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We look at the political and economic circumstances of the spread of Ebola with science writer Leigh Phillips, who calls for a socialization of pharmaceutical research and production. Phillips says that using revenues from profitable drugs to subsidize research for unprofitable drugs would reduce the costs of vaccines and their development. He also argues the decimation of the healthcare infrastructure is linked to the same free market policies and austerity measures pushed by Western countries and the International Monetary Fund that impoverished the West African countries where the Ebola outbreak has occurred. "We need to begin to ask whether capitalism itself is not pathogenic," says Phillips, whose recent article for Jacobin magazine is "The Political Economy of Ebola."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We bring in Leigh Phillips now into this conversation—Michelle speaking to us from Atlanta. He’s a science writer and European Union affairs journalist. His writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian, Scientific American. His recent piece for Jacobin is headlined "The Political Economy of Ebola." What do you mean by this, "the political economy of Ebola," Leigh Phillips?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: Well, I think we need to look at the political and economic circumstances, particularly around this particular disease both in the United States and Western countries in terms of the funding for research, where that’s coming from, and in terms of austerity in Europe, but also austerity in West Africa, as well. There’s sort of two prongs to this. The first, of course, was that, you know, over the last few months we’ve seen over and over again people from the CDC, senior figures from the WHO, even John Ashton, the head of the U.K. Faculty of Health, who have said, basically, that the knowledge is there, the know-how is there—we have five candidate vaccines, there’s a number of other different treatments that, you know, are well in hand—but there just hasn’t been any buy-in from the major pharmaceutical companies. John Ashton, as I was saying, from the U.K. Faculty of Health, you know, sort of the doctor-in-chief, if you will, in the U.K., described this as "the moral bankruptcy of capitalism." It sounds, you know, quite vituperative there, quite explosive language, but it really expresses the anger that a lot of the researchers feel about how, look, we know what to do here, but this is just an unprofitable disease.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, could you elaborate, Leigh Phillips, on the point that you make in your article about why it is that pharmaceutical companies are more interested in funding medications that people have to take over a long term, rather than investing in one-off medicines like vaccines?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: It’s fairly straightforward, and it’s not—the argument is not that the major pharmaceutical companies are somehow evil or malevolent. This is just the way that the free market works. If Ebola, like many, many other unprofitable diseases, is something that—basically, if we’re going to resolve the situation, we’re going to basically cure it. We’re not going to handle it for the long term. We want something that—some drug or some vaccine or some treatment that people are going to take once, twice, maybe for a short period of time, but then that’s it. We don’t want to be dealing with this for the rest of—somebody doesn’t want to be dealing with this, obviously, for the rest of their lives.
And compare that to the situation with, say, insulin for diabetes or other drugs that people might need to have to take every day for the rest of their lives. Any sort of major pharmaceutical company, if you—they’re trying to decide where they’re going to invest their, you know, roughly, maybe around a billion dollars’ investments into any new drug. Are they going to invest that money in a product that is going to have a very low return on investment or not much of a return on investment at all, or something that is much more likely to have quite a high return on investment? It’s a bit of a no-brainer where they’re going to allocate the bulk of their money.
And so, what we see here is, this is—Ebola, in many cases, is just an example of a wider problem that we have with pharmaceutical research. Antibiotic resistance right now is a very, very frightening situation, where we are facing a sort of 30-year—what’s called in research journals a "discovery void," that is, that pharmaceutical companies have for about three decades now refused to engage in any—the development of any new classes of antibiotic. And we’re really coming towards the edge—the end of the efficacy of the antibiotics that we have in the cabinet at the moment. And we have about five to 20 years left before we see a sort of fairly rampant increase in deaths from bacterial infections.
AMY GOODMAN: Leigh Phillips, I just wanted—
LEIGH PHILLIPS: The bulk of modern medicine—
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to just—Leigh?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: Sorry, yes?
AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to ask—you’re speaking to us from Vancouver, Canada.
LEIGH PHILLIPS: That’s right, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Vancouver, Canada, where you have a public healthcare system.
LEIGH PHILLIPS: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: The piece you wrote is called "Socialize Big Pharma." So can you talk about—I mean, you’re saying that for private drug companies, for these mega-multinational corporations, to invest in a vaccine, for example, for Ebola, doesn’t—is not profitable for them. So what then is the solution? This, of course, is really magnifying this issue on a global stage, how public health systems in the United States and all over have so deteriorated. Can you talk about your point, socializing Big Pharma?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: Absolutely. I think if we look at most Western countries in the postwar period—’40s, '50s and ’60s—most Western countries nationalized their healthcare systems to a greater or lesser degree. And the United States is one of the only sort of countries that hasn't done this yet, but it’s still pretty much—we’re moving—the United States is, even there—is moving in that direction. But this is basically half of the task. The other half of the task is to bring in the pharmaceutical sector into the public sector, for exactly the same reasons, that it is simply too dangerous an issue for this to be left to the vagaries of the profit motive within the market. What we can do is—
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what would that look like?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: —recognizing that this is a market failure. And this is not just some, you know, far-left analysis; this is recognized right across the board, that there is a major market failure within the pharmaceutical sector. The companies themselves recognize this. The solution is one of two things: either a fairly major public intervention to fill that gap or, as I argue, just much more simply is, if we can use the profits from profitable—the revenues from profitable drugs to subsidize the research and development and commercialization of unprofitable diseases, we’re going to, as a society, spend far less to solve this problem anyway. So, that’s the simple calculus there.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Leigh Phillips, another point that you make in your article is that it’s not coincidental that Ebola is affecting some of the poorest countries in the world. So could you talk about some of the collapse of the infrastructure, public infrastructure, in Liberia and in Sierra Leone that has allowed this virus to spread as rapidly as it has? And what contributed to that collapse of public facilities?
