Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Well, hello everyone. Jan Arden here. This is the Jan Arden Podcast. I am still in Europe on a river cruise going down the Danube now. Last week when we spoke, I was on the Rhine. Uh...
Caitlin is with us. She's back in Toronto, but all last week she was on a beautiful, beachy, very much deserved getaway to Bermuda. Adam has been chained to his desk in the basement studio of his home. I haven't left. But we are here and it's so great to be talking to you guys once again. I come to you through the glorious advances of technology.
And it's pretty cool. I'm doing the podcast today on my phone. I'm holding it in front of my face because my computer, for whatever reason, won't hook up. So God bless the iPhone. Isn't that wild?
The iPhone camera and microphone quality is so good. We've been talking about getting cameras set up in the studio that I work in on radio. And there was some debate about, oh, is it this camera? Is it that camera? And we were eventually like, I think we should just get a bunch of iPhones. Because then you can move them around. They're super mobile and they have so many different functions. You can upload so many apps directly to the phone. So many different pieces of software that help you with sound quality and all that stuff.
And it just was like, this is a marvel. Sometimes I just stare at my phone, which I have a full addiction to. But I'm like, this is a wonder, this thing. It is a marvel of magic.
I think our generation, if I can say that, you know, and may I be so bold to say, you know, 5,000 years ago, we had pyramids popping up in Syria and Turkey and Egypt and all through the Mediterranean. And certainly in Mexican and the Yucatan Peninsula, we had, we had this kind of these pyramids being built in these cities. And then we sort of had this Renaissance of music and art and,
in the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th century, kind of the Middle Evil period of, once again, architecture and building these cathedrals with the arches. And now, I don't want to make this seem small, but we have the iPhone. And it may seem small in comparison, but how it has changed humanity, right?
is it boggles the mind. I am holding in my hand books that I read on the plane, medical advice, a portal to any kind of information that I could possibly want or need. The apps that are available to anyone
you know, be in partnership with our iPhones, boggle the mind. I once in a while will go on the app store and look through what is available. And there's just things that I can't, what you'd need them for is beyond me, but there's something for everything. Yeah. And I mean, obviously they made social media possible, which is such a defining part of our last couple of decades.
So yeah, I mean, having a camera on your phone means that wherever you are, you can share. So I just, yeah. And that's what, I mean, then you're like, obviously there's going to be the whole massive dark hole that's associated with that. But it does also mean that I get to follow along with Jan's travels throughout Europe because it looks so beautiful wherever you are. Like, I mean, A, the inside cabin on the actual like boat that you're on is very beautiful. But I mean, I've never been to Austria and now I'm dying to go.
I'll tell you what. Every 100 yards being on this river cruise, like I said, we're on the Danube, there is a castle or a very grand home. It's... The...
Just the trip itself, going down these river valleys, is so incredible. And then you have, once again, the technology aspect of what's going on here. There's no end to the locks. So, you know, every three or four hours on the Danube so far, we go into a lock. And this 400-yard-long river boat ship goes into this lock, and then it's either lifted up,
30 feet or drop down 30 feet. So imagine this, this is new technology really in the last 20 years, you couldn't sail the Danube, you'd have to turn around, you could go only so far. Because I would imagine the different levels in a river, you would have waterfalls and rapids and things like that. And this is just flat in the playing field. So there's locks every few hours. And there are
It is such a feat of technology. It makes me think about Panama moving hundreds of ships through there every day that is cutting off thousands of miles of going around South America. The good things people do and the horrific things people do...
