Transcript 

Ash Williams

When I think about folks who have a need for competent, free, gender-affirming care before, during, and after abortion, I think about the work that abortion doulas do. And I think about the gaps in the medical industrial system and medicalized abortion care. From here abortion doulas fill a vital need in communities. And without us, many people will go without critical life-saving healthcare.

Josie Pickens

Welcome to the final episode of season two of The upEND Podcast. Today, we’re diving into an essential conversation at the intersection of reproductive justice and family policing abolition. To help us explore this critical topic, we are joined by Ash Williams. As we close this season, we’re focusing on reproductive justice and abortion rights because upEND’s mission towards abolition is deeply rooted in a reproductive justice lens.

The fight for reproductive justice and the movement to abolish family policing are inextricably tied. Both movements focus on bodily autonomy and our human right to keep ourselves and our children safe from oppressive systems. As we welcome Ash, Jaison will share a bit about him and his work.

Jaison Oliver

Ash Williams is a Black trans abortion doula, storyteller, community organizer, and public intellectual from Fayetteville, North Carolina. We were fortunate to have him with us during our 2023 convening. Welcome Ash, it’s good to see you again.

Ash Williams

Thank you for having me.

Jaison Oliver

Can you start by sharing just a little bit about yourself and your journey into becoming an abortion doula and abolition-centered community organizer?

Ash Williams

Absolutely. So my journey towards becoming an abortion doula kind of started by my need to have two abortions. I needed to have these abortions and I realized that I wasn’t adequately going to be supported by my close friends, by people in the community. And definitely I didn’t feel that I would be supported by my bio family.

And so I reached out to people in my kind of larger network, like my chosen family and other folks that I was connected to through organizing. And those folks helped me to have an abortion two different times. And so I realized the strength in community showing up for people having abortions and the need for this essential care. I experienced financial barriers while accessing abortion as well.

I actually relied on my local abortion fund, shout out to the Carolina Abortion Fund. They helped me pay for those two abortions. I didn’t have health insurance one time that I had an abortion. And then the other time I did, but my abortion still was not covered under that insurance that I had. And so that was a real unfortunate experience for me. When I was in the clinic twice, I was misgendered, I was deadnamed. No one was interacting with me in the ways that I wanted to be interacted with. And this experience in this healthcare facility was familiar to me because as a Black trans person, I also experience being misgendered, dead named, being assumed, being assumed about my choices, about who I am, about my pronouns, about my name.

And so by the time I facilitated my first abortion doula training, I had also worked for a reproductive justice organization where I was tasked with teaching and training other people about the reproductive justice history and framework. And so I also come to the abortion doula work being really grounded as a student of the framework. And I also expose my students to the reproductive justice framework. And then the bans and the restrictions also exacerbated this need for abortion doula training for me to serve people in my community as well. And so I continue to use my personal social media to fund abortions for other people. Supporting the folks who, for whatever reason, weren’t making it to those abortion funds that are set up to help people.

And, sometimes those funds, those avenues are out of funds. And so there’s a real need for another layer of support. And that’s what I really think of when I think about being an abortion doula. My journey to becoming an abolitionist community organizer. I started out fighting anti-trans legislation and organizing along other students on college campuses.

Trying to make sure that our tuition wouldn’t be increased and that the school system, the public school system wouldn’t be governed by debt collectors and people who were concerned with closing the cultural centers at the public schools in North Carolina. I also came to that work experiencing an increase in police violence. Yeah, shout out to all the defendants.

But experiencing the murder of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte in 2021, that really shifted a lot of things for me. I consider myself to be an architect of the Charlotte uprising where black folks, queer folks, trans folks took to the streets to say no to police violence in Charlotte, which continues to be ongoing.

When I talk about that abortion doula work, and even when I think about the community organizing work, I think about caring for other people through major transitions. And that’s what being a doula really comes down to, right? It’s informational, emotional, and physical support. Sometimes that support is logistical. Sometimes that support is even technical, we like to refer to it as. And so I was interested and I’m still very interested in using direct action and also training other people to use their bodies, hearts, and minds to turn up on the state. I’m very excited and engaged in jail and bail support programs and organizing work in communities. And I’m ultimately very interested in creating alternatives to punishment and carceral logics. And so for me and my abortion doula work, my community organizing work, this work is not mutually exclusive.

