December 23, 2025 • 33 mins
There’s still time in the year to hear from leaders and advocates in the sexual and reproductive health and rights field! On this episode of our most popular series, SRHR Hero Origin Stories, we talk to a number of amazing heroes in the field of reproductive health, rights, and justice about how they began working in this space. On this episode, hear from Lupe Rodriguez, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, Dr. Monica McLemore, Professor at New York University’s Rory Meyer’s College of Nursing, Samira Damavandi, Senior Policy Associate for Federal Issues at the Guttmacher Institute, and Jennie Wetter, Director and Host of rePROs Fight Back.
If you haven’t already, check out our previous episodes, SRHR Hero Origin Stories: Round 7, SRHR Hero Origin Stories: Round 6, SRHR Origin Stories: Round 5, and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennie (00:45):
Welcome to Repro Spike Bat, a podcast on all things
related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice.
Hi, Repros.
How's everybody doing?
I'm your host, Jenny Wetter, andmy pronouns are she, her.
So, y'all, it is the holidayseason, so we decided to give,
instead of taking the last twoweeks off at the end of the
(01:06):
year, we decided to give you aspecial bonus holiday present
and do one more round of SRHRHero Origin stories.
This round is gonna include mystory, but if y'all have been
listening to the podcast for awhile, you've already heard my
story on all of the previousversions we have done.
So I am going to put my story atthe very end.
So if you don't want to listento it again, you don't have to.
(01:28):
Yeah, I am so excited.
We have so many great people uhsharing their stories.
And with that, let's go to thisnext round of SRHR Hero Origin
Stories.
SPEAKER_03 (01:40):
Hey, reprose fight back, folks.
It is the Monica.
I am Dr.
Monica McLeamore.
I use she and her pronouns.
And my journey to sexual andreproductive health is a simple
one.
I've talked about this quite abit, and you can YouTube it and
Google it and a whole variety ofthings, but I'll summarize it
here for you.
(02:00):
Number one, I was a premi in1969.
I was born at 32 weeks, and ifyou know anything about the
United States and healthcare,you know that prematurity is the
number one cause of infantmortality around the world.
One in nine babies will be bornprematurely.
And in Trent, New Jersey, whereI was born, at that time they
didn't collect statistics foranybody but white people, and
(02:22):
the prematurity rate was one outof 16 people for white people,
but it was one out of 32 for allothers per 100,000 births.
And so it was double the rate.
So I'm both lucky and gratefulto be alive.
But that's not how I got areproductive health rights and
justice work.
I'll tell you two differentstories that will give you some
context around this.
One was as a student, the otherone was as a roommate.
(02:45):
So, as a student, I had anincredible mentor in my nursing
program, Dr.
Susan Ballon, who was the firstperson who taught a course
called Power Politics Feminismin Nursing Practice.
And she, in fact, was the firstperson that ever introduced me
to Faye Waddleton, who was thefirst black woman president of
(03:07):
Planned Parenthood.
And she opened my eyes to aworld that helped me so much
that I decided to interview myparents for my baccalaureate
thesis in nursing and to talkwith them about their lives.
And anybody who knows me knows Ihave Vanguard, badass,
incredible parents, and youknow, who both are, you know,
evangelical, religious, veryreligious people, but socially
(03:30):
very liberal.
And so it was never odd for meto reconcile a social justice
mission and liberal work alongwith being very deeply religious
because I watch my parents dothat all the time.
So fast forward, I got my firstapartment and I was living with
my roommate, and I talked aboutthis when my chapter came out in
Untold Stories (03:52):
Life, Love, and Reproduction, a book that was
published to really tell storiesof people whose stories had
never been told.
And I'm a child is by choiceperson.
I always knew I never wanted tobe a parent because that
requires courage and belief inthe future that at the time I
didn't have.
And I was living with my um highschool best friend, we were
(04:15):
roommates, and I never forgetshe ended up uh having an
unintended pregnancy with one ofthe bartenders at the places
where she worked.
And I remember she had anuneventful, uncomplicated
procedural abortion at PlannedParenthood, and she ended up
having a good amount ofbleeding.
And as a nurse and a nursingstudent, you know, I never re I
(04:37):
realized I never was taught whatwas normal and what wasn't.
And so I ended up um, you know,having to work through all of
the issues of not knowing how tohelp take care of her, and
ultimately we got her methrogenand was able to get her bleeding
under control.
But I felt so helpless in thatmoment, and I will never forget
(05:00):
thinking to myself, I will neverfeel this way again.
I had no specific feelings orthoughts about abortion, that
wasn't the issue.
It was I felt like as a roommateand as a friend of somebody who
cared about this person, Ididn't know how to get them the
care that they needed.
I ended up calling the clinic, Iended up calling the uh triage
and advice nurse we ultimatelygot her care for, and she was
fine.
(05:21):
But I thought to myself, this istoo hard.
It shouldn't be this hard.
And so that's when I reallycommitted myself.
And I've only worked withchild-bearing families my whole
nursing career, people withcapacity for pregnancy.
And I will never stop fightingto allow for us to
operationalize reproductivejustice and for people to have
the reproductive trajectoriesand the lives that they want and
(05:42):
need.
So I'm very grateful for you.
I'm grateful for the work thatyou do, I'm grateful for
everybody who believes in adifferent future.
And quite frankly, regardless ofhow you feel about abortion,
family putting, contraception,surrogacy, infertility, birth,
parenthood, whatever, adoption,that you don't get to decide
those things for other people.
(06:04):
Because the only arbiter of anyreproductive health decision and
any pregnancy decision are thepeople who have to live with
that decision.
Thank you for the opportunity totell my story, and I am very
much listened looking forward tolistening to this series and
grateful to be a part of it.
Thank you.
Jennie (06:24):
Hi, Samira.
Thanks for being here.
Hi, thanks so much for having meon.
