Need Help Getting an Abortion? r/abortion Has Answers

Abortion information, policies, and access are always changing. Ariella Messing, founder and Executive Director of the Online Abortion Resource Squad (OARS), sits down to talk with us about the r/abortion subreddit, a landscape of constantly shifting information, and navigating abortion mis- and disinformation on the internet.

 The Online Abortion Resource Squad was born of a Slack channel and has since shifted to run the abortion subreddit, r/abortion. OARS has provided information throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, after the passage of Texas’s SB8, and after the Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Volunteers, including moderator volunteers who are on for 12-hours a day, undergo intensive training and point those seeking assistance on r/abortion towards information and resources.

Links from this episode

Online Abortion Resource Squad
Online Abortion Resource Squad on Twitter
Online Abortion Resource Squad on LinkedIn
r/abortion on Reddit

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Transcript

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

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Hey rePROs! How's everybody doing? I'm your host Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, I am recording this on Thursday because I'm off tomorrow, and then Monday's the holidays. That means I have a four-day weekend coming up and I am pretty excited, and I have nothing planned and I am very excited about that. Probably we'll do some baking? Yeah, dunno about that. We'll see. But mostly it's gonna be pretty chill. I have some things I need to do to prep before a trip that I have coming up, but yeah, I'm just really looking forward to a quiet, chill weekend. And you know, honestly, with that I have kind of a long interview that I'm so excited for y'all to hear this week. But yeah, so I think I'm just gonna cut out the chit chat and jump right to the interview. I'm so excited to have on the podcast today Ariella Messing with the Online Abortion Resource Squad to talk to us about misinformation and the amazing work that OARS is doing on the r/abortion subreddit. Y'all, it is such amazing work and I am so grateful to have Ariella here to talk about all of the amazing things that OARS is doing. So with that, let's just hop right into my conversation with Ari. Hi Ari. Thank you so much for being here today!

Ariella: Hi, thank you for having me.

Jennie: Before we get started, do you wanna take a quick second and introduce yourself, including your pronouns? Okay.

Ariella: My name is Ariella Messing, or Ari for short, and my pronouns are she/her. I'm here on behalf of the Online Abortion Resource Squad, also known as OARS, which I founded and am now the executive director. And we're in the business of abortion information accuracy, clarity, and accessibility. And so, as part of that, we run the abortion subreddit. R/Abortion is a public discussion board hosted on Reddit where people from all over the world go every day to get information about how to access abortion or to process their abortion emotions or to ask medical questions or to seek out community about their abortion.

Jennie: I'm so excited to dig into this and I find it so fascinating, but I think maybe before we get to that part, let's just take a quick step back and just talk about, like, the sea of misinformation that people are having to navigate around abortion. Yeah, like, there's just so much going on right now and it's hard to make sure you're getting correct information.

Ariella: Yeah, so I think that it's something that's true in general about everything, but it's extra difficult to navigate abortion information. So, like, I'll give you- and so, like, anytime people I know, at least anytime I need information about pretty much anything, I go to Google, I write something in, and the results are often either SEO driven or they're all based off of the same random piece of information that was published years ago. Or, like, even just yesterday, I was looking up, like, in New York City, where can you donate winter clothing for migrants? It was astounding how difficult it was to find updated information just in a clear way. If you want to donate, here are your options. Instead, it was a mess of broken links and outdated information that then was corrected further down, and I didn't get an answer in the end and it felt very frustrating. And take that with abortion, which is highly stigmatized information and policies are constantly changing and there's also intentional disinformation about this. While there, you know, if we keep on with the comparison, like, I don't think there's intentional disinformation about where to donate winter coats, but there is about abortion. So, you have to navigate misinformation, outdated information, just unhelpful information and details and then disinformation. And so, it gets really difficult to navigate and add in the stress that people feel and the urgency as well as the lack of, you know, a lot of people, no matter how pro-choice their friends and family are, or they feel, you know, isolated when they maybe need an abortion and- in a way that they don't, let's say if they need a recommendation for, you know, a primary care doctor or if they need knee surgery if you need knee surgery, you probably feel more comfortable posting online or asking around, "hey, does anyone know of a knee surgeon?" But for abortion, people unfortunately live in a world where that's not something that most people do. And so, it feels extra important to have that be available on the internet. And I know that for myself and for many people I know, there's sort of this internet meme about do you add the word Reddit to the end of your Google questions? Because that will take you to Reddit where you'll find more specific and niche communities where people are actually answering with, like, experience. Like if you ask like, what are the best XYZ restaurants in this place, you're gonna get an SEO answer. But if you ask on Reddit in that city's subreddit, you're gonna get answers from real people. And so, that's what we are trying to do is to make sure that when people do that kind of Googling, go to Reddit, they are getting really helpful responses.

