>> funding for "overheard" with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation. improving the quality of life within our community. and from the texas board of legal specialization. board certified attorneys in your community, experienced, respected, and tested. also, by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and viewers like you. thank you. >> i'm evan smith, she's an award winning poet, essayist and columnist for the nation, whose latest book, "typically provocative", is pro-reclaiming abortion rights. she's katha pollitt. this is "overheard". [ cheering and applause ] >> actually, there are not two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now.

the night that i win the emmy. >> being on the supreme court was an improbable dream. >> it's hard work, and it's controversial. >> without information there is no freedom, and it's journalists who provide that information. >> window rolls down and this guy says, hey, it goes to 11. [ laughter ] [ music playing ] >> katha pollitt, welcome. >> thank you so much for having me. >> so nice to have you here. so we are more than 40 years since roe versus wade, and you and i are of a generation where you might say we thought until recently this was settled policy and settled law. turns out to be something other than that. which is really the impetus, i suppose, for this book. you've got to reclaim something that's been unclaimed, right? >> yes. i wrote this book because i just, you know, you open up your newspaper -- >> yep. >> -- and it's one restriction after another. 205 since 2010 when the republicans, you know, made such big gains at the state --

>> right. >> -- level. and also at the federal level. and i thought the pro-choice movement has fallen into talking about abortion in such a negative way that it's hard to make a positive case. >> what do you mean by that, talking about it in a negative way? >> safe, legal and rare. which implies there's an ideal number of abortions, we know what it is, and there are too many now. but actually we don't know -- if every woman could have the abortion that she wants, we don't know how many that would be because a lot of women can't get abortions now because of those restrictions, because there's the hyde amendment which bans federal medicaid payments -- >> right. >> -- and many state versions of that. so why not safe, legal, and available? >> so you're not saying or arguing that there aren't enough abortions. >> no. >> you're arguing that the conversation has turned away from making the access the issue to maybe actually saying, well,n is to try to reduce its as much as possible as a sop to the other side? >> yes. and i think that we've fallen

away from thinking what do women need? what do women need to be mothers and not to be mothers? and how to provide good reproductive healthcare. >> yeah. >> and instead, it's -- the pro-choice side is always chasing the framing of the anti-choice side -- >> right. >> -- by which i mean the anti-choice side says women are so confused, they don't know what they're doing, the process needs to be slowed down so that they can go to a crisis health -- a crisis pregnancy center. >> right. >> so our side says, no, no, women think about it a lot. abortion is the most agonizing decision a woman will ever make. it's the most serious moral decision of her life. well, that implies, well, maybe she shouldn't have that abortion. >> right. >> it also implies that a woman who, you know, is in no position to have a baby, who didn't want to have a baby, she gets accidentally pregnant, and she really thinks, yes, i should have a baby now. >> well, it assumes among other things, it assumes that women are making decisions that are rash or ill-considered.

>> exactly. >> it assumes that about women's thought process as far as this -- as far as this issue goes. now, you know, eople talk about abortion as a political issue. they talk about it as a moral issue. they talk about it as a legal issue. which is it? is it more than one? is it all of them? how do you view this? >> i think it's an equality issue. it's an issue of human rights. >> an equality issue? >> i think it's an issue of human rights. >> right. so it's legal. it's a legal issue. it's a issue about what is permissible by law by the constitution and all that? >> yes. >> is it a political issue? can it be solved by politics? >> well, i think that there will always be division -- >> yeah. >> -- in america around this -- >> right. >> -- because it's -- it goes very deep, the issue of abortion, and it's -- the conservative religions are very highly organized to be against it, and they have a lot of followers. >> you begrudge them their faith and -- or their position? >> well, you know, i'll just say this: it -- in the late '60s, when many states were thinking of

