This is Democracy – Episode 209: Abortion and Women’s Health

This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice and what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy.

Today. We’re gonna talk about an issue that many of our listeners have asked us to talk about an issue that I think, uh, every American is thinking about, or in one way or another. The question about, uh, how changes in abortion laws across our country are affecting the lives of ordinary citizens. This is an essential question for our democracy.

The theme of our podcast because, uh, so many people are affected in their daily lives and their health choices and their family choices by the laws that we have, uh, surrounding who can get access to medical care and who can have a child and who cannot. And, uh, as all of our listeners know, uh, in the last few months, the landscape for abortion access in the United States has changed fundamentally, uh, with a summer decision from the Supreme court that eliminated, uh, federal protections for some basic abortion rights that had been in place since 1973, since the Roe versus Wade decision.

And then with new state laws, particularly in Texas, but in many other states, That have now used, uh, the end of the RO V Wade protections to now Institute trigger laws as they’re called that limit abortion access, uh, to many women in many situations in Texas, uh, abortion is restricted except in the most extreme cases where the, uh, woman’s life is, is at risk.

Uh, we are fortunate today to be joined, uh, by a local medical professional, one of the leading medical professionals in Austin, uh, who. On these issues, uh, on a day to day basis. This is Dr. Jasper sing. He is a specialist in maternal fetal medicine, and he’s in private practice here in Austin, uh, with the Austin maternal fetal medicine organization, which is affiliated with St.

David’s medical system, uh, here in Austin, uh, Dr. Sing Jasper. It’s really wonderful to have you on. Thank you for joining. Thank you for having me before we turn to our discussion, uh, with Jasper, we have of course, uh, Mr. Zachary’s, uh, opening poem. What’s your poem title today? Zachary. Owed to a doctor owed to a doctor.

Now, do you mean a, a doctor of philosophy? A historian like me? No. Oh, certainly not. You mean a doctor like Jasper who actually does real, real doctor, a real doctor. Thank you. Doctor is defined in many ways. All those history PhDs out there. You see how little respect we get. You should be offended. Zachary let’s.

Owed to a doctor. The doctor sits back in his chair. He is leaning on his pillow. He is sipping his wine. We are free and reclining because we survived in the broken rhythms of his hands. I can see the people, he has lost the ones who wouldn’t listen, the ones who couldn’t see how much he car. And there are words he wants to say to them, perhaps I’m sorry.

Or perhaps how dare you, because he is no great general, but a healer here is no great general, but a. Please. We do not need to forgive you for you. Give us a lifetime all over again, 40 birds a day when they are born and you hold them up to the light angelic, please, we do not need to forgive you for you.

Give us a reminder of remembrance of our own fragility of all the random bursts of light, the shakes of the great stick of destiny that could have been different. That could have sent us halfway across the world to a great wooden ship floating on a rolling blue sea. Not to be afraid. That is the key, please.

We do not need to forgive you because I know there is nothing to be forgiven because I know Dr. You have made me laugh. Even if, sometimes you make them cry. I, I love the narrative. Zachary, what is your poem about? My poem is really about, uh, trying to understand, um, how doctors who are in, in, in such and such close contact with, with life and death situations, um, how, how they’re able to cope with, uh, that level of, uh, of responsibility.

And, um, but also at the same time, how important it is, how, how vital it is that we have doctors who do that. Absolutely. That’s, that’s a pretty insightful Zach, because that, that almost made me cry. Um, uh, I really like the line for those that, that listened and those that didn’t, uh, to paraphrase, but yes, that’s, that’s been our life for the last few years, too.

So. Well done. Thank you, Jasper. I noticed on your, uh, professional website that you have a, a really moving video of your own, where you, uh, you talk about, uh, how you listen as a doctor and how you interact with, um, different patients and, and all the stress and emotion that surrounds. Pregnancy, uh, how, how has your already difficult work dealing with abnormal and difficult pregnancies for all sorts of individuals?

How has that changed with the changes in the abortion laws quite significantly, uh, significantly. And it’s a change that really hasn’t started recently. I’d say that most of the changes that I’ve seen and interactions with people actually began a couple years before that with the pandemic. It’s been quite challenging in the last two years.

Um, we’ve seen patients who question everything. uh, and that’s made it very, very difficult. Can you give us some examples or some, uh, some ways of, of understanding that without, of course revealing any private information from patients? Certainly, certainly. And, and I have a flurry of thoughts, so I’m trying to, trying to, trying to be sort of organized in my thoughts here.

