Dana Schwister and Christen Clifford

[00:07] DANA SCHWISTER: Hi, my name is Dana Schwister. I'm 52 years old. And today is October 11, 2022. I'm in New York City. I'm interviewing Christen One of my dearest friends.

[00:29] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: My name is Christen Clifford, also known as Christen Clifford. I'm 51 years old. I'm 51 years young. And today's date is October 11, 2022. I'm in Soho in New York City. And I'm here with Dana May Schwister. Who is one of my dearest friends. And I want to ask you a question that I feel a little embarrassed about. But how many abortions have you had?

[01:02] DANA SCHWISTER: I've had three abortions.

[01:04] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Okay. Can you tell me about them?

[01:09] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, tell me about the first one. The first one. So, my first abortion was when I was 18, 1988. And it was with my college boyfriend, Mike McPadden. And I did not have, like, great luck with birth control. When I was a teenager. And I first started having sex, I was using the sponge. I don't know if you remember the sponge. It was really disgusting. The sponge, that's, like, soaked in spermicide. It will kind of give you a yeast infection every time you use it. So we're using the sponge and the condom. And then I got the diaphragm. Which is also, like, not amazing. Also not for anything spontaneous. But I was good about using birth control. Except this one time, we were at the Jersey Shore, in his grandmother's shore house. And we went into the attic. And we had a very fun time in the attic. And I ended up pregnant. And I just knew I was too young. I was a teenager. I was 18.

[02:31] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Where were you living at the time? Who were you living with?

[02:33] DANA SCHWISTER: I was living with my aunt. I was going to Brooklyn College. He was living with his parents. I remember, like, I think it was kind of expensive for that time. Like, I think it was, like, $400.

[02:48] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: That is expensive.

[02:50] DANA SCHWISTER: That's a lot. And maybe not. Maybe it was 200, but it was expensive. Whatever it was. It was like, we were like, oh, God, if we have to get this money together. Of course, we didn't tell anybody what we were doing. And that's when Planned Parenthood was, like, on the east side, like, around. I remember getting there a little early. And we were in Sty town, sitting on a bench before the appointment. And it was when Stuytown wasn't nice. And it was in the. It was, like, in the winter. So it was just very gray and dismal. And it was, like when New York was very gray and dismal. But it was the right thing for me to do.

[03:34] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And did he go with you?

[03:37] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm. He went with me. I mean, I think you have to wait in a. They don't go very far with you in the room, right?

[03:46] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: They just stay in the waiting room. Yeah.

[03:48] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah.

[03:51] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: How did you feel about it at the time?

[03:54] DANA SCHWISTER: I just felt like, well, first of all, every time I've been pregnant, I've had incredible nausea. That was my first pregnancy, and it was just so hard for me to just even do the basic anything. Just every day, I'm, like, throwing up throughout the day, feeling so nauseous, feeling, like, so low energy. So I didn't want to feel that way anymore, especially with, like, a baby that I didn't want. Want to keep. I wasn't ready for it. I felt very sure that this was the only option for me was to have an abortion.

[04:35] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And then what was the second abortion?

[04:38] DANA SCHWISTER: The second one was when I was 27, and maybe that one was, like, a little bit more. I felt a little more conflicted about it because I was actually with my husband, who was before we were married, but we had already been together for, like, five years, and then I'm, like, at this age where it's a good time to have a baby at 27, but he wasn't ready, and we decided not to have the baby at that time to wait.

[05:23] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And where did you go that time? Where were you living? Were you already living together?

[05:28] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, we were living together, and we went to Planned Parenthood.

[05:32] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Was it in the same place, or was it already on Bleecker then?

[05:35] DANA SCHWISTER: No, I think it was still. It wasn't on Bleecker. I don't know when they moved to Bleecker, but that place seems very new to me. Yeah. So it was, like, the same place.

[05:51] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And did you tell anybody this time? Like, did you talk to friends about it?

[05:57] DANA SCHWISTER: Oh, well, I'm sure I talked to friends about it the first time, but just not family. And I'm sure I talked to friends about it the second time, but not my family.

[06:14] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Did you feel more ready for it? Like, do you think if. It's a horrible question to ask, but do you think if Kevin had been ready, you would have been like, I guess I'm ready.

[06:27] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. I don't know. I don't even know how to answer that question.

[06:30] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: No, it's not a good question. I'm sorry.

[06:32] DANA SCHWISTER: No, it's a great question. I never really thought about it. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I guess if I really felt ready, I wouldn't have had an abortion, right?

