The effort to stop the defunding of Planned Parenthood inspired organizers across America, including young women in Phoenix, Arizona, getting ready for a town hall meeting with US senator Jeff Flake.
The flight from Miami Friday night was packed, despite the fact that we were leaving a balmy 85 degrees and headed straight to the cold. It was January 20, 2017, and we were flying to Washington, DC—not to celebrate the inauguration of the first woman president of the United States, as we’d hoped, but to protest the inauguration of a president who had bragged about sexual assault. The Women’s March on Washington was scheduled for the day after the inauguration. The mood on the plane was not at all what I’d expected: everyone was laughing, trading knitting tips, complimenting each other’s “Nasty Woman” shirts, offering a spare room or a couch to itinerant marchers. We weren’t dejected. We were determined.
I had finally finished knitting my pink pussy hat after the third try, hell-bent on making my own since my visit to The Daily Show the week before. After I taped a segment, the producer brought me backstage, where all the women producers and writers were knitting away. When they saw me, they yelled, “See you in Washington!” In between work trips I ran down to my local knitting store, a hole in the wall on Seventy-ninth Street, in Manhattan, that was overflowing with women of every age.
As I arrived, the proprietress was yelling, “Make way for another shipment!” A delivery had arrived, carrying pink yarn in every possible hue and thickness.
“I just don’t know what to do!” I told a young woman in a beautiful pink hat. “This is taking forever, and I have to have my hat by next Saturday for the march.”
“Let me help you,” she said, finding me bigger needles and thicker yarn. “That will do the trick.” I sat down and knitted a few rows to get the hang of it. Everywhere I looked, there were women knitting. Some brought in hats they’d made at home to give away to folks who couldn’t make their own. Mothers were teaching their daughters to knit, and everyone was in a joyful, revolutionary spirit. Xeroxed copies of the “Pussy Hat Instructions” were piled up on the counter, and everyone was leaving with a hat—one way or another. After some photos with my comrades, I headed out, confident that my hat was going to Washington along with thousands of others.
On the plane, the flight attendant was desperately hoping for the elusive “on-time departure,” but one very tall man toward the front was working up a sweat, struggling to fit an oversize poster into the overhead bin. A couple of us shouted, “Show us your sign!” He unrolled it and held it up for the entire plane to see. Elegantly written in Magic Marker were the words “I am very upset.” The passengers burst into applause, and he smiled sheepishly back at us. We were on a pilgrimage together.
I pulled out my pink pussy hat, and so did everyone else. My seatmate was a man from Los Angeles; the only flight to Washington he could find had been routed through Miami. “There are a bunch of us on the plane,” he said. “We simply had to be there!”
The flight attendant, a middle-aged Latina wearing a pin commemorating her twenty years of service for the airline, stopped to talk to me. “Do you think this march will make any difference?” she asked.
“I hope so,” I answered, not really sure what we would find when we got to DC. Though I was beginning to get the feeling that the march might just be really big.
• • •
National Airport was buzzing when we arrived that night. Women wearing pussy hats and Hillary T-shirts were everywhere, greeting each other like long-lost sisters. I met Kirk at the hotel and unpacked my outfit for the march—black pants, black T-shirt, marching boots, and the pièce de résistance, so to speak: my bright pink blazer, on brand for Planned Parenthood. The next morning the streets were already packed as I made my way to an early breakfast we’d organized for elected officials and other leaders. Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, along with Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring, were there wearing matching bright pink Planned Parenthood winter scarves—the first of thousands I’d see that day.
After grabbing coffee, I gave a quick rallying cry to the breakfast crowd. I was preparing to head out when I spotted Karen Pearl, a predecessor of mine at Planned Parenthood. She was with a beautiful little girl in a knitted pink hat. “This is my granddaughter, who came all the way from California,” Karen said. The little girl beamed up at me with the most exquisite smile; she could not have been much more than seven. “Show her your sign,” Karen urged. And she held up her multicolored handmade sign that simply said, “I am a girl. What’s your superpower?” Out of the mouth of babes, I thought. She is why we march today.
Then off we went, with a crew of Planned Parenthood staff and others who needed a ride. Getting to the mall was nearly impossible, but we piled everyone into a van and drove as far as we could before hopping out and joining the streams of people heading down Capitol Hill.
We made it to the main rally stage and found a who’s who of women. Cookbook author and social media rock star Chrissy Teigen was there, and so was Gloria Steinem. Janelle Monáe would soon provide one of the day’s most powerful moments, singing onstage alongside the Mothers of the Movement, whom I’d met back in Philadelphia, and filling us all with an even greater sense of purpose. Lily was with her new boss, Senator Kamala Harris, one of so many women in the Senate and House who were marching. I ran into the veteran progressive publicist Ken Sunshine, whose eyes were starry. “I’ve been at everything, including the March on Washington,” he said. “And I’ve never seen anything to match this.”