Jennie: There's something that I hadn't been thinking about, like, in the front of my brain, but as you're talking about, like, where do you go when you need help and Google and just thinking of the challenges of finding the right combination of words to get the information you need. And if abortion isn't something you're super familiar with, you might not have the language that'll get you to the right places. Meanwhile, navigating the disinformation and misinformation that's out there, like, it really is hard to find the right information when you're just Googling.

Ariella: Yeah. And if you Google, what you're often going to find is also news articles, policy things like stories from all sorts of places, you know, companies that are trying to advertise to you. And it is difficult because those are targeted at different audiences. And it's one of the main issues that I see with pro-choice, you know, pro-abortion resources on the internet, is that they're often not clear about who their target audience is and who they're aiming at. And not even just explicitly, but I feel that they often- I try to help organizations and people make sure that their content- that they are clear to themselves on who their audience is and who they're prioritizing and getting out the information that helps that person understand rather than putting things in political context or you know. And so, when you Google, even if you knew, like, let's say you Googled like "how to get an abortion in New York City," you might get all these articles about the New York City abortion access hub, or you might get companies that provide abortion services on the internet in New York, or you might get articles about the RHA from 2019, and so you're not getting, like- but what people often want when they write in how to get an abortion in New York, what they want is somebody to say, step one, do this, step two, do that. And then also to understand what else they need to know. And, like, people often, myself included, like we don't often know what we wanna know, like, so we might ask one question and we want an answer to a different one. And so, on Reddit, people sort of- they tend to write often a long post with a lot of details. Sometimes the details are focused on things that aren’t as necessary for the story as other details which are missing, or they ask a very short question without any context. And so, when I train volunteers to provide support on Reddit, a lot of that work is about trying to ascertain, like, what are the questions that people are really asking or what do they really need to know and how is that different from what you read explicitly and how can we provide high quality support, not just answers to questions.

Jennie: I'm so excited to talk about what you do with the r/abortion thread because Reddit is, like, this whole other world that I have never explored and it's so foreign to me, but I love the work that you are doing and I'm so excited to have this conversation. So, let's talk a little bit more about the r/abortion and what you guys are doing.