Sure. But there there’s a a hundred different stories, anecdotes that I could share with you, but. You know, before this abortion change, uh, in the recent landscape, COVID has been the predominant story in physician’s lives and in medical care lives. And, um, we all are certainly aware of the. The, the politicization of medical decision making about specialties, about specialists and, you know, people who understand things in different ways, but then the general public questions, the validity of their arguments from their own insight.

Um, so if you. If I was to speak, for example, about Dr. Fauci, uh, I have friends that I interact with that are non-medical, who have said some things that are quite disturbing. Um, but over the course of my medical education and career, Dr. Fauci is probably the wisest person you will ever meet. And the fact that somebody of such intellect.

respect and stature is, is, has mud thrown against his name? I think frames the context of the world we live in right now. Um, it’s very difficult for me to, to talk about that. And, and in the current environment, a lot of healthcare providers have been really challenged, um, by that politicization, um, and just a lack of belief in specialists and people who have studied things and have a greater understanding of some of those things beyond their Google search.

Right. Right. You, you have a, a statement on your, uh, professional site on your video about the, the challenges of Dr. Google. I, I thought that was a wonderful phrase, Jasper. Yeah. Yeah. One of the, one of the biggest, most difficult things in medicine these days is having an understanding of certain individuals say symptoms like a runny nose or an abnormality on an ultrasound or an abnormal test and putting into a greater context.

And, and I can, I can share some of those stories. Um, say for example, as a maternal fetal medicine specialist, I get a lot of patients who are referred. Uh, for say an ultrasound where a baby is not growing too well where baby measures small. Uh, and there are concerns that perhaps the baby is not growing well in the environment of the uterus.

Um, dare I use the word sick, um, but there are a lot of normal babies that can be small. Um, I use. Um, anecdote all the time. If I have a Filipino couple and no disrespect to people of Filipino descent, but we know them to be of smaller stature. And historically statistically speaking, they will have small babies.

And so if I was to have say somebody of Asian descent come to me and referred to me because their baby is small, they can only think of the bad things that something is terribly wrong with their baby. Because they’ve done a Google search and they find all the bad things and all the bad stories that people have shared.

Right. But truthfully, there’s a reasonably good chance that their baby’s doing fine. And it’s just because of their ethnic and genetic background that their baby is measuring a little bit outside of the normative curve. so there’s a lot of panic and anxiety that comes with people who do their two minute Google search read, briefly hear and read some words that really sort of.

Triggers anxiety, which then leads to a bias. And then when you start searching for those things, it leads to a confirmatory bias that they find on the internet. And this is, this is the same thing in politics in history and everything else that we’re dealing with in the world today. so I think here, then we have sort of a, a twofold problem.

Right? We have the, um, the, the, the over, um, uh, the proliferation of, of, if not disinformation, then misleading information, uh, uh, about, uh, uh, medical conditions, et cetera. But we also have a legal landscape, especially here in Texas, um, where you work with patients, um, that seems to make your job a lot more difficult.

Yeah. Uh, how has that affected your. That’s a really good question. Um, so if I may take a step back, um, and talk in general about what it is I do. I, I think I really just dived into it. If I could take a step back and just talk about what it means to be a maternal fetal medicine specialist. So in general, I take care of complicated pregnancies.

I take care of a lot of normal people, but anything, anytime, something falls outside of the norm. people in my field of specialty are consulted or cons or consultation is obtained to evaluate the situation and make recommendations that is often from a patient standpoint, very anxiety written, uh, ANGs ridden, um, To if I was to generalize most people, when they discover that they’re pregnant, it’s, it’s a joy stay.

If you’re starting your family. It’s a certainly an important event in one’s lifetime. And, and instantly our brain goes to all the positive thoughts that come with having a family and children. I’m gonna have a boy, I’m gonna have a girl I’m gonna play catch. I’m gonna come her hair and put braids. She’s gonna go to that school.

We’re gonna, we’re gonna really hope that our child does X, Y, and Z in life. And nobody really ever thinks about the potential pitfalls that can arise in a pregnancy. And so when someone’s referred to us, we’re the first person that really sort of pulls the rug out from under their feet and is kind of a reality check.

