For this special episode of Call Your Mother, Jordana and Shannon reach out to talk to you. Yes, you — our listeners!
As you’ve probably heard (!!) various state legislatures across the U.S. are attempting to shut down the ability for a pregnant woman to get an abortion after six weeks. (Note: That’s a point at which many people don’t even know that they are pregnant.)
In response to this Handmaid’s Tale-like legislation, the Call Your Mother Team asked you — mothers who are Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jewish-adjacent — to share your experiences with abortion, and so many of you delivered with powerful stories. In this episode, Jordana and Shannon talk to listener Shannon Berkowsky about her choice to have an abortion when her pregnancy was declared unviable well into her second trimester.
They also share and discuss voicemail messages from listeners across the country, in which several women tell their reasons why they had an abortions. (According to the Guttmacher Institute, 59% of women who obtain abortions do so when they are already mothers).
Thank you to every single person who shared her story with us. We heard each and every one, and hope that we did them (and you) justice by sharing just a few of them in this episode. It’s our hope that these stories will challenge and test your empathy muscles — so please listen, subscribe, and tell all your friends to tune into Call Your Mother!
