Alexis McGill Johnson

Born into a life of activism, Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood, is on a mission to help win back reproductive rights! 

Alexis joins Sophia to talk about the moment that inspired her to join Planned Parenthood, the harmful impact the overturning of Roe v. Wade is having on regular, everyday people, and the critical fight happening right now for reproductive health rights. 

Alexis also discusses the states where abortion is going to be on the ballot and how to get informed and involved. 

For more information, visit: 

Florida -  https://floridiansprotectingfreedom.com/
NY -  https://nyequalrights.org/
Planned Parenthood Action -  https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello
friends and Whipsmarty's. Today we are joined by a woman
who I have the most enormous brain and activism crush on.

(00:23):
She is brilliant, inspiring, and someone who, oh God, gives
me so much hope. You know, this has been a
really up and down year for a lot of people,
and there is so much suffering in the world, and
I know so many of us feel like we're helpless
to change these big systems that are certainly not helping

(00:45):
many humans. And then along comes Alexis mcgil johnson, the
President and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who just inject hope and
ethics and incredible research and makes everything makes sense. She

(01:07):
is the kind of woman who reminds me that we
are all powerful and capable and that in community we
can make anything happen. Alexis has degrees in politics from
Princeton and political science from Yale. She has taught political
science at Yale and Wesleyan. She served as an incredible
culture maker working to activate the hip hop community through

(01:30):
the hip Hop Summit Action Network to get out the vote,
she was the executive director of Citizen Change, has launched
incredible voter action campaigns, and in two thousand and nine
she founded something called the Perception Institute, a research group
that studies bias, reduction and discrimination. And in twenty nineteen,
she was announced as Planned Parent HUD's acting president and

(01:54):
became the permanent President and CEO of the Planned Parenthod
Action Fund in twenty twenty. At Planned Parents and they
deliver vital reproductive health care, sex education and information to
millions of people in our country and worldwide. They have
a network of forty nine affiliates that provides vital healthcare
to more than two million people every year at nearly

(02:15):
six hundred health centers across the country. They provide care
to women, to men, and to non binary folks, including
abortion services, referrals, birth control, emergency contraceptives, primary care, HIV services,
transgender hormone therapy, men's health services, patient education, pregnancy testing services,
STD testing y'all make sure you're getting tested regularly, please

(02:38):
and thank you. Treatments and vaccines and women's services. And
since the Supreme Court overturned Rovweight eighteen months ago, twenty
one states largely across the South and Midwest have banned
or restricted access to abortion. This has resulted in over
one in three women without access to care in their
states and has created a public health crisis. And Planned

(03:02):
Parenthood is fighting back. We are so lucky to have
all access. As a leader, she is gearing up for
the fight over mifipristone in twenty twenty four and offering
inspiration as to how we can build row back better
and ensure that women and pregnant people have access to
the care that they need. Today, we're going to talk

(03:23):
about stories that really illustrate the peril of these bands.
We're going to talk about the importance of bringing attention
to these policies and the ways that we can all
fight back.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Enjoy.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I'm so excited to have you here. I think it's
been such a whirlwind year politically and certainly for women
and pregnant people, and a rough couple of years certainly
for all of us. And I have one million questions
for you. But before we get into what's happening currently

(04:11):
and what's coming in twenty twenty four for this election cycle,
and you know, the bills state by state, we need
to pay attention to. I want to sort of rewind
and begin in the personal, though the political is personal
obviously to all of us.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
But I'm so.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Curious about you and your life before you know, you
becoming the Alexis mcgil Johnson that we all know that,
you know, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, the
accolades and the teaching and all of it. I would
love to know a little bit about who you were

(04:48):
as a kid, you know, what your interests were, where
you grew up. If you see from this point in
your life inklings of the woman you are today and
yourself at say eight or nine.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
Oh my gosh, go way back when you know you know,
in some ways, I guess you always feel like yourself
right in some ways you can't separate that out. But
I feel I feel fully realized in myself in a
way that I think stepping into this role has allowed

(05:23):
me to not just through like all of the career
choices that you know, I've made been voluntold into, but
just remembering like I've always been a curious person. I've
always been someone, you know, kind of my parents were,
you know, kind of activists growing up, so I've always

(05:46):
had like a passion for social justice, And I've always
had kind of a curiosity for how things work, how
systems work, how big, complicated things come together. And you know,
I do think that that in some ways, that that curiosity,
that desire for good, that desire for making things better,

(06:06):
not just kind of coming into movement work with a passion,
but also with like a science lens of trying to
understand kind of what makes it all tick. I think
is something that I fel like, I still feel like
I bring that to every conversation that I have with
my teams.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
That's very cool.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
And when you say that your parents were activists, what
what was it like in your house as a child,
What sort of causes and projects were they working on?
What were you observing as a kid.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
So I grew up in New Jersey, in a suburb
of New York, predominantly white town, but the you know,
it was inside of the county, you know, was the
most people of color within the county. So I had
very solid kind of you know, church and community roots,
but also spent a good time engaged with you know,

(07:03):
all all kinds of folks who, you know, I think,
for the most part, were somewhat conservative in their politics
and you know, and also living through kind of a
new era of time. So my parents, my father's a doctor,
my mom was a executive at AT and T. Bell Laboratories,

(07:23):
where she started off as her as a secretary and
made her way all the way up to being a
vice president of labor negotiations. And you know, like obviously
those are not activist jobs. They're very corporate central jobs,
but it was the way in which they both practiced
their activism inside of those spaces and also did so

(07:47):
you know at home. Right. So my mom, you know,
would would anyone who you know, needed needed to support,
needed to quote get on foot, you know, which is
what should say. When our kind of cousins and folks
come up from the South, she would kind of work
with them, help them get placed inside of a company
or other you know kind of networking company to help

(08:09):
build community and build kind of critical mass inside. And
then she'd come home on the weekends and she'd organize
all of the you know, kind of community neighbors because
she was obviously working very directly with engineers and new
computers and new things to say like our kids need
to know what's going on, like this is the future,
you know, the computer is going to be the future,
and you know, and before I know it, she'd gotten

(08:32):
the company to donate computers for us all to start
learning coding. You know, like again, this is like in
the in the late seventies. This is long before you know,
the crazy world of chat GPT right now, but you know,
instilled in us kind of an idea of knowing that
we were not always having access to the things that

(08:54):
were the latest and greatest and kind of pretending the future,
but also making sure that we could make connections and
find the pathway to get there. And so, you know,
so it was like kind of the organizing by night,
corporate by day, and I think I learned a lot
of how to navigate between environments because of her.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
That's really incredible. It really makes me think a lot
about how some of the people I'm the most inspired
by when we get fired up about a cause or
an issue, and you know, you see a lot of
fiery energy in people saying, like burn it all down,

