Culture & Abortion - Part 2 - The Stories We Tell About Abortion

Send us Fan Mail Culture & Abortion, Part 2: The Stories We Tell About Abortion The stories we encounter about abortion help shape what we believe is normal, what we question, and what we feel comfortable talking about. In the second instalment of Choice Chat’s Culture & Abortion series, host AJ Ware is joined by Canadian writer, performer, and podcaster Rachel Cairns to explore how abortion is represented through film, television, theatre, podcasts, and personal storytelling — and what happens when those stories fail to reflect the complexity of people’s actual lives. Rachel is the creator of the stage show Hypothetical Baby and the podcast Aborsh. Drawing on her own abortion experience and her work as an artist, she discusses the power of humour, irreverence, and honest storytelling to challenge stigma and make room for experiences that are often missing from mainstream portrayals. The conversation also looks at the influence of American abortion narratives on Canadian culture, whose stories are most often represented, and how abortion intersects with parenthood, economics, housing, class, privilege, public health care, and reproductive justice. At the heart of the episode is a simple idea: there is no single abortion story. Abortion can involve certainty and sadness, relief and reflection, humour and complexity — sometimes all at once. By telling more of these stories, and telling them honestly, we can broaden our understanding of abortion as part of ordinary human experience. Because the stories we tell do more than reflect culture. They help create it. Aborsh podcast  https://www.aborsh.com/ Hypothetical Baby https://www.rachelcairns.ca/hypothetical-baby The Turnaway Study https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study from Advancing new standards in reproductive health – University of California San Francisco  Abortion in Film and TV.  https://www.ansirh.org/abortion/abortion-tv-and-film Nora Loreto – Take Back the Fight – Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/books/take-back-the-fight?srsltid=AfmBOoqVSxPCHtYm-oaybyt9fnSlSFz5JleTuBBb-GYjck0LqQoJUTez Thanks for listening to Choice Chat, a Humanist Canada podcast about choice, dignity, and reproductive justice. We’re glad you’re here. Do you have a story to share? Do you want to suggest a topic? Email us at [email protected] or connect with us on social media. We look forward to hearing from you.  https://www.instagram.com/choicechatpod/?next=%2F https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580799207960