EPISODE 8: How Abortion Relates To Our Experience Of Death with Amanda Kingsley
In this episode, I talk to my friend, author and podcast host Amanda Kingsley, about our experiences with abortion and how it has shaped our understanding of death, grief, and personal transformation. We discuss the emotional and political aspects of abortion, the impact of grief on future generations, and the importance of having respectful healthcare. Through deep, personal reflections, we explore how these experiences have expanded our lives and helped us develop self-compassion. This conversation offers a nuanced perspective on the intersection of abortion and grief.
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Sarah: [00:00:00] this episode is a little bit different. I'm talking to my friend, Amanda Kingsley. She talks and works and has conversations via podcast, and she has a book, and this is the main topic that she coaches around, is after abortion. So this conversation centers around abortion and how that relates to our experience of death and walking through death and what it's like to think of, our, Children are babies that we aborted and we both have had abortions I've been on Amanda's podcast a few times and to talk about different aspects of that and and now she's on mine and we're talking just about the concept of death and how we have come to understand it as a result of our abortions and Some of our own personal griefs.
Amanda asked me a lot of really good questions, and I really like these conversations to be conversations and not [00:01:00] just me statically interviewing somebody else. And there is a whole lot she asked me some things that really, really caused me to dig deep and think about and articulate some things about my experience that I haven't done before.
And I think I did the same. for her also. So, you know, we talk about political aspects. We talk about access to abortion and we talk about being, you know, Amanda was a grown up, married, home owning, um, woman when she had her abortion. And I was a high school student who was drunk most of the time or high we both aborted our babies and both had transformational experiences as a result of that.
And so anyway, you're going to hear lots of different perspectives around lots of different elements around grief and death in a way that we haven't talked about yet on this podcast. And honestly, in a way that I haven't heard anybody else talk [00:02:00] about in this conversation around either abortion or grief or death.
So I hope that. It gives you some insight and some peace into your own humanity. And if you have also experienced abortion, Hi friends, this is your host, master coach and teacher Sarah Yost. You are listening to the About Death podcast, the show about living life on your own terms. Stick around if you want way more of what you want with way less anxiety.
Hi.
Amanda: Hi. I am Amanda, to dig further, which you can see in the bio, Amanda Kingsley, but really what I am is a human in a very messy world. And some of the ways I human, I am a wife. Of like 21 years next month, so that's fun. [00:03:00] I'm a mother. I'm a coach. I'm a writer.
I'm a podcaster. Yeah, I just keep showing up in the world to grow and evolve and change. So, however I might introduce myself today might be different in the near future.
A little more specifically, I tend to write and talk and podcast specifically about the after abortion experience, but really it's about those nuanced, messy places where there's paradox and there's there's like, Confusion and awkwardness and discomfort and stigma. So, I'm the person who gets into all that with her people.
Sarah: me. So, you're a good fit for a podcast about death.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, I have lots of big thoughts about a podcast about death and Where I've come and what I've learned about it. Mm hmm I think my abortion lens has [00:04:00] given me an Interesting lens into death that I didn't that I couldn't have reached another way for me I had my abortion after three kids and so I knew the power of giving life, but I didn't know the power of taking life until I had an abortion.
And so choosing to take life, choosing to end life, choosing to be a facilitator of what I would call someone else's death. Now technically it was a clump of mushy cells, but for me that was like It was life. It was as much my baby as it was when I wanted to be pregnant. And so coming to terms with death in that way from the other side, I think, has, has grown and evolved and changed me in a lot of ways.
Sarah: When you were going through it, did you think of it as a death? Or is that the way you made sense of it later?
Amanda: I think I did. I think I did [00:05:00] because for me, I said goodbye to her and I don't know that she was a her, but for me, she felt like a her. Yeah. So I remember having a conversation that was like, I'm so sorry that we have to do it this way, but I need to let you go.
Like, I'm going to let you go. Like, you can't come in. So, yeah, I very much did, but I think that was what has allowed me to heal and talk about abortion the way that I have is that I really faced it for what it was to me. Now, everyone has their own experiences, but I did think of it as a death. I didn't think of it as a clump of cells.
I didn't think of it as just tissue. I didn't think of it as like a period. I thought of it as like a human that I was saying no to. Literally, like it. And I remember saying, like, if you want to come back in a different way, like I'm open to that, but this isn't going to work. Like my [00:06:00] body right now is not going to work for this.
And so I, I really said goodbye to her before I said goodbye to her. So yeah, I think I did think of it.
Sarah: Yeah. Did you tell yourself stories about I don't know that you were a murderer. I don't know shit like that. Did you go there?
