Our Plea: If You Have Been Touched by our Story, Please Vote!

We share our story for a variety of reasons, including to show how we were ensnared by the Missouri abortion laws, and in the hopes that we can encourage people to vote with us to change them and preserve our reproductive rights.

I am featured as part of the #IVoteBecause campaign, photo by the amazing Janette Beckman

If you are a person that is a proponent of Reproductive Rights, thank you so much, and I ask that you please vote in every election. We were impacted so much more by our local legislators than our federal ones - it was the local lawmakers that created the 72-hour waiting period, the deadline and all of the consents. Every single election really matters. All of these things are state laws, not federal laws.

Additionally, we can't insist on perfect candidates. For instance, where I live, Claire McCaskill is up against Josh Hawley for Senator. There are reasonable concerns around McCaskill, however she has a solid record on Reproductive Rights, and Hawley wants to diminish our Reproductive Rights even further. When I think about it that way, voting for McCaskill is easy for me.

If, on the other hand, you are against abortion (and if so, thank you so much for lending me your mind and heart and considering my perspective!) and are not in the habit of voting for candidates that protect Reproductive Rights, I just want to share three facts with you that relate to how these laws impacted me (that were not shared in my story).

1). There are rarely exceptions in the laws for situations like Grace's. If you feel like abortions okay in our situation but not others (this is a really common feeling that is shared with us), know that exceptions don't exist that way. Occasionally laws are written with exception for rape, incest, and health of the mother (though I see against laws that have no such exceptions in them all the time), but very rarely do laws include exceptions for fetal anomalies. In fact, the deadline to get an abortion in the state of Missouri shows a complete misunderstanding about when fetal anomalies present themselves - by the time you find out your unborn child is sick it may be too late to do anything about it. We had our procedure one day before we legally couldn't in the state of Missouri anymore and we had to act very fast to make that happen. Our laws do not consider the realities of what women face in pregnancies. If there is one thing I've learned in this process, it's that we have really crappy laws around reproductive rights that don't fit every situation fairly, and worse, we are electing politicians that have no interest in doing better. I have testified numerous times about bills like these and they don't even pay attention to me. I want better politicians/lawmakers and better laws, and I hope that our story has left you wanting the same things.

2). Our doctors were not wrong. I hear this a lot. "Doctors aren't always right." We had eight doctors and a pathology report confirm that Graces diagnosis was accurate and that she would have indeed passed away in agony. They were not wrong. We can't make laws assuming our doctors are going to give us the wrong information.

3). You voting for a politician or law that protects Reproductive Rights does not mean you ever in your life have to get an abortion, or even that you think it's right. It just means that you respect that what you would do shouldn't dictate what other people are legally allowed to do. I would never, ever insist that another family facing the decision we did should have to abort the pregnancy - it would be wrong of me to say that. I just want the same right to make the best choices for my family that you do for yours. 

I implore you to vote, in every election, and to vote for people that will work to protect all of our rights. It's about letting a mother do what's best for her very wanted unborn daughter. It’s about humanity, dignity, and the ability to make the best decisions for ourselves and our families.

You can see my voter guide (for Missouri) here.

Even if Kavanaugh Doesn't Vote to Overturn Roe, He Poses a Huge Threat to Abortion Access

This article in the New York Times gave a great illustration of what I worry could happen if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court.

How a Supreme Court Shaped by Trump Could Restrict Access to Abortion

President Trump has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was a cautious supporter of abortion rights.

As illustrated in the article, while Kavanaugh may respect Roe as settled law, he could vote with other justices to give more power back to the states. Missouri is an example of how we cannot afford to have that happen.

When I had my abortion in November 2016, there was only one Planned Parenthood in the state of Missouri. I had to wait 72 hours, and because of that, bumped up against the deadline in the state for how late I can get an abortion (21 weeks, 6 days, and I had my abortion at 21 weeks, 5 days). I had to sign awful consents and with all of that, still didn't hit all of the many abortion laws that Missouri has. Some of them have been ruled unconstitutional in other states.