making abortion less of a criminal matter than it is now, the southern baptists issued a statement saying we support liberalized abortion laws. well, now they're -- they're as far from that as is possible to be. >> yeah. what happened? >> well, i don't know, it's the same bible. [ laughter ] >> yeah. >> so these things are -- these things are not just in the abstract decisions that people make on theological grounds. >> but the argument seems to be by -- i don't want to mischaracterize the positions of other people, but the argument seems to be from a lot of people of faith, that this is murder, that the -- that what's happening here is a decision is being made to take a life, that it's not so much the right of a woman to decide what she should do with her body, or whether or not she should be able to terminate a pregnancy, but that in fact this is a living, breathing creature, who should be protected and needs to be protected by the political system and by the legal system. >> it's not breathing. there is that. let's keep that straight. >> yeah.

but i -- i am paraphrasing what you know to be the argument of many people who oppose -- >> right. right. well, i would say to those people -- >> right. >> -- okay, so many people who are against abortions will make exceptions. they'll make an exception if the woman has been raped -- >> right. >> -- but not if she's had voluntary sex. so they don't believe -- they don't believe the unborn is a person. because if they did believe the unborn was a person, they couldn't make that exception. they will say you can have an abortion if it's a question of your life or your health. well, why, if -- you know, let's say i'm dying and you've got a nice kidney, i'm not allowed to kill you to take it. >> not yet. >> yeah. [ chuckling ] so i think that all but a very, very few people on the pro-choice -- on the anti-choice side will make exceptions that fit their idea of what is a good woman. >> but of course lately politicians have moved away from even allowing exceptions for advocating for exceptions to a point now where many prominent politicians will say life of the mother, okay. but no longer do we allow for exceptions for rape and incest.

so they seem to be actually more consistent by your definition. >> well, i think in an abstract, hard-line sense, they are. >> right. >> they are more consistent. and i guess the american people have to think, well, is this what i want. >> right. >> a woman is raped. a woman -- a woman is dying. like women in ireland have died. >> right. >> -- of miscarriages that were in progress because they -- the hospital wouldn't end the pregnancy until the dying fetus was actually dead. >> right. but, you know, i think that we don't want to spend too much time focusing on these extreme cases, although they're important when you're arguing with the other side about personhood -- >> right. >> -- because most women have abortions because they need to have a life that they can manage. they have all the kids they can handle. >> yeah. >> they're fifteen. they're in school. they don't have a place to live. they -- they are in a -- in an abusive relationship. they don't want to be a single mother. >> yeah.

>> you know, we're very down on single mothers in this country. we don't say, oh, you're pregnant, you're single, let us help you. they say you're a slut, you know, we're not going to give you any welfare. >> but of course the argument -- the argument back, as you well know, from people who oppose abortion is that if you talk about the circumstances that a woman who gets pregnant is in, and you're not talking about rape, you're not talking about incest, but you're talking about somebody for whom the abortion would resolve an inconvenience -- >> it's not an in -- well -- >> but that's to simplify it. >> yeah. >> you understand that? but the idea is that somehow the circumstance of my life make it so that having this baby would be a bad thing for the baby, bad thing for my life. people will say, well, then, you're talking about abortion essentially as a form of after-the-fact birth control. >> well, let me just go back to that word "convenience" because if you say you're having an abortion because it's convenient, you're really saying having a baby is only an inconvenience. but to me, an inconvenience is oh, i'm stuck on this long line at the supermarket, you know, or -- >> right. >> -- i forgot to pick up my dry cleaning. >> we're equating something

serious with things that are nonserious. >> if being a mother, as anybody who is one knows, is a tremendously serious business. pregnancy and childbirth themselves are potentially fatal activities. >> right. >> and we don't -- when we say, oh, women just have abortions because they want to live a, you know, a convenient life, we're really saying being a mother is nothing. anyone can do it. >> right. >> but that's not true. being a mother is a commitment that takes your whole heart. >> right. >> and it takes being in a good place, especially in your life, especially since it's not as though we have paid maternity leave in this country or day care, or pregnant women are fired all the time, even though there are laws that are supposed to protect them, and mothers are discriminated against tremendously in the job world and there are no laws to protect them. >> right. >> so which is it? >> so this is the self -- this is the self determination argument. i should be able to make a decision -- >> yes. >> -- about the kind of life that i have -- >> yes. >> -- and a way that -- you know, decisions i make that affect me, they should be my decisions. >> yeah. women are really up against a

