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The PoliticsGirl Podcast
Women’s Utility... Their Fertility - A Conversation with Planned Parenthood’s President, Alexis McGill Johnson
00:46:48
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- [00:00]
Lee McGowan
Maybe the government should consider making it easier and less expensive to have children. Like give us universal healthcare. Give us universal pre K, Give us good public schools and affordable college. Give us paid family leave. Yeah, yeah. And then maybe, you know, don't have so many of our children die in school shootings. And we would want to have more kids. Right. If today we can die from a treatable pregnancy complication or bleed out in a parking lot because no one will see us. Or we can be jailed for a miscarriage. That doesn't really inspire your people to have children. It makes it terrifying. Hello and welcome to the Politics Girl podcast. I'm your host, Lee McGowan. Let's get into it. So the prevailing news as we record is around Los Angeles. The ICE raids. The federal overriding of states rights to call in the National Guard against the will of the governor. The deploying of the United States Marines to patrol an American city against the law that prohibits the US Military from being used in domestic law enforcement. The complete manhandling of Senator Alex Padilla. This is not about safety. This is about control. And what we are seeing is unconstitutional behavior from everyone from ICE to the White House. When this episode airs, we will have had the no Kings protest around the country. And I hope the country comes out in force to peacefully show our absolute rejection of this lawless leader and his court of sycophants. But it has yet to happen, so I cannot speak to it while I address breaking news in my kitchen rants. The podcast itself is a deep dive into bigger topics. And I don't want many of these important issues like the Republicans horrible bill that is currently in the Senate, to be forgotten with all this unprecedented breaking news. So today we're going to dig into the hidden line items in the big beautiful bill that defunds every Planned Parenthood in the nation. Not abortion care, because many Planned Parenthoods don't even offer that service. But the clinics themselves and everything they offer to men and women, like cancer screenings and birth control and STI tests for men and women, just gone overnight. This did not need to be in the bill. But it's just a big middle finger to the organization, to women, to anyone who requires affordable health care. Because don't think just because you're not a woman, this will not affect you. So to talk more about this, I am joined today by the president of Planned Parenthood, Alexis McGill Johnson. Along with her work at Planned Parenthood, Alexis McGill Johnson is an American academic, a social justice advocate, the executive director and co founder of the Perception Institute, an anti bias research group, and a longtime champion of social and racial justice in America. So without further ado, please welcome my guest researcher, cultural organizer, and tireless champion for social justice and reproductive freedom, Alexis McGill Johnson. Thank you for coming back, Alexis.
- [02:43]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Thank you, Leigh. It's so good to see you.
- [02:45]
Lee McGowan
Oh, it's so good to see you. Thank you for coming. I mean, let's just jump right into this crisis of the Planned Parenthood featured in this big, beautiful bill that is really a horrendous bill that is for nobody except maybe 800 billionaires who have traded their morality for tax breaks. So listen, tell us what's on the line for Planned Parenthood here.
- [03:04]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Yeah, this is a bad, horrible betrayal of a bill. And to your point, it is literally a transfer of wealth from everyday Americans who are fighting to just take care of their families with access to basic insurance for their kids, their mother in law, their selves. Right. And transfer and give all that money to billionaires. And it's insane. And here's how they have come for Planned Parenthood in it, too. A direct attack. The House passed a bill that said they essentially want to defund big abortion. And what that means when half of all Planned Parenthood patients are Medicaid patients. We are already in the fight around preserving access to Medicaid, but the targeted vision is about any entity that provides access to abortion and bills more than a million dollars in Medicaid can no longer stay in the program. Now, that number was obviously designed to target us. The impact of that language is that more than 200 Planned Parenthood health centers would be at risk for closure. 200 health centers out of 600. So one in three health centers could be at risk for closure. And the important thing to understand about that, that is devastating on its own is that 90% of those closures would be in states where abortion is protected and legal. So let's take away access to STI testing and contraception and treatment and wellness exams and breast exams, and let's close those health centers down because we don't like what with the other things that Planned Parenthood does that are not paid for by Medicaid.