Never ceases to amaze me. I do feel as though North America has lagged behind in terms of investments in infrastructure since pretty well the 80s, like maybe even a little bit before that. Because you think about a country like South Korea, you know, ravaged by war, dealing with famine. And then in the last hundred years, if you look at Seoul now,
it's like another planet. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's space age. It's like, it's the bullet trains in, in China. And it's just, it's the efficiency of, of even just public transportation in Japan, where if the subway system is late, they'll give you a little ticket so you can show your, you can show your employer. Because if you went to your employer in Tokyo and said, sorry, I'm late, you know, the subway was behind. They'd be like, no, it is not.
because it is never behind. Whereas in Toronto... It runs to the second. And in Toronto, if you said, oh, line one shut down, so I had to take a bus and now it's an hour late, you're like, yeah, of course you did. Of course you did. Because that's how little we've invested in infrastructure. And it's wild because I'm sure at first people thought, oh...
Not a big deal. I don't want to be the government that incurs this cost because then the taxpayers won't vote for me next time. And that's all it comes down to. But now you have decades of that mentality. And I look at a city like Toronto, we essentially have a T-bar for a subway system. And a bunch of the new infrastructure that's being built is above ground rail in Canada. I'm like, guys, we have very serious weather here. It would be very advantageous of us to move this underground. Yeah.
You know, Chris and I, my road manager who's traveling with me, were talking yesterday about it's going to be hard kind of going back into the social structure, the communities that we've built.
And I'm not saying one is better than the other, but the differences are so glaring. For instance, in Linz, where we were yesterday, they have these beautiful electric trains, like a C train or the subway, going down the middle of the road quite rapidly on both sides of
There are no railings. There's no crossings. There's no anything. They come up, they stop, and it is up to the individual whether they end their lives that day, but nobody gets hurt. If this was running down the city of Calgary, there would be 100 deaths a day and 600 injuries because people were like, well, I didn't see it. And the kids have their headphones in. They've got earbuds. They're on their phones. They're the same as kids anywhere.
And, but we were just watching, like, you couldn't do this in Canada or in the middle of Boston because people don't get it. They don't.
Get it. Like you were talking about Amsterdam, Caitlin, about the canals that don't have four foot fences all the way down either side. If you happen to walk off the side and go into the canal, well, that's on you. But it's like we can't trust people in our own country to behave in a fashion. And I'm going to go ahead and say this, but the glaring obvious thing about how people behave is
And the nature, the aggressive nature of people. And I think Canada thinks they're so exempt from like they're the greatest country in the world that we have the greatest country in the world. And we really we don't. We're going in a direction that isn't good. Well, I also just feel like there's a certain amount of I wonder, I mean, not so much for Canada, but for the U.S. where you're like, did they just get so... Well, we're right behind them, Caitlin.
Oh, for sure. But I'm just saying, like, did the U.S. get so litigious that all these lawsuits where people sued the city because they fell into a river or their dog did or whatever? The hot pot spilled my balls.
Did that, okay, well, that case actually was very egregious. But I will say that like, did those things make way for this kind of like nanny state where, you know, for example, when I was in Copenhagen, you know, sitting on the water and they have this amazing thing called a go boat. So these boats, you can rent them for a few hours. There's a picnic table in the middle. You go out, you tour all through their water system. You can, shocked.
consume a beer or two on it and, you know, they don't, people don't run their ships into the ground and they don't, you know, hit people and it's not mayhem. We live on Lake Ontario here in Toronto and many cities are on bodies of water. We would never do this because old nanny state would jump in there and be like, well,
what if someone falls in? I'm like, what is going on? And is this because of lawsuits? Like, what is the thinking? I was like, where did the personal accountability go that means we have now been taken away from like basic leisure activities or like you said, Jan, advances in infrastructure because they're like, I don't know where we're going to put this 10 foot high fence in the middle of the road. You're like, do we need the 10 foot high fence? I don't understand. It's just the way people make their way through their days. Bicycles, for instance. There are so many bicycles here.
And yes, the weather is not as aggressive as we deal with, certainly for six months out of the year. There is just bikes everywhere. Chris and I have had such a riot riding e-bikes around. Do you know that no one has beeped at us, told us to F off, hit their horns? We have not heard. Chris is like, have you heard a car horn? I said, oh my God, no.
