The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Stakes for Abortion Rights, from the Head of Planned Parenthood

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

If Vice-President Kamala Harris wins in November, it will likely be on the strength of the pro-choice vote, which has been turning out strongly in recent elections. Her statements and choices on the campaign trail couldn’t stand in starker relief against those of Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance, who recently called for defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Harris “is the first sitting Vice-President or President to come to a Planned Parenthood health center, to come to an abortion clinic, and really understand the conversations that have been happening on the ground,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s president and C.E.O., told David Remnick. The organization is spending upward of $40 million in this election to try to secure abortion rights in Congress and in the White House. A second Trump term, she speculates, could bring a ban on mifepristone and a “pregnancy czar” overseeing women in a federal Department of Life. “Is that scary enough for you?” Johnson asks.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Ever since the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision, voters have been pushing back hard. Democrats outperformed expectations in the 2022 midterms, and every ballot measure that's been up for a vote, even in the red state of Kansas, has gone for reproductive choice. More voters than ever before call abortion their most important issue, especially women under 30. If Kamala Harris prevails in the election, it will likely be on the strength of the pro-choice vote. Donald Trump is frantically backpedaling from his success in overturning row, but he doesn't seem to be on the same page as his running maid, J.D. Vance,

who recently called for defunding Planned Parenthood. The president and CEO of Planned Parenthood is Alexis McGill Johnson. and the group is spending upwards of $40 million in this election to try to secure abortion rights once again. Just a few days ago, just a while back, Senator J.D. Vance, the vice presidential nominee for the Republicans, said this. On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood,

look, I mean our view is we don't think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions. That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around, and it will remain a consistent view. view. What do you make of the Republican ticket rolling out this idea really late in the campaign while kind of hedging on what its own history is on this issue? Well, you know, the opposition has been trying to defund Planned Parenthood for a long time. That is just one of the tactics in their book. You know, I sit and I listen to the guy who is trying to shame childless cat ladies and, you know, curry more favor with the American

public by saying, let's just take away health care from, you know, the million of the Americans of American who come to Planned Parenthood health centers every single day for STI testing and birth control and access to life-saving breast cancer. Like, is that really your strategy? What would that mean in dollar and cents terms and what would it mean for people but benefit from Planned Parenthood? So defunding Planned Parenthood would mean taking away, you know, access to Medicaid reimbursements.

It would mean trying to continue to find ways to make us spend money. money through litigation. All of that is impacting the two million patients that come to Planned Parenthood every single year. It would be devastating, of course. You watched the vice presidential debate? I did. So Vance said this about abortion. We've got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people's trust back on this issue where they frankly just don't trust us. That was a very, very weird thing to say, no? It is weird. I know. I know that's like the word of the election.

But it is kind of weird. Yeah. Like, I mean. What's it masking? I don't know. Some kind of surprise that they think we still actually care about our fundamental freedoms. You know, I think it's probably one of the number one questions I get often from journalists is, do you think that, you know, women still care about abortion the cycle? I'm like, are you kidding me?

Like, they just took it away two years ago. And still, you know, we're watching the impact. So I think it is masking this just complete surprise. that we are still up in arms, that we are no longer equal in the eyes of the Constitution. You've been president, CEO of Planned Parenthood now for five years. For five years. I stepped in during a transition in 2019 as acting president, and I became permanent president the following year. Now, a lot's changed since then, and it's been reported that Planned Parenthood is spending $40 million on this election cycle. Correct. What's the $40 million for?

The $40 million that is being spent in the Action Fund and our Planned Parenthood's work is to communicate to the 19 million people who show up and take action every single week on behalf of Planned Parenthood, on behalf of fighting for reproductive freedom. It's to focus on ensuring that not only do we see a Harris Walls in the White House, but that a future President Harris also has a reproductive freedom majority. so that she can govern and that we can fight to get, you know, restore all of the protections for reproductive freedom. What is the, for Planned Parenthood, what's on the line this time around? This is the first presidential election since Adopt's decision, right? And you have seen since 22, every time reproductive freedom has been on the ballot, we have won. And that is because of the outrage, the horror of what is happening to women across this country.

Just, you know, a few weeks ago, we learned the names of, of, of, you know, Amber Thurman and Candy Miller. You know, now we know that abortion bans don't stop people from seeking access to abortion. Abortion bans have made pregnancy more dangerous. And so we are involved as deeply as we are because we believe that electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is key to restoring reproductive freedom to getting federal legislation that will allow us to end this nightmare. Your predecessor at Planned Parenthood appeared uneasy with the partisan and politics that Planned Parenthood had been comfortable with and wanted to shift the focus a bit, I think this is fair, away from abortion and then was pushed out of leadership less than a

year later. You're taking a very different approach. So I may disagree slightly with the characterization. I think that Planned Parenthood has always been about health care, right? We are the nation's largest sexual reproductive health. health care provider, and the reality is health care is politicized. You don't ask United Health Care to end its lobbying arm, right, in Washington, D.C. You don't ask that of any major, you know, Walgreens or CVS because they understand how important it is to engage in policy and politics in order to protect the care that they provide. And I think that my position, particularly in this moment, is that politics got us into this situation.

