In the national conversation about abortion rights, the voices of actual abortion providers are often unheard. Dr. Curtis Boyd was involved in establishing the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and is a founding member of the Federation’s board of directors; and Glenna Boyd, RN, is a counselor, trainer and consultant. They join host Krys Boyd to discuss their life’s work providing abortions for women in need, why they say a healthy democracy needs compromise on complex issues, and how the Dobbs decision felt like a death. Their book is “We Choose To: A Memoir of Providing Abortion Care Before, During, and After Roe.”
Beyond the barriers of women’s reproductive rights
By Madelyn Walton, Think Intern
Since the Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade in 2022 was made, twenty-one states across the country have put abortion bans in place.[1] This not only effects women seeking abortions, but the providers that care for them.
Dr. Curtis Boyd and Glenna Boyd, RN, have dedicated their lives to abortion care and counseling. The husband and wife joined Krys Boyd to discuss their decision to provide abortion services as well as the tension they felt leading up to the Dobbs decision. Their book is “We Choose To: A Memoir of Providing Abortion Care Before, During, and After Roe.”
Dr. Curtis Boyd’s grandmother was a lay midwife. Before the legality of abortion was even debated, she and others provided the procedure for women.
“[Midwives] served their community, and they were known in their community and women in their community, that’s where they went,” says Dr. Boyd.
The procedure itself was effective, but the safety of it was debated.
Many abortions were done in secret and could lead to complications. In 1973, women could feel more secure in the care they received, but nearly fifty years later we are seeing the risks and vulnerability associated with abortion care come up again.
Dr. Curtis Boyd provided abortion care for the women that came to their facility meanwhile Glenna Boyd counseled them through their experience.
“I spent 50 years doing this,” says Glenna Boyd. “And what largely kept me engaged is the range of experience of women in their families.”
Glenna is committed to the work because she has established a meaningful connection with the women she counsels. And she has noticed a change in the decision-making process over the years and has reflected on her own life and decisions.
The Boyd’s take their willingness to provide patients with quality care, and credit what they call “psychosocial medicine” to make sure they are seen and heard. Dr. Curtis Boyd defines it as “being a decent human being and providing care and service.”
They wanted to change the way women think about themselves and work through decisions. But their practice was always aware of a possible abortion ban before it was put in place.
“For at least a year, a calendar year, before the decision came down, we were fairly confident that in some [way], we didn’t know the exact language of the law, but that abortion would be as restricted as possible,” says Glenna Boyd.
Dr. Curtis and Glenna Boyd look at the bigger picture. They look beyond the ban put in place and choose to identify solutions and resources to better their patients’ care. Since the 2022 Dobbs Decision the Boyd’s have moved their practice to New Mexico where abortion is still legal.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] At the start of Curtis Boyd’s career as a physician, abortion was a felony offense in 49 U.S. states. Then came Roe v. Wade, which for nearly 50 years meant Americans had a right to end their pregnancies if they needed or wanted to. Today, after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, abortion is illegal in 14 states and restricted by gestational age in another eight. Dr. Boyd and his wife and professional partner, nurse and counselor Glenna Halvorson Boyd are still actively committed to serving patients. But an always difficult job is now fundamentally more challenging. From Kera in Dallas, this is Think. I’m Krys Boyd. The Boyd’s have coauthored a book about the decades they committed to this work, trading chapters to talk about the different aspects of care they took on. They are proud of the work they did together to advance both the medical and the emotional well-being of their patients. And they are in a unique position to speak about the effect new limitations on abortion will have on people whose pregnancies threaten their ability to thrive. Dr. Curtis Boyd helped establish the National Abortion Federation and is a founding member of the federation’s board of directors. Glenna Halverson Boyd is a registered nurse, counselor, trainer and consultant. Their book is called “We Choose to: a memoir of providing abortion care before, during and after row.” And I’ll note as I introduce them, we share a surname, but we are not related. Glenda and Curtis, welcome to Think.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:01:25] Thank you.