As I was getting ready to go onstage, I ran into Callie Khouri, the movie producer who made Thelma and Louise. “I have a line I want you to use in your speech,” she said. I quickly scribbled it on a scrap of paper: “We’re not going to take this lying down!”
From my place onstage I looked out over a sea of pink. “I’m honored to be here on behalf of the one in five women who has been to Planned Parenthood for health care,” I shouted into the microphone.
A roar rose up from the crowd. The sound system was no match for the enormous group of people, but nobody cared. The stage was constructed near the National Mall, but no matter which direction you looked, you could see only marchers—all the way up to Capitol Hill and down to the Washington monument. It was so packed that a lot of people couldn’t even make it over to the actual march; they just plopped down on the grass to listen from wherever they were. And people just kept coming.
Later we would learn that the Women’s March was the biggest demonstration in American history. But right then I knew only that it was one of the most beautiful sights I’d ever seen: people from all walks of life coming together for the right of working women to earn a living wage; the right of immigrant women to live without fear; the right of mothers everywhere to raise families in safe communities with clean air and clean drinking water; the right to live openly no matter who you are or whom you love; and, yes, the right of every woman to get the health care she needs, including safe, legal abortion.
After I spoke, I pulled my pussy hat out of my pocket and got ready to join the march. I spotted Katy Perry in a pink faux-fur coat complete with sparkly pink boots and a pink “Stand with Planned Parenthood” button. One of her traveling assistants said Katy wanted to get out in the crowd, so she and I and dozens of others took off for the Planned Parenthood gathering point with the irrepressible actor Ashley Judd, who threw her arms over our shoulders and beamed.
There were so many people that the original plan to march to the Washington Monument just never happened. It was more like a virtual city, with spontaneous actions, singing, chanting, and celebrating. We kept stopping to point out our favorite signs and take photos: “This Texan does not regret her abortion.” “Girls just wanna have fun(damental human rights).” “Tweet women with respect.” “My undocumented father paid more taxes than Trump.” It was an intergenerational march, from the woman carrying a sign asserting “Ninety, nasty, and not giving up!” to the two little girls holding matching signs warning “Watch out, Trump, my generation votes next!” Everyone seemed to have their own hand-knit pussy hat. The entire city was pink!
And it wasn’t just women—men marched too, including Kirk and Daniel. There were fathers marching hand in hand with their daughters, grandfathers who lifted their granddaughters onto their shoulders to see the crowd, and a whole lot of guys who were there simply because they want to live in a world where women are valued and treated fairly.
Best of all, people didn’t march just in Washington. In every corner of our country people came together, grabbed homemade signs, and marched: in Fargo, North Dakota; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Des Moines, Iowa. They braved a blizzard in Fairbanks, Alaska, and marched in the rain in Tallahassee, Florida. Hannah texted me a photo from the march in Denver, where she was rocking a vintage Obama ’08 inauguration hat and carrying a hand-lettered sign reading “Forward together, not one step back!” In Boston even the Make Way for Ducklings statues were wearing tiny, carefully knitted pink pussy hats. And Austin saw the biggest crowd gathered at the state capitol since Mom was inaugurated. People marched in every state in the United States and on every continent, including Antarctica, where women scientists at the South Pole held their own demonstration. The photos from across the globe that day have been collected in a book that gives me chills when I look at it.
We each had our own reasons for marching that day. I marched for my mom and all the women of her generation who fought so hard to get us to this point; we won’t let them down. And I marched for Lily, Hannah, and Daniel, and the future I so desperately want for them, one where everyone has the opportunity and the freedom to live life on their own terms.
All weekend long the streets of Washington were full of the makings of the resistance, with people from all over the country who had come to the biggest counterinauguration ever—one that dwarfed the inauguration festivities the day before. Friends from Texas, Elena and Kenneth Marks, had a hotel room they’d reserved months before, in hopes they would be there for Hillary, and they kindly let Kirk and me stay there since they’d decided to stay home. Because it was “the” inauguration hotel, there was nothing better than running around in my bright pink Planned Parenthood jacket. It was an incredible mashup of people in tuxedoes and gowns heading to inaugural balls, and women in pink hats unrolling banners and making “Resist” signs in the lobby.
Planned Parenthood had always intended to put on a big event during inauguration weekend, even before we knew what the election results would be. Months earlier we had rented the 9:30 Club, a super-hip music venue, and had a whole show lined up with celebrities, musicians, comedians, and activists—the Planned Parenthood party was always the place to be. We decided after the election that the party would go on, figuring we were going to need a place to gather in solidarity and help launch the resistance.
