Chris Charbonneau: My name is Chris Charbonneau and I'm the host of the Fall of Roe podcast. I'm a 40-year veteran of the pro-choice movement. I have been the CEO of Planned Parenthoods in seven different states, and have decades of experience in the pro-choice realm.

This is an unapologetically pro-choice podcast. We are going to talk about the disaster that is the unfolding dismantling of the Roe standard across the United States creating 50 states worth of patchwork laws, and the danger that that poses to anyone of reproductive age and all of us who love them.

We need to figure out how we as a collective are going to get through this, change this situation, give ourselves some hope and get back to sanity in this country.

Hi, friends! This is Chris Charbonneau and this is one of my state recaps on the Fall of Roe. The state of Roe we're dealing with today is California. And with me, I have my former colleague, Stacy Cross, who runs Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte, one of the biggest affiliates in the country and covers a lot of Central California and parts of Nevada.

I want to talk today with Stacy about what in the world is going on with abortion access in California, and everything about California related to our post-Roe world. Welcome, Stacy!

Stacy Cross: Hey, Chris! I am so happy to be here and so happy to hear your voice. And I know everybody can't, but I can see your face and it's wonderful.

Chris Charbonneau: It's wonderful to have you on. California, as we know, is a safe state in the post-Roe world. Yet California is probably getting slammed, I can only imagine how much frenetic activity there is, as you all try to make sure that nobody dies in all these red states. Tell us what's going on?

Stacy Cross: Well, as you know, we've been preparing for a long time. We have, every affiliate as we head into a presidential election gets ready for this day that we hope will never come. And it happened. I can't believe it's been over a week already. Although, we knew with the leak pretty much what was going to happen with the crude and cruel language in the leak.

So, in California, we are fortunate to work and live in two states that are supporting reproductive rights and justice. California pulled together over 40 organizations last fall in preparation, and it was called ‘The Future of Abortion Council”, and they developed a variety of bills. And then the great thing, not only is their language in these bills but there's money behind the bills to help us implement them and actually make them happen.

And all of the bills are bills that are protecting our patients' safety and privacy, not only our current patients in California but also the patients that have to cross state lines to come into a state that still considers them full citizens of the United States and protect their reproductive freedom. So, they can come here and our governor and our pro tem have just been, and our whole state legislature has been just absolutely champions for choice, and champions for women and people seeking abortions.

So, they developed a variety of bills, as I said, to protect the patients – to protect also our providers, which is extremely important. And also, to help expand access to safety and security because we're already seeing, we're, as the governor is making us the beacon of light for the country, as the sanctuary state for reproductive rights, we knew that we would start to get additional security issues at our health centers, and that's begun. But we have resources because of our governor to be able to add layers of protection, both at our health centers and to make sure, again, most important for us is that our providers are protected also.

Chris Charbonneau: Fantastic! Bravo to Governor Gavin Newsom of California for doing it the way that needs to be done. I saw his work on the shield bills – that’s what I'm calling them, the protective bills that sort of protect people in California, both people coming to California and people who are in California - from being prosecuted by other states who have this idea that they get to legislate in other places, which is a little weird, but some people have that idea.

So, what's going on on the ground then? You said that there were security issues. What about the patients? I assume you're already seeing people from other places?

Stacy Cross: Well, we already at Mar Monte, see people from all over the country, as do my peers that run the six other Planned Parenthoods throughout the state of California. We didn't see a lot of patients from Texas until SB 8 hit, but I know…

Chris Charbonneau: Just for everybody, SB 8 is that vigilante thing that they passed. It’s basically a six-week ban.

Stacy Cross: Yes, in Texas that added a bounty hunter component to it, which is insane. But we started seeing patients, particularly in Southern California, from Arizona. As of Friday, when the decision happened, we were having people, all of our response centers were just absolutely flooded with calls, both from people from out of state, but you know, there's so much confusion and fear out there, that even people from California and Nevada were calling our response center saying, ‘Are we still safe and legal in our states?’

So, yes, we have been preparing for and we're ready to handle an additional 250 to 500 patients a week. We've been adding providers. We've been making sure our providers are trained in abortion services up to what their licensure will allow in our two states. We're adding brick and mortar.

