The McGill Daily (MD): Where do you draw inspiration from when writing your music?

Buffy Sainte-Marie (BSM): For me, it’s like I have a little camera in my head, and I’m always taking little snapshots, and then when life does something impressive in front of me, I’ll take a picture or I’ll write a song or I’ll get inspired to make a painting. It’s just the everyday stuff that inspires me. It’s the same stuff that happens to me and to everybody who’s listening. It’s very ordinary things.

Sometimes it’s things that most people are not seeing. I have the great advantage of having all these airplane tickets that have allowed me to travel to, not only the great stages of the world as a concert artist, but also small Indigenous places in Scandinavia, Australia, or in the Americas. I get to report back on things that most people are not getting to see.

MD: What do you see as the role of music and social activism, and more specifically, how do you use music as a form of activism?

BSM: Oh golly, you know it’s so natural to me that it’s almost hard to look at it in that way. I don’t feel as though music is required to do anything because music is about everything, just everything. Think of a 360 degree sphere: musicians come from every part of that sphere and we appreciate, write, and develop all kinds of things. So I don’t feel a responsibility to write activist songs.

For instance, the songs that have enabled me to make enough money to be in show business, which is very expensive, are love songs. Like “Up Where We Belong,” which won an Academy Award, and “Until It’s Time for You to Go,” which was recorded by Elvis Presley and hundreds of other artists. So it’s funny for me. It’s a very good question from you, but I don’t have a great answer for it.

It happens pretty naturally for me. I think it’s who I am and I think it’s who I was as a little kid, too. I never played sports, and I never played with Barbie dolls. I got bullied and because of this, I was the kind of kid who was really happy to go and teach myself how to play the piano because it was just so much fun. So my activism really comes from a sense of enjoyment and play. Even if it’s a tough subject that I’m writing about, even if it’s angry, even if I’m crying when I’m writing the lyrics to some song that deals with a human event that’s just awful, I still feel the same kind of motivation that most people would feel if they were playing. It comes very naturally to me.

MD: Has there been a political or social experience that shaped your music more than others?

BSM: I think that what has shaped me is the sense of, “holy smokes, it’s still that way?” I mean most Americans don’t realize that we, Indigenous people, didn’t even have religious freedom until the 70s. Just that kind of inequity, unfairness, and the fact that our fellow North Americans are not even aware of it. It’s a big picture thing that inspires me. It’s not one incident.

I’m not looking for show business material. Life is happening to me and, as an artist, I’m lucky enough to have the motivation and the interest, as well as a little bit of skill, to turn it into something! But I’m not doing “activist music” as career fodder. I mean, activist music is what I’m doing anyway. Show business is the vehicle through which I’m trying to do other things, like letting people know about important issues.

MD: I know that you were blacklisted from the radio in the 60s because of the issues you chose to sing about.

BSM: Maybe not. Maybe yes, maybe no, we don’t know for sure. It was no single song, people just became suspicious of me. The administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon didn’t want me opening my mouth about the environment. They especially did not want Indigenous people interfering with their complete control of available land and natural resources. It’s kind of a complicated issue, the reason why I was blacklisted.

MD: What would would say to young activists and musicians today?

BSM: If you really do want to change the world, you have to take care of yourself. Don’t burn out. Don’t get involved with some troll on the internet and discourage yourself. You’ve got to let some things go in one ear and out the other and just keep on with whatever your mission is. And, you know, your mission changes all the time, but if you’re a person who really wants to solve big picture issues, it’s not difficult. Just do it one day at a time, and if you have an opportunity to speak up, or to offer something, or to help, you do it. Next month, it might be something else. But if you’re a lifelong positive person and that’s the heart of your mission, you find ways to be involved, sometimes in a very small ways, and other times in big ways.

MD: You have been singing about the environment and environmental justice since long before it became a mainstream concern, can you speak to how you have centered Indigeneity in environmental justice?

BSM: Oh gosh, you know, if you had been walking in my shoes these past 50-something years, it would become very obvious that colonialism is based in European greed, control, and lack of understanding. And the lack of understanding about the environment is primary. Indigenous people throughout the world are very close to nature. Europe was an anomaly. Europe was governed by popes, kings, serial killers, and people who thought, “if we don’t control it then it must be of the devil.”