I'm so excited to hear yourorigin story.
So tell us how you got involvedin this work, but maybe take a
second at the start andintroduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (06:39):
Sure.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Samira Dama Vandy.
I use she or her pronouns.
I am the Senior Policy Associatefor Federal Issues at the
Gutmacher Institute.
A little bit about me, I amoriginally from California.
I've been living in theWashington, DC area for the last
eight years.
(07:01):
And I had always been reallyinterested on issues relating to
gender and quote unquote women'sissues.
Um, when I was an undergrad atUC Berkeley, I did a minor in
gender and women's studies.
And so that was always somethingthat I wanted to work on and was
passionate about.
(07:22):
And even though I didn't do thatas my major, I incorporated it
into my thesis, and my focus wason women's political
participation in Iran in the1950s to 70s.
So I'd always been kind ofcoming at it from that
(07:42):
perspective and angle.
And I had an opportunity inundergrad to work as a volunteer
for an organization that's basedin Iran.
It's called the OMED Foundation,and Omid means hope, that worked
with women and girls that aremarginalized, that basically
(08:04):
provided them some training,some work opportunities for
folks who had been victims ofabuse.
And that was an organization Iwas really proud to be a
volunteer for.
And so I kind of always wasreally interested in kind of
mixing my interests of politics,the Middle East, and women and
(08:30):
gender issues.
So that's kind of where myoriginal interest in
reproductive health and rightscame about.
And on another note, mygrandmother, who's no longer
with us, she unfortunately wasnot able to continue her
education past high school.
She married very early in Iran.
(08:53):
But one thing she always told meis that she had wished that she
was able to be an OBGYN.
And so that was something thatwas so interesting to me is just
kind of having that thisinterest in reproductive health
be something that spannedgenerations.
And it was something that waskind of always openly discussed
(09:15):
in my family as it related tomenstruation or just
reproductive health in general.
So yeah, I was lucky to have amom and grandmother that were
open to talking about thesethings.
Yeah, but I think where my realinterest in repro kind of came
from, after I went to gradschool in the UK, I had some
(09:38):
friends who were involved in therepeal of the eighth movement to
repeal the Eighth Amendment andthe Irish constitution that
prohibited abortion in Ireland.
And so I was really lucky tohave been surrounded by really
interesting and like-mindedindividuals that were passionate
about this issue and theythemselves were Irish.
(09:59):
And so that's kind of where myinterest also in reproductive
health and rights sparked.
And I ended up moving to DCafter grad school, working in
the policy space, a differentissue, but uh was always really
interested again in gender andwomen's issues.
(10:21):
And I had an opportunity to bethe inaugural Congressional
Progressive Caucus Center'sWomen's Rights Fellow.
And I was placed inCongresswoman Barbara Lee's
office to be her women's rightsfellow, and that really kind of
led me to where I am today.
I'm really grateful for thatopportunity.
(10:42):
And I worked on various issuesin the office, but as she was
the co-chair of the pro-choicecaucus, as it was named at that
time, the reproductive freedomcaucus, I was really able to
dive deep into all things reproand got to work on her bills as
a fellow, and then ended upgetting hired as a legislative
(11:05):
assistant in her office, where Ihandled the reproductive health
and rights portfolio and uh herbills, like the Global Her Act
and the Each Act.
So that really was where youknow everything really began and
got to know where I am now.
I love that.
Jennie (11:25):
I feel like I talk about my story and how it's not a
straight line, like it's a bunchof like little moments that all
of a sudden I got a job where Igot to work on these issues and
it like exploded, and like Icouldn't imagine like not
working on them now.
But like my background like inundergrad and grad was
environment.
And so obviously I am now oursexual and reproductive health
(11:46):
rights and justice expert, butno one's path is straight.
And I I that is my favorite partabout these stories.
SPEAKER_01 (11:53):
Yeah, definitely.
I'm just glad to be where I'm atnow and have been working on
SRHR issues for the last eightyears or so, and so I hope to
continue being in this field forthe foreseeable future.
Thanks, Samira.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks, Jenny.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
My name is Lupe Miriam Rodriguez, and I am the
executive director of theNational Latina Institute for
Reproductive Justice.
And this is a story of how I gotinto the reproductive justice
movement.
My path was pretty circuitous,but really when I look back, I
(12:35):
think it started when my familyand I immigrated to the US from
Mexico when I was three yearsold.
We came to the United States tofind health care for my brother
who uh had spinal muscularatrophy, but we didn't know this
when we came to the US.
We came because we couldn't findany information about him or
(12:57):
about what was happening to himin Mexico.
He couldn't walk and he hadlittle mobility.
And so we knew we neededanswers.
And we came to the U.S.
where my family, part of myfamily was already established.
We came to the Bay Area, SanJose, California, and lived with
(13:20):
my grandmother when we firstarrived.
My grandmother was the matriarchof our family, having moved to
the U.S.
to care for her 11 childrenafter my grandfather had
abandoned her and wasn't helpingher care for the kids.
And so I grew up with mygrandmother, who was this
(13:40):
powerful, incredible woman, withmy own mother who helped us
navigate a really difficultsituation in the US to find
healthcare for my brother.
You know, not knowing English,needing to talk to doctors, talk
to insurance plans.
She really set an example ofwhat strength and dignity and
(14:03):
advocacy looked like for me.
And I was also compelled andmoved to be a part of supporting
my family in that.
I remember translating documentsand having conversations with
doctors and helping make phonecalls because I was able to
learn English really fast as akid.
(14:26):
And I think it set me up for,you know, the knowledge one that
there were inequities thatpeople faced, but also for a
lifetime of standing up for whatwas right.
I think I was always compelledto step in when there was a lack
(14:46):
of leadership or a lack ofsupport for someone, and was
always ready to ask for what weneeded.
I was moved in those moments bymy mom's example, by my
grandmother's example toadvocate and to know what my
rights were and to ask for them.