Krys Boyd [00:01:26] It could be easy to forget that the modern arguments around abortion wouldn’t necessarily look familiar to people who dealt with unwanted pregnancies in previous generations. Curtis, Your grandmother was a lay midwife. She loved her community, was trusted by her community. And sometimes women would go to her looking to bring on a late period, which was how they talked about it.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:01:51] Yes. And I never knew this until after her death. A documentary film had been done about me, and I was showing it to my mother and brother in law, sister and brother in law. Perhaps in a bit of a put down started by society should get too uppity. You know, humility is essential. She said, well, you know, you’re not the first one in the family to do abortions. Your grandmother Boyd did abortions. I was really shocked. I did not know that. And it came out later. But no one ever told me they wouldn’t. We had such high regard for each other. She wouldn’t have talked, talked about to me, but she wouldn’t talk about it to any men. This was a women’s, you know, as this abortion was sort of part of a women’s secret society. It was a it was the women’s world. And men were not involved or and I’m sure my grandfather did not know she did abortions either. It just wasn’t. And they talked about this bringing on your period, so, you know, it’d be like in the book, Sister Pearl, that my periods, could you do something to bring on my period. And she understood immediately. She said, Well, I don’t do that anymore. I’m too old. What she wrote meant is, I don’t end pregnancies anymore. I didn’t. I was hiding in the corner. What I heard that I didn’t really know what she was talking about. But I had a sense, so I knew something was there more. I did remember that periods barely. I hardly knew what that was. I was a little boy, but I didn’t know what this meant. It was later when I put it all together.
Krys Boyd [00:03:35] Glenna, you first saw the word abortion in a news story when you were a teenager and you asked your mother what it meant. What did she tell you?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:03:44] She my mother, she said an abortion is it’s a medical procedure that a doctor does when a woman is pregnant and that pregnancy isn’t meant to be.
Krys Boyd [00:03:58] That’s a really interesting way to phrase it. Did you understand the magnitude of everything that was wrapped up in that at the time?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:04:05] Of course not. I was 14 or 15 years old. But it certainly framed the issue as normal. Nothing bad. And when she went on in her way to explain in much greater detail why. Sherri Chesson. Sherri Finkbine at the time this children’s TV personality was on the front page of the newspaper, and that’s where I’d seen the word that she was carrying a pregnancy that was badly damaged from a medication that she had taken during pregnancy. What my mother explained was that pregnancy was not was was not meant to be and that it was a good thing for everyone concerned.
Krys Boyd [00:05:07] That it could end?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:05:08] Yes.
Krys Boyd [00:05:10] Curtis, you were training as a doctor in the early 60s and as it happened, because at the time you treated many cases of complications from abortions. How did the laws against the procedure at the time contribute to those complications?
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:05:27] Well, of course, abortion was illegal. So a woman did not go to a physician. She went to someone in the community who provided abortion services, what we would call them. There might be a nurse. It could be a mid wife or midwives. But someone in the most communities there were women. Who provided help to end a pregnancy. Most of the time they did not end it completely. They didn’t have to return to empty. They evacuate the uterus, but they would do things to start the process and then the woman would expel the pregnancy. And most of the time she would expel it. Some bleeding, cramping and everything would be all right. But sometimes there was heavy bleeding. Sometimes she did expel all the pregnancy infections occurred. Not to say a case of that could be a terror that was most of the infection and bleeding. So these women, if they do not successfully complete expelling their pregnancy at home, they would find themselves in an emergency room. That’s I mean, to be taken care of. Especially lower income women. They had no place to go that didn’t have a doctor or take care of them. If you’re a private patient with means, they might go to their doctor to have this seen about. But they’d already expel the pregnancy. Usually if they were still preganant their doctor would, send them to the hospital.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:07:02] But the woman, the women who had to gather their courage and whatever resources they had to get to an emergency room or by the time they had accomplished that, were often desperately ill with very, very serious infections.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:07:24] So they didn’t want to go to see a doctor that exposed them. Right. . And if it’s parents or husband about what happened so you have to explain what what did they find out? What was wrong. And and if it’s a more serious trauma, you got to be hospitalized. Say it’s a bad infection to have blood transfusion. You have to be hospitalized. It’s going to be on your record then it’s really know. Well, they might pass it off as having a miscarriage. It got passed off as a spontaneous almost none of these were considered to be having had an abortion. When each woman came in, you cannot what people don’t realize, you can’t tell the difference when a woman comes in of whether she had an induced abortion or whether spontaneous. She comes in bleeding and cramping and complete. You don’t know. There was always this idea that and complete spontaneous abortion were never related to having been an abortion.