Ariella: Yeah, so r/abortion, I did not create it. It existed for a long time and in around 2019, in the spring of 2019, I sort of stumbled upon it. I was a casual Reddit reader, lurker as they call. I didn't really comment anywhere, but I often, you know, looked up different subreddits for personal information or yeah, I don't know, like, about anything. But I stumbled on the abortion subreddit and what I saw was that people were asking questions, like, real practical, like, I have an abortion next week, but I don't know how to pay for it or I don’t know what to do. They said there's an abortion fund. What is that? Like, things that were real or like, there's no Planned Parenthood where I live, so what do I do? And these were real questions that have, like, solid simple answers that I knew and I was like, why are these, like, they're just sitting there, like, people sometimes were getting really good answers, but often they were getting a lot of, like, meh answers is what I would call it. So, it's like, I need an abortion, what do I do? Call Planned Parenthood. And I'm like, right, that is not helpful. And so it was very uneven and I remarked to someone I knew from the repro world Kate Bertash of the Digital Defense Fund, I said to her like, why aren't organizations putting together resource guides? Because it's true. Like, you just have to sort of know what you're looking for on the internet already. Like why isn't there just a go-to guide? And also why isn't a big organization just, like, answering these questions? Like, at the time I was very involved as an abortion fund volunteer. And so, I knew things from that perspective, from the perspective of someone taking in the calls from people who already contacted us because they contacted a clinic and then they were told to call us. And so, they had already found us. And so, I didn't know about, like, what was the experience, like, of all these other people who hadn't yet reached us. And so I started to see that like, whoa, and like, all these people don't even know about these resources. And at the time there were, there are a lot of resources that I now know of that feel, like, very, you know, kitchen sink to me that I didn't know at in 2019 because I just, again, was on a different side of the equation, but what I saw was like, okay, people aren't don't know about any of these. Like, what's the point if the people aren't able to access them or don't know about them? And also, like, it was early May, 2019 when, which is when Alabama passed the first abortion ban. It wasn't- it didn't go into effect but caused, like, a lot of mass panic online. And what I saw was, like, a lot of people who wanted to help, but not a lot of ways to- but not a lot of people being able to say like, okay, here's what you can do to help. And then what happens in response is, like, you know, this happens every once in a while is, like, then people are like, okay, let's start new organizations. And then people at current organizations are, like, please don't do that. Please join the ones that exist. But then, like, no one has the capacity to take on all of those new volunteers or, like, or especially not to take on the kinds of volunteers that want to do things that your organization doesn't actually want to do, like house people in their homes, et cetera. And so, I just felt like, oh wow, we have all these people who wanna help and then they're like, don't have the information or skills necessary. And then, we also have all these people that I know who are, like, abortion fund volunteers and or work at clinics and all this stuff, and they have all this hyper local and specific knowledge that's just sort of living in their own brains, but it's not being shared. And to be honest, I didn't even really think through it often that much. I just said to Kate, like, why isn't anyone answering these questions? And she's, like, I mean, we can. And she set up a slack and from that day on, like, I think it was May 3rd, 2019, we just said, we'll answer, we'll make sure everyone gets the answers that they need. And it's, you know, developed and evolved a lot since then and has a lot more people coming to it. And we have much stricter rules now, but in essence we've just said no one gets left there without the support that they need. And we stuck with it. I've never, we've never stopped, we never took a day off, we never took an hour off. Last month in December, we had, according to Reddit's data, 93,000 individuals sought out support or at least we're reading the subreddit with over 1 million hits in that month. And yeah, people are coming more and more and relying on us more and more. I've heard of people being told by their clinics to reach out to us, which I see as, you know, a compliment as, like, evidence that we're doing a good job and also a seriously disappointing reflection on this world in which we live and that the support that people are getting from many of the resources that ought to be providing it.

Jennie: I, just, this is just such amazing and important work. Like, I'm just thinking of people going there that have questions and dunno where to turn and, and y'all are able to point them with helpful resources and walk them through the process or the answers they need. And I, it just, it's changing lives and it's such important work.

Ariella: I'll confess that, like, it started out as just, you know, the thing I did a little bit on the side and it's a little bit addictive, right? Because especially if you're someone who really likes work where you can fix problems, which- I'm a person who likes that. I see a problem and I cannot just leave it alone. I've been guilty of, like, giving unsolicited advice to lots of people in lots of situations where I shouldn't, but if it's, like, physically impossible for me to be like, this is how- like, to see someone ask a question that I know the answer to and not answer it. And so, it just became a bigger and bigger thing in my life until it became my full-time job. But I do think we are changing...it's hard to see because I do it every day. Yeah. But it's now been, you know, it'll be five years in May and I really do believe in this work now, and I really do believe that we're not just, like, providing immediate support to people—which I don't mean to say “just” because it's really important on its own—but I'm seeing very clear evidence that we're making also bigger long-term impacts on in the field, which is pretty cool.

Jennie: That's pretty amazing. I think the next thing that makes me think of is like, so you've been doing this work since 2019. I'm sure there was a huge shift with the Dobbs decision. Like, how has that impacted, or like what challenges or changes were you seeing with that on the subreddit?

