Texas is the Blueprint for a Life Without Reproductive Freedom

Planned Parenthood has been under attack in Texas for years. This has resulted in a lack of access to affordable healthcare, lack of access to birth control, and worsening maternal health outcomes. Shellie Hayes-McMahon, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas, which is the 501(c)(3) arm of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, sits down to talk with us about the perfect storm of attacks to reproductive health and rights in Texas, which provides a perfect blueprint for other states who wish to follow suit.

The current push at the national level centers on defunding Planned Parenthood via Medicaid. Patients who lose their Planned Parenthood provider in Texas cannot just find a new provider. In fact, the state is currently seeing a decrease in providers generally, as well as medical students. Cancer screenings, birth control provision, critical counseling, and more, are services that are becoming increasingly more expensive for Planned Parenthood to provide, while crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are receiving millions of state dollars. In Texas, public school-provided sex education is abstinence-only, while misinformation around birth control is currently skyrocketing. The nationwide attacks on mifepristone, one of the safe and effective drugs used in a medication abortion, began in Texas.

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Hi rePROs, how's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, y'all, I feel like it has been so long since I have talked to you, but mostly that's just because I pre-recorded a couple intros, because I was at a conference recently, and so I had to do some pre-recording. But so much has happened since then, and I am pre-recording this as well before Labor Day weekend. I have a four-day weekend, so I'm very much looking forward to enjoying that. But that means I am recording this on um the day we got the news that Gloria Steinem died, and I've just been thinking about this like it feels like this onslaught of celebrities who have died recently with Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. So, I feel like this weekend I need to do some movie watching, and so I need to, I'm thinking I'm gonna watch maybe Steel Magnolias this weekend, and then definitely Clue. That is one of my favorite Tim Curry movies, and it's also made me want to rewatch Psych because I loved his episode of Psych. So, that may happen as well, but yeah, those really hit me in all the feels, and to have them back-to-back was a lot, and I had to immediately go and make a donation to Dolly's Imagination Library. Like, that is such amazing work that she did and dedicated her life to. It was just a lot, and and then Gloria Steinem hit really hard today becauseI have read so much of her stuff over the years, and she's always just been this like powerhouse that I've looked up to growing up, and as I got into this work, she just there was so many wonderful things that she has written, and listening to her speak. If I saw an interview with her pop up on a podcast, I would immediately go and listen to it. So, that one is also going to hit a lot. And one of the quotes that I saw floating around today that has really hit me in all the feels again was one that our executive director actually shared with us. So, shout out, Kathleen. It was included in her New York Times obituary, but it was: "People now ask me if I am passing the torch. I always explain that no, I'm keeping my torch, thank you very much, and I'm using it to light the torches of others because the truth is that the old image of one person with a torch is part of the problem, not the solution. We each need a torch if we are to see where we're going, and together we create so much more light." Oh, that is just such an amazing quote, and I hope that is a little bit of what this podcast is doing is creating more light for people and lighting other people's torches to get them involved in this fight. So, yeah, just thinking of Gloria today, and like I said, I will be doing my movie tributes to Dolly and Tim Curry this weekend as well. So, I hope you all did something fun over your long holiday weekend. I don't know what else I'm gonna do. That's as far as I've gotten for planning for this weekend. I think it's gonna be a pretty chill one. Yeah, I think maybe with that, let's just go to this week's episode. I think my heart is just a little heavy today, so I don't know that I have a lot of other things I want to talk about, but I'm very excited for this week's episode. We have the amazing Shellie Hayes-McMahon. She's the executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas. I was on a panel with her, or actually I moderated a panel with her a couple years ago, and I always just feel like I learned so much when she talks, and I just am always so honored to be in conversation with her when we get to have conversations. She did the webinar for the report card this year. So, I just really love Shellie and I'm so excited to have her on the podcast. So, you all get to meet her if you have not heard from her before. We're gonna talk a little bit about what is going on in Texas and why we need to be paying attention because what happens in Texas does not stay in Texas. So, with that, let's go to my interview with Shellie.