And so we did. The line to get in was insanely long, but folks were joyful. Everyone was riding high from the march that day. Kirk and I, along with Marisa, who had traveled with me for so many months of the campaign, went around back to get in through the talent door. We made our way backstage to say thank you to all the performers crammed in the holding area. I was thrilled to see that Daniel and Lily were there, and even they were impressed with the lineup of bands.
I could hear Brandon Minow, Planned Parenthood’s master show-runner, yell, “Get excited, Sleater-Kinney is about to play with The National, and they’re going to close with ‘Fortunate Son.’ ” I could barely contain myself. “Oh my God,” I said, “I can’t believe it. ‘Fortunate Son’ is my favorite anthem! What a perfect night to sing it. I even know all the words.”
Matt Berninger from The National heard me, and he didn’t miss a beat. “Well then, you’ve got to sing backup with us.”
I gave him a look that said, Are you kidding? “Listen, I’d love to, but I could throw the whole room off key. That’s a skill I learned from my mother.”
He shook his head. “No, you have to. Trust me, it won’t matter.”
A few minutes later I found myself onstage, living out every girl’s fantasy of singing backup for a great band. It was one of the most fun things I’d ever done in my life, belting out the ultimate antiwar anthem: “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate son!” Sure enough, while we were singing in unison along with hundreds of Planned Parenthood activists in the audience, nobody cared whether I was in tune or not.
Going to bed that night, I thought of what Tony Kushner wrote in Angels in America: “The world only spins forward.” Even though it still felt like our country was in free fall, those words rang true. No matter what else happens, nothing and no one can stop the future from coming.
• • •
November 8, 2016, was a tough day (to put it mildly). But the days right after the new administration and new Congress got to Washington were worse. It seemed like every morning there was some headline or tweet that made just getting out of bed feel like a radical act of defiance.
The day Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced that he was going to do everything he could to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood, it was the bat signal people had been waiting for. Right away, the phone lines were so busy you couldn’t get a call into his office. The congressional switchboard was jammed with calls. We could barely hold organizer trainings fast enough for the people who wanted to do something to help.
Meanwhile Planned Parenthood staff across the country were planning for different scenarios while working overtime to be there for a huge influx of patients. In the weeks after the election, our text/chat helpline was bombarded with urgent questions. We saw a 900 percent increase in requests for appointments to get IUDs, a form of birth control that lasts for several years; women wanted to make sure their birth control would outlast the Trump administration. We were doing everything we could to keep our doors open for the approximately 8,118 people who count on Planned Parenthood each day, and trying to figure out what would happen if we couldn’t.
In other words, everyone at Planned Parenthood was hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. We brainstormed, planned, and made lists of anyone who might be a potential ally in the administration. After a few false starts, one day I got a call from a friendly acquaintance in the fashion industry. She was a strong Planned Parenthood supporter and suggested that the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump might be inclined to help. The caller offered to help facilitate a connection.
I called Dawn, Planned Parenthood’s executive vice president, and told her about the conversation. I had never met Ivanka Trump but wasn’t feeling optimistic that we could convince her to be a champion for Planned Parenthood. Besides, the way the transition was conducted, it was hard to imagine having an honest, off-the-record conversation with anyone in the administration. America had witnessed what happened to former vice president Al Gore, who accepted the invitation to meet with the president-elect about climate change. Not only was the meeting leaked to the press, but Gore became a public spectacle when Trump completely dismissed everything he said and maintained that the jury was still out on climate change. Still, in the end Dawn and I agreed that even if there was only a sliver of a chance of changing anyone’s mind, I owed it to Planned Parenthood patients to at least take the meeting.
That’s how, one Sunday in February, I found myself climbing into a Lyft with Kirk to make the trip out to the Trump golf course in New Jersey to meet with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. When I learned that she was bringing her husband, I begged Kirk to come with me; if nothing else, I felt I needed a witness. As usual, we were early, so we stopped at a nearby Panera to kill some time. I was terrified that one of our New Jersey supporters or a staffer would recognize me and ask me what I was doing there, so we sat in the car drinking our coffee, looking at each other and wondering how our lives had come to this.
What do you wear to a golf course to meet the daughter and son-in-law of the president? That seems like a trivial question, but suffice it to say, my closet isn’t full of resort wear, let alone anything you might wear to a golf course. In fact, I had wondered while getting dressed, how is “resort wear” even a category of clothing? For me, it’s either blue jeans or work clothes, so I opted for a navy blue dress that I hoped telegraphed “This is serious business for me and the 2.4 million patients I’m representing.” Kirk went for his standard uniform of a button-down shirt and khaki pants. If nothing else was certain, we looked like upstanding citizens.