That kind of control of women, of money, and of nature comes right down the pecking order from the popes and the kings who wanted to control everybody. There’s a huge difference between Native America and European colonialism when it comes to nature and the environment. The Europeans were taught for generations that you’re supposed to defeat it, you’re supposed to fight it, you’re supposed to get rid of it and control it.

It’s primary material, not secondary material that I had to read about. I’ve been in these Native communities. They go to a clean spot and pray and work together to preserve nature, to bring back the buffalo, to bring back wilderness in areas that have been mistreated by colonialism.

In my song “No No Keshagesh,” keshagesh means greedy guts. The song is saying, “no no greedy guts, you can’t do that anymore.” So in that way, I am coming from an Indigenous point of view, and from primary experience in the Native community. Why not speak from that platform since that is who I am, what I know, what I do.

It can be very tricky as a songwriter. I mean, how do you actually put that into a format that doesn’t sound like a speech, that doesn’t sound like some politician yelling at you? You have to be clever. So you put it in a rock and roll track, you give it a great video, you make it danceable, and once people do hear the words they say, “oh, wow, you know, that makes a lot of sense,” but it has a sense of humour to it too.

That’s part of not burning out. You have to take care of yourself. Sometimes what you need is a bed and a bath and time to think. You don’t just pedal to the metal all the time. Basically you’re turning shit into Shinola.

MD: In Andrea Warner’s book, Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography, she mentions the creation of the Indigenous Music Album category at the Juno Awards. Can you tell us a bit about how that category came about, and the work you did to decolonize the Junos in the 1990s?

BSM: Well, I heard that Elaine Bomberry and Shingoose were trying to set up a “Music of Aboriginal Canada” category for the Junos. I called Elaine and I said, “you need any help?” and she said yes. So the three of us went in. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, who are the parent organization of the Junos, don’t establish a new music category because they think you deserve it. You have to come up with the numbers and actually show that there are people making records. Show that there are recording studios, producers, engineers, musicians, songwriters, etc. So Elaine and Shingoose did that, and we got to establish the “Music of Aboriginal Canada” category. Sometimes you get a chance to do that and you do it.

Medicine Songs can be streamed online. You can find more information about Buffy Sainte-Marie’s music, activism, and upcoming tour dates on buffysainte-marie.com

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post Buffy’s Medicine Songs appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The discussion was moderated by McGill professor Dr. Manuel Balán, who began the afternoon by giving attendees a brief overview of Brazil’s current political situation. In the initial October 8 presidential election, no candidate received more the 50 per cent of the vote, forcing a run-off election on October 28. Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), ultimately beat Fernando Haddad, the candidate from the democratic socialist Workers’ Party (PT) with “54 – 56 per cent of the vote.” Balán also discussed the polarization in Brazil; Bolsonaro received the highest rejection rates, as well as the most support.

First to speak was Dr. Françoise Montambeault, a professor of political science at the Université de Montréal. She opened the discussion with an analysis of the institutional context surrounding Bolsonaro’s victory. Dr. Montambeault noted that in the lead-up to the 2018 elections, Brazilian citizens had “no deep identification towards political parties,” tracing this back to the fall of the military dictatorship in 1985, which resulted in a poorly institutionalized democratic political system. Many political parties divided the vote, until two coalitions were formed around the PT and the Brazilian Social Democracy party. Various institutional crises, including a corruption scandal surrounding PT President Dilma Rousseff and former PT President Luiz Inácio Lula, weakened the party system. Ruling party fatigue and anger at individual political actors in coalitions lead to the disenfranchisement of Brazilian voters. Voters held no affiliation with established political parties which paved way for “the rise of an outsider.” Corruption scandals caused Brazilians to lose faith in the established order, with 20 per cent of Brazilians not voting, and another 10 per cent casting blank ballots. This environment allowed a figure like Bolsonaro to win. After the 2018 election, Congress is more fragmented than ever, with 30 political parties represented compared to 22 parties represented in 2010.

