New Legacy Radio

Today we will delve into the complex and often incongruent ways the United States works and why it doesn't. To what degree do we know how the country is supposed to work as voters and nonvoters in the upcoming US presidential election? What makes us care and not? William Cooper offers rich insight into the key drivers and less-examined ways of how the political landscape in the US has been shaped. His 2024 book, "How America Works...and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System" is an opportunity to make sense of the American political landscape. He will share historical implications of what we experience today, and which Constitutional provisions have guided the country in the best and worst ways. William Cooper's work addresses what guides our political system alongside the embedded traditional central to America's story. We will discern recent developments, that have led to and created a tumultuous political environment, ahead of the 2024 election, including the shifting role and influence of the Supreme Court. We will speak in-depth about the threat of extreme polarization, what this means for us right now, and what we might expect going forward. Tune in to gain more insight into the political workings of the American Experiment and what this means for you as we near Election Day 2024. WILLIAM COOPER is an attorney, author, and national columnist. His writings have appeared in hundreds of publications globally including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, CNN, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Sun-Times, Toronto Star, Jerusalem Post, and Huffington Post. He lives in Northern California.

In our premiere episode, we will discuss the experience of being involuntarily childless in a pronatalist world, through personal experiences, and the need for change. Our guest for this episode is Hilary Fennell. Hilary is an award-winning programme maker and journalist with extensive experience of working in television and radio as a series producer and director. In her ground-breaking radio documentary, Childless, Hilary Fennell explores the realities and dynamics of being involuntarily childless in a child-centered society. Her voice as a childless not by choice woman, is interwoven with the stories of six other women. Each of the women speak to their diverse journeys in coming to terms with living a life without children. Currently, it is estimated that one in five women in Ireland will not have a child, by the time they reach age 45. It is further estimated that only 10% of these women are childless by choice (child free). Childless, focuses on the other 90% of women, who represent an often less represented group. This group is often silenced by the taboo nature of this topic, which remains today, despite the number of women living without children, not by choice. Further, these statistics do not include other genders. A majority of countries primarily track the parental status of women only. Societies have become obsessed with motherhood and the idealization of human reproduction, supported by pronatalist rhetoric, which is reinforced through policy, in the workplace and socially. Hilary navigates the social, physical and emotional impact of childlessness throughout her documentary, with skillful artistry and a full heart, amidst the shadows of grief, a call for social change, and the lightness of learning to live a full and meaningful life. Please join us to learn more about her incredible radio documentary, and the issues that matter most to those who are living without children, involuntarily. Hilary Fennell is an award-winning programme maker and journalist with extensive experience of working in television and radio as a series producer and director. Her work runs the gamut from current affairs to arts and human interest and has been in competition at many festivals worldwide. Hilary has worked in both the Irish State Broadcaster RTÉ and the independent sector. As a journalist, she been interviewing and writing for various national media for over twenty years. She is also a recognised fiction writer, recent prizes include The Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition. Hilary also lectures in Broadcast Production at the National Film School at IADT and does presenting and voiceover work. She originally graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honours law degree (LL.B, Bachelor in Laws) and qualified as a barrister from The Kings Inns Dublin (BL, Barrister-at-Law). See hilary@hilaryfennell.com

The United States incarcerates more people than any other industrial democracy in the world. Why is this the state of America, and what are the social, economic, and political costs? Today's guest is Kevin B. Smith, author of The Jailer's Reckoning: How Mass Incarceration is Damaging America. He will share in-depth perspectives from his research, ranging from the differential treatment of inmates to the extreme impact on individuals, communities, and states. In this landmark book, Kevin B. Smith explains that the United States became the world’s biggest jailer because politicians wanted to do something about a very real problem with violent crime. That effort was accelerated by a variety of partisan and socio-demographic trends that started to significantly reshape the political environment in the 1980s and 1990s. How did serving time behind bars become a normalized social experience, affecting a majority of Americans directly or indirectly? Join us for this candid, revelatory discussion on the realities of incarceration in America.