If, as Senator Collins says, Brett Kavanaugh has said he'll respect Roe v. Wade as settled law, that doesn't meant that he'll not vote with other judges to give more and more power to states to decide what is legal or not. That is also very, very dangerous to women's rights and health.

Missouri is already a very difficult place to get an abortion, and that abortion will be granted with two heaping spoonfuls of judgement and a side of biased, flawed information. For example, the consents I had to sign didn't also discuss both the pros and cons of pregnancy - only those that presume a human life starts at conception (a belief that is not supported by the scientific community) and ignore facts like maternal mortality rate (the US has the highest rate outside of third world countries) and risk to the mother's health. If they were balanced, I'd respect them more.

We cannot afford to have our reproductive rights undermined any further; indeed, we need to be gaining rights back that have been taken from us from deeply conservative lawmakers that have shown, in my persona experience in reaching out to them and testifying next to them, to have no understand or desire to learn about what real women face. These laws are dangerous, ignorant and disrespectful. 

We need to ask our Senators to vote no on Kavanaugh because his confirmation would deeply threaten abortion access. It's what is right for our privacy, humanity and health. No one deserves to get to tell me what, legally, I am allowed to do if I find myself in a situation again like I did with Grace. Only I was in the room with all of the doctors, seeing the ultrasounds and hearing the diagnosis and odds of survival. To allow lawmakers that don't care about our circumstances to decide for us is blatantly wrong. 

Please call your Senators today and ask them to vote no on Kavanaugh.  You can find their contact information here.

Please Call Your Senators: Roe v Wade is About Personal Liberty, not Abortion.

I have been very busy in the land of advocacy lately, but unfortunately not as available here due to that. One thing I got to do that was very rewarding was speak at the Unite for Justice event:

It was a huge honor to share Grace's story as well as hear the other speakers explaining why Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court and subsequent votes could threaten our rights. 

I read this article recently and it really captured one of my biggest concerns: 

Roe v Wade isn't about abortion - it's about personal liberty. A government that can tell us we cannot have an abortion can also tell us that we must have one. 

That's an inappropriate and terrifying amount of responsibility to give the government, and I can tell you from my experience, their judgments and decisions do not match the circumstances we find ourselves facing. Please read and call your Senators and ask that they vote no on Kavanaugh. Even Senators that you think have already decided - I am hearing that they are hearing far more from people that are for Kavanaugh than against. 

Opinion | Remember a woman's right not to have an abortion

Regarding the Aug. 22 news article " Sen. Collins says Kavanaugh sees Roe as 'settled'  ": Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is described as "a centrist who supports abortion rights." If she votes to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, she will have exposed that reputation as a sham.

Please Call Your Representative About House Bill 36 Today! (Script Included!)

On Tuesday, October 3, Congress will be voting on House Bill 36 which is a 20 week abortion ban.

If this had been in effect when we learned about Grace's disease last November, we would not have been able to terminate the pregnancy, thus meaning I would have had to continue carrying her until she was either crushed to death by the pressure of my body without amniotic fluid to cushion her, or I would have delivered her to immediate pain and suffering and death. No child with the bilateral type of her disease (which she had) has survived, according to the many doctors we have discussed this with. There is no medical intervention for this. My own risk would have gone up 7 times.

If you'd like to help fight against this (and I'd be grateful if you would!), here is a script you can use for calling your representatives. Currently, the vote is scheduled for Tuesday, October 3rd.

• Step 1: Find your representative here.
• Step 2: Call them up! This might sound daunting but I can promise you that dialing is the hardest part. A staff member (not the representative) will answer. You need to say you are a constituent from [say your zip code] and would like to discuss House Bill 36, and request that your representative vote no on it.
• Step 3: Tell them why! When I call (I've already called about this a few times), I tell them a brief version of my own story. I tell them I know over 500 other women that have had to make the same heartbreaking choice I have and that this will never end for families - many diseases that are fatal for the unborn are not discovered into far further into the pregnancy than 20 weeks. I tell them the bill is based on erroneous information that pain is felt at 20 weeks, when 7 doctors have told me it's more like 24-28 weeks. Here are a few other points:
  • This is another instance of politicians inserting themselves in the most private and personal medical decisions best left between a woman, her doctor, and her family.
  • More than 99% of abortions occur before 21 weeks. Those that occur after 20 weeks are often cases of very much wanted pregnancies that have gone horribly wrong (like mine).
  • This is not about protecting pregnant women or babies. If it were, how would they answer my situation (and the 1% of women that terminate after 21 weeks where their health suffers and their child will die a very painful death if they cannot terminate? This flies in the face of the stated intent of the bill). This is a political move, not one designed with health in mind, otherwise, it would not have medical falsehoods as the premise.
  • Here is a link with lots of other information on why these bills are so harmful: Link
• Step 4: Thank the staff member for their time and for listening.