And so that, that stomping on the brake. Leads to patients who walk into my door with loads of anxiety, loads of anxiety, um, and rightfully so. Right? We’ve all, we’re all parents. There are a lot of parents that listen to this podcast and, and we would do anything for the benefit of our children. And we wanna make sure that our, you know, we’ve done nothing wrong and that our children are healthy.

And so that’s the basis of why, when I have interactions with patients, it’s often very. Anxiety written. It’s often fraught with a lot of preconceptions, their Google search. They get very scared and nervous and, and a lot of my job is counseling handholding and, and sort of trying to bring the concerns and fears down from the worst to something that’s perhaps a little bit more manageable.

And so in that context as well, to answer your question. in that context when there is something that’s quite seriously wrong. When you add this new layer of anxiety that your state and your local government prohibits or limits your choices, it sends it through the roof, into the stratosphere, the anxiety, the hate, the guilt, all of those things really takes.

does it make it at times impossible for you to recommend the care that you know, the, the woman and the fetus need? That’s a difficult question to answer, um, because it’s, it’s really not a question necessarily of need all the time. Um, it’s more of a question of choice. Um, what are the choices that I can make for myself and for my family, what it is that I’m willing to accept or not accept?

That’s what makes it difficult. Um, there are very rare cases where it, um, this new legal landscape, um, bits choices that improve outcomes. And I can talk about that more, um, specifically, particularly as it pertains to twins and multiple gestations twins, triplets, quadruplets, um, but most of the time it’s, it’s pertaining directly to a patient choice.

right, right. But there are cases and, and, and maybe we are reading about the most extreme versions of them. Right. But there do seem to be cases where, um, it, it, it could be very dangerous for the mother to move forward. Sure. And yet it, it seems as if the current laws would limit the choice the mother would have about protecting her own health.

Yes. Yes. Yes. There’s, there’s, there’s a lot. Bad information thrown out there, particularly about things like ectopic pregnancies. Uh, if you don’t know what an ectopic pregnancy is, that’s where a pregnancy implants somewhere outside of the wo say in a tube and the potential is, is that it, it, it can’t grow to term there.

It could rupture and it could lead to bleeding that could then be life threatening and, um, There have been some politicians that have said that even that is no longer an acceptable treatment that we were to just leave that alone. Um, knowing that we’re sitting on a potential time bomb that could then gravely affect a mom’s life.

Um, so, but that really hasn’t come into play. The current law allows us to intervene specifically for things like ectopic pregnancies, um, where it impacts the mother’s. another example that I, I also interact with this, say, mom, who’s had a certain heart condition for which pregnancy carries too much risk, um, where the morbidity and mortality of remaining pregnant threatens her life.

And those are situations, uh, where we still have the ability to intervene to protect the mom’s. What about the case though, where you have, um, a, uh, let’s say an, uh, an older mother where there’s, there are many risk factors, uh, nothing quite as explicit as that, but there are serious concerns. And the, the mother herself has doubts.

Uh, our, our options now closed off that would’ve been opened before in our state. They. Yes. Um, there are resources, there are plenty of resources available to moms. Um, they can certainly go out. Uh, New Mexico, Colorado have been the closest and most accessible. And that’s the place that most of my patients have gone to, to get to exercise their choice.

Um, I’ve had patients go to Chicago. Chicago is very easily accessible by airplane. It’s a large metropolitan city with a lot of academic institutions. So I have sent a few patients to Chicago as well to get the things that they need, um, or. You know, make the choices that they wanna make. Um, but if I may, um, there, this comes up every day, every day, we have a mom where there’s an abnormality on the ultrasound, uh, or an abnormal genetic screening test say, uh, what we call a blood test or non-invasive prenatal testing, which would suggest a.

Um, and so yes, certain populations like moms that are over age 35 are certainly at higher risk of those types of things. And if we start to have some tests that suggest problems, um, we then need to talk through diagnostic testing. Um, if I could use a separate metaphor. I have a mammogram that’s abnormal that suggests a cancer.

It doesn’t mean I have a cancer. We would then need to do a biopsy to determine if there’s a cancer. And so one’s a screening test and one’s a diagnostic test in the same way. In obstetrics, there is tests, blood tests, genetic tests that are screening tests, which would suggest a problem. And ultrasound is also a screening test by the way, uh, that would suggest a problem.