Krys Boyd [00:08:28] It’s something that comes up in the book that I think is very interesting that I hadn’t thought about before is that in the days before this was legal, when there was kind of word of mouth communication and people would learn about someone that might be able to end a pregnancy. It wasn’t all back alley butchers who didn’t care about women who were trying to make money. There were there were good people trying to provide these procedures. But because it was illegal, because there couldn’t be research into effective methods, safe methods of performing abortion, lots of people who wanted to help contributed to some of these complications.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:09:06] Of course, yeah. But that’s why one of the reasons why the legalization is so important and good medical training is so critically important. Then an abortion like many medical procedures, becomes safe. Very simple and lifesaving. Yeah. Without legalization, it’s a very, very different story and it can be needlessly dangerous. And that’s what we’re seeing again today.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:09:44] I’m a scientist, so I like to deal with facts and proof and evidence. And on either side, so we have a smith on our platform about coat hangers. Women in those days did not abort themselves with coat hangers. I mean, not regularly, but they went to women in the community who provided abortion services. Now, yes, there were some unscrupulous organizations which advertise for most of the cities and they would take them blindfolded. Yes, all of that’s true, too. These places some of these providers are supposed to be doctors. Some of them were not surgery technicians, nurses, but even nurses. Most of these were people if they were doctors, they were drug addicts, alcoholics. They had lost their medical license. That’s the reason they were doing this. So they’re not the best of physicians and, they had no personal commitment to the patient. The patients comes and goes, I don’t know what happens to the patient. They just get their money. And the pressure brought through, I guess their money. And the women go their way. Yes, that existed. And there were unscrupulous people, but I and we don’t know what percent maybe we don’t know for sure who did all these abortions. But what I’m quite sure of is many of them, high percentage were done by well-intentioned, mostly women serving other women, such as what we would call midwife might have been a nurse, too. They serve their community and they were known in their community and women in their community. That’s where they went. They knew you could go to Miss Suzy, that’s where you went. And they had their own reputation and they cared about it.
Krys Boyd [00:11:46] A bit of history that might surprise people. Is an organization called the Clergy Consultation Service on Problem Pregnancy. Clergy implies that there were pastors and churches involved. What was that organization?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:12:02] It’s a very important organization in there, actually. Now books are written about it, but it was founded by Howard Moody in New York originally and spread across the country. And it was ministers, college chaplains, rabbis, people of faith who were able to see women and under the protection of privacy between a minister and his or her flock, that communication was privileged and private and they could make referrals without endangering the woman or themselves to reputable doctors and providers across the United States who were willing to provide safe abortions. And that’s who recruited Curtis to do his first abortions. They sometimes humorously refer to themselves as essentially a travel agency because it was all about having to seek care far from home and from strangers. And the fact that it had the acceptance of ministers, clergy, rabbis was incredibly important because it wasn’t so much the seal of approval as the acceptance into community of faith and the belief that what you’re doing is acceptable in the eyes of a God or a higher power.
Krys Boyd [00:13:50] You’ve both talked about the importance of the clergy consultation service on problem pregnancy. This might strike people as very strange in this moment in the 21st century, when many people assume that people of faith automatically oppose abortion will say thats not the case now, although officially a lot of denominations have come out against it. But abortion around the time of Roe was not strictly set up as a question of morality or faith versus lack of faith. I wonder if you can give us some more context about that.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:14:30] Well, that’s a mis conception that religious organizations are in. First, I think, a subversive post abortion. They are not certain asters. There are more conservative factions. Many are the Methodist church, the Christian church or church on and on. So a lot of denominations are or not then and still haven’t been so strictly. People of faith have members who are opposed to abortion, those who support abortion, that’s you know, but those who are opposed make a lot more noise than those who are. So you hear their voices. But if you look at the polling now, 77% of people in this country say they favor legal the legal abortion, the referendum, or whether or not they themselves think they should have an abortion. And so it’s always been a minority who has made all this noise. It’s been a minority always. And it still is.
Krys Boyd [00:15:40] Going to there’s a long tradition of people, often women in communities, ending pregnancies as midwives and in other capacities. There is not a long tradition of abortion counseling. This was something that you in some ways had to sort of make up as you went along as the need became apparent. Talk a little bit about how you view the work in the beginning and how your role evolved over time.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:16:08] When I began work as a counselor, I assumed that I would use a crisis intervention model because I assumed that having an abortion was a crisis in a woman’s life. Within my first week on the job what I realized was the abortion was not the crisis. The pregnancy was the crisis and the abortion was the resolution to that crisis. That was eye opening for me. And that made me realize that with the difficult and it ranged anywhere from difficult to devastating news that the woman was pregnant, a part of her was in a way cracked open and in need of help and open to and more than I ever expected open to talking about what was going on, what she needed, what this meant in her life. And I realize that pregnancy and the need to end the pregnancy was a was a window for her and could be for me or another counselor into a number of aspects of her life. And she would let me know what those aspects were that were important. And she wanted to discuss, just as she would clearly let me know what she didn’t want to talk about, and that my job was to listen and to respect the experience from her point of view, not my incoming assumption that it was a crisis.