Abortion is not a partisan issue. There is no way we would have won in Kansas and Kentucky and Montana and Ohio and Michigan, all of those ballot initiatives, if you were not bringing along Republican and independence into the conversation, right, and uniting them because it is across the board. That's what all the polling indicates. So I don't see this as a partisan issue. Now, the Dobbs decision undid Roe v. Wade, and even if the Democrats win, you still have the court that you have. What can a Harris administration do

within the realm of the likely Congress that is probably at best split? Well, the goal is to get to a trifecta, right? A reproductive freedom majority in the, you know, in the House. And if that happens, what can happen? Federal legislation to restore reproductive freedom. It should not be the case, for example, that, you know, I go to visit my mother in Georgia. And, you know, with my daughters and all of a sudden I'm less free there than I am when we wake up here in New York City. And so the importance of having federal legislation to protect those freedoms and to restore that is going to be paramount. That's what we're working towards. And we also know that it is quite possible that federal legislation could be contested and brought up to the court, but we would be

forcing the court to take away this right again and again. And we would be forcing people to bring that case when we know where the American public is. Let's say you don't win the trifecta. In fact, the likelihood is you don't that the Democrats do not have both houses of Congress and the White House. If they do win the White House, Democrats win the White House and one House of Congress, one chamber of Congress, what's the best that can happen? Look, I think there still is a lot that we can do that the vice president can do

in supporting and bringing more protections to things like family planning, more protections to things like maternal mortality, right? You know, the other kind of concurrent crises that are happening along with the public health crisis of losing abortion access. And so there is, there are a lot of conversations that can be had. And, you know, at the end of the day, it will be very, very close. Whatever the margin is, we know we know we won't get to a 60 majority in the, in the, in the Senate, but it will allow us, I think, an opportunity to force some very hard votes and very hard conversations with those senators. The stakes of this are enormous and sometimes overlooked, at least by people are not paying

attention. Stefania Teladreid, a reporter for the New Yorker, as well as ProPublica, more recently, have made it quite plain that the stakes of what's happened are that people die. Yes. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about that. our understanding of what has been the cost, the human cost of the end of row?

Yeah. I remember right after the leak in May of 22, the leak of the Supreme Court decision about Dobbs. Lancet Medical Journal, it's a premier medical journal, the cover read, Women Will Die. And while we

know that while we knew that. Remember, we had been living a year into SB8 in Texas and we were seeing. It was the first time I was hearing stories about patients being sent to parking lots and hospitals to wait for sepsis before doctors would provide the care. You knew that the human costs would happen soon after, whether or not we'd be able to tie the abortion bans to the actual to the dust that we would see, or we knew we would have to wait until the maternal morbidity data was collected to actually be able to make the argument. To now have names of women like Amber Thurman and Candy Miller to know their stories, right? They're, you know, leaving behind families, leaving behind children.

The fear that they had, one was afraid to. go to the hospital when she knew something was wrong because she feared criminalization, getting health care. The other went to the hospital and was essentially denied care until it was too late. And so I do think that the devastating consequences, which I'm sure extend beyond Amber and Candy, of course they do. Those are the only ones we know about. It really puts into perspective how horrific these bands are.

I'm speaking with Alexis McGill Johnson of Planned Parenthood, and we'll continue in a moment. I found it very interesting when you spoke at the Democratic National Convention. You said we cannot call ourselves a free nation when women are not free. And you also chose to highlight the story of a woman who sought an abortion, not because of a life or death situation, which is what Calma Harris did in the debate. But in your words, because she, quote, realized that she was pregnant and didn't want to be. Why was that the story you chose to highlight? Because being able to elect what you want to do with your body is fundamental to freedom.

And if I am free and equal, I should be able to speak about an elective abortion. I ask that not because I object to you. No, no, no. What I'm saying is that it's very interesting to you watch, even politicians that one knows to be pro-choice, that they, pick as examples when there is a life and death situation, as opposed to someone who doesn't choose to be pregnant? Because the majority of people who seek access to abortion are making these decisions because they do want to do have an abortion because they have made some decision around what their life plan is, and they do not see having a child in whatever particular

moment as where they would like to go. The majority of people who seek access to abortion are already parents. So they have full sense of what that means. in terms of the impact to their family and to their lives in their communities. And so I think it is actually very important to normalize the circumstances of elective abortion because they are, in fact, you know, a great majority of the decisions

that people are making. And quite frankly, honestly, it's no one's business. That was the other point, right? It's literally no one's business. As a policy matter, President Biden and Vice President Harris didn't differ, but as a matter of emotion and emphasis, they did. President Biden, in fact, had a reference to abortion in one major speech, and he ex-ized it.