Jaison Oliver

So you had talked about this a little bit before you went into it briefly, but for listeners who may not be familiar, I imagine many people are familiar with a doula, but can you explain more about what an abortion doula is and how you serve the people that you care for?

Ash Williams

Yes, so abortion doulas are people who provide informational, emotional, and physical support before, during, and after different types of abortions. Sometimes abortion doulas offer support with connecting people to resources like childcare and rides across state lines or in town. Abortion doulas have the ability to also connect people to places like abortion clinics or other services, direct services that folks might need like food banks, childcare collectives. In my experience, some of the people that I support need support with intimate partner violence resources. And so I have incorporated things like that into my work. Abortion doulas also raise money for people.

I recognized a long time ago that I can’t really get to those emotional and informational needs sometimes when the person is not clear that they’re actually going to be able to have an abortion. And so one of the things that I try to prioritize when cost is a barrier for folks is funding that abortion so that we can get to the other things that are really, really important.

Like if they are wanting sedation options, like if they are having questions about what to expect and what to ask about. And so I’m really excited about supporting people in that way. One of the things that sets me apart from other doulas is that I offer support to transgender people and gender nonconforming folks. A lot of care that’s out there isn’t geared towards our people.

It’s not geared towards Black people. It’s not geared towards disabled people. And so that is another gap that I hope to fill as well.

Jaison Oliver

How has your organizing and your work as an abortion doula affected your life and the communities you belong to?

Ash Williams

I feel useful in the communities that I’m a part of. I feel like I’m effectively able to support people who are navigating different types of situations. I feel like I’m able to offer non-judgmental support and increase the choices for pregnant people. I also feel like the support that I offer folks has helped me to connect these other issues or these things that people feel are tangential to abortion care, like intimate partner violence or the violences of the family policing system as well. And so I also feel like I’m able to support folks more adequately and also have a better understanding of some of the systems and structures that are creating the conditions for reproductive oppression. And then I’m able to share those things with other people and they are able to make those connections as well.

Josie Pickens

Thanks, Ash. So before we jumped into this recording, you discussed an upcoming training where you’ll discuss in that training abortion, criminalization, and decriminalization. Why is it crucial to focus on decriminalizing abortion care, especially in the current social and political climate?

Ash Williams

Hmm, thank you for this question. I think it’s so important. So first of all, this might sound a little one plus one equals two y’all, it’s crucial to think about decriminalizing abortion care because people who have abortions deserve increased support opportunities.

Further, providers can offer abortion care. Like abortion providers, medical providers, those folks can offer and do offer abortion care, but there are a myriad of reasons why people don’t trust clinicians. Some people also cannot pay to access a clinician. And when I think about folks who have a need for competent, free, gender-affirming care before, during, and after abortion, I think about the work that abortion doulas do. And I think about the gaps in the medical industrial system and medicalized abortion care. From here abortion doulas fill a vital need in communities. And without us, many people will go without critical life-saving healthcare. 

Legalization will not increase access to reproductive freedoms, but instead it will increase reproductive control by state, medical industrial complex, and anti-abortion legal mechanisms and so I’m very concerned about those things. And I also want to say neither Trump nor Biden will protect and defend abortion access. They don’t even protect and defend pregnancy access. And so we’ve got to support abortion doulas. We’ve got to support the wide range of abortion care that people deserve and that does include doulas midwives, other birth workers.

Josie Pickens

Thank you, Ash. Now, I feel like you’ve already answered this question a bit, but just to make it clear and plain for folks, what are some of the major challenges and barriers people face when seeking abortions? And how does criminalization exacerbate these issues? Is there anything that you’d like to add that you haven’t already spoken about?

Ash Williams

Yes, I do want to add some things. Thank you. I want to lift up or I want to say and name stigma and shame here. I don’t think that we can overstate the role that stigma and shame plays as a barrier to accessing abortion care. It is because of stigma and shame that people are not asking more questions and seeking out the resources that might be helpful to them.

Some of the other challenges that I want to say explicitly are these bans and these restrictions. For those of us who are already hip to these post-war realities like in North Carolina and in other places in the South, these bans and restrictions, they have come and gone. And so during legislative sessions, we often feel the deflation, the excitement, the noise around what’s happening.

