Connecting the Dots Between SRHR and Gender Equality

Gender inequality can lead to women and girl’s having lower income and educational attainment and decreased autonomy and political power. Bridget Kelly, Director of Research for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at the Population Institute, sits down to talk with us about the report Connecting the Dots: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights as Prerequisites for Global Gender Equality and Empowerment and how the empowerment and advancement of the rights of women and girls is explicitly tied to sexual and reproductive health and rights.

According to Fòs Feminista, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) refers to comprehensive family planning and contraceptive services (including emergency contraception, maternal health, prevention and treatment of infertility, safe abortion and post-abortion care, prevention, care, and treatment, of STIs, HIV, and AIDS (and reproductive health cancers and infections) and the prevention and treatment of gender-based violence (including the elimination of harmful practices like female genital mutilation and cutting and child, early, and forced marriage). All of these elements must be met in order for comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare to be fully realized and for gender equality to be advanced worldwide. 

The empowerment and advancement of rights of women and girls is an agreed upon global sustainable development goal, and, as the largest funder and implementer of worldwide global health assistance the U.S. plays an incredibly important role in advancing these outcomes. Still, U.S. policymakers often fail to recognize that this goal is impacted by the accessibility of comprehensive SRHR. U.S. support for various components of the SRHR agenda flows through multiple budget and appropriation channels, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact current expenditure for SRHR. But, examining funding levels for the current family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) funding program shows that there should be a commitment of $1.74 billion to international family planning and reproductive health programming, including $116 million to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

FP/RH programming, for the last 13 years, has been flat funded at $608 million. The Biden administration’s budget request, released in mid-March of 2023, shows an increase to roughly $657.5 million. While the current administration recognizes the need for FP/RH funding, it isn’t enough to meet the need. Unfortunately, there was not a request to pull back the Helms amendment, which dictates that U.S. government foreign assistance funds cannot be used for “the performance of abortion as a method of family planning.” While the administration did request for the repeal of the Hyde amendment, they did not ask for this to be applied specifically to Peace Corps volunteers.

Links from this episode

Population Institute on Twitter
Population Institute on Facebook
Connecting the Dots: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights as
Prerequisites for Global Gender Equality and Empowerment
 Fòs Feminista’s Index of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

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Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So first I wanna kick off this week's episode with a huge happy birthday, Rachel. Uh, last week was Rachel's birthday and she is my amazing behind the scenes partner in crime for the podcast in the rePROs Fight Back Initiative. She does all of the things that make us look good, right? She does all of our social media. So everything you see there is her. And, uh, she does our website and our show notes and the transcripts and like she does all the things that make us look good. And we are a better podcast because of her. We're an amazing initiative because of her, like, I couldn't ask for a better partner in crime. And so, yeah, if you could all show the rePROs, uh, social, a little love this week, that would be really great. We had some, uh, hate come our way and Rachel is the one who has to see all that with social media. So if you all could send a little love to our social, um, that would really make me happy cause Rachel could use it. So make sure that you send your love to our social, especially our Twitter at rePROs Fight Back, or our Instagram at reprosfb. So send her love. Um, and it'll make her day a little brighter after having to deal with those hateful trolls. So, thank you. Let's see what else is going on? Um, I am still, uh, just, you know, going day by day. I, I'm doing pretty good. Um, you know, checking in on my mom a lot, making sure she's doing okay. Starting to get back to some normal things, like I was able to do some baking, which is good to be able to do that again. I'm still in a bit of a needing to do comfort reading and not my addressing my pile of to be read books like right? I have so many books that I was excited to read, but I just am not in a place to read most of them at the moment. I really am still in the, amount of stress I can handle is a romance where I know there's going to be a happy ending and not a lot of drama. Uh, so I've been doing a lot of cozy romance reading, um, magical romance reading, uh, to get me through all of this. So if you have recommendations, send them my way for anything. Cozy romance, magical romance. Uh, last year I discovered, uh, the category cozy fantasy, which was freaking delightful. Uh, I didn't know I needed that in my life. So I read Legends and Lattes. So if you have anything in that vein where it's cozy fantasy, that would be also delightful. Basically anything without a lot of stress, that's just like a big warm hug. That's what I'm looking for right now. So send me your recommendations. You can send them at, uh, JennieInDC on Twitter or allbooksandbread on Instagram. Those are both me. So happy to get any and all recommendations there. Just, that's where I'm at right now. I started this week, my first book, that wasn't any of those cozy things and it seems to be going okay. We'll see, we'll see how it goes. I just still am in that I need a warm hug mode of entertainment. I haven't turned to Great British Baking show yet, but it's probably, it's probably gonna happen soon with everything that was happening, but also other added work related stress, including, uh, the mife abortion case, which at the moment when I'm recording this, we don't have the decision yet, but, you know, we're, we're waiting on it. Let's see. I think those are the big things of what's happening right now. So let's turn to this week's interview. I am so excited for this week's interview. This is something I haven't done before. I mean, Rachel has been on, um, uh, so I guess I have had someone from, from work before, but, uh, I'm having somebody on to talk about a work thing, so I haven't done that before Rachel interviewed me as for an Ask Me aAnything. Um, but I am super excited this week to have on the lovely Bridget Kelly, who is amazing and is here to talk about her brand new report, Connecting the Dots for Population Institute. And we are getting ready, we will be talking about all things relating to SRHR and gender equality, and why we need to talk about the two of them together. So with that, let's turn my interview with Bridget.