[06:43] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yeah.

[06:44] DANA SCHWISTER: If I felt like it was the right time, I think I felt like I should have been ready. Like, at that age that you feel like, oh, I should have my shit enough together that I could have a baby.

[07:04] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And then the third time.

[07:07] DANA SCHWISTER: And the third time was, well, it was when I was 47, and I thought I was going through menopause, and I guess I was going through menopause, but you can still get pregnant when you're in menopause. So then I was just too old. Part of me felt like, a little bit like, well, maybe this is, like, a miracle and I should have this baby, but the other part of me felt like I'm just too old. And when I thought about this, when I thought about, like, what it's like to have a little kid and how many times you have to bend down and, like, tie their shoes and my back, I was like, I can't do it. Just can't.

[07:59] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And what was Kevin's response this time around?

[08:06] DANA SCHWISTER: I think he would have gone, like, either way. He didn't really push one way or then another. I think he would like to have another baby, but he didn't really. He didn't really express, like, an opinion. Like, he left it up to me completely. And, I mean, I knew then I. At that time, I had it at home. I went to Planned parenthood, and I got the pill, and I had it at home, and I spent the day, like, having an abortion in my bed watching tv. And then I was like, oh, I haven't even done this. Even when I was sick, I don't spend the day in bed. So I thought, you know, this is the right decision for me if I can't even be sick in bed. And this is the first time that I got to, like, just, like, take care of myself all day and relax. This is the right choice.

[09:14] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I forgot to. So how many kids do you have with Kevin? In between the first abortion and the. Between the second abortion and the third.

[09:22] DANA SCHWISTER: Abortion, I have three. Three children.

[09:24] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: So you've been pregnant six times?

[09:26] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. And my pregnancies were all really horrible. So when I think about women being forced to be pregnant and, like, how can. It can really fuck you up. It can make you, like. It can make it so hard to just do your basic necessities when you feel like, that, sick and terrible.

[09:50] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I remember you were really sick when you were pregnant with Maude. I remember you were really sick. Do you feel like you were different after any of these abortions from both before?

[10:07] DANA SCHWISTER: I don't know if I was different, but I maybe. I mean, I think maybe I just felt empowered after the abortion or like, it was an empowerment that was realized for me.

[10:30] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Is there anything about your experiences that you've never told anybody?

[10:41] DANA SCHWISTER: I don't think so.

[10:50] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I always wondered. Not always wondered. I always wondered. I wondered when you and Kevin were having some marital difficulties. I wondered if he was mad at you for having that third abortion. I wondered if he, like, secretly wanted you to, really wanted you to have the baby, but wasn't going to tell you and then was secretly mad at you.

[11:15] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, I don't think that he was, but that's interesting.

[11:26] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I'm really just projecting.

[11:29] DANA SCHWISTER: Totally projecting. No, it's fine.

[11:32] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Completely projecting. Because. Yeah, because my experience was like that where he really wanted me to have a baby.

[11:41] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm. Wow.

[11:49] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Was anything different about any. What was the medical abortion like? Was it different than you imagined it would be?

[11:59] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, it was. It was actually more pleasant than I imagined it would be. I thought when I. When I went and when I made the appointment, they asked what kind of abortion that I would want to have, and I. I said that I wanted just to do the surgical abortion. I liked the idea of being anesthetized, just having it done. But then there was like, there was such a long wait, and there was really a long wait for the surgical abortion that they ask again, like, you were waiting in a room and you have to go get a sonogram, and they ask again, like, what kind of abortion you wanted? And then I thought, I don't want to wait here anymore. Let me. Which one is faster? They said the medical one. So it was much more pleasant than I would imagined. I got to watch the whole season of that show. What was it with Kevin Spacey when he's the president?

[13:06] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Oh, I liked that show.

[13:10] DANA SCHWISTER: I just binge watched that with a little opium pill. Cramping and having things coming out of me.

[13:24] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And did you do. You had to do, like, the pills in your cheeks every 2 hours for a while and then take the other pill the next morning or. I can't remember what the directions are.

[13:35] DANA SCHWISTER: I do not remember putting pills in my cheek.

[13:38] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Okay.

[13:40] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, there was like, they were timed. But I don't remember pills on my cheek doesn't mean that it didn't do it.

[14:01] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Do you feel like you learned anything from having abortion in your life, having had three abortions?

[14:12] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. I mean, I think that I learned that it's really not such a big deal to have an abortion. I think that often when people talk about it. It seems, like, so intense, and I. And I. Really, for me, I don't think it's a big deal.