I have not heard anyone leaning on their horn because God forbid somebody didn't merge right or let them in or do this. It's making me feel like there's such a level of anger.
That's so pervasive, like at all times, just in how people drive. But these bikes, so here's me, I'm trying to get my bike over a curb yesterday. I don't know what I'm doing. I haven't ridden a bike in 20 years. And this guy, this beautiful man in a suit came, he helped me. He picked up the back end of the bike and then he sort of held the bike up. I got back on, Chris was looking at me. He goes, hello, are you having some difficulty? And then he started pushing me so I could get the bike going. So I wasn't from a dead stop.
And he goes, is that your husband? I said, no, he's too young. And he goes, no, he's fine. Are you from, where are you from? I said, Canada. He goes, wonderful, wonderful. You're doing good. You're doing good. And he pushed me and the bike off. I got going. Anyway, you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We've got lots to talk about. I'm here with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh. We will be right back. We have a lot to talk about. We are definitely going to wade into Roe versus Wade.
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We are back. Jan Arden Podcast. Caitlin and Adam are here. We were talking about the civility of Europe. Now, I don't want a bunch of angry people writing me letters or, you know, sending deranged comments on social media. Can it be avoided, though? I'm not saying that Canada is this...
you know, I'm proud to be Canadian. I'm proud to come from there. And anyone that has spoken to me here in Europe, anyone I've met in a cafe or a restaurant, when they ask where we're from, they're just like, oh, Canada, I'd love to go there someday. And I said, you should. It's absolutely beautiful and gorgeous. And we have so many things going for us. But when you look at these
These cities that are probably, I don't know, 400,000 to 500,000 people would be considered a fairly big city in Austria and Germany. You know, there's the big glaring ones, Berlin and Munich and Hamburg and Frankfurt. But these sort of secondary ones, they are 400 years old. All the buildings are intact, other than the ones that got bombed out and rebuilt, of course, during the Second World War. But
It is such an idyllic, cool vibe. And Caitlin, you made a great point during the break. Like, do I have vacation brain? Do I have the vacation fog where I'm looking at things through rose-colored glasses? Yeah, because I know I do that. I want to move everywhere that I visit. So like when I went to Copenhagen, it's true, it's a problem that my husband constantly has to deal with. But if I realized that if I spoke the language that I would have moved to Sweden, I would have moved to Copenhagen, I would have moved to Amsterdam.
And it is one of my larger regrets in life that I'm not one of those people that speaks five languages because I probably would have lived other places. And that's not to say that I don't love Canada. It feels so good to come home. It does. It always does. And I'm looking forward to getting home. It'll be great. But like, you know, I landed in Toronto this week and it's a full concrete...
mess the whole way home. And I was like, this is my concrete mess. But I mean, so I still like it. It's just that I do think that sometimes, and I see this a lot on social media, and it's probably something that happens everywhere. But I do think that loving something doesn't mean that you don't want to make improvements to it. And there's a certain amount of weird...
like zombie yelling that happens on social media. When you suggest anything other than Canada is the best place on earth or everyone's like, well, at least it's not insert us here or whatever. And I'm like, I don't think that really means we're going to have a good conversation here. I don't think it means we're going to come up with anything new or inventive or ways to improve things about Canada and about our day-to-day lives by just shutting the conversation down and be like, we're the best. I'm like, I think we're great. Um,
I also think that we don't have a reasonable, affordable way to get around in a city like Toronto. We don't have... We have not invested in infrastructure and it's a sticking point for me. I think we have major issues with housing affordability. I think our healthcare system could be improved upon considering how much we pay in taxes towards it. I think there's a lot to work on. So when you're doing kind of like the Michael Moore tour where you're like...