And so we are prepared to hold our communities as we’re faced with stigma and shame, misinformation, and the shifting laws and the shifting pieces of the landscape like criminalization. There are economic barriers. Some folks don’t have healthcare at all. And so I’m thinking about those folks. I’m thinking about the gestational bans on abortion that exist.

I’m thinking about the bans on abortion pills like mifepristone and misoprostol. These pills are also essential for pregnancy care, not just abortion care. And I’m also thinking about, especially when it comes to queer and trans folks, what’s happening with these fertility bans and these bans on IVF, I’m really seeing an enclosure again on pregnancy options for all people.

Jaison Oliver

You’re making me think about a friend who is dealing with some health challenges and has a procedure where she actually does need access to some of those drugs that people typically associate with abortion care. And she’s navigating that whole process with her doctors. Yeah, it’s been interesting kind of watching her go through this. You had mentioned earlier that you provide support specifically to trans and non-binary individuals seeking abortion care. That’s not always the case for other abortion doulas. Can you talk about the specific challenges that those individuals face when accessing reproductive health care, including abortion care?

Ash Williams

Absolutely. Before even considering abortion care, it’s important to remind folks that transgender people and gender nonconforming folks, we often experience a lot of disparities around finding gender-affirming care providers. And also, gender-affirming healthcare-adjacent things as well. And I’m thinking about doula support and birth support. A lot of communities have a long way to go to expand, to acknowledge the existence of trans people. And there’s a lot of organizing happening to make sure that the birth communities are using gender-affirming language and are making sure to connect things like abortion access and gender-affirming care access.

Understanding that reproductive justice teaches that the key to controlling entire communities is through the control of bodies. And so when there are children being removed from their families, when there are sweeping abortion bans that are impacting people’s decisions to make choices, when there is a shrinking of options for pregnant people, we should all be very concerned about these things and making the connections. 

I also want to point out here, trans folks are also experiencing those other challenges and barriers that I named to y’all before. And I wanna say that we are experiencing those challenges uniquely. Because of things like race, gender, ability, and class. And so, as an abortion worker, I really think that this is something that also can’t be overstated in abortion access issues. And I really think that there are many more connections to be made with all of these issues.

Jaison Oliver

How does gender-affirming care look when done well? How have you seen that work done really well in this space?

Ash Williams

Hmm, in this space. I think gender-affirming care looks like not making assumptions about the families or the people that we serve. I think it means literally asking people what their pronouns are, what their name is, and how they want to be interacted with in the pregnancy or abortion or birth space. Whether that be with family members, with medical providers, with other support folks.

I also think that when we center what the person is asking and saying, that really goes a long way. And I’m gonna say that that’s true for all people of all genders. And here, I also wanna kind of point out something. So pregnancy care for cisgender women, that is gender-affirming care. Or if it’s not, it should be, right? When people with certain types of parts are going to the doctor to receive prostate care. They also are getting or should be getting gender-affirming care based on their gender, right? And so I want to really expand the notion of what even constitutes gender-affirming care. It’s not just something that trans people deserve. It’s something that trans people are arguing every person deserves access to. 

And the sooner we realize that at the root of it all of us wanna be interacted with, with our full humanity. All of us wanna be talked to like a person. All of us wanna have our questions and concerns answered. All of us want our pain to be taken serious, right? Once we realize that, I think we can go forward to understand something else because again, there’s so much work to do.

Jaison Oliver

I love that. I think about how there are often conversations, especially among Black men, about how difficult it is to get our fathers or uncles or something to go for these examinations, especially as they’re getting older and prostate exams or whatever. That just shows the clear need for gender-affirming care. Because that is often an issue connected deeply to gender and people’s ideas about the doctor and how they interact with the medical field. So I really appreciate you for bringing that out. Thank you.

Josie Pickens

So I want to talk a bit about the intersections of reproductive justice and the movement to abolish family policing. That’s what we’ve been focusing on during season two of this podcast. And it’s making me think back to season one of the podcast where we were talking about this within a historical context, namely through slavery and the sterilization of Black and Indigenous women. We also are thinking deeply about abortion access and a person’s right to have or not have children in a world that they feel is unsafe for them and their children. 

