On with Kara Swisher - Abortion Politics in 2024 with Cecile Richards, former Planned Parenthood President

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Abortion will be a key issue in the election this fall and it's also the focus of two Supreme Court rulings expected later this month. This week, Kara speaks with Cecile Richards, activist and former President of Planned Parenthood, about the fight for reproductive rights in the post-Roe era, where abortion fits into the electoral landscape, the potential outcomes of the two SCOTUS rulings, and how technology is enhancing access to abortion. On a more personal note, Cecile also talks about her recent brain cancer diagnosis and how it’s impacted her work as a lifelong activist. Questions? Comments? Email us at [e-mail] or find Kara on Instagram/Threads as @karaswisher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees? And it takes forever to build a campaign?

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Today, I'm speaking with Cecile Richards, who fits perfectly into our unintentional, it's completely intentional, lineup of badass get-shit-done women to kick off the summer. After all, this is my podcast, and I get to talk to who I want to. Anyway, I've known Cecile for years. She hit me like a freight train when I met her in Austin for the first time. We had coffee and you could see just movement and activity coming off of her, but also an incredible kindness of what she was trying to do. She, you know, could have been a very different person as the daughter of late Texas Governor

Ann Richards, the second woman and the last Democrat to hold that position. She could have been in her mom's shadows, but instead walked right out into the sunlight herself and been on the front lines of progressive politics for most of her adult life. For 12 years, she defended women's reproductive rights as president of Planned Parenthood. She stepped down in 2018, well before Roe v. Wade was overturned. But she continued to champion and defend women's health, including safe and legal access to abortion in other ways. Planned Parenthood. She stepped down in 2018, well before Roe v. Wade was overturned, but she continued to champion and defend women's health, including safe and legal access to abortion in other ways, which is why it is a shock to many when Cecile announced earlier this year she's facing another opponent, cancer. I think it was shocking to everybody given what drive and energy

she has and what a terrible thing to happen given how much she's worked for women's health. So I want to talk to her about this and how it's changed her approach to the battle over reproductive rights in the post-Roe world, what's at stake at the Supreme Court and at the ballot box in November, and how tech fits in the conversation. Our expert question for Cecile comes from entrepreneur Carly Kloss. Her nonprofit Code with Klossy focuses on youth education and tech, but she's also written very persuasively about abortion issues, including in her own home state of Missouri. And she has two questions for Cecile. So let's jump right into the conversation.

It is on. Hi, Cecile. Welcome to On. It's great to see you again. Great to see you. It's been a while. I know. I should tell listeners, I am one of your biggest fans. I've always enjoyed talking to you. You've appeared at my various conferences over the many years, and we've been in a discussion for a long time about a lot of the issues we're going to talk about. So I'm very much looking forward to it. Me too. The last time I interviewed you was at the Code Conference in 2017, which was a long time ago. Yeah, lots has happened. Yeah, lots has happened. You were running Planned Parenthood back then. You left the organization in 2018, but you're very much involved with women's health movement. And I want to get to everything that's happened. Obviously, there's been a lot of activity and

some of which you predicted and talked about and seemed at the time like you were Cassandra, but in fact, we're 100% correct. But first, I do want to talk to you about what's going on with you personally. You have brain cancer and in treatment. Can you talk about that and how you're doing and how the past year has been for you? Yes. Anything like this, it was totally unexpected, came out of the blue. And thank God I was living in New York City and have access to excellent healthcare. So within like 36 hours of detecting this brain tumor, I was on the operating table. And I've done a ton of chemo and radiation. And thank God I'm past that point. point. But for a really serious diagnosis, which glioblastoma is, I'm doing incredibly well and able to work. I spend a lot of time at Sloan Kettering, but again, my admiration and respect And respect and gratitude for healthcare providers has never been this profound.

And I wish that everyone had access to the healthcare that I've had. So when you talk about that, what happened to you, talk about what went through your brain. I myself had a stroke many years ago, and it was terrifying, as you know, when I was in Hong Kong. Talk a little bit about what it does to you as a person. I know what it did to me but I'd like to hear from you. Well it is terrifying and there were like many nights I couldn't sleep but I again and I have to say it the only reason I probably went to the emergency room is because of a friend of mine who actually works with me on all things tech related. And he's had cancer.

And he said, you have to go to the emergency room tonight. And if he hadn't done that, my doctor had blown me off. And I have to thank him for saving my life. Obviously, we could spend hours talking about how the healthcare system deals with women. But anyway, I did get the care. But of course, the first thing I thought about were my kids. Ironically, my daughter was in labor in Washington, D.C., delivering what turned out to be my first grandchild, Teddy. And yet I was, you know, going through the list, like, are my kids okay?

