August 19, 2025 • 43 mins
From recent court cases, to LGBTQI+ health and rights, to sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice, we have the perfect news source for you. Garnet Henderson and Susan Rinkunas, journalists and co-founders of Autonomy News, a worker-owned reproductive rights and justice publication, sit down to talk with us about their new publication platform and how it can not only teach, but empower.
Recent reporting on Autonomy News includes a case in Texas involving the first federal lawsuit against Aid Access—a large provider of abortion pills in the United States. Other reporting also includes a threatened lawsuit from the Arkansas Attorney General who has sent cease and desist letters to Plan C and Mayday Health, which also provide medication abortion. Additional articles include those examining a circulated, biased survey sent to OBGYNs and the rising number of Planned Parenthood clinic closures.
For more information, check out Well...Adjusting: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/well-adjusting/id1649386566
Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social
Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store
Email us: jennie@reprosfightback.com
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast
Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:03):
Welcome to Repros Fight Back, 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, I guess the biggestthing on my mind right now,
since I live in Washington,D.C., is the federal government
(00:26):
taking over the D.C.
police force and having theNational Guard come into D.C.,
The pretext that D.C.
is this wildly unsafe place andit needs all of this extra law
enforcement is just crazy to me.
I do not feel unsafe in D.C.
I've never really felt reallyunsafe in D.C.
(00:49):
This is just wild and it's sosurreal in a terrible way to go
places and see all this extralaw enforcement and the National
Guard.
And I just, another clearexample of why we need DC
statehood.
I have already been in talkswith doing another why DC
(01:12):
statehood is a reproductivejustice issue episode.
So we'll probably make thathappen, try to make that happen
sooner rather than later.
But yeah, man, like it is, it isreally, I'm just really thinking
of all of my DC people right nowand hoping everybody stays safe.
Okay, let's move past the heavyand go to the fun.
(01:34):
I love stone fruit season.
Like there is nothing likegetting fresh peaches and
nectarines and honestlycherries.
It is like my favorite fruitseason.
So I ordered a big box ofpeaches from Oregon and they
came and y'all, they're like thesize of a softball, at least.
They're
SPEAKER_01 (01:54):
huge
SPEAKER_02 (01:55):
and they're so good.
And I have been just enjoyingthem.
as is so far because they don'tneed anything.
But I was thinking maybe thisweekend I might make a peach
cobbler because that also soundspretty delightful.
So we'll see.
I don't know yet.
I'm...
Looking forward to it.
But I have just been enjoyingeating the plain peaches.
(02:16):
But I have more coming.
I have a box of peaches andnectarines, so I'm also looking
forward to that.
Yeah, it's, again, stone fruitseason.
I love it.
Also this weekend, I am lookingforward to seeing a friend I
haven't seen in a while.
We are going to get out of thecity for a little bit and go
winerying, I think.
(02:39):
So when you're hearing this,this will all have already
happened because I'm taking amental health day on Friday and
my friend and I are going to goand get out of the city.
And I'm very much lookingforward to it.
I think it will do wonders formy mental health for all of the
reasons.
And this had already beenplanned before.
The federal government took overthe D.C.
(03:01):
police force.
The National Guard came in.
So it feels even more necessaryto mental health to get out of
the city for a little bit rightnow.
So I'm looking forward to that.
So, yeah.
Having a weekend that I amlooking forward to with fruit
and wineries.
(03:22):
Maybe we'll go to an appleorchard or something.
Yeah.
We'll see.
It'll just be nice to get away.
With that, let's turn to thisweek's interview because it's a
little bit of a longerconversation.
Not too long, but just a littlebit longer.
I'm so excited to have onGarnett Henderson and Susan
Rakunis with Autonomy News.
(03:43):
I'm so excited to get to talk tothem, one, about Autonomy News
because it's new and I'm soexcited for them personally.
launching it.
And then we're also going totalk about some of the reporting
that they have done.
So it's a little bit of ahodgepodge episode where we're
talking about kind of a numberof issues related to sexual and
reproductive health, but it wasa wonderful conversation.
So let's turn to my interviewwith Susan and Garnet.
(04:06):
Hi, Garnet and Susan.
Thank you so much for being heretoday.
Hi, thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Hello, Jenny.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
Okay, before we get started, let's do a quick round
of introductions.
Garnet, do you want
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
to go first?
Sure.
My name is Garnet Henderson.
I'm an investigative journalist,and I specialize in covering
reproductive and sexual healthrights and justice.
And I am a co-founder ofAutonomy News.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
And I'm Susan Rancunas.
I'm an independent journalistfocusing on reproductive health
and politics.
I am freelance and also aco-founder of Autonomy News.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
Well, first, congratulations on founding
Autonomy News.
I am so excited to have you onto talk about some of your
reporting, but maybe let's for asecond let you sing your own
praises.
What is Autonomy News?
Tell us about
SPEAKER_01 (04:56):
it.
Sure.
So, Autonomy News is aworker-owned reproductive rights
and justice publication.
We're the first worker-ownedpublication on this beat.
And Susan and I are theco-founders, as we mentioned.
Right now, it is us.
It's a team of two, as well asfreelance editors who help us
(05:16):
make sure that all of ourstories are rigorously edited
and fact-checked.
But we do hope that going intothe future, we will be able to
expand and bring more peopleonto our team as worker owners.
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
And Garnet and I have worked together
professionally since...
At least 2018, maybe 2017 when Iwas an editor at Vice and Garnet
was a freelancer at Vice.
And we've just worked well inthat regard.
And Garnet reached out to me andasked if I wanted to maybe start
our own thing earlier this year.
(05:49):
And then we launched in earlyJune.
And part of the reason we wantedto do this is because there are
so many stories to tell.
And it feels like there arevanishingly fewer places to tell
them and tell them the correctway with all of the proper
context necessary.
So we started our own websiteand newsletter and it's hosted
on Ghost, which is notably notSubstack, if that matters to
(06:13):
people.
And if people want to sign up,they can choose not to get any
emails.
They could just go to ourwebsite if they prefer to
consume the content that way orvia social media, or you could
get Yeah, I just went and
SPEAKER_02 (06:31):
signed up this week because I was like, I could have
swore I signed up previously.
Our spam filter at work is...
Possibly going to be the deathof me.
So I feel like I signed up andthe verification got hung up or
something.
Anywho, I am now officiallygetting the emails.
So I was very excited when I gotmine yesterday.
(06:51):
So I know it worked and it camethrough.
Well, thank you for signing up.
So I'm very excited to talk toy'all.
And one of the things I'venoticed is there's been a lot of
reporting y'all have done aroundMipha Pristone recently,
including...
As things change rapidly in thisnew world right now, we're
recording this on August 12th,just in case anything changes
(07:15):
between when y'all hear thisnext Tuesday.
So you had a big story that cameout yesterday talking about a
lawsuit in Texas.
Do you want to start there andwe can talk about some of the
other Miffy stories as well?
SPEAKER_01 (07:27):
Sure.
So yesterday, we published astory about a new lawsuit from
Jonathan Mitchell, who I'm surepretty much everyone listening
to this podcast knows who he is.
But just in case, he's theformer Texas Solicitor General.
He was the architect of SB8, thebounty hunter abortion ban.
And he's one of the leadinglegal strategists of the
anti-abortion movement rightnow, a chief advocate for
(07:51):
enforcing the Comstock Act as,if not a total abortion ban, at
the very least, a total ban onmail-in abortion pills.
So he has a real approach ofthrowing everything at the wall
to see what's going to stick.
Lots of people thought SB8 wouldnever stand, right?
And then the Supreme Court letit go into effect.
Lately, his approach has beencentered on representing men who
(08:15):
want to sue over their partner'sor ex-partner's abortions.
I'm sure people have heard aboutthese cases, really weaponizing
the legal system against peoplewho have abortions or allegedly
have had abortions.
In some of those cases, it's noteven really clear.
But this is the first time we'reaware of where he's representing
a female plaintiff who is sayingthat she was given
(08:38):
abortion-inducing medication, inthis case misoprostol, without
her knowledge or consent.
So she alleges that the man whogot her pregnant ordered
abortion pills from Aid Accessand So Aid Access and Aid Access
founder Rebecca Gompertz areboth named in the lawsuit as
well.
And Jonathan Mitchell is arguingthat they violated the Comstock
(09:01):
Act.
And they're also suing forwrongful death and alleging that
all of the plaintiffs, so theman, Aid Access, and Rebecca
Gompertz committed felonymurder.
Because under Texas law, boththe wrongful death and murder
statutes include, this is scarequotes, unborn children.
This is a woman who's alleging areally unacceptable act of
(09:23):
reproductive coercion, but it'simportant to understand that the
lawsuit is really designed tofurther Jonathan Mitchell's two
pet priorities, which are fetalpersonhood and broader
enforcement of the Comstock Act.
She's alleging that the manbasically mixed in the
misoprostol with hot chocolatethat he gave to her and that she
(09:43):
did lose her pregnancy.
And there are a lot of textmessages.
There's quite a bit ofdocumentation in the lawsuit.