LEIGH PHILLIPS: Absolutely. I think that—I mean, one of the really, really frustrating things with this particular issue is how it really demonstrates the—as John Ashton wrote in the U.K., the moral bankruptcy of capitalism, not just on the one end in terms of research, but in West Africa, as well, and in Spain. We see that the same processes, the same free-market-driving ideology that has reduced these countries to real dire poverty. These three countries are some of the most poor countries in the world. And when I say "most poor countries in the world," I mean really right at the bottom of the global league tables. And their public healthcare infrastructure has been utterly decimated, not merely by civil war but by a series of processes that are imposed by Western countries, international financial organizations like the International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund itself recognizes this, because just last week Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, said to West Africa, "Look, now is not the time to be worrying about your spending. Go ahead, increase your spending," and she finished her comments by saying, "We don’t normally say this." Well, this is exactly true. The sort of structural adjustment that has been imposed in these countries, and many other countries, as well, is what is responsible for the decimation of the healthcare infrastructure in these countries.
And we’re seeing it in—in fact, this exact same process is in Spain. The European Union has imposed, you know, since the economic crisis, since the eurozone crisis, a series of absolutely brutal austerity programs in the southern flank—in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal—and in Ireland, as well. Part of the response—the result of this has been, again, a real deterioration of public health infrastructure. Spain has seen basically a quarter of its spending on healthcare cut for the last few years annually. So you see nurses and other medics marching in the streets in Spain—they call them these white ties, because people are wearing their white lab coats—protesting what’s happening with austerity. The hospital where we’ve seen the cases in Spain, their isolation ward was shut down directly as a result of the imposition of austerity by Brussels and the decisions in Madrid.
It is on both ends; both the market failure in terms of pharmaceutical research and the decimation of public healthcare infrastructure, both in West Africa and in Europe, it’s two sides of the same coin. They both put capitalism in the dark here. There’s a friend of mine who’s a phylogeographer, Rob Wallace. He has this wonderful phrase about this, about how pathogens follow inequality and expropriations like water falls—follows cracks in ice. I think that’s absolutely correct. I think we need to begin to ask whether capitalism itself is not pathogenic, whether neoliberalism is not pathogenic.
AMY GOODMAN: Leigh Phillips, we’re going to have to leave it there. We thank you so much. Science writer, European Union affairs journalist, joining us from Vancouver, Canada. We’ll link to your piece in Jacobin headlined "The Political Economy of Ebola" at democracynow.org.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, women’s healthcare here at home. Stay with us.
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As the infections of two Dallas nurses fuel concerns about Ebola in the United States, the death toll in West Africa is approaching 5,000. The World Health Organization has warned there could be up to 10,000 new Ebola cases per week in the coming months, up from the current 1,000. We are joined by Michelle Dynes, a nurse and epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has returned from Sierra Leone. Dynes spent the past several weeks responding to the Ebola epidemic in the country’s Kenema district. "It’s a strange situation to see that much pain and suffering and not be able to provide a hug, or comfort," Dynes says.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Centers for Disease Control Director Thomas Frieden is set to testify before Congress today at a hearing on what U.S. officials are doing to contain the spread of the Ebola virus. This comes as two nurses have been placed in isolation at Emory Hospital in Atlanta after they contracted Ebola in Texas while treating an infected patient who has since died [Correction: The second nurse, Amber Vinson, has been transferred to Emory; the first, Nina Pham, is still being treated in Dallas]. President Obama canceled two days of planned travel to stay at the White House and oversee the government’s response. After meeting with Cabinet officials Wednesday, he called for more aggressive action, while insisting that the risk of an outbreak in the United States is extremely low.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I want to use myself as an example, just so that people have a sense of the science here. I shook hands with, hugged and kissed—not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients. They followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing, and I felt perfectly safe doing so. And so, this is not a situation in which, like a flu, the risks of a rapid spread of the disease are imminent. If we do these protocols properly, if we follow the steps, if we get the information out, then the likelihood of widespread Ebola outbreaks in this country are very, very low.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Concerns about the spread of Ebola in the United States grew after it was reported the second Texas nurse who contracted the deadly disease had boarded a plane the day before she was diagnosed. CDC Director Tom Frieden said Wednesday she should never have stepped foot on the flight. But another official said no one at the agency stopped her, even after she called to report she had an elevated temperature. Today, two schools in Cleveland announced they’ll remain closed because a staff member may have traveled aboard the same plane.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile in West Africa, nearly 5,000 people have died as authorities struggle to contain the outbreak. In Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, police fired tear gas on people who took to the streets to complain that the body of a woman who died from Ebola was left on the street for two days. This comes as a British nurse who has recovered from Ebola after he contracted the disease in Sierra Leone says doctors told him his antibodies now make him immune to the virus for months to come. As a result, Will Pooley said he will return to Sierra Leone to treat more patients.
