The Midwest U.S.: Piecing Together Abortion Care and Access

The Midwest is a patchwork of different abortion laws—while some states like Michigan and Minnesota have protected access, others have completely banned care, like Indiana and Missouri. Garnet Henderson, Senior Multiplatform Reporter at Rewire News Group and host and producer of ACCESS: A Podcast About Abortion, sits down to talk with us about abortion access in the Midwest, including how it may be further impacted by recent funding changes to the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

People residing in or near states that have banned abortion often travel to Illinois for care (although some may also travel to states like Nebraska, Minnesota, and Kansas), which was the state with the single largest increase in its abortion rate after Dobbs due to out-of-state travelers. These states are having to absorb skyrocketing rates of traveling patients on top of in-state patients seeking care. Iowa’s abortion restrictions and abysmal access rates to OB/GYN care and maternity care has resulted in maternity care deserts across large swaths of the state, and a shocking 61% of hospitals in rural areas having no labor and delivery service. Simultaneously, the Justice Fund, a financial assistance fund for low-income patients which is shared between PPFA and NAF, has been reduced with less than a month’s notice from 50% coverage per patient to 30%. This leaves patients with an even more shrunken lifeline to access.

Links from this episode

Garnet Henderson on X
Garnet Henderson for Rewire News Group
ACCESS: A Podcast About Abortion
The Complicated State of Abortion Access Across the Midwest
Following National Funding Cuts, ‘July Was Pure Hell’ for Abortion Funds

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Transcript

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

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Jennie: Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host Jennie Wetter and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, I hope everybody had a lovely long Labor Day weekend. I am recording this before mine, so I'm very much looking forward to having a long weekend. I don't really have anything major planned. I have a meeting Friday afternoon with a friend, so it'll probably go from work meeting into, like, happy hour. So, that'll be a lot of fun. So, looking forward to that. And then, I feel like I've been fighting off a bug a little bit. Like, I've just been really tired the last couple days, so I think it's gonna be a really chill weekend otherwise, but I get, like, fruit of the month and I have all of these amazing peaches. They're so good and I'm not gonna be able to eat them all before they start, like, going from good to, like, a little gross. So I think I'm gonna make some peach cobbler this weekend. I think that is my big cooking weekend plan. So, very much looking forward to that. I'm still enjoying the ones I have right now, so good. Between the peaches and the nectarines, ugh, I love stone fruit season. It just makes me so happy. They're just, like, nothing says end of summer, like fresh peaches. So good. So, looking forward to that. And I think that's like all of the busy things I have planned for the weekend. Like, I think it's really gonna be chill and do some reading, maybe watch some movies, but otherwise, oh, and I'm getting my hair cut. I totally forgot about that. Not that y'all needed to know, but I just thought of it so, trying to remind myself so I don't forget. Otherwise, just looking ahead to the fall and the many things that I have going on and it just, it feels like gonna be just like kind of chaos, chaos for the next couple months of just so many things on my plate that are all moving at the same time which is fine, but it's just like a lot of things happening that I have to balance and we'll see how it, how it all goes. And with that, I think that's all I don't really have a ton of exciting going on. We do have some special guests that show up in the podcast and I'll make sure that we also share a picture. Cinder decided to voice her thoughts in a couple different places while we were recording. So since Garnet could hear her, I'm sure y'all will be able to hear Cinder as well. And I'll make sure that Elena shares some pictures of Cinder from before. She also got very involved in helping me do my research beforehand, also known as laid on my computer and on top of my notebook so I couldn't read Garnett's article in advance. Super helpful. And then she got all sassy when I moved her over like one foot to the left to put her in her bed so that I could read. Such a rough life, y'all. Such a rough life. But anyways, so with that, enjoy the special guests that you may hear a couple times and let's go to my interview with Garnet Henderson with Rewire News Group and host of the podcast ACCESS: A Podcast On Abortion. And we're gonna be talking about abortion access in the Midwest and the funding cuts at the National Abortion Federation. So lots of things to discuss. Any who. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Garnet. Hi Garnet, thank you so much for being here.

Garnet: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jennie: I am so excited to have you on to talk about a couple pieces you wrote, but I guess before I get all excited and, like, jump into the interview, which I have a tendency to do, would you like to introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Garnet: Sure. My name is Garnet Henderson. My pronouns are she/her. I'm the senior multi-platform reporter at Rewire News Group, which is the only national outlet that's completely dedicated to reproductive and sexual health news. And before that I was a freelance journalist for about a decade.