I'll just give you one story from last week that is a bit heart-wrenching. Even though Utah did not go dark yet, because they have a temporary restraining order, we had a patient that drove 17 hours each way to receive an abortion at our Bakersfield Health Centre. And I think that's it. People are going to do whatever it takes because they're desperate. If you are pregnant, and you don't want to be, you're going to do what it takes, whether it means traveling 1000 miles each way, whatever it's going to take, that's what you're going to do.

So, yeah, we're seeing a ton of patients from out of state. But one thing that we're all very cautious of is we don't want to take also away from the services that we're providing our current patients. And that's why we've done a lot of things to prepare, and that's why all of the bills that we have added to add layers of protection for our providers, and our staff, and our patients make a huge difference with people coming in. Knowing that their medical protection, their confidentiality, is protected from other states is really important.

Chris Charbonneau: Super important. I think what's palpable, as you're talking about this is just the absolute terror that people can imagine. You're in a state where it's still legal, but you're so not sure if it will be tomorrow by the time you need to get to your appointment, that you get in your car and you drive 17 hours to go get care in California, or Nevada, whatever is closer.

Stacy Cross: Exactly. So, it's just that people are going to do what it takes. Making abortion illegal doesn't make it go away. It just makes it unsafe.

Chris Charbonneau: Yeah, absolutely. And a giant nightmare for the people involved. We're hearing stories of a lot of people bringing not just themselves but a couple of kids in the car because they don't have anywhere to leave them.

I mean, this is such an unforced error, America. How we have allowed these politicians this much leeway on this - we've all been screaming about it for years. So when people say 'I'm surprised', I'm always surprised they're surprised. But it's still shocking to be in the day.

Stacy Cross: 100% really shocking. I mean, even though we knew it was coming when I got the call from my Chief of Staff that the decision had been released, I mean, I was out walking, I sat down for a minute and just paused. And you know, Chris, that both of my grandmothers died from lack of access to birth control. One died from an illegal abortion in 1934. And to think that we are going back in 2022, to these days…

Chris Charbonneau: On purpose.

Stacy Cross: On purpose. Yeah. And we also know that the thing is not going to stop with abortion. We're already hearing what's happening in Missouri, where they're restricting or limiting access to IUDs, to emergency contraception, that women are sitting in hospital emergency rooms with non-viable tubal pregnancies, waiting for their body to start crashing before they're allowed to have access to life-saving care - it's just really scary. Anything that's currently protected by privacy is at risk right now, including, you know, gay marriage, interracial marriage, and birth control. It's hard to imagine that this is America right now.

Chris Charbonneau: Yeah, it really is. It’s certainly not the America that I admired growing up. It's the beginning of a sort of Banana Republic theocracy, which is horrific. Absolutely horrific.

What about your local patients? You said that they're also concerned because people don't know – I mean, a lot of the people that we're seeing are not necessarily constitutional law experts. They don't know what's going on, they hear a lot of news. What's the confusion level like?

Stacy Cross: I think the first couple of days, there was a lot of confusion. And yeah, absolutely, they're not paying attention because they're focusing on getting food on the table. Many of our patients are working two jobs. They have kids at home. They're trying to do everything to stay above the water in life and that's why they count on folks like you and me and Planned Parenthood, to be able to take care of their reproductive health care needs.

So, there has been a lot of fear. We are making sure when we're presenting, anytime I do an interview or present, I say the first thing I want people to know is that our doors are open and patients are welcome here regardless of what their zip code is.

Chris Charbonneau: That's right. Contraception is still legal and ought to be available in all 60 states. If you're a hospital system or a doctor's office that is shrinking that down, you are doing a vast disservice to the women and girls and people with uteri that need us. Knock it off. You are not doing anything that's protective of yourself. You are just making life difficult for other folks. A little public service message there.

You were saying that people were driving from Utah and other places. I know that there's a stay against that. Thank you to Planned Parenthood in that state that brought the case.

Stacy Cross: Absolutely!

Chris Charbonneau: Generally, what's the feeling among you and all the folks in the movement about how this is going – I mean, there's been a tremendous amount of planning and, and in some states huge amounts of money that people are trying to devote to make sure this doesn't become a total catastrophe. But it's going to be a catastrophe for some individual people that slip through the cracks here that we can't find, or we can't help. What's going on with that space?