What does it mean to tell the truth in America? How can truth be discovered through missing narratives and overlooked history? Whose narratives are accounted for and not, who is held accountable, in the face of foundational racial injustice and violence in the US? Today we will be in conversation with Aran Shetterly, author of Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul (Amistad, October 2024). Morningside delves deeply into the event and its immediate aftermath, delivering an intimate account of an overlooked chapter in American history and showing why the Greensboro Massacre is such an important and relevant case study in proximity to our present. Tune in live for this in-depth look at the legacy of the Greensboro Massacre, the Civil Rights to Human Rights movements, and what this means now.

Today we will delve into the complex and often incongruent ways the United States works and why it doesn't. To what degree do we know how the country is supposed to work as voters and nonvoters in the upcoming US presidential election? What makes us care and not? William Cooper offers rich insight into the key drivers and less-examined ways of how the political landscape in the US has been shaped. His 2024 book, How America Works...and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System is an opportunity to make sense of the American political landscape. He will share historical implications of what we experience today, and which Constitutional provisions have guided the country in the best and worst ways. William Cooper's work addresses what guides our political system alongside the embedded traditional central to America's story. We will discern recent developments, that have led to and created a tumultuous political environment, ahead of the 2024 election, including the shifting role and influence of the Supreme Court. We will speak in-depth about the threat of extreme polarization, what this means for us right now, and what we might expect going forward. Tune in to gain more insight into the political workings of the American Experiment and what this means for you as we near Election Day 2024.

Implicit bias toward people who are unmarried and do not have children is pervasive throughout medical education, protocol, and practice. Models of healthcare based on a presumed family structure are neither inclusive nor safe when patients have different experiences and outcomes based on marital status. Healthcare access, hospital release requirements, post-procedure care, and treatment are designed for those with specific social and familial structures and relationships. The dangers posed throughout the medical field can leave patients to navigate on their own, amidst these unrecognized barriers. How does this impact the quality of healthcare an unmarried person receives? Today's guest is Joan DelFattore, a professor emerita at the University of Delaware. She has researched, written, and spoken widely on singlist bas in medical care. She will share how this bias can significantly affect cancer treatment and the ways medical authors justify the disparate treatment of married and unmarried cancer patients who are otherwise similar. We will discuss what can be done to reduce these adverse outcomes, and the urgent changes we need now. Tune in live to learn more about what you can do to create change amidst healthcare inequity impacting our demographic.

In several ways, akin to the growing collective demographic of people who don't have children, the overlooked value of voter relevance & influence is too often dismissed by dominant political narratives. Tune in for this timely conversation with Matthew Ferrence, author of I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay (West Virginia University Press, 2024). In 2020, Matthew Ferrence ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, in a deeply-red district, and lost quite badly. In his newest book, he reflects on this experience to explore how American political narratives refuse to recognize the existence and value of nonconservative rural Americans, and how losing offers insight into the political morass of our nation. In I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me he offers a counter-narrative to stereotypes of monolithic rural American voters and emphasizes that the ways stories are told about rural America are a source for the bitter divide between Red America and Blue America. Tune in live or on-demand to learn more about the underpinnings of the US political landscape and the need to recognize overlooked nonconservative voters in rural America.

Reproductive healthcare remains a divisive issue in the United States, and once again, abortion is on the ballot in an election nearly one month away. In 2022, the Dobbs Decision took away the constitutional right to privacy and bodily autonomy and gave states increased rights to limit and even outlaw abortions. (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Supreme Court Decision) The impact of this decision on women and girls resulted in forced births, preventable deaths, and legal prosecution for experiencing miscarriages and crossing state lines to seek necessary reproductive healthcare services. Due to the ever-present need for urgent response to these life-threatening and often life-ending policies, historical perspectives of women’s reproductive healthcare may not always be at the forefront of the abortion debate. Today will learn from the life of a prominent 19th-century icon who offered reproductive healthcare services to women for forty years. Nicholas Syrett has written a brilliant portrayal of one of the most famous abortionists of this time in his book, “The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime” (The New Press 2023). Nicholas will share the profundity of her work amidst the scandals and consequences of the time. We will also discuss how this relates to the current state of women’s reproductive rights.