Jennie: Hi, Shellie. Thank you so much for being here.

Shellie: I am so happy to be here. Good morning, Jennie.

Jennie: Good morning. I am very excited for our conversation today. One, there's always so much happening in Texas, and it's just important that we know what's happening because as you like to say, what happens in Texas doesn't stay in Texas. But before we get started, would you like to take a second and introduce yourself?

Shellie: Yes, I am Shellie Hayes-McMahon. I am the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas, which is the C3 arm of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes.

Jennie: Wonderful. I'm very excited to talk to you. Like you said, like I said, there's so much happening in Texas. And I think one of the things that's really important to talk about is something that Texas has done that predated what the US government did, which was defund Planned Parenthood. Maybe we should pause and say, what do we mean when we say defund Planned Parenthood? Because I feel like people think there's like a budget line that says, "funding to Planned Parenthood." And that's not exactly what is happening.

Shellie: You are 100% correct about that. Planned Parenthood is never a budget line for the federal government or for states, as a matter of fact. So, when we're talking about defunding Planned Parenthood, we're normally talking about programs where Planned Parenthood can be reimbursed for the amazing services that they provide. And right now, the current push at the national level is to defund Planned Parenthood via defunding them out of the Medicaid system, which Texas did ages and ages ago. And we had a, you know, our journey started in 2011, 2012, where Texas in Texas Planned Parenthood was part of what was a federally funded program called the Women's Health Program. And then when Texas tried to kick Planned Parenthood out of that program, the federal government rejected that request. So, then Texas just walked away from the funding period. It wasn't just enough to persecute Planned Parenthood patients, they needed to just persecute the entire state, and that's kind of their playbook. And then in 2015, Planned Parenthood was excluded from the state's breast and cervical cancer program, and then they also removed affiliates from Medicaid. So, it has been this ongoing journey with a goal of closing Planned Parenthood's doors in Texas. So, besides the abortion bans, which we can talk about later, the defunding part of it has resulted in, let's see, 82 Texas health centers have closed. Access to birth control has dropped by 56%. The capacity of healthcare providers in Texas has also worsened, and we know maternal health outcomes have worsened in Texas. So, it's the overall effects of defunding Planned Parenthood, which is such a large part of the healthcare safety net, not just in Texas, but across the United States, is of course lack of care, lack of folks being able to access affordable quality health care that Planned Parenthood provides, lack of access to birth control, which increases birth rates, and then maternal outcomes also worsening. So, it's a multifaceted problem where folks just tend to look at it as just a financial line without looking at the human cost of defunding Planned Parenthood.

Jennie: It's been a while since I have looked at those numbers, and again, it is always shocking to hear the impacts of these cuts on real people and people's ability to access health care. It is devastating.

Shellie: And when you partner that with the attacks on ACA, the limitations that they are putting on what Medicaid can reimburse for, the attacks on gender-affirming care that parents are trying to provide for their children. It's just this snowball effect of not only be not being able to afford health care, but if you are in the Medicaid system and you've jumped through all of the hoops and you've signed all of the red tape and all of those things, even if you are inside of the Medicaid system, you are still limited as to what kind of access you have to health care that should just be between you and your doctor, that the government should not be involved in at all. Politicians should not be making decisions as to whether or not birth control is accessible, as to whether or not parents can provide gender-affirming care, which could be a life-saving measure for their children.

Jennie: Absolutely.

Shellie: Right? And also for the intersex community. There's so many facets to not just defunding Planned Parenthood, but removing access to what we consider basic health care, but the federal government at this this administration considers to be anomalies, right? Or atrocities inside of the healthcare system.

Jennie: So, and I think a lot of people who are unfamiliar with how the system works think, okay, so the people on Medicaid can't go to Planned Parenthood. They can just go see another provider, it's no big deal. But that's not it's not that simple.