Stacy Cross: I mean, I think that's the biggest fear that we have is that people that don't know that they can look up Planned Parenthood, that they can go to independent providers, that we are all uniting together to make sure that women and people seeking abortion have access, and that when they walk through our doors, they are met with love and compassion.

All of the patients that walk through our doors, we're not looking at them just as they're coming in for this one thing. We're asking them about how they're doing. You know, we have people in domestic violence situations, we have people that are homeless, we have people that are undocumented.

These are the people that are going to hit the most. Our average patient, as you know, is 19 to 34, and already has children, they just don't think they can afford to care for another child to the capacity that they want to.

So, forcing a birth, how is that going to improve the lives of anyone? This attack on women is an attack on families, which is an attack on our country. This is really the first step of democracy really being impacted. We know democracy is already at risk right now.

So, we're telling people three things, because everybody wants to do something. Rallying gets your energy out, but we want action. So, we're telling people to vote, of course, and that really is irritating people right now. But the reality is, that's really what we can do.

So, as we go into the midterms, we want to make sure that people are voting and doing what it takes. Here in California, we have added a Constitutional Amendment, Constitution 10, and we want people to get out and vote because right now, Roe is protected or abortion is protected in our constitution based on privacy. So, this new constitutional amendment will protect both abortion, codify abortion based on personal autonomy and access to birth control. And it is just hard to imagine and hard to believe that we have to add that into our Constitution, but we do.

Chris Charbonneau: So, that's Constitutional Amendment 10. Do you know which way people have to vote?

Stacy Cross: This isn't a proactive bill, so they have to vote 'Yes' - they have to support the bill. Actually, since you brought up the ballot...

Chris Charbonneau: Yeah, 'Yes' on Constitutional Amendment 10, you, Californians - write it down. And since I brought up ballot initiatives, you were going to tell me there are more?

Stacy Cross: Yes, there are more. There's another proactive ballot initiative in Vermont, that is also codifying Roe in their state constitution. And then, there are two anti-bills, two anti-ballot initiatives, which is what we usually have dealt with, one in Kansas and one in Kentucky, and potentially one in Missouri, which will be a proactive one that hasn't come out yet.

But we have to get out and vote, we have to do our part. We want people to donate also, not only, I mean, of course to us, because we're taking care of thousands of patients, but also, and to independent providers, but also to abortion funds that will help people with travel, housing, and transportation.

As you mentioned, many of these women, these patients that are coming, they're coming with kids, they have childcare. We've added an additional burden onto lives that are already challenging and hard. And then, we want people to disrupt. By disrupt, we mean, not only rally but also tell your story. One in four women in our country have had an abortion. We need to normalize this. We need to tell the stories of the positive impact of making a choice that involves your body, a decision, and how that impacted your life.

I was at an event where we had a speaker that's a surgeon here in California talk about the fact that the medical school class this year is 52% women. She is anticipating with the fall of Roe, that that will drop considerably, and maybe go down in 5 years by a third. That's just not good for anyone when your choices get eliminated.

Chris Charbonneau: Do you mean that fewer women will become doctors?

Stacy Cross: That fewer woman will become doctors because they will potentially not have access to reproductive health care. Because remember, this is not just about abortion, this is about birth control. And ultimately, and you know better than anyone as one of the strongest champions in our movement for over 40 years, that this is about power and control. That's what it really boils down to.

Chris Charbonneau: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you think about it, the long-term impact, yes, if you don't have access to birth control, you don't have access to reproductive autonomy, you may not make it all the way through medical school, right?

You may end up getting diverted along the way, and as we know, Stacy, the control is the point. This is entirely why this is an issue. If there were romantic feelings about fetuses, there should be romantic feelings about 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds, and 10-year-olds in school that are getting shot up today. And there are not those feelings about making sure that our kids are safe.

I would add that we're talking about every pregnancy planned or unplanned, being at risk now. No one knows for sure that their pregnancy will be smooth and uneventful. And if it's eventful, unfortunately, there will be far fewer things that people can do to help save everyone involved. So, really quite dangerous the moment we're in.

