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Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

The Abortionist “Written Out of History” with Jennifer Wright

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

NBCNews

News, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.68.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Content warning: This episode contains occasional explicit sexual references and depictions of graphic events that some may find disturbing. Madame Restell is a figure you’ve likely never heard of. Our guest this week points out that Restell, an abortionist who became one of the most influential and wealthiest women in NYC during the 19th century, has been “deliberately written out of history.” But learning about Restell’s story provides incredible insight into the longstanding and contemporary battles over abortion access in the U.S. Jennifer Wright is a journalist and author of “Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist.” Wright joins WITHpod to discuss Restell’s rise to prominence, the opposition Restell faced from anti-vice crusaders like Anthony Comstock, why she says the U.S. is “heading back not only 50 years, but 150 years” and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just a quick warning here. I want to note that this episode does contain some occasional

0:05.7

explicit sexual references and depictions of some graphic events that some may find disturbing.

0:12.0

People like Horatio Storer who led the Physicians Crusade against abortion beginning in 1857

0:19.9

talked about how it depends on its implied, like Protestant women's loins, who the country

0:26.9

will belong to, will it be populated with our own children or those of aliens? And so

0:32.8

that's the same thing we're seeing now in terms of fears about a great replacement. That

0:38.6

if white women do not keep having babies, then we might see a country that is filled

0:45.4

with more minorities and to some people that is very, very frightening.

0:49.6

Hello and welcome to Wise This Happening With Me, your host Chris Hayes.

1:03.8

I'm speaking to you right now. It's Monday, April 24th. It's a few days after the spring

1:09.2

court officially stayed, or ruling by a Texas federal district judge named Matthew

1:15.3

Kismaric, that would have resulted in Mephyr Pristone, one of the two main medication

1:22.2

abortion drugs, being removed from the shells all over the country. And there's a lot

1:26.2

to say about that case. I mean, first of all, just the preposterousness of the idea of

1:32.1

suing 23 years after something is approved by the FDA and has been used with real-time

1:38.5

actual data for years. Also, the standing analysis that allowed basically, if it were

1:44.2

to go forward, allow any, basically any physician anywhere to sue over any drug on the off-chance

1:51.2

that statistically a person could have a negative reaction to that drug that would then force

1:56.0

them to take care of that person. So the harm is that they would have to care for a person

2:00.7

which has a doctor's what they do. Put all that aside, one of the most fascinating aspects

2:06.5

of the ruling, Matthew Kismaric, and alarming parts of the ruling by that Texas federal

2:11.2

judge, one of the things a plaintiffs are seeking is to make it impossible to send Mephyr

...

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