WILLIAM POOLEY: Because there’s still a lot of work to do out there, and I’m in sort of the same or better position as I was before, when I chose to go out before. So, yeah, it’s the same decision. My exposure was an—as with everyone’s exposure, it was an accident. And yeah, the only—then, something that everyone will be thinking about, going out, all the volunteers that are here tonight will be thinking, it’s just vigilance, really, and just being really cautious.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we go to Atlanta, where we’re joined by Michelle Dynes. She’s a nurse and epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She spent the past several weeks responding to the Ebola epidemic in the Kenema district of Sierra Leone. She just returned to Atlanta.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what you experienced in Sierra Leone?
MICHELLE DYNES: Thank you for having me this morning. I spent about five-and-a-half weeks in Sierra Leone in Kenema district. I was a health promoter for the CDC, working to disseminate key messages about Ebola to support the social mobilization and psychosocial efforts within the district. By the time I arrived in Kenema hospital, over 20 nurses had contracted Ebola and had died at that point. So I immediately realized the importance of supporting the staff who were there, who have been working day in and day out from the very beginning, who needed their own psychosocial counseling in order to move forward in their own care. So I worked with the psychosocial team at Kenema hospital, and we created a space for the health personnel to receive counseling and also for the survivors of Ebola to receive counseling. We also worked in the communities in Kenema district in order to support families who had been quarantined. We actually came upon a woman one day who had lost 10 members of her family, and two of them had died that very morning. You know, it’s a strange situation to see that much pain and suffering and to not be able to provide a hug or comfort in that way. But it’s important in a situation like that that you maintain distance and you just provide counseling and support in other ways.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Michelle Dynes—
MICHELLE DYNES: So the—yes.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sorry, could you explain to some of our viewers here what some of the conditions are under which you were operating in Sierra Leone and what the local medical staff have access to and what they don’t have access to as they try to fight this deadly virus?
MICHELLE DYNES: In the Ebola treatment centers, they have access to personal protective equipment, similar to that which is used in the United States. However, some of the issues that they had was getting supplies into the country due to a reduced number of flights into the country. So getting supplies in was definitely a challenge. They did use personal protective equipment, but there are not enough staff to take care of the Ebola patients. And so, staff oftentimes worked longer hours than they should have, and kept coming day after day, putting their own lives at risk, essentially.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Dynes, you told a story on Dave Isay’s wonderful StoryCorps recently about what happened to a woman who brought her baby into a hospital. Can you describe that story?
MICHELLE DYNES: Shortly before I arrived in Kenema, a woman had come into the treatment center sick with Ebola. And she had brought her baby with her. The mother, unfortunately, tested positive for Ebola, but the baby tested negative. In a situation like that, it’s very, very difficult to know how to move forward with the care of the baby, because we know, as healthcare providers, as public health professionals, that the risk of that baby becoming Ebola-positive is quite high. We know that the Ebola virus is found in breast milk, and that baby was breast-fed. And so, in that situation, the hospital staff chose to keep the baby in their presence so that they could monitor the baby for symptoms of Ebola, especially since the baby had tested negative initially. Unfortunately, over time, the baby did develop Ebola, and those hospital workers had all placed themselves at risk by caring for that baby. It’s the humanitarian side of all of us that reaches out and says, you know, we have to pick up this baby and take care of it, even though you know you’re at risk.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to the nurses and doctors that cared for this baby, cuddled this baby?
MICHELLE DYNES: There were several nurses who contracted Ebola as a result of contact with that baby. And unfortunately, many of them died since that time.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And the baby?
MICHELLE DYNES: Unfortunately, the baby also passed away. You know, Ebola is a very, very difficult disease to treat. We can provide supportive measures, but in many cases the body is unable to mount an effective immune response, and that baby succumbed.
AMY GOODMAN: I am sure many people who are watching this broadcast, Michelle, are—consider you a saint. You went to Sierra Leone when all of these nurses died, not to mention all the—many of the people they treated. How did you protect yourself? You know, right now, there’s two major issues in the world: ISIS—the whole discussion, boots on the ground, boots on the ground; but what about medical boots on the ground when it comes to Ebola, what it would mean if tens of thousands of people like you in this country and around the world provided help and care in places like Sierra Leone and Liberia? But first, how do you protect yourself? And what would that look like if people actually responded in this way?