lot in this life. and being able to end a pregnancy -- >> right. >> -- is part of being able to have a life that isn't just a total -- a total mess, where you have to give up all the things like -- like work, for example, or school that make -- make a good life possible. >> so the -- are there conditions that you would accept, people who say, well, okay, i understand that, i get that part of the argument, but we want to be sure that the procedure is done safely. we want to be sure that the medical procedure part of this is in line with the most modern state-of-the-art -- whether it's facilities or standards or what have you, so we sit here in texas today. >> right. >> where a law has been passed to require that abortion clinics upgrade their standards to those of ambulatory surgical centers. >> uh-huh. >> or we require that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at hospitals. those will be two conditions

that the state of texas, at least, and not only the state of texas, others have done similar things, would put on to say, look, if you're going to do this, we have to make sure that the -- this is all done safely and in the right way. do you have a problem with that? >> well, i do have a problem with that, because actually politicians have kind of admitted that the point of all of these regulations is to drive clinics out of business. >> that they're not able to make abortion illegal because of roe versus wade. >> right. >> so they're going to make it as close to being illegal -- >> right. and you know, doctors' organizations don't say, yes, there's a big problem here with abortion clinics not being ambulatory surgical centers. quite the opposite. they say this is unnecessary. >> well, in fact, investigation of abortion clinics after the texas law was passed proved that there were hardly any violations of their standards by their standards. >> so this is all politics. >> right. >> so you think it's all politics? >> i do. i think it is all -- >> it's all -- it's all an effort to try to criminalize abortion or come close to it or at least drive these clinics out of business? >> well, you know, i mean it's -- they can't make abortion illegal as long as roe v. wade is law, which it still is, but

they can limit access. if you can't get to a clinic, abortion might as well be illegal for you. >> may as well be, right. >> and what we're seeing now in the rio grande valley is women going to mexico and getting abortion pills. >> right. >> and -- or off the internet. >> right. >> and having procedures that are much more dangerous. >> less safe. >> that are less safe. >> so if the impetus here was to make abortion more safe -- >> it's -- the opposite is happening. >> it's the opposite. what about the restriction, again, here and elsewhere, other states -- in some other states it's actually even more close to the -- than 20 -- we have 20 weeks is the -- is the law that was passed here. at five months you can't have an abortion past -- past that period. some places the time frame has actually been shorter than that. you have a problem with that? >> well, it's against roe v. wade. roe v. wade says 24 weeks. >> right. i understand that the period -- the period -- >> roe v. wade says viability. >> right. so are you okay with row roe v. wade's pronouncement of 24 weeks? >> i am. yes. i -- yes, you know, in -- in the book i have a whole chapter is about compromises on abortion.

>> right. >> and i go through all of these compromises because a lot of people would like to say, yeah, if you have an abortion for a reason i like, fine, but those other reasons, no, and i show how you can't really make law around that. >> right. >> but in the issue of roe v. wade, i said we had a compromise. roe v. wade was the compromise. >> right. >> roe v. wade does acknowledge that the -- the fetus at viability acquires some rights against -- against the mother's interests. >> yep. >> and i think that's a good compromise, given how divided people are. the idea that a fertilized -- and a fertilized egg is a baby now to a lot of people. this is ridiculous. >> can be -- right, 20 seconds would be a problem, let alone 20 weeks -- >> really. >> -- to a lot of people. >> really. they -- no, the real hardliners say there's -- there's no difference. it's a baby. >> right. so why don't -- so if roe versus wade is the issue, it has been discussed for so many years by so many people running for high office in this country, we've got to overturn roe versus wade, but obviously they've been unable to accomplish that.