Amanda: I didn't have like I didn't have any kind of programming like I wasn't raised I'm just gonna say Christian because that's like the most common programming we hear.
I wasn't raised with like a religion or a political belief system or They didn't have those like voices in my head.
Sarah: Mm hmm
Amanda: So that did make it easier, but I did have like, so it wasn't like I'm a murderer, but more I'm a bad mom. Like I knew that the decision itself was actually proof of what a good mom I was because I was choosing what was best for [00:07:00] my living kids.
I was choosing what was best for my marriage. I was choosing what was best for myself, which is all pretty badass mom moves.
But at the
same time, it's like, Why would you say no to one and yes to the others? Like, you know, who might that one have been? So I didn't have mixed feelings about abortion itself and whether or not it was like morally or ethically right for me to choose it.
But I did have mixed feelings about what does it make me when I choose to stop someone from coming in, when I choose to say goodbye, when I choose to let go. Yeah, it definitely was messy. I think I thought like being raised a feminist, I think, and like just, being very, like, empower, empowered woman kind of vibe.
I thought, like, oh, this is gonna make me feel even more badass. [00:08:00] Like, this is gonna feel good to take charge of my life and, like, make a decision for me and, like, be the woman I want to be in the world. And so I was a little surprised that it didn't immediately feel, like, totally empowering. It felt pretty crappy at first.
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: And so. That was, that was a little disappointing. I felt like a bad feminist for a while.
Sarah: God, me too. And when I had my abortion, I, I did think of it as a clump of cells. I mean, I didn't feel like I had a baby or maybe I didn't acknowledge feeling that way. I don't know. I just didn't go there. But then afterwards, the aftermath I never felt like a murderer.
It was more like, you know, the potential and I, I felt like mine was a boy and I had a relationship with him and I had really similar, like, this is, I thought abortion was, you know, a feminist right and it It is that, but it is not only that. It is the right to have this experience that we're talking about.
And I was very [00:09:00] surprised. I was young, and I was drunk, and I was very surprised at the impact that it had on me afterwards.
Amanda: And if you think about the conversation in general, like, abortion is very stigmatized. It's very politicized. It's very black and white. And we're barely talking about it inside those binaries.
We're definitely not talking about it in the middle place where it's like, yeah, I'm glad I made that decision, but I felt a lot of grief. Like that's just, there's just so few spaces that you're allowed to talk about all the feelings of it.
Like, I know it was the right decision, but I wish I didn't have to make it.
So like, of course you felt weird about it. Of course. I felt weird about it. Like no one was having conversations with us about, we didn't have it modeled to us what it looked like to go through an abortion experience and like be okay. [00:10:00] Like, in all the ways, like, be not okay, which would be okay,
you know, yeah,
Sarah: yeah, we really, the discussion is really about, should we or shouldn't we, is it okay or not?
Okay. Yeah. It decides it's really just about just those questions. We don't talk about the experience of it
Amanda: like the conversation is so often centered on access.
We
don't really talk about what does that access mean, and what does that lack of access mean? Like, what are the consequences of having or not having access?
Versus like, just like, should we have it or should we not have it? It's like, no, it's like so much beyond that. There's so much more to talk about beyond actually the procedure itself and getting access to the care.
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Amanda: Do you, can I ask you a question?
Sarah: Of course.
Amanda: If you look back at the experiences you've had around death now, can you think of ways that moving through that
like impacted your, your lens, your viewpoint, moving that your own abortion experience?
Sarah: That's a good question.
Amanda: Obviously, it's in retrospect, but.
Sarah: Sure. You know, there are a lot of things that I learned after not about death, but about self compassion and about being surprised at an experience and about holding physical pain and emotional pain and large [00:12:00] grief and what does it make me, you know, that may have been the first large experience of that and I've, I've, I've had to go through lots of stuff like that since.
So I was 17 when I had my abortion and I, I think that was the first time that I really had to face that.
that many big things at once.
So not the abortion itself, but the experience of coming out of holding multiple realities of being surprised of, navigating my insides. That was probably my first lesson of that. But until you asked that question, I hadn't made that connection.
Amanda: It's almost like you used those muscles in my experience.
And so when you went through an experience that required those muscles again, it was like, okay, we have done this. Like, we might not, it's not the same situation, but like, there's some. Muscle memory, you know, I'm choosing air quotes, but [00:13:00] like there's some it's not like new to you. I think we underestimate What a gift Talking about our abortions can be because of that very thing It's like we're gonna face so many more things in our lives in which If we had the open space to talk about our abortion experiences, they would become a resource for so many more things in our future.