After getting lost in rural New Jersey, we finally found the entrance to the golf course. As we drove up to the main clubhouse, security waved us through. My worries that someone would recognize me were immediately put to rest—there wasn’t a soul anywhere. The day was bleak and cold, and the grounds were completely empty.
Inside the clubhouse Jared and Ivanka were waiting for us, looking relaxed and totally at home. They kindly invited us to sit down and order breakfast. To say I didn’t have an appetite was an understatement. Kirk and I ordered coffee, and they ordered something to eat. After some quick pleasantries about our families and kids, we got down to the task at hand.
“I know you may know some of this,” I started, “but I wanted to give you a quick overview of Planned Parenthood’s work: the health care we provide, our role as the largest sex educator in America, and the fact that many of our patients have no other doctor. We’re it.”
Jared nodded and said that, yes, he had read up on Planned Parenthood and knew a lot about our “business.”
I forced a smile. “Great. So then you know what a devastating impact it would have on thousands of people every day if they couldn’t come to Planned Parenthood anymore. And I don’t want this to get overlooked: right now, teen pregnancy is at a historic low in America. Unintended pregnancy is at a thirty-year low. We are actually making enormous progress for women’s health. And if we could just take politics out of the equation, we could keep making progress.”
Jared leaned forward. It almost seemed as if he thought Kirk worked for Planned Parenthood too, like we were some kind of husband-and-wife company. He complimented us on everything we had built but said we had made a big mistake by becoming “political.” He pointed out—as though I didn’t know—that the Republicans were in control of Congress, the administration, and soon the courts. We had no bargaining power.
The main issue, he explained, was abortion. If Planned Parenthood wanted to keep our federal funding, we would have to stop providing abortions. He described the ideal outcome: a national headline reading “Planned Parenthood Discontinues Abortion Services.” If we would agree to that, funding for Planned Parenthood might just increase. He told us he could even talk to House Speaker Paul Ryan for us. But, he added, any agreement on health care would be “baked” in three weeks. So if we were going to make a deal, we needed to do it quickly.
If it wasn’t crystal clear before, it was now. Jared and Ivanka were there for one reason: to deliver a political win. In their eyes, if they could stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions, it would confirm their reputation as savvy dealmakers. It was surreal, essentially being asked to barter away women’s rights for more money. It takes a lot to get Kirk mad, but it looked like his head was about to explode. I was grateful he was there but glad he didn’t speak up.
“Look,” I said, “women don’t come to Planned Parenthood to make a political statement. They come for health care. We are going to keep fighting to protect Planned Parenthood’s federal funding, and I believe you know that except in very few circumstances, that funding is not used for abortion. But there is no way what you are describing is going to happen. Our mission is to care for women who need us, and that means caring for all their reproductive needs—including safe and legal abortion.”
At that point Ivanka broke in to point out that during the Republican primary, her father was the only candidate who said anything nice about Planned Parenthood, but I had never reciprocated.
“Well,” I said, “I did acknowledge those statements. But he also said he was going to defund Planned Parenthood, so that’s not going to be much help.”
“You have to understand, my father is pro-life,” Ivanka said, without even blinking.
“That may be,” I countered, “but that doesn’t mean he should be taking away the right of all women to make their own personal decision about their pregnancy. I just fundamentally disagree with that. And by the way, Planned Parenthood does more to prevent unintended pregnancy and the need for abortion than any health care provider in America.”
Eventually I sensed that the conversation was over; we had said everything that needed to be said. As Kirk and I stood up to go, Jared reminded us that things were moving “really fast.” If we wanted to make a deal, it had better be soon.
As we were leaving, a television above the doorway showed coverage of the protests that had erupted in response to Trump’s travel ban targeting Muslims who were trying to come to America. The discriminatory policy had been halted by the courts, and the administration was outraged. The topic of discussion on all the Sunday shows that morning was Trump’s tweet attacking the “so-called judge” who had blocked his order. Jared turned to Kirk and said with a smirk, “Our folks just love it when we go after judges!” The total lack of regard for the Constitution, and the pandering to Trump’s extreme base, would become themes for the year ahead.
We thanked them for the coffee and got back in the car to head into town for a birthday brunch with friends from Austin. “It will be good to see Annette and Jim,” I told Kirk. “I felt like we were just in some kind of parallel universe.”
On the way back to New York I called Dawn and told her about the conversation and the suggestion that if we stopped providing abortions our funding would continue. “Honestly, it felt almost like a bribe,” I said. “I know there are people who will disagree with me, and maybe I shouldn’t have just shut down the conversation, but I did what I thought was best.”
Dawn was firm. “You did the right thing. Our patients are not a bargaining chip.”