And then we would talk through. Invasive testing like amuse synthesis or CBS. Um, those tests are not currently limited by the legal landscape, um, in Texas. Um, but at the same time currently, if I have a mom who has an abnormality, I don’t want her to feel as though that is necessary in order for her to proceed with making any choice that she wants.

Let me elaborate. Uh, I have a mom who’s. in her early forties, and this is quite common. Actually, these days, a lot of women are putting off childbearing due to career and education until their late thirties. And a lot of my practice is taking care of mothers in their late thirties and early forties. It’s, it’s quite common these days.

Uh, not to say that it’s bad, but it does carry some risk. So for example, I have a mom who say 40, 41. She’s 10 to 12 weeks pregnant. Um, she’s had a blood test that can tell her the gender of her baby. And she’s super excited because she wants to know if she’s having a boy or a girl, but the blood test also suggests a problem.

Uh, With one of the chromosomes, like say for example, down syndrome. Um, and so they come in with a level of concern they’ve they waited a very long time to get pregnant. Now they’ve got a concern about an abnormality and then they come to us and they, you know, first thing that happens when they come to see us is they’ll get an ultrasound.

Um, and in this hypothetical patient, she now has an abnormality on the ultrasound. increases that risk or probability of down syndrome even higher. And, um, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this before the Supreme court, um, overturned Roe V. Wade, um, Texas had a couple of limitations in place, right? There was a 24 hour waiting period before you someone could terminate a pregnancy.

Um, another. Um, legal hurdle put in front of providers in healthcare, in, in patients was you needed to have an ultrasound and the mom needed to hear the heartbeat of the baby before you could proceed with the termination. Um, and so those were seen sort of as hurdles. And so if somebody comes to me and say, I’m quoting them a greater than 95% probability before I ever do any other kind of testing that I think your.

Probably has down syndrome. Um, I don’t want them to feel as though they have to have another hurdle before they make those kinds of decisions. You really shouldn’t have a need to have. a reason to make that kind of choice truthfully mm-hmm if you decide that this isn’t right for you or this isn’t feeling right, or even if you feel like, you know, you read the tea leaves this morning and you just didn’t feel it was right, or for whatever reason, you know, for religious or spiritual reasons that someone doesn’t feel like this isn’t the right time or the right pregnancy, you should be able to do what you want.

and so, um, in those situations, um, a patient can then go get a procedure to terminate the pregnancy. If that’s something they wanted to do. Um, I, I don’t ever want a patient to feel as though a procedure is required in order to make those types of decisions. Right. But they would under current law, they could not make the choice.

They, they can’t make any choice. Can I ask, can I ask you folks a question? Do you, do you, do you understand the debate about why some people feel that abortion is wrong versus those that feel that it is right? What is your perspective? If I might. Zachary. Well, I, I think that, I mean, I I’m able, I I’m, I can respect people who, who don’t feel that abortion is a moral decision to make.

And I think there are reasonable people who can make an argument that it is in something immoral. But they, my, my, my strong belief is that you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, um, restrict someone else’s. Decision making power and, and, and their choice about their own body based on your, um, personal, and it is very personal moral or, or religious conviction.

And, and, and, and that’s the way this country should work. Right. I, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. So if I, at its core, the entire abortion of BA debate is centered on when does life begin? That’s the central factor to all of this. Right. And as much as I may disagree with those that are anti-abortion, um, I respect and understand where they’re coming from.

Uh, there are people who strongly believe that the moment of conception is when life begins. Um, and then there are those that say life begins when you are born and you leave the womb. And since no one can define truly, no one can say this is when life begins. Therein lies the debate. The debate is, is that child in the womb, whether it’s 10 weeks or 26 weeks, is that a living person, quote unquote, does it have a soul?

And since nobody can answer that question, scientifically therein lies the two sides. And while I respect those that feel that life begins at the moment of conception. This country needs to function, or at least my personal belief is this country needs to function to the lowest common denominator. We need to be able to have freedom for all people of all choices in all thought processes.

And so when I frame decisions like this, if I was. the Supreme court. What would an atheist believe? Or what would someone with no beliefs of life, if that’s the right way of saying it, how would they approach this problem? And at, at its core, that’s how I believe our country is supposed to function. Just like we’re supposed to be able to protect the rights of.