MICHELLE DYNES: First, I want to make it clear that my role in Sierra Leone was not as a nurse. I was not providing direct care to patients. I was there in a health promotion role, trying to make sure that communities were educated, that healthcare workers were properly trained. So, being at Kenema hospital and in that environment, in general, we did take measures every single day to protect ourselves. There were buckets of chlorine water to wash your hands as you entered pretty much every building in the hospital. We used chlorine wipes to wipe down surfaces, to protect ourselves. There were even roadblocks to prevent people coming in and outside of Kenema city and Kenema district, to make sure that people did not come in or leave with a fever. So, there are many, many ways that we were protecting ourselves. And for those who have considered going to help, those measures will continue. And you are there to help others, but you can’t help others if you yourself become ill.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, this is a clip from a video of a Sierra Leone man that went viral last week about a man whose life was ripped apart by Ebola. Douda Fullah lost his father, his two-year-old brother and his stepmother, who was six months pregnant and miscarried when sick in hospital. In a tearful plea, he called on the global community to do more to stop the spread of the virus.
DOUDA FULLAH: This is a really difficult situation. I am begging that you’ll come to our aid. We are suffering. They don’t come to our aid, we don’t have any hope. There is no hope for us. They really have to explain it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was a man, Douda Fullah, who lost so many members of his family to Ebola. Could you talk about what you think the international community could be doing or should be doing in response to this crisis?
MICHELLE DYNES: The international community is doing a lot. CDC is doing everything it can. We just need to continue these efforts and to step up even more, if that’s possible. We’re sending out teams of epidemiologists, teams of lab specialists, health promotion and health communication specialists, and infection control specialists. And now, moving forward, if new cases occur in the United States, we’re sending out rapid response teams to be there within hours on the ground to make sure that the Ebola is contained, of course, in this country, but as much as possible in West Africa.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, something that’s astounding is Cuba just sent something like 160 health professionals. This is a country of something like 11 million people. Washington Post headline on it was "Cuba Punches Above Its Weight," that they sent that many health professionals to deal with this crisis. Didn’t the CDC put out a call, and something like they’re training a group of eight people? If you look at what’s happened in Texas, the number of people required just to deal with, first, Mr. Duncan, who died, and then the two nurses who went to his aid and they are now sick, the number of people that are dealing with the ramifications of all of this—and this is just three people—how many people are needed to go into these West African countries to help? And I wanted to ask also what your thought is about those in Congress who are calling for, basically, a cordon around these countries, stopping planes from going in and out of these countries, what this would mean. Would, in fact, this actually increase the threat of an Ebola—I mean, there already is an epidemic, but explosion?
MICHELLE DYNES: I think that we need hundreds, if not thousands, of additional support in West Africa to help contain Ebola. Now, this idea of preventing planes from coming in or leaving those countries would lead to even greater difficulties in getting necessary supplies to the places like Kenema hospital, where they’re treating Ebola patients. While I can’t speak for the CDC, I think making broad decisions like that would only hurt the situation even further and reduce the support that these countries are receiving from the international community.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Dynes, we want to thank you very much for being with us, nurse and epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spent the past several weeks responding to the Ebola epidemic in Kenema district of Sierra Leone, recently returned to Atlanta. Final question: If people do want to get involved, if people do want to help, especially health professionals, what way do they have to link in?
MICHELLE DYNES: There are many international nongovernmental organizations that people can get involved. For example, there are WHO volunteers. The Red Cross Societies from around the world are sending in volunteers, and many other organizations, such as MSF, Doctors Without Borders. So I would just recommend that people find the organization that really speaks to them and the type of work and support that they’re providing, and look into those opportunities.
AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Dynes, thanks so much.
MICHELLE DYNES: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: As we bring in Leigh Phillips now into this conversation—Michelle speaking to us from Atlanta.
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Texas abortion clinics shuttered by a recent court ruling have been allowed to reopen after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked part of an anti-choice law that would have required abortion clinics to meet the standards of hospital-style surgery centers. Earlier this month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the rule to take immediate effect, essentially gutting access to abortion overnight. Thirteen clinics were forced to close, leaving just eight in all of Texas. The latest Supreme Court ruling will allow the clinics to continue providing care while the appeals court considers the law. At least eight have reportedly already opened their doors again. Texas previously had more than 40 clinics, but many remain closed under another of the law’s provisions which requires abortion providers to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. In its decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court also blocked that requirement as it applies to two clinics in the isolated communities of El Paso and McAllen. We are joined by Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen, the only abortion clinic open south of San Antonio. It will begin seeing patients again on Friday.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Texas, where abortion clinics shuttered by a court ruling earlier this month have been allowed to reopen. This comes after the Supreme Court blocked part of an anti-choice law Tuesday that would have required abortion clinics to meet the standards of hospital-style surgery centers. It was just two weeks ago that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the rule to go into effect immediately, essentially gutting access to abortion overnight. Thirteen clinics were forced to close, leaving just eight in all of Texas, all of them clustered in four metropolitan areas. The latest move by the Supreme Court will allow the clinics to continue providing care while the appeals court considers the law. At least eight have reportedly already reopened.
AMY GOODMAN: But many Texas clinics still remain closed under another of the law’s provisions, which requires abortion providers to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. In its decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court blocked that requirement, as it applies to two clinics in the isolated communities of El Paso in West Texas and McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley. That will allow Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen to begin providing abortions again after it had closed earlier this month due to the appeals court ruling. It’s the only abortion clinic currently open in the Rio Grande Valley. In fact, it’s the only one south of San Antonio.