Krys Boyd [00:18:05] But you do write that you had to sort of get straight with your own feelings about all of this. It sounds like that was not a one and done thing. This was kind of a lifelong process.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:18:18] That’s part of what has kept me engaged. I thought that this developing a protocol for abortion counseling would be a six month job and I’d be on to the next important thing in my life. I spent 50 years doing this. And what largely kept me engaged is the range of experience of women in their families. And as society has shifted, the shift in those feelings and meanings that kept me engaged and that the self-reflection, decision making, depth of thought and feeling that women put into making that decision has spurred me to look at my own life and my own decisions, including the decision to do this work at a deeper and iterative. You know, you just go through it again and again and you see different aspects, feel different feelings that come to the foreground or recede into the background. It’s been an endlessly fascinating quest.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:19:39] I know that those of you who are listening to me and Glenna now have have come to expect from Krys Boyd some innovative things. So I want to share with you this some different thinking and to support all the threads to this that are, I would say, a different way of approaching this. First of all, there were little tidbits when the clergy started referring patients to me. I would see these patients, but occasionally I saw patients only referred by the clergy consultation. But occasionally I would see someone else. Mostly it was a politician’s wife or daughter or judges. I was known in political activent.
Krys Boyd [00:20:27] Word got around.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:20:29] And I was activent always in Texas.So they would call me and I would say no maybe don’t go to one of thoese preachers. But I saw some of those and I stopped seeing them. And here is why. So I see their girlfriend, their mistress. And these women would have more anxiety, pain did not do as well with the abortion. As women in general who had been to see a clergyman. And why was this? I asked myself. And I suppose there is at least I got a chance to talk about our pregnancy, how it happened, why they want. There was a little talk, whatever it was, and for they came to see me that showed they had less fear or less anxiety and they tolerated the pain of the procedure. And early on, I did not have. Good to see you had develop my pain control techniques and I had to give a morphine IV. and I was so afraid of a person dying. So I don’t want I don’t want to stop her from breathing. You know, I said better for being better for her. She had a little pain. And that, you know, she will be hospitalized. I don’t want to hospitalize her. The clergy. They had less, less pain. And then you have to remember that what’s often overlooked is that Glenna has a Ph.D.. She got her Ph.D first. The RN came later as a because Texas kept putting on these onerous requirements, orients for all sorts of things that never had been required.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:22:09] You had to have a nurse in the building in order to have the door open.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:22:13] You, couldn’t have the building open unless there was an RN in the building. And she said, I’m going to get my RN. So. So she did. And that’s the kind of commitment she has. She went back to school and kept working, but she went to school. And so she’s working day and night. But she was trying to get her RN and she did. But her degree was in psychology. So she had the ability. I haven’t I saw this deed. And when I started doing it after it was legal, I tried to do some abortion, but I didn’t have I mean, I’m busy seeing patients ten hours a day. I mean, I tried to do some group counseling. I didn’t know how to do group counseling.
Krys Boyd [00:23:02] You realized you needed a counselor on staff.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:23:04] So I was there to try to do a little. Not that this is. It didn’t do any good. No one ever asked me a question. That’s the first telling thing. No one ever asked me a question. So that’s a big clue.. Curtis. No one ever asked me a question. So I thought, well, so Glenna kind of took over to develop this. So she’s the one who developed this. Now what do you you who are listening need to know. This is this concept of psychosocial medicine. This is somewhat of a new concept. Growing up again with what we call psychosocial medicine decades ago. But it’s getting better known now, and we hope to establish some psychosocial training programs. So you are listening to the term psychosocial medicine. It’s being a decent human being and providing care and service. Really, it’s more complicated than that. But it’s how do you make a patients of their family feel that they’ve been seen, heard and attended to. How do you provide good care and service that has the potential for changing the way people think about themselves and about the people who provide them with care service?