(09:35):
let's build something new. And I've actually learned some of
the most valuable lessons in my life in these spaces
that we all are privileged to occupy, where we try
to make change from people who really can root in
the pragmatism of idealism, who can say yeah, sounds like

(09:59):
a cute idea, but also sounds a bit like anarchy.
This is how you actually shift systems. This is how
you create change within a society. This is how you
move a needle and make healthier spaces, build healthier communities.
You know, quote, burning something down is destruction. Imagine if

(10:22):
you can shift culture and build something new inside of
what is working, albeit perhaps working and failing at the
same time. And that kind of reality check has been
so important for my evolution as a person. And to hear,

(10:43):
you know, as an admirer of yours, to hear that
you grew up in a house looking up to a
mom who shifted systems big ones. Now I go, okay,
I see either. Now I say something that I that
I known about you, but I didn't know in that
sort of detail.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
That's very cool.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Oh no, you know, like the kids say, she get it,
I'm her mama totally. That's how I feel every single day.
And what's really funny, so via is that I have,
you know, over the years, found kind of collections of
my mom's My mom kind of went straight to work
after high school because you know, she was, you know,
a young black woman in the in the even in

(11:25):
the North. You know, a path to college was not
in her in her immediate future. So she went back
to night school. Uh at some point during her career
trajectory through AT and T, and I found papers that
she had written that are like so incredibly radical, like
so like actually embodying the you know, we need to

(11:46):
burn it to the ground, we need to light them up,
you know. And you know, and I think about her
kind of in her you know, in her day job,
you know, when she's like in her you know, prissy
blouse and you know, she's like doing the typist and
my mom's still actually when you when you when you
ask her to write something down, she still writes in steno,
so like you know, the very classic Madmen, you know

(12:09):
version of her. And then I see these like beautifully
type written you know, kind of you know, the elegies around,
you know, around what the movement and what the revolution
is going to look like, and how we're going to
fight and how we're going to get there. And I
think about her navigating between those spaces and that passion,
and so even in that time she was she had
an ideology of burning it down, but she was trying

(12:31):
to like kind of think about how do I start
to make radically incremental disruptions in the place that I
am right now?

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yes, and that that's been the lesson. You're you're articulating
it even better than I can. That you have to
have an ideology that is bigger than what seems possible.
You have to be able to say the system isn't
working and we should light it up. People deserve And
then when people say to you, oh, well, that's ridiculous idealism,

(13:03):
or you're you're fantasizing about utopia, It's like, yeah, I
want to build a utopia, but I do understand that
the only way to get there is is you have
to have an outsized, radical goal and then figure out
in time, the time we live in, how to shift

(13:24):
all of these increments. And if you shift enough, perhaps
the whole system changes.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, And it does. It starts with vision,
It starts with you know, for me as a you know,
as a young college student, you know, it was really
about kind of what is the theory of change? Right?
How do we you know? And I think I think
about the lot in terms of movements, right, that movements
are equations that you know, you have to think about,

(13:49):
you know what, what the input is. You know, how
you're going to create the intervention, what's going to come
out on the other side, and how do you test
and refine and build more rigor in the work? Because
it is it is it's heart, right, It's it's all heart,
but it is also science. Right. It's just a strategy
of thinking about where you need people to be in
any given moment to shift their behavior, where how does

(14:12):
power operate in any given moment to hold people accountable?
And those things have inputs behind them that I think
are really important for us to understand. So like starting
with that vision, that theory and then seeing kind of
in maybe more scientific ways, how we disrupt that to
me is like I think a great natural kind of continuity.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, that's really inspiring.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
And now a word from our sponsors that I really
enjoy and I think you will too. And when you
talk about you know, exploring those avenues in college, you
studied politics at Princeton, you know, you got an m a.

(14:58):
In political science. You've you've taken such a deep dive
into these structures that govern our lives. How how do
you feel like those studies led you to this place
that you are led you to running one of the

(15:19):
largest and most important organizations you know that serves women
and men in our country.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
Yeah. So I went to school to study politics. I
majored in politics as an undergrad and I went to
graduate school to understand political science, which I see as
a study of power. Right, and obviously, disrupting anything requires understanding,
not just understanding how power operates. And the most basic

(15:51):
definition of power is getting someone to do something they
otherwise wouldn't do. Right, So, whether or not you you
you hold that you enforce that you as a use
a carrit or a stick, whether or not you use
you know, culture to change the way they see something
or uh, you know, the way you you kind of
help them understand where they're you know, see their best

(16:13):
interest in a candidate. All of that are mechanisms of
kind of using power to kind of drive different outcomes
and behavior. And you know, during my first year, second semester,
I started Tiyang for my one of my professors, Kathy Cohen,
who had written an incredible book called Boundaries of Blackness.

(16:35):
And it was about how the white gay community responded
to the AIDS crisis differently than the black community. So
really looking at kind of the organizing structure that happened
in order to get access to type viribles and and
so forth, and kind of where our center of kind
of politics, you know, sat with with these various communities

(16:56):
and and so it was like a big broad survey
corps on black politics, but we touched so much on movement,
building on resistance, on what it took to what it
takes rather to shape identity around you know, uh, mobilization
around representation and what that looks like for various communities. Like,

(17:19):
all of these things kind of started to hang together
for me as I think very foundational for the kind
of work that I wanted to pursue. Again overlaying that
because I was half half of a math major and
a political science major at President, so I ended up
kind of coming in with the same kind of idea
that there was an equation here that we can solve.
You know, it's messier because it involves people and humans,

(17:42):
but it is still kind of an equation that we
need to engage to think about how what that what
that works looks like, and so you know, getting that
teaching bug early on, right, I mean I went to
graduate school because I wanted to write and research, but
getting access to to being able to teach early on
and to engage with you know, young people, but people

(18:02):
were quite frankly my age around how they saw the
future and how they were shaping and thinking about their
lives and where they were going politically. Ut it was
just like really fascinating, And I finished all of my
PHG requirements puting my call. So I actually have an
mfil done, an MBA. I am ABD. But it was

(18:28):
it was really about writing, It was really about teaching
and engaging. I spent so much time kind of in
the classroom and realizing that I wasn't necessarily I spent
so much time in academia that I didn't really understand
what was happening on the ground. That I had all
these theories in my head about how politics operate, all

(18:49):
these theories around what you know, how to how to engage,
and the reality was, you know what it actually looks
like on the ground. There's like you can have all
of your you know, A plus B squared, you know whatever,
but there's this big black box that is people and
movement that that comes through on the other side and