it's been unable to be accomplished. why not have that be the focus? why focus at the states as opposed to trying to get the whole thing thrown out. >> well, you should ask an anti-choicer that -- >> well, i'm sure you've thought about -- you've thought about why anti-choicers have been able to get that accomplished. >> well, you know, what they wanted -- the first thing they wanted was the human life amendment which was an amendment to the constitution that would have banned abortion and that didn't get anywhere. >> right. >> it's a long, long process to overturn roe v. wade. they need -- they need another -- at least one more supreme court justice, but they also need to create on the ground cases that the supreme court will take. a lot of this is about that. >> right. >> the 20 -- why 20 weeks? why not 21 weeks or 19 weeks? it's because at 20 weeks it's just enough close to 24 weeks that they can get -- they think they can get the supreme court to hear the case. that is the point at which, first of all, very, very few abortions are performed, and so

it -- it -- they can -- they can pass that law without getting a lot of people really outraged and thinking, oh, that's going to be me, because it's only like 1% of abortions that have are performed -- >> right, so it's a practical matter 20 weeks is more palatable -- >> yes, because -- >> -- than ten weeks. >> yes. and also because people believe that even though the later you go in pregnancy, the more likely it is that you're having an abortion because there's something gone catastrophically wrong with the fetus or with you. >> yeah. >> people believe, oh, yeah, then it will be okay, then they'll let you have your abortion. >> yeah. >> but that's not true. that's not always true. >> what has caused this concept of personhood to suddenly -- it's a little bit like a yellow volkswagen politically. you don't see one and then you see one every day, you know. >> uh-huh. >> personhood was not something that was widely discussed in politics, and then now it seems like you can't go a day without hearing something about personhood, and you have a politician who has been quite pro-personhood, running for the united states senate in colorado, who has backed off a little bit from that. >> uh-huh, right. >> but nonetheless looks like he

may get elected, cory gardner. what is this concept of personhood and how does it relate to this topic of reproductive rights? >> well, the concept of personhood is that certain religions, the catholic church, for example, and increasingly evangelical fundamentalist churches as they ally with the catholic church around these issues -- >> yep. >> -- that they believe, yes, it's a baby, it's a person just like the audience here, you or me, from the moment of fertilization. not even implantation. now, never mind the tremendous numbers of fertilized eggs never implant, so that's like some big carnage taking place that nobody cares about or even knows about. >> right. >> but i think that these -- it's interesting that these personhood amendments which have been on state ballots for some time now, they always fail. >> they failed. they fail. >> yes, and one reason they fail is because when people think about these things, which these ballot initiatives compel people to do -- >> right. >> -- in a way that just

answering a question in a poll doesn't, they think, oh, right, well, what about my birth control? >> well, it's a short walk from personhood to contraception. >> it is. >> isn't it? >> and what about fertility clinics? >> right. >> fertility medicine. when you have invitro fertilization, an embryo is created in a petri dish. >> correct. >> and if it doesn't -- if it doesn't implant, it's discarded. >> yep. >> so why is that okay, but once it's in the woman, oh, it's a baby? >> yeah. >> you know, it's like -- and that's another place where you see this is really all about women. women and sex. >> so you think -- you think that in the end what this is about is trying to control women? >> i think it is a response to perceived women getting out of hand, women having too many rights. there's too much -- too much sex. >> goodness gracious. it's 2014. we're going to talk about that? we're going to -- i mean not saying challenging your perception of this. >> yeah. >> but the idea to me that we have to have a conversation about women having too many rights in 2014 is the epitome of preposterous.