Free speech and, you know, far right thinkers, even Nazis or the KKK, while we disagree with them, we have to respect their freedom of speech in the same way. Those that believe life begins at the moment of conception should respect those. That don’t believe that life begins at conception and in a truly.

In a government that doesn’t, that is, has true separation of church and state. That’s honestly, in my opinion, the way this should work. And that’s how I approach my patients. I, I take completely neutral states and it’s challenging because you don’t know what a person’s beliefs are when you talk to them.

and when you start having these difficult discussions and it is, it is like walking through a minefield, you have a patient who’s very anxious is loaded with a lot of emotion and anxiety when they walk in your room. And if you say something inappropriate, incorrectly, or disparaging, it can lead to a bad Interac.

How do you and, and other healthcare providers like yourself cope with this, this, um, not just political climate, uh, but I think, uh, social climate that, that, that views these health decisions, um, which are in many ways, um, Deeply personal as somehow political. Uh, how do you deal with that on a patient by patient basis?

How, how do you, uh, how do you maintain your scientific integrity, uh, while also at the same time having to navigate this political mind field? Well, that’s something I have to rely on my training. Um, we are taught to not bring in our own personal bias. Be it religious or spiritual or our own biases, um, that have, have taught us experiences in the past.

We are taught through years of training to be as objective. And as scientific as possible. What do I mean by that? Um, we present facts and this is what I mean by my job is mostly hand holding and counseling. Yeah. I need to, if I’m doing my job correctly, I have. Counsel the patient I’ve provided objective statistics about what I believe their risks are or what are the concerns.

And I allow the patient to make their own decisions. And after initially counseling them on what it is I’m concerned about, we then talk about, okay, well, what would the next step be? What if we find out X, Y, and Z. and we have to very gently tippy toe around it. Um, and we, we, once we, as a provider, once I’ve established through conversation that a patient might be open to the idea of termination, we can talk further, but some are completely against it and we don’t discuss it any.

A and, and Jasper, how has the political climate affected the institution you work in your medical practice? We, we hear stories all the time about, um, violent threats to, um, particular clinics and things. Have, have you confronted any of that? Have you seen any change in that environment in the last few years?

It, it. It has limited our practice. Um, so, um, when I first began practicing near in Austin, um, uh, the hospital would allow us to do, um, procedures on patients. Um, and I’m gonna be careful on this. I, I may ask you to delete this, but I’m just gonna try and word it. Correct. Because I don’t wanna put the hospital at any potential risk.

Of course, of course, of course. So, um, let me see if I could word this correctly. Um, let’s keep the hospital out of it. So let me start again, if sure. In the past, about 10 years ago, when I first started, um, we had a lot more leeway and liberties to do procedures and, um, fetal therapies in the office. um, one of the things that occurred prior to all of this, through the bureaucracy of our state, in adding hurdles to medical care, they asked the state asked that any person who’s providing termination services, register that with the state and that anytime a termination is performed, that those individual cases need to be reported to the.

Effectively making public record, anytime a termination would occur. And, and Jasper, if I could just ask, do you do that for other medical procedures? No. So is it, I mean, is that something specific to terminations of that kind or is it something that applies to other kinds of, you know, heart issues and various other things?

So if I was to talk about terminations loosely, it could be for. I don’t do any kind of electro terminations. I don’t do let me establish, I don’t do any terminations at all. And what I was trying to get to is is that a termination may be decided for any medical reason, be it a heart issue, an abnormality, a malformation, a genetic problem.

Got it. Or, or some maternal condition. Um, say a mom who’s had a heart attack in the past and her heart’s too weak to handle pregnancy. So. A, a laundry list of reasons why someone might choose to terminate a pregnancy. And we had a lot more leeway in the past, but once the state made it sort of public record, we as a system, as a practice, decided that we didn’t want that type of attention.

And there were practitioners in town. There was planned parenthood who has some of the most fabulous. Providers people who work there, who I highly support planned parenthood. Um, shout out to all of you guys for doing the amazing work that you were able to do for so long. Um, there were providers in town who were willing to do that and, and, um, we, but then exclusively refer to them.

Why did you make that decision as a, as a practice? at the end of the day, we wanna be able to help people. We wanna take care of people. And there are still a lot of people that we can care for for other conditions of pregnancy. And we, we chose that it was the lesser evil to refer that out because there were other people who were willing to do that.