(19:10):
the output, and that can change any given set of circumstances.
So I really wanted to think about what it would
mean for me to get out and get on the ground.
And that's and so I left academia in two thousand
and four in order to kind of think through some
of those those pieces three two thousand four.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Do you feel like it's it's almost a way to
when you talk about the theories that you're studying and
you know, these equations, getting out and working on the
ground becomes a way to sort of pressure test those
things and to see what works in community, what will
actually shift you know, public opinion or create public awareness.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Yeah, exactly right. It is about it is about testing
your assumptions, right. It is about saying, like, you know,
I think if we do this or we have this
kind of conversation, people will respond to it. You know,
this is what the polling says. This is how you
you know, create a message to move people along the continuum.
But let's test it, you know, let's not just test
it in a you know, in a in a focus

(20:08):
group inside of a you know, uh, you know, clinic
or lab, let's actually test it in a beauty salon.
Let's actually go and talk and see how people are engaging.
And that led me into doing a lot of organizing,
leveraging some of folks that i'd met through the kind
of coming up through hip hop as well, and and
understanding the music business that they gave out the ways

(20:30):
in which you know, we were having conversations that were
inherently political. They looked different than they did in my
mom's time, and she was, you know, coming up under
post civil civil rights and black power. But you know,
culture in it in itself is also political, and we
were having conversations around disparity and you know, calls to

(20:51):
freedom and fights against you know, uh, state violence and
so forth. But what we're doing to channel that into
actual political engagement. What were you doing to show up
on any given election day to see how we could
change things?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, how are you mobilizing community and voters and people
to take agency over these policies that you know affect everyone, Yes, exactly.
So before we move into that and into organizing, my
love of learning and the part of me that has
such a crush on what your mom did and wants

(21:26):
to go back to school all of the time. I'm like,
hold the phone. We have an incredible teacher on the podcast.
You know you recommended one of your professor's books, Kathy's book.
Are there a handful of books you would say for
folks listening right now who are like, I want to
know more about this. I want to know what you
were reading. You know, what are the three to five

(21:47):
books I've got to read to understand systems of power
or organizing? Like, will you give us a little syllabus?

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Oh my gosh, yes, I love it. Like goodness, there's
so many that are like flooding my brain right now.
So I can tell you, like back at the time,
the things that I were reading the Origins of the
Civil Rights move by Alden Marris, right, which I think
kind of dispels the notion that you know, people just

(22:18):
got upset and they you know, went out to the
street and started protesting because they just got fed up
on the bus, you know, and you know, and decided
to organize themselves. It really looks at how movements happened
through local organizing communities, right. It looks like how those
networks get pulled together in conversation to drive and catalyze

(22:40):
bigger change. It's not just like, you know, all of
us individuals showing up. And I think sometimes that's what
it looks like when I think about the Women's March
twenty seventeen, when I think about the folks who were
marching for Black Lives Matter, you know, it sometimes looks
like spontaneous, like you know, I just called you and said, so,
let's just get out of bus and go to DC. Know,
and no, actually that's not how it happened. It happened

(23:02):
through networks. It happened through community building. It happened through
creating those conditions for wanting to be organized and then
actually helping people organize, you know. And I always have
to tell people like someone had to figure it has
to figure out where to park the buses. Right movements
need infrastructure, and that becomes a really important theme that
I've carried through from reading Alden's book in the same vein,

(23:26):
because there's also an incredible documentary on Rustin right, baired
Rustin now on Netflix. I think is mandatory watching. You know,
the John Demilio wrote a book about the life and
times of Baired Rustin that I think is you know,
beautiful and just kind of helps us understand the real

(23:48):
strategic thinking again behind the movement building. And you think
about something like the March on Washington was organized in
seven weeks, right, think about that, Yeah, you know, a
group of twenty thirty year olds, right, creating that you know,
amazing kind of you know, life changing experience for so

(24:12):
many of us, right, and engaging with the highest levels
of power going to the Oval Office the next day.
You know, even though Buyer did not go, it does
show you kind of so many different pieces. So like,
I stay grounded in the civil rights mom because I'm
an immediate beneficiary and the post civil rights generation as
someone who's born in nineteen seventy two. Goodness, there are

(24:37):
so many other ones that are popping to my head,
but I can't. I have to actually send you a syllabus.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Great afterwards, done well, and we'll put it all on
our on the social stories for the podcast.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
It'll be great, for sure. So that shift you speak of,
you know.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Nineteen seventy two, the early seventies civil rights row, US
winning row in nineteen seventy three.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Here we are.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Not even on the precipice. We're on the other side
of true disaster for reproductive health. And you know you
took over as president of Planned Parenthood in twenty nineteen,
but you were on the board and the board chair
for many years before that. How did you get started there?
And how stark did the shift feel once Trump was

(25:30):
elected in terms of what the organization was bracing for.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
Oh my goodness. So I came out of academia, as
I said, to organize through culture, and you know, found
myself kind of making another bed another theory of change
around what it would take to organize the hip hop generation.
And you know, back in the day, we used to

(25:57):
buy records at Tower Records like you'd stand in line, right.
But you know how marketing work exactly a virgin, right,
and you it required people to know that an album
was dropping, you know, get all the hype around it,
all of the marketing, and all of that happened again
through a bunch of local organizing networks. Right. You found

(26:19):
out about it because your club promoter was playing. You
found out it because your friends were talking about it.
It was in you know, Team magazine, like all of
the ways in which you would connect the dots there,
and you know, the thing I learned kind of in
that process is that albums drop every Tuesday for Billboard
take right, because that's what you know, the rates come,

(26:40):
ranks come out on Wednesday, and it would like give
you the full week to get to the top of
the charts. And being able to identify the fact that, like, okay,
on any given Tuesday, how about election day, we can
build that model in So I had been doing this
work of organizing in that way for you know, the
better part of a few years when I, you know,

(27:03):
subsequently decided to start a research institute around how our
brains processed race and gender. And so I had had
a lot of kind of kind of weird not necessarily continuous,
but all like you know, coherent jobs that I'd been
building and just like kind of thinking in a you know,
maybe perhaps like social entrepreneurial way. And I found myself

(27:25):
walking down the street in Soho, New York, shopping, you know,
looked up and saw this young black girl's base on
a on a billboard, and you know, just was drawn
to her. And as I got close to it, I
just wanted to see, like who she was representing the
words underneath or said the most dangerous place where an

(27:46):
African American are in the womb, and it was like,
you know, one of the you know, the first time
I'd ever seen an anti abortion ad in New York City,
and I was just I was like jarring. It was disorienting.
And I found myself at a dinner with Cecil Richards
not too long afterwards, and I just was like, oh