[14:33] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Right? I think it's awesome. I remember you wore one of Eva's t shirts not long after the third abortion, and I was like, yeah, Dana and your kids knew the third one, right?

[14:50] DANA SCHWISTER: Actually, I never told them.

[14:52] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: You never told them?

[14:53] DANA SCHWISTER: They know about my first two, but I never told them about the other one.

[14:56] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Huh. Somehow I thought they knew.

[15:01] DANA SCHWISTER: No, no. Yeah. I never told them, which I'm very open with them about pretty much everything. I just never told them because sometimes they would ask me, like, if they could have a sibling, and.

[15:20] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Right.

[15:21] DANA SCHWISTER: It felt bad to tell them.

[15:24] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Right. Well, they might listen to this in the library.

[15:34] DANA SCHWISTER: I'm sure I'll tell them right. The next time they want to ask. Talk about abortions when they bring it up. They're old enough now. I'm sure they were old enough then.

[15:51] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: But Hazel might not have been.

[15:55] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah.

[15:55] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: She was little, and she wanted a little sibling so that she didn't have to be the baby.

[16:00] DANA SCHWISTER: So she doesn't have to be the baby.

[16:02] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yeah.

[16:03] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah.

[16:13] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Is there anything else you want to tell me?

[16:16] DANA SCHWISTER: No. Thank you for asking me all these questions. So many things that I actually haven't thought about. Can I ask you about your abortion?

[16:30] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Mm hmm.

[16:31] DANA SCHWISTER: Well, can you tell me your abortion story?

[16:36] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I had an abortion when I was 21, when I was in college, and I was living with a man who was 25 years older than me, and we were in a relationship, and I knew we were both drinking a ton. We were both drinking a ton. And I really thought he was an alcoholic. And we were doing this thing where I was trying to get him to stop drinking a couple days a week, which I didn't know at the time how fucking stupid it was for me to try to control his drinking. But I remember I told him, and he said, we were on a non drinking day, and the first thing he said was, can I have a beer? And I was like, no.

[17:30] DANA SCHWISTER: Cause beer is not alcohol.

[17:31] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: No. It was like. He was like, no, it was alcohol. But he was like, I want to drink because this is big news, and I need to drink through it. And I was like, no, we need to talk about this without drinking. And he, like, went in the bathroom and snuck a beer and went in the bathroom and, like, chugged a beer, which was another reason for me to be like, uh, not a good. This is not a good situation. But I knew in my heart that I was gonna have an abortion. Like, right away. Like, right away, like, the little kernel of truth in my soul. My body was like, mm hmm. But then I kind of feel like I let him persuade me into actually, like, thinking about doing it. And then it kind of became a performance where I was thinking about doing it of, like, I waited until the last minute. I wait until I was almost twelve weeks. I kept telling him, maybe, maybe, I don't know. Yes, no. Like, I was kind of flipping back and forth. And actually, now that I think about it right now, I probably just didn't want to tell him no, straight up. I was probably just scared to tell him straight up, I don't want to have this baby. I don't want to. I don't want you. I don't want to be in a thing with you for the rest of my life. Like, you're 25 years older than me. This is not forever. And I had forgotten that he, when we had first gotten together, he had actually written me a letter where he said, like, I want a family with you. I want to start my life over. He had a kid who was like, four years younger than me, who lived in Ireland, that he was not supporting doing anything. So whatever it was, it was definitely, like, a good thing. But I had a lot of, like, fake, I had a lot of, like, fake bad feeling about it, probably because of being Catholic, feeling like I wasn't supposed to. Like, it was guilty, whatever. And because of him and because of myself, like, I thought that it was, I mean, I thought that it was fine, but I didn't think that I would have to do it. So it was like I was going to abortion rallies already. Like, I believed that people should be able to have abortions, but I, but for me, and you know me, I like to fucking beat myself up. So it was like, for me, oh, no, right? I have to have a big moral quandary about it. I couldn't let it be simple. And afterwards, I went to St. Mark's place and I bought a fucking silver ring and I wore it on my pinky finger for, like, I don't know, almost ten years to remind me of the baby that I didn't have, which is like, I think about that now, and I'm like, that is such bullshit.

[20:50] DANA SCHWISTER: Because I really.

[20:54] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I remember, like, knowing in my heart of hearts that it was the right thing to do.

[20:58] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm. Yeah. But I feel like we're kind of taught to think that abortion is, like, a really big deal.