>> well, they would prefer -- that's why they would prefer to talk about the personhood of the fertilized egg. >> yeah. >> they know it sounds crazy when you put it that way. >> but why -- but when you say that, people just kind of go bananas. they hear you and they go this is absurd, but at the same time why -- that has not been the -- that really has not been a successful argument thus far. >> no, but if you look at the places, this is really interesting. if you look at the states that have the most restrictions on abortions -- >> yeah. >> -- there's really a one-to-one correlation with the states where the status of women is lowest. they're the fewest women in state legislature. the biggest pay gap. the least is done for the health of women and children. there's the least for single mother -- for mothers -- >> a larger issue than just reproductive rights? >> yeah, but what i'm saying is it all goes together with a certain way of seeing the role of women in society. and you can see that when you look at the places that are more pro-choice than the places that are more anti-choice. >> you have naturally transitioned me to where i wanted to go in the last few minutes we have here, and that

is to the state of feminism. >> uh-huh. >> you are proudly a feminist. >> i am. >> what's happened to feminism? >> oh, (chuckling) well, you know, i actually am one of the people that is very optimistic about feminism, because i think -- i think social movements, they come and they go. they have their moments, and they die down. then they die down for awhile, and everybody thinks, oh, my god, where are we, and now we're seeing i think a real explosion of activism and interest in feminism, and i think a lot of it takes place on the internet, which is good, because then people can find each other. >> it's an organizing tool. >> it's a -- it's a great organizing tool. >> right. >> what's bad is when it stays on the internet. >> right. >> because then people who aren't really living on the internet -- >> is it generational? are older women, women who actually lived at a time when feminism was actually a really living breathing part of the political conversation, a little bit less so today, are they the ones who are reviving it or is it younger people who are taking the baton from the older generation?

>> well, don't -- don't take our baton 'til -- until we're finished with it, please. [ laughter ] but -- but -- >> there may be enough baton to go around, but, okay, fine. >> young people are -- young women are fantastic. they are just fantastic. they are so creative. they're so energetic. they're not so -- i think there was a generation in the middle that sort of felt, okay, i have my rights, thanks, mom. >> a little complacent. >> you know, i can take it from here, gloria. >> right. >> i don't need you anymore. but the young, i think, are maybe partly because of the economic situation in which young people are living now. >> right. >> they can't be complacent. they see upfront all the rollbacks that are happening. >> right -- >> so -- >> so you don't think there's a version of what you just described happening in this -- i have a 17-year-old daughter. >> uh-huh. >> and i think that my 17-year-old daughter probably sees the world as more or less equitable, you know, things to -- you know, things to fight, but basically she -- >> uh-huh. >> -- i don't know that she would see or her peers would see the need to take up pitchforks and torches today the way that a previous generation might have,

which is not to say that she's right. i just don't know that this idea that complacency has been irradicated from the newest generation of women is necessarily in my experience the case. >> well, maybe 17 is a little young. >> right. >> when i was 17 i was mostly, you know, thinking about latin and poetry and -- >> well, your parents did a hell of a better job than i am, i'll say that. [ laughter ] >> well -- >> not a whole lot of discussion of latin at my dinnertable but go on... >> it's not too late. ave. [ laughter ] i think that, you know, it's true, there are -- i think for some women, feminism is something that comes on them as they move through life, and actually i think young -- the very, very young people are in a situation where they're -- they're at the most privileged they'll ever be. >> right. >> you know, they're not -- >> it's true. >> -- they're not trying to make their way in a workplace and they're not dealing with

having a child and needing daycare and -- >> right -- >> -- all that. it's great. your daughter should just enjoy her youth. >> but the fact -- but the fact is if you see restrictions on access to contraception. >> well, there you go, yes. >> and the hobby lobby case, and the implications for -- >> yes. >> -- whether contraception will be readily available to people for free or not, that may be a case where women as they come of age become aware of, wait a minute, this political system does have an impact on my ability to move freely and to do what i want. >> yes. >> self-determination. >> yes. the affordable care act's no copay birth control provisions have been fantastic for women. all these women are getting birth control with no copay, and they're getting state-of-the-art really good birth control. the iud, for example, which you have to -- cost like $1,000 if you pay for it yourself, because a lot of insurance companies don't cover it. >> right. >> so now they can get it and it's really great. and in places where young women