For more, Whole Woman’s Health CEO and founder Amy Hagstrom Miller joins us now, actually, from Charlottesville, Virginia. Her clinic in McAllen, Texas, will start seeing patients again tomorrow.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Amy. It’s good to have you back on. Explain what’s happened. Your clinic’s open—that’s when we spoke to you—then it’s closed, then it’s reopened.
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: We’ve had quite a—really, 18 months of what oftentimes feels like whiplash, where we’ve been open, closed, open, closed. And it’s really been a challenge not only for the women in the community to kind of know what they can count on and where they can go to get services, but it’s been challenging for my staff to really have such an unstable kind of environment in which to answer, you know, the questions from women in the community about where they can go and what care they can get. So, we were open in McAllen, and then we closed in March, and then we were able to reopen once we got that injunction. But it was just for a month. And now we’re reopened again. We’re starting to schedule patients again tomorrow. And so, we’re hopeful that this injunction will protect us and the court will recognize the undue burden that women in the valley are facing.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Amy, could you also talk about your response to the Supreme Court decision when you initially heard?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: Yeah, it was, you know, one of the first times, I think, in the last 18 months that I really kind of let out a little shout of joy. It was surprising, mainly surprising because both Kennedy and Roberts ruled in our favor. And I think, in our case, we really clearly demonstrated that this law has nothing to do with, you know, anything medical based on medical facts, that there’s politics involved here, and that the admitting privileges and the ambulatory surgical center requirements simply combined together to really close clinics down, and that access to safe, compassionate abortion care improves the lives and the health of women all over the state. And so, I’m encouraged that we’ve gotten this injunction from the Supreme Court, and I’m encouraged that it will protect us for a while so we can be available to the women in the state.
AMY GOODMAN: In a memo to the Supreme Court defending the anti-choice law, the Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, who’s running for governor, and his colleagues wrote, quote, "It is undisputed that the vast majority of Texas residents (more than 83%) still live within comfortable driving distance (150 miles) of an HB2-compliant abortion provider," unquote. For those in more remote areas, Abbott wrote, "abortion can be accessed by driving approximately 230-250 miles—an inconvenience, but still a manageable one." Again, Abbott is running for governor against Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who opposed the anti-choice bill in an 11-hour filibuster last summer. Amy Hagstrom Miller, your response?
AMY HAGSTROM MILLER: You know, I think there’s over one million women of reproductive age who live more than 250 miles from a clinic. Texas is a very large state both by population and by geography. And so, for him to sort of swipe those women under the rug as though they don’t matter is really telling to how he’s going to approach the governing of women in rural areas in the community, women who are left behind without healthcare coverage, and women who really need our advocacy the most.
AMY GOODMAN: Amy Hagstrom Miller, we want to thank you for being with us, joining us from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. She’s been working in abortion care since '89. She's the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health.
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We look at a book out this week that offers a new vision for the pro-choice movement. In "Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights," Nation columnist Katha Pollitt dissects the logic behind the hundreds of abortion restrictions enacted over the past few years and shows that, at their core, they are not about safety, but about controlling women. In order to reverse the tide of eroding access, Pollitt concludes, the pro-choice movement must end the "awfulization" of abortion. She writes, "I want us to start thinking of abortion as a positive social good and saying this out loud."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, as we turn now to our next guest. We continue to discuss the crisis in abortion access as we turn to a new book that offers a new vision for the pro-choice movement. It’s called Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. We’re joined by Katha Pollitt.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Why "Pro"?
KATHA POLLITT: Well, I chose that title because I wanted to make a positive case for abortion rights, as opposed to the negative case of "if abortion is illegal, women will die"—which is true. I wanted to talk about how abortion is part of what makes it possible for women to have a decent, reasonable life in which they have children when they’re ready to have them, and it’s good for everybody. It’s good for children to be wanted and to be well timed, and it’s good for men, too. We forget that. But when you have women having random—expected to have random children with random people, just because a stray sperm gets in their womb, this is not good for anybody.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Katha Pollitt, you say that you’ve addressed the book to those who are in the middle of the abortion debate here in the United States and, as you say, millions of Americans, more than half, who don’t want to ban abortion exactly, but don’t want it to be widely available, either. How do you explain that kind of middle space?
KATHA POLLITT: Well, I think abortion is very stigmatized. And it’s connected with ideas about women and sex, like you can have an abortion if you’ve been raped, but if you’ve had voluntary sex, too bad. You know, a lot of people feel that way. And most abortion in the United States is for social, economic and personal reasons. It’s not for the really hard cases. About maybe 10 percent is for rape and incest and medical catastrophes for the mother or the fetus. But most of it is because the woman is—she’s in school, she doesn’t have any money, she doesn’t have a partner, and she doesn’t want to be a single mother, and—you know, and reasons like that. But those reasons, which basically say this should be a woman’s decision, because having children when you want to have children is very important to women’s lives, that, I think, is a harder message for middle-of-the-road people to take in.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to continue to talk with Katha Pollitt about abortion as a moral right after this.