[21:09] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Right. And that it should be a big deal. It should be a big moral quandary. And so it's like, I feel like I performed that. I performed this idea of, like, shame and guilt that kind of wasn't real.

[21:21] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[21:24] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: But I kind of did it because it was expected of me as a. As a young woman.

[21:30] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. I mean, I understand that. I feel that way often, too, that I should feel more terrible about it. Do you think that, like, your boyfriend wanted you to have the baby just to have control over you, to, like, keep you?

[21:46] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I have no idea. Maybe. I mean, I think by then I realized, like, this is not the rest of my life. I think after about a year, I realized this is not the rest of my life. But I was there for another four years, and this is probably after two years or something. So, yeah, I. There was a part of me that already wanted out for sure.

[22:12] DANA SCHWISTER: And who went with you to have the abortion?

[22:16] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Oh, the story of the abortion itself is crazy, because I was too scared to have an abortion in New York City.

[22:25] DANA SCHWISTER: So why were you too scared to have one in New York City?

[22:28] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Because I'm originally from Buffalo, and I just. I'd never been to a clinic in New York City. I'd never gone to a doctor in New York City ever. I didn't have any healthcare.

[22:39] DANA SCHWISTER: So you thought maybe it's not safe?

[22:41] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I thought, it's not safe. New York is dirty. And, like, I thought it was gonna be, like, a back alley abortion. I had no idea that it was gonna be, like, planned. I just thought that even the planned parenthood in New York City would be horrible. It was, like, 1991, you know, it was. New York was still kind of scrappy, right? So I went to Buffalo, and that was the summer of Randall Terry being invited to Buffalo with Operation Rescue. And thousands of people went to Buffalo to attack women having abortions. And so. And this is before Clinton signed the law in where they could, they had to stay away from the entrances. So they were right there. Like we were walking in. They're right. Like, they are touching you. They were touching me. Don't. Don't do that. Don't do it. And Chris was there, and he was an actor, and he was very well known in Buffalo, and he was afraid that someone was going to recognize him. He was more concerned about himself and his reputation than how I felt. And afterwards, I was really. I didn't feel well. We had to wait for a cab, and I was sitting down or laying down, like, on the grass next to the sidewalk, and he was like, sit up. Stand up. Someone will see you. Some will, whatever. And I just remember being, like, fuck off. And he was wearing, like, sunglasses. He was super tall and skinny and had this, like, huge hair, like, you know, like a jufro, except that he was Catholic. And then he put on, like, wayfarers or something, like, as if no one would recognize him.

[24:37] DANA SCHWISTER: I just thought that was hilarious.

[24:40] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: But the other thing about being pregnant that I had that was opposite of you was that. And this is the thing that I think I was ashamed about, was that I loved being pregnant. I loved being pregnant.

[24:53] DANA SCHWISTER: What did you love about it?

[24:55] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I got a little bit sick, but my boobs got big.

[24:59] DANA SCHWISTER: That's fun.

[25:01] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: That was fun. But I didn't get a lot. I didn't get very nauseous. I felt. I don't know. I felt, like, full and sexy and, like, I don't know.

[25:11] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[25:12] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I felt awesome. And that I had that both times when I was pregnant with the children that I wanted later in my life. I loved being pregnant, but the thing about it then was that I definitely was ashamed of that. It definitely felt like you were ashamed.

[25:34] DANA SCHWISTER: Of feeling good while you were pregnant.

[25:38] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yes. I didn't tell, like, I think I wrote something in my diary once, and Chris was like, what are you writing? And he's like, are you writing that you like your body now? And I was like, yes, I am. But he was, like, mean about it.

[25:54] DANA SCHWISTER: Did you tell anybody in your family?

[25:58] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: No, no one in my family. I recovered it, my friend. I mean, another part of the reason was that I was able to go to my friend Rachel's mom's house.

[26:08] DANA SCHWISTER: Did she know? Rachel's mom? Yes.

[26:10] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yes, she knew. She was there. Like, she took care of me. She gave me tylenol and whatever, like, brought me soup. I sat in their tv room.

[26:22] DANA SCHWISTER: And how was, like, the actual experience of having the abortion?

[26:26] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Oh, the doctor was such an asshole.

[26:28] DANA SCHWISTER: You had an asshole doctor.

[26:29] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Oh, my God. I wrote a letter of complaint. I wrote a letter of complaint to the women center, buffalo, because the doctor was so mean to me.