(28:07):
my god, you know, what's going on in New York.
They're like coming for aboard here and like someone who
is you know, should should have been way more sophisticated
around kind of politically what was happening. I realized at
the time that I didn't actually have a lot of
gender in my portfolio of work, in my thinking, you know,
I had, you know, worked a lot on issues related

(28:28):
to black politics and issues related to criminal justice, but
I was not actually centering the very experiences that I
that had been you know, brought me into the work
that my mom, you know, it also kind of inculcated
in me. And so I told her, you know, Cecil,
you need to do something about this. And she was like, look, sister,

(28:49):
you need to do something about this. And she recruited
me to the board and it was a you know,
just such an honor to be able to step in
at a high level on a national board to get
you know, kind of a big picture view of what
was happening across the you know, across the country with

(29:10):
all of these various you know, like the beginnings of
what we are seeing now right with you just starting
to see the trap laws, the targeted regulations against abortion
providers start to crop up to test you know, the
boundaries of Row and Casey. You just started to see,
you know, some of the you know, increasing kind of

(29:31):
attacks on plant parenthood itself. You know, there always been attacks,
but they started to get more focused and more deliberate.
We just you know, we you know, so I joined
the board, and I was there in twenty ten, you know,
when the Tea Party Congress not only remade you know, Congress,
but also remade redistricting across the South and so many

(29:52):
of these states that now have abortion vands. So I
think what was what was interesting for me kind of
at the you know, over the last decade or so
has been to like watching the various ways in which
the opposition has felt comfortable in consolidating its power right

(30:15):
and building structures to enforce that power so it can't
be challenged easily, and then standing fully in that power
to enact things even when they are out of step
with what where the people are right. And you think about,
you know, going back to like that study of power,
it's like it's it's it's power towards what end right.

(30:36):
You can amass as many bodies, you can amass as
many you know, celebrities to talk about something. You can
get all the networks like kind of aligned on something,
but you have to be willing to take that and
channel that into a policy aim for whatever you're fighting for.
And I think having that backdrop and watching how not seamlessly,

(30:57):
i mean, you know, but very strategically, how they weaponized
each opportunity to cement their gains that I think is
actually something that's just as a student, really fascinating, as
a person, as a citizen, horrifying.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
And now for our sponsors, it feels barbaric.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
It feels like.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
The image that comes to mind as you're speaking, is
that sort of not to say that it's in any way,
you know, a child's story, but like the almost cartoon
image that we used to see as kids of like
a caveman clubbing another person. It feels like that, it

(31:53):
feels like people are just getting clubbed, like it's just
these violent hits to humanity that, to your point, serve
what end, you know, wreaking havoc and harm on families
and you know, forcing people to remain in dangerous situations
and essentially enforcing a poverty class because it's the folks

(32:17):
who have the least who get the who get harmed
the most by these inactions of brute force power.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
And I.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
It isn't lost on me that there are people who
said to us, you know, when when Trump was promising
to do this, that we were being hysterical and ridiculous
and it would never happen. And here we are, and
you know, we look at you know, just in the
last month, cases for women like Kate Cox in Texas
and Brittany Watts in Ohio. You know, these women who

(32:50):
are who are being penalized and brutalized over the loss
of pregnancies.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
And it is.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
It is breathtaking to see this sort of cruelty.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
And so many people in your position and in the
communities we you know, are blessed enough to share these
ven diagrams of who show up for this work said
we warned you this would happen. What do you wish
that everyone who perhaps doesn't have, you know, the time

(33:27):
to dive as deep into this issue. What do you
wish everyone knew or understood about Roe v. Wade being
overturned and what the larger picture of this is, you know,
as it pertains to cases like these.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
Oh, that's a great question, Sophia. I think I think
just first on the two cases, right, because I think
they're really emblematic of what else we said would happen.
I think that the fight over abortion has been one
that has been driven by stigma and shame, and you know,

(34:15):
in a narrow, the most narrow scope, fighting over exceptions
and you know, harm to the parents' health. And in
this way it really helps us understand that, you know,
for Kate Cox exam for example, that abortion bands actually

(34:37):
make pregnancy more dangerous. It helps us understand that abortion
is part of healthcare. And you know, I remember when
the first stepsis stories were coming out during SBA in Texas,
like March was March of twenty twenty two. I guess
was like the first time I heard of a story
like that twenty one, And it's like this is madness, Like,

(35:03):
this is crazy. No one could possibly you know, be
treated like this. And you know, and and I would
tell people about people going home and waiting for sepsis
to sit in and they would just say, I can't
believe that. That's crazy. That's not going to happen yet.
And here we are fast forward like that is exactly
the reality that is playing out again in Taxis. And

(35:25):
then to hear you know, Britney's spots of story, you know,
as a reminder that it is not about abortion being banned.
Is it's about the fact that abortion is criminalized. Right
you become you know, a criminal for participating in getting
access to healthcare, so whether that is your provider, because

(35:45):
that was the threat for Kate right that Ken Paxton said,
we are going to you know, subject you to potentially
ninety nine you know, years in prison, one hundred thousand
dollars fines, lost the licensure at that criminalization and then
you also have you know, criminalization, uh the woman who
was pregnant, right like that is you know what again

(36:07):
out of totally out of step with where public opinion
is on these issues, where regardless of what where people
think about abortion. But what it says about Roe, right,
is that Row was never enough. Roe was not you know,
not grounded in equality. And I think that, you know,
we talk about freedom and we talk about equality, and

(36:29):
we talk about these as like I have the right
to my own body of the autonomy as a you know,
as a citizen being governed under this constitution. But Roe
was really about privacy. It was about, you know, when
the state interests came in during gestation. And then you
add Casey about burden, and we can see the trap

(36:50):
lust tested that the burden you know, all along the privacy,
you know, rights that we believed to be held under
the Constitution. You know, you can see how this conservative
supermajority has started to get them, most famously with Clarence
Thomas saying, we don't even ever write to like to
get access to birth control without asking our partners. Like

(37:13):
all of the ways in which the overturning of Roe
and Casey have really challenged fundamental ways in which we
have understood our citizenship. And you know, that notion that
I wish people had understood at the beginning is that

(37:33):
in order for us to get back into the Constitution,
or when we get back into the Constitution. It has
got to be grounded in a base level understanding that
you cannot be free unless you can control your own body,
unless you can control your own reproduction. You cannot be
fundamentally free. You cannot have any sense of self determination
unless you were able to make those decisions. And we

(37:56):
have been slowly chipping away at those rights for so long,
and slowly kind of chipping away at the ability even
though the right existed, to what access looked like, and
creating more hurdles and burdens. And I think that's what
we say play out in the most incredible ways.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
So I want to ask a couple of questions about this, because, again,
when we talk about these systems of power and the
way that our rights have been narrowed and chipped away at,
as you said, I think it's hard for a lot
of people to understand the level of moral depravity that