Kirk and I were quiet the rest of the ride home. Since the election it had been slowly sinking in who was in charge of our country. The idea that the two people I just met were as influential as anyone in our government was wildly unsettling. If this was the new administration’s level of concern, and the depth of its engagement on reproductive health issues, I was deeply afraid for the future of women in America. And I wasn’t reassured when I learned that Ivanka Trump would become the highest-ranking woman in the White House in charge of women’s affairs.
• • •
We were heading into the battle of a lifetime at Planned Parenthood. With our issues in the headlines, we wanted to make it clear that any member of Congress who voted to defund Planned Parenthood would be voting to take away health care from women who lived in their district. It seemed like the best organizing idea was to get those women into the fight—and nowhere better than in Speaker Paul Ryan’s backyard.
Planned Parenthood has been providing health care in Wisconsin for decades, including at three health centers in Speaker Ryan’s legislative district. So on a snowy day in February, I flew to Milwaukee, picked up a car, and drove to Planned Parenthood in Kenosha, just three miles from Ryan’s office. It’s a typical, no-frills health center, and Katie Kordsmeier, the center manager, was there to meet us. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin CEO Tanya Atkinson, a salt-of-the-earth leader from Milwaukee, was on hand as well. Planned Parenthood health centers are always covered with photos of everyone’s kids and pets, and this was no exception. They’d even put up a handmade sign out front reading, “Welcome, Cecile!”
We gathered together in the small waiting room. As the cameras rolled, three of our patients, Sophie Schaut, Gina Walkington, and Lori Hawkins told their moving stories. Lori explained that she had turned to Planned Parenthood as an underinsured Catholic schoolteacher. One day she woke up with severe pain in her lower abdomen. Since she had a family history of cancer, she called Planned Parenthood. They got her in that day and found a large cyst and benign tumors on her ovaries. She was alone and scared that she’d never be able to have children. The clinician invited her to sit down, take her time, and use the health center phone to make the calls she needed to make. Now she was happy and healthy and had two great kids. “Planned Parenthood made it possible for me to be a mother,” she said, her voice filled with emotion.
Near the end of the press conference, Sophie said something that has stuck with me ever since: “I used to be a silent supporter of Planned Parenthood. But I can’t stay silent anymore.” Her words captured a theme that has been repeated over and over since the election: women who had never been involved were now becoming the fiercest, most passionate activists.
Back in Washington, we were waiting anxiously for details of a new health care bill we were sure would end access to Planned Parenthood for millions of our patients. As the debate heated up, members of Congress were doing everything they could to avoid voters back home, so we decided to bring activists and patients to the Capitol.
In March hundreds of people from all across the country converged on Washington, including Lori Hawkins from Wisconsin. This time she brought her thirteen-year-old daughter, Delaney, who told me she had insisted on coming with her mother. “I want to look Speaker Ryan right in the eye,” she said, “and tell him that I would not be here if not for the health care my mom got at Planned Parenthood.” I loved seeing these courageous leaders meet each other, and get to know their champions in Congress. The energy and solidarity of that day set the tone for what we would need going forward.
Two days later the Republican leadership released their health care plan, deceptively named “The American Health Care Act.” Sure enough, it would defund Planned Parenthood, deny many women their health insurance, let states decide whether to cover maternity care, and end Medicaid access for millions of people. Buried deep in the bill was even a provision that would force new moms on Medicaid to return to work within sixty days of giving birth or risk losing their insurance. It reflected total disdain for the struggles of working women. It reminded me of something Mom used to say: “You can put lipstick and earrings on a hog and call it Monique, but it’s still a pig.”
One of the hardest organizing challenges with something as massive as a national health care bill, especially one that was being jammed through in a matter of days without hearings or analysis, was breaking it down in a way everyone could understand. I talked it over with Geoff Garin, a good friend and pollster who has worked on the issue of health care for a long time. I wanted to know what would help our supporters understand just how bad it was, and motivate people to call Congress.
“Honestly,” he said, “the biggest knock on this bill is that it would mean women could no longer go to Planned Parenthood. That’s the easiest way for people to understand that they would lose affordable health care, because that is what Planned Parenthood represents.”
We went all-out with our message. Every chance I got I went on television, or Dawn did. And we ran ads with our patients telling their stories.
Every time members of Congress traveled back home for recess, Planned Parenthood supporters were waiting for them. Women always managed to track down Senator Lisa Murkowski at the farmer’s market in Anchorage and thank her for standing up for Planned Parenthood. In contrast, Congressman Mike Coffman from Colorado was caught on tape running out a side door after a town hall meeting to try to evade angry constituents. We had helped make the health care bill, or Trumpcare, as it became known, incredibly unpopular, and not a single member of Congress wanted to talk about it, unless it was to say they were voting against it.