And then there is the surveillance and punishment, and you’ve spoken a bit about this, Ash, that parents experience due to reports from medical personnel, often decisions about whether a child will remain within their family is made before or shortly after that child is even born. So how does reproductive justice intersect with the movement to abolish family policing and the child welfare system, especially when we consider surveillance and criminalization?

Ash Williams

So I think that the movement to abolish the family policing system and the movement for reproductive justice both agree on all parts of the reproductive justice framework. But I want to point out the third principle, which says that all people deserve to be able to make decisions for their families and themselves at every kind of move of the way, and that they deserve the social supports and resources to be able to do so. It also posits that people deserve to live free from harm from another motherfucker, from the state, the government. It acknowledges the ways that the environment impacts people’s reproductive decisions. It acknowledges the way that where people work plays a role in their decision-making and how they show up for their families and what they’re able to do. 

I’m actually kind of wanting to uplift a Black woman whose name is Ashley Stallings here. She is incarcerated in Charlotte, North Carolina right now. Maybe folks have been hearing about her, but she’s being accused of manslaughter for leaving her child in the car while she was working at Amazon. She didn’t wanna leave her baby at home, so she left her eight-year-old daughter in the car with the AC running.

She was going out there to check on her throughout her shift to make sure she was okay. But at one point her daughter stopped responding by text. So she went outside to see if she was all right. She realized she wasn’t okay. And so she started driving to the hospital. Today she is in trouble for neglecting her daughter and for causing her daughter’s death. And when I pause and I think about what are being presented as some of the facts of the case. And I’m saying being presented, right? And I also think about what would a reproductive justice analysis be of the situation here? I can’t help but think about how Amazon is culpable in causing the death of the child for creating the conditions that would encourage a Black mom to have limited choices to either leave the child at home without childcare or bring her to work and leave her in the car with the AC running. 

Ashley Stallings believes that her daughter may have turned the AC off because she became too cold and didn’t know how to turn it back on. And so it’s a very unfortunate situation, but also a part of this reproductive justice and family policing analysis, it would have to include the perishing of two different people here. So absolutely the eight-year-old daughter, but also this Black mama who didn’t have many choices. I’m thinking about other parents, other Black women, other Black queer and trans parents who are having to make decisions with limited choices or with non-choices. 

And I think that both movements have a lot of space for these people. Both movements say that these people are not disposable and that these people deserve care and support. And so those are some things that are coming up for me.

Jaison Oliver

I really appreciate how you highlighted this third principle of reproductive justice, which really, I think, brings in the connections between these various systems. And that is a major focus of the this current season of the podcast looking at the links between movements like reproductive justice and other justice movements like environmental justice, economic justice, queer and trans rights. Why do you see it as important to incorporate these issues into your reproductive justice lens? And then how do you see these connections playing out either in your work directly or more broadly?

Ash Williams

So I think that when I consider my work, I think about the ways that reproductive justice must embrace abolition. And that means the ending of carceral logics that create the ICE detention facilities and the jails and the prisons and the other places that keep people against their will. And when I think about, again, making connections, I sometimes refer to criminalization as the glue, doing the connecting to these many issues. I think reproductive justice understands the prison industrial complex as a barrier to people living self-determined lives. And so it also acknowledges that that system the prison industrial complex, it must be abolished. 

And so when we pause and think about who is being criminalized in this time right now and the mechanisms through which the criminalization is happening. That we realize that those connections have already been made. And I think that with a closer reading to the reproductive justice framework, some of these connections can also be made further.

Jaison Oliver

Thinking about… we’re in Houston just coming off of a terrible storm that left people without power, without access to food and water in many cases, and people still struggling from the tornado, and storm that was just basically about a month before that, these disasters are coming. And then we look at more cities that are facing challenges like Flint with water, but that’s not just a Flint issue. This access to food, water, shelter is becoming increasingly precarious. We’re losing these basic social supports and replacing them with policing. It’s just interesting to watch this happen, but also thinking about how do we make these connections for people who are experiencing and living through it? How do you see us bringing more people into this work? Making the connections so that we can invite more people in.

Ash Williams

I think that I would encourage people to continue to analyze things intersectionally, understanding that none of us live single-issue lives and continue to connect those intersecting oppressions. I think that that can help us see the reproductive oppression showing up in our own lives. I’m thinking here about storytelling. So there are people with different experiences that we’ve got to listen to in this time. And they are people who have been criminalized. They are people who have been forced to make decisions with limited options. And I also wanna say that one of the other things I think we can do is work beyond barriers and borders. To bring support to people, to increase access to care, and not just abortion care.