Ariella: Yeah, so the Dobbs decision definitely did change things, but not necessarily...it changed a scale of things. But I think we had sort of two rounds of big changes before that. So, the first one was COVID. So, from March until about July of 2020, and then again October of 2020 to like to mid, you know, January or February 2021, things were bananas. Because in March, well, the whole world was just, you know, collapsing. But there were as many as, like, 14 maybe- I want to say- states that were trying to use the pandemic to close down abortion clinics. And they were often- like, the law was changing minute by minute so it would be a ruling from a judge—they would say, you have to open the clinics and then the clinics would possibly be opening the next morning, but then they would've to close in the afternoon. And so, things were in so much flux that nobody knew what to do. And also that no one was updating information online. That was when I first made, like, the first couple days of the pandemic, I kept saying, like, okay, but why is there no one compiling this information so that there's, like, one place you can go and see, like, hey, this state clinics are open, the state clinics are closed. What do you do if they're closed? And whenever I would ask someone if they were going to do that, they would say oh yes, like, our NARAL page says that. And I'm like, yes, the NARAL page for your state. Like, you can't expect people to know about these resources. If they're the person that's going to go on the NARAL website for their state to get this information, like, I'm not sure that's the person you need to be targeting. You know, I Need An A was also doing a good job at this, especially if you looked up your state, but no one was just giving, like, a step-by-step, here's what you do by the way, you can still get an abortion even when there's a pandemic. We are going to make this work. And I said, okay, I'll just make the website. And so I set up like covidabortion.com and I just put, like, okay, don't freak out. You can still get an abortion. Here's what we're going to do. And then I listed, like, anytime there was an update, I put like, this has been updated on this date. I was updating, like, hundreds of times a day and it was listing, like, these are the states where this is happening and just as clearly as humanly possible. And then, I had a step by step for what you do if you're in a different state or if you're in those states. And also, like, how do you get birth control pills if you can't? People were moving around, right? Like, moving in with your parents all of a sudden, or you were in college and then you had to go home and nobody knew how to get medicine because you couldn't go to the pharmacy and it was just, like, there were practical issues, right? A lot of practical concerns that they couldn't wait. And so, I just made a website with that information and it was, like, we were getting, like, thousands of hits a day. And then the second thing that changed with COVID is that Aid Access couldn't send pills from India and Aid Access was still sort of like ramping up at the time. They started in like 2018, but they were getting pretty popular by 2020. And so, and at the time they were sending all their pills from India and India stopped exports. There were no shipments leaving India. And there was a lack of communication, clear communication about when that was going to change. First, they said, like, two weeks. Everybody said two weeks. We were just going home for two weeks. But nobody knew what would happen and the pills were at that time before COVID were taking like three-ish weeks to come anyway. And so, it's a lot of time to be waiting. So, that's when Plan C sort of exploded with popularity because people were going there and they had a list of other vendors where you could purchase pills on the internet, but those sites were also getting shut down multiple times a day. And so, it was changing by the minute. And so, that's when we really had to buckle down and figure out what we were going to tell people, how they should navigate things. And then that's when also, like, people- it was, like, a vast shift from people going to clinics to people self-managing and self-managing without instructions. A lot of the websites that sell pills, like, send really wrong directions if they send any at all. So, that's when the first shift also happened to, like, okay, we have to tell everyone in different states, different things based on where they are, so like, let's get organized on that. And then we also need to, like, get in alignment about helping people with the tiny details of self-management. And then the second shift was Texas's SB8 and navigating both telling people, like, correcting misinformation about so-called bounty hunting and what's legal to do and then helping people in Texas navigate where to go. And then it turned into Oklahoma as well. And so it's really been a stepwise shift, a stepwise changes, like, not really…just, like, one day to the next, the changes, but every time that something big happens or a state passes some bill, even if it doesn't go into effect, we see our numbers rise, we see the panic rise on Reddit, we see the confusion. And that's why I really harp on like journalists to be more careful with how they use their words and how they describe things and with sort of these, like, flashy tweets that are meant to elicit clicks because what happens when people read that is that then they share that information and it goes viral, but it doesn't help anybody, right? Like, it's so important to say, like, in the same tweet, not four tweets down the thread that, like, abortion is still legal in the state. Here's how you get one. I am always harping on everybody to understand the difference between the language in the about what the gestational limit is and what it actually means. And so, it doesn't matter if the bill says 20 weeks because they are defining pregnancy as 20 weeks post fertilization. So, that's 22 weeks. Like, those details matter because when people are 19, 20 weeks and they think, oh no, I can't get an abortion anymore, it's really important for those people