Jennie: I'm really excited to have you on. I mean I'm always excited to have you on, but the first piece we're gonna talk about hits like really near and dear to my heart 'cause it's talking about abortion access in the Midwest and I am from Wisconsin so this is something that is like-

Garnet: Mm-hmm.

Jennie: Extra special to me. So let's, I think, you know, the South and Southeast gets a lot of the attention, rightfully so, 'cause access is so bad there. But the Midwest is also complicated and has a real hodgepodge of access. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about what abortion access looks like in the Midwest right now?

Garnet: Sure. And that's exactly why we wanted to do this story because I do think that a lot of people understand that abortion is banned across almost all of the US Southeast, either entirely or almost completely banned. Whereas the Midwest is a real patchwork of different laws. So, we have states that have recently, or that some that already had protections for abortion rights, but many of which recently enacted them like Minnesota, Michigan. We have states where in Ohio, for example, a pro-abortion ballot measure succeeded. In Kansas, an anti-abortion ballot measure was defeated. But what's always interesting about those ballot measures is that in most cases they don't immediately repeal any abortion bans. So there's still a lot of follow-up work that has to happen. For example, in Ohio, just this week, at least the week that we are talking, a judge blocked the 24 hour waiting period that they used to have there and clinics are now doing same day care for the first time in years.

Jennie: That's so amazing.

Garnet: It is amazing. It's great news, but I mean, you know, that's almost a year after that ballot measure was passed, right? So, there are a lot of states where the situation is kind of confusing and complicated. And then of course there are quite a few states in the Midwest where abortion is completely banned—Indiana, Missouri, for example—and then the Midwest also has really one of the main receiving states or states where people are traveling for abortion care. And that's Illinois. And Illinois is not the only Midwest state that people are traveling to, especially from the South. Lots of people are traveling to Kansas. In some cases people are even traveling to Nebraska, Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin now that clinics are open again. But Illinois in particular is the state that saw the single largest increase in its abortion rate after Dobbs.

Jennie: Yeah, I mean like in Wisconsin, it's complicated. I mean I haven't checked recently, but the clinics that provide abortion are not, like, close to Iowa where people maybe need to travel from. They're generally in Madison or Milwaukee. So, there are huge swaths of the state where there isn't access or where people from somewhere like say Iowa would have to travel across the entire state or most of the state to get to care.

Garnet: Absolutely. And that is one of the most recent changes is that Iowa does have a six week ban that is now in effect. And so, most Iowans are probably gonna be traveling north to Minnesota or over to Illinois where they have clinics that are much closer and more easily accessible to them.

Jennie: One of the things I really found important about your article on the Midwest care was talking about the impact in in Iowa around OB/GYN access, like, that whole little section was kind of scary overall with like the lack of access to OB/GYNs before this ban went into effect. Can you talk a little bit about that section?

Garnet: Absolutely. And I really wanna shout out actually Lyz Lenz, who is also a journalist but a board member of the Iowa Abortion Fund. And so, she is the one who really flagged that to me when I was speaking to her when we were kind of waiting for that Iowa ban to go into effect. And then I also spoke to Ashley Garrin of the Iowa Black Doula Collective who had a really important perspective on this as well. So, Iowa was one of the states with the worst access to OB/GYN care and maternity care in the entire country.

Jennie: That was so surprising.

Garnet: I know. And so, March of Dimes, which is one of the organizations that I would say does some of the most comprehensive research when it comes to mapping maternal care deserts and looking at infant mortality rates, they did a report that found that one third of counties in Iowa are maternity care deserts. And Iowa's also a super rural state. More than a third of its population lives in rural areas, but 61% of the hospitals in those rural areas have no labor and delivery services. So, there have been a lot of stories and I've written some of them about labor and delivery wards closing post-Dobbs. But it's important for us to remember that especially in rural areas, there were lots of hospitals that if they ever had labor and delivery had already closed them just because so few doctors wanted to work in the state. And in Iowa, this is because of the abortion restrictions that were in place prior to Dobbs. So, it was already hard to get an abortion in Iowa. There were already a lot of laws that made life really difficult for providers and people seeking abortion care and that had already made a lot of OB/GYNs say, I don't wanna work in this state.

Jennie: Yeah, I mean, at a time when you have a maternal mortality crisis in this country and thinking that even more OB/GYNs could leave Iowa, that's really scary.