Abortion on the ballot is not an unfamiliar phrase in the United States. This issue has been a polarizing one for US voters, and the threat of revoking women's reproductive rights. At the heart of this issue is the extraction and weaponization of a single issue. Women do not have full autonomy we do not have bodily autonomy. The hyper-focus on controlling the reproductive aspect of women's lives and bodies most poignantly reveals how women are valued and not. Fragmenting reproductive medical needs from healthcare, not only endangers those who want or need to have access to abortion, the impact is far-reaching. We have seen this time and again since the Dobbs decision, from medical patients being denied necessary procedures and medication, to girls who have been forced to give birth. Today we will discuss why the election matters, and why your vote must be counted. We will be in conversation with Karen Mulhauser, a powerful advocate for abortion rights and community organizer, and her colleague Lindy Shapiro, who is committed to engaging youth. They are working to ensure women's freedoms now and for future generations.

Today we will discuss self-identity in the context of not knowing one's birth origins. How do social and familial circumstances shape our identities when we enter the world, and throughout our lives? In particular, what is the potential impact of not knowing the origins of your DNA, and the person who embodies it? Nuclear families, parents, guardians, and other immediate people in a child's life, often well-intentioned have withheld knowledge of children's birth identities. While it is more common for this to be a matter of paternity, children who are adopted, whose parents have died, or who otherwise live not knowing the origins of their birth, may also not know the identity of who gave birth to them. What are the reasons for this, and how does this ultimately impact the self-identity of children and adults? David Tereshchuk, author of A Question of Paternity: My Life as an Unaffiliated Reporter, will share his insight and intimate experiences, seeking to find the identity of his father. His story is heartrending and one that will be deeply resonant for so many.

Warning: This episode may contain words and imagery that could be activating to survivors and others who condemn the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). It is an honor to have Angela Peabody on the show today. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Global Woman® P.E.A.C.E. Foundation (GWPF), a nonprofit focused on ending gender-based violence and empowering women and girls through education. With her leadership, GWPF has made significant strides, including organizing the first Walk to End FGM in the U.S., securing legislation to criminalize FGM in the state of Virginia, and advocating for FGM education in Virginia schools. Angela also trains law enforcement and school personnel on FGM and supports survivors through specialized workshops. Angela Peabody is the first Liberian woman to pen and publish a full-length novel. She is the author of the fictional book When the Games Froze, which was republished in May 2023. This book is a heart-wrenching story about everyday people who come together by fate and are destined to help others in need. Tune in to learn about the history of the practice of FGM on infants and young girls and the lifelong impact on survivors. We confront the practices of FGM as it is often a missing conversation in reproductive rights and health education, initiatives, and practices. We are grateful for the work of the Global Woman® P.E.A.C.E. Foundation (GWPF) and all who act to end FGM practices. We highlight the realities of FGM to recognize, remember, and honor all survivors globally.

On today's show, we are honored to have the founder of World Childless Week, Stephanie Joy Phillips as our guest! Last year, Stephanie was awarded the ‘Together’ Make A Difference Award from BBC Hereford and Worcester. We continue to celebrate Stephanie and all she has done in service to those who are childless. We will discuss the upcoming World Childless Week events and learn more about how to participate in and support this meaningful week! World Childless Week will be held from 16-22 September this year, and as always there will be new and familiar voices, creative expressions, webinars, and much more for you to connect in ways that matter most to you right now. We will also assess the recent vitriol aimed at childless people and the varied responses to these verbal attacks. How has this been addressed, and who has been centered in response to these false narratives? Tune in live for these topics and much more!