You're going to other places in the world and you're saying, I'm not saying that Canada stinks. I'm saying, can we steal some of their cool ideas? Because I'm seeing it work really well here. And I think that would be an awesome idea to try to recreate in our own way. Like large arms with blinking orange lights don't drop down every 90 seconds because one of the, God forbid, the little trains are going down the cobblestone road to pick people up.
Yeah. There is nothing. There's no ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. There's no arm that has a giant stop sign on it that comes flying out saying, don't go past here. It's like you have to lead people by the hand and take them through. This is the C train. It comes here. You can't cross over here when this happens. You know, I just...
I don't know, even the bikes, even getting back to the horns not blowing. The civility is the word, my catch word of the day. There is a laissez-faire. There's an easy breezy common sense approach. And the Europeans certainly face a lot of challenges all the time, not particularly being ahead of making their own
fossil fuels, having to get them from other countries. They, you know, they have terrorism over here from time to time. We've seen that, you know, all over Europe where we have sat back in Canada and watched and gone, at least we don't have that here. Yeah.
But we, I think we, I guess to summarize, because I do want to move on is we need to stop pointing fingers at other places and saying we're the best. And I think that pride has definitely been chipped away at this last decade to
just seeing how certain people in our society have behaved in times of crisis. And it has been very disappointing. Yeah. And I just want to look around and say, hey, I want to take all the best ideas. I want to take all those things and say, you know, let's not let ego get in the way of recognizing that they have a better subway system in Stockholm, a much smaller city than our major cities than we do here. Why is that? The
case? Where has all this funding gone? Because how are you ever holding anyone who you pay your taxes to accountable for anything if you're not kind of looking around? And just stop saying, this is also great, and then don't ask any more questions than that. We're not going to get a creative solution out of it. And people dress better here. I know.
I'm, I, okay. But I will say, I did realize that I guess because I was in Bermuda, that in like warm weather countries, it's very focused on like active wear and comfort and like breezy dresses and all that stuff. And I was like, oh yeah, we also are stuck here dealing with four very distinct aggressive seasons. So there is that.
I will say climate-wise, I'm like, oh yeah, we do get jammed up a little bit by how practical you constantly have to be in Canada about the seasons changing all the time. It was so nice to just walk outside and be like, oh, I don't need to wear a jacket. If I do, it's a light jacket. It looked gorgeous. Your nails, I just, I have to say...
Your beautiful manicures are just inspiring. I have to shout out my nail place. It's called Tips and they have two locations in Toronto and they are nail geniuses. And so I have a nail addiction. I will admit to it. So I did get my nails done before we left to go on our trip and it's great. They thank you very much for the compliment. Oh my gosh, they're gorgeous. And I had lots.
Oh my God, Caitlyn's nails are amazing. She's like, she's giving Kim Kardashian a rent for her money. And I said, yes, she is. I also think it's just, it's kind of like,
It's funny because Bermuda is not far from Toronto. And I constantly reiterate that people forget about it, but it is a two hour and 15 minute flight direct from Toronto to Bermuda. Cause it's not that far south. Or three weeks on a paddle board. Or three weeks on a paddle board. And just a, just a few days in the Bermuda triangle, hoping you get out. It's really beautiful. And it's one of those places in the world where you get the sense that,
The island is kind of trying to evict you. Like there's so much vegetation. There's so much jungle. It's this, you know that the second people don't live there for one year, it is going to be completely overrun with vines and trees. The earth cannot wait for us to be gone. Exactly.
It is going to curry every bad idea we ever had. So I guess we won't worry about infrastructure, but those of us that are still here kind of have to get through it. But as soon as we go, nuclear plants might take them a million years, but the vegetation is going to crush those MFers, pull them into the ground and eat the nuclear waste and carry on. A hundred percent. I looked at this island and I just thought to myself, wow,
you guys will outlast us all. Like I was just looking at these huge trees and vines and thinking like, okay, we are such an impatient species. Plants are not. They are going to win the world. We're not going to beat it. We are not going to beat the world. There's tectonic plates that can literally, like you know how you just sort of flinch your shoulder? Like when you have someone touch you that you don't want to have touching you and you just go...