Garnet: Yeah, absolutely. Earlier this year there was a hospital in Des Moines that had to shut down its gynecologic oncology program because the doctor running it left and they couldn't find anyone else who wanted that job. And so again, this is something that was already happening and it's something we're gonna start to see more and more is that all areas of reproductive and sexual healthcare are affected by abortion bans and abortion access is just one piece of a larger puzzle. As much as some people would like to silo it away from the rest of healthcare.

Jennie: I think that's so important. Like years, decades of work have been done to try to make abortion seem “other” and to keep it separate from all of the rest. And it's not right. Like it just, it's not, it's part of sexual and reproductive healthcare. It's all tied together, all of the access is tied together. It's all important.

Garnet: Absolutely.

Jennie: Okay, so you have this hodgepodge of access and bans and people needing to travel. How are places where people are going to seek abortion? How are they absorbing all of this impact? Like, all of these people traveling to them?

Garnet: Yeah, I mean what's interesting is that some of the states, for example, Kansas, that do have a pretty significant influx of out-of-state patients are actually pretty restrictive states themselves. Although in Kansas, because voters did defeat that anti-abortion ballot measure, they have had some recent legal victories in terms of blocking some of the restrictions that were in place. And I know that Planned Parenthood Great Plains actually just opened a new clinic in Kansas. They already had several there, but clearly the environment was such that they felt they were able to open a new clinic, which is always really impressive to see people doing that in a state that is-

Jennie: That's what I was just thinking.

Garnet: Yes, not entirely friendly, right? Kansas has this interesting situation though, where they have a democratic governor, but a Republican super anti-abortion attorney general. So, it creates kind of a strange environment for abortion providers there. But Illinois in particular I would say, is doing a better job than almost any other state when it comes to receiving people who are traveling for abortion care. Now to be clear, I don't think there's any state that gets an A+ grade in that. For example, one of the things I heard from both providers and from the Chicago Abortion Fund is that when people need hospital-based care in Illinois, they are pretty much always having to go to Chicago, even though there are plenty of hospitals in southern Illinois, which is of course most accessible to people traveling up from the South that could and should be doing some of that abortion care and they just don't. So, that is one area where Illinois could be doing better. But overall the state government has done a lot to facilitate actual abortion access, not just legality. And the Chicago Abortion Fund—with some support from the state, it's worth noting—has turned itself into really a regional hub for abortion access. And they're not the only fund to have done that. DC Abortion Fund, New York Abortion Access Fund have done similar things and certainly abortion funds have been collaborating with each other for a long time. That is nothing new. But Chicago Abortion Fund has basically taken over the intake for several abortion funds in surrounding states where abortion is either banned or heavily restricted so that it's easier both for patients and for clinics to kind of come to Chicago Abortion Fund, which handles all the case management even though the funds still are coming from some of these abortion funds in other states. It just reduces the time that patients have to spend calling around to tons of different funds, seeing who can help them. And for providers as well to just kind of deal with one grant per procedure from one fund.

Jennie: This seems really important, like, there's already enough paperwork and, like, hoops that clinics need to jump through without adding in the complexity of having to track multiple funding sources for one specific patient. So, I can already see that would be amazing for clinics.

Garnet: Absolutely, and I will also say that the providers, the funders, the advocates in Illinois are quite well organized and I could just tell in talking to people on all sides of that equation, how much it has helped facilitate access there.

Jennie: I think one of the things you mentioned was the hospital- people who need to go to hospitals for care.

Garnet: Mm-hmm.

Jennie: And that's, as you pointed out in the article, like, that's a real sign of like all of these restrictive bans. It takes more for people to be able to go and get care, care gets delayed later in pregnancy means you may need to go to a hospital. And the other part of that is it's more expensive, so it costs a lot more money if you're having to do that. How are funds holding up with that?

Garnet: Yeah, I mean one of the things, one of the steps Illinois has taken to facilitate access is they set up a hotline called CARLA, which stands for Complex Abortion Regional Line for Access. So, it's just one number that patients can call and then they get help making the appointment, getting funding from Chicago Abortion Fund if needed. And there's a central place to coordinate all of that care, which is super helpful.

Jennie: Again, so convenient.