That's it! If you'd prefer not to call and to instead fax a message in, Resistbot is an AMAZING tool for this where you can fax from your phone or Facebook messenger! So easy!

I, and all of the women that still have this devastating situation still to come in their lives (your daughters, cousins, sisters, nieces, wives...) all thank you. Even the ones that think they wouldn't: trust me, you wouldn't want to not have the choice to do what you think is best when you face this. You deserve the right to make the choice, even if you'd make a different one that we did.

An Interview with Lizz Winstead and Things You Can Do to Help RIGHT NOW

This article hitting Feministing regarding Governor Greitens' Emergency Session against reproductive rights to the tune of $20,000/a day of taxpayer money has prompted people to ask what they can do to help, which absolutely thrills me. I shared our story with the hopes it would raise awareness and prompt activism from people, and there are tons of opportunities out there. So without further adieu:

What you can do RIGHT NOW

Call and email your state senator and tell them to gavel out of this expensive, unnecessary, and politically motivated special session. Thank them for working hard on a compromise, and say what the House did is inexcusable. Ask them to please not allow the governor's dark money and political ambitions get in the way of democracy. 

More action items will come when the senate reconvenes. 

What you can do NEXT WEEK (but buy your tickets right now - it will sell out!)

Lizz Winstead, co creator of the Daily Show, is coming to The Blueberry Hill Duck Room in St. Louis next Thursday (June 29) with her Lady Parts Justice League Vagical Mystery Tour. You can find St. Louis event information here (and a list of all shows here). I highly encourage you to go for 2 reasons:

1) Lizz and her fellow comedians are SERIOUSLY funny. I got to see Lizz with Sarah Silverman a year ago and she knocked my socks off.

2) The show also features discussions with local providers and advocates, and provides ideas for ways you can get involved and make a difference looking at the skills you already have. 

I interviewed Lizz to learn more about the show, what they are trying to achieve, her perspective on reproductive rights, and the one thing that everyone can do to make a difference right now. (This content has been modified to be condensed and for clarity):

Tell me about one of the best things about the Vagical Mystery Tour

Lizz: The comedy show brings in a group of people (150-500 people) to have a great time and also have a meaningful talk back about opportunities available to them. We want people to be able to say this was a great experience, and then you’re giving me opportunity to do what I can, also with the time that I have, to make a difference. Some of these things take 20 minutes, an hour, etc.

I have a whole team of people who are excellent comedians, and they talk about life from these different lenses. We have black, brown, trans, white and gay comedians, and people can come to this comedy show and hear about their own lives. 

At the end of each show we have a conversation with someone from a clinic and from an activist group that supports reproductive rights and justice so people can sign up right then and there and learn what they need. We’ve been able to access handymen, painters, designers, landscapers, etc.

These are little things, and the providers are buried with work and care that sometimes they can’t even tell what they need. We have been able to go in, take a tour of the clinic and ask questions and then help.

What is your best advice for someone that wants to make a difference in the arena of reproductive rights?

Lizz: (laughing) Aside from not making your zoo the anti-abortion zoo… First and foremost, when you connect with your local clinic and activists, you can really get information on what’s going on in your state. You want to ask yourself "who is my go to person for information"? Get connected with them.  

While we all talk about all these laws encroaching on reproductive rights, people still need to get care and provide care, and so we need to ask how are we as citizens making sure that the caregivers and those that need abortion are being supported, and not being stigmatized? 