- [04:48]
Lee McGowan
We need to keep reminding people, like, listen, this bill is taking direct aim at abortion providers, but really taking direct aim at Planned Parenthood because they really just don't like Planned Parenthood. They've never liked Planned Parenthood. We've always had the Hyde Amendment. And I should really point this out. America has something called the Hyde Amendment. If you don't know that, which already bans taxpayer funded abortions. Right. So we need to correct this long, incorrect assumption that, like, I shouldn't have to pay for your abortion. You aren't. Right. Like, that's never happened. Taxpayer dollars do not pay for abortions, even if they're happening at Planned Parenthood. What we're talking about here is not making it possible for Medicaid funds to be reimbursed if they go to a place that does abortion care, which is what Planned Parenthood in general does. So it's a way of skirting the rules to say you no longer get reimbursement. If someone is on Medicaid and they come to you, but you do abortions somewhere, other clinicians, none of that money will be reimbursed, which means that people are going to lose access to the healthcare they have. And a lot of people, Planned Parenthood is the only access they have in their community. And like you're saying, if this bill passes, 200 Planned Parenthoods are at risk of closing. And a lot of that are in states where abortion remains legal. Right. Because without Medicaid reimbursements, you're going to lose your patience. Right. So then over half of the Planned Parenthood patients rely on Medicaid. So it's all intertwined. It feels like a fulfillment of kind of a long desired right wing goal to rip Planned Parenthood out by the roots. Right. This bill ultimately threatens your existence and the existence of a place in every state where a large amount of women in this country, and men, I might add, are dependent on you for reproductive and preventative care.
- [06:35]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I mean, you nailed it. Absolutely. There's no line item for Planned Parenthood in the budget. It is about Planned Parenthood, like any other health care provider, provides services, direct services to patients, and then the entity is able to get reimbursed through insurance programs like Medicaid, like private insurance, and pay for those services and ensure that the continuity of care is being delivered. So it is not just, you know, money that is just around because of. It's Planned Parenthood is because of the actual unique services that we provide in community and the quality of care that we deliver. Deliver because we believe that our patients deserve that. You know, the other thing about this is that when you take away access to Planned Parenthood, to your point, you said, you know, oftentimes we're the first point of entry into the healthcare system. The majority of our health centers are in medically underserved areas. They're in rural areas, they're in healthcare deserts. You know, as it were. And so you are not taking away need, right. You are taking away people's ability to get access in their own community. So that means, you know, instead of being able to drive 30 minutes in order to see a provider for something that you're concerned about, you feel a lump or something in your breast and you are worried that you, you may need to go get a screening. It means now you've got to drive three hours, right, in some of the rural parts of our country in order to see that, that provider. You know, what we are seeing broadly in just the Medicaid fight is that the things that are most at risk are in the communities that most need them. So rural hospitals losing providers, losing residents who oftentimes are paid with Medicai order to serve and train. And so this ripple effect that we are seeing in the bill, you know, certainly a targeted attack at unplanned parenthood. But I really want us to also understand that this is not just about people who use Medicaid. When you close a hospital, everybody experiences the impact of that. When we stop having the talented residents and fellows who make up and nurses who make up our healthcare system, they're literally the backbone. You affect everybody. We may be the tip of the spear on some of the direct attacks, but it really is designed to take away access to basic, basic health care and transfer those resources to rich people who probably have concierge doctors on call that travel with them. You know, it's like so insane. It is so insane and outrageous.
- [09:03]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, no, it's completely gross. And I think people have to understand that if you're not one of those rich people that has a concierge doctor that travels with you on your private jet, these people that are going to come from rural hospitals that have now closed are going to come to your city hospital, if they come at all. If they don't die, if they don't not get their breast lump check, if they don't get their screenings, if they keep, you know, if they have the ability to travel 3 hours to go to the hospital in your town, that only ups the wait time and ups the cost for everybody who goes to that hospital. So it's gonna affect you. Even if you have private insurance and you live in a big city and you're like, I'm not on Medicaid, it's still going to affect you. Because as you said, it's a ripple effect. The whole thing feels like a politically motivated decision, not a health oriented decision. Because these Medicaid cuts are gonna just devastate communities and remove this care without any sort of realistic alternative. Like, there was an independent research group called Guttmacher, and they recently said that there are no other providers that are gonna be able to fill the gap that Planned Parenthood will leave behind. And I should really tell people that a third of women in America, a third of women use planned parenthood, and 1 in 10 men, by the way. Right? So this isn't some money saver either. Right. Like, that's what I think is crazy. It's like, well, we're not even saving money because without Planned Parenthood, the cbo, the Congressional Budget Office, estimates it's going to cost taxpayers an additional $300 million over 10 years. Because if millions of patients who use Planned Parenthood lose their clinics and no one replaces them, we're going to have far worse health outcomes and, quite frankly, more bursts that people weren't ready for, which might, between you and me, be the goal. More bursts might be the goal, but it's actually bad for the taxpayer because preventative care is far less expensive than unintended pregnancies, than STIs, than cancer. If you catch cancer early, that costs Medicaid people way less than if you have to treat cancer later. Right? So, like, even just a birth itself, if you're on Medicaid, if you give birth, it's somewhere between 12,000 and $20,000. So even if you don't care about the human cost, it is far less financially expensive to pay for Medicaid birth control than it is for the birth and the maternal care and the newborn health, which they not pay for either. Because we know that $800 billion is scheduled to be cut from Medicaid in general.