Krys Boyd [00:24:21] So not just the body, but the mind and heart.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:24:23] No, so the whole thing is about medicine is more than that. It’s for all of our patients. Our goal then became the abortion became somewhat. Secondary. You’re saying that’s absurd? Of course. Of course. The primary reason she came That’s what we’re going to do. But our desire was much greater. We wanted no less than to change that woman’s way of thinking about herself and thinking about other human beings. Better be compassionate to be committed to service, to be committed to human kindness. You know, we wanted her to feel good about her exper ience with us or that experience to change the way she felt about life in general. That’s all.
Krys Boyd [00:25:11] So it is one thing to be deeply committed to the ability of women to have safe abortion procedures when they need or want them, and to feel like this work is really important and to be working with colleagues, all of whom believe the same thing. But you also live in a world where there are many people who are adamantly opposed. Well, we’ll talk in a moment about when things began to be very dangerous and violent for abortion providers. But talk a little bit about how over the years you have squared your firm beliefs that this is important for women to be able to access with the reality that many, many people believe you’re wrong.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:25:57] My simple answer to that is that all of us are entitled to whatever beliefs we hold in the moment. And I respect those. As my beliefs, your beliefs. And none of us have the right to impose those on any one else. Period.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:26:24] Either to force them to have an abortion or to force them not to have one. So we have take no position there. But a woman comes to us. We want to find out what does she want and help her to get what she wants.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:26:36] Okay. We’ve we’ve seen women over the years whose parents or partners insisted that they had an abortion, that they have an abortion. Who would say flatly this I want to carry this pregnancy. That we do not provide an abortion for that person. They go on their way. And by the same token, no woman should be denied access to an abortion because someone else is opposed. The people protesting us or whomever the politicians in power are. As opposed to abortion. It’s a very personal, private decision about one’s own body. So that that’s one level of answer to that. I think there’s another question in what you’re saying, which is how do how have either of us lived with the fact that there’s a group of people who want to demonize us and wish us very, very bad.
Krys Boyd [00:27:49] And for a while seemed to want to kill you? Potentially?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:27:52] Absolutely.
Krys Boyd [00:27:53] Your clinic was set on fire.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:27:55] Yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:27:57] Multiple times.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:27:57] We’ve had several arsons. Yeah. So that element of it, it has been a very, at times frightening and deeply disturbing. But ultimately, what I’ll speak for myself, what I decided was that battle that’s seems to be raging, it’s not the meaning of my work. My work is with our staff and between me and each patient that I see. And the rest is noise. That’s not where I put my energy or my focus.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:28:42] Another thing, I think, are all these that our abortion people are violent. That is not true. It’s a small percent that are so I want to be fair about that too. I mean some to perpetuate untruths. There are lot of people are strongly opposed to abortion. They were never burned our clinic or attempt to they would never shoot someone. You know, they would vigorously disagree, and they have every right to disagree. What they don’t have a right to impose their beliefs on someone else one way or the other. They have that right. I’ll support them in that. And as for most anti-abortion people, they have strong religious beliefs. They’re not violent. They are not. But it’s like the religious groups. They all resist. People are anti-abortion. They’re not. It’s a smaller percent that are rabidly anti-abortion. Most religious people either are neutral, support, women’s rights are neutral, or if they’re opposed that’s their opinion. They recognize. This is my opinion. Other people have different opinions. I don’t I’m not going to condemn any of those other people to hell. And I’m not going to try though those during the last report any harm. That’s fine. That’s a democratic society. We could live with that kind of society. The problem we have is not being able to accept differences. A democracy cannot function without compromise.