Garnet: Yes. And frankly other states have kind of tried to do that and they have not done it as well. And from what I could tell in Illinois that seems to be working pretty well despite, again, the gap in access in southern Illinois. So, that's all well and good. But yes, hospital-based care is very expensive and sometimes that's because of pregnancy complications or a later gestation. But also sometimes it's because abortion bans primarily affect low income people. And so, a low income person who is pregnant and needs an abortion, that could be the first time they've seen a doctor in quite a long time. And so, sometimes the case is complicated just because they haven't been able to access care for other medical conditions that they have that, you know, well-controlled would've been fine. So, abortion funds were handling that quite well. I think they were pretty well resourced, especially the big funds like Chicago Abortion Fund, even though they were seeing a decline in the rage donations that they got post-Dobbs. But I will say that when I was working on this story, something I heard from every single person that I spoke with was the impact of the recent reductions in per patient funding from the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood. And so that is part of the reason why I did a follow up story on those NAF cuts because it's no exaggeration when I say I was hearing about that from every single person I spoke with. [Cinder meows]

Jennie: My co-host has thoughts. Sorry y'all.

Garnet: She feels passionately about abortion funding.

Jennie: Mm-hmm.

Garnet: And we respect that.

Jennie: I mean, again, this was the article she was trying to prevent me from reading before my interview so she's ready to take over.

Garnet: Apparently. She was like, don't look, don't look.

Jennie: Okay. So, that brings us to the article on the NAF cuts. This seems huge and, like, funds were already struggling to keep up with funding and this just seems like it could create more chaos. Tell us more about what is happening.

Garnet: Yeah, so the Justice Fund is a shared program between the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood Federation for America. It provides financial assistance for low income abortion patients. So, really only the people who need the most help. So, always, already abortion funds were filling in a lot of gaps for people who didn't quite qualify for that assistance. But what happened is NAF and Planned Parenthood really stepped up the amount of financial assistance that they were giving in a lot of cases post-Dobbs. And they recently announced with only a few weeks’ notice that they needed to reduce the amount of funding per patient coming from the Justice Fund. So, whereas they would previously have covered up to 50% of a person's procedure cost, it's now only up to 30%. And that cut in and of itself would've been really significant. And again, that was announced with less than a month's notice. But then what I found out as I started speaking to people is that the cuts are actually a lot more extensive than that because in a lot of cases NAF had some kind of discretionary funds that they were using to give people more than 50% assistance in certain cases. Dr. Diane Horvath from Partners in Abortion Care gave the example of a young child who needs an abortion later in pregnancy. NAF often would cover more than 50% of that person's procedure. DC Abortion Fund told me that NAF was often covering first trimester procedures 100% so that DC Abortion Fund could focus on funding later abortion care. And basically all of those discretionary funds are also gone. And each NAF member clinic has a monthly cap on the assistance it receives from NAF. And so, I heard many stories of patients, you know, being told a certain amount of assistance would be available to them, but then they get to the clinic or contact the clinic and find out that actually that amount is not available because the clinic has already run through its amount of NAF assistance for the month. So, it's not a budget cut. In other words, NAF and Planned Parenthood have not reduced the amount of money they are dispersing via the Justice Fund this year, but they have significantly cut the money that is going per patient and to each clinic per month. And then, you know, both NAF and Planned Parenthood have other funding streams. And something that I heard from a lot of providers and abortion fund leaders is that Planned Parenthood in particular has not been very transparent about the cuts to some of those other funding streams that they have. And so, a big part of the problem is not just that this has happened, but that it happened on such short notice and with a lack of transparency and in a way that caused a lot of confusion. Some of the changes like the per clinic caps were announced with even less notice than that basic 50 to 30% cut.

Jennie: Yeah. And I think the other thing that really stood out as I was reading the article was how the cap on clinics happened just as states clinics were seeing an influx from Iowa and Florida. And all of a sudden we're seeing this huge jump in patients that they needed to see.

Garnet: Absolutely. And you know, I certainly don't wanna dismiss the Iowa ban in any way, but Iowa's a much smaller state than Florida and so-

Jennie: Correct.