Instead we're just like, kind of bottle it up and move on and try not to think about it or talk about it. It's like wasting this precious opportunity to feel a lot of feels.
Sarah: It's a lot.
Amanda: There's a lot of feels. And if we miss that opportunity, like, whatever, we're going to get it a different way. But like, if we've already been through it, such a, a rich place to dive in and learn things about ourselves and about what it means to be human and about, you know, how we interact with the world and each [00:14:00] other.
Sarah: Was your abortion your first time going through something large like that?
Amanda: Yeah, I mean, I'd say, like, in terms of loss and grief in that way, I had experienced the loss of grandparents. I had experienced the loss of a nephew who I took care of and had a really special relationship with, almost as if he was my first child.
So, there were other spaces I had experienced some, like, You know, my daughter lost a friend. In sixth grade, that was a pretty intense experience. Our neighbor who was a child passed. But as deeply personal, I'd say for me, like, I hadn't lost a parent or a child or a, or an intimate best friend. So it was definitely big in a different way, but it wasn't the first time I'd faced [00:15:00] grief for sure.
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: And again, I do think what was unique about abortion was it, because I had had a miscarriage too, right, so I have my kids now are 19, almost 20, 17, and 10. And so between the two girls I had a miscarriage. So I had the loss of a, of a pregnancy at about the same gestation.
And then I had another living child, and another living child.
And then, it was the, coming back to the beginning of the conversation, it was the, the complexity of not just losing the pregnancy and having that grief, but like choosing to lose the pregnancy and having that grief. I can see how there may be some similarities if you were faced with the decision of actually, you know, turning off life support or like, that's the only thing that I could imagine where you have that, connection from the other side of the experience of losing [00:16:00] someone.
But I haven't been through that, again, personally with a child or a parent, so I don't know. But that was what was so interesting to me about abortion was facing my own power, right? Like, I have this ability, And should I have that ability, right? Should I have that much power that I get to decide which babies are born and which babies are not born?
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: That's a big, right? Like, should I have that power of who lives and who dies? Like, I felt pretty good about it, but there's a lot to explore there. .
Sarah: You know, I, I think I faced that after my daughter was born, I had this irrational fear that I was going to put her in the oven and I would have all of these intrusive thoughts.
I would open the oven and I'd go, I could just put her in there. And it was that I am in charge of keeping this kid alive, mixed, you know, mixed with a lot of hormones and lack of sleep and an [00:17:00] already active brain. But I. It, it was the power of, I'm in charge of keeping this kid alive and no one's watching.
Amanda: Yeah. I can only relate to that in that I remember actually it being stronger and it still is stronger when I have other people's kids in the car. When I have kids, when I'm driving, I have that experience where I'm like, I could just drive into that tree. I could just drive into that truck. I could just, so that when you said that about the oven, I was like, oh, I do that, but in a vehicle.
No, I don't mean I do that. I mean, in my imagination.
Sarah: Sure. I still have the intrusive thoughts and those are more like for me now are more like a curiosity of like, I wonder what would happen or like, that's an alternate version to this story. I don't know. But that the power of holding life in my hands that I brought life in.
that I like it, that I'm in charge. I mean, boy, that, [00:18:00] that felt like a lot of responsibility.
Amanda: It is a lot of responsibility, but the interesting thing about that is we both know how much responsibility it is and our government and our religious leaders are forcing that amount of responsibility on humans who are not ready for it.
It's nuts when you think about it, like, we're not just asking people to like, cook mac and cheese for dinner every night, like we're asking people to raise humans by force. There's so much in that, it's a huge responsibility that we're forcing on people.
Sarah: It is. people who do not want it. People who are not, they don't, yeah, they don't want it, they don't have the resources.
That's going to come out if they, if they're forced to do it, it's going to come out in that relationship and in the way that they care for. That [00:19:00] child.
God,
imagine.
Amanda: And it doesn't mean that those people are going to put their kids in an oven or drive into a tractor trailer truck. But you and I, Did you choo I, you don't have to answer this.
Sarah: Oh, you can ask me whatever, yeah.
Amanda: Did you want to have your daughter? Did you choose to have your daughter? Like, did you
Sarah: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, right. So you and I want to have children. And so when we have an intrusive thought like that, we're balancing it against all the love we have for that kid, and all the intention we set into parenting, and the life we dream for them, and the life we dream for ourselves.