[26:43] DANA SCHWISTER: What did the doctor do?

[26:45] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: He said, if you don't stop crying, if you don't lay down, if you don't stop crying, I have to stop this right now because they.

[26:55] DANA SCHWISTER: You were crying before the procedure?

[26:56] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yes. They gave me a shot of valium, and I got really. They said, do you want a shot of Valium to relax? And I was like, sure. The valley made me super emotional, and I was by myself. I remember it being, like, kind of a big room and then, like, the table and where he was sitting and everything was kind of, like, in the middle of nowhere. Like it was a big room with this small surgical setup. And so it seemed like there was darkness around me, and there was a nurse there, and she was, like, holding my hand and trying to whatever. But I, like, lifted my. The top of my body up from lying down, which, of course, changes the angle when in the vagina and getting into the cervix, which could be dangerous. So of course, he didn't want that to happen. But he was, like, yelling at me, and it's really hard for me to disconnect my experience with the politics around it. His name was actually Doctor Payne, which I thought was so funny. And my friend Kat also went to him to have an abortion, but he did stop. She was. She also took the Valium, was kind of, like, upset, whatever. And he was like, if you don't stop crying, I'm not gonna do this. And he stopped in the middle, and she had to go. I think she went to Doctor Slepienae. There were only three doctors in Buffalo. There was Doctor Slapien, and he got murdered by operation rescue, like, a couple years later, shot through his kitchen window, like, by a so called right to life sniper with his family home and everything. And the other guy was doctor prassemental, who was the dad of a boy I had a crush on in high school. I don't know who the other doctor was that Kathy went to, but, yeah, I remember it was hard. I remember we had to watch a video first, and they put, like, a couple people in a room together, and the other women were all older and were all mothers. And I remember being so confused, like, I didn't want to become a mother. But these people are already mothers. Why don't they want to have babies? Like, it literally did not compute to me at all. That was a big revelation for me when I had the abortion. Like, oh, people who are already mothers.

[29:37] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah.

[29:38] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And then. And then I found out at my mom's funeral that she had had at least one abortion after she had me.

[29:47] DANA SCHWISTER: And which child are you in the order of your childhood?

[29:51] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I am the 8th. You're the 8th childhood of eight children.

[29:55] DANA SCHWISTER: Of eight children.

[29:56] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And it was 1973. I was born in 71. So maybe she got pregnant again in 72 or 73. Ro was 73, right?

[30:08] DANA SCHWISTER: 73, 73, yeah.

[30:11] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And I think abortion was already legal in New York state, but for a catholic woman in Buffalo to try to find out how to have that, it was probably more difficult. And so I don't know, at her funeral, like, I'm always asking all the crazy questions to my family. And one of my sisters was like, we're all totally shit faced. And one of my sisters was like, well, mom had an abortion. I'm like, what are you talking about? When? And I was like, and how did you know? And she said, because I drove her.

[30:45] DANA SCHWISTER: Oh, wow.

[30:46] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: So she must have been 17. She's 17 years older than I am. So let's say she was 19, maybe. And she said maybe two.

[30:56] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[30:57] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: She's like, I can't remember. I definitely drove her to have one abortion, maybe two.

[31:02] DANA SCHWISTER: I was like, wow. Wow.

[31:05] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: That made me happy for my mom in terms of, like, what you're talking about, in terms of any type of empowerment or agency over her own body, right.

[31:16] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[31:17] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Don't want to have any more kids after eight of them fucking. That's forced motherhood to me. That's.

[31:23] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, that's some bullshit. Do you feel like you changed after you had your abortion?

[31:36] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I think I did feel bad about myself. I did feel ashamed.

[31:41] DANA SCHWISTER: Not fake ashamed.

[31:43] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Not fake ashamed. I think I felt really ashamed because abortion was something that, like, bad girls did, but that's different. That's like a separate feeling from the, like, fake feeling bad. Whatever. That fake feeling bad was, like, about the decision, and it was about my relationship with my boyfriend. The shame that I felt afterwards was mine. And it definitely felt like, yeah, I felt like I was a bad person, not a bad person. I felt like I wasn't a good enough woman. Like, I'd been raped. I'd had an abortion. It's like, it was like all the bad things that, you know, that happened to bad women, that society tries to blame on women had happened. And I definitely felt that. I felt that. But it wasn't like I was ashamed of my decision.

[32:54] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[32:56] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Does that make sense?

[32:58] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, it makes sense.