(38:37):
it requires on the part of a lot of these
people in power, on the part of the right to
do this to other humans.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
To your point, people say, no one's going to do that.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
No one's going to make a woman go septic before
they let her have a DNC, And that's exactly what
they're doing. And so there's a couple of things that
I've learned along the way that have been really illuminating
for me, including the fact that you row past in

(39:09):
nineteen seventy three, and it wasn't actually until the far
right lost their last appeal to stop integration in nineteen
seventy nine that they decided to make abortion their issue.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
For six years.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
They didn't care because everybody understands that healthcare requires access
to abortion. And by the way, for our friends at home,
the reality is when you live in a state where
abortion access is possible, where reproductive care is possible, where
birth control is easily accessed, when you have access to
contraception in your health care, abortion rates go down. Like

(39:45):
the fact is that when we have democratic leaders who
give women in pregnant people autonomy over their own bodies,
they often don't get to the point where they need
an abortion in the first place. So more access actually
means less need for it. That's just a fact, that's
just the math. But some of this insidiousness, the racism

(40:05):
tied to the sexism that was that I'm talking about
in that six year window in the seventies, the sort
of brute force control of women and pregnant people where
they say you don't deserve your autonomy. We're in the

(40:25):
opinion that we all read prior to row falling, there
was a literal quote, we need to ensure a domestic
supply of infants like we're talking about you know, cattle
farms here. How do you, as our expert and you
know beacon here in terms of what we do next,

(40:47):
how do you explain to people how insidious this kind
of exercising of control over fifty one plus percent of
the population really.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Is, and how the roots go back into these attempts
at stopping social progress.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
It is. Look, authoritarianism is very seductive. Power and control
is very seductive, and you know you were descending into
authoritarian realms when attempts to control half of the population
are first on the agenda. We see this consistently globally, right,

(41:30):
I mean, just you know, a matter of months ago
we heard the leader of China speaking about the need
right for a greater supply of their domestic bodies in
order to support an aging population. Right. So the use
of policy to control our bodies is not is obviously

(41:53):
not new to the United States, and obviously goes back
four hundred years to the enslavement of bodies in order
to enable progress for some in the United States. So like,
none of this is disconnected from white supremacy, none of
this is disconnected from patriarchy and misogyny. None of us
is disconnected from our current descent into authoritarianism, impulses, and

(42:16):
ideologies inside of this country. And I think we have
to actually, you know, we've we've always held the US
as as an exception, you know, to you know, the
the great experiment in democracy. But we never really look
back and say democracy is actually never been idealized and
you know, realized in our you know, you know, for

(42:39):
for us, in our in our generations, and you know,
the fight is to make democracy reel. And at the
same time, when you were seeing these efforts to control
our bodies, which are always coupled with attacks on our
ability to express our voice through democracy, right, we saw
that in the Ohio ballad initiative. Wasn't just that you

(42:59):
could go to the polls and express a you know,
up and down vote on a ballot initiative. They put
other democratic hurdles in place in order to change with
the threshold of that vote would would mean, so we're
always seeing this, you know, Like I was like to
point out that that we talk about SBA in Texas
As being the so outrageous you know, abortion ban, and

(43:22):
yes it was in its novel way of being enforced,
but we have to remember that SB one was the
effort to curtail voting rights in Texas. So they go
together in these ways, right, And you know, you're so
right to point back to the seventies there, you know,
Philischafley and Colo. But they were trying to find out

(43:44):
what would motivate evangelicals to come out because they were
losing national elections in really profound ways, and they were
trying to find out why people were not voting, and
they were not voting because you know, they were interested
in you know, segregation, right, they wanted to fight to
keep the many of their communities and their universities segregated,

(44:10):
and you know, knowing they could not run on that,
choosing abortion and making it a hyper partisan issue when
in fact it had actually been a bipartisan issue all along.
And I think we forget that. I know, people ask
me all the time, like where are the Republicans on
this issue? And I can't believe, you know, this is
just a democratic issue, Like we are a nonpartisan organization,

(44:31):
and yet the people who consistently show up for us,
the people who consistently show up because they believe in
freedom and bodily autonomy, are people who are you know,
who believe and you know, in our right to self determination.
That looks a lot more like people in the Democratic
Party than it does elsewhere. And I think that is
thinking about that and layering on all of what we've seen,

(44:55):
particularly with the last administration, is opening up a very
unapologetic you know, uh, white supremacist attitudes, unapologetic you know, uh,
gender sexist norms, the kinds of fights that they are
building not just on on abortion, but also on birth

(45:17):
control and IVF, also on how we understand our history,
also on trans writes. You know, like this it's not
an accident, right it is. It is all part and
parcel of this intersection of hate, this intersection of misogyny
and patriarchy and white supremacy, and how it all kind
of becomes fuel to push forward in authoritarian regime.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
We'll be back in just a minute. After a few
words from our favorite sponsors. I spoke about this a
gathering of folks at the National Institute of Reproductive.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Health event in.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
March.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
No, maybe it was April of twenty twenty three. And
for me, as a cisgendered woman, it is so incredibly
important that we do not lose sight of the fact
that the reason the right is attacking our trans friends
so intensely right now is because abortion access and autonomy

(46:21):
has never been more popular among Republican women exactly, and
so they need a new scapegoat to attack and normalize
the repression of bodily autonomy. And the way in which
they are attempting to message that equity for trans people
somehow attacks cis women's womanhood. I'm just like, wow, y'all, really,

(46:47):
you are so willing to do the grossest things to
harm the already most at risk people, to just breed
fuel for your hate machines, and I think it is
It is very interesting to see, you know, we spoke
about her a moment ago, but to see a case

(47:11):
like Kate Cox's happening in Texas because she is I
think representative of things that can shake more right leaning
folks into the awareness that this is absolutely insane and
this absolutely is a war on women. You know, she
is already a mother of two. She's like sixty percent

(47:32):
of the women in America who seek abortion care, they
are already mothers. And she wanted this third baby. Her
and her husband were so excited. And this baby is
not going to live. The fetus has a genetic condition
that is fatal. Unequivocally, her life is at risk. She
might not only her doctors have told her she might

(47:54):
not only die, but if she lives, she could actually
never get pregnant again. She's forced to carry this dying
baby to term. And Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas,
I'm just going through some details for our friends at home,
if they haven't read the articles, had the nerve to
intervene and say her doctors and her are not allowed

(48:16):
to make a decision to save her own life.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
That he just will not allow this abortion to happen.
And it is not lost on me.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
And by the way, I want to do everything I
can to support this woman and her family. And it
is not lost on me that her story has become
national news, whereas Brittany Watt's story isn't getting a ton
of attention. And she is a black woman who miscarried
in Ohio. She miscarried at home and has been charged

(48:50):
with you know, I don't know what the technical term is,
like defiling a corpse or something insane because she attempted
to flush the toilet after she had a miscarriage, like
it is. So I just look around and I'm seeing
the way these poor women are just being battered by

(49:11):
the legal system, and some get more attention than others.
And maybe we need, you know, Kate Cox's story to
go national to wake up white Republican women. And I
want those women to be just as upset.