Is my family okay? If I die tomorrow, how is everyone going to be? And you just have to do that. The good news is I feel like we took care of stuff. We had conversations we probably would not have had. And I thank God for that ability to do that. And so... It is a pause, isn't it?

It's really interesting. The only time I cried is when I thought about my kids. And it was during the stroke. It was really, it was because my dad had died of a similar brain situation, not a tumor, but an aneurysm. And when I was young. And one of the things that's important is it changes your priorities. Now, I had always thought about that because of my dad dying at a young age about how little time we have on the planet.

And this is a reminder, obviously. But you've been politically active and very hard charging your entire life. Did it change that part of it beyond the family? Because this is great to be able to really understand your mortality, correct? Right. Well, it did change things in that

I obviously, I have to spend a couple of days at the hospital every week, and that's humbling. And you just realize you can't do everything. I've been in speech therapy. To even be able to have this conversation with you is a gift. So I'm really focused on just two things, and that is doing what I can to defeat Donald Trump. I mean, let's just be honest. All the work I've done in my life for the labor movement, for the women's movement, for the voting rights, it is at risk. And the other thing which is really exciting is I'm working on a project to document the lived experiences of people who are living under abortion bans because I think creating more empathy and understanding, particularly for states that can't imagine what it's like in Louisiana.

And it's allowed me to, I hope, shine a light on the people fighting back and the experiences they have. And it's also been unbelievably rewarding. These are some of the most courageous women I've ever met in my life. So speaking of courageous women, your mom, the former governor of Texas, Ann Richards, who was an amazing woman, I've met her only twice, also died of a rare form of cancer 18 years ago.

As you're going through your own treatment, has it changed your perspective on her life and her journey? Well, yes, in that you realize you have choices to make about treatment, but she hated being sick. She hated the sympathy, and she didn't want to be seen as an object of pity or anything. So it was a struggle for her, and it was a hard treatment. I mean, she had esophageal cancer, and she was in pain and miserable. I have to say that has not been my experience. It's a different kind of cancer. But also, we just keep getting better at this in terms of medical care.

But yeah, I've thought about that and the choices she made. And she wanted to live her life a certain way. So when you think of that, one of the things you were talking about earlier was doctors not listening to women. I had that experience, exactly. No, I'm so sorry, but it's not surprising. No, no, not at all. When I was, you know, my brother also made me go to the hospital. He's a doctor.

But a lot of not listening later in the treatment of what was good for me and things like that. But this is a theme of Dobbs, correct, this idea. Let's talk about that decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 in the fallout. The writing was on the wall after Trump appointed three conservative justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett. And then Dobbs' ruling was leaked a month before it became official. But it still felt like a shock to many people. You and I had discussions where you kept warning that this was coming. But were you surprised?

And what was your reaction? Well, I always knew it was possible. And particularly in that election, you know, a heartbreaking, shocking election. I always knew that if Trump had the ability to appoint more judges, he would be down the line guaranteeing a commitment that they would overturn Roe. But it's still shocking. I mean, it is shocking that,

and as we see the results and the fallout and what it's like to live in a state where you have no rights, particularly about pregnancy and family, it's not like a natural disaster, like the Titanic or something, like it happens and there's, you know, reverberation. This is a daily Titanic. For women that live in the States and they are growing in number, Witness Florida, their daily stories about the impact for people who had no idea this could affect them. Right. Were you surprised how quickly they had acted? Of course, one of the things we had discussed was over time how they tried to erode it through various means, right, to try to make it difficult for access. But were you surprised about how quickly they acted, or was that, from your perspective, always the game for them, like in your home state of Texas?

Well, Texas was ahead of the curve, even before the Dobbs decision. So it didn't surprise me because they've been committed to this forever. But again, it had been a talking point or like a slogan. And now they're like the dog that caught the bus. But again, it had been a talking point or like a slogan. And now they're like the dog that caught the bus. They own this. And they own the horrible outcomes for families, the tragic circumstances, the disappearing OBGYN population in many states. So it's the cascading effect of DOBS has not just been the loss of abortion care in at least 14 states. It's also the loss of women's health care

writ large. You know, it's impossible now in Louisiana to get prenatal care before you're in your second trimester because no one wants to take the risk that you will miscarry and that they will somehow be held responsible. I was just meeting in New Orleans with medical students from Tulane and LSU, and they can't even get trained as OBGYNs in the full range of medical care. They have to go out of state, and none of them really want to stay in Louisiana. Right. Well, let's talk about that.