[33:02] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: It wasn't ashamed of my decision, but I was ashamed of being a person who had been. Who had had these experiences and that other people would judge me for.

[33:10] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, how do you feel about your abortion now?

[33:18] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I'm so fucking glad I did it. I'm so glad I had an abortion. I'm so glad I wouldn't have the two kids that I have now. You know? That's how I totally feel about it and how I feel about, like, I don't know. Like, most women I know, like, almost everyone I know has had an abortion. Like, if you actually talk about it, people, you know, when you start talking about it, then they're like, oh, yeah, right.

[33:54] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, for sure. So is there anything that you've never told about your abortion?

[34:09] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I think that shame that I just talked about, I don't think I really put that together before that. Those bad feelings were different from, like, the fake bad feelings. And at the time, I definitely. It felt very secretive at the time to have. To have liked being pregnant.

[34:35] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[34:38] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I don't know if there's anything I didn't. I haven't told anyone about the experience. I can remember the room with the video. Like, it was a VHS player, you know, like, it had, like, this kind of peach colored wall. It was small. One of my best friends stopped talking to me because she thought that she was, like, you were saying that you and Chris were gonna get married and you were gonna have a baby, and she said. She just said this to me a couple weeks ago. She said, I was afraid that I was gonna be the one left with the baby.

[35:25] DANA SCHWISTER: Oh, wow.

[35:27] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: If you and Chris had a baby and you guys were drinking so much and you could barely take care of yourselves, I was afraid that I was going to be the one left with the baby, and I was like, holy shit.

[35:38] DANA SCHWISTER: Wow. That's intense.

[35:43] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yeah. That was a recent revelation. But now we both love abortion.

[35:57] DANA SCHWISTER: So is there anything else you want to tell me about your abortion?

[36:03] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I don't think so. I think. Oh. I think that there's something I want to say about abortion in general, which is that I do think people should be allowed to use it as birth control.

[36:14] DANA SCHWISTER: Mm hmm.

[36:17] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I really do.

[36:20] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. I mean, there's. Birth control has definitely not been perfected. The options that are available are not amazing.

[36:28] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: And you know what is 100% an abortion? Yeah.

[36:33] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah.

[36:36] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: 100% effective surgical. I think so. Yeah.

[36:40] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah. The medical one, not 100% right.

[36:48] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I guess that's the, like, rebel in me that wants to be like, if you want to use abortion as birth.

[36:53] DANA SCHWISTER: Control, go for it. I agree. I agree. And it also takes away the stigma of it. Mm hmm.

[37:08] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Can you tell me the lyrics to your abortion song? Because I love your abortion song so much. Can you. Can you sing it, or.

[37:16] DANA SCHWISTER: Oh, my goodness. I don't really want to.

[37:20] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Oh, sorry. Will you tell me the lyrics to the chorus? Because I always want the chorus to go on longer.

[37:28] DANA SCHWISTER: Well, there's the. There's the course. There's, like, two courses. Abortion is normal. Course. Where I just say abortion is normal, abortion is a right. That's what I say. Abortion is normal. Abortion is a right. And I also say it doesn't matter why I didn't want it because in the song, it's the one I love.

[38:01] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: It doesn't matter because it's like, you're like, it doesn't. I didn't want it. It doesn't matter why I didn't want it.

[38:08] DANA SCHWISTER: But, yeah, in the song, it just lists, like, all these reasons why you might have an abortion. And some of them seem silly, like, oh, I just wanted to party. And some of them are like, I wanted to cure cancer, but it doesn't really matter why you need to have an abortion. Like, and I think because I always think about when they're. They say, oh, they're going to outlaw abortion, even in terms, like, if you're raped. And I'm like, it shouldn't just be about being raped. It should be for whatever reason you need it.

[38:40] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: I totally agree with you there. Totally agree with you. Now, I want you to play the abortion song. Like, as the outro to this, I want the interviewers to, like, splice in the abortion song. And.

[39:05] DANA SCHWISTER: I guess when we get our copy, we can. We can add it. We can edit it in. Right?

[39:09] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Okay. And then. And then I wanted to have, like, a link to the abortion is normal show that I did last. Whatever. Like, yeah, I like that we both make stuff about it.

[39:20] DANA SCHWISTER: Yeah, me too. Else that I really would like to say before we wrap up, I love you, too. And abortion is normal.

[39:34] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Yeah. I love you. Abortion is normal.

[39:41] DANA SCHWISTER: Thank you.

[39:41] CHRISTEN CLIFFORD: Thank you.