And so that was how I wasraised.
(15:10):
And I think throughout my life,I carried that spirit with me in
various parts of my life.
But my focus was actually inscience.
My ultimate career goals werecentered around lab research and
you know, thinking about mybrother's condition and how to
(15:33):
discover how this happened, howthis happened and how it could
be changed.
And so I studied science.
I went to Harvard for undergradand was set to be on a path to
become a scientist.
I, you know, got into graduateschool and was beginning my
(15:54):
career in research and faced aton of inequity, discrimination,
and ultimately made the decisionto leave my program.
And I I think when I look backat that time, that I was
(16:16):
obviously under duress in aprogram that was difficult on
its own and made even more sobecause of the discrimination I
faced.
And that that that changed mymind about what what and how it
was that I would make an impactin the world.
And I decided that activism andadvocacy was a place where I
(16:38):
could have more impact.
You know, I thought if Icouldn't have an equitable
experience in my career inscience because of sexism and
racism, how could I combat this?
And how could I make it betterfor people who would come up
behind me and into that career?
And so I left my programdefinitely with a lot of
(17:00):
heaviness and decided to go toMexico to do research with an
organization that was working onmaternal mortality and
reproductive rights for women inMexico, an organization called
Salud Integral para la mujer.
And there I, you know, learnedabout the long-standing
(17:23):
criminalization of abortion, theeffects it has on maternal
death, on infant mortality, onyou know, adverse health
outcomes.
And I became really interestedin what that looked like in the
US as well.
So when I came back from my yearin Mexico, I got a job a little
(17:46):
randomly at Access ReproductiveJustice, which is an abortion
fund that has been in Oakland,California for many, many years
and served a large proportion ofCalifornia now is a national
abortion fund.
And that's where my careerstarted.
(18:07):
I learned about this was in2008, pre-Row uh falling.
And you know, I learned aboutthe inequities in access to
care, even in a state likeCalifornia, with the best laws,
with the best, you know, mostequitable programs for care,
with access to Medicaid forabortion.
(18:29):
And I, you know, just becameinterested in the impact this
has on people's lives long term.
And so I that was the start.
I um I grew in my career there.
I uh was able to start the firstpolicy advocacy component of the
fund.
(18:50):
I worked to pass policy toexpand Medicaid access for
abortion and to work on someadministrative advocacy with
local social service agenciesthat were denying, wrongfully
denying Medicaid for people whowanted abortions.
And then from there, I wasrecruited to work at Planned
(19:11):
Parenthood Marmonte, which isthe largest Planned Parenthood
affiliate in the country, andyou know, was was it at the time
thinking a lot about issues ofMedicaid access for abortion and
for reproductive rights ingeneral to make it easier for
providers to be able to serveMedicaid patients.
(19:32):
And I found my time at Marmonteto be incredibly instructive in
organizing, in policy advocacy.
I also helped lead our actionfund and our endorsement process
and our campaigns, learned howto run a campaign for candidates
(19:53):
and really grew in my in mycareer there.
And I got to a point, though,where I realized that where I
thought the movement neededinvestment and growth and uh
attention was in organizing.
(20:13):
And so when I got a call in 2020from the National Latina
Institute for ReproductiveJustice, as they were doing
their executive director search,I you know, I felt like the call
for me that I'd been kind ofhaving in the back of my mind
that I'd been discussing withcolleagues about how to change
(20:36):
investment and advocacy, I feltalmost like there was like a
divine kind of Moment ofconnection to where I knew the
movement needed to go when I gotthat call.
You know, I'd known about LatinaInstitute, I'd known about the
work for a long time, and Inever thought that I could I
could work there or I wanted towork there necessarily.
(20:59):
I was, I thought so much abouthow I could grow the investment
where I was.
But it was it was faithful inmany ways.
It felt faithful.
I don't know if I believe inthat, but I got the call, I
thought about it, I talked to myfamily about it.
And I, the more I learned aboutLatina Institute, the more I
learned about the work that wedo, the more I felt like this
(21:21):
was the place where I was goingto be able to do the kind of
work that I knew, based on allof my experience in the
movement, was necessary for now,was necessary for us to build
the kind of future we needed towin for our communities, to win
for our rights, to win forpeople all around the country.
(21:42):
And I feel that to this day,five years into my role at
Latina Institute, I found myhome in this movement that took
me in after I left my career inscience.
And I'm it's been it's been ahard year as I'm as I'm
recording this note, a hard yearfor the movement, a hard year
(22:05):
for bodily autonomy, a hard yearfor communities that have
already been impacted by lack ofaccess to care and lack of
compassion and dignity.
It's been a hard year for ourteam at Latina Institute.
And yet I remain hopeful for themovement because of the work I
(22:28):
do here, because of ourpolitosas, our activists,
because of the people that wemove every day toward
reproductive justice.
And that's where we are today inmy story, sharing this emotional
voice note about my path andabout the future and where I
(22:49):
think we're going to land, whichI which I firmly believe is in a
good place for our families, forour communities, for our
children.
And I'm excited to be in thismovement at the front, leading a
brilliant team toward toward thefuture I know we all deserve.
(23:09):
Thank you.
Jennie (23:12):
Hi, I'm Jenny Wetter.
My pronouns are she, her, and Iam the host of the Reprose Fight
Back Podcast and the director ofthe Reprose Fight Back
Initiative at the PopulationInstitute.
My story, I always say that mystory is complicated.
You know, it's really kind ofhard to trace an exact, like,
(23:34):
this is the thing that made mewho I am today.
I moments of things I am.
I think the one that most ofyou, if you've listened to the
podcast before, are familiarwith is I went to Catholic
school.
I had sex ed from a nun, whichas you can imagine, was neither
(23:55):
comprehensive nor particularlyfact-based or science-based,
just in ways that were utterlyunhelpful for years to come.