So it's also, like I saidearlier, some of these past
Mitchell lawsuits are reallyquite thin, but this one does
have a lot of exhibits.
They have a lot of supportingevidence of the claims that
they're making.
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
One thing to note here is that another character
is involved that readers of thispodcast may be familiar with.
Mark Lee Thank you.
(10:23):
involving the Comstock Act.
These ordinances are eitherwritten by Jonathan Mitchell or
Mitchell has pledged to defendcities if they get sued over
this.
That's the intro to Dixon.
But Mark Dixon wrote yesterdayon social media that he learned
about this woman's...
This is a horrible incident.
Let's be completely clear.
(10:44):
This is reproductive coercion.
This We can disagree on themethods she's using and having
an anti-abortion, pro-fetalpersonhood lawyer represent her
in this case.
But Dixon said that he firstheard about this incident from a
crisis pregnancy center inTexas.
And then he wanted to connecther with, quote unquote, his
(11:04):
lawyer, a.k.a.
Jonathan Mitchell.
So there's a lot going on here.
The complaint does say that thewoman got an ultrasound at one
point and that her male partnerwent with her.
So we don't know if thatultrasound was done at a crisis
pregnancy center or if she wentto the CPC at some point during
this saga or afterward.
But regardless, Mark Dixon issaying that a crisis pregnancy
(11:26):
center disclosed this privateinformation about this woman to
him, and then that's how we'regetting this lawsuit.
So that's not great in and ofitself.
Most CPCs are not bound by HIPAAbecause they are not actually
providing Real medical care.
So they can legally do thingslike this, even if they claim on
(11:47):
their website that they willprotect your private
information.
So that's one thing I want toflag.
And the second thing is, notonly is this the first lawsuit
that we know of that has a womanfiling for wrongful death based
on abortion pills.
It is also potentially the firstfederal lawsuit against Aid
(12:07):
Access itself, which is a largeprovider of abortion pills in
the United States.
There was actually research thatcame out yesterday in JAMA from
Abigail Aiken and others whotrack data from Aid Access, and
they found that from July 2023to August 2024, Aid Access
(12:28):
prescribed 120,000 sets ofabortion pills and nearly
100,000 thousand of those wereto states that either ban
abortion entirely or bantelemedicine.
So this is aid access sendingthese pills under laws where
providers in states withprotections, there are about
eight states like this that havethese strongest protections, and
(12:48):
providers who are sitting inthose states are prescribing
pills across state lines.
So aid access has been alongtime target of the
anti-abortion movement, andJonathan Mitchell has found
himself a case in which a womancan allege that aid access
provided these pills.
So this is pretty scary stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (13:05):
I think one of the things I missed reading the
story, probably because I was alittle distracted, but these
things happen, was that the CPCdisclosed.
I was reading about, I rememberreading about like that they can
because they're not bound byHIPAA, but I guess I must have
missed the paragraph where thatwas the core of this, which is
(13:27):
just horrifying.
SPEAKER_01 (13:28):
Yeah, it is.
And so I'm actually doing what Ican to continue investigating
that because I am really curiousnot only about the CPC
connection, but about whether ornot this woman knowingly engaged
an anti-abortion attorney whowas going to use this case to
further his own priorities,because I can really see either
(13:51):
thing being true.
I will say that, as I said, thesome of her messages do seem to
have a fairly clearanti-abortion bent, but she's
also telling this man that shedoesn't want to have an abortion
and telling him not to orderpills.
So, you know, there are a lot ofmessages that could be
(14:13):
interpreted as her having ananti-abortion stance or just
being specific to her situationsaying like, I want to continue
this pregnancy, you know?
So I am continuing toinvestigate and, um, If
possible, I would like to speakwith her.
SPEAKER_02 (14:30):
Okay.
Unfortunately, that's not theonly lawsuit around medication
abortion that is happening rightnow.
There's another one out ofArkansas.
SPEAKER_00 (14:37):
Yes.
Well, at this point, ArkansasAttorney General Tim Griffin has
threatened a lawsuit against twoinformation sites.
Let's be extremely clear thatthese are not even websites that
send pills to people like AidAccess does.
So in late July, Griffin sentcease and desist letters to both
(14:59):
Plan C and Mayday Health, whichlisteners of this podcast might
be familiar with.
Plan C especially is a topclearinghouse of information.
They've explain where people canaccess pills in all 50 states.
And they provide links to otherinformation, including, you
know, if people have medicalquestions or people have legal
questions, they are really, youknow, they're doing First
(15:19):
Amendment protected activity,right?
They're not providing thesepills in any way.
But Griffin sent two separatecease and desist letters to
these entities claiming that,and this is the crazy part, he
claimed that by the sitesdescribing abortion pills as
quote-unquote safe, that theywere engaging in deceptive trade
practices under an Arkansas law.
(15:42):
And to back up that speciousclaim, he cited the Ethics and
Public Policy Center paper thatwas published in May that
conservatives have been rallyingaround to try to completely
limit access to abortion pills,either by ending telemedicine
prescriptions or just trying toget them yanked from the market
(16:03):
entirely.
So
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
this is
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
silly, but we should still take it somewhat
seriously, because as lawprofessor Mary Ziegler told me
for Autonomy News, this doesseem to raise First Amendment
questions, but it perhaps justthe threat of lawsuits,
including fines for everyviolation, could make some
websites basically comply inadvance and not advertise these
(16:28):
services to Arkansas or otherstates that could try to copy
this move from Griffin.
So if there is a lawsuit againstthem, it's basically Griffin
said you had 14 days from thedate of the letter to stop doing
this, what he called deceptiveadvertising.
And then if the sites don't dothat, that he could investigate
(16:49):
them and potentially filelawsuits.
And then they might face civilpenalties of up to$10,000 per
violation.
So that's the chilling effectthere.
And I do just want to add thatthese cease and desist letters
came on the same day thatGriffin and 15 other attorneys
general sent a letter toCongress urging them to
effectively ban shield laws.
(17:11):
They asked them to considerpassing legislation that would
prevent states from passingshield laws so that they could
basically override abortion bansin their states.
So that was a little bit buried,but just these two things taken
together show you that shieldlaws and abortion pills by mail
are a huge threat to theanti-abortion movement, and
they're doing everything theycan to come after them.
SPEAKER_02 (17:33):
In the episode that came out today or last week for
y'all listening, I talked toErin Mattson about the attacks
on the FACE Act.
And she was talking about likewhy they're so mad about
medication abortion pillsbecause then people don't need
to come to the clinics and dealwith the protesters and all of
(17:53):
that stuff.
And they can't so easily protestif pills are in people's hands
and they're getting mailed topeople.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yes, actually, I won't say too much about it.
But we have Autonomy News has anexciting collaboration coming up
where we're going to co-publisha story with another outlet.
And it involves abortion pillreversal.
And that is something that hascome up a lot in our reporting
for that story.
Unfortunately, even thoughabortion pill reversal is so
(18:23):
obviously a load of crap, notonly does it not do anything
wrong, it could be dangerous,right?
The only clinical trial actuallystudying this was suspended
after three patients hemorrhagedso badly they had to be
transferred to the hospital.
And just for anyone who doesn'tknow, abortion pill reversal
involves taking progesteroneafter having taken mifepristone.
(18:46):
Mifepristone blocksprogesterone, so the idea is
basically just like, you putmore progesterone in there and
it will compete with themifepristone to attach to that
receptor.
No proof of that theory.
So...
What we have seen is that, firstof all, when patients do have to
go to a clinic now, a majorityof them at many clinics are
walking out still pregnant, butwith their abortion pills in
(19:09):
hand.
Whereas previously, most peoplewalking out of an abortion
clinic were no longer pregnant,right?
So any protesters or CPCvolunteers who were outside only
had the opportunity, scarequotes, to talk to those
patients when they were on theirway in.
Thank you so much.
(19:47):
That specific anti-abortionmyth, even though I think some
progress had been made therejust as more people became aware
of abortion pills and how theyworked, people were maybe less
likely to be swayed by theabortion pill reversal myth.
But unfortunately, theanti-abortion is really, really
doubling down on theirdisinformation there to try and
confuse people.
SPEAKER_02 (20:08):
Oh, I thought that had like really...
gone away.
Like it went quiet for a whileand apparently it's now really
back.
SPEAKER_01 (20:16):
Yeah, especially because so many of the states
that passed those laws requiringproviders to tell patients about
supposed abortion pill reversalare now total ban states.
So it's not that that doesn'tmatter that they pass those
laws, but nobody is reallyhaving to follow those laws or
almost nobody is having tofollow those laws anymore,
right?
UNKNOWN (20:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Okay.
Sorry.
A bummer to know that that'sback.
Gross.
Okay.
I feel like there was somethingelse that y'all had around
medication abortion.
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
Yes.
Well, and also on the subject ofdisinformation, we recently
reported about a strange surveythat a lot of OBGYNs received
from the Alliance forHippocratic Medicine and
American Association of Pro-LifeOBGYNs, who folks will recognize
as among the groups that suedthe FDA to try and revoke the
(21:11):
approval of Mifepristone.
