The Shaky Future of Women’s Reproductive Health with Dr. Natalie Crawford

Jen: Welcome to the show. We are doing a couple of fun new things on the show. I am bringing in a partner to the pod and it’s my very long-time friend Amy who is now joining me as we kick off these awesome episodes.

Amy: Good day. 

Jen: Good day to you. Listen, I’m not even joking right now. You guys, if you missed our first joint episode, go back and listen to it and you’ll get to know Amy a little bit more. You will certainly learn more about her as these joint episodes roll out. The last time Amy and I partnered up on an episode, it was with Doctor Bessel Van Der Kolk, who wrote The Body Keeps the Score. That was one of our most downloaded episodes of all time. Then in addition to discussing that particular episode, we discussed Amy and I’s origin story that I had forgotten, in which I tore up one of her pieces of property. Anyway, I’m just saying, don’t miss that episode. Okay. Hi, how are you? 

Amy: I’m well today. How are you? 

Jen: I’m so good. Let’s start with this little question that I always make my kids say, Do you have a hi this week? What is your high note from the week? 

Amy: I do. Clearly. I don’t have to think about it this time. We went to Fort Worth. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: To celebrate three kids that we’re launching this year. 

Jen: Thank you Lord for the kids that launch. 

Amy: It’s just so good to be together in the same room and to hear them being excited about what they’re doing next. Out of eight families, I think we’ve now graduated 13 kids. 

Jen: Oh my gosh. 

Amy: We have nine to go. 

Jen: Wait, I need to process that sentence again. Say it again.

Amy: Out of eight families. 

Jen: Listen, there’s so much you guys need to know about Amy, that there’s just an impossible way for us to upload all this into your ears at once. But when she says of eight families, I think what she means is her particular crew of granola, outdoorsy, people who go on trips and stay in tents. Is this correct?

Amy: This is correct. One is my sister. Everyone else came from the climbing gym culture. 

Jen: Okay, see, I knew it.

Amy: To be fair, I’m not athletic and I do not climb. 

Jen: Okay, well, you’re right. 

Amy: There are maybe two moms in the group who choose to sit in hammocks, read books, and manage snacks. Everyone else is super abstract. 

Jen: They have gear 

Amy: So much gear. 

Jen: So much gear. 

Amy: So for ten years, we have been vacationing together. Going to national parks. 

Jen: I don’t know if I want to say vacationing. That’s not the word I choose about your trips. 

Amy: They’re trips. I guess a vacation is something relaxing?

Jen: That’s right and people will make your food and bring it to you or you sleep in a bed, for example. These are things that I say are qualities of a vacation. On your trips, you sleep in tents, you make your own food and literally drive it to Colorado or wherever the hell you are “vacationing.” and people exert themselves all day long walking up mountains. 

Amy: This is all true. So these are the eight families and we have launched 13 kids now.

Jen: That’s pretty awesome. 

Amy: Surely there’s a trophy? Maybe we should start making personalized t-shirts for every kid we launch because we do that for our vacations. I’m sorry, our trips. 

Jen: Your exercise trips. 

Amy: Yes. We have matching shirts for all of them. 

Jen: That is pretty awesome. Something worth noting for my community here who are getting to know you episode by episode, is that you have four sons, and they are like this because you’ve made them this way. By You, I mean Brad, your husband. 

Amy: Yes. 

Jen: I want to talk about Brad for a second. This is important. We’re gonna talk about Brad a lot which he would hate by the way. 

Amy: I’ll just ask him not to listen. 

Jen: Not that he would listen, but he would hate this. Brad is a person who climbs a lot of mountains. If he is dripping wet and wearing a soggy wool sweater, I think he weighs 135 pounds. 

Amy: You’re not far off. 

Jen: I know and I don’t know a person on the planet Earth that doesn’t love Brad Hardin and you married him? 

Amy: I did. 

Jen: So now your “vacations” are to repel down said mountains or whatever it is that you do. You know what I don’t understand your life. 