Krys Boyd [00:30:13] One of the things that Glenn has done throughout her career, in addition to caring for patients, is caring for members of the staff and making space available for people to talk about the work. You were just telling me in the break, Curtis, that you still feel like it’s useful to be able to sort of talk through your feelings about these things.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:30:32] I’ve found that I’m still learning new things. I think about them in a different way. Topic comes up. It’s been a lifelong process for me, becoming more and more open, less judgmental. I grew up in a fundamental religion which was not our truth. It was an absolute truth. I was God’s truth. And we do God’s truth. And as I’ve pursued my education, my reading errors are so many things that are in dispute. So many things that are unknown. So many different beliefs, I thought and I’m more and more I’ve tried to open myself up to say, well, I have this opinion. You have your opinion. All I know is we have different opinions. So we got to talk about why you believe the way you do. Why? I believe the way I do. Maybe we’ll come to a better understanding of each other. I will continue to have our differences, but I don’t think I’m absolutely right or they’re absolutely wrong and no longer. I try not to think that way. I don’t know. Some things. I still feel pretty absolute about it, but I don’t think it’s okay to murder people. I don’t think it’s okay to burn down people’s homes and businesses. But nevertheless, it’s been a continuous evolution there to be more tolerant. And I become more and more to realize that a democracy cannot really function well without that. Democracy is built on compromise. Well, hundreds of people of this country look at me, a host of different opinions about things. You cannot do whatever one wants. It’s hard. You don’t even you can’t even do what the majority want. Usually you build coalitions. So it’s always that work of what is the final decision going to be. And it’s like what I’ve come saying about the truth. You know, there are two truths. There’s the truth or capital T, capital T and the truth with little T, little T, see? So I don’t believe in the truth. Capital T. I believe in the truth per se. The truth is ever changing. It’s the truth as we know it today. I don’t know what it will be tomorrow. So I need to be prepared to change tomorrow with new evidence. And then that new truth is only that truth until something else comes along with evidence that causes a change. So if you still produce, you don’t get rigid about truth. The truth is a nebulous thing. Being right and wrong is a little nebulous. Sometimes you’re right. Sometimes you’re wrong. You’re right about yes, It’s what is right, as always. How I do what’s right. Well, no, you don’t. Probably. You know what you think is right? I know what I think is right. But we need to talk about if we have a different opinion about what’s right, we have to talk about it.
Krys Boyd [00:33:19] The Supreme Court had come close to the line of overturning Roe before, and it had not happened before the Dobbs decision. There were some limitations put in place, but prior to Dobbs, the court had upheld a broad right to abortion in this country. Did it take you by surprise when this ruling happened, or did you know it was coming.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:33:44] For at least a year, calendar year before the decision came down. We were fairly confident that in some we didn’t know the exact language of the law, but that abortion would be as restricted as possible.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:34:09] The religious political situation, our country, I’ve known about the Heritage Foundation of many decades. I never realized they’ve been trying to interact a program for 50 years, and they’ve worked out in the Reagan administration. They got partway there. Now it’s less political. But they have an agenda and they’ve been steadfast in working on that agenda. I never thought they’d be successful. But if I did realized what was happening on the Supreme Court, really the things that every judge on this country is vetted by the Heritage Foundation, every federal judge appointed is vetted, I think, by the Heritage Foundation. So it’s changing. And that’s the Supreme Court. It’s changed the Supreme Court. So it’s it’s a big problem. But I think it’s so it’s not a democratic rule. It’s just a minority can control. So but it’s democracy. You have to deal with that. The majority doesn’t always rule a democracy. That’s a that’s a messy concept.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:35:14] We knew that a very unfavorable and law and big Supreme Court decision was coming inevitably. And the day that it came down was still at some visceral level, shocking, much the way when someone you love is dying and you’re preparing for what you know is inevitable. And when it happens, it’s still beyond comprehension.
Krys Boyd [00:35:51] What did that day feel like for you?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:35:57] Like a death.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:35:59] I think Glenna and I found our own death.
Krys Boyd [00:36:03] How so?
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:36:05] Well, this seemed like the end of our lives. The primary.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:36:10] Our life’s work.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:36:11] Mission of our life’s work was women’s reproductive rights in particular, and women’s human rights in general. That’s that’s right. We were working for, what I was working for, I think. So I think abortion. I thought I think women I think of women’s rights and as sort of as an arch. And abortion rights are the capstone of that arch seemed the capstone when you put the capstone end the arch stance. I thought until we can secure the right of all, at least one woman to make decisions regarding her own body, you can never expect to get the full women’s equality. How can you? She can’t even make decisions about her own life and body. And it just seemed like I thought that Capstone set like the Capstone were just pulled out and I thought the whole arch is going to collapse and our life’s work is going to collapse. And then that’s that was. We’re not there now. But yes. But at first it was devastating.
Krys Boyd [00:37:18] Have you been surprised to see a number of states, including states that have been politically mixed or sometimes even a little bit conservative, have voters respond in support of abortion rights? Did that come as a surprise to you?