Jennie: Hi Bridget. Thank you for being here.

Bridget: Hi, Jennie. Thanks so much for having me.

Jennie: So y'all, I'm so excited for today's episode cause one, I have the joy of working with Bridget every day at PI. Um, and so it's so exciting to finally have her on the podcast to show off how amazing she is and her great work. So Bridget, I'm so excited to have you here.

Bridget: Uh, I am so thrilled to be here and it's fun to see this from the other side. Jennie, it's fun to be on the other side of the microphone.

Jennie: Yeah. Okay. So before we like fly into your amazing new report, do you wanna take a quick second and introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Bridget: I do. Ok. I am Bridget Kelly. Uh, my pronouns are she/her and I am the Director of Research for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at the Population Institute.

Jennie: Uh, so this new report is amazing and it just came out, so congratulations. I know how much work you put into it and it really shows cause it's a wonderful report.

Bridget: Thank you.

Jennie: So it's, it's connecting the dots, it's making the links between why we need to fund SRHR to achieve gender equality, um, globally. So I guess maybe we'll start at the beginning and talk about what are we talking about when we talk about sexual reproductive health and rights? It's like a really big bucket and I think people are maybe familiar with some parts of it. I mean, the podcast we shoot, we aim to like, cover all of those issues, but I think it's good to have a refresher of like what it all is, uh, in one place. So you wanna tell us a little bit about that?

Bridget: Yeah, Jennie, I do really think it's a great place to start. Um, when I think about the overall report, I'm always so eager to just jump in on how sexual and reproductive health and rights are so important to gender equality and advancing women's empowerment, um, around the world. But you're right, I think we should probably take a step back, define what is all included under this umbrella. The co-authors and I took a look at the SRHR index and it's a resource produced by our colleagues, Fos Feminista, and we highlight comprehensive lists, components that make up SRHR and so what they have defined the SRHR package includes, there's, there's six of them here. Ok. So I'm just gonna list them: 1) comprehensive family planning and contraceptive services, and that includes emergency contraception, 2) maternal health care, 3), prevention and treatment of infertility, 4) safe abortion and post abortion care, 5) prevention care and treatment of STIs, AIDS, and HIV, as well as reproductive tract infections and reproductive cancers, and 6) the prevention and treatment of gender-based violence including harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage. Okay. So it's a lot, right? And it's, it's a really comprehensive list. Um, and I think one point I wanna make about this comprehensive list, when we talk about, about the entire package, the entire agenda, we at Population Institute and a lot of reproductive health advocates, that all of these components are included in order for all to be able achieve wellbeing. I mean, Jennie, as we know on the political side of things, that is not always the case. And we unfortunately see that, uh, various components of this are ignored or outright excluded, especially when we talk about policy. So that’s a really good place to start to understand the, the comprehensiveness of, of the agenda, in order to really help to advance gender equality worldwide.

