Let's Talk About Why Gestational Bans and Exceptions Need to Go

Abortions later in pregnancy can occur for a variety of reasons, and the later in pregnancy an abortion is needed, the more barriers patients face in accessing care. Many people in the U.S. who are seeking an abortion are also struggling to piece together resources to pay for care which pushes the timeline for access back farther each week. Dr. Diane Horvath, OBGYN, and Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Partners in Abortion Care, sits down to talk with us about the truths and misconceptions about abortions later in pregnancy.

Gestational bans and “exceptions” within abortion law are common barriers that prevent people who are early in their pregnancy from accessing care and increase stigma. These barriers disproportionately impact those who are already most marginalized in accessing abortion care—including BIPOC, LGBTQI+ folks, young people, people with disabilities, and more. No matter what, abortion is healthcare and should be accessible when it is required. No one other than the pregnant person should be able to make a decision about when they access an abortion, especially if external factors have proved difficult to hurdle.

Links from this episode

Dr. Diane Horvath on Twitter
Partners in Abortion Care
Partners in Abortion Care Merchandise
Brigid Alliance
Midwest Access Coalition
Who Not When

Take Action

Transcript

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

Read More

Hi rePROs! How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter and my pronouns are she/her. Sorry, y'all my cat almost fell off my [laughs] desk while I was doing my intro. She's just sheer grace. Okay. Any who...so, I'm like, I cannot believe it is fall. I am just so ready for it. I think, like, my love of fall goes back to when I was little. We used to go to Wisconsin football games, and so, like, there was just, like, all of this fun stuff associated with fall. So, I still have, like, all of this nostalgia for all of the things fall, even though I don't really watch football so much anymore. But it's still the change of seasons this time of year just brings me happiness thinking of all of the warm, cozy drinks and the food. Y'all, the food. I'm a really big soup person and so, like, I can eat it all year, but like, there are some that maybe I don't eat in the summer and things. So, thinking of all of the fall soups and, like, the warm, gooey cinnamon rolls I feel in my head are more fall-y. Just, like, all of the fall delights. I am ready. So, I guess it means I need to start thinking about what some of my fall bakes are going to be. I'm thinking of going to an orchard and get some fresh apples soon. So, there's gonna definitely be probably an apple crisp in my near future. I will let y'all know. And just all sorts of delights like that. It just makes me feel warm and cozy and happy and like curling up with a good book. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So yeah, that's, that's where my head is at at the moment. And you know, last week I said my thoughts were on banned books and what I wanted to read for Banned Books Week. This week my focus is on spooky season reads, so I have a bunch of fun like witchy romances picked out and things like that. But I need a good scary, spooky season read. Does anybody have any good suggestions? I feel like I've read a lot of the, like, big ones that I was excited to read, like The Shining and things like that, but I want, I would love, like, a good ghost one or something really atmospheric scary. So, if you have any suggestions, let me know. You can shoot me an email at jennie@reprosfightback.com or you can reach out to us on social at @reprosfightback on Facebook and Twitter and @reprosfb Instagram. Or you can shoot me a note on my socials, which is @JennieinDC on Twitter or @allbooksandbread on Instagram where I have my bookstagram account. Yeah, anything like that. If you have a good spooky season read, I would love to hear it. It's the thing that makes me happy. I think with that, we'll just turn to this week's interview. I am very, very excited. We talked to Dr. Diane Horvath. She is an OBGYN abortion provider at an all-terms clinic. I am very, very excited to talk to her about abortions later in pregnancy and have a really wonderful conversation talking about the problems with the various bans, around gestational bans, and why exceptions are problematic and all the things. It was a wonderful conversation. Let's go to my conversation with Diane. Hi Diane! Thank you so much for being here today.

Diane: Thanks for inviting me! Happy to be here.

Jennie: I'm very excited to talk to you. But before we get started, do you wanna take a quick second and introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Diane: Sure. My name is Diane Horvath. I use she/her pronouns, and I'm the co-founder and chief medical officer at Partners in Abortion Care, which is an all-trimester clinic in College Park, Maryland. And I'm an OBGYN with complex family planning training.