Amy: No and to be fair, I had no idea I would enjoy any of this. I just agreed sort of like how you asked me to podcast with you. I just agreed 

Jen: Right. 

Amy: It turns out. I love nature. 

Jen: You do which tracks. It tracks with the way that you are in the world. You are very holistic.

Amy: The difference is, I love nature in a gentle way. And my family… 

Jen: They like to conquer nature. 

Amy: They do and I tried to keep up for years and years. Then maybe two years ago, I realized I could say no thank you to that eight-mile hike. I could stay at camp and read a book and so that’s what I do now. 

Jen: Everybody just lets you do that because you bring so much food. 

Amy: Nobody ever made me do any of it. I just wanted to be part of the team. But, as it turns out I can just stay back, and it’s better for everybody. 

Jen: Okay. So, anyway, let me tell you what we’re getting into today. Since the ongoing trend of rolling back women’s rights with sort of the anchor being the repeal of Roe v. Wade, I knew that we needed to have this conversation. So before I re-introduce our guest today who is so stunning around this topic that I sought her out. I was listening to her, learning from her, and following her, and went to her and said, would you please consider coming on the show? I want to talk to you, Amy, first about this topic in general, knowing that this is a charged, historical, layered, conversation, which is why I’m grateful to put this episode back into your hands because I think you’ll find it a wonderful place to sort of listen and learn. I wonder what you, Amy, think about what’s going on right now as we watch women’s autonomy be rolled back bit by bit. 

Amy: I think that thing that is most shocking is that at this point is the intentional ignorance around women’s health. The information is out there. There are people like Doctor Crawford who are working so hard to put it in layman’s terms. You do not need a medical degree, but you do need to do your homework. So if your goal for a legislative session is to pass a law that has to do with women’s health care, you should educate yourself on the reproductive system. 

Jen: Sure like some basic, terms. 

Amy: Yeah and if you’re not and you’re trying to pass laws that’s harming. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: If you know and you’re still passing these laws, that’s diabolical. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: I think what is most concerning are all of the unintended consequences. There are lifesaving procedures that an emergency room or a doctor should legally be able to perform but they’re all hesitating and they’re delaying care due to the legislation in our state and the result for a lot of women is then future infertility. 

Jen: That’s exactly right. 

Amy: What is the goal here? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think it’s so hard to talk about this topic. I think all of our own trauma around pregnancy loss, infertility, and honestly our trauma from decades now of campaigns makes it hard for us to talk about our actual feelings. Is this fear? Is it anger? Is it disgust? What is it? If we can’t even name the feelings we’re having how can we get through this and have the actual conversation? 

Jen: Totally. One thing that Doctor Crawford says in this episode that is powerful is that pregnancy is not health-neutral. Meaning at no point is a pregnancy just inevitably going to proceed with the delivery of a healthy baby without intervention. It is not health-neutral. A million things can and do go wrong. So, the way you and I were both raised was that, the idea of abortion was always attached to morality. It was attached to the idea of just ending an unwanted pregnancy out of convenience. The truth is, and we talk about this in this episode a lot, that this is maternal healthcare. There is a reason why maternal deaths in birth and pregnancy are still one of the leading causes of death in the world. If you do not have comprehensive health care, doctors are not at liberty to perform medical care. So we’re rolling back to that. This is way beyond just a very polarized idea of right or wrong, convenient or inconvenient. We discussed that too. To your point, Amy, this conversation is so hard to have because the pushback is so immediate and it’s so emotionally charged because we bring our own stories, our own trauma our own ideologies, and even our own programming to the table. It just makes it so challenging which is why we wanted to have it over here in a long-form space. You and I both know this is a this is a challenging conversation to host, but it’s so important. It’s important because what’s going to happen and what is already happening is that women and children will die and women’s fertility journeys will come to an end. Since we originally aired this episode, I very much expect to see the next wave of this being a repeal of birth control and other measures aimed at controlling women’s bodies. 