Stacy Cross: Absolutely. I think you touched on the hypocritical nature of this is just the fact that they're phenomenal hypocrites, that they're not expanding parental leave, that they're not expanding early education and kindergarten, that they're not expanding WIC, that we have so many children right now in foster care, and that number is going to triple and they're not expanding dollars for that. It's really only outside the womb, they're not adding protection and support for the parents and for the children into the future.

Chris Charbonneau: It's absolutely untenable and it cannot last, and the more we vote, to Stacy's point, the faster this changes for the better because what we're dealing with is absolutely an unforced error of massive proportions. Stacy, what am I not asking you about California that you want to be sure that we tell people?

Stacy Cross: Just one, that all of our doors are open, and that we're going to continue after, especially we want people to vote to get this constitutional amendment passed, but if you need care, if you're sitting in a state where it just went dark, please reach out. Go online and find a provider that will provide safe, compassionate, and confidential care that's protected.

That's one of the important things about all the bills that California has just passed is that we want to make sure that your medical care is protected here and so please come if you need to come, our doors are open. We welcome you with open arms, and we want to make sure that you are safe and cared for, and that you're safe and cared for when you get back to your state, also.

Chris Charbonneau: Yes, indeed. So, the best way to do that is to get on abortionfinder.org. That's abortionfinder.org. And those providers, it's the independent providers, Planned Parenthoods, everybody together, vetted providers on that line, put together by the whole movement so that people can find their way through this without too much trouble.

I'm really heartened to hear about how people have come together in California to make sure that not only do you serve Californians well, but people coming from elsewhere. It's really heartening. It shows tremendous leadership on the part of your governor and your legislature.

Stacy can't say this, because she works for a 501 (C)(3), but it's got to be you have to vote blue no matter who. You can only vote for Democrats. If you vote for Republicans, you are voting for more of this mayhem. That's just the bottom line. There was a day when Republicans weren't like this, but this is the story today. So, if you don't know, just pick up the (D) part of the ticket, and you'll probably be in very good shape.

Stacy Cross, I can't tell you how I appreciate that you're sitting in your chair and that you're making things happen in California, and that you all have been so thoughtful about this. You and I have been working on this day, hoping it would never come for a couple of decades. And yet, now that it's here, it's pretty darn horrifying.

Stacy Cross: It's horrifying. But I was asked yesterday, what gives me hope. And what gives me hope is one, to be living and working in two great states that are protecting reproductive freedom. But hearing from young people that are ready to really stand up and have our backs and do what it's going to take because they're the next generation. We really thought this fight would be over for them, but they're picking it up, and they're going to carry it through to the finish because this is a, I'm a runner, this is an ultra-marathon of 10 or 20 years, and we have to be vigilant and keep our energy up. And that really gives me hope for our future.

It’s so great to talk with you.

Chris Charbonneau: So, great to talk to you, and thank you for doing the heavy lifting. And we can't scream loudly enough about this. I am so heartened to hear you talk about young people coming into the movement and picking up the trails of things that need to be done.

We saw it at all those marches that we went on, the huge energy of young people, and their total unwillingness to be stigmatized and shoved back into a corner. I really think that the anti-choice folks underestimated the upcoming generations of people and the thought that they would give up their freedoms so easily. I think they're in for a nasty shock and surprise.

Stacy Cross, thank you so much for your time this morning. One of these days, I want to talk to you about the great state of Nevada, too, so that we are sure that we have information about that for all our Nevada folks - Nevada, just as a spoiler, is a safe state - but what's going on there and all of that.

Thank you very much for coming on to the Fall of Roe podcast and telling us the state of play in California. And everybody, 'Yes' on Constitutional Amendment 10 in California and vote, vote, vote.

Thanks so much. Thanks for coming on.

Stacy Cross: Thank you, Chris. Take care.

Chris Charbonneau: Thank you for listening, friends. This is Chris Charbonneau. It's been my pleasure to host this broadcast for you today. If you'd like to hear more, please subscribe on Apple podcasts or Google podcasts and give us a 5-star review. If you'd like to connect with me in some way, please go to fallofroe.com for information.

Thank you!