Speaker 4 (49:28):
For Britney Watts, without question.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Yeah, and I and I just.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
I wonder what from your vantage point, you know, sitting
sitting at the at the presidential top of the Planned
Parenthood Action Fund, how do you recommend that we folks
like me who don't you know, hold the office you do?
How do you recommend that we best use our platforms

(49:56):
and power that we best advocate for women like this?
You know, I know we're all wondering, why are they
denying Kate Cox an abortion? Why why would they punish
Brittany Watts. She had a miscarriage, this poor woman, she
was twenty one weeks pregnant. Why is there a why

(50:17):
that makes sense? And is the answer to that question
something we can all use to advocate on.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
I think I think one thing I would say is
you're doing it right now, right You're doing one of
the most important things, which is helping people understand the
continuum of what is happening with abortion bands. Right by
sharing Kate Cox's story, we are talking about again, as
I said, like abortion bands make pregnancy more dangerous. It's

(50:48):
a clear case right with Kate Cox. And you know,
the very notion that she had to go before a
judge to justify health care that she needed, right, she
had to justify not dying, to share her name, to
share her story, all of these things which should be
private medical decisions that she's making with her families, with
their provider, whatever. And the fact that she had to

(51:11):
travel outside of state in order to get the care.
And I have stories like that every single day that
come into you know, come into our folks who come
into our health centers, who are getting on planes and
navigating TSA while they're miscarrying or because they need to
get access to care. It's it's it's horrific. But the
other piece is bringing bringing to light what is happening

(51:32):
to Brittany Watts. Because the criminalization right when you when
you lose a constitutionally protected right, the criminalization of pregnancy
outcomes particularly among black and other women of color who
are often over policed and they are more vulnerable. And
we have to see all of us as a as
how we are being impacted and disproportionately impacted by these bands.

(51:56):
And right before the Dobbs decision, had been doing a
lot of work at the National Office around just understanding
what the you know, whether or not people believe that
Row would be overturned. We knew we could see the
writing on the wall, right, and if you didn't believe it,
you know, in twenty one you certainly heard it, you know,

(52:18):
in the oral arguments, And so to not believe that
going into twenty two that Dobbs' screeno term was kind
of it was actually a seventy percent gap in people
who believed and didn't believe. Yeah, only thirty percent of
people actually believed that Roe would be overturned. I believe
that that believability gap rested on an empathy gap, right,

(52:40):
because the people did not believe what was happening what
happened to them, right, that they would be affected, they
would have the access, they would have the resources, they
would have the ability to think about it. They were
not centering the people who were always most harmed by
abortion bents an understanding that when they are harmed, that

(53:01):
you also will be harmed in that process, right, And
I think that that is something that I think is
really important. I think the second thing to understand here
is that there is no state we're banning abortion where
criminalizing abortion is popular. Right. Public opinion is very much
on the side of reproductive freedom, and we have to
remember that and keep saying that because the reason why

(53:24):
we have these bands is because the opposition has locked
in a structural advantage, a political advantage in these states
by jerrymandering, through pushing through judges, through my earliest point, right,
standing in power towards this diabolical and perverse end. Ken
Paxton didn't have nerve, he had perversion. And we have

(53:45):
to be really clear about the fact that standing in
your power to deny someone freedom is not golf, it's
not courage, right, That is a diabolical perversion to control
someone's come.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
So that yeah, so when people because I do think
a lot of people will hear those words that you
just spoke and say, but why what's the point If
it's not popular with the people, if they have to
essentially break the laws of democracy and and act in
opposition to the United States Constitution to do this stuff,

(54:23):
why are they doing it?

Speaker 3 (54:25):
What's what's the real answer there?

Speaker 4 (54:28):
What's the endgame? You know? I again, I think it
is this we I tell my team all the time,
we're on the front lines of fighting fascism, right, this
is this is about this is about power and control.
The cruelty is actually the point. And I don't think
it serves us to try to get in the minds
of what the endgame is. It really is about locking

(54:51):
in power and control for the next generation. Right. You know,
they're for for a whole host of reason, and there's
a lot of strange bedfellows that are part of the
conversation of reproductive oppression. But I think what's most important
for us to understand is the majority is on our side. Right,

(55:14):
So question is what do we do with that? You know,
what do we do with that? Going into twenty twenty
four knowing that we have you know, six ballot initiatives
that are incredibly important that reproductive rights champions up and
down the ballot are going to be engaging at least six. Right,
we know that we have seen consistently every time that

(55:37):
abortion is on the ballot, that freedom wins. And to
your point, we don't get a Kansas, you don't get
in Ohio, you don't get a Montana or a Kentucky
if you don't have Republican women showing up and saying, hey,
not my body, No, this is not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
So can you tell folks at home when you reference
those states what some of those wins are and and
what some of these ballad initiatives, the six you're speaking
of are coming in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
Yeah, for sure. The look the winds were the twenty
two mid terms, right, I mean right after right after
Dobbs was over. Keep saying Dobbs the return that is,
that's where we're going to go in fifteen years, Right
after Row was overturned. You know, the first ballot initiative
was was Kansas right to kind of protect and how

(56:30):
to by the abortion rights in the Constitution. And after Kansas,
we saw a number of other ballot initiatives and another
five states where people came you know, out from across
the you know, across their states to stand up for
reproductive freedom. That also helps stave off the you know

(56:52):
what many expected would be a red wave of the
of the midterms. Right, So I think that it's really
important for us to understand that again we are the majority,
and when we show up our power, right, we stand
in our power, and we stand in our values and
our like that actually does get a return on investment
that is actualizing and creating protections for abortion access in

(57:16):
state constitutions. We have lost the federal protection to our
right to abortion when Roe was overturned, but state by state,
we are able to codify or enforce protections under various
state constitutions, all of which are unique and different have
to be approached in different ways. So that's twenty two

(57:39):
this year and another critically important BALLID initiative in Ohio
that also helped us protect abortion access in Ohio, which
is so important when you think about the vast majority
of those twenty one states that have restrictions where people
are traveling, you know, if I leave you know, New