[break]
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Last year, Planned Parenthood announced it was moving away from the term "pro-choice." It launched a campaign called "Not in Her Shoes" with this video message. While we wait for that SOT to come up, I’d like to ask you about your position on that, the language that’s been used in this debate in the U.S. They say, you know, "pro-choice," "anti-choice," as opposed to "pro-life," which is what most people who are opposed to abortion call the term.
KATHA POLLITT: Well, in my book, I don’t use the term "pro-life."
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Right, exactly.
KATHA POLLITT: And I explain why I made that decision, which is, I think it’s a propagandistic word. They’re not pro-life. They’re anti-abortion. It’s a rare pro-lifer who is against the death penalty, who’s against all war, who favors, you know, all the things people need to flourish and stay healthy in life. They’ve tied themselves to the Republican Party, which doesn’t support any of that. So, I use the term "opponents of abortion," awkward as that is, and sometimes I use the term "anti-choice," although I tried not to do that.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Why did you not use that word?
KATHA POLLITT: I can’t remember why exactly. I think it is a term they find so offensive, and I didn’t want to sort of provide them with a hot-button issue. I wanted it to be sort of fair. And I think "pro-choice" is a fair term.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to that Planned Parenthood clip that we have ready now, "Not in Her Shoes."
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AD: Most things in life aren’t simple, and that includes abortion. It’s personal. It can be complicated. And for many people, it’s not a black-and-white issue. So why do people try to label it like it is? "Pro-choice"? "Pro-life"? The truth is, these labels limit the conversation and simply don’t reflect how people actually feel about abortion. A majority of Americans believe abortion should remain safe and legal. Many just don’t use the words "pro-choice." They don’t necessarily identify as "pro-life" either. Truth is, they just don’t want to be labeled.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the "Not in Her Shoes" campaign of Planned Parenthood. Katha Pollitt, your response?
KATHA POLLITT: Well, I don’t—I’m not able to speak to whether people identify with labels or not, but I would say that when you say things are—it’s not black and white, it’s gray, and all like this, what you’re really—you’re putting it on the wrong footing, because it is black and white. What the right should be is a black-and-white issue. How people feel about it is something entirely different, it seems to me. And people can have all kinds of feelings about abortion. They can think, "My abortion really saved my life," "My abortion made me sad," "Someone else’s abortion makes me angry." But what the law should be is not to be decided by individuals’ feelings about it. This is a question of rights.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about your own mother in the book.
KATHA POLLITT: Yes. My mother had an illegal abortion in 1960, which was the year the birth control pill came out, but I guess a little late for her, but—and I never knew. I found out when my father, after her death, got her FBI file. And that—
AMY GOODMAN: Her FBI file.
KATHA POLLITT: Yes, and this tells you something about illegal abortion. The FBI knew. You know, isn’t that kind of amazing? They knew that she—you know, what was going on with her gynecologically. That’s a kind of scary thought. So, you know, not only did my mother have an abortion, my great-grandmother had an abortion, and this was during World War I back in Russia. And I think in the book I say she had had eight children by then, but my cousin tells me it was nine children. So this tells you how embedded in women’s reproductive lives is abortion. It goes back 4,000 years, anthropologists tell us. It is not some newfangled innovation that came in after Roe v. Wade.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, earlier this year, Emily Letts, an abortion counselor at a clinic in New Jersey, filmed her own abortion and posted it online. In the video, which went viral, she explained her reasons for wanting to share her story publicly.
EMILY LETTS: I feel like I talk to women all the time, and they’re like, "Of course everyone feels bad about this. Of course every woman is going to feel guilty," as if it’s a given how people should feel about this, that what they’re doing is wrong. I don’t feel like a bad person. I don’t feel sad. I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby, I can make a life. I knew that what I was going to do is right, because it was right for me and no one else.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s Emily Letts, who filmed her own abortion and posted it online. Katha Pollitt, you talk about the stigmatization of abortion leading to the criminalization of abortion. Could you elaborate on that?
KATHA POLLITT: Yeah, well, I want to just point out that my great-grandmother died of that abortion. That’s a sort of important piece of the story. And that’s what happens when abortion is illegal and you don’t get good medical care.
About the stigmatization of abortion, I feel that when we talk about abortion—"it should be safe, legal and rare," which is how Hillary Clinton put it and how the Democratic Party often frames it, and/or "it’s the most difficult decision a woman makes," you know, "it’s also terrible and agonizing"— you’re kind of conceding a lot to the people who say, "Yes, it is a terrible decision, it should be rare, let’s make it illegal, let’s make it really hard to get." It’s very hard to say, "Here’s this terrible thing you’re going to do, so we have to keep it legal, so you won’t do it illegally." That’s not a ringing cry that will rally people to the truth, which is: Abortion is a part of reproductive life, women’s reproductive lives. One in three American women will have an abortion by menopause. Sixty percent are already mothers. You know, so this picture we have of it’s the slutty teenager, it’s the cold-hearted, child-hating career woman, this is completely false. That’s not the typical abortion patient.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s sort of the point of Obvious Child, the feature film that’s out.