Garnet: Florida ban really had a catastrophic effect because Florida had for so long been a state that people from throughout the South were traveling to for abortion care, even after they enacted their 15 week ban in Florida, which did send a lot of Southerners having to travel north for care that they previously could have gotten in Florida, right? But for them to then institute a six week ban, all of a sudden, you know, Florida was one of the number one states that people were traveling to and now almost everybody from Florida has to travel somewhere else for abortion care. And anyone who would have traveled to Florida has to travel somewhere else. So, there's no doubt that that created a huge strain on NAF's resources, on Planned Parenthood's resources, on every abortion fund's resources. I think the criticism that I heard the most from, again, providers and local abortion funds is: how is it possible that these national organizations were not at least somewhat anticipating this? For example, that six week ban in Florida, we have known that that was coming for quite a long time because it was contingent upon the Florida Supreme Court upholding the 15 week ban. That's how that law was written.

Jennie: Yeah.

Garnet: So, that it would go into effect the moment the Florida Supreme Court upheld the previous abortion ban and there was almost no chance that they were not gonna do that. So, we may not have known exactly when it was gonna happen, but we did know that that was probably going to happen this year. And that's just one example, right? So, I think the chief criticism I heard was not like, “oh, NAF is being cruel and they're taking money away from clinics and they're screwing over local abortion funds,” which I think is how some people might have interpreted the article. But the criticism was really: couldn't this have been handled in a better way? And why did it take so long into the year for NAF to figure out that they were running out their resources so quickly and why weren't the changes announced with more notice? Why wasn't there an announcement that came first saying, "hey, we're about to have to make huge cuts," so that everyone could kind of plan or strategize about what to do? The criticism is really about the lack of transparency and the lack of apparent planning and advance notice.

Jennie: I mean, all I was thinking between reading these, these two articles, especially like back-to-back like I did this morning, was sustainability, like-

Garnet: Mm-hmm.

Jennie: -how this can't keep going on as it is right now. Like, the money is not coming in the same way, like you said, the rage donating is really falling off. Like, how can we make sure that people are still able to access care?

Garnet: Yeah, I mean I think one of the problems also is that the entire reproductive and sexual health ecosystem in the United States is entirely dependent on the money of a few billionaires, mostly one, right? And everyone is kind of at the whim of just this very small number of foundations. And that in and of itself is unsustainable. Of course it is sort of an impossible situation, because you know, if the government would help people pay for abortions, for example, that would be the single most powerful change that that could be made is if- even if just Medicaid in every state had to cover abortion, right? That would make a huge difference. But we are realistically very far off from anything like that happening unfortunately. And so, I think it's unlikely that in the current political context we are going to have a system that is perfectly equitable and accessible for all, which really sucks and is super unfair. But I do think it's worth asking: should all money or most money, the biggest pots of money be filtered down through national organizations? I'm certainly not saying that those organizations have no value and it's really not my place to say that, but I think it's a good moment to ask: who's the best steward of these kinds of funds, especially when it goes to direct service delivery? Because certainly it's easy for funders to grant to national organizations and then have them re-grant to local organizations or to individuals, but national organizations are not necessarily the best positioned to figure out the most effective and fair use of those funds. For example, some of the criticisms I heard from abortion funds is that NAF's hotline, which really kind of expanded the way that it operates, post-Dobbs as well and started doing more travel and practical support, which NAF had previously not really done...you know, the story was long already and so I didn't really have room to include much about this, but something I heard from a lot of funders, like local abortion funds were stories about having to fix mistakes that those NAF care coordinators had made. Like, sending a patient to a clinic in another state when there was one 15 minutes from their home just because that clinic required a deposit and NAF couldn't cover the deposit or booking a patient into a hotel that was not a safe place to stay and the fund having to intervene and move the patient in the middle of the night. So, you know, and I'm certainly not saying that the people working for NAF don't care and don't wanna do a good job. I absolutely know that they do. But you know, if you're sending someone to Chicago for example, who knows where the best hotel is to put the patient, right? Probably the Chicago Abortion Fund, probably the people who live there.

Jennie: Okay. So I have another question on a different topic, but because it is set, like, so different from the rest of this, so let's do my usual ending of: what can our audience do about this first part? So, how can the audience get involved in some of this?

Garnet: I always recommend that people familiarize themselves with the abortion laws where they live and with how accessible abortion is where they live, which is something different than what the law says. So, looking at something like, I Need an A or Abortion Finder and just actually looking at what kind of abortion services are available near you, I think is something that's really important for people to understand what the landscape is like. But I have a feeling that your listeners have probably already done that [chuckles] and so...

Jennie: Well, and it's also just good to know, even if people ask you questions, you don't need to have the answers, but knowing where you can direct them is so important.