And so that was like point one,and something I carried with me
of this very unhelpful,terrible, mean girl's variety of
sex ed.
You know, you'll you have sex,you're gonna get this horrible
(24:17):
disease and you're gonna die.
And then the next point wasprobably maybe even before this,
I don't know, they were aroundthe same time.
I was in like fifth or sixthgrade.
I want to say fifth grade.
It was, I feel like I was prettyyoung.
One of the girls in my classasked me if I wanted to go to
Madison with her to go savebabies.
(24:37):
And like, yeah, obviously, Iwant to go save babies.
People are killing babies?
That's terrible.
I need to go do something aboutthat.
So I remember going home and Ijust have like such a clear
memory of like sitting at ourbreakfast counter on a stool and
talking to my mom about could Igo to Madison with this friend
(25:02):
to go save babies?
And having her sit and talk tome and really just, you know,
she didn't tell me yes or no orlike what to think.
She was just like, okay, likelet's have a bigger conversation
around what is happening andaround abortion and what that
means.
And, you know, have you thoughtabout if a person was in X
(25:28):
situation?
Or what if a person was in Ysituation?
Or what about this?
And she just really centered iton the pregnant person and their
lives and their decisions in away that, you know, I'm sure I
never got at Catholic school,right?
And, you know, after that wholeconversation and really, again,
(25:52):
focus on the pregnant person,mom said, okay, so now that you
know more about it, if you wantto go, you can still go.
You can go.
And she gave me the autonomy tomake my own decision.
And, you know, this is one ofthose things that like it
probably didn't have like a hugeeffect on me at the time.
And spoiler alert, I did not goto the protest, but it became to
(26:16):
mean so much in ways of knowingmy parents had gave me the
autonomy to think my ownthoughts and make my own
decisions about what I believedin things.
It didn't necessarily have bigreverberations for me all of a
sudden being, you know, apro-abortion advocate right
away.
(26:36):
But again, it was just likeanother one of those like little
nuggets that like led to whereI'm at now.
And I think honestly, maybe eventhe more important part was the
giving me the autonomy to makemy own choices.
And and that was reallyimportant to me.
I it's so funny.
As I started doing this work, Italked to my mom about it, and
(26:58):
she does not remember thisconversation, this big
life-changing conversation thatwas so important to me.
Uh, it was just another day ofparenting for her, which I think
also says a lot.
I think the next like big momentwould be when I was in college.
I decided to study environmentalstudies.
(27:20):
And I went on a study abroadprogram to Kenya, studying human
wildlife conflict, and it reallygot me interested in development
and looking at the ways thatdevelopment can be done to
protect wildlife, but also tomake better lives for the
(27:41):
communities that are impacted byby the by the wildlife in the in
the area I was in.
So that led me to graduate withan environmental science degree.
And then I moved to DC and wentfor grad school and started to
do global environmental policy.
So kind of wanted to look againat that where environment and
(28:01):
development meet.
So I did a lot of work there.
I wrote my thesis, for lack of abetter word, on environmental
peace building.
So again, focusing on the peopleand how peace building around
peace parks works.
And then when I went tograduate, I didn't find a job
(28:22):
doing exactly what I thought Iwanted to do.
And I ended up working for thePopulation Institute because
maybe that was like whereenvironment and development came
together.
Although I rapidly became oursexual and reproductive health
person and have left myenvironmental portfolio far
behind, clearly.
And so then all of these likelittle moments of things that
(28:45):
happened over the years like allcame to bloom, just like
exploded, and like this, this isyour passion, this is what you
care about.
You want to focus on sexual andreproductive health and make
sure that people are getting,young people are getting good
sex ed, they are given theautonomy to make choices about
(29:07):
their lives, that people havethe tools they need to plan
their families in a safe andhealthy way, that it is
affordable, that it isaccessible, that people have
access to abortion care if theyneed it.
And it all just exploded.
And I have never looked back.
I cannot imagine working in adifferent field as stressful as
(29:31):
working in uh sexual andreproductive health can be and
fighting for abortion.
And, you know, there are dayswhere I will joke about quitting
to start a bakery bookstore, butI just can't imagine not being
in this fight.
And as much as you can feelbruised and battered and think
we're never going to win, I knowdeep down that we are going to
(29:56):
win.
And this is a fight that we aregonna win, and it is worth
fighting, and I cannot imaginedoing something else, working
with different people.
This movement is so amazing withso many, and I am so blessed and
lucky to get to talk to as manyof them as I have or will over
(30:17):
the course of this podcast, andthat gives me so much joy and
hope, and I love doing this, andI love bringing their stories to
you, bringing their fight toyou, and having an audience who
is so interested in these issueswe talk about and wants to find
ways to get involved.
I just feel very lucky to havegrown this community and the
(30:40):
community around me of advocatesthat I am in the trenches with
day in and day out.
And all of that goes back tohaving sex ed from a nun and a
mom who sat me down and gave methe autonomy to make my own
choices about whether to go to aprotest at a Planned Parenthood.
But without those, I don't knowthat I would be here right now,
(31:01):
even though it's not a straightline or a clear line.
That is how I got to this point.
And I am just so grateful forall of you for listening and for
everybody who has come on thepodcast to talk to me about
these issues that we all careso, so much about.
So thank you, and thank you toour audience and to my guests,
(31:21):
and I hope you enjoyed thisyear's sexual and reproductive
health origin stories episodes.
Okay, y'all.
I hope you enjoyed everybody'sstories.
I always love getting to hearhow everybody came to this work.
It is so much fun.
And then I will just flag thatwe are off next week, but we
will be back with a new episodein the new year.
So I hope everybody has awonderful holiday season and
(31:43):
we'll see you next year.
If you have any questions,comments, or topics you would
like us to cover, always feelfree to shoot me an email.
You can reach me at Jenny,J-E-N-N-I-E at Reprospite
Back.com, or you can find us onsocial media.