- [11:23]
Alexis McGill Johnson
And 40% of children are born on Medicaid. Right. So, like, so, so what is the end game here? Right? I mean, I think to your. To your point, this is about. It's all been about a consolidation of power and control on the backs of our bodies. You know, and so when you start to take away access to resources for people to make basic private medical decisions, to plan their lives, to just to determine the future that they want for themselves and for their families. And you, you take away the levers that have been provided by our country, by our society, for decades because we believe in a social safety net, it means that you are creating less access for people to determine their futures. And they are fine with that because the end game is about power control, and they want to determine what we do. Yeah.
- [12:11]
Lee McGowan
God, it's so depressing I mean, looking around the country right now, particularly the red states, and the actions of Republican lawmakers, it feels a bit like they want to kill us or turn us into breeders against our will. And we just keep hearing more and more now about people who are willfully childless, which I think is such a gross expression, with the question from the far right being, can the United States government actually punish you for not choosing to have children? Right. The right wing clearly wants to control sex. That's why they're talking about banning gay men, marriage, banning porn, not teaching our children sex education or consent in schools, taking books that explain our bodies or our sexualities off the shelf. It's all about controlling sex. It's all about control. Right. But they also want to control our choices. This isn't just about overturning Roe at this point and making abortion illegal. This is about punishing women, making it harder and harder for us to not follow their rigid ideals of how we should live. But it all kind of fits into that Project 2025 idea.
- [13:09]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. It was like, I was like, yes, girl, yes.
- [13:12]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, that. Yeah.
- [13:13]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I was like, you were literally, like preaching my heart. Because, because, like, you know, we're not talking about Project 2025 as much as we, as we were last year.
- [13:24]
Lee McGowan
No. Now we're just checking off the list. People don't realize we're just going down the list. I think they've got 40 of it accomplished.
- [13:30]
Alexis McGill Johnson
They published a 900 page book to tell us what their playbook was going to be to like, let the shock and the, and the outrage kind of fester and then off. In all of the chaos and confusion that we are seeing with this administration, every single day, something new happens. And, and slowly, to your point, they're about a third of the way through the book, just going consistently one agenda item after the next, essentially taking away our rights and our freedoms. And so we should not be surprised. Do you remember back when they were attacking media and, you know, banning media outlets from the, from the White House and. And then they were on to attacking lawful firms and then they were on to attacking media like, these are actual textbook playbooks from authoritarian regimes that were all clearly laid out in the Project 2025 agenda. So we know defunding Planned Parenthood is part of that agenda. We know continuing to attack access to mifepristone through the Comstock act, it's part of that agenda. We know that attacks on contraception and IVF will be part of that agenda because they've told us. And they also brought the personnel, the very people who wrote Project 20 into the white House to oversee the work. So while we are caught up in the very harmful theatrics of this presidency and administration, they are working day and night to gut American healthcare, to gut access to reproductive freedom, to gut our rights as citizens. And they're doing it literally in the dark of night in the bowels of that building in ways that we will never be able to piece together unless we actually return to the conversation around Project 2025 and the implications for us.
- [15:12]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. And you see people like Russell Vogt in charge now of, like, you know, implementing it all. And, like, I understand we might not quite be at the Handmaid's Tale where they lock us in a room and force us to have children, but they are certainly making the moves to overturn and reverse laws that were in place over decades to protect women's rights, particularly. And we have to remember that we're already in a world where they are keeping a dead woman alive in Georgia because she's pregnant. They have literally turned Adriana Smith into a human incubator. Right. With no care for her autonomy, her individuality, her family's wishes. And it's an incredibly slippery slope. Like, I think people need to be very aware that, as you said, they're doing this in the bowels of the building. They're doing it piece by piece. They're already overturning protections against sex discrimination and other forms of discrimination in the workplace so women can't get or keep jobs, or they don't want to stay in jobs that are now hostile work environments without guardrails. They already have so many attacks on reproductive rights and access to health care in red states across the country. There's obviously so many attacks on education. You know, like, you can treat women and men differently in education now, which we haven't been able to do for years. We have these incredibly disgusting laws around checking girls genitalia before they compete in sports. Right. Republicans are doubling down on tax credits for people who have children at the expense of people who don't. J.D. vance, our vice president, keeps talking about giving families, but particularly fathers, votes for the amount of children they have. So childless people don't have as much stake in our society. This kind of concept. Obviously, there's massive attacks on the LGBTQ community, and what if they can have children and if they can be part of a family? But they're also attacking programs like income security and housing and nutrition assistance and SNAP and again, Medicaid, which are all programs that allow women to leave hostile home environments to raise children on their own. Because without those programs, many women are going to be trapped in bad relationships that they afford to survive or keep their children fed on their own. And I feel like this is all part of the project 2025 Christian nationalist ideal of where women should be knowing their place, staying in their zone. And we're going to create, we're not going to say you have to be there, but we're going to make sure that we have all of these things in place that you cannot leave, that you cannot not have a child, this kind of thing. 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- [20:40]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Yeah, absolutely. And let's also remember the, the initial day one attacks on dei.