Dr. Julián Durazo-Herrmann, a political science professor at UQAM, followed this argument with an analysis of territorial politics in Brazil. Brazil has 27 states with 13 separate parties in governing positions. After the loss of the PT leadership to corruption scandals, the party seems to be rebuilding a leftist hub in the traditionally conservative Brazilian northeast. Dr. Durazo-Herrmann suggested that the right wing Bolsonaro government may be affected by this change. The northeast was a historically impoverished area, until the National Family Agricultural Program was introduced by PT President Lula. This program is federally funded, and is at risk of being cut by Bolsonaro. Brazilian politicians have historically been willing to align with presidents in order to receive funding, and this is a significant threat to the northeastern core of the leftist PT.

After the discussion of territorial politics, Dr. Jean François Mayer, a political science professor at Concordia, discussed the role of social movements in the rise of Bolsonaro. Dr. Mayer points out that during the approach to the 2018 elections, there seemed to be a lack of “left leaning socially progressive movements.” He went on to define social movements as “a group of individuals who seek to change the social/political status quo.” This definition is especially important in Brazil, as social movements have historically been based out of both the poorer left and the lower-middle class right.

From 2003 until 2011, the leftist PT was in power. They were successful in raising people out of poverty, with 50 million Brazilians joining the new lower middle class. This new social class wanted effective and reliable state funded programs like healthcare, education, and free transit. While the leftist PT government was combating extreme poverty, it was also involved in corruption. They invested billions into the World Cup for their own benefit and ignored the new lower middle classes’ demands. The PT also attempted to demobilize leftist social justice movements. Anti-leftist government protests demanded reinvestment into the state. In 2015 and 2016, the conservative middle class continued to protest for reinvestment, but also protested against violence and corruption. Because the PT had demobilized leftist movements that were protesting for social justice, many left-leaning protestors joined in with conservatives, for as Dr. Mayer pointed out, “everyone wants to support anti-violence.” Left-leaning social justice movements were left unsupported and without leadership, as many movements were demobilized by the PT government, and many leaders were absorbed into the PT party. Dr. Mayer argued that because leftist rhetoric was affiliated with the corrupt PT, many chose to disassociate from leftist social justice movements entirely, siding instead with the anti-corruption conservative protesters. Social movements in Brazil view anti-corruption action as an important issue, and Bolsonaro was able to take advantage of these sentiments by framing the PT as hopelessly corrupt and out of touch. This conservative anti-establishment and socially mobilized base is who supported Bolsonaro.

Dr. Mayer also pointed out that many social justice movements have been re-invigorated and redynamized by the misogynistic and homophobic language of Bolsonaro. In response, the #EleNão (“Not Him”) movement mobilized the minority LGBTQ+ community and the Afro-Brazilian community, as well as many women in Brazilian society. Dr. Mayer argued that these leftists movements picked up traction too late in the campaign to change the general mistrust of the PT. Bolsonaro was voted in before a reform in the PT could be made. However, Dr. Mayer believes that if the Brazilian left can compose itself properly, it is not too late for leftist mobilization against Bolsonaro.

Finally, Dr. Tina Hilgers, a political science professor at Concordia, discussed the role that crime and public security played in Bolsonaro’s election. Dr. Hilgers acknowledged that complex historical and social factors have led to a high crime rate in Brazil. “Violence in Brazil cannot be understood without acknowledging slavery and the exclusionary systems of government,” she said. Dr. Hilgers argued that violence is propagated by confrontational and poorly trained law enforcement. In order to combat violence, policing needs reform. In 2017, 5,044 civilians were killed by police. The previous center-right government (which was only in power for two years) appeared to make positive change by splitting the justice system in two. The split created the Ministry of Public Security in addition to the Ministry of Justice. Public security did need to be its own ministry in order to train police in non-confrontational strategies, but the new ministry has no policy proposal. Instead, there is potential for a move towards militarization, considering the recently appointed head of Public Security is a former military general. This aligns disturbingly with Bolsonaro’s politics. Bolsonaro is a former general himself, and has called protest public disorder, stating that hat he would send in military to combat protesters.

The panel ended with a comparison of Bolsonaro and Trump, who both use classic populist strategies, share contempt for institutions, and indulge in violent rhetoric. They represent a world in which leaders are popular for being “in touch” with the populace, rather than for actual policy. Bolsonaro and Trump both represent moves towards fascist populism in nations that are increasingly polarized down political lines.

The post How Bolsonaro Rose to Power appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Each of the podcasts on our list finds its own way to dismantle popular ideas about gender, sexuality, race, and class. These podcasts help to undermine structures of power that rely on fixed normative definitions. By challenging these definitions, creators undermine power dynamics, and create engaging alternative media content.