Jennie: It's, it's one of those things that like, it's, it's so big, but it's also just like so basic to like, make sure you are, have access to like all of these, these rights. Like they're, they're just so like fundamentally closely held and like you need to make sure you have access to safe maternal care, like obviously, right? And like family planning, I mean, obviously abortion. Yeah. Obvi, like, they're just so basic, but yet somehow, like SRHR seems to be like controversial…

Bridget: Right? And I think, I mean, that's a really important point, Jennie. I think what we're trying to show with this report is that we really need to shift that mindset of SRHR being this siloed and contentious public health issue and really understand it as foundational to advancing gender equality. Um, so, you know, these priority policies that, that, you know, I would say are fairly universal, and agreed upon.

Jennie: Yeah, I think that's a great place to like turn to like the next part, which is, you know, I I think you, if you were to go like to the Hill or talk to people like yeah, the empowerment of, of women and girls and gender equality is like pretty non-controversial, right? Like everybody will say they support that and then all of a sudden you talk about SRHR and it's like, “no, oh my God, this is terrible. Like, we don't support that.” But like, they are intrinsically linked, aren't they?

Bridget: I mean, I feel like it's very straightforward. This connection to me is very straightforward, but like you said, it's often either overlooked or quickly ignored, um, as, as a foundational element to, to gender equality.

Jennie: Yeah. So let's talk about it. Like how are they, how, what does SRHR have to do with achieving gender equality?

Bridget: Yeah, and I, I mean, Jennie, I do think this is the exciting part of the report. Um, I do really like connecting these dots. So as, as we sit here today, right, I'm on a podcast with my dear friend Jennie, talking about gender inequality. I mean, it's the reality of today. We know that women’s and girls and transgender and gender-fluid, non-binary, or gender nonconforming individuals experience persistent gender inequality around the world today. And this gender inequality, um, leaves many with fewer educational opportunities, lower income, uh, less autonomy and less political power compared to their male counterparts.

Jennie: And like, I feel like we're further away, like there was just, uh, the Commission on the Status of Women and at the opening, the UN Secretary General said we were 300 years away if we stay on the same track we're on for gender equality. Like, dude, what?

Bridget: It's really depressing when you hear that, it's really depressing. Um, and look, there are a lot of people who are working tirelessly to, to advance gender equality. And what it boils down to is we need support and we need the financial support, and we need the political will, the political investment into this. Um, and, you know, money definitely talks…

Jennie: Sorry I totally interrupted your answer, but like, I, it just made me think of the, like that 300 year thing really threw me when I heard it, I was like, “that can't be, no, that can't. Oh my god.”

Bridget: I know, right? And so clearly that demonstrates that there's just this pressing need to continue strong commitment to advancement, right? That global gender empowerment goals are agreed upon goals worldwide, right? Like, so there's this collective agreement, uh, to, to support the Sustainable Development Goals. And goal number five of the SDGs, or of the Sustainable Development Goals is achieving gender equality and empowerment for women and girls. And really the US plays an extremely important role in advancing our efforts as the largest funder and implementer of global health assistance worldwide. But unfortunately, and as, as we have kinda touched upon, um, US policymakers really often fail to recognize that these gender objectives are directly impacted by availability, accessibility, um, of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services. So yeah. So this is really where we want to hopefully shed some light on, is how SRHR is important to achieving that global gender equality priority. And um, you know, like when we talk about girls education or, or women's economic and political empowerment, when we talk about women's participation in the, the labor force or the workforce, um, as well peace and security efforts, it's, it's vital that we draw that line and understand how foundational sexual and reproductive health and rights is. So let me give you an example. Ok. And, and hopefully this really like highlights that that deep connection: research tells us that girls education and SRHR have a mutually reinforcing relationship. And that means that like early marriage and unintended pregnancies can both be a cause of and a reason as to why girls are out of school. Currently, there are 261 million adolescent girls, uh, ages 15 to 19 living in the global south, an estimated 32 million of these girls are sexually active and do not want to have a child in the next two years. Ok, great. Well, of these adolescents, for a variety of reasons, have an unmet need for contraception, leading to unintended pregnancys. Barriers exist to accessing family planning services or reproductive health services. And these barriers really put the US commitment to girls education worldwide at risk. And, and this is just, you know, one example of how a priority policy of the US is at risk of being undermined if SRHR is excluded from the big picture.