We're at Reprospite Back onFacebook and Twitter, or Repros
FB on Instagram.
(32:03):
If you love our podcast and wantto make sure more people find
it, take the time to rate andreview us on your favorite
podcast platform, or if you wantto make sure to support the
podcast, you can also donate onour website at
ReprosfightBack.com.
Thanks all.
Welcome to Repro Spike Bat, a podcast on all things
related to sexual andreproductive health rights and
justice.
Hi, Repros.
How's everybody doing?
I'm your host, Jenny Wetter, andmy pronouns are she, her.
So, y'all, it is the holidayseason, so we decided to give,
instead of taking the last twoweeks off at the end of the
(01:06):
year, we decided to give you aspecial bonus holiday present
and do one more round of SRHRHero Origin stories.
This round is gonna include mystory, but if y'all have been
listening to the podcast for awhile, you've already heard my
story on all of the previousversions we have done.
So I am going to put my story atthe very end.
So if you don't want to listento it again, you don't have to.
(01:28):
Yeah, I am so excited.
We have so many great people uhsharing their stories.
And with that, let's go to thisnext round of SRHR Hero Origin
Stories.
SPEAKER_03 (01:40):
Hey, reprose fight back, folks.
It is the Monica.
I am Dr.
Monica McLeamore.
I use she and her pronouns.
And my journey to sexual andreproductive health is a simple
one.
I've talked about this quite abit, and you can YouTube it and
Google it and a whole variety ofthings, but I'll summarize it
here for you.
(02:00):
Number one, I was a premi in1969.
I was born at 32 weeks, and ifyou know anything about the
United States and healthcare,you know that prematurity is the
number one cause of infantmortality around the world.
One in nine babies will be bornprematurely.
And in Trent, New Jersey, whereI was born, at that time they
didn't collect statistics foranybody but white people, and
(02:22):
the prematurity rate was one outof 16 people for white people,
but it was one out of 32 for allothers per 100,000 births.
And so it was double the rate.
So I'm both lucky and gratefulto be alive.
But that's not how I got areproductive health rights and
justice work.
I'll tell you two differentstories that will give you some
context around this.
One was as a student, the otherone was as a roommate.
(02:45):
So, as a student, I had anincredible mentor in my nursing
program, Dr.
Susan Ballon, who was the firstperson who taught a course
called Power Politics Feminismin Nursing Practice.
And she, in fact, was the firstperson that ever introduced me
to Faye Waddleton, who was thefirst black woman president of
(03:07):
Planned Parenthood.
And she opened my eyes to aworld that helped me so much
that I decided to interview myparents for my baccalaureate
thesis in nursing and to talkwith them about their lives.
And anybody who knows me knows Ihave Vanguard, badass,
incredible parents, and youknow, who both are, you know,
evangelical, religious, veryreligious people, but socially
(03:30):
very liberal.
And so it was never odd for meto reconcile a social justice
mission and liberal work alongwith being very deeply religious
because I watch my parents dothat all the time.
So fast forward, I got my firstapartment and I was living with
my roommate, and I talked aboutthis when my chapter came out in
Untold Stories (03:52):
Life, Love, and Reproduction, a book that was
published to really tell storiesof people whose stories had
never been told.
And I'm a child is by choiceperson.
I always knew I never wanted tobe a parent because that
requires courage and belief inthe future that at the time I
didn't have.
And I was living with my um highschool best friend, we were
(04:15):
roommates, and I never forgetshe ended up uh having an
unintended pregnancy with one ofthe bartenders at the places
where she worked.
And I remember she had anuneventful, uncomplicated
procedural abortion at PlannedParenthood, and she ended up
having a good amount ofbleeding.
And as a nurse and a nursingstudent, you know, I never re I
(04:37):
realized I never was taught whatwas normal and what wasn't.
And so I ended up um, you know,having to work through all of
the issues of not knowing how tohelp take care of her, and
ultimately we got her methrogenand was able to get her bleeding
under control.
But I felt so helpless in thatmoment, and I will never forget
(05:00):
thinking to myself, I will neverfeel this way again.
I had no specific feelings orthoughts about abortion, that
wasn't the issue.
It was I felt like as a roommateand as a friend of somebody who
cared about this person, Ididn't know how to get them the
care that they needed.
I ended up calling the clinic, Iended up calling the uh triage
and advice nurse we ultimatelygot her care for, and she was
fine.
(05:21):
But I thought to myself, this istoo hard.
It shouldn't be this hard.
And so that's when I reallycommitted myself.
And I've only worked withchild-bearing families my whole
nursing career, people withcapacity for pregnancy.
And I will never stop fightingto allow for us to
operationalize reproductivejustice and for people to have
the reproductive trajectoriesand the lives that they want and
(05:42):
need.
So I'm very grateful for you.
I'm grateful for the work thatyou do, I'm grateful for
everybody who believes in adifferent future.
And quite frankly, regardless ofhow you feel about abortion,
family putting, contraception,surrogacy, infertility, birth,
parenthood, whatever, adoption,that you don't get to decide
those things for other people.
(06:04):
Because the only arbiter of anyreproductive health decision and
any pregnancy decision are thepeople who have to live with
that decision.
Thank you for the opportunity totell my story, and I am very
much listened looking forward tolistening to this series and
grateful to be a part of it.
Thank you.
Jennie (06:24):
Hi, Samira.
Thanks for being here.
Hi, thanks so much for having meon.
I'm so excited to hear yourorigin story.
So tell us how you got involvedin this work, but maybe take a
second at the start andintroduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (06:39):
Sure.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Samira Dama Vandy.
I use she or her pronouns.
I am the Senior Policy Associatefor Federal Issues at the
Gutmacher Institute.
A little bit about me, I amoriginally from California.
I've been living in theWashington, DC area for the last
eight years.