Shellie: I mean, it really isn't because even if we had an increase in providers, which we do not in Texas, we are seeing a decrease in providers, we're even seeing a decrease in med students in Texas, folks who are coming to Texas to pursue their credentials in becoming an OBGYN, because Texas does not teach critical miscarriage care, right? They don't teach abortion care. They have to go out of state to do that— New Mexico or to Illinois. Just you can't come to Texas and learn how to be a well-rounded health care provider, including providing all of the services that a woman may need across the span of her reproductive life. So, folks are either leaving Texas, we're losing healthcare providers, we're getting fewer medical students coming here to pursue their medical degrees, and there hasn't been the hole left in the safety net by Planned Parenthood being removed from the Medicaid system and all federal funding in Texas has never been filled. The gap has not been filled. And the lack of access to Medicaid funds has also, you know, increased costs on the Planned Parenthood side. We have always been, and when I say we, I mean Planned Parenthood, a provider of quality, affordable health care. And the affordability part of it, while we may hear affordability is a myth or a made-up word, right? Affordability is actually a thing right now. We can't, you can't afford health care. And I think everybody is still waiting on the federal health care program to come to fruition. I think they've been waiting since 2016 or so on that one. We're watching the disintegration of ACA, the attacks on ACA, which also inside of ACA, you know, well, woman visits covered. But this administration does not feel that women's health care should be paramount or I'm trying to think of the word, I guess important. Yeah. Is more of the word, right? There is the lack of research for women's health care, the lack of funding for women's health care, the cuts that they have made to cancer research, menopause research, fibroid research, all things that normally disproportionately affect women of color, also. So, these are all services that Planned Parenthood, you know, cancer screenings, Planned Parenthood still provides. But do we have the ability to provide them at low cost anymore? They don't, right? Planned Parenthood in Texas is 100% donor funded. So, without Texas donors and then a lot of donors from outside of the state who believe that Planned Parenthood in Texas is critical to women's health care and men's health care, they would not be able to keep their doors open at all. And we know that in Project 2025, that's the plan, and it's been the plan for quite a while, is not just to choke off funding the Planned Parenthood, but for Planned Parenthood to just not exist without any sort of plan to replace that health care at all. And Texas is a stark example of what happens to healthcare access when you defund Planned Parenthood, when you keep folks from accessing affordable health care, quality health care. There's a rise of what are called CPCs here in Texas, and you're probably seeing them where you are also the crisis pregnancy centers, who are not required in Texas to actually provide health care. They are not required to have licensed ultrasound technicians on staff. They are not required to refer folks to a qualified OBGYN here in Texas. So, but folks go in, folks who are in a very vulnerable situation in their life, they're either pregnant and may not want to be pregnant anymore, they may be pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy. We just had a case not too long ago where an ectopic pregnancy was misdiagnosed at a CPC. So, you know, these are not health care providers. They do not provide the care with qualified clinicians, nurses, nurse practitioners on staff that Planned Parenthood does. So, folks are really, in my opinion, risking their lives. Um, and if you do want to keep your pregnancy, quite possibly risking it pregnancy going to one of these crisis pregnancy centers, but they also receive millions and millions of dollars from the state to not provide health care.

Jennie: And they aren't bound by the same privacy standards.

Shellie: Hello. Right?

Jennie: Seems important, especially in a state like Texas.

Shellie: Especially in Texas. So, when we say a wide-ranging problem, it's really hard to narrow down the list of effects that have happened with defunding Planned Parenthood in Texas, but we know that access decreased and care has disappeared and patients have suffered. That's just the bottom line.

Jennie: I always like to talk about how you know you see this restricting access to birth control, so people aren't able to get the birth control they need to decide w if and when they want to have kids, they've restricted access to abortion, but also need to like step back and say, Texas doesn't like sex ed, a lot of people do not get good sex ed in Texas. So, I know I didn't get good sex ed, I'm not from Texas, but I know the implications it has on your ability to make good decisions later. So, if you don't know what your options are, you don't know about birth control, or you were told in my case that it doesn't work, like this impacts your ability to make healthy decisions in a care environment that is also restricted.

Shellie: Yeah, knowledge is power. I feel like, you know, those of us who grew up with Sesame Street, The Electric Company, we all know these things. Texas is abstinence-only sex ed, and we're using sex ed wildly there.