to know, yes, you can. And so, like, all of these things have just gotten amplified and the volume has increased tremendously of course, but it's mostly the complexity that's changed after COVID. Like, it used to be, like, someone would say like, how do I get an abortion in my state? And it was very much, like, were a lot of routine things. It was like, yeah, you go on, I Need An A or Abortion Finder. You search your clinic if you need money, you ask, and then they help you call an abortion fund. And now, it's people posting, like, posting a complex story about, like, having to pay for, you know, aid access and not having the money and then being like, hold on, okay, first did you take a pregnancy test? Because, like, a lot, especially young people or, like, teenagers, often haven't, are not at risk of pregnancy or, you know, the stress is high. Or like, then, okay, but what state do you live in? Okay. Do you have health insurance? Okay. You live in the state of California. I know you don't want your parents to know. Okay. We can get you enrolled in Medi-Cal, you don't need to go this way. Or oh, you actually want to go to a clinic it sounds like because you don't want to do this at home, like, let's help you get to a clinic. And people have, like, really complex situations that we have to help them navigate, especially later care is much more complex now. But there's just, like, a lot more moving pieces and you have to have a deeper knowledge of each state and each service has really tiny details that are important to understand. So, I give all the kudos in the world to my volunteers who have been incredible. When I started this- when, after Dobbs, we said like, okay, you're going to have to do a few, like, two shifts a week; the shifts were six hours, but we said you'd only have to spend like an hour of the six online. That has changed dramatically. Now we have volunteers doing three hour shifts, they have to be on the whole three hours and there are volunteers doing as many as four shifts a week. There are moderator volunteers who are on 12 hours a day and they've had to learn so many details and such complex things. Like, sometimes I have to remind them like, you are not a physician and you do not need to know all this. You need to, like, you need to be able to spot when things are abnormal and be able to tell people where to go or what to conduct and serve as a triage. But basically the volunteers are just incredible. Like, we desperately need to train more and we have a lot of people interested in it. And I've been putting it off because unfortunately, like, training more volunteers is a huge undertaking. They need, like, our current volunteers have done a lot of their like learning on the job, so to speak. And I've had, and that has been possible because I have spent the last two years of my life, like, glued to my laptop, giving feedback and support to them and being very on top. But that is not a system that is long term. They need more training. New volunteers will need more training before they get started. They will need more resources to reference and more processes in place to make that happen. And to do that, we just need more staff. And so, it's a chicken and egg situation of, like, we can't get more staff until I have more money to pay staff. But also 'm spending a lot of time doing things like supporting volunteers instead of getting, doing fundraising because yeah, one of the things feels more urgent than the other. But the volunteers, I just want to say, like, are incredible. I'm so proud of them and probably don't tell 'em enough how amazing they are, but also just, like, they're spending so much time and giving so much of their lives. Like, they are parents, they are professors, they're lawyers, they volunteer for lots of other abortion organizations and they are giving so much of themselves to do this. And it's not just that it's hard work and also time-consuming. It really does tax you emotionally. It's hard to witness and to feel responsible for this amount of alleviating, this amount of suffering and trying to help people through really difficult moments in their lives and affirming them and explaining that this is not their fault. This is- they deserve better than this. You know? We try to make sure that everyone on the subreddit understands, like, a) feels has the information that they need, but b) feels emotionally supported and c) understands that it shouldn't be this way, without allowing the conversations to head down a path of, like, political ranting and et cetera. But to say, like, yeah, you should be able to get an abortion where you live, easily paid for. This should not be a whole thing. This should not be so difficult. Like, people constantly post on Reddit saying things like I know I should be thankful that I live somewhere where abortion is still legal. And I'm like, no. Like, you do not have to feel grateful for that. That is so far- like, those are crumbs. Like, you deserve to have excellent medical care and to not feel alone and to not feel shame. And to also, like, not have to go to the internet, like, to Reddit strangers for medical advice, you know? But when you can't feel you can't even trust your doctors and honestly sometimes for good reason, not just because they're anti-abortion, like, I'm happy that more people, more providers are starting to add, like, abortion to their services or they'll be willing to prescribe. But we've encountered quite a lot of people who come to us because, like, they're, like, oh, well I was told to do this and this and it's not working. But then I started Googling and I'm finding that everyone else is using their pills quite differently than I was told. And unfortunately, a lot of those situations, the provider was wrong. And it's disappointing to see. And so people deserve better. Like, I'm happy that we're providing support, I think we're providing excellent support, but people deserve to be getting that kind of support from their medical providers, from their family, from their communities, and also if they want from Reddit. But like, it doesn't have to be this way and it doesn't- it's not perfect anywhere, I'll tell you that.