have been given in pilot projects the iud -- >> right. >> -- the rate of unplanned pregnancy goes -- just plummets. >> right. >> -- so this is great. and hobby lobby stands in the way of all of this because mr. green decides that the iud and emergency contraception are methods of abortion, and the supreme court in its wisdom decided that the fact that he's wrong doesn't matter, because it's religion. >> and so people get to -- people get to make the decision independent of the law. >> so one man -- >> right. >> so one man gets to decide what thousands of workers get to have. >> but the larger question, though, is that you have red states and blue states. >> yes. >> these are the clorox theory of politics, right, red are reds and blue are blues these days, you know. >> uh-huh. >> but you have states where the affordable care act has not been embraced widely. >> yes. >> and there's not been the same opportunity to opt in or to buy in or to market what is available through it, and so in some respects you have two different countries as far as this issue goes. >> sometimes i feel, yes, the country is becoming sort of

first world and third world, and where will it all end? it will end when people are mad enough in the red states and organized enough and somebody appeals to them politically in a way that they can relate to to turn that around. and of course these voter id laws, which are also happening in the red states, are not going to help. >> so you connect all of it? >> it's all part of the same thing. >> you connect all of this? >> yes. >> is this a conscious conspiracy on behalf of a point of view ideologically or is it more of an incidental instead of just a bunch of things that happen to be happening but they have the net effect? >> well, i don't know about conspiracy, but i would say it's part of a world view that's -- that's coherent, which is i shouldn't have to help anybody else. if you get pregnant, it's your own fault, and you should suffer. women are the problem with what's going on today. and we don't want these uppity women, and these uppity black people and people of color running the country. i think -- i think that's really part of -- i think it's a -- it's a push back.

it's a -- it's a revanchist, you know, reactionary in the true sense of the word, of what the larger modern trend is, which is toward more individual freedom. >> right. >> more secularism. >> for all of the talk of liberty today, liberty is this great totem that we talk about, you know. >> right. >> in fact, you feel like it's going in the opposite direction? >> i think in some places it is going in the opposite directions, yes. >> all right. we'll stop there. katha pollitt. the book is pro. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you so much. >> good to see you. >> thank you so much for having me. >> okay. katha pollitt. [cheers and applause] >> we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, q and as with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. >> i think there's been a turn toward language in a lot of the liberal and the left, and i think it has to do with a sense

of defensiveness that it can -- it turns a discussion into sort of i'm -- i'm -- i'm more virtuous than you. i use the right language. you use the wrong language. >> funding for "overheard" with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation. improving the quality of life within our community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected, and tested. also, by hillco partners. texas government affairs consultancy, and its global healthcare consulting business unit, hillco health. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation, and viewers like you. thank you. like you. thank you. [www.captionsource.com]

garrison keillor: rita dove was the youngest poet laureate of the united states and the first african american. she's published nine books of poetry, a novel, a play, essays and a book of short stories. among her many honors are the pulitzer prize and the national humanities medal. her poems draw on historical and political events, as well as sources close to her own experience, like ballroom dancing. "american smooth." we were dancing-- it must have been a foxtrot or a waz, something romantic but requiring restraint, rise and fall, precise execution as we moved into the next step without stopping, two chests heaving above a seven-league stride-- such perfect agony one learns to smile through, ecstatic mimicry being the sine qua non of american smooth.

and because i was distracted by the effort of keeping my frame (the leftward lean, head turned just enough to gaze out past your ear and always smiling, smiling), i didn't notice how still you'd become until we had done it (for two measures? four?)-- achieved flight, that swift and serene magnificence, before the earth remembered who we were and brought us down. (applause) thank you.