Like, our intrusive thoughts are balanced against so much love to ask people to balance that very normal desire to cause harm or to yell or to hit or to abuse against a lack of intention, a lack of love, allow, Lack of resources, what's the society we're creating now? Like [00:20:00] you and I can, handle that stuff because of all the other resources we have.
But not everybody can do that.
Sarah: Not everybody can do that.
Amanda: We kind of gone off topic from your,
from your podcast, but. I'm really curious.
Yeah,
Sarah: go ahead. No, what are you curious about?
Amanda: I'm just curious about some of the other lenses. I confess I only listened to one episode it was with your brother and I enjoyed it immensely.
Sarah: Thank you.
Amanda: But I'd be curious, some of the other threads and themes that have come up in your conversations, and how they do or do not relate to abortion as a, as an issue. intersection with death. Like, I don't know. I'm just curious about that.
Sarah: we've talked about how family systems allow the processing of grief and what that looks like when they don't, the impact that that has and how surreal, [00:21:00] discombobulating and complex it is to lose a parent. The epigenetics of death and how, you know, that's interesting.
How a death impacts future generations, the way that one died.
Another conversation around seeing someone out what that is and how that is and how messy and disappointing that can be. And that reminds me, I've really considered in the last several months, a death plan. Like, how do you want to die? What,
what
things do you want? What music do you want?
Who do you want? Where do you want it? What meds do you want? It's very much like a birth plan and, you know, as you well know, birth plans don't really happen.
The way that I looked at my birth plan was, I guess I held a couple realities. One was, I know it's probably not going to go like this, and this feels like my first act as a mother.
It's like my first set of [00:22:00] decisions about how I want to bring this child
in,
if it doesn't, that's also okay, but to think about what kind of birth do I want, what kind of mother am I, what are my values, it, they were, all of those decisions were. I don't examples of that, symbols of that. Whether they actually happen and, and I, I see a death plan is the same way like you, you know, even if you have a lot of choice in your death, there are just a lot of things that you end up not having a lot of choice over.
But to make those decisions really does inform how are you living? What are your relationships like? Who do you trust for different things. how present do you want to be in what way?
Amanda: You can say anything and I'll, I'll come up with like a million responses. So I took notes.
But starting from the end there, like when you talk about a death plan and there's so much respect and honoring in having a death plan as like your guiding light, right? There's [00:23:00] connection. With, the people in the plan, there's connection to, like, the vision you have, there's, like, there's so much that happens inside that plan, and when I think about abortion, what I see, and it's not just abortion, because women's health, and, and trans health, and queer health, in this country has, like, there's so little respect and honor.
our maternal mortality rate is insane. It's stupid. And it's even worse if you're a Black woman. Like, it's horrible. so, when you talk about a death plan, and I think about how so many people are experiencing their abortions. It is so like, like I said at the beginning of the episode, right? Like when you asked, did you think of it as a death?
I said, I did. And I, I talked to her before I let her go. Right. And like, I [00:24:00] acknowledged that this was hard for me. And I acknowledged that I didn't know what she wanted because she couldn't communicate with me, but I could try and listen and get a hit and like There was so much Respect and honor for what it was to be pregnant whether I wanted to stay pregnant or not And so when I look at where I am now in regards to my abortion experience and when I look at the care that so many people are getting that is completely void of that respect, is completely void of that honoring.
I mean, You know, some people are having to travel ridiculous amounts. Some people are walking through hate, really.
Sarah: I know.
Amanda: Some people are facing clinics that are so overrun and burnt out, right? That, like, you can't blame the clinical care they're getting because the care providers are exhausted. And they're facing all the hate.[00:25:00]
So And then when you talk about, like, the death, death's impact on future generations, I think a lot about, how does the way we navigate abortion affect how we parent, affect how we plan for future kids, affect how we navigate pregnancy, with our own children, right? Like how do I talk to my kids about the possibility of pregnancy if I had no honor or respect or care or love in my own experience with an unwanted pregnancy?
So many of the threads you had, that you had mentioned, are woven in, and I recorded an episode, with a woman who has lots of experience in hospice care.
And we were just noting how the foundation of hospice care really just should be life care, right?
Sarah: It really is.
Amanda: And so that, I thought about that a lot, you know and I continue to think about that a lot, like, [00:26:00] what if we had hospice care in all of our pregnancy care, in all of our abortion care, in all of our death care.
Sarah: I mean, the hospice is about quality of life.
Amanda: Exactly.
Sarah: Not about prolonging life. And in many cases, life is prolonged when the quality of life is enhanced.
Amanda: And hospice is about knowing when. The quality is so what I'm thinking about is.