On one of the crucial last days of negotiations for the new bill, I was in the Capitol doing an interview with the New York Times when the news broke that the House “Freedom Caucus” had just been summoned to the White House to negotiate the final details. The Freedom Caucus is the Tea Party wing on the Hill; it looked like the president had given up on the moderate members and instead was trying to make a deal with the extremists.
I turned to Erica Sackin, Planned Parenthood’s director of political communications, and said, “Somehow we have to get a photo of that meeting. That is going to be a room full of old white men deciding the details of a bill that is taking away health care from women.”
Sometimes fighting the good fight is all about strategy, and sometimes it comes down to luck. As fate would have it, Vice President Mike Pence tweeted his own photo just a few minutes later, which showed that exact group of men sitting around a table in the White House, proudly negotiating the final details of the bill. Their signature accomplishment? Taking away maternity benefits from women.
It was such a great photo we shot it around Twitter, showing women who was deciding our health care. And then one of my favorite memes appeared: a group of Labrador retrievers sitting around the same table, with the tag line “Meanwhile, at today’s meeting on feline health care . . .” At that point I would rather have had canines deciding our health care than that group of men.
The photo, the television ads, and our ongoing organizing effort resulted in thousands of phone calls flooding congressional offices. We constantly had to send out new phone numbers and new ways for our supporters to get in touch with Congress because the switchboard could not handle the volume.
According to a survey by Daily Action, a popular tool used to contact Congress, 86 percent of those calls were coming from women. They didn’t need to be told why this bill mattered; they knew firsthand. They had been to Planned Parenthood, used birth control, or were worried about health insurance for their kids.
Eventually, Trumpcare passed in the House, and the leadership celebrated with a keg party outside the White House, complete with selfies. It looked like a fraternity party after voting to take health care away from women.
We didn’t have a moment to waste as the bill moved to the Senate. I’d been invited to speak about health care at a conference in Aspen, Colorado. By some twist of fate, my interview was scheduled to immediately follow Tom Price, Trump’s secretary of health and human services, the main flack for Trumpcare and a lifetime opponent of Planned Parenthood and women’s rights. He had filled the Department of Health and Human Services with anti-abortion activists, and even appointed someone to lead the nation’s family planning program who was on record stating, “Of course, contraception doesn’t work.” I had to hand it to him: it’s not that easy to find a woman who is against birth control, but he’d managed.
Before my session I watched Secretary Price field questions about the Republican health care plan. He’s a smooth operator and smiled as he promised that it wouldn’t cost people their health coverage, but would actually cut through red tape and help people get the care they needed. Funny—the American Medical Association had come to a different conclusion. It was pretty clear the Aspen audience of journalists, business leaders, and health care experts weren’t buying what he was selling, but I was frustrated that Jeff Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic and his interviewer, let him obfuscate on every single question.
I was up next. Pat Mitchell, the trailblazing media powerhouse who had opened doors for generations of women journalists, interviewed me onstage. She didn’t mince words; she eviscerated the political attacks on abortion and birth control. And the crowd cheered when I promised, “Planned Parenthood has been here for a hundred years, and we’ll be here for a hundred more.” If getting the last word was any consolation, the crowd in Aspen was all ours.
Later that day I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its estimate that Trumpcare would eliminate health care for 23 million people. Secretary Price wasn’t there to hear the news, having flown home earlier that day on a private plane, but I’m sure someone told him eventually.
Meanwhile people were coming out of the woodwork to help us. Bands wanted to write songs for Planned Parenthood. Vogue editor Anna Wintour wore a giant “Fashion Stands with Planned Parenthood” button on her otherwise meticulous outfit at New York Fashion Week, and fashion designers Diane von Furstenberg, Tracy Reese, Gabriela Hearst, and Lela Rose organized on our behalf. We were working day and night trying to keep up with the offers of help—which is a great problem to have. When Emma Stone wore a Planned Parenthood pin on her couture gown to accept her Academy Award, the image flew around social media. Planned Parenthood board member and entrepreneur David Karp called me one day to say he wanted to start “Tech Stands with Planned Parenthood.” “Do it!” I said. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for. People weren’t looking to us for instructions; they were just getting to work.
In the midst of all the support, we got some hard news out of Iowa. Because of a law signed by Governor Terry Branstad before he left office, Planned Parenthood was going to have to close four health centers. It was heartbreaking, and a preview of what could happen if Planned Parenthood were defunded across the country.
I wanted to hear what was happening on the ground, so I picked up the phone and called Angela, the health center manager in Bettendorf, Iowa. “How are you doing?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “It’s really tough. Patients are scrambling to figure out where they’re going to be seen once we close. They’re in shock, and they’re angry. Some of them have nowhere else to go. Meanwhile they’re hearing politicians talk about them on TV, and the statements that are made about our patients—it’s like facts don’t even matter.”