Amy: There’s already been a rollback in some states on IUDs. It didn’t pass but still it’s a goal. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: Honestly, my inside thought on this is if the goal is to completely prevent unintended pregnancy, and therefore, reduce abortions. Why is no one floating the idea of mandatory vasectomies at age 15? 

Jen: You can reverse that later when you’re ready to be a parent. 

Amy: Right? It’s a much simpler procedure than anything related to pregnancy. 

Jen: I think we both know the answer to that. 

Amy: It’s never floated. 

Jen: And it never will. 

 Amy: It would be a gross overstep of the law. It would violate people’s rights. 

Jen: That’s right. 

Jen: Right. If you held them up as comparative. It would be well, if we’re going to do this, then we should also at least consider this. It would be an outrageous conversation to broach.

Amy: Which means that the conversation isn’t really about preventing unintended pregnancies. 

Jen: Well, especially not if we are beginning to see the repeal of birth control. 

Jen: Going back to actually understanding the body and how it works if you look at the outcroppings and you realize that all of these ancillary conversations and measures are also reliable measures to prevent unwanted pregnancies. What are we actually doing here? 

Amy: Right. It’s an honest question. 

Jen: What are we doing here? What do we actually care about? What’s at the heart of the agenda here? So I love having my guest on today because she’s a fertility specialist. She cares about the lives of babies. This is her job to help people get pregnant. She’s so thoughtful. This is just science. This is just facts. This is just data. As mentioned several times, I’ve got a guest on today and her name is Doctor Natalie Crawford. She’s brilliant. She very sensitively approaches all the repercussions, emotional and physical, of not having a safe way for a woman to terminate a pregnancy at any point. I believe that women deserve agency of choice and if your religious beliefs say this is not a choice for you, that is absolutely to be honored that is your right to believe that. I just believe that right ends at your body, at your pregnancy, at your family, at your future. That should not become legislation. The law should not come between a woman and her body, her choice her doctor, and her family. This is alot. What are your thoughts as a person of spiritual, political, and ideological evolution? 

Amy: We are on the same page in a lot of ways. I absolutely understand why people are personally against ending a viable pregnancy. I completely agree with that in a personal way that has nothing to do with the law. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: I do have hope for the next generation who is learning to talk about harder things. 

Jen: Yeah. That’s true.

Amy: They are using better emotional language around it. I think a lot of our generation is trying hard to not be so puritanical in our language. 

Jen: Our generation is rigid around a conversation that is not rigid at all. 

Amy: Right. Most of us were not taught to speak freely about sex and reproduction in our homes but that needle is moving. Now, my kids see this issue as part of women’s health care. 

Jen: Yeah.

Amy: So it’s easier to have those conversations with them. However, I also really struggle to talk about it with people who have really strong personal beliefs and think those beliefs should be legislated. It’s a difficult conversation to get through, but I think the more people talk about their individual experiences, the more women say I’ve had a pregnancy loss, and afterward, I had to take these drugs or have this procedure so that I didn’t lose my own life or so I could have kids in the future. The more that’s discussed, the more we understand and the next generation understands that these are medical procedures. These are medications that still need to be used in order to protect women, protect women and their health. 

Jen: Yeah, exactly. 

Amy: I think it’s always going to be hard. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: But it’s worth trying to keep talking about. Jen: I agree. I think it’s worth talking about. I think it is worth. Talking about in longer form, where we’re not throwing zingers across the aisle. Rather we’re saying, “Let’s just pull up chairs to the table and discuss the actual ramifications and talk to real people, real doctors, real women, with the desire to listen and to learn. I think that’s how we move forward. I think that’s how we’ve always moved forward in any supercharged conversation. This one is particularly hard to engage but what I’m thrilled about is putting this in front of you because this is one to really learn from and listen to and consider. This isn’t about scoring culture points or whatever, rather this is about the autonomy, the agency, the independence, the freedom, and the health of women. So I am I’m so glad to bring you, and I look forward to hearing your responses to this episode with the very wise and also very compassionate Dr. Natalie Crawford.