Jennie: Yeah. And like on top of that, like child marriage is part of SRHR. So like girls are getting pulled out of school because they're getting married. And so again, they are, these are like mutually reinforcing problems, right? So if girls are getting pulled out of school, they might not have the agency then to decide that they want to use methods of family planning. Like it is all so interrelated and interlinked that like if you ignore part of it, you are actively doing harm to the other part.

Bridget: I mean, yeah, you said it absolutely eloquently, Jennie, that when you ignore one part of it, you are inevitably weakening your efforts in the other area. And that is, that's what we're seeing right now.

Jennie: Yeah. I just, it, just seems so like, I don't know, just like so obvious in so many levels, right? Like, okay, you wanna make sure women are economically empowered and like are part of the labor force, but like if they can't decide when and when and how often or spacing to have children, like you can't participate in the labor force, or if you are dying because you can't get access to safe maternal healthcare, you are not participating in the labor force or raising your kids. And like, obviously these are all related. Sorry, I got a little fired up.

Bridget: And, and I would like to bring up one of your favorite policies or initiatives that, that, uh, came out of the previous administration, um, to improve gender equality through economic empowerment…

Jennie: You an't see, but I'm already, [growls].

Bridget: She's turning red. Um, but, but yeah, as, as you scroll through the policies, you know, we, we can say that SRHR was ignored, but I would go further to say it was actively excluded, uh, from, from the initiatives. So yeah, it, it's just, uh, setting yourself up for failure if you choose to ignore this really important aspect of gender equality.

Jennie: Oh man, I thought I was done having to think about Ivanka Trump, but she's just like this ghost that's coming back, huh? Her big initiative to help women and girls, where as, as we all said, and you know, I will go ahead and trademark, uh, my friend Tara, it was Ivanka Trump Pretends to Help Women, uh, was the actual name and it just wasn't enough.

Bridget: Right. And, you know, knowing you, Jennie, I think I just brought that up just to see your reaction to it. Um, I didn't mean to derail all of this. I mean, it's absolutely related, but it's just more fun to see your reaction to all this.

Jennie: Thank you. But yeah, I, I just, yeah, it is so basic and like you can't focus on just making sure that women and girls have access to investment or all these other things. And they are important. And that is not to say they're not important, but if you aren't making sure that they have access to basic healthcare, including family planning and safe maternal healthcare and there's, you know, programs around gender-based violence and like that whole package of SRHR, if you're not doing that, like women are not gonna be able to participate in these programs because they're gonna have problems related to those other things.

Bridget: Right. And I, I really wanna emphasize what you just said too, Jennie, because I think it is really important that it’s highlighted, we are not talking about substitution of, of money or, or policy priorities taking away from gender equality initiatives. We're talking about addition to the gender equality initiatives that are out there. So, um, they, they work hand in hand, um, and only helps to advance, um, investing in sexual and reproductive health and rights only helps to advance gender equality.

Jennie: Yeah. Uh, to meet this moment it needs to be everything, everywhere, all at once. I need all of the things.

Bridget: I mean, I think that's the theme of today, right? Meeting the moment.

Jennie: Yes. Uh, yeah. If we are not doing, supporting all of the parts, so it's not saying don't invest in girls' education or don't invest in whatever, if you're not investing also in SRHR at the same time your money in the other areas isn't gonna go as far because you need to have them both together.

Bridget: Yes, yes. Well said. Exactly.

Jennie: Okay. I guess that brings us to the money, money, money. So U.S. investment in these issues.

Bridget: Well, ok. So first of all, when we talk about investing, um, we of course are talking about the money, money, money, um, but when we're also talking about the political will or the investment in policy. If you'll, when, when we talk about investment needed in the agenda. But first and foremost, it’s a little complicated cause U.S. support for, for various components of the SRHR agenda flows through multiple budget and appropriation line items. Um, we see in bilateral family planning and reproductive health programming, we see it in maternal and child health, um, in PEPFAR, which is the US President's emergency plan for, for AIDS relief, as well as through multiple other funding avenues. And since a lot of the components of SRHR are interwoven, um, into a lot of different development priorities, uh, funded by the U.S., its extremely difficult to, to pinpoint the exact current expenditure on SRHR. But what we can do, we can examine the current funding levels for, for the family planning reproductive health programming, and that is one of the main funding streams for, for SRHR activities from the U.S. Ok. So to the point of what is financially needed at this point to advance SRHR… Global gender equality is a commitment of about 1.74 billion to international planning reproductive health program. And this is, this kinda brings us to the release of the Biden administration budget request that came out this week.When this comes out like about a, a week and a half ago.