Jennie: And like, before we even get into the interview too, they have super cute merch right now y'all, we'll make sure to include the link in the show notes, but there's a really cute t-shirt that I have been- keep meaning to buy but haven't bought yet. And maybe this will finally, like, flag, I need to go buy it, but it's super cute. Okay. So, there's so much, like...anti-abortion just, like, permeates the atmosphere. It's just, like, you kind of steep in it, whether you know you're taking it in or not. And so, it felt like a good place to start was to talk about abortion later in pregnancy. And I think there's just so many misconceptions around it. It's particularly in the media that maybe it's a good place to talk about why it's important and what it means and dispel some of the bad language we hear around it.

Diane: Yeah, that, no, that's a huge topic. It comes up every time there's a debate. People really scapegoat folks who need abortions later in pregnancy and the people who provide them. And I think, you know, nobody ever thinks they're gonna need an abortion later in pregnancy until they do or until someone they love does. And then you a hundred percent need it. People have abortions later in pregnancy for all kinds of reasons. A lot of them are the very same reasons people have abortions earlier in pregnancy. But some of the factors that can affect whether or not someone is able to access care earlier are kind of two streams. One stream is people who get new information at a later point in the pregnancy. So, that includes late discovery of pregnancy, which is a thing. And I know people really have a hard time believing that someone could not know they were pregnant, but I'm telling you that it happens all the time. We have abysmal sex education in this country, and we don't teach people how to recognize signs of pregnancy. Some people have no signs of pregnancy, they don't get any symptoms, they never get nauseated, they never get breast tenderness, any of the things that we associate with knowing that you're pregnant. And some people don't have, you know, the access to care to be diagnosed. Some of these folks are children, they're very young and maybe they don't have regular periods, and so they can't use that as a marker for whether or not they're pregnant because their cycles were never regular. There’s also other information people can come across later in pregnancy that has to do with the status of the fetus. So, fetal health, maternal health, and then certainly things like some occurrence happening in your life. So, I had a patient a number of years ago who had an abortion later in pregnancy and her house had burned down and she had lost everything. And it was like that was what changed her perspective on the outcome of this pregnancy was that she had lost everything in her life and could not continue to be pregnant at that time. And so, it's things like that that people come across. There's another stream of people who have been trying to have an abortion since early in pregnancy because research shows pretty clearly that when someone decides they want an abortion or they need one, they want to have it right away. So, nobody is waiting around until 35 weeks and saying, "oh, I'm just tired of being pregnant. I think I'll have an abortion." That is an absolute fantasy that's been used to demonize people. But what we do know also is that when people decide they need an abortion and they live in a state or near a state where access is so restricted, that this web of restrictions and bans and barriers can contribute to delay. So, imagine that you find out you're pregnant at eight or nine weeks, which is a pretty common time to find out. And you decide, "you know what? I need an abortion." And you try to get one, but you live in Texas or you live in Oklahoma and now you have to leave the state or self-source your abortion. And some people self-managing their abortion is just not for them. And I totally understand that. And we need to maintain clinic access for folks who need to be in a clinic. So, you know, you try to find your out-of-state place. You have a delay in getting money so that you can travel, you have to find childcare, you might have to hide it from your boss or your partner. And then you get to the place where you need to be and then you find out you're too late for that place and now you've gotta go rustle up another chunk of money and time and coverage for your kids and all of those things you had to do on the outset and then you get to the next place. Sometimes that place is five or six states away and sometimes you're too late for them when you get there. So, the clock doesn't stop once you know when these barriers come up. And the idea of these barriers and bans is to make this happen is to make it so that people can't get the care they need.

Jennie: Yeah, and all the bans interact with each other. You have waiting periods and all of these things that make it harder and push access to care further away. And then, the further away it gets, the more money you need to raise because the abortion got more expensive. Like it's just this insidious web that you can get caught in.

Diane: Yeah, and it's by design. I mean, the people who crafted these bans and these barriers know that the result is that people will not be able to get the abortions they need. So, this is absolutely part of the strategy to control the reproduction of pregnancy-capable people.

Jennie: Okay. Now that we know a little bit more about abortions later in pregnancy and we started talking about bans--there are gestational bans that we see in states, and you reference them--can we talk about why they're problematic? And yeah, why they're so problematic?