The world, if it does like one of those, that's it. We're all going to be flicked into space. And that's that. People think COVID was kind of annoying. My word, there's going to be a litany of things. Anyway, I think that's the greatest analogy I've ever heard is the island like sort of looking at you like we're going to force you off. Yeah.
It was like, you're trimming me back a lot all the time. And that's nice for now. But once you guys stop doing that, but I do, I mean, all to say, I really recommend going. It is the most beautiful cotton, sandy beaches, jungle temperatures are perfect. I mean, it's great. And you don't have to go for that long. And if you have children, it's a really easy flight for kids. Like you're not dragging them, you know, five hours South or something like that. So yeah, I would recommend going.
Just in our last few seconds, I saw the cutest sand game that kids were playing on the internet. And they were wetting their face with the salt water. And then these two little kids were rolling their faces in the sand. They had five o'clock shadows. And they were practicing how to shave with sticks. Oh my gosh. That's so cool.
That's adorable. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. And if you want to practice how to shave your legs with sand, go to Bermuda. We're going to be right back. And we really are going to talk about Roe versus Wade when we come back. Jan Arden podcast. Don't go away.
Hey everybody, just a heads up. We're going to be talking about some sensitive material this next part of the show. Pregnancy loss. There's a lot of issues going on with Roe v. Wade. And, you know, the right to choose pro-choice. So just for those of you that are sensitive about this topic, you may not want to listen. It is certainly not graphic, but we just wanted to let you know as our listeners because we care about you and we care about your wellness and
So just a heads up. So it's 1941 again in the United States of America. And the Supreme Court is very close to overturning Roe v. Wade, which is the very famous court case that we never thought we'd have to really deal with to this degree. Again, that's basically going to say that women having safe sex
access to abortion and having the right to do what they need to do with their own bodies and having pro-choice is going to be basically annihilated. And it is a tragedy for not only all the women in the United States, but globally, sends messages of just...
disappointment, tragedy, fear. It's very dystopian. And Caitlin, I'm going to throw to you because you had a great sort of a triage of Twitter tweets that I read yesterday that I'll let you speak to it. But the points you made, I was just like, oh, man.
So true. And notice I turned off the replies. Right. No, you can't do it. And I would have loved to have replied, but I was glad that you did have the replies turned off. And mostly it was, it's because I think with that, it was like, I don't want to hear from anybody who isn't in that position. And that was really... Walk us back to what your sort of viewpoint was on women having...
safe and legal access to abortion and to healthcare. And first of all, we all know, I mean, you might think I don't know. It just means that you don't know someone who's told you that they've had one. You know, there are a lot of people. And forever, I also want to make the characterization that for every woman who's had an abortion, there is a man who was part of that abortion.
So I was relieved to see I have some male friends who have actually, they're just regular guys. These aren't media personalities or anything. And they've come forward on their social and said, I was part of one. And I think that's a narrative that needs to be included because they are also part of one. And then they tell their experience and that they were happy that the woman in their life had the ability to make that decision and it was the right one for them and here's why.
So it isn't just like an us. It's an everybody. It's families. And that was the part that kind of like touched me. It took me a few days to wrap my head around it because I saw this come out and I was like, this is awful. And you have all these emotions around it. But what happened with me was when our son died, we wound up going to group therapy. Our group therapy was focused on like different stages of loss, but late loss specifically. So you hear a lot of people talking about how, oh, you know, there's these abortions that happen at six months or whatever, like late. Right.
When that happens, in my experience, because I met all these people who had to terminate their pregnancies late, when that happens, this isn't somebody who forgot and just noticed at six months and is being careless or anything like that. This is a family normally who really wants a child.