(58:01):
York and I hit you know, Virginia is the last
state in the South. I have to go all the
way down and make a left and get to New
Mexico before I can get access to abortion again.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
So Ohio.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
People are traveling upwards of nine hundred miles to Ohio
and to Illinois and to places Michigan, places you know
in the Midwest that also protect us Florida. Next year,
I think there's six ballot initiatives. There's two that I
think are among the most important. And I don't want
to play favorites with balloon issues because I think they're

(58:30):
all They're all critically important because they all improve access
for folks and areas. But I just want to pick
on two for a second, which is Florida. And the
organization that is organizing this ballot initiative is Florida Floridians
Protecting Freedom. They are on track to put abortion on
the ballot right now. And Florida is such a critical

(58:53):
access state in the South. Right all of those people
in the South to go to Florida. All people in
the global South who are coming in from you know,
other parts of the Southern hemisphere who land in the
United States need to be able to get access to
care as well. So Florida sees the largest population of

(59:15):
people who are getting abortion to the South. And if
Florida no longer has the ability to provide those abortions,
those eighty thousand folks are going to you know, have
to travel even further and they will overwhelm the infrastructure
that you know has already been compromised by jobs. Right,

(59:37):
So it's important any anybody who's doing anything right now.
Supporting Florida is like my number one, My number one
ask New York is also has a valid initiative And
here I actually think it's really important for us to understand, Yes,
New York's access state. We obviously friendly lawmakers and get
too comfortable resources and everything. We can't get too comfortable.

(59:58):
But the opportunity here right in states where you do
have power, right, states like California, where you do have
the ability to push and expand access becomes really important.
But in New York there's a balid initiative to really
test the language around what is equality right? What does
it actually mean for our to be included in a

(01:00:23):
state constitution as with the rights including the rights as
a pregnant person to terminate your pregnancy is a really
powerful kind of way for us to come back and
solve for some of the challenges that again Roe never did.
And so I do think it's important for us to

(01:00:43):
pay attention to opportunities where we can expand and push
and test laws and states where are favorable, and also
making sure that we're holding on to every less bastion
because we know that's where the people are. Yeah, that's
where I would engage.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a
word from our sponsor.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
I want to just take a second tell our listeners
at home that we will put together a list of
these ballot initiatives that Alexis is referring to, and we'll
make sure to share them in the stories for this episode,
because we want to make sure you guys are able to,
you know, make notes of these things, know what's happening
in your state, know what's happening in surrounding states where
you can lend your voice, where you can reach out

(01:01:26):
to family, and you know, really track this stuff through
the year. One of the other things that I know
is coming down the pipeline fast and hot, is the
Supreme Court is going to be hearing a case on
Miffy Priston, which is medication abortion and that's used in
more than fifty percent of abortions in the US. It

(01:01:47):
has been proven to be safer than viagra. It is
a safe, trustworthy medication that can assist people, particularly you know,
when they find out that they're pregnant very early in
not being so should they need to not be or
want to not be?

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
What can you tell us about what you know about
the case so far? And you know, I know so
many of us feel rather powerless in the face of
the Supreme Court, particularly because it was hijacked by the
former president for political gain in such an abhorrent way,
aided obviously by Mitch McConnell's you know, railroading and then

(01:02:32):
ramming people through the double standard during the Obama administration.
In the Trump administration was wild to watch happen in public.
What do you think is going to happen? And is
there anything we as a citizenry can do? Are there
petitions to sign? Are there marches to hit? You know,

(01:02:52):
what do we do to stand up for our rights
in the face of this impending court case?

Speaker 4 (01:03:00):
Well, it's wild right that we are back at the
Supreme Court next year again going into another critical election
where the court is going to decide the fate of
Mifri pristone, and I should do like one little really
quick PSA. I want people to understand them Miffi pristone
remains on the market, that people are able to get

(01:03:21):
access to mif for perstone right now, and the people
who made need Miffi pristone right now, and I want
them to understand that it is actually still accessible where
abortion is legal. But yeah, it's just emblematic of what
we're talking about. Courts and politicians are deciding what medicines
are available, you know, to the public and how they
can be administered is bonkers. I think in terms of

(01:03:44):
what we can do, it is about telling the stories right.
It is about helping the court understand the many Kate
Cox's stories, the many Brittany Watts stories, the many of
the untold pregnant people who have been in pacted by
abortion bands and criminalization over this last year. It's helping

(01:04:06):
them understand the havoc and the chaos and the control
that they have ranked on half the population. I think
that is I think really important. And obviously we know
justices do pay attention to the things that they are
hearing and reading and understanding. And so I think having

(01:04:26):
the people's voice out there is the strongest, you know,
is the strongest play per se for the court. Right.
But we also know that our work next year is
about ensuring that we have a governing majority of people
who will fight for reproductive freedom. Right that looks like
returning the Biden Harris administration back into office who have

(01:04:48):
been consistent powerful champions of reproductive freedom over this last term.
It means ensuring that we get a Senate that will
fight and also down the filibuster so that we can
pass federal legislation to codify right to restore road. We
need to actually build rowback better, right like, because like
I said, rowe with the floor, we need to build

(01:05:10):
that back better. And that means ensuring that we have
a Senate and a Senate majority that is willing to
reform the filibuster in order to get that legislation passed.
And you know, and it also means, you know, for
someone New York in California becomes really important because we
have an opportunity to get back to a House of

(01:05:32):
Representatives that has a reproductive freedom majority, and we have
been winning so many of these races. We know that
the population is with us, right, like the people are
with us one hundred percent, bar nun. And that's why
they're scared. That's why they're trying to change democracy, because
they know that we actually really care about our freedom.