Diane: So, I think the question that you need to ask yourself, if you're one of the people that says, "well, I'm pro-choice, but you know, I'm uncomfortable with abortions later in pregnancy," or "no one should need an abortion after x number of weeks," the question you have to ask yourself is: "at what point in a pregnancy is the state more qualified to make decisions about your health than you are? Because that's what's happening. When we say that we're making a compromise, or we act like it's moderate to ban abortion at a particular point in pregnancy--and you just name your point because we've been pushing that point further and further forward in a lot of these laws. It's what point in pregnancy do you trust a legislature, a legislator, to know more about your life and what you need than you do? Because that's what gestational bans do.

Jennie: Yeah. It's one of those that I just feel like the conversation around it has been so frustrating of, like, finding this compromise time period that everybody can agree on when there is no agreeing on losing out on your bodily autonomy. But also, anti-abortion advocates aren't gonna be okay stopping there, even if there was some sort of magical agreement that everybody could, because nobody could- not everybody could agree.

Diane: And that's a really key point, also. The people coming to the table for this from the anti-abortion side are not engaging in good faith. They don't want what they call a "reasonable" limit on abortion. They want no abortions. And it's very clear time and time again in all kinds of places, in all kinds of situations and levels of government. Once they have one type of gestational ban in place, then another one comes. And the strategy has always been this incrementalism to get to the point where they can just say, you know, we got down to six weeks and everything's fine, so now we can just have a total ban. Like, that's the goal. The goal isn't to have a reasonable point, you know, what, what they're calling a reasonable stopping point. That has never been the goal.

Jennie: Right. And, like, the "reasonableness" of like...I just remember the, like, you start to lose the shock a little bit, right? Like, remember when the first quote-unquote "heartbeat" bans were passed which--horrifying name, not what you should call them, but, like, that's what people are more familiar with hearing--people were like, "what the hell, man? That could never happen." And now there are several states that have them in place. So, like, it starts to shift what feels reasonable when you get things like that happening.

Diane: Yes. And that's definitely part of the strategy. You know, you propose a six-week ban and everyone goes, "oh my God!" And then everybody gets angry and mobilizes to work against it, and then they say, "well, I guess six weeks is really extreme. How about a 15-week ban?" And that's how they get these passed. If they make them look reasonable, they shift that window of what normal looks like. And I think when you compare us to other places in the world, you know, this is a thing that the anti-abortion folks love to do too. They like to say things like, "well, in Europe there's a ban on abortion after 12 weeks or 15 weeks." That's not entirely true. So, a lot of the European abortion law allows for broad exceptions for things like we talked about. So, for folks that are young and, like, pregnant children for things like health, fetal health, maternal health and including mental health. So, the result is that abortions still happen past 15 weeks. They're just fit into the same categories that we're doing them for here. The other thing about Europe that's different that nobody ever wants to talk about is that a lot of places in Europe have wonderful universal healthcare systems. So, nobody is running into trouble where they can't pay for their abortion, where their insurance doesn't cover it. So, all those people that I mentioned that wanted an abortion early and couldn't muster the resources, they would be able to have them in an expedient way in Europe, which is partly why far fewer people need later abortions in European countries. So, it is an apples and oranges comparison. You cannot possibly say with our for-profit, horrible exploitive healthcare system that people have the same opportunities here to take, you know, to take action to end an unwanted or a mistimed pregnancy that they do in Europe. It's just a totally bananas thing. I always wanna say when people say, well, in Europe, it's like, yeah, when are you gonna bring us universal healthcare then? Because that's the thing that helps make this possible in Europe.

Jennie: It's just so much more accessible. Like yeah, same. It makes me wanna scream.

Diane: Yeah.

Jennie: So, we often hear talk about gestational bands in weeks, but I think another thing that people may be more familiar with, because it was part of Roe, is the idea of a viability ban. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Diane: Sure, yeah, that's, this has definitely come up and will continue to resurface when we talk about gestational bans. So, viability is a medical determination, so it's unique to each individual pregnancy. You cannot just say that "oh, pregnancies are viable at 24 weeks" because there's all kinds of circumstances in which that viability line moves. When we also talk about viability, we don't often remember we're talking about viability with, like, pretty extraordinary medical intervention. So, like, a fetus that's born at 23 weeks might survive, but not without pretty heroic effort and also not necessarily without long-term health consequences. So, viability is not as simple as the anti-abortion folks make it out to be. Surprise, surprise. And it is, like I said, unique to each pregnancy. The other thing about viability that I think is really important is that it's not like a magical line that you can draw where all of a sudden abortion is something we shouldn't be able to have. There are lots of reasons that people need abortions later in pregnancy, and those reasons are, you know, not necessarily even related to viability. And so, I think that the viability thing is kind of a smokescreen to try to get people to be emotionally inflamed by this. And it works. It totally works because people imagine a baby and they imagine, you know, oh well we're- this is like, you know, you could just deliver the baby and it would live, and it's really just not that simple. And again, which would you prefer you making decisions about your pregnancy, maybe with your healthcare provider or a politician who doesn't understand your life or your own circumstances, making decisions for you? And that is the question to go back to every time.