“What about the staff?”
“Oh, it’s all the emotions you can imagine when you lose something you love. When the announcement was made that we would have to shut down, everyone was in tears. We had all lost our jobs. Someone said, ‘Well, do you want to go home, and we can call the patients?’ I said, ‘No. I’m in this. I’m not going.’ My staff said the same thing: ‘Let’s do this. Let’s get ourselves together and see those patients.’ ”
By now I was barely holding it together. “Thank you for everything,” I told her. “This is incredibly cruel, and the women of Iowa deserve better.”
“You know, though, I wouldn’t take it back for anything, my experience working for Planned Parenthood,” she added. “I wouldn’t give up a single day of being here. Even knowing what was going to happen, I wouldn’t give it up for the world.”
We said our goodbyes, and I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t be making hundreds of similar calls because this bill had passed Congress.
• • •
Trumpcare was so unpopular, it wasn’t until July that the Senate scheduled it to come up for a vote. I went down to Washington, ready to do battle. We didn’t know who was with us, but we were doing all we could to shore up the women of the Senate, especially Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Susan Collins from Maine. They had been clear: they would not support a bill that defunded Planned Parenthood.
It was 6:15 p.m., and the Republicans were running out of time. I had spent the day on the Hill, talking with all our senators, finally sitting down with Senator Patty Murray, our lieutenant, nervous as ever. “I don’t think we have the votes, Cecile,” she said. “But never say never.”
“We’ve got people calling their senators up until the very end,” I said. “No way we are giving up.” I texted Lily to see if she had any inside news. “Nothing you don’t know,” she responded. “Everyone here thinks I’m crazy, but I still think we can beat this.”
I texted back, “That’s because you lived to see us do the impossible and elect Ann Richards governor of Texas!”
As it got dark, I joined Ben Wikler at MoveOn and many members of Congress, including Leader Pelosi, to speak at an impromptu rally with hundreds outside the Capitol. The senators were on the floor and the vote was going to happen that night. There wasn’t anything more to do on Capitol Hill, so I headed to the hotel to sit and worry and wait.
The debate over the bill was a major nail-biter and went on late into the night. I was texting with Kirk and Lily and watching TV as they did the roll call vote. Senator John McCain of Arizona, who had just been given a tough cancer diagnosis, had been flown back to Washington so the Republicans would have enough votes.
Lily texted, “Did John McCain just smile at Chuck Schumer?”
I replied, “Hmmm. Is McConnell frowning? Hard to tell, though, he’s always frowning.”
And Lily, “Everyone’s waiting on John McCain. . . . He hasn’t voted yet.”
At that moment McCain stood and made his now infamous thumbs-down sign. We went crazy. Lily texted me: “I swear he’s voting no!”
And in fact he had. The bill repealing Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood was officially dead. Chaos broke out on the floor of the Senate. All the Planned Parenthood CEOs, in California at a meeting, called, hysterical and cheering. Finally, around two in the morning, Leader McConnell stood up and said, “It’s time to move on.”
Once again we had done the unthinkable. We had beaten back the bill. “I know Ann is laughing her ass off, and so proud of these women senators,” Kirk texted our group chain. “This day belongs to you and your folks. Here’s to having many more like it.”
In September of 2017, the Republicans made one more attempt to pass the bill, but it felt like their heart wasn’t in it. CNN held a nationally televised town hall on health care—clearly, the debate over the issue wasn’t going away. That night, a video clip came across my feed on Twitter. A familiar voice said, “My name is Lori. I’m a Planned Parenthood patient.” It was Lori Hawkins from Kenosha, Wisconsin, on national TV! She looked the bill’s sponsor in the eye and asked him why he would want to deprive anyone of the care she had gotten, which had made it possible for her to start a family. He answered in the most condescending way possible, even trying to mansplain childbirth—to a mother.
I texted her, “I’m so proud of you!” Yet again Lori made her very personal story public, because as hard as it was, she hoped it might make a difference for someone else. A few days later the vote failed before it even got to the floor. Right after that, Secretary Tom Price of the Department of Health and Human Services resigned his post after mounting controversy over his use of private planes. I knew that our work was far from over, but the tally was Women—3, Trumpcare—0.
• • •
Women are leading the resistance. They’re making organizing and activism part of their lives, bringing their kids along to town hall meetings, and signing up in record numbers to run for office themselves. In fact a few months ago I got an email from a candidate training program in Wisconsin, asking if I would recommend Lori Hawkins, who was thinking of running for office. Can you imagine how different our country would look if women like Lori, instead of men like Paul Ryan, were making decisions about the health care women need?