In March, you wrote this piece for Time magazine, speaking of Louisiana, about the microcosm of the abortion access fight. Talk about it on the ground there, using as an example of what's happened. Well, even the most courageous doctors are terrified of providing care that could be considered giving someone an abortion. We have women miscarrying. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. Kate Joshua from Baton Rouge, a young woman who was worried that she was miscarrying and she was bleeding, went to the hospital, to the emergency room in Baton Rouge, and they turned her away. And they said, we can't do anything for you.

You just have to go home. And then it got worse. And then she went to another hospital, I think probably the only other ER, and they also turned her away. And what eventually happened is she went home and she bled and miscarried on her own with her husband and young toddler in the other room. This is not uncommon. What's uncommon is that Kate went to a public hearing with the encouragement of her twin sister, who was a medical student in Louisiana, and she called the hospital out. And then NPR picked it up, and it became a national story. But the courage to do that and the untold stories are everywhere. Everywhere.

Yeah. So many of the laws are going further than just preventing abortion. So for example, Texas has passed travel bans and trafficking laws that make it a felony for an adult to help a minor seek abortion care. Texas Republicans are campaigning to treat abortion as homicide, not reproductive health. Earlier this year, an Alabama Supreme Court ruled that if frozen embryos are children, the governor did sign legislation providing criminal and civil immunity to IVF clinics and patients, but the court decision still opened the door to legal repercussions against someone who discards embryos that were created during IVF and not implanted. Trump had signaled this during that one interview that he tried to walk back,

the criminalization. It feels like the steps for taking preventive abortions quickly morphed into prosecuting people for both patients and doctors for reproductive care. What do you attribute this shift from making abortion illegal to criminalizing it with anyone associated with it? Why is there this urge to take it further? And was it unexpected for you that this moved so quickly? It was horrifying, but not surprising. And I just feel like, look, what we're seeing in Louisiana is just one example. The Republican Party's fealty to the most extreme wing of the party,

which doesn't represent even a majority of Republicans in most cases, there's no bottom. Republicans in most cases, there's no bottom. And even there was just the Louisiana legislature, which is a frightening place. They just considered, there was a proposal to actually make an exception for abortion, because there are no exceptions for rape, incest, you name it, for children, minors who are victims of sexual assault or violence. And it was turned down. It was voted down by the Republican Party. There's just no, there's no bottom to which they won't sink. And I mean, a woman, Representative Delisha Boyd, who I've interviewed and who's like just a fighter, she said, we have failed our children. As you noted, the majority of Republicans, including Donald Trump, have suggested support for exceptions in the case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother at stake.

You've been listening to their arguments for a long time. Talk about the move to appease voters ahead of the election. Well, clearly, as I said earlier, they had all these talking points, all these statements about babies and pro-life. you know, babies and pro-life. And now they have to face the consequences of criminalizing medical care of a variety of ways. And so they're, obviously, they're just scrambling to find a way to explain it. And my favorite, Kara, is that Donald Trump has now settled on it's a state's rights issue, you know, as if, okay, well, I'll give you an example of a state's rights. In Mississippi last year, a 12-year-old girl was raped in her front yard by a stranger. She could not get an abortion. a stranger, she could not get an abortion. There was really literally no way to get one in the state, and her mother couldn't get her to Chicago, which was the only option. So this young woman

started seventh grade with a newborn. And that's what states' rights looks like. And that's what I'd like to have Donald Trump answer. Is that his imagination of how we should be living in the 21st century in America? We'll be back in a minute. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter.

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their next great idea? Invest 30 minutes in an episode today. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. So talk about the role it's playing in upcoming elections. Voters in a dozen or so states have the opportunity to vote on the issue. Talk about the proposals and why some abortions rights advocates, including Planned Parenthood, are not necessarily thrilled. There's a variety of ballot initiatives. And I really support the decisions of Planned Parenthood of where to be active and where not. And there always is a danger. In fact, we've seen, like in Florida, even though there is

a highly popular effort to enshrine abortion rights, But the Republicans have made the threshold for getting the votes upwards of 60%. This is a really hard thing to do. And they've tacked on all kinds of fiscal notes and other things to make them less popular. But my experience is, and this was long before the overturning of Dobbs, even in really conservative states, when I was at Planned Parenthood, states like South Dakota, including South Dakota multiple times, Mississippi, when people had the chance to vote on whether abortion should be decided by people or by politicians, even in the toughest states that we won.