- [20:45]
Lee McGowan
Exactly.
- [20:46]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I mean, because that easily gets put into a context when in fact women have been the biggest beneficiary of DEI program since their inception in the late 60s. And so we do have to name that the attacks on inclusion of groups that have been systematically marginalized and excluded from society. Remember the old boys club? It still exists, right? It's now just a group of billionaires who are running around and you know, in their private jets telling the president what to do.
- [21:12]
Lee McGowan
Alexis. They started a club in Washington called the executive branch just for billionaires to hang out with the cabinet.
- [21:17]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Like, I mean literally, I was like, I was going to say private jets but what I really meant I was private shuttles to Mars. But seriously, like that, that is essentially what the world is. And so they have made the determination that our only utility is fertility. Right. You have the president who wants to be the fertilization king. You know which is. I can't believe those words just came out of my mouth. I need a shower. That was so gross to say. But the reality, right, of the, of this insanity coming out of its mouth, that that's what he wants to be known for and not actually someone who is representing and fighting for the freedoms of Americans every single day. So, yeah, it does feel Handmaid's Tale. I actually don't even know that Margaret Atwood could have envisioned this even play out in this moment. Right. It feels almost traumatizing to watch such an incredible art knowing, in fact, that people are living that reality every single day. And this president, the circle, a big part of that. But we also have to acknowledge that this has been happening for a very, very long time. And so when he's coming out and he's attacking, you know, title 10 again, you know, one of his first acts, executive orders targeting, again, Planned Parenthood, not, not with the gag rule on abortion access, which we, you know, have seen go back and forth between administrations, but using DEI as a lens and attacking provision of care to undocumented patients. Right. It is, it is literally trying to shove an ideological agenda against the people who most need support in this moment. I just think we have to be incredibly alarmed and stay vigilant about what is going on right now.
- [22:54]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, incredibly vigilant. I mean, you're talking about undocumented people. Like, I mean, I've even heard people say that these attacks on immigration and the undocumented are also part of keeping women back in the home, because there's a lot of immigrants who do these jobs, like childcare, like house cleaning, gardening, caring for the elderly, things that allow other people to go back to work because they don't have to be doing those jobs at home. And if they can get rid of those people that do those jobs, you're going to stick people back in home. All these new laws feel like a concerted effort to make it more difficult to live your life as an independent woman. Which lines up directly with the far right Christian goal of stopping us from being, as I said before, willfully childless. Right. But. But I keep thinking, like, this is what makes no sense to me. And when I talk to people, I like to kind of think of that because I like to pose questions rather than tell them what's up, even though I want to tell them what's up. It's better to kind of be curious rather than argumentative. But I feel like maybe the government should consider making it easier and less expensive to have children, like, give us Universal healthcare, Give us universal pre K, give us good public schools and affordable college. Give us paid family leave. Yeah. And then maybe, you know, don't have so many of our children die in school shootings and we would want to have more kids. Right. If today we can die from a treatable pregnancy complication or bleed out in a parking lot because no one will see us or we can be jailed for a miscarriage, that doesn't really inspire people to have children. It makes it terrifying because we're at danger, you know, and it. Here's what concerns me. I was listening to Jessica Valenti. She has a lot of work on abortion care. I'm sure you know her. And she was, she's just incredible, right? And she was just talking about this new Gallup poll that was really concerning her because there's now a 20 point gender gap between men and women who identify as pro choice. So before Roe was overturned, if people know the biggest gender gap it ever got was 10 points between women thinking they were pro choice and men thinking they were pro choice. Now it's 20. It is genuinely getting worse for reproductive rights when it comes to this. Men who can had considered themselves pro choice has gone all the way down to 40. And I find that really terrifying because it feels to me like this men centered world, the propaganda is working. Like I look at the election results and then I look at the amount of young men who are getting red pilled by this misinformation and the lack of education and it ends up skewing conservative. But conservative now is not conservatism. It is far right Christian like theology. Right, Right. And so this idea of constraining women, of keeping them in their place, of keeping them under control is being pitched to constantly. Right? And then they're talking about like, make sure she doesn't have a high body count. You know, if she got pregnant she should have kept her legs closed. As if it didn't take a man to also do that thing, right? And as if they won't be financially responsible for a child that comes out of it too. It's like they're not thinking that. I'm like, do you want to be a father at 21 if you weren't prepared for it. Like this is an issue that affects both men and women. Right? And then we spend all this endless time talking about the male loneliness epidemic and how women leaving the house ruined America and men are upset about how they're being lapped in schools and jobs by women. And it goes back to your DEI thing. They take DEI out so they can take women out of the workforce. And I just, it depresses me because it all feels connected and I'm like, how do we get back to a place where they realize that abortion care, women's health care, women's rights actually affect the whole society positively rather than holding men back, back.