KATHA POLLITT: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: But I wanted to ask you about reproductive justice, a framework—
KATHA POLLITT: Yes, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —founded by women of color, which uses the lens of human rights to look at the right to parent and raise children in a healthy environment, as well as the right to abortion. This is longtime activist Loretta Ross talking about reproductive justice in an interview for the PBS series Makers.
LORETTA ROSS: We kind of spliced reproductive rights and social justice together to come up with the term "reproductive justice," which was a human rights way of looking at the totality of women’s life, so that that question of "Will I keep my job if I become pregnant or decide to become a mother?" is not irrelevant anymore, or "Do I have healthcare?" is not irrelevant anymore to the abortion decision.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Loretta Justice [sic], the Atlanta, Georgia, activist—rather, Loretta Ross. Talk about reproductive justice.
KATHA POLLITT: Well, I think reproductive justice is great. I wish it had a few fewer syllables. You know, "I’m pro-reproductive justice" is a little awkward. But it’s exactly right. It’s that the abortion decision is made in a social context, and the childbearing decision is also made in a social context. And we should have a society where a woman who doesn’t want to stay pregnant can do that, and a woman who wants to have a baby and raise that baby well can do that, too. You know, we—it’s like what we do in this society is we say, "Oh, you’re pregnant; you have to have a baby. Oh, you have a baby; well, screw you. You know, why did you do that?" And we do so little to help mothers and children and families in this society. We don’t even have paid maternity leave. So, women are really left to carry, often alone, the tremendous burden of producing and raising the next generation. Well, what kind of a society does that? That’s really crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with our last headline today about Anita Sarkeesian, who’s been forced to cancel a planned talk in Utah—
KATHA POLLITT: So shocking.
AMY GOODMAN: —after threats of a shooting massacre. She was deeply concerned that the university would not ban people from the talk carrying in guns. How safe do you think women are in this country now expressing their views around equality and reproductive rights?
KATHA POLLITT: Well, I think that there are risks. We see that with this whole "Gamergate" thing. That’s the most obvious way right now. But look, the anti-abortion people have killed people. Now, they killed doctors and healthcare providers, but, you know, it’s been tremendously discouraging to the whole abortion community to think, "Yes, if I perform this necessary service that women want and need, I could be murdered." That’s what we’ve come to in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Katha Pollitt, we want to thank you for being with us. Her new book is called Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, as she sets off for her tour around the country to talk about these issues.
Well, on Monday, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González speaks in Columbus at Ohio State University at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, I’ll be in Purchase, New York, speaking at Manhattanville College at 7:00 p.m. You can check our website for details.
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CDC Allowed Dallas Nurse Aboard Flight Before Ebola Diagnosis
Concerns about Ebola in the United States have grown after the second Texas nurse who contracted the virus reported the Centers for Disease Control had allowed her to board a plane from Ohio to Texas the day before she was diagnosed. The nurse, Amber Vinson, had called the CDC complaining of symptoms, but an official gave her the OK to fly. Two schools in Cleveland will remain closed today because a staff member may have traveled aboard the same plane. On Wednesday, Vinson was transferred to an isolation unit at Emory Hospital in Atlanta.
Head of Dallas Hospital Set to Apologize for Ebola Handling
President Obama has canceled two days of planned travel to stay at the White House and oversee the government’s response. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden is set to testify before Congress today at a hearing on what U.S. officials are doing to contain the spread of the Ebola virus. The head of Texas Health Presbyterian, the Dallas hospital where the two nurses were infected and Thomas Eric Duncan died, is also expected to testify and issue an apology.
Official Death Toll from Ebola Nears 5,000 in West Africa
In West Africa, nearly 5,000 people have died as authorities struggle to contain the outbreak. In Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown, police fired tear gas on people who took to the streets to complain that the body of a woman who died from Ebola was left on the street for two days.
Pentagon: Hundreds of ISIS Fighters Killed in U.S.-Led Strikes
The Pentagon says hundreds of Islamic State fighters have been killed in intensifying U.S.-led airstrikes on the Syrian town of Kobani. Rear Admiral John Kirby made the claim on Wednesday.
Rear Admiral John Kirby: "One of the reasons why you’re seeing more strikes there is because there’s more ISIL there. We believe, and it’s hard to give an exact number, but we believe that we have killed several hundred ISIL fighters, again, in and around Kobani."
U.S.-Led Coalition Hits Kobani Area with Most Strikes of Syria Campaign
The U.S.-led coalition has been hitting the area around Kobani with the highest number of strikes since launching the bombing campaign in Syria more than three weeks ago. It remains unclear if the strikes will stop ISIS fighters from capturing the mainly Kurdish town. ISIS has seized about half of Kobani, and the United Nations has warned of a massacre if they take full control. The strikes come days after the Obama administration appeared to distance itself from defending Kobani, saying it was not a "strategic objective." Speaking at the State Department, Special Envoy Gen. John Allen said the United States is focused on providing humanitarian aid there, while stopping the ISIS advance in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Gen. John Allen: "We’re actually focusing, obviously, around Kobani, providing airstrikes to provide humanitarian assistance and relief there, obviously, to give some time to the fighters to organize on the ground. But in the Anbar province, our hope is to stop or halt that tactical initiative and momentum that they have there."