Whereas Vice President Harris has had a long record on this issue, what do you make of her rhetoric around the issue of abortion access? Without question, the vice president is the most kind of vocal and profound elected speaking about abortion as a surrogate on the U.S. issue, right? She is the one who took this on right after Dobbs. She is the one who traveled around the country, met with, you know, hundreds of state legislatures and providers and patients to really understand full circle what the impact was. She is the first sitting vice president or president to come to a Planned Parenthood Health Center, to come to an abortion clinic and really understand the conversations that have been happening on the ground. And please do understand that when we talk about a clinic such as this.

It is absolutely about health care and reproductive health care. So everyone get ready for the language, uterus. That part of the body needs a lot of medical care from time to time. And I think the market difference

isn't just her ability to wrap her arms around it. It's the fact that she brings so much of her lived experience, her professional lived experience, into the conversation. So you'll hear her talk about prosecuting sexual assault cases and her own personal experiences growing up. You'll hear her talking about

what it took to pull together the momnibus bill to focus on maternal mortality and the wide range of abortion circumstances and pregnancy-related circumstances. You heard her grilling Justice Kavanaugh, right, to say what other procedure for men, right, is as heavily regulated and legislated? Like, can we name one, right? No, because there aren't any. And we've seen. her, I think, as a vice president really sit strongly with movement leaders and with other party leaders and corporate leaders to talk about the broad impact. It's her best issue. Yes, 100%.

But it's her best issue and then her ability to move the dial legislatively if and when she's elected is at best contingent. Is there a possibility that could lead to a great deal of disappointment? Look, I think that's our job. Our job is to get her a governing majority and ensure that we get the federal legislation that she can sign. And I think we have to continue to explain to Americans that she is the best on this issue. We know she will fight and we know she will sign legislation. And look, we are very sober around the long-term plan, right, that we didn't get here overnight. We didn't get here, you know, simply because of the Trump and been a business. issued in these abortion bans. This was a long-term strategy of taking over state houses, taking over federal judiciary, and got expedited, literally, in four years under the Trump administration. And so we know who to blame. And we also know that to do the work, it will require us to stay vigilant, state by state, living room by living room.

What would happen with the new Trump administration? Well, you know. For the record, your eyebrows are soaring. Your hands are now shaking. My heads on fire. Just definitely chalk that up to post-traumatic stress. Or pre-traumatic stress. Pre-traumatic stress, exactly.

Look, I mean, they've laid it out in Project 2025, right? How confident do you have to be to lay out a 900-page playbook on what you would do on so many issues, but particularly on issues of reproductive freedom we're talking about? For the record, he's disingenuously or not disavowed, Project 2025. Again, he does two things, right? He says he's disavowing it. Are you saying he's lying? But right before that, he also says, you know, this is really bad for us.

So now I'm going to disavow. So, like, we're watching him have these machinations in public, which is exactly why I might say, yes, he's being disingenuous at best. What do you think he would do? Or what do you think he could do with control of Congress? Well, what Project 2025 would do, would be you couldn't affect nationwide ban, not just through federal legislation, right, but by enforcing the Comstock law. And I think that's explain that. The Comstock law, which is a 1800s law against pornography, prohibiting the, you know, kind of distribution through the mail of pornographic products. he would likely direct the DOJ to enforce that law.

How does that relate to abortion? He's not sending Penthouse magazine through the mail. Yeah, exactly. To include something like Mitha Pristone in that broad sweeping, yes, in the suite of things that would be considered obscene. Yes, exactly, Miffa Pristone. So, again, effectively a nationwide abortion ban, given that more than half of abortions are done through Miphaepristone. The pregnancies are, right? Like a database of pregnant people where they could.

Sorry, a pregnancies are? Pregnancies are, yes. That would live in instead of health and human services, which we know is HHS. I believe the new designation would be the agency for human life or some sort, which could include a pregnancies are that would monitor pregnant people's pregnancies. Like, I say that as if that's like some dystopian, you know, nightmare. But the reality is Planned Parenthood in Missouri, there was the state health commissioner was actually tracking patient menstrual cycles. So this kind of level of surveillance and invasion of privacy into private health care, medical decisions, is work they have been testing in order to essentially codify that inequality. government agencies. Is that scary enough for you? It is, yes. It is sufficiently scary. Explain my

eyebrows. Alexis McGill Johnson. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Alexis McGill Johnson is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, the health care provider, as well as the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the group's lobbying arm. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening. See you. next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance

from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trurina Endowment Fund.