The fights we’re facing—for affordable health care, equal rights, bodily autonomy, and more—are never fully won. But the lasting legacy of this moment will be the generations of women it has inspired and energized.
One of my favorite moments of 2017 happened on a trip to Arizona. I was there for the annual Planned Parenthood luncheon, and under the great leadership of CEO Bryan Howard, it was their best-attended event ever; in fact they sold out the Biltmore ballroom.
After the lunch, we headed to the Phoenix Planned Parenthood office to meet with the local organizers. The place was filled with signs made for a town hall meeting that was occurring later that night in Mesa, Arizona. Their senator, Republican Jeff Flake, was a huge proponent of defunding Planned Parenthood.
I hadn’t gotten to eat at the luncheon, so the staff had kindly ordered in. We stood over a pile of tacos and I asked the young organizers if they were ready to give Senator Flake a piece of their mind. They answered loudly, and without a second’s hesitation, “YES!” Everyone was giddy with excitement, but I couldn’t help notice one young woman in particular with a sweet smile and a determined look in her eyes. Her name was Deja Foxx, and I had met her once before.
“Here’s our plan,” said another young organizer. “There are going to be hundreds of women there with pussy hats and Planned Parenthood pink on, so we are making sure a few of us are dressed in just regular clothes, to have a better chance of getting to ask a question at the microphone.” Now that’s an organizer for you! I wished them luck as I headed to the airport.
Later that night I got an email with the subject line “You have to see this.” I opened the video inside and saw a determined-looking young woman standing up in front of a packed house calmly take the microphone at the town hall while her senator watched from the stage. “I just want to state some facts,” she began. “I’m a young woman, and you’re a middle-aged man. I’m a person of color, and you’re white. I come from a background of poverty, and I didn’t always have parents to guide me through life. You come from privilege. So I’m wondering why it’s your right to take away my right to choose Planned Parenthood?” I leaned closer to the screen, and sure enough, it was Deja.
The crowd burst into applause that became a standing ovation. By the next morning more than 12 million people had watched the video of Deja schooling her US senator. Since then she’s spearheaded an overhaul of her school’s sex education curriculum, traveled to Capitol Hill to defend her right to affordable, compassionate health care, spoken out on national television, and been featured in Teen Vogue. If you want to see what’s next for reproductive rights, go watch that video. Deja’s generation is the largest, most diverse, most entrepreneurial and open-minded of any generation before them. More than 4 million young people turn eighteen every year in the United States. They are born troublemakers, naturals when it comes to questioning authority.
As I was finishing this book, I was in Sarasota, Florida, for a Planned Parenthood event and stopped by to visit with local staff and volunteers. Command central in Sarasota is a big, bright building that’s home to the health center and a whole lot more, including the black box theater where their teen theater troupe, The Source, practices and performs sketches about birth control, consent, and staying healthy. I took the elevator up to the administrative offices and walked back to the break room, where volunteers of every age and background were gathered, drinking coffee and swapping stories.
We went around the room and introduced ourselves. There were college-age women who spent their Saturday mornings escorting patients past protesters and into the clinic. A high school volunteer was there, along with her mom, also a volunteer. Some older women were there, doing data entry. One by one they talked about what had drawn them to Planned Parenthood and how grateful they were, especially now, to be able to do something other than sit around feeling helpless about the state of the world. Some of the volunteers were old enough to remember the days before Roe v. Wade and safe, legal abortion. The younger members of the group had grown up in an era of no-copay birth control and information available at their fingertips whenever they needed it. As we talked, more volunteers kept trickling in.
The effort to stop the defunding of Planned Parenthood inspired organizers across America, including young women in Phoenix, Arizona, getting ready for a town hall meeting with US senator Jeff Flake.
Soon we were joined by staff from the rest of the office, mostly women in their twenties and thirties who manage the health center, work with the media, run sex education programs, and so much more. They talked and laughed with the volunteers, excitedly describing what was on the horizon for Planned Parenthood in Sarasota. It was a beautiful sight: volunteers of all ages who were so excited to help, and the young, vibrant, diverse staff leading them.
As I was leaving, a woman who must have been in her eighties said to me, “I just have to tell you that I’ve never done anything for Planned Parenthood, or anything like this, in my life. But after the election, I knew I couldn’t not get involved. I just signed up, and now I’m volunteering every day. So it’s never too late!” She was beaming.
Standing in that health center in Sarasota, I was witnessing something incredible: the extraordinary power of women reaching across generations to link arms and fight together. Women who never imagined becoming activists are standing alongside fiercely determined women young enough to be their granddaughters. In times like these, it’s not enough to pass the torch. It’s going to take all of us—the trailblazers, the leaders of tomorrow, and all the troublemakers in between—to light the way forward. The future is ours to shape, and that fills me with hope.