Jennie: Yes.

Shellie: Funny story, I used to sit on the sex ed committee at my kids' school, and when we were reviewing providers for sex ed, one of the providers on their website literally had a pair of jeans as a method for birth control.

Jennie: [laughs] Oh.

Shellie: Just wearing pants, wearing pants as a method for birth control. And having been in this business for a hot minute, it was-

Jennie: I would have just... what?

Shellie: I couldn't talk for a hot minute, just sitting there looking at this. Like, a pair of jeans, that's effective birth control, a pair of jeans. And girls not wearing skirts, that was another method. So just keeping everybody fully clothed, apparently, was going to be the best method of birth control. But you know, in an abstinence-only society, that is based in what I can only call a fractured Christian morality, where you know, in a theocracy, recreational sex or sex for pleasure is not a thing, right?

Jennie: Right.

Shellie: Sex is only between married, same-sex couples. And we all know that's not reality. The birth rates for unwed people in the United States is crazy. It's increasing in Texas. Our teen pregnancy rate is also increasing here in Texas. So there, you know, the access to birth control, and can we talk about the misinformation around birth control that's happening right now?

Jennie: Oh, it is like exploding in the last, honestly, it feels like several years, but like it has really become kind of wild.

Shellie: It’s crazy because now they're deploying the men to come out and talk about- to bring the misinformation about birth control out there. And you have men who- and I watch, I see this on Instagram/TikTok all the time, where these men start out sounding as if they really care about you know their wives' menstrual cycles or their girlfriend's menstrual cycles or partner's menstrual cycles and how they're so birth control this, birth control that, but you could go get a vasectomy. I have to send you this reel too, you'll crack up. "You could get a vasectomy, so your wife doesn't have to take some kind of crazy chemical," right?

Jennie: Oh, "the chemical."

Shellie: Yes, "the crazy chemicals," and I'm like, wow, that started out so great and then descended into hell just so quickly. Because now it's the attack on birth control. You’re trying to tell women via men that birth control is disruptive to their— well, that's its job actually— but that it has long-term effects on their fertility, and that getting a vasectomy can- your partner can avoid this chemical disruption messing with her system. And I was like, wow, that's that's subtle-

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: But it's there. 100%, it is there. There's a- I'm calling him a preacher, who's not far from here over in Georgetown, Texas, who talks about- he was on Beyoncé's internet the other day talking about how, if- he calls them "men hating feminists"-

Shellie: Of course.

Shellie: -if they are at a point in their later lives where they have not had children because they either hated pregnancy, believed in abortion, were taking SSRIs, and I'm quoting, "taking SSRIs or birth control that disrupted their fertility" and they didn't have kids to take care of them later on in life. He feels like the church should be able to tell them to starve.

Jennie: Oh, I saw this.

Shellie: And that’s a quote!

Jennie: I did- that was on somewhere on, like you said on Beyonce's internet that showed up in my feed somewhere.

Shellie: Yes. So, I mean, this administration and all of these people who have been unleashed around, and it's just hatred of women.

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: And women being independent and then trying to remove our right to vote. And the women supporting that, I don't even understand that.

Shellie: No, I know.

Shellie: How are you a woman out here supporting single household votes? Like, zero sense.

Jennie: It boggles my mind.

Shellie: It boggles the mind when our, you know, as Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas, we talk about using your voting rights all the time. And in this current situation that we are in, if you are looking at the movement to remove our right to vote, whether it's by ballot, by mail, the restrictions around that, whether it's by closing polling locations, specifically in communities of color, closing down early voting locations on college campuses, you know, where kids go learn to be independent thinkers. The movement to reduce or remove our right to vote is insane right now. And I one, I don't think folks are panicked about it enough. They should be. But it is all-

Jennie: Yeah, I feel like it's dismissed as fringe. And fringe is now mainstream, y'all.