- [26:29]
Alexis McGill Johnson
The poll is shocking. I think what it really speaks to, to me is a desire for proximity to toxic masculinity. Right. That they have been offered a vision of what it means to be a man. That is say anything you want, I don't care. Harm anyone you want. Grab them by the, you know, by the P word. Like anything that you, that you want to be able to do, you should be able to do because you are a man and you earned it. It's like that base level of toxicity and self hate, to be honest, that, that is so ingrained and it's such an animating kind of force within this conservative for you to your point, like extremely radical Christian nationalist worldview. I do think that there is a challenge of loneliness. I do think that there is a challenge of isolation when you have generations of young men who have been living on in subreddit and 4chan and watching each other stream and play video, talk trash about women and you know, bully and abuse them because they think it's funny and they think it's cool. It's like they are stuck in sixth grade on the playground. The fact that that is where they are peaking and that is where they want to stay. And that bullying and that lack of dignity again, because when you, when you were debasing someone, you were debasing yourself like that to me feels like a culture of dehumanization that they are also implicated in. So the question that you ask, right, of how do we get beyond that, right, I think a lot of it is about conn. Are missing just basic fundamental connection. We are in a transactional world. You can swipe left or swipe, swipe right. I forgot which way you swept. You gotta swipe one way.
- [28:10]
Lee McGowan
We both miss the swipe times. We're like, you swipe. I, I like you. I don't like it.
- [28:15]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I don't know one way you swipe, swipe or not. But you, you're, you're just, you're creating transactions, right? You're not creating relationships. You're not creating ways to engage and learn how to have a conversation and learn how to tease and take a joke, learn how to like figure out how to hold a hand, learn how to a Kiss. Young people are actually not having sex right now, which I also find kind of part of this animating of loneliness. Right. Like we, we literally are not connect. Young people are literally not connecting with each other in ways that help them explore their own humanity, not just their own sexuality and sensuality, but just their own humanity. And so, you know, I think the counter to this very violent vision of the Christian nationalist autocracy has a particular draw for men because they can, can see what their role is in it. And it's not complicated, it's flat, it is dominant. They are allowed to be a hero without doing any kind of work. We have to really remember this. Lee. The reason that this backlash is so fierce and so strong and feels like it is hitting us over the head like Fred Flintstone. It is because of the progress that we've made. It is because of the last 50 years of like inclusion and fighting to change laws and, and policies and getting access to basic healthcare and growing up knowing that, you know, even though you hadn't yet reached full inclusion, that the policies were there. We just had to fight to make them real. That progress is going to create a backlash. But, but the progress is stronger, right? The people who know what it means now to lose and have lost rights are going to come back and fight even harder. And I can tell you, I see that in my 13 and 16 year old girls. Like, like they are not, they are definitely not, not here for this.