Jennie: This makes me think of the issue around language, right? Because it is meant to inflame--talking about viability or baby or late term abortion or heartbeat ban, right? They're all meant to evoke feelings of shame and stigma around abortion. So, you know, something we have talked about on the podcast numerous times is just the importance of language in these conversations and that it really does make a difference.

Diane: Yeah, I think that the phrase I want you to strike from your vocabulary, listeners, is "late-term abortion." It's just not a thing. It's not a medical term. The best way to talk about abortions later in pregnancy is abortions later in pregnancy or later abortions. So, late-term refers to at the end of a pregnancy, like close to 40 weeks. Late-Term is like a medically meaningless thing to say, and it's absolutely intended to get people upset.

Jennie: And I guess while we're dispelling myths, you wanna talk about, like, abortions after birth? Because that's been coming up in politics.

Diane: That's just not a thing. There's already laws against, you know, harming babies that are born like this isn't...it's very much intended to inflame emotions and to create this like bogeyman of something that's not happening. And like I said before, literally nobody is walking in off the street at 40 weeks and saying, "oh, I'm just tired of being pregnant. I think I need an abortion." It just doesn't happen.

Jennie: It's always important to shoot down this nonsense when we see it.

Diane: Yes, yes.

Jennie: So, the next thing that I was really thinking of is, like, in the news, since the loss of Dobbs, you've started seeing I think a little more engagement on this point of exceptions and showing how unworkable they have been post-Dobbs, but like that's always been the case, but now it's getting a little bit more attention. Can you talk about why exceptions are problematic?

Diane: So, there is not- it is not possible to craft legislation that can account for all of the things that can happen in a pregnancy and all of the thousands of variations you can have in people's lives because people's lives are really complex. So again, it comes back to the idea: at what point would you trust a legislator to understand what's happening with the circumstances of your particular pregnancy? When is that person more qualified to make decisions about it than you are working with your healthcare provider, perhaps? Exceptions cannot possibly cover all of the things that can happen to people during a pregnancy. And it's really dangerous to just try to say, "well, I guess we're okay with this one." It's like, then if you're okay with this, then the next time I see somebody, they're going to have something just slightly different from that. And then I'm going to have to think about, "will I be a felon if I take care of this person?" And we're seeing this happen in real time in places like Tennessee where affirmative defense is the policy. So, basically the idea is you can go ahead and take care of someone and do an abortion for them if it's their- you know, if you have to save their life or their health, but then you're automatically guilty and you have to prove that you're not.

Jennie: Oh my god!

Diane: So, and like nobody has time for that. Number one, we're we, there is a physician shortage in this country. There are whole areas of the country that have no OBGYN. So, you know, lots of people getting pregnancy care can be cared for by midwives and should be, and that's great. Midwives are definitionally low-risk providers. So, anybody with a high-risk pregnancy needs to see, like, a high-risk pregnancy physician. And there's whole chunks of the country. In fact, you can look at Idaho, this has just happened in Idaho, another maternity hospital closed because people are afraid of being prosecuted. And because it's a terrible place to be a physician because you don't know if what you're gonna, what you do to take care of people, which is the standard of care in a lot of cases, is going to be deemed illegal. And then you're going to go to prison, you're going to lose your license, and if you lose your license in one state, good luck getting licensed any place else. So, this isn't just about people's livelihoods, it's not just about whether or not you'll go to prison. It's about you don't get to help any patient ever again if you can't practice. So, this is also like the ecosystem being put at risk because of providers not feeling like they can give the standard of care to people.

Jennie: And it's so frustrating for so many reasons, but like, we already have a maternal health crisis in this country and like, one, getting rid of abortion on its own was gonna increase that. But now, like, having providers step back or step away, like that is just like a real recipe for danger.

