Hi, Parker here. 👋

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, erasing the nearly 50-year-old precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion. For Lauren Rankin, whose new book, Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America, had just come out months earlier, this meant a flood of media requests and an opportunity to share her views with audiences she might not otherwise reach.

Rankin made a conscious choice not to appear on shows that would frame this as a debate with two equally-valid sides. A few days earlier, Dr. Jennifer Gunter made the same decision. Rankin opted to turn down an appearance on CBC Radio’s The Current (Robin Marty, the operations director at West Alabama Women’s Center and author of The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, appeared on the show that day, instead). [Ed. note, update: I phrased this really weird, and that’s on me. I didn’t intend to make it sound as though Robin Marty happily agreed to debate the issue or anything like that, but rather, to highlight how this exercise in “balance” ends up being sprung on people. Marty elaborated on this on Twitter. Again, my most sincere apologies to her.]

Lauren Rankin @laurenarankin

I’ve gotten a lot of media requests since Friday, so I’ll make this clear: I will not speak on a show that features an anti-abortion perspective counter to my own. Their perspective is grounded in fascist control, white supremacy, and cruelty. I won’t validate that as reasonable.

June 26th 2022

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I respect Rankin’s strategy here for avoiding media appearances determined to frame this as a “debate.” While the issue is being treated that way by politicians and by many in the press, issues of civil rights shouldn’t have to be treated that way. I asked if she would be at all interested in expanding a bit on her tweet, and she was kind enough to agree.

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Without further ado, here’s Lauren:

As soon as I saw that the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Friday morning, I knew what was coming. Within minutes, my inbox was filled with press releases, statements from elected officials, and media requests. Less than three months ago, my book, Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America came out. This story, about the legacy of clinic escorts and everyday volunteers on abortion access, had become more timely than ever.

I fielded multiple interview requests an hour, turning down a lot that I just didn’t have the bandwidth to do. When The Current, a show on CBC Radio in Canada, asked me to come on and discuss how the end of Roe v. Wade would affect patients and the people who serve them, I thought it was a worthwhile opportunity. 

The producer called me for a prep interview, getting a sense of what I could talk about and wanting to know the overarching perspective of my book. We talked for about 15 minutes––I shared facts, anecdotes, research, opinions. At the end, she said that sounded great and she wanted to book me for their show on Monday, June 27. I said great. Then, the other shoe dropped.

She told me that I would be joined by an abortion opponent who would share their perspective, then I would share mine, then it would be a moderated conversation. This wasn’t surprising. It’s extremely common for mainstream media to pit abortion rights supporters and opponents against one another, as if it’s a simple debate of two reasonable sides.

But in the shadow of the loss of Roe, knowing what was already happening in states with trigger laws and abortion bans ready to go into effect, something felt different. 

Opposition to safe and legal abortion isn’t actually a reasonable position. It isn’t grounded in concern for life. It isn’t about nurturing children or creating a just, loving world for the next generation. Opposition to safe and legal abortion is about control. This movement is about violence. This movement is about preserving a white supremacist state.

In the past 30 years, anti-abortion terrorists have murdered 11 abortion providers and clinic staff. Abortion opponents have kidnapped abortion providers, stalked clinic staff and clinic escorts, and even harassed their children at their schools. They staged massive blockades at abortion clinics, bringing hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, to scream at abortion patients, grab them, and traumatize them. They stole fetal remains and kept them in their homes, put them in jars to shove in abortion patients’ faces. This movement, which was born not out of opposition to abortion but opposition to integration in Christian schools, is now championing the end of Roe v. Wade as a victory for “white life.”

This is about more than just a political disagreement. This worldview, one predicated on ending bodily autonomy as a basic right, is fundamentally undemocratic. If I appear as simply the other side of this “political debate” on a radio program, my presence validates that worldview as somehow reasonable. I will not do that. Not anymore.

I’m not afraid to “debate” anyone. But the concept of “debate” positions this issue as reasonable on both sides, and it just isn’t. You can privately oppose abortion and believe that others should have the ability to choose for themselves whether they want one or not. But that isn’t what these folks believe. Abortion opponents believe that a pregnant person should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term no matter what. You don’t want to have a child? Too bad. This pregnancy could endanger your mental health or even your life? Oh well. You were raped? That’s a “gift from God.” 

That’s violence. That’s control. That’s a fundamental disregard for humanity. There is nothing to debate here. One side believes that pregnant people should literally be forced to die to carry a pregnancy to term and one side doesn’t. I’m on the side that doesn’t. I believe that your body is yours, that you deserve to determine what happens to it, that your thoughts and feelings and dreams are vital and worth protecting.

After the call, I wrote an email to the producer:

I’m sorry to do this, but upon further consideration, I’m not able to do this interview. I cannot be a part of a segment that features me alongside someone who opposes human rights in their 

most basic form, framing our two points of view as equal. It is a traumatic and difficult time in this country and I’m unwilling to frame opposition to this right as valid in any way. I apologize but it feels like the right thing to do, and I hope you can understand that. If you’re interested in having a segment that doesn’t pit me against an opponent of basic reproductive freedom, I’m happy to participate. 

I never heard back. That’s fine. They want to continue to uphold the mainstream media narrative that abortion is just two sides duking it out. But in this moment, when so much is at stake, when states have already enacted trigger laws and abortion bans, when clinic staff are calling their patients in tears to tell them that “we’re done,” it’s become more apparent than ever that now is the time to stop validating anti-democratic and fascist movements as somehow “reasonable.” I don’t care if it costs me book sales or speaking gigs or media opportunities. It’s the right thing to do. It’s my body. It’s my choice. And it should be yours, too.

Parker here, again. 👋

Thank you to Lauren Rankin for allowing me the privilege of publishing her thoughts in my newsletter. Please follow her on Twitter, and yes, please, consider buying a copy of Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America.

GIVEAWAY: I’ll purchase one copy of the book to give to a reader in the format of your choice — hardcover, ebook, audiobook — to one commenter. To enter, simply post something in the comments of this post, the ones below. I’ll respond to the winner to figure out the details after Friday at noon ET.