- [30:03]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, and neither are the, by the way, the 70 year old women that I talk to. They're all like, this is ridiculous, like I burned my bra and like what are we doing? Like they're, they are fired up and ready to fight back. I mean, I just think it's so weird with the men because I'm raising a young man and like I can see how they can get caught in an online environment which only makes them more lonely because they are with each other and then they complain with each other and they feel like they're to not going connecting with anyone because they're truly not. Plus they police each other into behaving in a certain way that makes them all kind of feel lonely. And that does make sense. But I also think it's weird because these are men who have spent their entire lives existing in the privileged world where abortion was legal, where most of them have no personal experience or memory of having a mother or a sister or a significant other not having access to the care when they needed it. And you see some of these men coming forward now whose wife was struggling or bleeding out on the floor of their bathroom and they didn't know what to do and no one would help them. And they are astounded at how vulnerable these women in their life are without this care. And I think that the ones that are saying, yeah, let's just get rid of it, and you know, yeah, we don't need to be pro choice. I don't think they know what they're talking about or the damage that they're doing. And I think there is something a little bit distasteful about even asking a man if a woman should have access to abortion when they don't actually know what it means to be pregnant, to give birth, to deal with the consequences of pregnancy, or having majority male lawmakers who make these decisions who don't understand the basic facts, like what an atopic pregnancy is. Right. Like they don't understand that the treatment for that is an abortion. There is no other treatment. You, you're, you know, your fallopian tube will explode. This lack of empathy is sadly not surprising. But I feel like for certain people, especially lawmakers, it's almost become a cognitive dissidence. Like they just don't want to understand. Bedtime is supposed to be when we rest, but for many of us, it's exactly when our mind starts racing. If falling asleep or staying asleep feels like a nightly battle, calm can help. With just a few minutes each night, you can ease into sleep that's deeper and more restful by using their app. I have been using calm since sleep stories for well over five years. I know them so well now that I'm almost out as soon as they begin. Good evening. I'm because over time I've found sleep stories that work so well for me that I just go back to them night after night. I'm particularly fond of stories around trains like the Glacier Express or the Taurus Express, although I also love the Queen Mary and the magic of Muir Woods. There is a reason that Calm is the number one app for sleep and meditation. And whether you use sleep stories like me or you're working through anxiety and stress and need the background noise while you work, calm has got you covered. I often use green noise or the Dune soundscape when I want to get into the zone for work, and I use brown noise when I want to drown out the ambient sound that's distracting me. The beauty of calm is that it puts all the tools you need right in your pocket, which is probably why they have over 2 million 5 star reviews. Like I said, there's a reason I've been using this app for so long. Long so stress less, sleep more and live better. Right now Calm has an exclusive offer just for listeners of our show. Get 40% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com politicsgirl this is an amazing value. Go to C-A-L m.com politicsgirl for 40% off unlimited access to. Com's entire library. That's com.com politicsgirl and tell com that you heard about that them from me so as a way to clear my mind, I spend a lot of time watching people do home renovations on social media. I like to see the room transformations. I find it soothing, if not a little jealousy inducing. But one of the things that keeps coming up when I watch those videos is dupe.com we all know how wildly expensive things can be. You can fall in love with a piece of furniture and then you look at the price and you like fall off your chair. I have saved money from months to afford one piece of furniture, but on Dupe you can sometimes find things for 80% cheaper than you would find them on whatever furniture website you're on. There is a reason Dupe is one of the most viral shopping hacks on TikTok. Millions of people are already using it to save money. All you have to DO is type dupe.com before any product URL and it instantly shows you similar and more affordable alternatives. We should keep in mind that most furniture, no matter the brand, is made in the same factories. We see this all the time now with fashion, particularly high end bags or workout clothes. The Chinese have been telling us exactly where things are made and just a lot of it is extraordinarily marked up because of the brand name. Dupe.com simply exposes that markup so you're not paying double for a logo when what you really want is the product. You can use Dupe for furniture like I do, but it also works for fashion, shoes, jewelry. And dupe.com is so easy to use. Just type d u p e.com before any product URL in your browser and boom. Dupe instantly finds you less expensive alternatives. They even have an app and a browser extension you can download. No account required, no sign up required. It's completely free to use. So stop wasting your money on brand names and start saving with dupe.com today. They just don't want to understand they.
- [35:19]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Don'T want to understand. It is really interesting. I will say where I have seen shifts though in the ways in which abortion bans have made pregnancy more dangerous and it's giving them a more fluid language to understand abortion, miscarriage, management, that they are the same thing. Right. That even, by the way, I've met women and, you know, young women who had no, you know, who, who had a miscarriage and then got their medical records and it said abortion or DNC on it, and it was like, wait a minute, I didn't have an abortion. I had a miscarriage. It's like I said, a procedure, honey. Right. Like. And so. So I think it is part of that connection. It is that storytelling that is asking men. When you have direct conversations with men and you talk about the impact that could happen to their sister, to their wife, to their co worker, they begin to put the pieces together. Having the direct conversation of do you support it or not, I think is fitting into their toxic masculinity. But you can break that down in conversation with men to help them understand and create those connections. So I'm not lost on men, you know, even with this poll, it shows how much work we have to do. But I think that work really is about them trying to locate themselves and their identity in this descent into authoritarianism, where they want to be dominant. When you bring it back to the. To the level of community and family and connection, they are able to understand the impact. And we really have to double down on that and have those conversations right. At the dinner table, you know, at the NBA finals, at the, you know, at the barbecue, at the military parade. Wherever you're having that conversation, I want you to be having that conversation. Because that is actually what breaks down those barriers.