Diane: Yeah. And it, you know, it can't be said enough that the harm of these bans falls disproportionately on people who are already really severely disproportionately harmed within our healthcare system or for lack of healthcare access. So, Black people, Brown people, young folks, LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, these are all groups of people that already experience massive disparities in care because of things like institutionalized and systemic racism., because of ableism, you know, because of homophobia and transphobia. And these bans that make these maternity care deserts, so pregnancy care deserts and also create this atmosphere of fear about how to take care of people. And if you can take care of them appropriately, you know, this is going to result in even worse outcomes for those particular groups of people. Because wealthy people are always going to be able to go somewhere to get care. And white people are always going to walk into a place and walk into a space that's designed for us, right? Like this is, that's what white supremacy is and what it does and protects us at the expense of everybody else. And I think, you know, the idea that people are going to be forced to continue pregnancies that they might have otherwise ended, a fair number of those are going to be high-risk pregnancies. And we know that the risk of dying in pregnancy and birth is far higher if you belong to one of the groups of people that are already harmed.

Jennie: This all just feels terrible, like for all the reasons. So, let's focus a little bit instead on like, how do we get out of this mess, right? Like, it just feels like a mess right now and there are so many people doing such good work on the ground, but like, how can we make sure that more people are able to access the care they need at a time when it's so important?

Diane: I think the biggest thing right now, because we are in a time where the legislative environment is not super favorable in a lot of places, I think that there's a couple things. One of them is give money to abortion funds. They're doing the work on the ground. They know what their communities need, you know, they're connected to where resources are available and not available. They know how to get people to save places. They're supporting people who manage their own abortions, which is becoming a lot more common, you know, by all of the research that's happened really shows that people are pretty innovative and they're doing their own abortions. And most of them are actually doing them very safely. So, abortion funds are really tapped into their communities, and they are incredible stewards of the resources that they get, and they make abortion happen for people. So, if you have money, give your money away. If you are somebody who doesn't have money, but you wanna raise funds, running fundraisers for your abortion funds is really good. Talking to, like, businesses in your community, progressive businesses and asking them to do, like, a benefit night where 20% of the profits go to a local abortion fund. And that only happens because people approach these places to ask. And they, and you know, if you're a loyal customer at your local bar or your local coffee shop and you think they might be supportive, that's a wonderful place to ask them because every couple of is, is the difference between being able to access care and not being able to access care. So, that's one thing I think we can do. Hold your elected officials' feet to the fire. I know that this- we have gerrymandered a bunch of places to hell and that is a horrible, huge problem. And I think, you know, seeing this as linked with civil rights, seeing this as linked with voting rights is really important. It's not just about abortion. This is a reproductive justice issue. It's about economics, it's about access to medical care like writ large. It's about, you know, being able to self determine what your community needs. It's about safe schools and all sorts of other things that make life livable for people. Particularly if we're gonna tell people, we're gonna force you to continue a pregnancy. You should be able to get good healthcare, you should be able to have childcare help so that you can continue to work and take care of your family. So, I think seeing this as part of a larger picture is necessary. And I think there's lots of folks who have been doing that. Certainly, the reproductive justice movement has seen that. But it has taken a long time for a lot of the like white feminists to understand that this isn't just about a choice. This is about your wellbeing and all of these other sectors and people's lives and all of these ways that affect reproduction and the choices that we make about families and how to build families. So, I think, you know, if you are feeling hopeless: get involved with people already doing the work, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. I, you know, I know that the sentiment behind these people saying things like, "well, you know, you can come camping at my house. Like, if you need to camp out of state, you can camp at my house." Listen, you know, Jan, nobody wants to stay in your basement. But if you have resources to give and time to give, you should reach out to your local abortion fund because I bet you, they have some things that you could work on or ways that you could help or take some initiative and use that, that righteous energy, which I get it. I see where it comes from. Use it to raise money, use it to raise awareness in your community. But you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I would really encourage people to look in your local community and see what's already happening because there are people doing this work.

Jennie: Yeah. And it's really important because it's already there, but also, it's trusted and people know that they're safe when they go through the funds in ways that like, you may have really good intentions, but you don't know about other people who are offering. Like, it's just not safe for people to do something like that. So yeah, really important to go with what's already built up.