So for example some of the things you can do are escorting patients. Sign up for escort service where you are committing to helping patients get into care without judgment. A bonus is this also means being part of the community that stands with the clinics. You are showing politicians and your community that you are a face and a voice that thinks that clinics are important and are doing a great job.

Another thing you can do is getting together with your like minded friends who are also going "what can we do?" over and over and panicking, and meeting with them so you can open a bottle of wine and send postcards to share your love and support. These organizations and clinics always get so much hate mail, so getting your love and support really matters.

Think about what can you do to lengthen the life of your clinic. Can you throw a fundraiser? Have a mixer at your house where people can get to know your provider or your abortion fund. Treat them like the treasures that they are.

Finding out what the clinics and advocates' needs are. Get together with friends, let a clinic vet you so they know you’re a trusted source, and find out what they need. Often people don’t look at their own lives and skill sets and see how they can help out. If you’re a great graphic designer, or if you’re good at landscaping, you can help! If you’re a good baker, you could bring cupcakes to the clinic 4 times a year to show your appreciation. Maybe help an advocate with their website that needs a new logo. Offer to paint a clinic's fence or do some gardening to maintain the clinic so when patients come in they feel like it’s a nice space and feel welcome, and the people that work there walk in and feel great that their community supports them. Translators especially are needed for refugee cities where Arabic or Spanish are helpful for a patient care advocate. It's nice to have someone on call that can help. These all kinds of things that might be in your personal wheelhouse.

Finally, get on an email list to work with your local advocates and clinics so they can reach out to you whenever you need something and then you can network. The thing is that a lot of times, a clinic that provides abortion services in a community... lawn services or gutter cleaning services won’t come because the clinic provides abortion care. Simple things other business can get just by looking in the yellow pages aren't available to clinics that provide abortions because the providers don’t believe in what the clinic does, or they’ll be targeted by anti-choice people at their business.

I am loving this because it has an avenue for everyone. If there was ONE thing everyone could do, what would it be? 

If you’re too busy, and care about this issue,  I ask every single person to stop using the term pro-life. They are anti-abortion. I have seen clinics that have been firebombed and vandalized. I have friends who are targeted. Patients who have gotten death threats for having abortions*. We cannot cede the term pro-life because they aren’t pro-life. Physicians that are friends of mine - their best friends have been murdered. This is being done by anti-abortion activists. It’s only fair to call them that. Language matters.

 *Robin Note: This is a HUGE reason more women don't share their stories. Trust me. I know a lot of women who have been in my shoes but they don't share publicly. 

Has your approach to LPJL and the Vagical Mystery Tour changed since Trump took office and there has been a bigger proliferation of falsehoods? 

The interesting thing about it is I’m glad we started this organization long before Trump took office. So many people in so many state legislatures were already passing these laws before Trump was in the picture. Oregon is the only state that hasn’t proposed crappy legislation. Really. it's every other state: red states, blue states, purple states. But in the wake of Donald Trump, it’s just gotten worse because the federal legislation and the Supreme Court are very scary.

We need people to understand and pay attention to state legislatures and demand their birth control and abortion care because we are owed them. We must demand from men and women both that they recognize reproductive rights are part of our human rights. 

I know you were raised Catholic, which believes abortion is a sin and murder. How was that transition to where you are now?

I definitely was. The bottom line is I realized I can’t believe in a God that is cruel and retaliatory. I know when I wake up every day that I am doing my best to be a good person. And there is not one word about abortion in the bible. Science says something else different from Catholicism too. 

And the real fact is Catholics have abortions at very high rates, and they use birth control. 

---

The Vagical Mystery Tour is Thursday, June 29th at Blueberry Hill Duck Room. It starts at 7:30 pm, and you can buy tickets here.

My Second Time Testifying in Jefferson City: About the Bills and What YOU Can Do

Dana (right) and myself at the Missouri State Capital in Jefferson City, MO

I went to Jefferson City with my very good friend Dana today so we could testify to the Senate Families, Children and Seniors COmmittee about Senate Bill 1 (SB-1) and Senate BIll 6 (SB-6).