Jennie: Right, right. Bridget: Ok. Yes. So yeah, there was an increase of the flat funding of like about 608 million that we have seen for over a decade for family planning and reproductive health programming. It was increased roughly to 657 million. I mean, does that sound about right, Jennie? The, the numbers?

Jennie: Uh, yes. I think we got the additional numbers released. Um, so again, the budget, not all the pots of money are in the same place. So like it's, again, it's complicated. So I think, I think the final number we came up with for international family planning is 677 million. Which is an 11% increase, which is great. But like you talked about, the need is like 1.7 billion.

Bridget: And to glean from this is like a message that the administration does recognize the importance of sexual and reproductive health rights. Um, but going back to the theme of the podcast, it's just not enough to meet the moment.

Jennie: Yeah, I think that's very true. Like, I, again, the like having to be fair of like, yeah, a lot of other programs saw a cut, but also to be fair, like it's been 13 years since international family planning has seen an increase, um, and those other programs have not suffered that same fate. So it's a great point. Also like we've been flat funded for 13 years, but like inflation and purchasing power has not stayed flat. So like, I think when the math was done, and don't like quote me on this, I think it was about a 25% reduction in purchasing power. So like that same pot of money is not going anywhere near as far to meet the needs of the people who need access to the services. So again, really grateful for the increase, we need it. It's gonna be a tough year with, um, with the House and like, I just, yeah, there's a lot that needs to be done.

Bridget: It's not enough. It's not enough, right. Um, yeah, I mean, we need money and we need to also have to talk about the investment of policy change.

Jennie: Yeah. The president has the bully pulpit, right? Like he can like be like, let's support policies. So did he do that?

Bridget: That's a great question, Jennie. Did he do that? No, it's disappointing. It's, it's disappointing that the Helms amendment is included, uh, um, and there wasn't a request to take out the Helms amendment.

Jennie: So Helms would, uh, it is the, the global version of the Hyde amendment, which is domestic, which says no taxpayer funding for abortion. Helms is a little more complicated because it says that, um, abortion can't be used as we, it will not fund abortion as a method of family planning. Uh, we'll get into details in a different episode of like why it means the administration could be doing more than they are, but they did not ask for repeal of the Helms amendment, which we've been pushing for a long time. They also did not include, um, asking for getting rid of the Hels amendment around Peace Corps volunteers. So they did ask for repeal of Hyde in like the broader sense, but in, in our bucket of international funds. They did not ask for it around Peace Corps volunteers, but they did ask for some other technical fixes we've been asking for, which was good. But like the big one that we have been really pushing them on is Helms. And it was very disappointing to see them not, um, not ask for that policy change.

Bridget: Right. And I, and I mean I think it comes back to what we were talking about, including the entire agenda. Um, when it comes to these policies, they restrict funding from, um, being able to advance the entire agenda, of course, namely abortion care, um, when we're getting down to it. But so there, there really does need to be policy changes to, to these U.S. foreign policies that, that are extremely restrictive and quite frankly very harmful. And like you said, I know, I know you go in so depth about this, um, and other podcasts, I mean, frequent listeners and readers of the transcripts are probably experts on this already, but like you said, this is like the Global Gag Rule. It has to go, right? Um, it must permanently be repealed. And to do that, Congress has to pass the Global HER Act, um, the Helms Amendment must be repealed, it has to go and there also needs to be modifications, uh, to, to the Kemp Kasten amendment so that, in the future we can ensure that U.S. funds are not wrongfully withheld from UNFPA.

Jennie: So many important parts to, to, to think about. And like I was gonna say, it's getting to be appropriation season, but like, honestly with the way government funding goes, like is it, it's just like perpetually appropriations season, but also it's like more appropriation season right now, like when it should be happening. Uh, and so it's really important to be having this conversation right now of like, you can't tout your investments in, in girls' education or other areas to empower women and girls if you were not also making these needed investments in sexual and reproductive health and rights. Okay. So why is now, other than appropriation season, but like why is this moment so important to talk about increased funding?