And then all of a sudden, like a scan goes wrong. Something comes up on a test, something unforeseen. And it takes a few weeks to figure out what it is. And by the time they're told that, you know, this could threaten the life of the mother, definitely threaten the life of the baby, you have been thrust into this nightmare situation that nobody should ever find themselves in.
And you need that bodily autonomy to make the right call. And that's between you and your doctors, your medical team. This isn't flippant. This is horrible. And they're in therapy with me to go through this shocking loss. And like I met women, their lives were saved. You know, their children's lives were saved in a way. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes.
they were about to not make it, but the first months of them not making it wasn't going to be great. I'm not going to go into details because it's going to really upset people. But I know because I sat for hours with them in group therapy and I sat with doctors and like I was in the hospital myself for days. So I know how this all looks because it's just rare. People don't talk about it. It's like whispers and hushed tones and that's fine because it's really personal. And to take away...
to take away that option, to take away that path, to have a government that
tell the women of the United States of America, sorry, you have a pregnancy in your fallopian tube. Sorry, sorry, you, you, you are, you have a child as you're a product of rape, incest, a litany of, you know, whatever it is, it's none of their business. And I love what Kamala Harris said to one of the Supreme court justices that Trump appointed his Kavanaugh, I believe his name was. And, and she said to him, do you, do you know of any laws presently in the United States that inhibits, uh,
that a male's right of their bodies. I know I'm doing a terrible job. I'm not even paraphrasing that properly. And he was just like, he couldn't think of anything where the government said, oh, you can't get a vasectomy. Oh, you can't impregnate 40 girls a month because you have an unlimited amount of sperm. And you, unlike a woman who can be pregnant possibly two days out of a month,
And we all know how difficult it is for many, many women to get pregnant. So do you think that women actually, out of the two days of the month that they can get pregnant, men are dealing with a whole other set of statistics? Absolutely.
You know, they have they can. Yes, they have a lower sperm count when they're 75 years old, but they can have a they can have a child. They can make 10 children a week if they desire. It is so unbalanced on how we treat men's reproductive health and women's reproductive health. It really is. It seems so outrageous to me.
It's no wonder women are flipping out from Gloria Steinberg to, you know, just there's just women that have been on the front lines of this for so many decades and that they can't believe they're dealing with this again after the 70s and the 80s.
Mostly to me, I just, I'm like, this is a medical issue. This is a very personal medical issue that is going to result in women's lives being lost and families losing a mother, an existing mother, you know, partners losing their loved one. This is not acceptable because when you see the other side of it, and again, people like me and doctors and loved ones
They're the only ones who see this. And so politicians don't seem particularly interested in this side of the coin because what they're trying to do, and I hope everyone understands this, is garner votes. That's all they want. They don't care. If this was about saving lives, there would have been more importance placed on birth control. There would have been more importance placed on supporting children that are here that desperately need our help.
There would have been, you know, there would have been more done to protect school children from shootings in the U.S. If this was about protecting children and protecting lives, then I think there would have been more life-saving measures put in place. But that's not the conversation that we're having. We're having a very different conversation. And that one is kind of about putting women's lives at risk by forcing them to do what they did prior to this being legal, which is going and having unsafe abortions. And so that is something that we're
People finally were so outraged by it. That's why Roe v. Wade passed in the first place. It was because everybody was tired of watching this unnecessary loss of life happen. So I just feel like, you know, I know enough time passes and we forget that complacency leads to these things backsliding. But this has been a warning shot that was fired up into the sky like a flare gun for women all over the world who were like, oh no.
no, not this again. We just dealt with this. That was only in 1973 that that was passed. So Paul, and Paul, they're coveting a certain type of voter. That's what they want. They want those votes. So this is politicking and it's just, it's playing with women's health and safety. And so I think you're,
I think it's understandable for people to be gravely concerned about this because the situations I saw, they are not unique and they are not rare. Every week in group therapy, new women and new families would join our group. We would hear their story and they were very, very difficult. Some of the hardest days in group therapy, honestly.