(07:01):
And I had always been reallyinterested on issues relating to
gender and quote unquote women'sissues.
Um, when I was an undergrad atUC Berkeley, I did a minor in
gender and women's studies.
And so that was always somethingthat I wanted to work on and was
passionate about.
(07:22):
And even though I didn't do thatas my major, I incorporated it
into my thesis, and my focus wason women's political
participation in Iran in the1950s to 70s.
So I'd always been kind ofcoming at it from that
(07:42):
perspective and angle.
And I had an opportunity inundergrad to work as a volunteer
for an organization that's basedin Iran.
It's called the OMED Foundation,and Omid means hope, that worked
with women and girls that aremarginalized, that basically
(08:04):
provided them some training,some work opportunities for
folks who had been victims ofabuse.
And that was an organization Iwas really proud to be a
volunteer for.
And so I kind of always wasreally interested in kind of
mixing my interests of politics,the Middle East, and women and
(08:30):
gender issues.
So that's kind of where myoriginal interest in
reproductive health and rightscame about.
And on another note, mygrandmother, who's no longer
with us, she unfortunately wasnot able to continue her
education past high school.
She married very early in Iran.
(08:53):
But one thing she always told meis that she had wished that she
was able to be an OBGYN.
And so that was something thatwas so interesting to me is just
kind of having that thisinterest in reproductive health
be something that spannedgenerations.
And it was something that waskind of always openly discussed
(09:15):
in my family as it related tomenstruation or just
reproductive health in general.
So yeah, I was lucky to have amom and grandmother that were
open to talking about thesethings.
Yeah, but I think where my realinterest in repro kind of came
from, after I went to gradschool in the UK, I had some
(09:38):
friends who were involved in therepeal of the eighth movement to
repeal the Eighth Amendment andthe Irish constitution that
prohibited abortion in Ireland.
And so I was really lucky tohave been surrounded by really
interesting and like-mindedindividuals that were passionate
about this issue and theythemselves were Irish.
(09:59):
And so that's kind of where myinterest also in reproductive
health and rights sparked.
And I ended up moving to DCafter grad school, working in
the policy space, a differentissue, but uh was always really
interested again in gender andwomen's issues.
(10:21):
And I had an opportunity to bethe inaugural Congressional
Progressive Caucus Center'sWomen's Rights Fellow.
And I was placed inCongresswoman Barbara Lee's
office to be her women's rightsfellow, and that really kind of
led me to where I am today.
I'm really grateful for thatopportunity.
(10:42):
And I worked on various issuesin the office, but as she was
the co-chair of the pro-choicecaucus, as it was named at that
time, the reproductive freedomcaucus, I was really able to
dive deep into all things reproand got to work on her bills as
a fellow, and then ended upgetting hired as a legislative
(11:05):
assistant in her office, where Ihandled the reproductive health
and rights portfolio and uh herbills, like the Global Her Act
and the Each Act.
So that really was where youknow everything really began and
got to know where I am now.
I love that.
Jennie (11:25):
I feel like I talk about my story and how it's not a
straight line, like it's a bunchof like little moments that all
of a sudden I got a job where Igot to work on these issues and
it like exploded, and like Icouldn't imagine like not
working on them now.
But like my background like inundergrad and grad was
environment.
And so obviously I am now oursexual and reproductive health
(11:46):
rights and justice expert, butno one's path is straight.
And I I that is my favorite partabout these stories.
SPEAKER_01 (11:53):
Yeah, definitely.
I'm just glad to be where I'm atnow and have been working on
SRHR issues for the last eightyears or so, and so I hope to
continue being in this field forthe foreseeable future.
Thanks, Samira.
Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks, Jenny.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
My name is Lupe Miriam Rodriguez, and I am the
executive director of theNational Latina Institute for
Reproductive Justice.
And this is a story of how I gotinto the reproductive justice
movement.
My path was pretty circuitous,but really when I look back, I
(12:35):
think it started when my familyand I immigrated to the US from
Mexico when I was three yearsold.
We came to the United States tofind health care for my brother
who uh had spinal muscularatrophy, but we didn't know this
when we came to the US.
We came because we couldn't findany information about him or
(12:57):
about what was happening to himin Mexico.
He couldn't walk and he hadlittle mobility.
And so we knew we neededanswers.
And we came to the U.S.
where my family, part of myfamily was already established.
We came to the Bay Area, SanJose, California, and lived with
(13:20):
my grandmother when we firstarrived.
My grandmother was the matriarchof our family, having moved to
the U.S.
to care for her 11 childrenafter my grandfather had
abandoned her and wasn't helpingher care for the kids.
And so I grew up with mygrandmother, who was this
(13:40):
powerful, incredible woman, withmy own mother who helped us
navigate a really difficultsituation in the US to find
healthcare for my brother.
You know, not knowing English,needing to talk to doctors, talk
to insurance plans.
She really set an example ofwhat strength and dignity and
(14:03):
advocacy looked like for me.
And I was also compelled andmoved to be a part of supporting
my family in that.
I remember translating documentsand having conversations with
doctors and helping make phonecalls because I was able to
learn English really fast as akid.
(14:26):
And I think it set me up for,you know, the knowledge one that
there were inequities thatpeople faced, but also for a
lifetime of standing up for whatwas right.
I think I was always compelledto step in when there was a lack
(14:46):
of leadership or a lack ofsupport for someone, and was
always ready to ask for what weneeded.
I was moved in those moments bymy mom's example, by my
grandmother's example toadvocate and to know what my
rights were and to ask for them.
And so that was how I wasraised.
(15:10):
And I think throughout my life,I carried that spirit with me in
various parts of my life.
But my focus was actually inscience.
My ultimate career goals werecentered around lab research and
you know, thinking about mybrother's condition and how to
(15:33):
discover how this happened, howthis happened and how it could
be changed.
And so I studied science.