So these groups sent out asurvey to OBGYNs, and a number
of the OBGYNs received them atpersonal emails or abortion
clinic work emails that they didnot think were publicly
accessible.
And the email described the leadinvestigator of the study as
(21:31):
Hector Chapa, who is a professorat Texas A&M and a former board
member at ACOG, who actuallywrote an editorial for, I
believe, Live Action, right,Susan?
Yeah, about his choice to resignfrom ACOG's board because they
support abortion access.
And so the survey was supposedlycollecting information about
(21:54):
OBGYN's attitudes aroundabortion.
It used the phrase electiveabortion, and it also used a lot
of just obvious anti-abortionlanguage, like the phrase
dismemberment was in there.
And so it was a very strange,obviously biased survey.
No apparent approval by any kindof review board to check that it
(22:15):
meets basic ethical standards.
no informed, clear informedconsent.
So they're claiming that this issomething that will later be
published in a peer reviewedjournal, but clearly not
following the procedures to makethat happen.
And we know that theanti-abortion movement has a
long history of producing junkscience to try and justify its
(22:36):
positions.
We've seen a lot of that playout in court, specifically in
that case, Alliance forHippocratic Medicine versus FDA.
And so Yeah, it's just a redflag that they're trying to
produce yet more biased junk
SPEAKER_00 (22:53):
science.
Absolutely.
And this time, OBGYNs whoreceived the survey reached out
to us.
So we at least have a heads upif this organization does try to
publish this paper somewhere oreven self-publish it, like that
Ethics and Public Policy Centerstudy was self-published.
They didn't even try to go to ajournal.
But one thing I also want tonote is that, again, Hector
(23:15):
Chapa, a former board member ofACOP, is one of these people who
likes to argue in his variousop-eds that he has now published
since resigning that most OBGYNsdo not provide abortions,
thereby OBGYNs oppose abortions,and that's not how that works.
It's actually...
More OBGYNs should provideabortions.
Let's be honest about that.
(23:36):
But some of them don't becauseof where they work.
And some of them would like toprescribe medication abortion,
but they can't because theiroffice would need to become a
certified provider under theREMS.
So unless they decided to startvolunteering for aid access,
right, it's hard for some OBGYNsto actually provide medication
abortion.
(23:57):
Now, the other thing, too, isthat ACOG actually had to send
CHAPA a cease and desist letter.
So this is our second story thatreferences a cease and desist
because in the email that wentout to OBGYNs, the text says,
sort of implied affiliation withACOG.
It said that this survey wasgoing to be sent out to the ACOG
(24:17):
list and that it was going to beused, I'm going to quote now,
they claimed the survey wasintended to quote, inform ACOG
policy, programming, strategy,and outreach.
And the survey website, which isstill live, did scrub the claim
that it was gonna go out to theOBGYN list, but ACOG told us
(24:37):
that they had to send a ceaseand desist so that AHM and CHAPA
and APLOG would stop suggestingaffiliation with ACOG.
Yes, he is a former boardmember, but he is not doing this
under the auspices of theorganization, nor would he have
any ability to influence theirpolicy since he's no longer a
board member.
SPEAKER_02 (24:56):
Yeah, there's no way you could read that and not
think it was affiliated withACOG.
SPEAKER_01 (25:01):
Totally.
And especially if somebody hadmissed the news that he resigned
and would potentially recognizehis name as an ACOG board
member, it's very misleading.
And we did look into, I wascurious whether he might have
inappropriately used membershipterms.
information that he had frombeing a board member of ACOG.
Obviously, we can't be sureeither way.
(25:22):
But when we spoke to OBGYN,several of them said, no, this
email address is not one thatI've ever used for ACOG.
So still kind of unclear howthey got some of that contact
information, actually.
SPEAKER_02 (25:33):
Okay, let's move past the myriad of attacks on
medication abortion and talkabout another thing we've been
seeing, and that is PlannedParenthood's closing.
What is going on?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
Susan has been tracking the number of Planned
Parenthood clinics that haveannounced their closure so far,
and I believe the number is at35 so far for 2025.
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
Well, the first thing I'll say is that
independent clinics do providemore abortions later in
pregnancy and they offer morekinds of abortions than Planned
Parenthood.
But Planned Parenthood does havea large footprint in the United
States and anti-abortionadvocates have been trying to
shutter these clinics for awhile.
So this is why we're focusing onthis a little bit in our
(26:18):
coverage, as well as the factthat the budget reconciliation
bill that passed and was signedon July 4th, Wahoo purported to
defund large abortion providersand that was aimed at Planned
Parenthood, although theyweren't named in the bill.
Basically, we think that theywere not naming Planned
Parenthood because they didn'twant to look like they were
(26:38):
actually targeting them whenthey were entirely targeting
them.
So that happened in July.
But these closures have beenannounced since the beginning of
the year.
One of the first stories I wrotefor Jezebel this year was
Illinois announcing four clinicsbeing closed in January before
Trump was even inaugurated.
So clinics have been strugglingfor years.
(27:00):
And some of those struggles havecertainly gotten worse since the
Trump administration isthreatening to exclude abortion
providers from Medicaid, evenfor non-abortion services like
birth control and STI testing.
But in general, I mean, clinics,as many of your listeners will
know, have been struggling withThe fact that more people are
(27:23):
coming to get abortion carelater in pregnancy and the costs
are higher and they might haveless money to pay for that.
And that's as well as the factthat funding has been limited a
little bit to support patients,including via the National
Abortion Federation.
Garnet reported extensively onthat when she was at REWIRE.
(27:43):
But yeah, the National AbortionFederation basically put a per
patient per caller cap on funds.
They will say that they haven'tcut their funds and it's the
same amount, but they arelimiting the amount that each
person can access.
So that has created kind of arolling crisis in abortion
access.
And then there have been otherattacks as well.
(28:04):
The Trump administration frozeTitle 10 funding in either late
March or early April, and that'sthe federal family planning
program that has existed since1970 and covers, it provides
grants to clinics and healthdepartments and people who
apply, right?
It's not just PlannedParenthoods or abortion clinics
(28:24):
to provide birth control topeople who are living on low
incomes and it's low and no costbirth control.
Now, when that money was frozen,Clinics did keep offering the
service, a lot of them, but thatputs them in a budgetary hole as
well.
Some clinics have had theirfunding restored, but others
have not.
So there were those attacks ontop of now this defunding bill.
(28:49):
And the one thing I'll say isthat clinics are closing and
citing the defunding bill, eventhough right now there is a
preliminary injunctionpreventing the bill from really
being enforced.
So on July 28th, a federal judgein Boston said that the Trump
administration had to continuereimbursing Planned Parenthood
(29:12):
clinics for Medicaid services.
And that injunction was for all47 Planned Parenthood
affiliates.
But some clinics have said thatthe previously announced
closures are still going to gothrough.
They can't just walk it backthinking that this injunction is
going to fix them.
And then I also reported lastweek that some affiliates in
(29:34):
Ohio are actually not fullyaccepting Medicaid after that
injunction.
So there's one small affiliate,Planned Parenthood Southwest
Ohio, that is down to fourclinics.
They closed two after the billpassed.
And they said that they will notbe accepting Medicaid because of
the chance that the injunctionwill get overturned and the
administration will try to clawback any Medicaid payments made
(29:57):
in that time period.
And they said they can't takethat risk.
A second Ohio affiliate saidthat they are accepting
Medicaid, but not for longacting birth control, including
IUDs and Nexplanon arm implantsbecause those are the most
expensive services that theyprovide.
I was worried that they weregoing to say it's because of an
argument about fertilization andanti-abortion advocates claiming
(30:19):
that IUDs cause abortions.
No, they said it's dollars andcents and those are the most
expensive services they provideand they cannot risk not being
reimbursed for those services.
So that's kind of a starkreality right now of how clinics
are reacting to this defund billand they are limiting services
(30:40):
in some instances.
And then also clinics arecontinuing to announce closures,
even though the bill hasn'ttaken effect yet.
That was a long and ramblingthing.
So Garnet, tell me what else youwant to add to that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:52):
I think you really covered it.
I was just going to add that,yeah, you know, in previous
reporting I had done, I hadheard a lot of rumors about that
many affiliates were going to beshutting a large number of
clinics as far back as lastfall, fall of 2024.
So yeah, the clinics that areclosing have been struggling for
(31:15):
a long time.
And I think this is much more ofa straw that broke the camel's
back type of situation, ifanything.
And yeah, just the fact that,for example, as Susan just said,
there's at least one affiliatethat is not providing LARCs,
long-acting reversiblecontraception, for Medicaid
patients is just heartbreakingbecause that's not only the most
(31:37):
expensive type of contraceptiveservice for the clinic, that's
by far the most expensive typeof contraceptive to get if you
have to pay for it out ofpocket.
I mean, there's just no way thatmost Medicaid patients could pay
for an IUD insertion out ofpocket.
And in so many states, there aresuch massive...