Shellie: Fringe is mainstream. You know how folks used to think about the Tea Party? It has evolved into this mess, you know, that we are in right now. And when you're looking at access to health care across the United States, it's not just access to health care, it's access to safe food, it's access to safe water, it's being able to afford to go to the doctor without having to work three and four jobs. But then it's also we still have health care that is tied to employment and a skyrocketing unemployment rate, especially for black women in this country. So, it's I was listening to Sarah McBride the other day, amazing congresswoman, and you know, she made a point around like an 80-year flex point in the United States, how every 80 years or so we go through this whole shift in how government operates. And we're at this 80-year point right now. And as she was talking, I was like, okay, this does make a lot of sense because the effort to whitewash history, to erase Black history in this country, especially around slavery, to erase Stonewall and the LGBTQ movement for equality for the gay community, but also destroying the resources we would have to rebuild post this administration, where folks are still trying to figure out: what do we do? How do we rebuild?

Jennie: I feel like we were still trying to rebuild from the first term.

Shellie: Girl. [laughs] The first iteration of this administration-

Jennie: And it's tearing down so much faster this term.

Shellie: It really, really is because there's like there's zero stop gaps, right? So, through a C3 lens and looking at what nonprofits are having to do to try to protect our voting rights and encourage our folks to vote in alignment with IRS guidelines for C3s, it's so limited, right? It's what we can say, what we can do, how we can advocate as a 501c3 in this country has become so limited. So, folks are moving over into the C4 space to have the harder, the harder conversations, but that's not always a quick investment, right? There isn't always a quick turnaround on the C4 side. So, we have to be so creative on the C3 side, so folks are understanding what the issues are and why it's so important to exercise your right to vote. Your right to vote is the most valuable thing you have right now. And you know, for a lot of communities of color and under-resourced folks, their most valuable resource is their time. And when you look at the efforts to make voting harder, it's taking up more of their time if you are an under-resourced person. So, are you going to spend that time making money to feed your family with your $12 eggs and your $19 gasoline, or are you going to spend that limited time standing in a very long line at a very limited polling location that you probably had to drive through to vote? They are counting on us over here with the $12 eggs. That's what they are counting on in this country. So, we are doing our best as Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas to ensure that folks understand their voting rights are paramount right now. And then also how their voting rights and exercising their right to vote helps protect Planned Parenthood, right? Not just in Texas, but across the United States. Because, you know, a national abortion ban is not a dream anymore. No, for sure. You know, a national abortion ban could happen quite quickly. Quite quickly. With this Supreme Court and this administration, you know, blue states aren't safe anymore. So, it's a- I don't know, Jennie, this is why I don't sleep at night. I don't know how you sleep. [laughs]

Jennie: No, I know. It’s a lot and so many various disparate pieces to think about, but when you like take that step back and realize how interrelated and interconnected all of the issues we care about and talk about are, it’s so much to think about, and it's hard to sleep and be so invested in making sure that people get the care they need that it doesn't get worse.

Shellie: Yeah.

Jennie: Like, protecting what we have, which is nowhere near good enough, and like still trying to dream bigger, still trying to dream bigger, trying to protect you know what we have.

Shellie: But you just mentioned being so immersed in it, and I wanted to talk about your scorecard and the report card that you guys put out.

Jennie: Oh, yeah.

Shellie: Because I don't think folks talk about that enough either. And just realizing that the bare minimum in providing abortion care and providing health care in a state is exceptional now.

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: Right? The bare minimum is amazing as we move forward. But I think that it's the report card, right?

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: The report card that you guys put out is I think critical for folks to one, examine what's happening in their state so they know what they could lose. And then it gives them a very clear understanding of what women in other states are going through right now. Because I think we have a lack of empathy in the United States at the moment, where folks are kind of bubbling themselves when it comes to how other women are suffering and how trans folks are suffering in the United States, how the gay community is being attacked, either through the removal of their history or attacks on IVF, which is how a lot of folks of the LGBTQ community conceive and start their families.

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: Right? IVF is how women who are deciding to become pregnant later in life, a lot of them are using IVF. So, it's these attacks on how we live our lives, it’s become so commonplace, we're almost numb to it.