- [36:57]
Lee McGowan
Yeah. We always say, take responsibility for your people, whether that's your dining room table or your hairdresser or the grocery store. Like, talk to them about it. Because I think it's not that we don't care about male loneliness if they're lonely, like, of course we care. But I keep thinking, like, without abortion care, women are gonna wanna spend even less time with men because they can't risk it, right? Like, what do you want that? Like, they can't risk it. If I can go to jail for a miscarriage, I can't risk getting pregnant, Right? If I can't get birth control, I can't risk it. I'm so sorry. If I go to a hospital, like, they've now made it. They've ended the requirements for some hospitals to provide emergency abortions even when the woman's life is in jeopardy. Like, I can't risk it. Right. So you're actually taking away the joy from both men. And women by making it so scary now to be pregnant in America. Right. There are still places in this country where it's illegal to get divorced if you're pregnant.
- [37:45]
Alexis McGill Johnson
You know, I do want to say, I just want to correct one thing that it still is the law of the land and has been that emergency abortion care is, you know, is the law of the land if it is required in hospital. The confusion and the chaos, right. That abortion bans have brought on to states where providers don't know or they're worried they will lose their license in order to provide. That is still a real thing. Right?
- [38:09]
Lee McGowan
Right. So they're checking with legal or they're waiting until you are septic, but they've.
- [38:13]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Even gone so far as like airlift, you know, emergent patients, you know, across state lines. When in reality the law of the land is that if you need emergency care and you walk into your emergency room and, and part of that emergency care requires abortion care because it could be time sensitive life saving care. The, the hospital is required to provide it. And, and I, what the administration was doing was trying to create more chaos and confusion and rescind, you know, res. The, the guidance that the Biden administration had put down. But again, it's because they, they, they have no interest in the clarity. They want to, they thrive in the chaos because it allows them just to go back to the beginning of our conversation. It allows them to do the dark work in the COVID of the night without actually having to have a real conversation about what their real agenda is.
- [38:57]
Lee McGowan
So you're saying it's an acronym, right, where you have to treat someone, it's Ektuma that allows people to get the emergency care that they need at the time. You're saying that's still the law of the land.
- [39:08]
Alexis McGill Johnson
How it, how it, it gets inter. You know, like I want people to know that if they are experiencing miscarriage, if they are having an experience that requires abortion, if they have, they're going into septic shock, they need to still go to a hospital and be treated. We are having to make these, these other choices like the ripple effect of like I'm six months pregnant, I do, I want to go to the work conference in Texas because what if something happens and I won't be able to get the emergent care that I need, right. Or should I just stay home? You know, and so like all these ways that are, are going to filter into our lives not just as women thriving but you know, as pregnant people who need to make daily decisions around preserving their pregnancies like those are the kinds of things that are, that are going to happen. And look, I mean, you were talking about the loneliness piece and the questions of like the choices that we also need to be making when we're looking for partners. I couldn't help but think about the episode of Seinfeld when, when Elaine was trying to decide, decide, you know, whether somebody was sponge worthy, whether her form of contraception was, which she only had.
- [40:09]
Lee McGowan
A limited amount of anyway.
- [40:10]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Amount. Right. And you know, and you realize, like, wow, is this somebody that, you know, I, I care enough about, you know, that I'd be willing to travel for access to health care for. I don't know. Right. Like it makes you take it and take it a step further and figure out how far you want to go. That is not true.
- [40:27]
Lee McGowan
Would this person fight for me if I'm bleeding out in a hospital?
- [40:31]
Alexis McGill Johnson
You can't find that out on a swipe?
- [40:33]
Lee McGowan
I'm sorry, no. And maybe that brings us back together to be talking again to one another, to be finding actual connections. If we have to look at it like that, that might be a positive way to spin it. I mean, here's the thing. Let me ask you just before you go. The Democrats seem to be sort of like backing up a little on the abortion issue. Like it didn't win them the presidency. So maybe we won't talk about it as much anymore. And as a woman in this nation, I think, I think that's insane. Are you noticing that or do you find that they're still fighting for these rights?
- [41:01]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I literally heard that just today on the, on the Hill, someone making this case. And they were like 1 in 22 and 23, but 24. And I had to remind them, first of all, we won seven out of 10 ballot initiatives. Okay. So yes. And you know, two of the losses were anti democratically engineered, you know, so like just take all of that in.
- [41:24]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, it confused people. The language confused people.