Garnet: Totally. And then, yeah, I think, you know, there was kind of a trend years ago of encouraging people to look at how efficient nonprofits are with their money, which, and something that was seen as not being efficient was spending enough money or spending "too much money"—I'm using air quotes—on staff compensation because oh yes, look, I believe that nonprofit workers all deserve to make a living wage. So, I would encourage people if they're thinking about where to give money, don't think too much about that. Although certainly if you see that one executive is making, like, hundreds, plural of thousands of dollars a year, that could be something to consider. But I think it's more important to look at: how connected is this organization to the community? Are there other organizations that are local that they also work with? How are they spending their money? How much of it goes to service provision or to programs? And to just, like, I know it's kind of annoying 'cause it adds an extra step, but just to really research and be thoughtful about where you are donating money if you're donating. Especially because most of us are pretty broke right now, so, wherever you give the money, you wanna make sure it's going as far as possible.

Jennie: Thank you. That was really good. And yeah man, that trend of, like, efficiency was wild.

Garnet: Yeah. Like, okay, "I guess everyone who works for a nonprofit should only make like $50,000 a year." No. That's certainly not what I would say.

Jennie: Okay. So let's turn to the next thing, which like I said is unrelated, but really important. And that is what just happened in Texas around trans people? Like what?

Garnet: Yes. So, on August 20th, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced a new policy that went into effect immediately basically disallowing trans people from changing the official gender markers on their state IDs, like driver's licenses. So, in Texas you have to get a court order in order to do that at all. There's really no other way. And so, they announced that they're no longer gonna process those requests, but probably the most alarming part is that they also directed their employees to send all information about those requests, including people's names and other identifying details and documentation to a specific email address, which really suggests that the state is trying to surveil and collect information on the trans people living there. So, legal experts that I spoke with are advising anyone in Texas who has not yet been able to change their gender marker on state IDs, not to contact the Department of Public Safety, not to send in that documentation at this time until that policy. Unless or until that policy changes.

Jennie: Yeah, that, um...man, when you first told me about that, like I just like, it was like a full body, like, oh, oh no, there is nothing good that is coming from something like that.

Garnet: Yeah. It is really upsetting. And actually Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—people who care about abortion will know him very well—has already tried to surveil trans people in a really similar way in the past. So, in 2022 he asked DPS—this same state agency—for a list of all people who had changed their gender marker in Texas. And ultimately the agency didn't completely fulfill that request because they identified over 16,000 such instances. But they said, we can't actually, without doing a full manual search, we can't actually determine why people changed their gender markers. Because sometimes, you know, the license was just, there was a clerical error made, for example. So, sometimes people have to change their gender marker just because it's wrong and it doesn't match the documentation they presented to get the license or it gets changed multiple times. You know, like, mistakes can be made at any point in the process. And so, they didn't really fulfill that request. And so, this seems to be like a second attempt to actually start collecting information on people, which is really alarming. And they used a really kind of flimsy legal argument to justify it. So, because the gender marker change requires a court order, they're basically arguing, "well, DPS is not a party to this court order. And so we have to review whether or not it's appropriate for us to make this change." But the courts are making these orders based on a procedure that's laid out in Texas law. So basically, DPS is just saying we need to disregard Texas law. It really doesn't make sense. And it is a really alarming turn of events.

Jennie: Yeah, that's scary. And yeah, there's really nothing else to say...that's scary and just another way that you are seeing states really attracting transgender rights.

Garnet: Absolutely. And this story was flagged for me by Equality Texas and I have also spoken with the Trans Legal Aid Clinic of Texas. And so I would just recommend for any Texans who are concerned about this, to follow those two organizations. They're the ones that have all the updates right now about what's going on. [Cinder meows]

Jennie: I know you have thoughts on trans care too. Yes.

Garnet: She's very passionate about social justice and human rights.

Jennie: Just came to yell and turn back and lay back down. Okay.

Garnet: [chuckles]

Jennie: Okay y'all, I hope you enjoyed Cinder's participation in this episode and as always, it was so lovely to talk to Garnet. Thank you for being here.

Garnet: I always love talking to you Jennie. Thanks so much for having me.

Jennie: Okay y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Garnet. It was always such a joy to have her on the podcast. I love getting to talk to her about her reporting. And this one, like I said, was really near and dear to my heart. Being from Wisconsin, always getting to hear about access in the Midwest is like an extra special warm place for me. So with that, I will see y'all next week and now she's whining. [laughs] Okay. [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!