Jennie: Yeah, I agree. And I also think so many people think, well, I am in a blue state, so I’m safe. Like, our state did everything to protect our access to care, but I think they're missing the attempts to ban medication abortion and a national abortion ban, like, will impact everybody. And it's already impacting access to care in your state, right? It may be harder for you to get an appointment if a bunch of people are traveling to your state to try and get care. So, all of this is interrelated and interconnected, and we need to make sure that we are focusing on making sure everybody has access to the care they need, and that means not just in your state, it means across the country.

Shellie: You mentioned the attacks on mife, which by the way started in Texas. Thank you, Ken Paxton.

Jennie: Yeah, and let's go back to, like, "chemical birth control," right? You hear it not as medication abortion, they go for the scare again of, like, "chemical abortion."

Shellie: Yes, "chemical abortion." We have, oh my goodness, we sit through so many hearings at the ledge talking about the dangers of mifepristone, where Viagra is actually more dangerous than mife. So, I mean, there is that. And mife is not only used as a component of abortion care, of medical abortion. It's got other uses out there for health care. So, the attacks on mife, to keep mife from being shipped into Texas, our bounty hunter laws here in Texas, where private lawsuits are allowed against providers and manufacturers of abortion medication, including those outside of Texas, right? So, when HB7 hit, we were calling it a “portable abortion ban” because you know Ken Paxton and the rest of our legislators are under the impression that Texas law supersedes everything. And no one is stopping him at all. So, these attacks on mife, and I can't remember if it was Oklahoma, it might be Oklahoma, yeah, that is now calling the shipping of mife, "trafficking." "Trafficking" an abortion, right? And it gives it this sinister vibe around folks just accessing healthcare where it’s a man-made problem. They are fighting a problem that they created.

Jennie: And was it Louisiana? Someone was trying to get it as a controlled substance.

Shellie: That was Louisiana. That was Louisiana. North Carolina is threatening the death penalty for women accessing abortion care. It's just... how we got to this point is I think moot now. Because our work right now is mitigating harm.

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: Our work right now is: how do we keep folks alive? How are we keeping women alive? How are we keeping the transgender community safe? How are we keeping kids safe? I don't know, how are we keeping 10-year-olds from having to give birth? How are we keeping 12-year-olds from, I don't know, being forced into parenthood because of an abuser, a molester, or just bad decisions, right? Poor decisions. So, we also don't give sex ed. They don't have quality sex ed. So, it's- I don't know. I get frustrated, but I also stay hopeful because I am surrounded by an amazing team here in Texas. Not just Texas— I have been in rooms across the country with folks who are fearless advocates, not just to help for health care access, but also for abortion care. And this includes legislators, right? It includes men who are not afraid to say abortion. It includes men who are now coming to the forefront because they've lost a spouse due to you know lack of medical care. So, there's just the movement, I don't think, has died. No. Right? I think the movement is retasking itself, right? We are at our next level of evolution where we're not just- we're trying to regain access to what we have. We have to protect future generations, we have to bring young people into the movement, but we also have to figure out how to make this movement financially important to other folks, to folks who it doesn't affect. Because these movements are not cheap, you know this, right? Right. Your report card is not free, although we have access to it. It's not one of those things where we can't value your time and we can't value your team's time, we can't not value the work that you put out to educate the rest of the public, right? So, we have storytellers, we have folks like your organization who do everything that they can to educate the public, right? These women are reliving their trauma sometimes on a daily basis, trying to get their story out there. Sometimes they are struggling financially, sometimes they already have children, right? Majority of women who are accessing abortion already have children. They have already built the families that they want and the families that they can provide for. So, it's the financial part of it when we talk about affordability and we talk about the things that we care about as a society, women tend to rank fairly low, right, on the things that we care about. There's an event called Giving Tuesday, which I think Giving Tuesday happens all the time. And I watch it, you probably watch it also to see where human beings rank as opposed to dogs and cats, and always lower, like always lower than cats and dogs in the United States. And I don't know how we get to the point or back to the point where we care more about humans and their outcomes with our finances than and I love cats and dogs that- behind me that's a picture of our dog. I mean, that he's, he was a good dog, he passed away. Yes, that's Astro. But how do we get to the point where care for the elderly is valued, care for menopausal women is also valued, researched, and invested in.