- [41:26]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Yes. And, but, but it was still the most popular issue that was driving turnout in, in many key states. And it kept the Senate and the House close. There's no question about it. You know, like for. We have to look at the White House. That election was 250,000 votes determine that election in just a couple of states. Right. So. So it was close. It kept the conversation incredibly close. Did it meet the threshold? No. And that's why we were living in this craziness. Also really helped connect the dots to a lot of key races in the Senate and the House. And we actually now have, have a different kind of opportunity to fight going into 2026, because the House is so close and because we know that these defund attacks on Planned Parenthood, these backdoor abortion bans are going to be votes that we are going to be able to demonstrate to their constituents that they really never cared about your rights and they're going to continue to fight. So, you know, abortion kept these, these races alive. And I'm going to continue to shout because people still very much care about our reproductive freedom. We see it also as economic freedom. We see it also as a fight for our democracy. And all of those things are in play right now at every single stage.
- [42:38]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, I've always said that abortion is an economic issue. Like if you want to talk about a kitchen table issue, it's how many people are at your kitchen table is one of the biggest kitchen table issues.
- [42:46]
Alexis McGill Johnson
You know how much cereal costs? My gosh.
- [42:48]
Lee McGowan
Yeah, I do. It's ridiculous, right? So listen, what does Planned Parenthood need from us? How. How can we help you? Please tell us how we can help you. Right now.
- [42:56]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Right now, the most immediate thing is to call your senator. This horrible reconciliation bill is before the Senate. It has the defund provision in it. Calling your senator and saying wherever you are, right, saying, you know, thanking them if they're a champion for, for fighting for it, and if they, they have not been a champion, remind them that, that you will be remembering these votes because abortion is more popular than any elected official. Planned Parenthood is more popular than any elected official. And if they are going to try to defund Planned Parenthood and create a backdoor abortion ban by impacting the access to care in states where we still have access, they had another thing coming for them because the, the peehive is, is out. And I know so many of your of your politics girl people are, are part of our peehive. And so going to I'm4PP.org will give them every bit of information they need to know to call their senator and take action and join town halls and rallies over the summer.
- [43:51]
Lee McGowan
So that's I'm the number four or the word for.
- [43:54]
Alexis McGill Johnson
I'm for f rpp.org okay?
- [43:58]
Lee McGowan
And then we can find out ways to help you because we need to remember that like Planned Parenthood isn't just doing abortion care when needed. They're also doing expert medical advice, birth control, cancer screenings like emergency contraception, gender identity, health issues, wellness issues, pregnancy care. This is not just an abortion provider. This is a health care provider whose services are essential and if that you guys are defunded, everyone is going to suffer, including the taxpayer. So thank you so much for joining us today, Alexis. I think we need to be so clear that Planned Parenthood being defunded in this bill is not because anyone's looking to save money or lives, but it's a political move. And there's a bunch of people who have never liked Planned Parenthood and thought that bankrupting you might be a great bonus to all the other horrible things they put in the bill. And so we need to make sure that they know that we are watching and we are not okay with that. Thank you so much for being out here fighting for all of us.
- [44:46]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Oh, thank you. Thank you to everyone who is part of the movement and part of the fight. And thank you for everything you do to educate us and get us mobilized with our outreaching orders.
- [44:55]
Lee McGowan
Well, we can certainly do better than this, can't we, please?
- [44:58]
Alexis McGill Johnson
Yes, we can.
- [45:01]
Lee McGowan
So that was Alexis McGill Johnson reminding us that women's only utility is not our fertility. That in a world that has become deeply transactional, we need to become more relational. We have to have conversations with the people in our lives about the importance of. Of things like abortion care and access to health care and women's rights and minority rights and human rights, because ultimately it's all connected. As Planned Parenthood says on their website, we believe in high quality, affordable health care for all. And that's why we fight for patients every day. Why would we want to disrupt something like that when defunding them would only hurt everyone? I want to thank Alexis for joining us today and you for caring enough about human rights to be here now. Call your sender and tell them this horrible budget bill cannot stand until next week. Pgm, before you go, I just want to say if you're a premium member of this podcast, thank you for your support. And if you're not a member, please consider being a patron of this work. Look at what's happening with mainstream news, with anyone telling the truth being fired. All we're hearing right now is some version of billionaire backed propaganda. If you want facts and knowledge, it's essential that those of us out here still bringing them to you are supporting. So if you aren't a member of Politics Girl Premium, please consider going to politicsgirl.com and signing up. You will get this podcast ad free, along with my rants and bonus content sent directly to your inbox. So even if my work is silenced on social media, you will still get access. There is a link to sign up in the bio of this episode, but also@politicsgirl.com and as always, please like and share this podcast so we can grow our audience, because the more people who have access to this kind of information, the better. As always, thank you so much for your time and support. The Politics Girl podcast is written and performed by me, Lee McGowan and produced and edited by Happy Warrior Entertainment. All rights reserved.