When we're looking at a, a human who's holding a pregnancy that maybe they're in an abusive relationship or maybe they are unhoused or maybe they are just burnt out in their career or maybe they don't have financial resources, right? We're looking at, in my opinion, two lives, there's the life of the pregnancy and there's the life of the woman.
And to make the decision without thinking about quality of life that will happen. [00:27:00] So then there's this conflict of like, whose quality matters more.
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: It's so, such an important part of making a decision versus just going like, well, it's alive. It should stay alive. It's like, what will the quality of life for that child be if its parents hate each other or its mother's being abused or it has, It doesn't have a bed to sleep in, like, or everyone's just stressed out and they don't want another kid, if you only take the quality of life piece from hospice and insert it into the abortion conversation, it's hugely impactful, I wish hospice was woven into the language of hospice care was woven into so many parts of our life.
Sarah: one thing that I have become really aware of. is how much we worship life. Staying alive for as long as possible, our medical system [00:28:00] is designed around that our abortion politics are designed around that. And there isn't a question of quality of life. And I, I believe that you get to stay alive as long as you want that just like.
It's your body, your choice. It's our body, our choice. With a pregnancy, it's also our body, our choice if we want to get treatment for an illness, how we want to treat an illness, if we want to stay alive, period. I. don't really wring my hands when somebody wants to unalive themselves. I hesitate to say that because I think there is some, some nuance there maybe, but, but ultimately it's, it's your choice and I don't really see it as a tragedy.
And also,
you know, I really believe that That my mom ended her I believe that that we end our life when we're ready to go that we have a hand in that, that we co create our, our death as well as our life and so it doesn't feel like a tragedy to me when a body ceases to work. And [00:29:00] I, I on I know that it occurs I honestly do not understand the worshiping of the prolonging of life.
That our culture does
Amanda: I know that you do when you think about it because it really comes down to like, I mean, when I think about like feelings work, I think about you and when you're sort of wrestling with like the word tragedy or at least with saying it out loud, right?
Like, I think the question really is like, who is it a tragedy for? And it's not a tragedy for the person who's choosing to leave. It's a tragedy for the people around that person who are having a lot of feelings, right? Who are experiencing a lot of feelings. And I think that's true of the abortion conversation too.
The tragedy is not for the baby, as they would say, right? that child, that entity, that soul, that tissue, like it being alive for as long as it's alive, it's like, it's just [00:30:00] whatever. It is what it is. It's the rest of us that make it a problem. It's the rest of us that create all the drama and the speculation and the assumptions and that when we don't know how to grieve.
As a society, ending someone's life through abortion, or ending someone's life through medical care, or choosing to end your own life through a process, any process that, you know, navigates, it's the feelings the rest of us have that are the problems. And so we make this big deal of it, because we can't handle the grief.
the conversation around quality of life, the honoring of what it means to make really big decisions, the respect for people's autonomy,
Sarah: You know, referring to, to my conversation with my brother and he made the point that it's harder for the people around him than for him.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: I've seen that a lot in, in people's illnesses. And that's certainly my experience with [00:31:00] my own emotions as other people are much more concerned about my emotions or my mental state or whatever that I am. I, you know, I'm in it. I think that embodying an experience, experiencing an experience is very different from watching and extrapolating and managing, to your point.
Amanda: So, whether, no matter what kind of death we're talking about, or what kind of abortion we're talking about, yeah, like, who is it a tragedy for? I can't, don't really think we can make the argument that it's for the, the life that's lost. It's about us.
Sarah: It's about us.
Amanda: It's about us! It's like, so ego driven, all the discomfort we have.
around abortion and around death.
Sarah: So what what did you learn or what did you experience around the concept of death in your abortion experience?
Amanda: That it was okay to feel like it was okay for it to not make sense, I learned how to have my own back around [00:32:00] whatever came up. I remember deciding ahead of time, if you regret this, That's okay, we're gonna figure it out together.
You know, conversation of me with me. Right, I let myself, I let anything be okay because I committed to like We're going to navigate it together, like we're going to figure it out. We're going to like, you're going to have your own back. You're not going to turn around and be like, what were you thinking?
What did you do? You're the worst mom. That doesn't mean none of those things crossed my mind, but it was immediately followed up with, wait a second, you get to feel all these things. They don't mean anything. Like a lot of times we're not prepared for the level of sadness. I just recorded an episode on my podcast with somebody who knew she didn't want kids, like, did not want to be a mom, ever, and it was thrown off by the amount of sadness she felt.
So I think what happens for a lot of us is like, we [00:33:00] feel the feels, and we're like, oh no, something went wrong.