Envoy: U.S. to Build New Syrian Rebel Force Outside of FSA
In his comments, Special Envoy Gen. John Allen says the United States has abandoned training existing units of the rebel Free Syrian Army, in favor of building out a new rebel force.
Gen. John Allen: "It’s not going to happen immediately. We’re working to establish the training sites now, and we’ll ultimately go through a vetting process and begin to bring the trainers and the fighters in to begin to build that force out."
Allen says there has been "no formal coordination" with the FSA during the U.S.-led bombing of Syria.
CIA Study Warned of U.S. Failures in Propping Up Rebel Forces
Comments by Special Envoy Gen. John Allen follow the leak of a CIA study that said previous U.S. efforts to arm and train rebel groups have mostly failed. President Obama first commissioned the study in 2012 as he weighed arming Syrian rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The findings fueled White House skepticism about backing the rebels, but Obama went ahead with training efforts that have recently expanded to Saudi Arabia. Although the CIA found most U.S. attempts to prop up insurgent forces failed in countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, there was one exception: the mujahideen rebels who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Its members would go on to form the core of al-Qaeda.
U.N.: Funding Shortfall Forces Cut to Afghan Food Aid
The United Nations says a lack of funding has forced the cutting of food rations for up to one million people in Afghanistan. The World Food Program director for Afghanistan, Claude Jibidar, said a focus on other global crises has led to a shortfall.
Claude Jibidar: "The world context has become very complicated with a lot of emergencies. Just to name a few: the needs for Ebola, what’s happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Central African Republic, in Sudan. I mean, all of those emergencies of course are all having a toll on the capacity of the donors to provide Afghanistan and Afghanistan people with all they need."
The cuts mean food rations will be reduced from 2,100 calories per day to around 1,500. Most of them are distributed to the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Arkansas Supreme Court Overturns Voter ID Law
The Arkansas Supreme Court has struck down the state’s voter ID law days before early voting is set to begin. The court ruled that requiring a voter to present photo identification is unconstitutional. State lawmakers approved the measure last year by overriding a veto from Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe.
$4.6 Million Awarded to Family of Homeless Pastor Who Died After Denver Police Beating
A federal jury has awarded $4.6 million to the family of a homeless preacher who died after suffering police brutality. Witnesses to the 2010 incident say Marvin Booker was forcibly restrained, tasered and then placed face down in a holding cell. He was pronounced dead hours later in what the coroner ruled a homicide. Booker’s family won the federal lawsuit against the city of Denver and five of the officers involved.
Wrongfully Convicted Prisoner Championed by "Hurricane" Carter Freed After 29 Years
A New York prisoner has been freed after 29 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. David McCallum, who is African-American, was ordered released on Wednesday after prosecutors said he had falsely confessed at the age of 16. McCallum and another man, the late Willie Stuckey, were convicted of a 1985 kidnapping and murder. No evidence tied them to the crime except their confessions, which prosecutors now say were likely coerced. Recent DNA and fingerprint testing has tied others to the stolen vehicle involved. Stuckey died in 2001 behind bars. In his first comments as a free man, McCallum called the moment bittersweet because Stuckey was not walking out of the courtroom by his side.
David McCallum: "I’m feeling like I want to go home, finally, after 29 years. Of course, this is a bittersweet moment because I’m walking out alone. There was someone else who was supposed to be walking out with me, but unfortunately he’s not, and that’s Willie Stuckey."
Reporter: "How do you feel having lost three decades of your life for something you didn’t do?"
David McCallum: "I’ve had a long time to think about that, unfortunately. But at the same time I think I’m mature enough to understand that I can’t get that back, and I won’t even attempt to get that back. I think my life kind of starts form this point on."
McCallum says he plans to become an advocate for the wrongfully convicted. In doing so, he would continue the legacy of another wrongfully convicted prisoner who himself championed McCallum’s case — the late boxer and activist Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Carter was involved McCallum’s case for a decade before his death earlier this year. In an article weeks before his passing, Carter said his "final wish" was for a new look at McCallum’s conviction.
Feminist Critic Cancels Utah Lecture After Threat of Shooting Massacre
The feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian has been forced to cancel a planned lecture in Utah after threats of a shooting massacre. Sarkeesian has long faced bomb, death and rape threats from online harassers opposed to her critiques of sexism in video games. This week, Sarkeesian was scheduled to give a lecture at Utah State University when the university received an email threatening to carry out "the deadliest shooting in American history" at the event. The email sender wrote "feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge." He used the moniker Mark Lepine, the name of a man who killed 14 women in a mass shooting in Montreal in 1989. Sarkeesian canceled the talk after being told that under Utah law, police could not prevent people from bringing guns. A university spokesperson told the Standard-Examiner newspaper the school had determined it was safe for Sarkeesian to speak because: "The threat we received is not out of the norm for (this woman)."
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