And, and we didn’t wanna have. The negative press associated with it, that would then keep people away from our office. Again, going back to people are already anxious when they come to our office for a hundred different reasons. And then if, if, if by chance someone was protesting or someone had. Posted somewhere online that we did terminations or that we had a lower view or a, a, a perspective on life.

We didn’t want that perception out there. So we, we chose that. That was just a, a fight. We were gonna stay away from. So Jasper, you’ve given us so many insights here, and I really appreciate your, um, your honesty and your, your thoughtfulness around these issues. We, we always like to close our episodes with a positive message lessons that we can take from the expertise and the history that we discussed to, to make our society better, to improve our democracy.

Uh, what is the advice you would have for our young listeners who, who care about these issues and wanna make a difference? Um, what are the things they could do to, to help maternal health and help fetal health in our state? What, what, what, what needs to be done in our state? Um, the people that are gonna be most affected by these new laws are the underserved.

Um, if you have the means to go out of state, To obtain these services. Those people are generally not terribly affected. It’s the people who can’t afford the plane, a bus ticket, or the medical care outta state that are most affected by these, uh, these new laws and regulations. And so if you were young and you wanted to help and have an impact on the people here in the state of Texas, um, provide funding and support.

um, donate to these programs. New Mexico has been a, become a, uh, has been and has become an even larger resource center for people who want to exercise their choice and they need, they need funds. They need manpower and they need help. And if you can provide donation or charitable. donations to those, those folks.

I think that will be the best way of helping that’s. That’s very helpful. Zachary, what do you think? I know this is an issue that you’re deeply concerned about. What do you take from Jasper’s, uh, recounting of the experience day to day around these issues? Well, I think my biggest takeaway is, is the ways in which the poli politicization of, of medicine and of the, uh, important decisions, the choices that we as patients, um, but also as medical professionals, um, are able to provide and are able to receive that those are limited significantly.

Um, when we refuse to, um, acknowledge the science. But also when we refuse to, when we refuse to allow people to make their own decisions, and I think that’s really what we’ve been shown today. Right. Right. I, I agree. I, I think what, what, uh, Jasper’s given us in a very thoughtful and fair minded way is not, uh, a diatribe on what we should think about abortion, but the reality and insight into the reality that, uh, women in particular are facing, uh, much more difficult circumstances with restricted choices and.

Some of the medical care that would make the most sense under their circumstances under the choices they wanna make in their lives. Those, those, those medical options are being closed off to them. And I, I think Jasper’s suggestion to help people go elsewhere to get those medical services make sense in the short run, but that’s certainly not sustainable.

And, uh, would you agree Ja Japer on that certain certainly not. Yeah, no, I think we just, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very simple. We just need to get out and vote and, and get the right people in office who are openminded and, um, hold true. What’s been true in this country since, since I was born it’s it’s, it’s an important fight and we need to, to keep women’s choices.

Open, let them make their choice and let them have access to the highly trained, skilled medical professionals. Like you Jasper, who they might not have access to if they have to try to cut costs and go somewhere else. Exactly. Exactly. I, I think one of the themes of our podcast week in and week out is that one of the key elements of democracy is providing opportunity to people to live the kinds of lives that they want to Le lead and.

Uh, the abortion issue is therefore not really just about one’s religious point of view. One is entitled to whatever point of view they have, but it’s about the deepest tradition of democracy, which is empowering people to, based on their views, make the best choices for themselves. And I think Jasper’s given us a real.

Insight into how those choices are being restricted by restrictions on our democracy today. These are things that can change. As Jasper said, as Zachary said, um, there’s not a Supreme court, uh, law now that is operative, but every state and, uh, are at the federal level, that choices to be made also by legislators as to what is, uh, legally protected and what isn’t and our listeners who care about these issues, uh, need to make their voices.

Heard, uh, I think that’s essential and I think Jasper’s given us real insight into, to why that’s so important. Uh, Jasper Dr. Sing, thank you for, for joining us. I should have said earlier. We are also good friends. Our families are good friends. And, uh, I just wanna say Jasper that I I’ve always had. Such such high regard for the work you do every day to try to make, uh, people’s lives better.

Uh, thank you for all that you do Jasper. Oh, the pleasure was all mine. Thank you for having me on your show. Zachary, thank you for your poem and your insights as always. And thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode. Of this is democracy.

This podcast is produced by the liberal arts, its development studio and the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Kini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week you can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

See you next time.