(31:58):
Healthcare deserts, just period,and specifically reproductive
and sexual healthcare deserts.
For so many people, a PlannedParenthood clinic in their
community was the only placethat they could afford to go.
And I do think that's one of thedownsides of the increasing
popularity of medicationabortion, even though, don't get
(32:19):
me wrong, that has been soincredibly important.
especially in terms of helpingpeople in banned states access
abortion care.
The abortion rate has actuallygone up overall slightly in the
United States since Dobbs.
But the downside is that ifyou're providing tons of
medication abortions, you don'treally need a clinic.
(32:42):
Only a handful of patientsreally are going to need to come
in for an ultrasound beforedoing a medication abortion.
And I wouldn't want to come intoa clinic if I didn't have to,
right?
But that's the downside of theshift is that, you know, if you
have fewer patients coming intothe clinic for a service like
medication abortion, it's harderto then keep the clinic open for
(33:02):
services like proceduralabortion, which is still very
important and necessary, andcontraceptive care and
counseling, particularly IUDinsertion.
You can take an IUD out at home,but you cannot put one in at
home.
That's such a good point.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
Tying these two threads together, medication
abortion access medicationabortion has been wrongly
respected for so long and it'smore accessible now but that is
leading to kind of a shift inhow the clinic universe is
structured you know some ofthese clinics were going to
close even if kamala harris hadwon the election like that's
just how this was going to goand on that vein i do want to
(33:38):
add one thing i forgot tomention Somehow, which is the
Supreme Court case out of SouthCarolina that said states can
defund Planned Parenthood fromtheir Medicaid plans at the
state level as opposed to at thefederal level.
So that's another thing.
That case went the way it went.
Even if Kamala Harris had wonthe presidency, that would be a
threat going forward.
And we...
(33:59):
are very likely going to seemore states try to pass laws
like this in their upcomingsessions.
Although, as Garnet mentionedpreviously with abortion pill
reversal, a lot of the statesthat would do that have already
banned abortion, so it's hard toargue that you need to defund
the provider because of abortionif they can't provide abortions
anymore, but they might saylike, oh, well, they're
(34:22):
providing gender-affirming care.
I mean, truly.
So just, we might see morestates saying you can't even, as
a Planned Parenthood provider,bill Medicaid for IUDs or birth
control, and that will lead tomore clinic shuttering, which is
devastating.
SPEAKER_02 (34:39):
Yeah, I could just see them arguing they're
providing abortive patients evenif it's not medication abortion
or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (34:46):
Yes, deep exhale.
The last thing I will add isthat, yes, not only are IUDs and
implants very expensive to getif you're paying yourself.
These Ohio affiliates did tellme that patients can self-pay
and clinics do give self-paydiscounts, but that's still
hundreds of dollars.
People could try to get theseimplants.
(35:06):
methods of birth control at acounty health department or
state health department.
But the problem is that theyoften need to wait long times to
get appointments at those healthdepartments.
And Planned Parenthood clinicsare more likely, based on
Guttmacher data, to havesame-day appointments and
same-day insertions because theyhave these things on the
shelves.
Like, this is what they do, youknow?
(35:28):
So if anyone tells you, oh,well, people can just get it
somewhere else.
Not quickly, they can't.
And that's something that inSouth Carolina, the head, the
medical director for PlannedParenthood South Atlantic was
saying that the state is arguingpeople can get care other
places.
And she said, I have peopletelling me they have to wait
three months for an IUDappointment at the health
department.
So like, let's be real here.
SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
Even if you have the money to go to a private
practice, most providers inprivate practice are not
stocking IUDs and implants onsite.
They have to order them.
You know, they have to be surethat either you're going to pay
for it if it's a self-paysituation or that your insurance
is.
So there's pretty much a delayat any type of site that's not a
dedicated sexual andreproductive health clinic.
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
Okay.
There was one more piece that Isaw that I would love to touch
on, even though we're runninglow on time, but I still wanted
to make sure we talked about itreal quick.
And that is the one about theadministration and eugenics.
just felt like it would be amiss if we didn't at least touch
on it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Yeah, it's quite dark, but you're referring to
one of our stories from when welaunched, and I wrote this one,
and we wanted to show thebreadth of what Autonomy News
will be covering.
So it's not just abortion, birthcontrol, gender-affirming care,
but also reproductive justicemore broadly.
And We had had a few months ofthe Trump administration's
(36:52):
rhetoric to work off.
And one thing that is extremelyclear is that they do not want
everyone to reproduce.
They only want certain people toreproduce.
That has been true for a while.
But the stark statements fromboth candidate then President
Trump and even Elon Musk when hewas still a special government
(37:14):
employee involved in Doge plusHealth Secretary RFK Jr., every
time I have to say that outloud, it is so sad.
It hurts.
It hurts a little bit.
But these are kinds of peoplewho say things like, you know,
only sick people should die ofmeasles or, you know, the West
is declining because we're notproducing enough babies.
(37:34):
And it's like, well, what do youmean by the West?
UNKNOWN (37:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:36):
Be specific.
Who are you talking about?
And Trump saying that immigrantsare, quote, poisoning the blood
of our country and callingmostly Central and South
American immigrants criminals,that kind of thing.
So I looked at kind of the pastin the United States, like how
we have a dark history offorcibly sterilizing immigrants.
(37:57):
mostly non-white people, butalso white people who were low
income and viewed to be not ofquote, you know, like strong
stock.
The eugenics movement in the1920s and 30s, unfortunately
inspired the literal Nazis, likeinspired their, you know,
(38:19):
eugenic program.
So we're not saying that thisadministration is going to be
executing people, but they dowant to control reproduction and
they also are limitinghealthcare to people they don't
want to reproduce.
So we are seeing reports, as hasalways been the case, like
(38:41):
horrific access to healthcare inICE detention.
And there are also stories ofpeople being sterilized in
prisons in the United States.
You know, I spoke toreproductive justice advocates,
including like the LupeRodriguez from the National
Latina Institute forReproductive Justice was
(39:02):
explaining about how people inLatino communities are like
scared to get health care.
I mean, an unfortunate realitybecause the Trump administration
said that ICE could now go intohospitals where, you know, that
was a policy.
They weren't supposed to do thatbefore.
and they're scared to go towork, to earn income, to care
(39:23):
for their families and buyenough food.
All this stuff that the Trumpadministration is doing is
showing an antipathy to theseimmigrants and it harms their
health.
And it also is just like part ofa larger project to get people
to either leave the country ornever come to begin with.
You know, they're trying to endbirthright citizenship.
(39:45):
That is at the end of that storyabout eugenics.
Like this is all connected.
They don't want people born tonon-citizens to become American
citizens.
Like they are trying to controlthe populace of the United
States in a really scary way.
And so we wanted to highlightthat.
SPEAKER_02 (40:03):
So I always like to wrap up with an action item so
that while we're talking aboutall of these terrible things
that are happening, at least wecan give our audience something
to do.
What do y'all have today?
What are some things ouraudience can do to get involved?
SPEAKER_01 (40:18):
I think that...
A top action item is alwaysdonate to your local abortion
fund and always prioritizedonating to a local organization
over a national one.
And the other thing that I wouldreally like to lift up is that
what's happening in Palestine isalso a reproductive justice
crisis, in addition to being anabsolutely appalling
(40:40):
humanitarian crisis in general.
And It's not acceptable to me towatch people starve.
So I would also encourage peopleto give to some of the
fundraisers to try and helppeople in Palestine, in Gaza,
get food.
SPEAKER_02 (40:56):
And remember, people don't stop being pregnant or
getting pregnant because thereis a humanitarian crisis.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:03):
And a lot of the people who are dying are
infants.
And sick children, which wasrecently a talking point from
Israel that a child depicted inthe New York Times had a
pre-existing condition.
I would argue it's even worse tostarve children with
pre-existing conditions.
Right.
Reading those
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
horrible stories, I mean, children starving to
death, there are people talkingabout how their mothers cannot
nurse them because their mothersare not getting enough food to
produce breast milk.
So this is...
This has always been areproductive justice crisis, but
yes.
And I'll uplift like the SamirProject I know is a really good
(41:43):
organization that's helping getpeople food and water in Gaza.
So thank you, Garnet.
And I also want to double tap,if you will, on what you said
about local abortion funds andlocal organizations over
national ones.
would encourage people if theywant to help sustain care in
their communities with brick andmortar clinics offering even
(42:05):
birth control, and that doesn'teven have to be abortion,
including if abortions ban inyour state, but you can donate
directly to local PlannedParenthood affiliates and they
are the ones actually runningthe clinics.
So, you know, the organizationsthat I mentioned before in Ohio,
but all across the country,there are almost 50 affiliates
nationwide.
And they're the ones running theclinics.
So if people want to try to keepdoors open in their community,
(42:28):
they can look to donate there inaddition to abortion funds,
helping people get care.
SPEAKER_02 (42:33):
Well, Garnett, Susan, thank you so much for
being here today.
It was so wonderful to talk toyou.
And I am so excited to see whatis coming from Autonomy News.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Thank you, Jenny.