I went to Harvard for undergradand was set to be on a path to
become a scientist.
I, you know, got into graduateschool and was beginning my
(15:54):
career in research and faced aton of inequity, discrimination,
and ultimately made the decisionto leave my program.
And I I think when I look backat that time, that I was
(16:16):
obviously under duress in aprogram that was difficult on
its own and made even more sobecause of the discrimination I
faced.
And that that that changed mymind about what what and how it
was that I would make an impactin the world.
And I decided that activism andadvocacy was a place where I
(16:38):
could have more impact.
You know, I thought if Icouldn't have an equitable
experience in my career inscience because of sexism and
racism, how could I combat this?
And how could I make it betterfor people who would come up
behind me and into that career?
And so I left my programdefinitely with a lot of
(17:00):
heaviness and decided to go toMexico to do research with an
organization that was working onmaternal mortality and
reproductive rights for women inMexico, an organization called
Salud Integral para la mujer.
And there I, you know, learnedabout the long-standing
(17:23):
criminalization of abortion, theeffects it has on maternal
death, on infant mortality, onyou know, adverse health
outcomes.
And I became really interestedin what that looked like in the
US as well.
So when I came back from my yearin Mexico, I got a job a little
(17:46):
randomly at Access ReproductiveJustice, which is an abortion
fund that has been in Oakland,California for many, many years
and served a large proportion ofCalifornia now is a national
abortion fund.
And that's where my careerstarted.
(18:07):
I learned about this was in2008, pre-Row uh falling.
And you know, I learned aboutthe inequities in access to
care, even in a state likeCalifornia, with the best laws,
with the best, you know, mostequitable programs for care,
with access to Medicaid forabortion.
(18:29):
And I, you know, just becameinterested in the impact this
has on people's lives long term.
And so I that was the start.
I um I grew in my career there.
I uh was able to start the firstpolicy advocacy component of the
fund.
(18:50):
I worked to pass policy toexpand Medicaid access for
abortion and to work on someadministrative advocacy with
local social service agenciesthat were denying, wrongfully
denying Medicaid for people whowanted abortions.
And then from there, I wasrecruited to work at Planned
(19:11):
Parenthood Marmonte, which isthe largest Planned Parenthood
affiliate in the country, andyou know, was was it at the time
thinking a lot about issues ofMedicaid access for abortion and
for reproductive rights ingeneral to make it easier for
providers to be able to serveMedicaid patients.
(19:32):
And I found my time at Marmonteto be incredibly instructive in
organizing, in policy advocacy.
I also helped lead our actionfund and our endorsement process
and our campaigns, learned howto run a campaign for candidates
(19:53):
and really grew in my in mycareer there.
And I got to a point, though,where I realized that where I
thought the movement neededinvestment and growth and uh
attention was in organizing.
(20:13):
And so when I got a call in 2020from the National Latina
Institute for ReproductiveJustice, as they were doing
their executive director search,I you know, I felt like the call
for me that I'd been kind ofhaving in the back of my mind
that I'd been discussing withcolleagues about how to change
(20:36):
investment and advocacy, I feltalmost like there was like a
divine kind of Moment ofconnection to where I knew the
movement needed to go when I gotthat call.
You know, I'd known about LatinaInstitute, I'd known about the
work for a long time, and Inever thought that I could I
could work there or I wanted towork there necessarily.
(20:59):
I was, I thought so much abouthow I could grow the investment
where I was.
But it was it was faithful inmany ways.
It felt faithful.
I don't know if I believe inthat, but I got the call, I
thought about it, I talked to myfamily about it.
And I, the more I learned aboutLatina Institute, the more I
learned about the work that wedo, the more I felt like this
(21:21):
was the place where I was goingto be able to do the kind of
work that I knew, based on allof my experience in the
movement, was necessary for now,was necessary for us to build
the kind of future we needed towin for our communities, to win
for our rights, to win forpeople all around the country.
(21:42):
And I feel that to this day,five years into my role at
Latina Institute, I found myhome in this movement that took
me in after I left my career inscience.
And I'm it's been it's been ahard year as I'm as I'm
recording this note, a hard yearfor the movement, a hard year
(22:05):
for bodily autonomy, a hard yearfor communities that have
already been impacted by lack ofaccess to care and lack of
compassion and dignity.
It's been a hard year for ourteam at Latina Institute.
And yet I remain hopeful for themovement because of the work I
(22:28):
do here, because of ourpolitosas, our activists,
because of the people that wemove every day toward
reproductive justice.
And that's where we are today inmy story, sharing this emotional
voice note about my path andabout the future and where I
(22:49):
think we're going to land, whichI which I firmly believe is in a
good place for our families, forour communities, for our
children.
And I'm excited to be in thismovement at the front, leading a
brilliant team toward toward thefuture I know we all deserve.
(23:09):
Thank you.
Jennie (23:12):
Hi, I'm Jenny Wetter.
My pronouns are she, her, and Iam the host of the Reprose Fight
Back Podcast and the director ofthe Reprose Fight Back
Initiative at the PopulationInstitute.
My story, I always say that mystory is complicated.
You know, it's really kind ofhard to trace an exact, like,
(23:34):
this is the thing that made mewho I am today.
I moments of things I am.
I think the one that most ofyou, if you've listened to the
podcast before, are familiarwith is I went to Catholic
school.
I had sex ed from a nun, whichas you can imagine, was neither
(23:55):
comprehensive nor particularlyfact-based or science-based,
just in ways that were utterlyunhelpful for years to come.
And so that was like point one,and something I carried with me
of this very unhelpful,terrible, mean girl's variety of
sex ed.
You know, you'll you have sex,you're gonna get this horrible
(24:17):
disease and you're gonna die.
And then the next point wasprobably maybe even before this,
I don't know, they were aroundthe same time.
I was in like fifth or sixthgrade.
I want to say fifth grade.