But there are varying levels of truth in advertising about what they would actually do. But there are initiatives to expand protections in several states, including New York, California, Montana, Maryland, and Nevada. What states are you watching closely and what are you most worried about and most hopeful about? Arizona, number one. And I know I just listened to your podcast, which was fascinating about Arizona. It's an incredibly important state for a whole variety of reasons, but not least of which how I believe abortion and abortion access could impact voter turnout. Florida, critical. But again, the Republican Party has made it much more difficult.

And these are expensive races. To raise the kind of money to do a full state campaign is expensive, and people are torn in how to resource all the efforts. I also want to say, it's not necessarily your question, but even if we win these ballot initiatives, the women in Louisiana, even if we win the election, women in Louisiana are going to wake up in Texas with the same situation. And so, even though the ballot initiatives are incredibly important, we have to change this entire country because we can't leave anyone behind. And that's why I feel like lifting up the stories of lived experiences of families. So people understand what's happening.

You were referring to this map of restrictions. There's swaths of the country where access is basically cut off, like the entire southeast from Texas to Florida. As you noted, women and doctors are not just traveling, but moving out of state because of these laws relating to health care. What does that make the U.S. look like in terms of voting blocks, demographics, public health if this Well, there's so many ways you can look at it, but I know 84% of young people who are going to college do not want to go to college in a state where they don't have rights. That's a huge number. In terms of the racial disparities, two-thirds of historically Black colleges and universities are in abortion-banned states. So, in fact, many of the young women I was meeting with who were med students in New Orleans are some of the most talented products of that state, and they're going to leave. talented products of that state, and they're going to leave. So we're just beginning to see the impact on medical care.

And I think I mentioned this earlier, but that's why if, you know, the Republicans like to say there's exceptions and, you know, people can get care, but you can't. Even if it was legal, quote-unquote, you'd have to convince a doctor that they weren't going to lose their license and go to jail. Right, right. Why should they? Yeah, yeah. Why should they do it? So in that regard, you're talking about even if we pass these ballot initiatives, even if the states get winning in places that are surprising. Biden was last campaigning for president.

Abortion access was the law of the land. 2024 is a new world. They talk about him and Vice President Harris talk about this a lot, about abortion access. But what can they actually do? What do you want to see more of in the national part of the election? I mean, I'm seeing like what I'd hoped would happen, and that is focusing on the affected people and their stories. And it's not about, it's about policies and they're doing things that are important, but it's also putting on the road people who are relatable. My worry is people will get tired of talking about this because I know

the Democrats in the midterms are like, say, we're talking too much about abortion. We should talk about what, and thank God people did keep talking about it because it led to historic turnout. And I think I just need folks to stay the course. And every day I wake up thinking, how can we hold Republicans accountable for the tragedies that are happening? It's not a talking point. It's not a policy position. It's real people's lives. And it's every single day. If Trump wins, how likely is a federal ban on abortion? I was just talking to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and she was worried about this. Is there anything states, advocacy groups, lawmakers can do now to prevent that from happening? If Donald Trump is elected again, there will absolutely be, and assuming that the Republicans

have Congress, he will sign anything. He's not going to be in a position. position. Honestly, he doesn't care about women. So, yeah, I can't put it plainly enough. I don't care what he says. He said everything and will say anything to get elected, and he will sign any abortion ban that comes across his desk. So speaking of people in power, Supreme Court decisions, two cases related to abortion that could come later this month. The first case is about mifepristone, the abortion pill. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 63% of abortions performed in the U.S. in 2023 were induced by medication. The second case is about the emergency room abortion care.

What do these cases mean for women's health? Well, so we'll take the EMTALA case. not to turn them away, that have life-threatening or health-threatening complications or situations. So the Republicans are trying to say that if you are having an abortion or you're miscarrying and your life or health is at risk, they don't have to see you. And hospitals can turn you away. So this is overturning a 40-year precedent. And it's extremely scary because, and as you have mentioned, there are cases where women are being turned away from emergency rooms and having to fly out of state.

It's just outrageous. So that's the Emtala case. The case about mifepristone is equally important because many, as you know, the number of people searching for abortion online, searching for medication, abortion pills, is just off the charts. And the fear that many of these, because of the criminalization, including Louisiana, the fear of people even searching online for this information is profound. And it's outrageous that the Supreme Court would be deciding on an FDA matter that has a medication that has been safely used for and approved for more than 20 years.

It's the politicization of the Supreme Court, as others have talked about. It's horrifying. Because it used to be— Do you have a guess on what they're going to do? I don't. You don't. I don't. Because it's so—I don't think it will be good.