Thank you so much for having us.
SPEAKER_02 (42:45):
Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with
Susan and Garnett.
And definitely, if you haven'talready, make sure you subscribe
to Autonomy News.
They have really great reportingthat it's important to keep up
to date on.
So I hope you sign up as I did.
Otherwise, I will see everybodynext week.
Bye.
Welcome to Repros Fight Back, 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, I guess the biggestthing on my mind right now,
since I live in Washington,D.C., is the federal government
(00:26):
taking over the D.C.
police force and having theNational Guard come into D.C.,
The pretext that D.C.
is this wildly unsafe place andit needs all of this extra law
enforcement is just crazy to me.
I do not feel unsafe in D.C.
I've never really felt reallyunsafe in D.C.
(00:49):
This is just wild and it's sosurreal in a terrible way to go
places and see all this extralaw enforcement and the National
Guard.
And I just, another clearexample of why we need DC
statehood.
I have already been in talkswith doing another why DC
(01:12):
statehood is a reproductivejustice issue episode.
So we'll probably make thathappen, try to make that happen
sooner rather than later.
But yeah, man, like it is, it isreally, I'm just really thinking
of all of my DC people right nowand hoping everybody stays safe.
Okay, let's move past the heavyand go to the fun.
(01:34):
I love stone fruit season.
Like there is nothing likegetting fresh peaches and
nectarines and honestlycherries.
It is like my favorite fruitseason.
So I ordered a big box ofpeaches from Oregon and they
came and y'all, they're like thesize of a softball, at least.
They're
SPEAKER_01 (01:54):
huge
SPEAKER_02 (01:55):
and they're so good.
And I have been just enjoyingthem.
as is so far because they don'tneed anything.
But I was thinking maybe thisweekend I might make a peach
cobbler because that also soundspretty delightful.
So we'll see.
I don't know yet.
I'm...
Looking forward to it.
But I have just been enjoyingeating the plain peaches.
(02:16):
But I have more coming.
I have a box of peaches andnectarines, so I'm also looking
forward to that.
Yeah, it's, again, stone fruitseason.
I love it.
Also this weekend, I am lookingforward to seeing a friend I
haven't seen in a while.
We are going to get out of thecity for a little bit and go
winerying, I think.
(02:39):
So when you're hearing this,this will all have already
happened because I'm taking amental health day on Friday and
my friend and I are going to goand get out of the city.
And I'm very much lookingforward to it.
I think it will do wonders formy mental health for all of the
reasons.
And this had already beenplanned before.
The federal government took overthe D.C.
(03:01):
police force.
The National Guard came in.
So it feels even more necessaryto mental health to get out of
the city for a little bit rightnow.
So I'm looking forward to that.
So, yeah.
Having a weekend that I amlooking forward to with fruit
and wineries.
(03:22):
Maybe we'll go to an appleorchard or something.
Yeah.
We'll see.
It'll just be nice to get away.
With that, let's turn to thisweek's interview because it's a
little bit of a longerconversation.
Not too long, but just a littlebit longer.
I'm so excited to have onGarnett Henderson and Susan
Rakunis with Autonomy News.
(03:43):
I'm so excited to get to talk tothem, one, about Autonomy News
because it's new and I'm soexcited for them personally.
launching it.
And then we're also going totalk about some of the reporting
that they have done.
So it's a little bit of ahodgepodge episode where we're
talking about kind of a numberof issues related to sexual and
reproductive health, but it wasa wonderful conversation.
So let's turn to my interviewwith Susan and Garnet.
(04:06):
Hi, Garnet and Susan.
Thank you so much for being heretoday.
Hi, thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
Hello, Jenny.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
Okay, before we get started, let's do a quick round
of introductions.
Garnet, do you want
SPEAKER_01 (04:19):
to go first?
Sure.
My name is Garnet Henderson.
I'm an investigative journalist,and I specialize in covering
reproductive and sexual healthrights and justice.
And I am a co-founder ofAutonomy News.
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
And I'm Susan Rancunas.
I'm an independent journalistfocusing on reproductive health
and politics.
I am freelance and also aco-founder of Autonomy News.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
Well, first, congratulations on founding
Autonomy News.
I am so excited to have you onto talk about some of your
reporting, but maybe let's for asecond let you sing your own
praises.
What is Autonomy News?
Tell us about
SPEAKER_01 (04:56):
it.
Sure.
So, Autonomy News is aworker-owned reproductive rights
and justice publication.
We're the first worker-ownedpublication on this beat.
And Susan and I are theco-founders, as we mentioned.
Right now, it is us.
It's a team of two, as well asfreelance editors who help us
(05:16):
make sure that all of ourstories are rigorously edited
and fact-checked.
But we do hope that going intothe future, we will be able to
expand and bring more peopleonto our team as worker owners.
SPEAKER_00 (05:29):
And Garnet and I have worked together
professionally since...
At least 2018, maybe 2017 when Iwas an editor at Vice and Garnet
was a freelancer at Vice.
And we've just worked well inthat regard.
And Garnet reached out to me andasked if I wanted to maybe start
our own thing earlier this year.
(05:49):
And then we launched in earlyJune.
And part of the reason we wantedto do this is because there are
so many stories to tell.
And it feels like there arevanishingly fewer places to tell
them and tell them the correctway with all of the proper
context necessary.
So we started our own websiteand newsletter and it's hosted
on Ghost, which is notably notSubstack, if that matters to
(06:13):
people.
And if people want to sign up,they can choose not to get any
emails.
They could just go to ourwebsite if they prefer to
consume the content that way orvia social media, or you could
get Yeah, I just went and
SPEAKER_02 (06:31):
signed up this week because I was like, I could have
swore I signed up previously.
Our spam filter at work is...
Possibly going to be the deathof me.
So I feel like I signed up andthe verification got hung up or
something.
Anywho, I am now officiallygetting the emails.
So I was very excited when I gotmine yesterday.
(06:51):
So I know it worked and it camethrough.
Well, thank you for signing up.
So I'm very excited to talk toy'all.
And one of the things I'venoticed is there's been a lot of
reporting y'all have done aroundMipha Pristone recently,
including...
As things change rapidly in thisnew world right now, we're
recording this on August 12th,just in case anything changes
(07:15):
between when y'all hear thisnext Tuesday.
So you had a big story that cameout yesterday talking about a
lawsuit in Texas.
Do you want to start there andwe can talk about some of the
other Miffy stories as well?
SPEAKER_01 (07:27):
Sure.
So yesterday, we published astory about a new lawsuit from
Jonathan Mitchell, who I'm surepretty much everyone listening
to this podcast knows who he is.
But just in case, he's theformer Texas Solicitor General.
He was the architect of SB8, thebounty hunter abortion ban.
And he's one of the leadinglegal strategists of the
anti-abortion movement rightnow, a chief advocate for
(07:51):
enforcing the Comstock Act as,if not a total abortion ban, at
the very least, a total ban onmail-in abortion pills.
So he has a real approach ofthrowing everything at the wall
to see what's going to stick.
Lots of people thought SB8 wouldnever stand, right?
And then the Supreme Court letit go into effect.
Lately, his approach has beencentered on representing men who
(08:15):
want to sue over their partner'sor ex-partner's abortions.
I'm sure people have heard aboutthese cases, really weaponizing
the legal system against peoplewho have abortions or allegedly
have had abortions.
In some of those cases, it's noteven really clear.
But this is the first time we'reaware of where he's representing
a female plaintiff who is sayingthat she was given
(08:38):
abortion-inducing medication, inthis case misoprostol, without
her knowledge or consent.
So she alleges that the man whogot her pregnant ordered
abortion pills from Aid Accessand So Aid Access and Aid Access
founder Rebecca Gompertz areboth named in the lawsuit as
well.
And Jonathan Mitchell is arguingthat they violated the Comstock
(09:01):
Act.
And they're also suing forwrongful death and alleging that
all of the plaintiffs, so theman, Aid Access, and Rebecca
Gompertz committed felonymurder.
Because under Texas law, boththe wrongful death and murder
statutes include, this is scarequotes, unborn children.
This is a woman who's alleging areally unacceptable act of
(09:23):
reproductive coercion, but it'simportant to understand that the
lawsuit is really designed tofurther Jonathan Mitchell's two
pet priorities, which are fetalpersonhood and broader
enforcement of the Comstock Act.
She's alleging that the manbasically mixed in the
misoprostol with hot chocolatethat he gave to her and that she
(09:43):
did lose her pregnancy.
And there are a lot of textmessages.
There's quite a bit ofdocumentation in the lawsuit.
So it's also, like I saidearlier, some of these past
Mitchell lawsuits are reallyquite thin, but this one does
have a lot of exhibits.
They have a lot of supportingevidence of the claims that
they're making.
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
One thing to note here is that another character
is involved that readers of thispodcast may be familiar with.
Mark Lee Thank you.
(10:23):
involving the Comstock Act.
These ordinances are eitherwritten by Jonathan Mitchell or
Mitchell has pledged to defendcities if they get sued over
this.