And the cycle of poverty is pushed forward because the government seems very interested in an unborn child inside of a woman's body. And once that child comes out of the vagina and into the world, there is no support. There is no maternity leave. There is no...
subsidized child care. There is no food programs. There is food insecurities. Most of these people can't even afford diapers. And they're forcing women to ruin their lives and continue poverty. And you cannot tell me that a rich woman could get an abortion anytime she wanted to, and the rich man that impregnated her. But anyone in that impoverished, and there's millions and millions and millions of impoverished women that are going to have lives ruined.
And the guy walks on. The man walks on. They're not penalized in any way, but all this talk about arresting women, there's just no end to the problems with what they're trying to do. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. We're going to be right back. I know this is upsetting for a lot of people, so bear with us. We're going to come back and talk about this some more. But...
Apologies to those people that it's upsetting, but it's a conversation that must be had. We'll be right back. Hello, welcome back. Jan Arden with Caitlin Green, Adam Karsh is with us. Talking about Roe v. Wade being overturned imminently. We don't know if that's going to happen. And as of this podcast airing this Saturday, on this Saturday, it hasn't been overturned yet. We'll know in June.
We will know in June. So just so we're not talking about something that has happened, but it is on the table to happen with the Supreme Court in the United States of America. A point that a lot of people have been making on social media is sort of aimed at the convoy truckers, the freedom riders, whatever people are calling themselves these days, that we're talking about my body, my choice.
And this was the whole thing about the vaccine mandates, even wearing a mask for that matter, of being asked to wear a mask to protect other people. And, you know, a lot of people have said, well, you know, they were blocking off bridges and having hot tub parties in Ottawa. These people are nowhere to be seen now with, you know, obviously there's...
huge differences, but the, my body, my choice again, that women are faced with, uh, you don't see anyone driving to their, you know, saying anything of the sort about what the comparisons are to these issues. I think that there's a lot of like, you know, people wanted to kind of like, Oh, well, where's that same energy for this issue? Um,
And again, we've talked about it on the show before, but if you don't want to go get the vaccine, don't get it. Like I think, you know, why would someone try to medically force someone to do that? So that's the same logic here. If you can look at it, if you fall into that category, like I don't really want it, I don't trust it, I don't get it or whatever. If you are like, I need that autonomy to make that choice for myself, then
that's the same thing that women are asking for. So I feel as though it's just very, it's just scary. It's scary to see it erode. And I know that it's not happening in Canada. I mean, I know people are going to say that, but... But we have to be vigilant, Caitlin. That's exactly right. Because it could happen. Canada has been mirroring
what has been going on with the United States more and more in the last decade, especially we see it in our politics. We see it in the way that the right wing has absolutely spread across parts of this country where, you know, people are looking for a Trumpian kind of approach to things. And these issues are no different. And you said it so succinctly that shot into the sky, that warning flare, that,
Be vigilant, girls, boys, men, women. Have your hands up because this could happen here. We could absolutely have a sitting government. It's not our present one because Trudeau has been very, very forward in his social media statements. Women's health is a priority. We will never, ever take that away. Not us. We will never take away a right for a woman to have a free and safe life.
you know, place to have an abortion and to look after her health. I think ultimately what, you know, and I do try to say this when I have these discussions with people about it, is again, you have to be really wary of any sort of government and politician all the time making choices for your body, whether on any level, because they're courting votes.
They're always courting votes. And so right now what you've seen is a change in voting happening in the U.S. And they want to court that vote. They want to say to them, like, oh, yeah, we're going to cater to you, so vote for us coming up. That's what they want. Full stop. Full stop. That's what that is. And so that's...
And part of why I feel like I just want to look to doctors, I just want to look to doctors and any doctor who has seen how this impacts health for families, for children, for husbands and wives, they know that like this is a medical decision to be made between a woman and her doctor.
