. I always love a good syllabus.

Sophie Nir: Love that.

Quinn: What am I missing? Anything else you wanna talk about? Questions I didn't ask?

Sophie Nir: I think the only thing that you didn't ask that I wanna talk about is sort of the definition of abortion positivity. Which I usually lead with.

Quinn: Sorry.

Sophie Nir: No, not at all. I usually lead with, and then we were like chatting so hard.

Quinn: Story of my life

Sophie Nir: I didn’t get to like explicitly define abortion positivity, which I think is probably a good thing to do.

Quinn: Probably helpful 'cause the whole point is language. God dammit. Okay, go for it. I believe in you.

Sophie Nir: No you're doing great. So when we talk about abortion positivity, we say that abortion [00:49:00] positivity is a framework for understanding abortion without any stigma or shame.

It centers the positive impacts of abortion and understands abortion as a social good. And what abortion positivity is very much not is about policing anyone's individual relationship to their own abortion or their private conversations with their trusted medical care providers.

When we talk about abortion positivity, we are really talking about how we are contributing to the national abortion conversation that is happening in sort of the social order in public society and not at all about policing someone's individual relationship. With that said, we do believe that shame is taught.

So our hope is that when we create an abortion positive society people will no longer have to feel shame around their own abortion.

Quinn: It is amazing. If we had done that at the beginning, we hit on all those points. So great. It would've been like a table of contents. Oh God, I'm so dumb. Sorry. [00:50:00] That's amazing. Well, this has truly been wonderful. I'm really excited to share this with folks. Again, the language is, it's everything.

Sophie Nir: Thank you so much for having me. I can't tell you how grateful we are that you are giving us this platform to talk about abortion.

Quinn: Oh my God. Of course. Absolutely.