That's the intro to Dixon.
But Mark Dixon wrote yesterdayon social media that he learned
about this woman's...
This is a horrible incident.
Let's be completely clear.
(10:44):
This is reproductive coercion.
This We can disagree on themethods she's using and having
an anti-abortion, pro-fetalpersonhood lawyer represent her
in this case.
But Dixon said that he firstheard about this incident from a
crisis pregnancy center inTexas.
And then he wanted to connecther with, quote unquote, his
(11:04):
lawyer, a.k.a.
Jonathan Mitchell.
So there's a lot going on here.
The complaint does say that thewoman got an ultrasound at one
point and that her male partnerwent with her.
So we don't know if thatultrasound was done at a crisis
pregnancy center or if she wentto the CPC at some point during
this saga or afterward.
But regardless, Mark Dixon issaying that a crisis pregnancy
(11:26):
center disclosed this privateinformation about this woman to
him, and then that's how we'regetting this lawsuit.
So that's not great in and ofitself.
Most CPCs are not bound by HIPAAbecause they are not actually
providing Real medical care.
So they can legally do thingslike this, even if they claim on
(11:47):
their website that they willprotect your private
information.
So that's one thing I want toflag.
And the second thing is, notonly is this the first lawsuit
that we know of that has a womanfiling for wrongful death based
on abortion pills.
It is also potentially the firstfederal lawsuit against Aid
(12:07):
Access itself, which is a largeprovider of abortion pills in
the United States.
There was actually research thatcame out yesterday in JAMA from
Abigail Aiken and others whotrack data from Aid Access, and
they found that from July 2023to August 2024, Aid Access
(12:28):
prescribed 120,000 sets ofabortion pills and nearly
100,000 thousand of those wereto states that either ban
abortion entirely or bantelemedicine.
So this is aid access sendingthese pills under laws where
providers in states withprotections, there are about
eight states like this that havethese strongest protections, and
(12:48):
providers who are sitting inthose states are prescribing
pills across state lines.
So aid access has been alongtime target of the
anti-abortion movement, andJonathan Mitchell has found
himself a case in which a womancan allege that aid access
provided these pills.
So this is pretty scary stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (13:05):
I think one of the things I missed reading the
story, probably because I was alittle distracted, but these
things happen, was that the CPCdisclosed.
I was reading about, I rememberreading about like that they can
because they're not bound byHIPAA, but I guess I must have
missed the paragraph where thatwas the core of this, which is
(13:27):
just horrifying.
SPEAKER_01 (13:28):
Yeah, it is.
And so I'm actually doing what Ican to continue investigating
that because I am really curiousnot only about the CPC
connection, but about whether ornot this woman knowingly engaged
an anti-abortion attorney whowas going to use this case to
further his own priorities,because I can really see either
(13:51):
thing being true.
I will say that, as I said, thesome of her messages do seem to
have a fairly clearanti-abortion bent, but she's
also telling this man that shedoesn't want to have an abortion
and telling him not to orderpills.
So, you know, there are a lot ofmessages that could be
(14:13):
interpreted as her having ananti-abortion stance or just
being specific to her situationsaying like, I want to continue
this pregnancy, you know?
So I am continuing toinvestigate and, um, If
possible, I would like to speakwith her.
SPEAKER_02 (14:30):
Okay.
Unfortunately, that's not theonly lawsuit around medication
abortion that is happening rightnow.
There's another one out ofArkansas.
SPEAKER_00 (14:37):
Yes.
Well, at this point, ArkansasAttorney General Tim Griffin has
threatened a lawsuit against twoinformation sites.
Let's be extremely clear thatthese are not even websites that
send pills to people like AidAccess does.
So in late July, Griffin sentcease and desist letters to both
(14:59):
Plan C and Mayday Health, whichlisteners of this podcast might
be familiar with.
Plan C especially is a topclearinghouse of information.
They've explain where people canaccess pills in all 50 states.
And they provide links to otherinformation, including, you
know, if people have medicalquestions or people have legal
questions, they are really, youknow, they're doing First
(15:19):
Amendment protected activity,right?
They're not providing thesepills in any way.
But Griffin sent two separatecease and desist letters to
these entities claiming that,and this is the crazy part, he
claimed that by the sitesdescribing abortion pills as
quote-unquote safe, that theywere engaging in deceptive trade
practices under an Arkansas law.
(15:42):
And to back up that speciousclaim, he cited the Ethics and
Public Policy Center paper thatwas published in May that
conservatives have been rallyingaround to try to completely
limit access to abortion pills,either by ending telemedicine
prescriptions or just trying toget them yanked from the market
(16:03):
entirely.
So
SPEAKER_02 (16:04):
this is
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
silly, but we should still take it somewhat
seriously, because as lawprofessor Mary Ziegler told me
for Autonomy News, this doesseem to raise First Amendment
questions, but it perhaps justthe threat of lawsuits,
including fines for everyviolation, could make some
websites basically comply inadvance and not advertise these
(16:28):
services to Arkansas or otherstates that could try to copy
this move from Griffin.
So if there is a lawsuit againstthem, it's basically Griffin
said you had 14 days from thedate of the letter to stop doing
this, what he called deceptiveadvertising.
And then if the sites don't dothat, that he could investigate
(16:49):
them and potentially filelawsuits.
And then they might face civilpenalties of up to$10,000 per
violation.
So that's the chilling effectthere.
And I do just want to add thatthese cease and desist letters
came on the same day thatGriffin and 15 other attorneys
general sent a letter toCongress urging them to
effectively ban shield laws.
(17:11):
They asked them to considerpassing legislation that would
prevent states from passingshield laws so that they could
basically override abortion bansin their states.
So that was a little bit buried,but just these two things taken
together show you that shieldlaws and abortion pills by mail
are a huge threat to theanti-abortion movement, and
they're doing everything theycan to come after them.
SPEAKER_02 (17:33):
In the episode that came out today or last week for
y'all listening, I talked toErin Mattson about the attacks
on the FACE Act.
And she was talking about likewhy they're so mad about
medication abortion pillsbecause then people don't need
to come to the clinics and dealwith the protesters and all of
(17:53):
that stuff.
And they can't so easily protestif pills are in people's hands
and they're getting mailed topeople.
SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Yes, actually, I won't say too much about it.
But we have Autonomy News has anexciting collaboration coming up
where we're going to co-publisha story with another outlet.
And it involves abortion pillreversal.
And that is something that hascome up a lot in our reporting
for that story.
Unfortunately, even thoughabortion pill reversal is so
(18:23):
obviously a load of crap, notonly does it not do anything
wrong, it could be dangerous,right?
The only clinical trial actuallystudying this was suspended
after three patients hemorrhagedso badly they had to be
transferred to the hospital.
And just for anyone who doesn'tknow, abortion pill reversal
involves taking progesteroneafter having taken mifepristone.
(18:46):
Mifepristone blocksprogesterone, so the idea is
basically just like, you putmore progesterone in there and
it will compete with themifepristone to attach to that
receptor.
No proof of that theory.
So...
What we have seen is that, firstof all, when patients do have to
go to a clinic now, a majorityof them at many clinics are
walking out still pregnant, butwith their abortion pills in
(19:09):
hand.
Whereas previously, most peoplewalking out of an abortion
clinic were no longer pregnant,right?
So any protesters or CPCvolunteers who were outside only
had the opportunity, scarequotes, to talk to those
patients when they were on theirway in.
Thank you so much.
(19:47):
That specific anti-abortionmyth, even though I think some
progress had been made therejust as more people became aware
of abortion pills and how theyworked, people were maybe less
likely to be swayed by theabortion pill reversal myth.
But unfortunately, theanti-abortion is really, really
doubling down on theirdisinformation there to try and
confuse people.
SPEAKER_02 (20:08):
Oh, I thought that had like really...
gone away.
Like it went quiet for a whileand apparently it's now really
back.
SPEAKER_01 (20:16):
Yeah, especially because so many of the states
that passed those laws requiringproviders to tell patients about
supposed abortion pill reversalare now total ban states.
So it's not that that doesn'tmatter that they pass those
laws, but nobody is reallyhaving to follow those laws or
almost nobody is having tofollow those laws anymore,
right?
UNKNOWN (20:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:37):
Okay.
Sorry.
A bummer to know that that'sback.
Gross.
Okay.
I feel like there was somethingelse that y'all had around
medication abortion.
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
Yes.
Well, and also on the subject ofdisinformation, we recently
reported about a strange surveythat a lot of OBGYNs received
from the Alliance forHippocratic Medicine and
American Association of Pro-LifeOBGYNs, who folks will recognize
as among the groups that suedthe FDA to try and revoke the
(21:11):
approval of Mifepristone.
So these groups sent out asurvey to OBGYNs, and a number
of the OBGYNs received them atpersonal emails or abortion
clinic work emails that they didnot think were publicly
accessible.
And the email described the leadinvestigator of the study as
(21:31):
Hector Chapa, who is a professorat Texas A&M and a former board
member at ACOG, who actuallywrote an editorial for, I
believe, Live Action, right,Susan?