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: Something has gone wrong. It means I messed up, but it's like, you can just be sad. You can just be mad. You can just be all the things. And so through my abortion experience. I learned how to just, like, widen all those places and, like, go through the stuff and be okay.
Like, commit to myself that I was gonna be okay and we were gonna figure it out. I don't even remember what your question was at this point, but that was the big, like, what did I learn about life and death was you just do it. You just navigate through it and you don't give up on yourself. And I just think I just expanded in all the directions.
Nothing in my life has expanded me in so many directions, I love being a mom and I, my births were hard, but they were [00:34:00] amazing. And my heart grew and, like, I learned how to love more people and how, like, , yeah, sure, there was, like, parenting is hard and all that stuff, but, like, really, it expanded me in the direction of, like, love and goodness and family and mothering and, like, nothing has expanded me in so many directions as abortion did, because it was all the things, I grew in all the ways.
It just, like, opened the lens for me. Actually, in listening to your brother, like, I think that's what I heard, too, in some ways, this is just showing me new parts of myself and yeah, if we look at it, like, on paper, it kind of sucks, but it's a big shitty situation.
But if I let it expand me, I don't know, maybe I just heard a lot of that in his voice, it's like, this is a dude who's growing. It's an opportunity, death [00:35:00] is an opportunity to grow.
Sarah: Another fucking growth opportunity.
That's been, that's really been something for me to hold is with my mom's death, which I,
It has brought some really positive things, almost immediately, and is not something that, like, talk about holding multiple realities, I don't want it, I still want her here, I am really sorry it happened, and I appreciate it. The good things that happened and, and just the experience of holding all of those at once is an expansive experience.
Amanda: It's a weird thing, too, that We can become whole er, full er versions of ourselves, right? Like, I would say I'm a better person. I know better's a relative word, but like, I'm a better person since my abortion. I also would not wish that on anyone. Like, it's a weird thing [00:36:00] to be like, this made me better, but don't go through it.
Sarah: I know.
Amanda: I wouldn't be like, I hope my kids have an abortion next week. Like Even though I know it made me who I am, which I like. I like who I am. I think, I think with abortion, what I see a lot, because I work with clients who are struggling, is like, they don't like who they are. And so when they have an abortion, and they're struggling with all those feelings, It's just exacerbating that, like, holy shit, I don't like myself, I don't love myself, I don't trust myself, I don't believe in myself, I don't think I'm worthy.
It's never about the abortion. It's not, like, about the death. It's not about the loss. It's about everything else that it's stirred up. it's a weird thing that it makes us Like, abortion made me who I want to be. Like, this is who I want to be, and I wouldn't have gotten here without it. But I wouldn't order it on a menu.
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: It's weird.
Sarah: It's so [00:37:00] weird. What was it like with your husband? I don't know if you can speak to his experience. How was his experience with it and your experience with him?
Amanda: Yeah, I think we navigated it really similarly. I've told this story in lots of places, but I think we both wrestled with that power feeling that like, who are we to decide who gets to live and who doesn't?
Because We kind of had a feeling I was pregnant and I took a test and it was negative. And we had talked about, before I took the test, like, we don't want another kid. Like, we knew if we were pregnant, we would choose to terminate. And then, when the test was negative, we were like, Oh, phew, I don't know if I could have followed through on an abortion.
That would have been really hard. And we, so we both kind of disclosed this, like, We know it's right, but could we have done it? Like, are we that bold? Are we that [00:38:00] courageous? Are we that
Powerful?
And then I just knew I was pregnant, so I took some more tests and they were all positive. This is like, you know, 12 hours later.
Like I took it at night and the next, the next morning I'm like, that test was wrong. But by then we'd already had this exchange that was like, okay, this was a lot easier in theory. it's the same way. It's like I was pro choice because I had two choices. Right. I could either be pro life or I could be pro choice, so I just picked it on paper, like, I checked the box.
And so, like, in theory, we were both like, yeah, this is a big bummer, but we know what we'll do. And then we were both faced with the reality that we're like, thank goodness we don't have to do that. Oh, shit, actually we do. So we kind of navigated a really similar wavelength. He It didn't go through the emotion, the emotional experience I went through, like he, he did grieve and he [00:39:00] had some sadness.
I think a lot of it was watching me go through it. I think in the clients I work with a lot of, a lot of pregnant people want their partner to get it, but they can't, like, I could never describe to him what it's like to give birth. Like, he remembers the feeling of when that baby came into the world and he was flooded with love, but it wasn't my feeling.