Jennie: No.

Ariella: Nowhere in the world.

Jennie: I have to say. Like, I was really impressed. And just every time I see you talking about the work that OARS does, like I'm always so impressed, but like after this conversation and hearing about all of the amazing work, like, I'm just in awe, y'all are doing such wonderful work and it's so great to be able to talk about it and share it here. So, before we wrap up, let's go to my usual ending and talk about: what can the audience do? What right now, what can my audience do to help?

Ariella: Okay, so the first thing I always say the best way that everyone can be helpful is by first making sure that they're, like, if you think of yourself in, like, circles of your personal self, your family, then your close friends, your workplace, make sure...first, it doesn't matter if you personally are capable of getting pregnant or not. No matter what your sex is, your age, whatever, if you care about this, go right now and find out and make, consider it, like, okay, let's say you just got a positive pregnancy test. What would the steps be to get the care that you need? And make sure you're intimately familiar with that because don't tell me, like, oh, I would call Planned Parenthood. Like, do the work. Take it step by step. Try Googling, try finding, okay, where's the closest clinic? How much would it cost? Okay, then if you have health insurance, go look up, what does it cover? All of these things, because the best, you can only be helpful to others once you understand, like, your own situation. And then I tell people like, then your next step is the people in your life. So, if I had a dollar for every person that said, like, I think my mom or my best friend is pro-choice, but I don't wanna tell her that I need an abortion because I don't want her to judge me. And then, of course, there are these people who are like, I would never judge, you know, so make that clear in your lives. Like, bring up the say, like, I know how to get an abortion in this state and don't give it as an empty, like, a Facebook thing of, like, anyone can stay with me. Like, say it to, like, talk about this with your family, with your friends. If you have kids, tell your kids it's not just that I support the right to abortion; if you ever need an abortion or one of your friends does, you can come to me, I'm a resource. And then, actually be a resource. Like, actually know your stuff. And then, let's, you know, let's say you have employer-based health insurance and you find out details about its coverage or lack thereof of abortion, like, then that's when you can start, you know, change. Like, talking about making changes, right? You can only make changes once you know the situation. When I was a student at UHS Hopkins, I found out that the student health plan at the arts and sciences and engineering campuses did not cover abortion, but the student health plans and the employer health plans, the employee health plans at the other at that campus...sorry, the student plans health plans at the medical campus did cover abortion and this, the employee health plans at all campuses covered abortion, which means it wasn't, like, a political thing, it wasn't intentional, it was just like, it was just not covering it. And that's a problem, right? And so, with some effort and a lot of pestering, that got changed and what they said was like, oh yeah, it was an oversight. It was an oversight, but there were many years of this and that is a problem and oversights affect people's lives. And so, now all the student plans and all the employer plans do cover abortion at the university. And then the next step was making that known. And then, and giving clear steps about how to do that, how to use it, how to get privacy on your plan, like, and I can go on and on, but finding out, making sure you've got your details straight in your own state. Then, you have to learn about resources. Like, you don't have to know everything about abortion, but you do have to know, like, where to point people. And one of the biggest reasons I see people go to r/abortion is because there's a flood of information, even if it's all good, like being told, like, six different websites to go to to learn about SMA is not helpful in particular because a lot of those websites are about, like, learning about how to teach about SMA, they're not directions for how to provide it, as well as things, like, some of them use have conflicting information. So, I'll give you this example. Women First Digital has two separate websites that they're responsible for and that they made. One is HowToUseAbortionPill.org and another is SafeToChoose.org. And they serve slightly different purposes, but How To Use Abortion Pill, I see it listed all the time for people in the US but it gives you a set of instructions for how to use abortion pills that has not been updated to reflect the current evidence base. So, it tells you to use only four pills of misoprostol after the mifepristone, even up to 13 weeks when the best protocols in the