Yeah, about his choice to resignfrom ACOG's board because they
support abortion access.
And so the survey was supposedlycollecting information about
(21:54):
OBGYN's attitudes aroundabortion.
It used the phrase electiveabortion, and it also used a lot
of just obvious anti-abortionlanguage, like the phrase
dismemberment was in there.
And so it was a very strange,obviously biased survey.
No apparent approval by any kindof review board to check that it
(22:15):
meets basic ethical standards.
no informed, clear informedconsent.
So they're claiming that this issomething that will later be
published in a peer reviewedjournal, but clearly not
following the procedures to makethat happen.
And we know that theanti-abortion movement has a
long history of producing junkscience to try and justify its
(22:36):
positions.
We've seen a lot of that playout in court, specifically in
that case, Alliance forHippocratic Medicine versus FDA.
And so Yeah, it's just a redflag that they're trying to
produce yet more biased junk
SPEAKER_00 (22:53):
science.
Absolutely.
And this time, OBGYNs whoreceived the survey reached out
to us.
So we at least have a heads upif this organization does try to
publish this paper somewhere oreven self-publish it, like that
Ethics and Public Policy Centerstudy was self-published.
They didn't even try to go to ajournal.
But one thing I also want tonote is that, again, Hector
(23:15):
Chapa, a former board member ofACOP, is one of these people who
likes to argue in his variousop-eds that he has now published
since resigning that most OBGYNsdo not provide abortions,
thereby OBGYNs oppose abortions,and that's not how that works.
It's actually...
More OBGYNs should provideabortions.
Let's be honest about that.
(23:36):
But some of them don't becauseof where they work.
And some of them would like toprescribe medication abortion,
but they can't because theiroffice would need to become a
certified provider under theREMS.
So unless they decided to startvolunteering for aid access,
right, it's hard for some OBGYNsto actually provide medication
abortion.
(23:57):
Now, the other thing, too, isthat ACOG actually had to send
CHAPA a cease and desist letter.
So this is our second story thatreferences a cease and desist
because in the email that wentout to OBGYNs, the text says,
sort of implied affiliation withACOG.
It said that this survey wasgoing to be sent out to the ACOG
(24:17):
list and that it was going to beused, I'm going to quote now,
they claimed the survey wasintended to quote, inform ACOG
policy, programming, strategy,and outreach.
And the survey website, which isstill live, did scrub the claim
that it was gonna go out to theOBGYN list, but ACOG told us
(24:37):
that they had to send a ceaseand desist so that AHM and CHAPA
and APLOG would stop suggestingaffiliation with ACOG.
Yes, he is a former boardmember, but he is not doing this
under the auspices of theorganization, nor would he have
any ability to influence theirpolicy since he's no longer a
board member.
SPEAKER_02 (24:56):
Yeah, there's no way you could read that and not
think it was affiliated withACOG.
SPEAKER_01 (25:01):
Totally.
And especially if somebody hadmissed the news that he resigned
and would potentially recognizehis name as an ACOG board
member, it's very misleading.
And we did look into, I wascurious whether he might have
inappropriately used membershipterms.
information that he had frombeing a board member of ACOG.
Obviously, we can't be sureeither way.
(25:22):
But when we spoke to OBGYN,several of them said, no, this
email address is not one thatI've ever used for ACOG.
So still kind of unclear howthey got some of that contact
information, actually.
SPEAKER_02 (25:33):
Okay, let's move past the myriad of attacks on
medication abortion and talkabout another thing we've been
seeing, and that is PlannedParenthood's closing.
What is going on?
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
Susan has been tracking the number of Planned
Parenthood clinics that haveannounced their closure so far,
and I believe the number is at35 so far for 2025.
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
Well, the first thing I'll say is that
independent clinics do providemore abortions later in
pregnancy and they offer morekinds of abortions than Planned
Parenthood.
But Planned Parenthood does havea large footprint in the United
States and anti-abortionadvocates have been trying to
shutter these clinics for awhile.
So this is why we're focusing onthis a little bit in our
(26:18):
coverage, as well as the factthat the budget reconciliation
bill that passed and was signedon July 4th, Wahoo purported to
defund large abortion providersand that was aimed at Planned
Parenthood, although theyweren't named in the bill.
Basically, we think that theywere not naming Planned
Parenthood because they didn'twant to look like they were
(26:38):
actually targeting them whenthey were entirely targeting
them.
So that happened in July.
But these closures have beenannounced since the beginning of
the year.
One of the first stories I wrotefor Jezebel this year was
Illinois announcing four clinicsbeing closed in January before
Trump was even inaugurated.
So clinics have been strugglingfor years.
(27:00):
And some of those struggles havecertainly gotten worse since the
Trump administration isthreatening to exclude abortion
providers from Medicaid, evenfor non-abortion services like
birth control and STI testing.
But in general, I mean, clinics,as many of your listeners will
know, have been struggling withThe fact that more people are
(27:23):
coming to get abortion carelater in pregnancy and the costs
are higher and they might haveless money to pay for that.
And that's as well as the factthat funding has been limited a
little bit to support patients,including via the National
Abortion Federation.
Garnet reported extensively onthat when she was at REWIRE.
(27:43):
But yeah, the National AbortionFederation basically put a per
patient per caller cap on funds.
They will say that they haven'tcut their funds and it's the
same amount, but they arelimiting the amount that each
person can access.
So that has created kind of arolling crisis in abortion
access.
And then there have been otherattacks as well.
(28:04):
The Trump administration frozeTitle 10 funding in either late
March or early April, and that'sthe federal family planning
program that has existed since1970 and covers, it provides
grants to clinics and healthdepartments and people who
apply, right?
It's not just PlannedParenthoods or abortion clinics
(28:24):
to provide birth control topeople who are living on low
incomes and it's low and no costbirth control.
Now, when that money was frozen,Clinics did keep offering the
service, a lot of them, but thatputs them in a budgetary hole as
well.
Some clinics have had theirfunding restored, but others
have not.
So there were those attacks ontop of now this defunding bill.
(28:49):
And the one thing I'll say isthat clinics are closing and
citing the defunding bill, eventhough right now there is a
preliminary injunctionpreventing the bill from really
being enforced.
So on July 28th, a federal judgein Boston said that the Trump
administration had to continuereimbursing Planned Parenthood
(29:12):
clinics for Medicaid services.
And that injunction was for all47 Planned Parenthood
affiliates.
But some clinics have said thatthe previously announced
closures are still going to gothrough.
They can't just walk it backthinking that this injunction is
going to fix them.
And then I also reported lastweek that some affiliates in
(29:34):
Ohio are actually not fullyaccepting Medicaid after that
injunction.
So there's one small affiliate,Planned Parenthood Southwest
Ohio, that is down to fourclinics.
They closed two after the billpassed.
And they said that they will notbe accepting Medicaid because of
the chance that the injunctionwill get overturned and the
administration will try to clawback any Medicaid payments made
(29:57):
in that time period.
And they said they can't takethat risk.
A second Ohio affiliate saidthat they are accepting
Medicaid, but not for longacting birth control, including
IUDs and Nexplanon arm implantsbecause those are the most
expensive services that theyprovide.
I was worried that they weregoing to say it's because of an
argument about fertilization andanti-abortion advocates claiming
(30:19):
that IUDs cause abortions.
No, they said it's dollars andcents and those are the most
expensive services they provideand they cannot risk not being
reimbursed for those services.
So that's kind of a starkreality right now of how clinics
are reacting to this defund billand they are limiting services
(30:40):
in some instances.
And then also clinics arecontinuing to announce closures,
even though the bill hasn'ttaken effect yet.
That was a long and ramblingthing.
So Garnet, tell me what else youwant to add to that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:52):
I think you really covered it.
I was just going to add that,yeah, you know, in previous
reporting I had done, I hadheard a lot of rumors about that
many affiliates were going to beshutting a large number of
clinics as far back as lastfall, fall of 2024.
So yeah, the clinics that areclosing have been struggling for
(31:15):
a long time.
And I think this is much more ofa straw that broke the camel's
back type of situation, ifanything.
And yeah, just the fact that,for example, as Susan just said,
there's at least one affiliatethat is not providing LARCs,
long-acting reversiblecontraception, for Medicaid
patients is just heartbreakingbecause that's not only the most
(31:37):
expensive type of contraceptiveservice for the clinic, that's
by far the most expensive typeof contraceptive to get if you
have to pay for it out ofpocket.
I mean, there's just no way thatmost Medicaid patients could pay
for an IUD insertion out ofpocket.
And in so many states, there aresuch massive...
(31:58):
Healthcare deserts, just period,and specifically reproductive
and sexual healthcare deserts.
For so many people, a PlannedParenthood clinic in their
community was the only placethat they could afford to go.
And I do think that's one of thedownsides of the increasing
popularity of medicationabortion, even though, don't get
(32:19):
me wrong, that has been soincredibly important.
especially in terms of helpingpeople in banned states access
abortion care.
The abortion rate has actuallygone up overall slightly in the
United States since Dobbs.