Diane: And we had a really good example of this in our community. So, we've been incredibly lucky to have been welcomed into the community in which we're located. And we had a local synagogue reach out to us, a D.C. Synagogue who said, "we really want to do something for your patients. Is there anything that we could help with?" And I said, you know, we have a lot of people traveling from out of state. Sometimes they come with literally just the clothes on their back and, like, their purse because they're fleeing a bad situation or they don't have resources or like, they just could not, you know, muster, like getting everything together and also getting to us. And so, we have people who arrive who have really basic material needs, like deodorant and toothbrushes and you know, snacks. And like, we stock a lot of that stuff in the clinic for people. But it's a cost to us and it can get really expensive to kind of coordinate that and to put things together and like our staff are really busy taking care of patients. And so, sometimes, you know, that kind of thing is, like, a secondary priority. But the synagogue made it a priority and they made us like a hundred of these care packages, like little tote bags that are just plain old cute tote bags. So, nobody knows that you've been in a clinic, nobody knows that you're having an abortion, and they were filled with comfort items, like a heating pad, little fuzzy socks, like toiletries, some gift cards for local restaurants so people could feed themselves. I think that what it does for patients besides meeting a material need is it helps recognize dignity and the fact that like, we know you had to do a lot to get here, and we know that this can be a really dehumanizing process. We want to tell you that you matter, like we see you, you matter. And we have people that didn't even know who was going to get these bags, but they knew that they were needed, and they care about you. And it's something that you know, I think is missing from a lot of healthcare. And it was something I'm really grateful that our community has stepped into that role. Another amazing thing was that one of the student groups on campus, the pro-choice group at University of Maryland wrote love letters to our patients. They said, is there anything that we can do? And you know, they're college students, they don't have any money. And we said, you know, our patients are sometimes alone. Like they come by themselves, they don't have a companion, they're alone. Maybe they haven't even told anybody that they're coming. And you know, like, little notes of encouragement can be really helpful. And they wrote this beautiful stack of cards and sometimes when we have a patient who's kind of struggling, we're like, "hey, you know what? People at the university were thinking of you and they wrote you this little note." And it's just- it didn't cost anything. It was a lovely gesture. And it means a lot.

Jennie: Those are all amazing and I love the creative ways of getting involved. I know also some clinics, but a good place to look is Abortion Access Front has, like, places where you can see what you can do to help local clinics. And sometimes there are Amazon wishlists for things that you can send the clinic. I know I like to go in there every once in a while, and just send things to the clinics that they have on their wishlist because it's things like, like Diane was talking about, sometimes it's snacks, sometimes it's heating pads, sometimes it's emergency contraception. Like, there's been a whole variety of things that you can go to and find ways that you can support your local clinic.

Diane: Yeah, and I think, you know, people sometimes feel like if they can only do a little, that it's not enough or like, "oh, I don't want to send anything if it's only like a five-dollar gift card." That five dollars is the difference between somebody having something to eat and not. And we've had patients, like we had a patient who was so food insecure and had so little money that she was doing Instacart orders, like, she was filling Instacart orders on the date, like, the evenings between her three-day procedure. So, she's like, "is it okay if I drive tonight?" And we're like, "yeah, just as long as you don't take this like real strong pain medication and drive." And she's like, I, you know, "I'm gonna do some Instacart stuff so that I can make some money to eat." And so, that's what people are facing when they come. It's like, it's kind of unimaginable. Like, I've never heard, it never even occurred to me that somebody would need to do that in between the steps of their three-day abortion. So, yeah.

Jennie: I always love finding new ways to help. So, this has all been super helpful. Diane, thank you so much for being here. I really loved talking to you.

Diane: Thank you. Yeah. And if people- you know, I love that you mentioned the Amazon wishlist. If people want more ways to help you can look up things like the National Network of Abortion Funds to find your local fund. You can look in your community, you can ask around and you know, certainly I would say don't call your clinic necessarily, your local clinic because they're really busy. But I guarantee you there are people in the community who care about this like you do.

Jennie: Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Diane. I had a wonderful time talking to her. And yeah, so many fun ways to get involved. I'm glad she really went through all of the various ways to get involved in supporting abortion care, even if you don't have the ability to donate. She had a lot of great ideas. So, thank you Diane for all of that. And with that, I will see y'all next week. [music outro] 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 @RePROsFightBack on Facebook and Twitter or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and wanna make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you wanna make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprofightback.com. Thanks all!