What opportunities and access do international organizations create for professional changemakers and the communities and populations they serve? How can we assess the most effective pathways toward the change we seek to influence? Joining us today, is Dr. Emiliana Vegas, a professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has been highly recognized for her career working to inform education policy in the so-called Global South. She has been a leading economist at the World Bank, division chief of education at the Inter-American Bank, and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is the author of the soon-to-be-released book, Let's Change the World: How to Work within International Development Organizations to Make a Difference (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers). Dr. Vegas draws on her more than 20 years of international development experience, and her passion for the power of education in Let's Change the World. Tune in live for this dynamic conversation on education, policy, and pathways to making a difference!

Policy steeped in systemic discrimination and privilege continues to prioritize legal unions and the nuclear family. Too often, the presence and history of those who live outside these patriarchally contrived units, have been excluded or suppressed. Further, current policy does not reflect the world as it is today. Unmarried individuals and people without children have not only been present throughout history, we are a growing demographic, globally. However, we remain without the same legal protections and benefits in multiple domains, where marriage and reproduction are upheld as privileged statuses. Our guest today is the author of Moving Past Marriage: Why We Should Ditch Marital Privilege, End Relationship-Status Discrimination, and Embrace Nonmarital History. Dr. Jaclyn Geller is a writer and associate professor of English, at Central Connecticut State University and specializes in Restoration and eighteenth century-studies. In today's conversation, we will explore nonmarital history and the impact of nonmarital and pronatalist discrimination, today. You will not want to miss this conversation with Dr. Geller as she shares her profound insight, expertise, and solutionist approach to nonmarital disenfranchisement!

On this episode of New Legacy Radio, we will be joined by Dr. Jane van Dis. Dr. van Dis is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Rochester and lectures internationally on the intersection of the climate crisis and women's maternal health. Dr. van Dis will share her breadth of knowledge and experience, including the climate crisis and the carbon footprint of medicine, the presence and impact of microplastics, and ecological and population overshoot. We will discuss the current state and impact of national and global crises, the changes required to disrupt these exponential realities, and why dismantling patriarchy is imperative for urgent, forward movement toward resolving the climate crisis. Tune in live to learn more!

Despite the deeply personal nature of our reproductive experiences, women in particular, continue to face external restrictions, limiting or erasing our rights to bodily autonomy. For women without children, there is further backlash, ranging from a lack of social acceptance to outright harassment on social media, and misrepresentation and a lack of true narratives in the media, to having our very lives and the terminology we use to identify our experiences, made illegal. Today we will be joined by our guest, Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, who is an award-winning journalist, researcher and truth-teller about the realities and the aftermath of ART assisted reproductive technology. She is also an award-winning author and the co-founder of the grassroots initiative ReproTechTruths.org. We will discuss what it means for our personal journeys to be political, and what is mean to be responsive to what is happening in this context. From pronatalist propaganda and fertility decline, to the reproductive technologies industry, our community has become the target of human-centric, and perpetual economic growth narratives. Join is for this in-depth conversation, and learn more about what you can do now, to respond to the current environment for people without children.

New Legacy Radio is honored to be joined by today’s guest, Nicole Louie. She is the author of the recently released book Others Like Me: The Lives of Women without Children, published by Dialogue Books. The book was released in hardback, eBook, and audio in all English-speaking countries except North America on June 13th. Others Like Me will launch in North America on November 5th, published by House of Anansi. Others Like Me is the story of fourteen women around the world, from different walks of life, who don't have children. It's also the story of why Nicole Louie had to find them and what they taught her. Part memoir, part exploration of childlessness through candid conversations, this book showcases the many ways in which people find fulfillment outside of parenthood. And because the social expectation to procreate weighs the most on women, Louie focuses solely on them, their experiences, and how they flourish outside of motherhood. In doing so, she upends the stereotypes that diminish women who are not mothers and offers reassurance and companionship on a path less known. This book is a must-read that will resonate with those who have similar experiences and will raise the awareness of anyone wanting to understand the real-world impact of pronatalist bias. This deeply personal exploration of childless and childfree women is also a celebration of women’s lives. The Irish Times selected Others Like Me as one of the nonfiction books to look out for in 2024 and the Stylist Magazine named it one of the best books about women without children. Tune in on Tuesday, July 30, for a powerful conversation with Author Nicole Louie that you won't want to miss! *Author Image: Photographer's Credit: © 2023 Amanda Braide