Like we did not have the same experience, so we want them to get it, and we have no one. And this is, this is messy because a lot of times it keeps people in relationships that are not healthy, because they're like my relationship isn't healthy, but. No one else can understand as much as the father.
And so we stay hoping that he will relate. He will get it. It was his kid too. No one else will get it like him, but that's not how it works. Like, it's a weird thing. Even in a healthy [00:40:00] relationship, it's. It's still very isolating because no one else can get it like you can ultimately if we come back to the, the beginning of the show and like, choosing to terminate life.
he didn't do that in the end. I did like I, I chose to swallow the pill. I'm the one who did it. And so we navigated it together really well and really respectfully and really with a lot of connection, but. It's isolating even in a healthy relationship because it's yours. Sort of like, I'm grateful that I haven't had the experience of losing a parent yet, but I imagine that it's very different for all the siblings going through it.
Every sibling is having a, just because they're your parents too, doesn't mean you're having this, you had a completely different relationship with that parent than they did. When you're still grieving and they've moved on or when they're still grieving and you've [00:41:00] finally able to go back to your, whatever routine you want someone else to feel what you're feeling, but it doesn't work that way.
Like it's really on us to navigate ourselves.
Sarah: It really is.
Amanda: It did make us stronger, but I do think that's. more because of the way I moved through it than the way we moved through it.
Sarah: Did you have those skills before?
Amanda: Yeah, I mean, I think by virtue of being 38, I had a lot of life skills.
I was already super involved in sort of the personal growth and self responsibility and like, right. I definitely was prepared in a way that even me in my mid or late 20s versus late 30s would not have handled it the same way. So I guess I'll say I had some of the skills, right? I knew enough to know that I would not get to a decision that felt [00:42:00] like a hundred percent, that I would have to take a risk, would have to take a leap.
I knew enough to know that I might regret my decisions and I knew enough to know that That I could try craniosacral. I could try hypnosis. I could try essential oils. I could try therapy. I could try So like I knew enough to know that whatever happened I was gonna make a commitment to myself. So I mean I had an abortion at 38 With a pretty good head on my shoulders.
It wouldn't have been the same in my early twenties but I wouldn't be doing this work, right? Like I wouldn't be helping other people through it. If my situation had been a mess and who knows, maybe I would have been. But because of the way I navigated and being self aware enough to go like, Oh, that's why this worked.
Because I did that. Now I can help people sort of navigate their [00:43:00] way through. Not because of the tools I used, but because of the self awareness I had as I went through it. That's really the only like what I did is not going to work for other people, but the way I saw and paid attention and observed and kept trying like those are the things that are going to work for other people so that they can find the tools that work for them.
Sarah: You know, the underlying like the, the pattern of moving through loss seems to be. Be the same over and over again, depending, like, regardless of the loss and regardless of the person, that there are some pretty predictable patterns that happen with the different symptomology and different thought patterning and whatever, and it doesn't matter what it is that caused it.
Losing a parent has created a number of complications on top of that, that I. I'm not familiar with or haven't been familiar with, but the rest of it, the patterns around [00:44:00] moving through grief seem to be just the same fucking thing for everybody and for every loss.
Amanda: We both have, we both have many tools and resources under our belt, but we both have in common the resource of the thought model and if I really think about it, like, death is, is neutral. It's just a circumstance. Abortion is neutral. It's just a circumstance.
And like, as weird as that is, because it can feel so deeply emotional, like, it's just a thing that happens.
Sarah: To everyone. Abortion doesn't happen to everyone, but death happens to everyone.
Amanda: Yeah. And it just is. It's just like, you know. I don't, I'm, I don't know your mom's name, but like, mom died if we said her name, right?
Like, we'll use my mom's name, right? Like, Donna died, which she didn't, I'm grateful for. [00:45:00] You're gonna have a totally different reaction to that than I am. And it really is a neutral thing. It is just an experience. Abortion is just an experience. It's all the other stuff around it. All the other stuff. It makes it hard, and makes it messy, and makes it tragic, or makes it impossible, or makes it a burden, or makes it You know, wrong, or right, or good, or all of the things that's like, we're so easily socialized to say like, death is bad, but it's just not, it just is, it just is.
Sarah: Just a part of it.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. We've really, our culture has really removed, we've really removed ourself from the experience of. death. You know, we used to have the body in our home and we used to tend to the body, the family used to tend to the body and, and we rarely do any of that [00:46:00] anymore. We give it to someone else to care for and we're very removed from it.