2 Dope Queens

This podcast was a monthly comedy special before it was picked up by WNYC Studios. It’s hosted by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson, two Black women based in New York, who have made it their mandate to represent comedians of colour and comedians with queer identities. This show explores the lived experience that comes with racialization and homophobia in a way that is both laugh-out-loud funny and thoroughly thought-provoking. The podcast defines itself as focusing on “race, gender, sex, and other stuff,” and they often do venture out of “race, gender, and sex” in their comedy. Although the show is made by, for, and about women of colour, a lot of white guys also come on the show to do their standup. If that’s not for you, they have a spinoff show, aptly titled Sooo Many White Guys. This spinoff gets its title from the ridiculous amount of white men in comedy, and instead focuses on people who are underrepresented in the comedy world. The inaugural episode has Roxanne Gay on it. Though on surface level, its content is meant to make you laugh, the show’s very theme song asserts “how much whiteness is all over the place,” subverting the patriarchal white supremacist format that comedy often takes.

Serial – Season 3

Serial’s first season has been criticized for sensationalizing the criminal justice system. The first season was about potential miscarriages of justice, and yet it did not highlight the systemic oppression of marginalized groups in the justice system. This criticism did not go unnoticed by Serial’s creator Sarah Koenig. In the third season of the show, she examines not the spectacular but the banal. During a full year of reporting, Sarah went to Cleveland, Ohio, took notes and listened in at the city’s courthouses; the third season of the podcast is the product of that year’s research. It covers police corruption, violence, and brutalization, and explores the ways in which a judge’s racial prejudice can affect sentencing. The mundane practices of the law that lead to the systematic marginalization of racialized people are brought to the surface here. Each episode of Serial requires mental energy to unpack, but the storytelling is thoughtful and engaging. The podcast brings the implicit racism in the criminal justice system to the forefront of the conversation. The work is not about the large scale systems of oppression, but rather it focuses on the minutiae of courtroom life that lead to reiterations of abusive power relationships. As the season progresses, I hope that Koenig will tie together the smaller-scale power dynamics with the larger systems these power relationships have created. This is something she has yet to do, and without it, the work feels incomplete.

Canadaland’s Thunder Bay and The Imposter

Canadaland is an alternative media company that was started by McGill Alumni Jesse Brown. The work that the Canadaland team produces has helped subdue fears about the positive role of critical journalism. Canadaland, as a larger project, serves as a Canadian watchdog for big media companies and for the government, and also participates in cultural commentary and criticism. Two particularly engaging shows of theirs are Thunder Bay and The Imposter.

Thunder Bay is Canadaland’s long term investigative project, crowdfunded by their listeners. Since its release, it has become the number one podcast in Canada. The show is hosted by Ryan McMahon, Anishinaabe writer, media creator, and community activist from Winnipeg. The true-crime podcast deals with the high murder rates of Indigenous peoples as well as with local government corruption, both of which are consistently under-reported on by mainstream news sources. In the first episode, they discuss the death of Barbara Kentner, an Indigenous woman murdered in a hate crime by a group of white men. The investigative work of the show is important and sheds light on the institutionalized abuse of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Larger media conglomerates chronically ignore this reality, and often do not spend the time or money necessary to properly research a story, instead turning to “clickbait journalism.” Thunder Bay does the work of uncovering and pointing to specific cases in which racism against Indigenous peoples is glaringly obvious.

The Imposter is a show about “weird” Canadian art hosted by Aliya Pabani. It focuses on novels, music, comics, and movies, weaving a narrative that links the different art forms together. The show’s episode on Drake, for example, covers underpaid dance hall performers, a cellist’s experience in the studio with Drake, and an artist’s representation of the singer through fan art. The show is articulated with style, and the cultural criticism at its core is done with care. In Pabani’s interview with dancer Esie Mensah, the two women talk about positive representations of dance hall culture, and the unfair wages paid to dancers on music video sets. Mensah talks about her mixed emotions about working for 12 hours on set for the music video for “Work” by Rihanna and Drake and only being paid $200. This coverage presents an alternative to the popular perceptions of the song. Pabani highlights those elements of popular culture that are often overlooked by mainstream media.