Bridget: Yeah. Um, you know, ok, we, we've said this a few times, but there, you know, like there's not enough money to meet the moment and that holds a lot of different meanings. Um, but one of them does mean meeting the needs of the population, right? So as the world population grows, so too does the need for SRHR funding in order to fulfill everybody's right to sexual and reproductive health and uh, right services. So today there's about 1.8 billion between the ages of 10 to 40. And this is the largest generation of youth in history. As close to 90% of this generation lives in the global south, like we said, flat funding US assistance for family planning is, is truly just undermining all of U.S. policy priorities as they're related to education, women's economic empowerment, um, women's political participation. So we're not meeting the moment here. I like to highlight them, just so understand how important it is to increase U.S. foreign assistance to the Fair Share ask in order to ensure that our efforts don't fail to keep pace with the needs of this generation, but also of the entire population.

Jennie: Yeah. There's more people with more needs and like, we need to make sure that everybody, everybody has their sexual and reproductive health and rights needs met and if we aren't funding it, it's not gonna happen. Right?

Bridget: Right.

Jennie: Yeah. Ugh. So much, so much to think about. Like, I, I just, I just keep thinking back to that 300 years before we get gender equality, if we're on the same path that we are currently on, like the investments are needed to make those changes. We need investment, but we also need the political will. We need policies to change, we need hearts and minds to change. Yeah. Like there is so much that needs to happen. And again, I'll just go back to it, we need everything everywhere, all at once to happen. Like it's all has to happen together to make this happen.

Bridget: Yeah. I mean, it can be overwhelming when, when we say that, right? Like it does get a little overwhelming when we hear that 300 years number when we realize how much more money we need, how much more political will we need it, it can be overwhelming.

Jennie: Okay. So let's like wrap it up with what I always love to focus on, which is like the tangible part. Like what can the audience do? What can we do right now to support this?

Bridget: Yeah, I think, I think there's a few things that we can do, right? So the audience members, um, so the listeners or, or the readers of the transcripts can always contact their Congress members, and really home that message that there is a need to repeal the GGR and to repeal the Helms amendment. Um, you can also reach out to your Congress member to, um, urge them to support robust funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights. And, and you know what, this is gonna come off a little self-serving, so my apologies here, but really, truly take a look at the report. We've talked about three or four big policy changes that are needed, um, in advancement reproductive, but there are more and there are more related policies that, that you can familiarize yourself with, um, and, and really bring attention.

Jennie: Bridget, thank you. So fun to have you on the podcast.

Bridget: Oh, thank you so much Jennie. And truly it was a pleasure to be here talking with you today about the report, but I also really wanna thank you for all your support and your work, um, on, on getting this report out, uh, for the audience members. Jennie was instrumental in the concept and the review of this thesis, and all of us, uh, all of the co-authors really relied upon Jennie, um, for her policy expertise.

Jennie: Okay, don't make me cry.

Bridget: Big, big, big. Thank you, Jennie. Um, and I, I do also, if I may, I would also like to name the co-authors of this report.

Jennie: Yes, please. Cause they're all wonderful.

Bridget: Really truly, uh, Maniza Habib, Vina Smith-Ramakrishnan. And, um, like I said, I'm so happy to be the one to talk to you today, Jennie, but none of this would been, uh, possible at all without their amazing contributions. So truly a big thank you to, to them.

Jennie: All of you. Yes, thank you all. You were wonderful. It was wonderful working with all of you to get the report together. But like, seriously, Bridget, thanks me for like what I did, but I know how much work they all put into it, especially Bridget to make this happen. It is a big report. It took so much work and blood, sweat, and tears, and, it's an amazing product and they did a fabulous job.

Bridget: Thank you, thank you so much.

Jennie: Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Bridget. I had so much fun talking to her. I, I have to say, like my favorite thing about the podcast is when I get to talk to amazing people, but I get to show off how amazing and smart my friends are. And so today was really, uh, an exciting day to get to show off how smart and wonderful Bridget is to everybody. So I am glad she's shone so bright today. So thank you Bridget.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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