And when we get into this weird political sphere where everyone's yelling and they're pulling every issue under the sun into this like one umbrella that really just comes down to if you're not in that position, you don't really need to chime in. If you aren't considering your options right now in that situation with your doctor, you don't really need to chime in right now. That's the only thing. It's like everything's getting sucked into this vortex.
And I'm like, this is not political. This is health. Because I just, again, I am in a very unique position to say that I saw a bunch of people whose lives were saved from this. And we can't flatten everything into this black and white thing. What they're trying to do.
A hundred percent. And they're acting like, you know, people are evil if they're getting it, if you're on that side. And then you're acting like you're, it's just, it's, it's a lot of, it's so problematic on so many fronts. And I just wish that this hadn't, you know, you all wish, wish this conversation hadn't been reopened in the way that it has, because you just, when you know that lives are, innocent lives are at risk for, for women who are, they're, they're not going to make it. The baby's not going to make it anyways. You're like, how are we not talking about that?
Yeah. Well, you know, once again, we are faced with this age old story of women that are put into a position, an impossible decision, whether they have six children, they can't afford another child, whether it is an unwanted pregnancy, whether it is a 15 year old that is in the middle of high school, you know, that there's, there is no, everyone's story is so special and intricate to them. These people making these decisions or trying to,
are making it seem like women are so cavalier about it. Like it's this easy decision. You just wheel in, you know, get your procedure done and you're home the next day and it's like it never happened. I know women to this day that sitting around at a dinner table having a conversation when, you know, and we all, we talk about the old days and things come up and all of a sudden someone, and it happens more than you think, will have a conversation about, yeah, remember that weekend?
Yeah, I was 23. We were going on that trip and Dave and I, we had to get an abortion and I just got that job. And the tears and the pain associated with that experience is heartbreaking. And I remember my girlfriend having this conversation with me and it was from 40 years ago. Yeah, and it's not to say that that pain and that emotion isn't an indicator that they made a wrong decision. No, no, it's just...
Just about how hard it was. Yeah, it's a unique emotional experience. And again, it's a very private, very personal thing. And I just am uncomfortable with 10 million loud screaming, angry voices who've never been there chiming in. It's very, you're losing yourself.
the logic. You know, you're losing the statistical reality of a lot of this. And so, again, this isn't going to, this is not going to reduce abortion statistically. It's only going to reduce safe ones. Yes, we're going to do it. Women have been doing it for decades.
20,000 years and it's not going to stop. You're going to force people into back alleys again. Julia Louise Dreyfus had a funny tweet. It might not be hers originally, but she said if men were pregnant and they didn't want that baby, they could get abortions at an ATM. And, you know, it's, I think there's just, it's just such an unbalanced outlook or a viewpoint of men's health and women's health.
And it's not an equal playing field. Men are responsible for a woman's pregnancy as a woman is. And this talk of legal ramifications and forcing a 15-year-old or a 50-year-old. Imagine being pregnant at 53. It happens. Women are faced with, how can you stop somebody from...
terminating that. You're not going to, ultimately you're not going to be able to. And so I think, you know, it comes down to you may not agree with this procedure. You may not, you may, you may feel very strongly about this. And I understand that there are very strong opinions on both sides, but this is going to have to come down to a personal decision made between someone and their doctor, a family, a woman, an individual and their doctor.
And that's really the best way to do it. That's the best way that we know how. I don't think it's perfect. Does it please everyone? Of course not. And is there not, you know, darkness running right alongside the light as there is in everything in life. But this is sort of the way that we've improved health outcomes for so many women as a result of this. So I just, you know, it's disconcerting. I know it's in the U.S., but, you know, I don't want to trick ourselves into thinking it can't happen anywhere else.
You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. Lots going on in the world. Look after yourselves. Be fair. Be tolerant. Be understanding. This is an issue that is going to be spoken about 10,000 years from now. Thanks for listening to me do. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.