We Want the Airwaves

On this show, Nia King, a queer mixed-race artist and activist, interviews politically-active trans and queer artists and artists of colour. King asks questions about what it means to be a radical and socially-aware artist. This podcast addresses the contradictions that arise when you make art in order to make money. The show’s purpose is not to relay a radical ideology; instead, it explores what intersectional identities mean in the art world, and how the lived experience of queer and trans artists and artists of colour is “radical” by virtue of being lived. The podcast’s honesty make the world of art and politics seem less perfectly curated and more like a work in progress. In the latest episode, Nia interviewed Arielle Twist, a member of the Cree nation, two-spirited, trans femme poet based out of Halifax. They talk about Twist’s upcoming poetry book, Disintegrate // Disassociate and the importance of queer Indigenous art. In their discussion of art criticism, they talked about how the art world is associated with overcomplicated academic language. They proposed that poetry, being effective and accessible, can be a tool to dismantle the classism implicit in art criticism.

The post A Guide To Rad Podcasts appeared first on The McGill Daily.

When I found out I was pregnant I had been throwing up for about four weeks. In all honesty, this was not the symptom that alerted me to my condition – I have always had a wimpy stomach. What freaked me out was my bizarre awareness of my body’s fragility. This may sound insane, but in the weeks leading up to me peeing on a stick, I developed a sense of anxiety about my body that was unlike anything I had ever known.

Full disclosure: anxiety isn’t new to me. I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and I am no stranger to a panic attack, but this pregnancy anxiety was very much embodied. It wasn’t the normal “everyone probably hates me” self-deprecation that I was used to. Instead, it took the form of genuine concern over my body’s strength and ability. I became acutely aware of how insignificant I was in the grand scheme of things; there are many things that exist which could threaten my body’s daily functions. I started to avoid heights, ladders, cats, undercooked eggs, and weed. It eventually got so weird that in one instance of fear, I threw my partner in front of me to use him as a kitten shield. I used his body to stop the slow approach of a tiny, well-meaning cat. These strange symptoms all intensified after I realized I was pregnant. What before my test were stronger-than-usual anxieties, after my test became full blown phobias.

After the nurse at the McGill Health Center confirmed my pregnancy, I was handed a few pamphlets and I walked home. The McGill Clinic does not perform abortions, although they do suggest several other women’s health Clinics. For me, the initial choice was easy. My thought process went like this: I live in Canada where abortion is legal. Furthermore, I live in Quebec, where there are a multitude of care options for abortion. I’m still a baby myself. I do not want a child.  I have a right to make a choice, a choice that is accessible and easy for me, and I will exercise my right. After talking to my family, some friends and my partner about the two methods of abortion available in Quebec, I opted for a surgical procedure.

The day of my surgery was relatively normal. I woke up early and took an Uber to the clinic and waited for half an hour before I was escorted into a small room to get an ultrasound. My pregnancy was confirmed and I then went into another, slightly bigger, room for the procedure. I was given a low dose of tranquilizers and it was all over in ten minutes. It hurt a bit, but not too much. I was then escorted into a room that had hot pink decor and was left to recover for half an hour. I took an Uber home and rested. My partner made me a sandwich for dinner.

Depression hit me two weeks after my appointment. What had started off as a shift in the dynamics of my body, turned into a full blown crisis in the months that followed. The subtle and embodied reorientation of my world that I had felt during my pregnancy led me to existential questions about my worth and purpose. These questions were not part of some positive philosophical project, but rather, they were dark, uncontrolled, and relentless. I did not and do not regret my choice in any way, but I feel it is important to want to present a narrative that does not minimize the potential trauma of an abortion. In the highly politicized discourse on abortion, there is often no space for people who struggle post-procedure. There needs to be room for those who are firmly and decisively pro-choice, but who have struggled with their mental health in the aftermath of their decision.

In my experience, McGill as an institution offered little to no support after I terminated my  pregnancy. When I went to make an appointment at the psychiatric services following my abortion, I was treated with indignancy. I waited for weeks for an appointment and when I finally saw a doctor, she recommended I come back after my hormones had ‘cleared up.’ I finally turned to a private psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with PTSD and I have been working through that in therapy ever since.

The McGill campus discourse on abortion assumes a level of structural accessibility which does not actual exist.  I used my personal story as a catalyst and as evidence for this argument, but my story, as you now know, is a privileged one.