It was, I feel like I was prettyyoung.
One of the girls in my classasked me if I wanted to go to
Madison with her to go savebabies.
(24:37):
And like, yeah, obviously, Iwant to go save babies.
People are killing babies?
That's terrible.
I need to go do something aboutthat.
So I remember going home and Ijust have like such a clear
memory of like sitting at ourbreakfast counter on a stool and
talking to my mom about could Igo to Madison with this friend
(25:02):
to go save babies?
And having her sit and talk tome and really just, you know,
she didn't tell me yes or no orlike what to think.
She was just like, okay, likelet's have a bigger conversation
around what is happening andaround abortion and what that
means.
And, you know, have you thoughtabout if a person was in X
(25:28):
situation?
Or what if a person was in Ysituation?
Or what about this?
And she just really centered iton the pregnant person and their
lives and their decisions in away that, you know, I'm sure I
never got at Catholic school,right?
And, you know, after that wholeconversation and really, again,
(25:52):
focus on the pregnant person,mom said, okay, so now that you
know more about it, if you wantto go, you can still go.
You can go.
And she gave me the autonomy tomake my own decision.
And, you know, this is one ofthose things that like it
probably didn't have like a hugeeffect on me at the time.
And spoiler alert, I did not goto the protest, but it became to
(26:16):
mean so much in ways of knowingmy parents had gave me the
autonomy to think my ownthoughts and make my own
decisions about what I believedin things.
It didn't necessarily have bigreverberations for me all of a
sudden being, you know, apro-abortion advocate right
away.
(26:36):
But again, it was just likeanother one of those like little
nuggets that like led to whereI'm at now.
And I think honestly, maybe eventhe more important part was the
giving me the autonomy to makemy own choices.
And and that was reallyimportant to me.
I it's so funny.
As I started doing this work, Italked to my mom about it, and
(26:58):
she does not remember thisconversation, this big
life-changing conversation thatwas so important to me.
Uh, it was just another day ofparenting for her, which I think
also says a lot.
I think the next like big momentwould be when I was in college.
I decided to study environmentalstudies.
(27:20):
And I went on a study abroadprogram to Kenya, studying human
wildlife conflict, and it reallygot me interested in development
and looking at the ways thatdevelopment can be done to
protect wildlife, but also tomake better lives for the
(27:41):
communities that are impacted byby the by the wildlife in the in
the area I was in.
So that led me to graduate withan environmental science degree.
And then I moved to DC and wentfor grad school and started to
do global environmental policy.
So kind of wanted to look againat that where environment and
(28:01):
development meet.
So I did a lot of work there.
I wrote my thesis, for lack of abetter word, on environmental
peace building.
So again, focusing on the peopleand how peace building around
peace parks works.
And then when I went tograduate, I didn't find a job
(28:22):
doing exactly what I thought Iwanted to do.
And I ended up working for thePopulation Institute because
maybe that was like whereenvironment and development came
together.
Although I rapidly became oursexual and reproductive health
person and have left myenvironmental portfolio far
behind, clearly.
And so then all of these likelittle moments of things that
(28:45):
happened over the years like allcame to bloom, just like
exploded, and like this, this isyour passion, this is what you
care about.
You want to focus on sexual andreproductive health and make
sure that people are getting,young people are getting good
sex ed, they are given theautonomy to make choices about
(29:07):
their lives, that people havethe tools they need to plan
their families in a safe andhealthy way, that it is
affordable, that it isaccessible, that people have
access to abortion care if theyneed it.
And it all just exploded.
And I have never looked back.
I cannot imagine working in adifferent field as stressful as
(29:31):
working in uh sexual andreproductive health can be and
fighting for abortion.
And, you know, there are dayswhere I will joke about quitting
to start a bakery bookstore, butI just can't imagine not being
in this fight.
And as much as you can feelbruised and battered and think
we're never going to win, I knowdeep down that we are going to
(29:56):
win.
And this is a fight that we aregonna win, and it is worth
fighting, and I cannot imaginedoing something else, working
with different people.
This movement is so amazing withso many, and I am so blessed and
lucky to get to talk to as manyof them as I have or will over
(30:17):
the course of this podcast, andthat gives me so much joy and
hope, and I love doing this, andI love bringing their stories to
you, bringing their fight toyou, and having an audience who
is so interested in these issueswe talk about and wants to find
ways to get involved.
I just feel very lucky to havegrown this community and the
(30:40):
community around me of advocatesthat I am in the trenches with
day in and day out.
And all of that goes back tohaving sex ed from a nun and a
mom who sat me down and gave methe autonomy to make my own
choices about whether to go to aprotest at a Planned Parenthood.
But without those, I don't knowthat I would be here right now,
(31:01):
even though it's not a straightline or a clear line.
That is how I got to this point.
And I am just so grateful forall of you for listening and for
everybody who has come on thepodcast to talk to me about
these issues that we all careso, so much about.
So thank you, and thank you toour audience and to my guests,
(31:21):
and I hope you enjoyed thisyear's sexual and reproductive
health origin stories episodes.
Okay, y'all.
I hope you enjoyed everybody'sstories.
I always love getting to hearhow everybody came to this work.
It is so much fun.
And then I will just flag thatwe are off next week, but we
will be back with a new episodein the new year.
So I hope everybody has awonderful holiday season and
(31:43):
we'll see you next year.
If you have any questions,comments, or topics you would
like us to cover, always feelfree to shoot me an email.
You can reach me at Jenny,J-E-N-N-I-E at Reprospite
Back.com, or you can find us onsocial media.
We're at Reprospite Back onFacebook and Twitter, or Repros
FB on Instagram.
(32:03):
If you love our podcast and wantto make sure more people find
it, take the time to rate andreview us on your favorite
podcast platform, or if you wantto make sure to support the
podcast, you can also donate onour website at
ReprosfightBack.com.
Thanks all.
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