Jennie: And information, man. Like, I should not be learning that this weird thing happening, like my ears itching, is a perimenopause thing because I'm online. Like somebody, somewhere along the line, people should be like, I shouldn't have more solid information than I have.

Shellie: Yeah, and I mean it's just like the itchy ears; I've had frozen shoulder three times. The first time I thought I was having a heart attack because that's what it felt like. I had no idea. But you know, the research also just wasn't out there, and we weren't talking about it. But now, thanks to Beyoncé's internet, women are, we are talking about these things. You know, I'm what- I'm 56. So, this Gen X generation, we're out here fighting in these streets, but then this next generation right below me, who are hitting perimenopause, they’re fighting for access to care. They are fighting for early HRT. They're talking about weightlifting and how do you keep from losing muscle mass and just all of these things where you know the lack of estrogen or lower estrogen in our bodies and lower testosterone in our bodies affects our mental health. Yeah. You know, the days you think you're going crazy. So, it's Jennie, you-

Jennie: My memory, man.

Shellie: My memory is, I mean, isn't it? My memory is literally a memory. But-

Jennie: [Chuckles] Yeah.

Shellie: I read the other day where a woman said that she still felt like women were too emotional to become president to run this country. And I was just like, wow, we're still doing that. Okay.

Jennie: Yeah.

Shellie: Every war ever started in this country has been started by a man and their feelings. And you think that a woman on HRT is not capable of… okay, that's a thing [sarcastically]. Just anyway, back to where we were, which was- we were talking about lack of access to mife and how that has become almost a nationwide push. And in Texas, you know, that's a Hail Mary for women. That's their last option from abortion care if they cannot flee the state. And the fact that we have to say flee the state is also just egregious.

Jennie: It's wild.

Shellie: It's a wide-ranging problem with one real solution, and that's voting.

Jennie: Okay, Shall I feel like I could talk to you forever, but like let's be respectful of your time. Let's I always like to wrap up with ways the audience can get involved. And then, we've talked a lot about voting, but which is clearly a really important one. But what are some other actions the audience can take to get involved in this fight?

Shellie: Support your local Planned Parenthood. One way or another. Even if your local Planned Parenthood is still inside of your state's Medicaid system or still receiving funding from the state, support your local planned parenthood. Vote— paramount. Exercising your right to vote. I would encourage you, especially if you are in Texas, check your voter registration at least on a weekly basis. And then the other part of it is find where you are comfortable. If you are comfortable being loud, then be loud. If you're the person who wants to, who needs to write a letter to your congressperson or to your state legislature, legislator, do that. If you're a phone banker, phone bank. If you are a texter, text. But find your spot in this movement, not just for access to abortion, but access to health care in this country. Find where you fit in and get to work. There aren't enough of us pushing, there aren't enough of us doing this work, there aren't enough of us saying the things. And honestly, there aren't enough of us reading. We are a country that loves reels and we love TikTok, but it allows us to miss the fine print. And the fine print is where they're getting us right now. The fine print around rounding up wild horses in the United States, the fine print around our food system and our food safety systems in the United States. They had us so stuck on the big things, the headlines, that the fine print is where they are- they're being successful right now. And Planned Parenthood was part of that fine print. It was a fine print for us because you know we had reading assignments, but I would say educate yourself. Once you educate yourself, figure out where you fit into the movement, make sure you vote and get to work.

Jennie: Shellie, thank you so much for being here today. It was so fun talking to you.

Shellie: Anytime I get to talk to you is a blast. Because whether it's in person or on a podcast, anytime I get to talk to you, we have a good time.

Jennie: So okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Shellie. Like I said, I had so much fun talking to her, and it was such a wonderful conversation. And I will see everybody next week. If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com.