You know, what pisses me off is with all of these resources and all of the understanding and I didn't add Stories around this shouldn't have happened. It's my fault. It's her fault. I didn't add those stories for which I'm very grateful and it still feels like shit. Like, there's no, I'm always pissed. I'm always pissed that there's still a human experience and the human experience sucks.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: A lot of the time.
Amanda: Sort of comes back to like, when you said, did you, did you think of it as murder? Like, no, I didn't. And it still sucked.
Sarah: Right.
Amanda: I didn't have religious programming and it still sucked.
Sarah: Right.
There's no way. There's no way around.
Amanda: It is annoying.
Sarah: It just is hard.
Amanda: Yep. Just is hard.
Sarah: Just is hard.
Amanda: But I do think there is a difference in the, you know, navigating a death. or an [00:47:00] abortion, if you're resisting it, if you're angry about it, if you're blaming, if you have resentment,
the muscles that you're flexing that you will revisit someday are really different than the hard of this is sad and I'm longing and I feel an emptiness. It's all valuable, but in some ways there is a little bit of like, there's a different value in navigating, like there are different kinds of hard and some hards will be more useful in our future and some hards will make our future harder.
I go through a death just blaming everyone,
Sarah: right.
Amanda: What does that mean for my future? If I go through a death, just being sad, like Both are hard, but they do have different impacts.
Sarah: That's true. The stories you tell about it, you know, It was my fault. You go to work, you know, trying to make sure [00:48:00] nothing bad ever happens again.
Cause it's, I mean, there's lots of ways that you can fuck yourself up going forward. You're right. That's a good point.
Amanda: Somewhere in my book, there's a poem about like, Your feelings are fertilizer. I wish I knew how to, like, remember where things are in my book or find them quickly. It's not like an iPhone.
I can't search. But I do think feelings are fertilizer. So if you're navigating death with grief, like, you're growing something different than if you're navigating death with anger or, like, just blame.
Sarah: That's true. That's true.
Amanda: Right? Like you're for, I'm trying to find it because my book's in front of me, but I'm just going to give up on that mission.
You get the idea.
Sarah: Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's a, that's true. That's a good point.
Amanda: Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. I think we, I think we did it. You think we did it?
Amanda: We covered a lot. We covered a lot. I'm always here. If it stirred up questions, people have.
Sarah: What's the name of your podcast?
Amanda: My podcast is called Speaking Light [00:49:00] into Abortion.
And it's really just, it's this. It's talking about the things that other people aren't talking about. There are 225, 35 episodes. I don't even know. There's a lot of content for people to sort through and some of it you will hate and some of it you will love and some of it will change your life and some of it.
You'll wish you never listened to it. So it's everything in there. There's a lot of value. And there's a lot of value in the book too, which is called What I Wish. And it's, it's a hundred poems. So it says a hundred love notes to help you survive, come alive and thrive after abortion. And you could apply them all to deaths as a general topic.
Sarah: Thank you.
Amanda: You're welcome. Thank you.
Sarah: Thanks for listening to About Death, the podcast about living life on your own terms. Would you help me get our guest [00:50:00] stories into the hands of people who need to hear them? One thing you can do is think about who you know who would love this episode. Send it to them or leave a rating and review, especially if it's a good one.
And if you want community and coaching, go to sarahyos. com to get started. See you next time.
ABOUT AMANDA:
Amanda Kingsley is a Certified Feminist Life Coach, Doula, and Change Worker. She is the host of the Speaking Light Into Abortion podcast. And the Author of ‘What I Wish: 100 love notes to help you survive, come alive, and thrive after abortion.’ She is also the founder of The Full Spectrum Space, a monthly life coaching membership in which people come together to navigate life’s complexly beautiful struggles and celebrations.
Connect with Amanda:
Timestamps And Topics
00:00 Introduction to a Unique Episode
00:01 Meet Amanda Kingsley
00:16 Exploring Abortion and Death
00:53 Deep Questions and Reflections
01:18 Political and Personal Perspectives
01:22 Amanda's Abortion Experience
08:23 Sarah's Abortion Experience
09:06 The Complexity of Abortion Conversations
11:21 Impact of Abortion on Personal Growth
16:06 The Power and Responsibility of Life
23:00 Respect and Honor in Abortion Care
27:00 The Conflict of Quality of Life
27:51 Worshiping Life and Autonomy
29:10 The Tragedy of Death and Abortion
31:51 Navigating Emotions and Regret
33:16 Personal Growth Through Abortion
37:00 Partner's Perspective and Shared Grief
41:24 Tools and Self-Awareness
44:06 Neutrality of Death and Abortion
48:46 Final Thoughts and Resources
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