I was privileged enough to have a family who I could tell about my decision. I was privileged enough to have a parent who loaned me a significant portion of the money I needed to pay upfront at the clinic. I was privileged enough to access therapy after my procedure to deal with some of my PTSD and new found phobias. I was privileged enough to be a white cis-woman, who does not have to deal with the institutionalized racism implicit in the healthcare system.

If abortion was not structurally accessible for me with all my privileges, I cannot even begin to imagine the barriers present for those who’s lived experiences encounter huge amounts of structural forces marginalizing them.

In 1988, the Supreme Court case R v. Morgentaler struck down all existing abortion laws in Canada . Since then, abortions at any stage have been subject to no legal constraints. In Quebec specifically, abortions are free and available at any time. This narrative, furthered by opinion pieces published in our student newspapers, seems to constantly remind us how accessible abortion services are. Even articles written to highlight the lack of support available after the abortion procedure or draw attention to the need for an abortion pill take for granted the accessibility of some form of abortion to students at McGill.

If you are a student with out-of-province health insurance, or international health insurance, the process is not so easy. With Ontario health insurance, you can choose to pay the $700 fee upfront and file for coverage later, or finance a trip to Ontario where the procedure is covered. Both the surgical and medical abortion involve at least 24 hours of rest and dealing with the trip back from Ottawa while processing your abortion is a taxing requirement. Even after you have filed for insurance coverage, Ontario only covers $450 of the fee; you have to finance the difference yourself. This I know from personal experience.

For students with other provincial health insurances, accessibility to abortion is further impeded. Some provincial health insurances – such as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I, and Yukon –  do not cover a clinic’s services, so a student in need would have to go to a hospital. New Brunswick goes so far as to have an abortion clinic in Fredericton but the services are not covered by provincial health insurance. When I spoke to the nurse at the McGill Health center after my initial pregnancy test, they recommended that I avoid hospital abortion services, since the standard of care is lower than the ones offered at clinics. Even after a student has filed a claim for health insurance coverage, the amount covered varies province to province, forcing students to finance significant portions of their procedures.

McGill’s International Student Insurance does cover abortion fully. However, those who seek abortion need to pay the initial $700 upfront at the clinic. The insurance takes up to 30 days to reimburse claims, so students need to have that $700 accessible.

Up to 80 percent of abortion patients, myself included, have bouts of moderate depression after their procedures. This occurs as a result of the quick decline in hormones post-termination and can be likened to postpartum depression. Most medical sources agree that there is no clear link between abortion and depression, but that the hormonal changes that occur after pregnancy loss – an umbrella term that includes miscarriage and abortion – undoubtedly lead to mood changes. Yet, there is a lack of information and care available on campus for those who are struggling post-abortion. As the Tribune article, “Hey So I Did A Thing” pointed out, there is only one (relatively new) support group for people who recently made the choice to terminate their pregnancies. Treatment should not end post-procedure. McGill’s Mental Health Services should be better equipped for supporting those who feel the hormonal aftereffects of an abortion.

Over the past decade, research has been done into racism in our healthcare institutions. In Canada, studies have shown that racialized people are less likely than white people to have contact with any specialist physician or clinic. In a study of resident physicians in Canada, researchers found that residents would admit that prejudice existed, but deny that it affected their own encounters with racialized patients. Although some research has been done, many of those who study race inequities have pointed out the insufficient data on racialized folks in Health Care. The Canadian healthcare system has yet to fully acknowledge how socially constructed ideas of race physically affect the health and accessibility to healthcare of millions of Canadians. Abortion is no exception to this widespread systemic lack of accessibility. 

The stigma of abortion in combination with the myth of accessibility has allowed for many to feel alone and scared in a vulnerable condition. Moving forward, our campus needs to take accountability for the lack of resources. More support needs to be available for people who want abortions, and more information needs to be available on campus for those who are struggling, pre- and post-decision. In the absence of this support and information, I urge you all to listen to those who are frightened and encourage them to share with you what they feel comfortable sharing. I want to be clear: providing support to those in need does not and should not take the place of someone’s right to abortion and a student’s right to a safe and accessible campus. But it may help contribute to a de-stigmatization as well as a critical examination of what accessibility in our institution really looks like.

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