Today we celebrate International Childfree Day. In reflecting on what this day means for so many in our collective community, we also want to acknowledge the history and advocacy, behind the origins of this day, and the transition to becoming what it is today. The National Organization for Non-Parents (NON), later named the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood (NAOP), was founded in 1972 by Ellen Peck and Shirley Radl. NON first designated August 1st as Non-Parents' Day, in 1973. In 2013, Laura Carroll, childfree author and writer, lead the way in bringing back the acknowledgment and celebration of this day and date, as an annual “International Childfree Day. Laura guided these efforts for a decade, and this year, passed the torch to Childfree Media, which is co-founded by LeNora Faye and Cody Hetzel. Joining us today are Joan Eisenstodt and Marie Bernardy, who were active participants in NON/NAOP and played key roles in education and visibility on behalf of the organization. Their personal stories of reproductive experiences and choices, and the responses to their public advocacy work demonstrate their deep commitment, to having a choice to become a parent or not. Their work helped create the foundation for many of the ways we continue to seek change for our community today. We will also be joined by LeNora Faye and Cody Hetzel, the co-founders of Childfree Media, and the co-moderators of the Childfree Convention, which was held for the 3rd year, this past weekend. You will not want to miss what these dynamic childfree guests have to share and exchange, from experiences and perspectives over the past 50 years, to their insight on what is most needed now, for our collective community to be recognized in equal and equitable ways, and beyond.

Today, on New Legacy Radio, we are honored to be joined by Dr. Adaira Landry and Dr. Resa E. Lewiss, authors of the recently released book, MicroSkills: Small Actions, Big Impact. Dr. Landry and Dr. Lewiss bring a fresh approach to navigating career and workplace stress and share their experiences as emergency medicine physicians. MicroSkills offers a clear, guiding framework of how to take small, intentional steps toward the expertise or career you want to develop, and how to increase self-care to reduce overwhelm and prevent burnout, in the process. Workplace burnout continues to have an increasing and pervasively adverse impact on people around the globe. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared burnout to be an occupational phenomenon and further defined it as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress. Workplace burnout rates vary by occupation and role and can be exacerbated by diverse life circumstances and organizational culture. One concerning example of the depth and prevalence of chronic occupational stress in the medical field. According to Medscape's 2024 physician burnout and depression report, almost half of physicians reported experiencing burnout in 2024. The highest rate of burnout was in emergency medicine (63%). The report was based on a Mercer survey taken by 9,200 physicians of different ages across 29-plus specialties. According to the survey data, specialties with the highest rates of burnout after emergency medicine include OB-GYN (53%), oncology (53%), pediatrics (51%) and family medicine (51%). What does this mean for the culture and business of work, individual practitioners, and employees going forward? How can we best navigate this today? Tune in live to learn how to immediately and effectively use MicroSkills for personal and professional self-care!

Tune in to New Legacy Radio today, and learn about the establishment of Single Studies as a global discipline, with today's guest, Dr. Craig Wynne. Dr. Wynne is the co-editor of the recently released, Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies. He also wrote the book How to be a Happy Bachelor and has published a number of articles on singlehood. As often discussed on this show, we recognize the ways pronatalism impacts individual reproductive and relationship experiences, amidst status quo thinking and assumptions, and biases experienced by those without children, and those who are unmarried, uncoupled, in diverse relationship structures, and those who are single. Singlism, a term coined by Dr. Bella DePaulo, defines the stigmatizing and negative stereotyping of and discrimination against adults, specifically because they are single. Dr. Wynne will speak to this, and a range of terminology reflecting individual and collective experiences of singlehood. He will also address the why of an intersectional, interdisciplinary global approach to Single Studies, as we consider the questions: How do we best examine the ways systemic, social, and media perspectives have influenced the understanding of singlehood? How can we change the impact of these influences on those who are single, and center the lived experiences of singlehood for greater social change? Join us for this and much more in today's show!