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It was the middle of summer
and well past closing time
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in the downtown Berkeley bar
where my friend Polly and I
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worked together as bartenders.
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Usually at the end of our shift
we had a drink -- but not that night.
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"I'm pregnant.
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Not sure what I'm going
to do yet," I told Polly.
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Without hesitation, she replied,
"I've had an abortion."
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Before Polly, no one had ever told me
that she'd had an abortion.
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I'd graduated from college
just a few months earlier
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and I was in a new relationship
when I found out that I was pregnant.
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When I thought about my choices,
I honestly did not know how to decide,
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what criteria I should use.
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How would I know what
the right decision was?
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I worried that I would regret
an abortion later.
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Coming of age on the beaches
of Southern California,
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I grew up in the middle of
our nation's abortion wars.
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I was born in a trailer on the third
anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.
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Our community was surfing Christians.
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We cared about God, the less fortunate,
and the ocean.
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Everyone was pro-life.
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As a kid, the idea of abortion made me so
sad that I knew if I ever got pregnant
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I could never have one.
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And then I did.
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It was a step towards the unknown.
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But Polly had given me
a very special gift:
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the knowledge that I wasn't alone
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and the realization that abortion
was something that we can talk about.
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Abortion is common.
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According to the Guttmacher Institute,
one in three women in America
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will have an abortion in their lifetime.
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But for the last few decades, the dialogue
around abortion in the United States
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has left little room for anything beyond
pro-life and pro-choice.
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It's political and polarizing.
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But as much as abortion is hotly debated,
it's still rare for us,
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whether as fellow women
or even just as fellow people,
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to talk with one another
about the abortions that we have.
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There is a gap.
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Between what happens in politics
and what happens in real life,
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and in that gap, a battlefield mentality.
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An "are you with us
or against us?" stance takes root.
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This isn't just about abortion.
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There are so many important issues
that we can't talk about.
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And so finding ways to shift the conflict
to a place of conversation
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is the work of my life.
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There are two main ways to get started.
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One way is to listen closely.
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And the other way is to share stories.
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So, 15 years ago, I cofounded
an organization called Exhale
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to start listening to people
who have had abortions.
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The first thing we did was create
a talk-line, where women and men
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could call to get emotional support.
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Free of judgment and politics,
believe it or not, nothing like our sevice
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had ever existed.
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We needed a new framework that could
hold all the experiences that we were
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hearing on our talk-line.
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The feminist who regrets her abortion.
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The Catholic who is grateful for hers.
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The personal experiences that weren't
fitting neatly into one box or the other.
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We didn't think it was right
to ask women to pick a side.
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We wanted to show them that
the whole world was on their side,
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as they were going through this deeply
personal experience.
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So we invented "pro-voice."
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Beyond abortion, pro-voice works on hard
issues that we've struggled with globally
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for years,
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issues like immigration, religious
tolerance, violence against women.
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It also works on deeply personal topics
that might only matter to you
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and your immediate family and friends.
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They have a terminal illness,
their mother just died,
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they have a child with special needs
and they can't talk about it.
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Listening and storytelling are
the hallmarks of pro-voice practice.
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Listening and storytelling.
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That sounds pretty nice.
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Sounds maybe, easy?
We could all do that.
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It's not easy.
It's very hard.
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Pro-voice is hard because we are talking
about things everyone's fighting about
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or the things that no one
wants to talk about.
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I wish I could tell you that when you
decide to be pro-voice, that you'll find
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beautiful moments of breakthrough
and gardens full of flowers,
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where listening and storytelling
creates wonderful "a-ha" moments.
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I wish I could tell you that there would
be a feminist welcoming party for you,
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or that there's a long-lost sisterhood
of people who are just ready
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to have your back when you get slammed.
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But it can be vulnerable and exhausting
to tell our own stories
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when it feels like nobody cares.
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And if we truly listen to one another,
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we will hear things that demand
that we shift our own perceptions.
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There is no perfect time
and there is no perfect place
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to start a difficult conversation.
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There's never a time when everyone will be
on the same page, share the same lens,
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or know the same history.
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So, let's talk about listening
and how to be a good listener.
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There's lots of ways to be a good listener
and I'm going to give you just a couple.
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One is to ask open-ended questions.
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You can ask yourself or someone
that you know,
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"How are you feeling?"
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"What was that like?"
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"What do you hope for, now?"
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Another way to be a good listener
is to use reflective language.
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If someone is talking about
their own personal experience,
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use the words that they use.
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If someone is talking about an abortion
and they say the word "baby,"
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you can say "baby."
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If they say "fetus,"
you can say "fetus."
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If someone describes themselves
as gender queer to you,
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you can say "gender queer."
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If someone kind of looks like a he,
but they say they're a she -- it's cool.
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Call that person a she.
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When we reflect the language of the person
who is sharing their own story,
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we are conveying that we are interested
in understanding who they are
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and what they're going through.
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The same way that we hope people are
interested in knowing us.
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So, I'll never forget being in one
of the Exhale counselor meetings,
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listening to a volunteer talk about how
she was getting a lot of calls
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from Christian women who
were talking about God.
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Now, some of our volunteers are religious,
but this particular one was not.
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At first, it felt a little weird for her
to talk to callers about God.
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So, she decided to get comfortable.
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And she stood in front of her mirror
at home, and she said the word "God."
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"God."
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"God."
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"God."
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"God."
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"God."
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"God."
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Over and over and over again
until the word no longer felt strange
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coming out her mouth.
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Saying the word God did not turn this
volunteer into a Christian,
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but it did make her a much
better listener of Christian women.
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So, another way to be pro-voice
is to share stories,
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and one risk that you take on, when you
share your story with someone else,
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is that given the same
set of circumstances as you
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they might actually
make a different decision.
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For example, if you're telling a story
about your abortion,
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realize that she might have had the baby.
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She might have placed for adoption.
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She might have told her parents
and her partner -- or not.
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She might have felt relief and confidence,
even though you felt sad and lost.
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This is okay.
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Empathy gets created the moment we
imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes.
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It doesn't mean we all have
to end up in the same place.
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It's not agreement, it's not sameness
that pro-voice is after.
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It creates a culture and a society that
values what make us special and unique.
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It values what makes us human,
our flaws and our imperfections.
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And this way of thinking allows us to see
our differences with respect,
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instead of fear.
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And it generates the empathy that we need
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to overcome all the ways
that we try to hurt one another.
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Stigma, shame, prejudice,
discrimination, oppression.
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Pro-voice is contagious,
and the more it's practiced
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the more it spreads.
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So, last year I was pregnant again.
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This time I was looking forward
to the birth of my son.
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And while pregnant, I had never been asked
how I was feeling so much in all my life.
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(Laughter)
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And however I replied, whether I was
feeling wonderful and excited
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or scared and totally freaked out.
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There was always someone there
giving me a been-there response.
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It was awesome.
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It was a welcome, yet dramatic
departure from what I experience when
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I talk about my mixed feelings
of my abortion.
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Pro-Voice is about the real stories,
of real people making an impact on the way
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abortion and so many other politicized
and stigmatized issues are understood
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and discussed.
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From sexuality and mental health,
to poverty and incarceration.
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Far beyond definition as single right
or wrong decisions, our experiences can
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exist on a spectrum.
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Pro-Voice focuses that conversation
on human experience and it makes
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support and respect possible
for all.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)