But the downside is that ifyou're providing tons of
medication abortions, you don'treally need a clinic.
(32:42):
Only a handful of patientsreally are going to need to come
in for an ultrasound beforedoing a medication abortion.
And I wouldn't want to come intoa clinic if I didn't have to,
right?
But that's the downside of theshift is that, you know, if you
have fewer patients coming intothe clinic for a service like
medication abortion, it's harderto then keep the clinic open for
(33:02):
services like proceduralabortion, which is still very
important and necessary, andcontraceptive care and
counseling, particularly IUDinsertion.
You can take an IUD out at home,but you cannot put one in at
home.
That's such a good point.
SPEAKER_00 (33:16):
Tying these two threads together, medication
abortion access medicationabortion has been wrongly
respected for so long and it'smore accessible now but that is
leading to kind of a shift inhow the clinic universe is
structured you know some ofthese clinics were going to
close even if kamala harris hadwon the election like that's
just how this was going to goand on that vein i do want to
(33:38):
add one thing i forgot tomention Somehow, which is the
Supreme Court case out of SouthCarolina that said states can
defund Planned Parenthood fromtheir Medicaid plans at the
state level as opposed to at thefederal level.
So that's another thing.
That case went the way it went.
Even if Kamala Harris had wonthe presidency, that would be a
threat going forward.
And we...
(33:59):
are very likely going to seemore states try to pass laws
like this in their upcomingsessions.
Although, as Garnet mentionedpreviously with abortion pill
reversal, a lot of the statesthat would do that have already
banned abortion, so it's hard toargue that you need to defund
the provider because of abortionif they can't provide abortions
anymore, but they might saylike, oh, well, they're
(34:22):
providing gender-affirming care.
I mean, truly.
So just, we might see morestates saying you can't even, as
a Planned Parenthood provider,bill Medicaid for IUDs or birth
control, and that will lead tomore clinic shuttering, which is
devastating.
SPEAKER_02 (34:39):
Yeah, I could just see them arguing they're
providing abortive patients evenif it's not medication abortion
or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (34:46):
Yes, deep exhale.
The last thing I will add isthat, yes, not only are IUDs and
implants very expensive to getif you're paying yourself.
These Ohio affiliates did tellme that patients can self-pay
and clinics do give self-paydiscounts, but that's still
hundreds of dollars.
People could try to get theseimplants.
(35:06):
methods of birth control at acounty health department or
state health department.
But the problem is that theyoften need to wait long times to
get appointments at those healthdepartments.
And Planned Parenthood clinicsare more likely, based on
Guttmacher data, to havesame-day appointments and
same-day insertions because theyhave these things on the
shelves.
Like, this is what they do, youknow?
(35:28):
So if anyone tells you, oh,well, people can just get it
somewhere else.
Not quickly, they can't.
And that's something that inSouth Carolina, the head, the
medical director for PlannedParenthood South Atlantic was
saying that the state is arguingpeople can get care other
places.
And she said, I have peopletelling me they have to wait
three months for an IUDappointment at the health
department.
So like, let's be real here.
SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
Even if you have the money to go to a private
practice, most providers inprivate practice are not
stocking IUDs and implants onsite.
They have to order them.
You know, they have to be surethat either you're going to pay
for it if it's a self-paysituation or that your insurance
is.
So there's pretty much a delayat any type of site that's not a
dedicated sexual andreproductive health clinic.
SPEAKER_02 (36:11):
Okay.
There was one more piece that Isaw that I would love to touch
on, even though we're runninglow on time, but I still wanted
to make sure we talked about itreal quick.
And that is the one about theadministration and eugenics.
just felt like it would be amiss if we didn't at least touch
on it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (36:29):
Yeah, it's quite dark, but you're referring to
one of our stories from when welaunched, and I wrote this one,
and we wanted to show thebreadth of what Autonomy News
will be covering.
So it's not just abortion, birthcontrol, gender-affirming care,
but also reproductive justicemore broadly.
And We had had a few months ofthe Trump administration's
(36:52):
rhetoric to work off.
And one thing that is extremelyclear is that they do not want
everyone to reproduce.
They only want certain people toreproduce.
That has been true for a while.
But the stark statements fromboth candidate then President
Trump and even Elon Musk when hewas still a special government
(37:14):
employee involved in Doge plusHealth Secretary RFK Jr., every
time I have to say that outloud, it is so sad.
It hurts.
It hurts a little bit.
But these are kinds of peoplewho say things like, you know,
only sick people should die ofmeasles or, you know, the West
is declining because we're notproducing enough babies.
(37:34):
And it's like, well, what do youmean by the West?
UNKNOWN (37:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:36):
Be specific.
Who are you talking about?
And Trump saying that immigrantsare, quote, poisoning the blood
of our country and callingmostly Central and South
American immigrants criminals,that kind of thing.
So I looked at kind of the pastin the United States, like how
we have a dark history offorcibly sterilizing immigrants.
(37:57):
mostly non-white people, butalso white people who were low
income and viewed to be not ofquote, you know, like strong
stock.
The eugenics movement in the1920s and 30s, unfortunately
inspired the literal Nazis, likeinspired their, you know,
(38:19):
eugenic program.
So we're not saying that thisadministration is going to be
executing people, but they dowant to control reproduction and
they also are limitinghealthcare to people they don't
want to reproduce.
So we are seeing reports, as hasalways been the case, like
(38:41):
horrific access to healthcare inICE detention.
And there are also stories ofpeople being sterilized in
prisons in the United States.
You know, I spoke toreproductive justice advocates,
including like the LupeRodriguez from the National
Latina Institute forReproductive Justice was
(39:02):
explaining about how people inLatino communities are like
scared to get health care.
I mean, an unfortunate realitybecause the Trump administration
said that ICE could now go intohospitals where, you know, that
was a policy.
They weren't supposed to do thatbefore.
and they're scared to go towork, to earn income, to care
(39:23):
for their families and buyenough food.
All this stuff that the Trumpadministration is doing is
showing an antipathy to theseimmigrants and it harms their
health.
And it also is just like part ofa larger project to get people
to either leave the country ornever come to begin with.
You know, they're trying to endbirthright citizenship.
(39:45):
That is at the end of that storyabout eugenics.
Like this is all connected.
They don't want people born tonon-citizens to become American
citizens.
Like they are trying to controlthe populace of the United
States in a really scary way.
And so we wanted to highlightthat.
SPEAKER_02 (40:03):
So I always like to wrap up with an action item so
that while we're talking aboutall of these terrible things
that are happening, at least wecan give our audience something
to do.
What do y'all have today?
What are some things ouraudience can do to get involved?
SPEAKER_01 (40:18):
I think that...
A top action item is alwaysdonate to your local abortion
fund and always prioritizedonating to a local organization
over a national one.
And the other thing that I wouldreally like to lift up is that
what's happening in Palestine isalso a reproductive justice
crisis, in addition to being anabsolutely appalling
(40:40):
humanitarian crisis in general.
And It's not acceptable to me towatch people starve.
So I would also encourage peopleto give to some of the
fundraisers to try and helppeople in Palestine, in Gaza,
get food.
SPEAKER_02 (40:56):
And remember, people don't stop being pregnant or
getting pregnant because thereis a humanitarian crisis.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (41:03):
And a lot of the people who are dying are
infants.
And sick children, which wasrecently a talking point from
Israel that a child depicted inthe New York Times had a
pre-existing condition.
I would argue it's even worse tostarve children with
pre-existing conditions.
Right.
Reading those
SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
horrible stories, I mean, children starving to
death, there are people talkingabout how their mothers cannot
nurse them because their mothersare not getting enough food to
produce breast milk.
So this is...
This has always been areproductive justice crisis, but
yes.
And I'll uplift like the SamirProject I know is a really good
(41:43):
organization that's helping getpeople food and water in Gaza.
So thank you, Garnet.
And I also want to double tap,if you will, on what you said
about local abortion funds andlocal organizations over
national ones.
would encourage people if theywant to help sustain care in
their communities with brick andmortar clinics offering even
(42:05):
birth control, and that doesn'teven have to be abortion,
including if abortions ban inyour state, but you can donate
directly to local PlannedParenthood affiliates and they
are the ones actually runningthe clinics.
So, you know, the organizationsthat I mentioned before in Ohio,
but all across the country,there are almost 50 affiliates
nationwide.
And they're the ones running theclinics.
So if people want to try to keepdoors open in their community,
(42:28):
they can look to donate there inaddition to abortion funds,
helping people get care.
SPEAKER_02 (42:33):
Well, Garnett, Susan, thank you so much for
being here today.
It was so wonderful to talk toyou.
And I am so excited to see whatis coming from Autonomy News.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Thank you, Jenny.
Thank you so much for having us.
SPEAKER_02 (42:45):
Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with
Susan and Garnett.
And definitely, if you haven'talready, make sure you subscribe
to Autonomy News.
They have really great reportingthat it's important to keep up
to date on.
So I hope you sign up as I did.
Otherwise, I will see everybodynext week.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com