(01:05:52):
They think we're going to like be thinking about inflation
something else that we somehow forgot that they stripped us
from our rights. But we're experiencing it in so many
different ways. These stories that we're hearing are are not distant, right, Like,
you know, I know a Caate Cox, right. I don't
know her, but I know a Caate Cox, right. I
know I know the people who are being harmed by

(01:06:16):
these bands, and and and I think people are really
you know, continue to be fired up and engaged to
support reproductive freedom. So it is going to be a
long march into into twenty four. It's it's already here.
But I think in order to honor, you know, when
I think about honoring and standing not just on the

(01:06:38):
shoulders of folks like my mom that I that I
referenced earlier, or the freedom fighters who who have who
have kind of blazed the paths for us, but also
standing in our power in the same way the opposition does,
and not letting anybody forget that we are the majority.
They may be afraid of that, but that is not

(01:06:58):
that is that is not the Our endgame is to
make sure that we're able to hold on to our
fight for reproductive freedom because it's so critical right now.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yes, I think, if anything, the fight for reproductive autonomy
has really taught me that to your point earlier, our
democratic ideals are incredible. We have not lived up to
them yet. But the north star of what equity was

(01:07:28):
meant to be is meant to be in the United
States should always be the goal that we push toward.
And the fight for reproductive autonomy makes it so clear
to me that democracy is not just an ideal but
actually has to be looked at as a verb. We
have to we have to enact it, we have to
participate in it, and we have to pressure test it

(01:07:50):
all the time, because when we get comfortable, when we think, oh,
we've passed this law, that's done now, it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
We have to hold the line, and we've been pushed
back and back.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Off of this line of to your point, imperfect equity, certainly,
But if We're going to build back better with Row.
We have to reclaim this territory and then we have
to continue to hold it and push it and it
I can't tell you how relieved in a way it
makes me feel to hear you talk about recreating a

(01:08:26):
better Row as a possibility, because that was going to
be my next question for you was do you think
we can ever get get Row back? And then some
and clearly you do and I'm like, oh, thank.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
God, yeah, no, I mean, you know, we have to
build a plan from twenty four to twenty forty. Right,
I'm obviously laser focused on what we need to do
in the immediate but we have the opportunity and again
knowing where the electorate is right making sure they understand
that they do have the leavers at you know, at

(01:09:00):
their fingertip, literally at their fingertips to elect you know,
reproductive Freedom Champions is so important. But we do have
to think about what it will take for us to
get back into the Constitution. We have to lay the
ground for the next question that will hit the next
Supreme Court, and that may not be in a time
that we are still here. Right, maybe when eleven and
fourteen year old daughters see that come to fruition. But

(01:09:23):
instilling that fight in now and that expectation that we
are not you know that you know, when you take
away our freedoms, we are going to continue to fight
until we get them back. That this is not a
future state. I think it's really important. I also think
it's really important Sofia, that we're living in really dark
times right now, and hopelessness is really a luxury. You know,

(01:09:45):
there's so many people who are experiencing incredible harms based
on these you know, abortion being criminalized in their states,
and we have to actually build I talked about the
movement infrastructure that was so important. I also think hope
needs an infrastructure, right. Hope needs people who will consistently
choose Hope. Who will you know, help support the providers

(01:10:10):
on the front line, the people who are patient navigation,
you know, helping them navigate from one city to the next,
helping abortion funds, you know who. We're providing resources critically
for people and as they as they go on their journey,
people who are going to litigate these fights right. Thank
god that Kate Cox was able to call the Center
for Reproductive Rights and a lawyer took her case and

(01:10:31):
helped her, you know, get through that, you know, and
supporting folks like Brittany Watts as well, who you know,
are now facing a criminalization, right, a totally different kind
of you know, litigation challenge. And so I do think
that whatever we can do as individuals and as communities
and as networks of folks to come together to be

(01:10:54):
that infrastructure of hope for the patients right now, that
will also help us change and transform our culture in
a way that maybe sometimes for many, will precede the
policy change that we need to see. Right, it's not
just about electing people. It is about electing people. I
shouldn't say that it is about electing people, but sometimes

(01:11:16):
it's also about changing the culture and helping people understand
that culture change oftentimes precedes policy and political change, and
that we have to make sure we as stewards of
the culture, stay deeply invested here, telling our stories, supporting
the people, and making the case at every turn why
these policies are harmful and that will create the conditions

(01:11:38):
for change in the future as well.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Yes, because.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
We can't just focus on policy, We have to focus
on the personal. We have to have the hope we
have to build the community. That's what keeps us going.
When you think about that, you know, I imagine that
most of the folks at home listening are like, where
do I sign up?

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
And what do I do?

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Uh So, my two questions for you are, what can
people in need of an abortion do today? Where can
people turn? What's the first thing you know they should
look up online? And how can people at home who
want to get involved in this fight join rank and

(01:12:21):
show up to create that culture of hope that you're referencing.

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
So CNN an abortion you can go to abortionfinder dot org.
That is a website that is run by Power to Decide,
has you know, appointments from Plant parenthos from independent providers
who will help people understand what the rules are in
their state because we also know they've changed, you know, quickly,
and get access to to the care. If you want

(01:12:50):
to fight politically, come to Plant Parenthood Action Fund. You
can just sign up on our website to take action
and we will we will put you to work. Planned
Parenthodaction dot org. And you know, look, there are no
shortage of organizations and people who are committed to to

(01:13:11):
getting us all to reproductive freedom. And I think It's
really important that we look at every avenue to engage
and stay connected and to really have these conversations, you know,
like have these conversations over the holidays, have these conversations
and the crosty lines, have these conversations where you know,
on the beach, wherever you are. Because the more we

(01:13:32):
are able to remind people, you know, that these harms
are real and that we also have the power to
solve them, I think, the more we'll be able to
accelerate the change that we need to see. I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Thank you, and for you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
As an individual, you know, you you talk about your family,
your kids, and you also you wrap your arms not
just around them, but around the nation, around everyone in
need of this sort of supports. It's a big balancing
act that you do so beautifully, where the sort of
personal and political perhaps meet and you figure out, you know,

(01:14:12):
in the moments, what fuels you individually, what feels like
your work in progress right now?

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
Oh my goodness, honestly it has been I came into
this role through a leadership transition. I've been leading you know,
a healthcare organization, through COVID, through you know, the twenty

(01:14:45):
twenty election and insurrection the you know race reckoning and
SBA and Dobbs turning the corner into twenty four or
into twenty three even and the first time we've really
had as an organization to like kind of rethink, restructure,

(01:15:05):
and really rebuild and reimagine what the fight ahead looks like. Right,
we are not you know, we we have spent so
many years as as you know, I've talked about kind
of on defense, right you know, putting our fingers in
the holes and fighting just to ensure access for it,
you know, as many patients as possible. And now we

(01:15:28):
do have to reimagine the right now. We do have
to resource that strategic thinking. And that's actually my happy place,
you know, personally and professionally. It like kind of takes
me full circle to the theories you know that I
started off with about like how I could get young
hip hop heads out to the to the out of
the barbershops and the clubs into the polls, and that

(01:15:51):
you know, thinking about how we say democracy, how we
expand access, how we continue to you know, not break
serve on all of these ballad initiatives in these fights.
That that is going to continue to restore me. So
that's how I'm going to spend the end of the
beginning of my year kind of really in deep reflection
and reimagination so we can come out swinging in.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
Twenty four beautiful. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
You anytime I get to, you know, spend time around
your thinking, whether it's in conversation or reading something you've written,
I feel bolstered to keep going, and I'm sure our
friends at home feel that today too, So I really
appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you