Josie Pickens

Thanks for that, Ash. Now we want to move into the dreaming part. You know, I think as abolitionists, we are always focused so much on dismantling systems that we sometimes fail to make space for the visioning aspect of abolition. And so my question, because we’re always working to deepen our abolitionist visioning, can you describe a world where birthing people have all that they need to make safe and healthy decisions about having or not having children?

Ash Williams

At the top of my list is the abolition, the closure, the extinction of prisons and jails and carceral spaces. And from there, I’m also concerned about the logics that last beyond the spaces of incarceration. And so I want to do what I can to cease that those continue to exist so that people don’t feel limited or judged in their choices. I imagine a world where there are no gestational abortion bans and where people feel free to choose to have abortions in clinics at their homes with the support of communities. I imagine a world where no one, but definitely not Black and Indigenous folks have to worry about their children being removed by the state. I imagine an increased web of support for folks who are facing certain conditions.

In some of the most dark times, I have also seen communities act this kind of world out. And I think that right now we’re being called on to act it out right now with our folks, with our communities, with the people that we live with, with our partners, with our loved ones, with our churches, with our congregations. And so I want to also in my vision for what things can look like, I also want to leave a lot of room for what other people think, because I don’t just want it to be with what I can come up with. I think abolition requires that it includes everyone. And it’s a process. And I know that not one person can hold it down all the way, theoretically or in practice.

Josie Pickens

I love that. This idea of we’re living abolition now, we must. And in thinking about that, in living abolition now, what can our listeners do to support the movement for decriminalizing abortion and advancing reproductive justice? Are there any organizations that you want to lift up? Resources? Ongoing events that you’d like to highlight for those who want to get involved?

Ash Williams

Yes. So the first thing that I want to do is offer folks some ways to get involved. I also want to say here, you don’t have to be an abortion doula to do any of these things, right? You don’t have to be an abortion doula to listen to someone and offer them non-judgmental support. You don’t have to be an abortion doula to talk to people in your life about self-managing abortion and telling people how and where they can access mifepristone and misoprostol. I really want folks to think about increasing the choices for pregnant people. I want people to think about decriminalizing abortion as we are in a time where we’re gonna be fed that legalizing abortion is the way to go. 

I want people to get really clear about the differences between reform and abolition. I want people to help someone make it happen. Funding people’s abortions, getting people to their existing appointments. I want people to work outside of systems and structures to offer support to other people and advocate for the ultimate decriminalization of abortion. I also wanna see folks organizing to keep existing clinics open as well, especially those independent clinics which serve so many people. 

As for organizations, I really want to let folks know that I have an ongoing abortion doula training program that lasts eight weeks in total. It has two parts. I ground folks in the reproductive justice framework. I also discuss decriminalization. I talk about how to support people and provide people with information who are interested in learning about self-managing abortion. I share information about what it’s like to get an abortion in the clinic and a slew of other really important things that can really help folks in communities skill up. And so I encourage people to always be on the lookout for those trainings. 

I’m a part of an abortion doula collective called the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective. I want people to continue to support our work. We serve queer and trans people for free. We offer non-judgmental support and logistical support to people kind of everywhere. I also want people to support organizations like We Testify that are doing a lot of work to support abortion storytellers. This storytelling piece is so important to destigmatizing abortion and abortion care. And so those are a few things that I want to lift up.

Jaison Oliver

Where can people find you and stay connected with you and your work? I know you already mentioned the Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective, but in terms of staying connected with you and your work, how can people say, we love Ash, we want to make sure to support him? How can they do that?

Ash Williams

I would encourage people to reach out to me on Instagram and my handle is @ashwilliamsclt.

Jaison Oliver

Beautiful. Well, thank you Ash for joining us. We really appreciate you coming and sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us again after our 2023 convening. We hope you’ll stay engaged with us and stay connected. But thank you again for all the work that you do.

Ash Williams

Thank you so much for the work that y’all are doing as well to help make these connections clear.

Josie Pickens

Yeah, you really have me over here thinking and I really appreciate that Ash. Thank you.