But there's a variety of ways they can rule. But anything they do that diminishes access to medication abortion will have a profound impact on everybody. Yeah. We'll be back in a minute. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day, the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind. But if customers don't know about you, the rest of it doesn't really matter. Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out, stay top of mind,

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Plus, you can rest assured knowing that Anthropic built Clawed with an emphasis on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. Every show we get a question from an outside expert. Today we got one from, this is going to surprise you, but she's written a lot about this topic, model and entrepreneur Carly Kloss, who is married to Josh Kushner. She has a nonprofit code with Klossy. She has two questions for you. Here's the first one. Hi, Cecile. This is Carly. You have been instrumental in so many things throughout your career, but most recently creating Charlie, which is an online chatbot to help women seeking

abortions across the nation. My question for you is, how do you see technology reshaping the reproductive rights landscape? So explain Charlie for us and how you look at it. So Charlie is a chatbot that some colleagues and I created anticipating that so many women, anticipating that so many women, particularly young women, would be going online to access care or even search for what they could get and what was legal, and it's proven to be true. The most important thing about Charlie, it is just a chatbot. You only have to provide two pieces of information to chat with Charlie. One is your last menstrual period, if you know it, and the second is your zip code. And it's fully anonymous. And after the chat that you have, it's erased.

All the information is erased because we wanted to pilot something that could actually be anonymous and trustworthy. So that was important. And we're seeing great uptick in the use of Charlie, particularly in Florida and in Texas. Those are the two highest states of usage. And I hope that we do more to make it simpler for people going online to access medication abortion in particular, because it's not misinformation that I'm worried about. It's lack of ability to find what they need and easily. Okay, there's a second question from Carly. We're going to play that. Given the current political environment and the increase in restrictive abortion laws, what strategies do you believe are most effective for protecting and advancing reproductive rights over this next decade? Obviously, this election in November is critical. And there was a recent poll that showed that 17%, appointed the three judges who are now not only overturned Roe, but are responsible for all the bad decisions coming up about reproductive rights.

So we have an information gap, and Carly is amazing. And I think the more people who can use their platform to educate voters so that they can make an informed decision is critical. will, and Donald Trump is not reelected, there are still states that we have to work on and make it untenable for the Republicans to continue to pass policies that harm women. And it is a state-by-state battle. And I appreciate the work that everyone is doing to lift up the stories of people who are impacted and their families. And the courage, I'm just so grateful for the courage of the people who don't have to share their stories, but do. But do. Do you think there needs to be a national abortion access bill so that it's not in the hands of the Supreme Court?

Absolutely. I'm sorry, I should have said that. But yeah, absolutely. And that's why these elections are so important. The people of America would support that in a heartbeat. It's just a question of a Republican Party having a stranglehold on anything related to women's health. And so, yes, this is a political problem, and it has to have a political solution. You know, when I was at Planned Parenthood, I always thought we had amazing medical advances and technology, but it was only the politics that were keeping people from getting care.

How do you stop from being burnt out? It's exhausting. You know, it's, I mean, maybe I'm nuts, but I don't find it exhausting. I get angry and frustrated. But as I said, like, I'm so inspired by people who this was not their fight, and yet they're in it now. A young woman, Nancy Davis from Baton Rouge, I had coffee and beignets with her the other day, and she had had a terrible experience in pregnancy. The fetus had no brain or skull. It was clearly unsustainable, but she couldn't get an abortion in Louisiana. And she did finally get away to New York City

and Planned Parenthood saw her. So yay, Planned Parenthood. She said she had great care, She said she had great care, but it changed her life. She said, I don't want any other woman to go through what I did. And so in Louisiana, she started a foundation to help address maternal mortality and access to health care. She said to me the other day, you know, most people find their calling, but my calling found me. And she's unstoppable. Well, let's end on that story. Okay. Cecile, I really appreciate it. You're a national treasure. Great to see you again. On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russel,

Terry Yochum, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez-Gruzado, and Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you are pissed off and ready to get active. If not, get inspired and do something. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine,

the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things. We'll see you next time. From the design and styling to the performance, all the way to features like the Bose Personal Plus sound system, you can get closer to everything you love about city life in the all-new, reimagined Nissan Kicks. Learn more at www.nissanusa.com slash 2025 dash kicks. Available feature, Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo. registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. AI-powered email, SMS, and more, making every moment count. Over 100,000 brands trust Klaviyo's unified data and marketing platform to build smarter digital relationships with their customers during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Make every moment count with Klaviyo.

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