You can read about the bills (including full text) below, but the summary of each is as follows:

• SB-1 (link) does a variety of things, but tries to circumvent Judge Howard Sachs' injunction based on on the Whole Women's Health v Hellerstedt ruling in the Supreme Court, noting that based on that ruling, Missouri's one abortion facility in the entire state constituted an unconstitutional burden on women seeking this reproductive health treatment, in addition to overly lofty requirements for abortion-providing facilities.
• SB-6 (link) would remove St. Louis's ruling that organizations and companies cannot discriminate women for things like using contraception, being pregnant or getting an abortion based on moral or religious beliefs. 

I testified against SB-1 to note that while we were lucky we lived in St. Louis when we learned about Grace Pearl's diagnosis, had we lived further away, had children we had to find care for, had jobs that were not gracious in their flexibility with our sudden scheduling needs or couldn't afford the thousands of dollars necessary at such short notice (abortions are not covered by insurance in Missouri except for rare exceptions), we couldn't have terminated by the deadline of 21 weeks, 6 days (we terminated at 21 days, 5 days as it was). Such limitations would have absolutely hurt Grace, the unborn baby the bill is purporting to protect. Our story proves these bills need to be more thoughtful, considered and inclusive. 

You can read my full testimony for SB-1 (which I used to paraphrase from, and provided to the Senate Committee) here.

I testified against SB-6 noting that I should not be able to be discriminated against for terminating my pregnancy, as it's not appropriate to make assumptions as to why women choose to do this. We terminated our pregnancy out of love and concern, and feeling strongly that it to not do so was absolutely cruel. We also noted that while this is being proposed in defense of organizations that don't want to hire women that use contraception, are pregnant or have terminated a pregnancy (note: this is inclusive of nearly every single state a woman of reproductive age can exist in), the religious people in our lives hold beliefs that cannot be so simply assumed or compartmentalized, and it's inappropriate to try to do so to allow organizations to practice discrimination. Many of the people these organizations would be speaking on behalf of don't even agree with them. 

You can read my full testimony for SB-6 (which I used to paraphrase from, and provided to the Senate Committee) here.

In both testimonies I told the story of Grace Pearl, that we felt that it was the only humane, loving, moral choice we could possibly make, and that we and women like us deserve to be able to make that choice without hurdles, timelines or discrimination. I have two friends that had to do this just last week. It will continue to happen, and that is a reality that needs to be included in Missouri's bills and laws. 

I will post more very soon talking about how the day felt as a whole, but for now, we have urgent work to do: 

CALL, CALL, CALL!!

• Call your state senator! To find out who that is, use this link. From there you can get the phone number. Tell them that you oppose Senate Bills 1, 5 and 6 because they are not based on medical necessity and are not making Missouri women or the unborn any safer, and that Missouri women deserve intelligent, inclusive bills that do not discriminate against them or make it more difficult for them to obtain constitutionally protected reproductive health medical care. This is critical for right now - the bill is still in the Senate and if we make our voices heard, we can make a real difference!
• Call Governor Greitens! His number is (573) 751-3222, or you can text him via Resistbot if you're a Missouri constituent by noting you want to send to governor (you may have to unlock this level, but may not! Can anyone confirm?) Did you know you can send faxes from Resistbot from your Facebook Messenger? It's awesome - so much easier for typing than using my phone! You can use the same messaging as up above for the senators. 
• Call you state representative! You can find out who that is here. Tell them that you oppose all new bills restricting reproductive rights as they are not considered, inclusive of all scenarios that prompt a woman to get an abortion, are unconstitutional as they apply undue burden, and are not actually pro-life. You can see the list of bills the are reviewing tomorrow (it's uncertain which ones they'll hear, but you can bet it'll be the ones that are AGAINST reproductive rights) here if you want to to review and mention them. 

Have any questions? Feel free to use the contact me page to send me a note!

Missouri's Capital building in Jefferson City, Missouri

I jumped into Dana's selfie with the Capital building. We both were running on little sleep, no lunch, a 2.5 hour drive (so far) and a day of hearing bills and testimony. I just couldn't stop myself!