United States, like, the most updated protocols and the research shows that if you're nine weeks pregnant or more, you should take a second dose of four misoprostol. And so, giving people too much information can often just lead them down more confusion. So, become familiar with the resources and don't send people down at wild goose chase. And I also tell people like, one of the best things you can do for my volunteers, but for everyone is know when you're out of your depths and learn to say that and to say, I don't know the answer, but I'll help you find it. Or I know who might know and I will tell you to contact them. Don't give your guesses, your conjectures about arrests across state lines. Maybe one day, like, that is dangerous. Learn to say, you know what? I don't know how to do this, but I will help you figure it out. That's all you need to be able to do and to know, like, who's the next level up? And I say it all the time—I am not a lawyer and these are very complex details, but here's a phone line for that. But not to just say, when anyone has a legal question, give them the legal number because not all the questions need to be answered by a lawyer who's prioritizing urgent cases, right? So, learning to assess, like, what resources to give people. And then, so if people do that, that helps us, right? Because we have to do less work because people are getting support from people they know. And then if you're a Redditor specifically, like if you're someone who uses Reddit, please, if you see someone who needs abortion help send them to r/abortion. Unfortunately, people on Reddit often get sent on wild goose chases or get sent to other subreddits. It's enormously helpful to have people referring them to us so that we don't have to go searching for them. And then if you want to help, like, more specifically, what we need ultimately is money so that we can hire staff but also hire, like, experts. So, I, right now, am the only staff person at OARS. And it's not the best. Like, I should hire a computer developer, a computer programmer, instead of trying to teach myself how to, like, create these apps that will help us, right? That's an example, but like, that's not my area of specialization. It's not an efficient way to do things. And so, what we need is money. And that doesn't mean, like, you don't have to be able to give, but what you like most people can do is say, huh, I can give $25, but lemme also find four friends to give $25. Explain to them why I think this is important and then ask them to find four friends, right? Or on our Act Blue page, you can also sign up to fundraise on our behalf. You can set a goal of $500 or anything you want and then send an email to your friends and say, I think this is an organization that you should support and here's why. And those small donations are what we run on right now. We are running entirely on small donations and right now we have about $4,000 a month from people who are signed up to give monthly donations. And then we usually get a couple thousand more in one-time donations. So, if we could get a few thousand more in monthlys, like, that would make a huge difference for us to be honest. And so that is doable and people can help us do that. If you can help find three friends who are not in the repro space but would be wanting to give 25 each. And then lastly is learn the laws where you live and not just what the laws, but also what the access is. And then, start thinking about changes. Talk to your doctor, ask them if they provide abortions, ask them why not start making changes in your own community because there is no state in the United States where access is amazing. Where things are perfect. I can give you a list for every single state in this country. You name a state and I'll give you a list of policies that need to change and ways that things can be better. And it's not just about legislation, it's also about individuals.

Jennie: Ari, thank you so much. One, you've convinced me to do my irregular donating to OARS to change it to a monthly donation. I hope people will join me. And just thank you for being here. It was so lovely to talk to you.

Ariella: Thank you for having me. It's nice to talk about OARS in this kind of way, it kind of energizes me to do that and not to get into the weeds of individual issues I'm having about solving problems.

Jennie: Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Ari. I had a great time talking to her. And y'all, I am just in awe of all of the amazing work that OARS is doing. I think they are just really tackling something so important to make sure that people are getting accurate information so that they can navigate this web of chaos to try and get access to abortion care. And it is just such important work. And you know, I definitely- if you can support OARS, I do and it would be really wonderful if you could join in and donate to them because I know they could use the help. And I guess with that, I will see all of you 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!