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:37:37] If I think purely politically about it, there is an element of surprise in that. If I think about the thousands of women and their families whom I’ve met over the years and talked to, it’s not surprising at all. There were no one knows for sure what they will do when they’re in the position of a pregnancy that isn’t going to work in their life until they’re in that position. So you can you can and you don’t always realize how fundamental something is and how important it is until it’s taken away or it’s gone. And then there’s that realization of, wait a minute, this is about something very, very different from the way I was thinking about it before. So I’m not I’m not surprised that when the right was seemed suddenly stripped from people they recognized. Wait a minute, This this is important and we need this.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:38:55] And I was more surprised. Usually I’m the optimistic one so much. But this I was surprised. I didn’t think we would make it through the first three states. One of them I was. I didn’t expect that. I do think what a place to start, I think is strong in this country. It’s that commitment to securing. Women’s equality. Well, that’s been a centuries long saga. Spin off historically long struggle has turned out some better achieved. Not in this country. Not in any country. And. Progress is being made. We’re going to get there. Whose lifetime? I don’t know. But its progress continues to be made. But we do not have women’s equality. So what has encouraged me is something I’ve seen different is ith these women, they said, I’m opposed to abortion, but I’m voting for the right to abortion in this amendment and this proposition because other women might want and need to have an abortion. That’s new. That’s a small number. But I hope that number grows. That’s that’s all you want. That’s all you want.
Krys Boyd [00:40:08] What sort of access do you imagine for abortion care in this country, given the lack of medical professionals who are willing to go into this work now?
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:40:21] I think that’s a missed concept, too.
Krys Boyd [00:40:23] Okay.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:40:24] There are an abundance of young women doctors, mostly women doctors now who want to provide abortion care as a part of their women’s health care. And remember, they’re not many places. They’re not able to. They’re restricted by hospital restrictions, state laws. So there are plenty of providers, I think more than enough providers to meet the needs of this country. If there were no restrictions, again, on folks who want to provide abortion services being able to do so, most abortions don’t need to be done in the hospital. All these restrictions sort of make it more difficult to obtain more expensive surgery. So there are doctors, there are doctors while we need to remove the restrictions. Sometimes doctors, it’s hard getting medical liability insurance. You say you have a family. Let me give you an example. You’re a family primary care doctor, but you’ve learned how to do abortions in your primary practice care. And you can do that now. So you go to a smaller city around here and provide your practice. But, you know, you’re only going to do a few a month. Even if you had a big if you did one a week. I mean, that abortions aren’t that frequent people think they are, but percent is low. So you said, I don’t want abortions. So now many insurance companies require since you will provide abortions, you have to have OBGYN insurance. Let’s say in a small area, $50,000 a year for medical liability insurance. You provide abortions without OBGYN insurance is $150,000 a year. Medical liability insurance. That’s not $100,000 a year. You can calculate pretty fast how many abortions you’ve got to do. Just to pay for the medical liability insurance without paying for the expenses of providing the service. So they can’t do it. They immediately find it impossible. The next thing is, sometimes it’s hard to rent property because landlords are afraid their property get burned. There’s no kind of protection by the government. That’s such a shame. Some of that risk. The risk is small, but they don’t want to. They don’t know how small it is. They are going to take it. Their medical practices that won’t accept a doctor want to provide abortion services because they’re afraid it will hurt their reputation in the town, they don’t watch the controversy. So there are all kinds of barriers. It’s a more complex problem, and it’s going to take a lot of work to solve all of these. Its going to take some government intervention to do it.
Glenna Boyd, RN [00:43:00] There are there are a number of things going on simultaneously. The two big ones are that there are physicians and hospitals that are not providing essential lifesaving care to women, without a doubt. And that is a huge public health problem right now in this privileged nation. On the other hand, there are physicians and groups coming forward to strongly support abortion, to fund new facilities, to find ways to deliver abortifacient pills, care in many forms. So those things are both happening simultaneously as a result of the changes in the laws.
Krys Boyd [00:43:55] Glenna Halverson Boyd is a registered nurse, counselor, trainer and consultant. Dr. Curtis Boyd helped establish the National Abortion Federation and is a founding member of its board of directors. The book they co-wrote is called “We Choose to: a memoir of providing abortion care before, during and after row.” Glenna and Curtis, thank you very much for sitting for this conversation.
Dr. Curtis Boyd [00:44:16] You’re welcome. It’s been our pleasure.
Krys Boyd [00:44:19] Think is distributed by PRX, the public radio exchange. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and listen to our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts by searching for KERA Think. Our website is think.kera.org which is where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. Again, I’m Chris Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
