The congressional hearing room on Capitol Hill was packed with Planned Parenthood staff and supporters and with anti-abortion activists. Some of the activists had black tape over their mouths or huge buttons that said simply, “Life.” They looked like the same people who stood outside our health centers on Saturday mornings, trying to intimidate patients with graphic pictures on huge poster boards and signs with gruesome, threatening slogans. The kinds of people who wrote me letters that said, “I wish your mother had aborted you.” Taking my seat at a large table at the front of the hearing room, I could feel them behind me in the gallery, their hostility radiating through the room.
On the other side of the table were dozens of members of the press corps, nearly all men, with blank expressions and their cameras pointing at me. I was used to the crazy opposition; the rest, not so much.
I poured myself a glass of water and looked around the room, trying to focus on the people and not the bright TV lights or the constant click of cameras. It helped to know that my team was there, along with throngs of supporters in pink T-shirts in the hearing room and lining the hallways outside. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney had waved to me as I sat down, and Sheila Jackson Lee, a congresswoman from my home state of Texas who wasn’t even on the committee, was sitting there in solidarity. I reminded myself that across the country, hundreds of “Stand with Planned Parenthood” rallies were happening. I was by myself at the table, but I definitely wasn’t alone in the fight.
Besides, I had a mission to accomplish that was bigger than me.
The purpose of the hearing was, at least in theory, to examine whether Planned Parenthood had committed any wrongdoing. That question was being hotly debated across America since anti-abortion activists released a series of misleadingly and sensationally edited videos claiming that our organization sold fetal tissue—which, of course, was not true. Congressional Republicans were leveraging the attack to launch their latest assault on Planned Parenthood. Some had even threatened to shut down the government unless our funding was cut. I was keenly aware that Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and his House Republican allies were spoiling for a fight.
I had prepared well—the stakes were too high not to. My secret weapon? Taped on the inside flap of my massive binder was a photograph of my three kids taken years ago, when they were toddlers. If the hearing got heated—as I assumed it would—I could sneak a peek and remember my support system. I hoped they would help get me through anything headed my way, as they had more than once before.
At 10:00 a.m. Congressman Chaffetz rapped his gavel on the table in front of him and called the committee to order. He warned the audience that anyone being disruptive would be asked to leave and added with a smirk, “We hope to have a good, lively debate. This is what Congress is intended to do, and we need everybody’s participation along the way.”
Chaffetz launched into an emotional opening statement, talking about women in his life and their experiences with cancer, and the fact that his wife was working for a plastic surgeon whose patients were breast cancer survivors. Then the mudslinging began.
He didn’t mention the 320,000 breast exams Planned Parenthood provides to women each year, or the fact that if Planned Parenthood were defunded, many of those women would have nowhere else to go. He did talk about supposedly “massive” staff salaries, “first-class” plane tickets (Who was he kidding?), and political contributions. It was clear from the get-go that this “hearing” was all for the television cameras and the constituents watching on Fox News. There wasn’t going to be any fact-finding; he already had the “facts” he wanted.
The reams of documentation we provided to Congress ahead of the hearing had already made it clear that Planned Parenthood had not done anything wrong. So if I was going to go through this exercise, I was going to use my time in front of the committee to talk about the incredible health care women get at Planned Parenthood centers across the country every day and to be a voice for our doctors, staff, and patients. I was not about to let them down.
• • •
Two months earlier, on July 14, 2015, I woke up to an email from Planned Parenthood’s vice president of communications, Eric Ferrero. Whenever a story in the news had the potential to become a problem, Eric made sure I found out about it first thing. In my nearly ten years as president of the organization, I had learned that an early-morning email from the communications director usually wasn’t a good sign.
Sure enough, he wanted to let me know about a new “undercover” video that had been released by a group calling itself the Center for Medical Progress and showed Planned Parenthood doctors and staff purportedly talking callously about selling fetal tissue. Despite the name of the group, they were not a center, and they definitely weren’t for medical progress; they were just another offshoot of the same anti-abortion leaders who had been trying to tear down the organization for years. The heavily edited video showed physicians and staff in conversations about fetal tissue donation, implying that they were cavalier when talking about the topic and had broken the law or at least acted unethically (which they had not).
This wasn’t our first rodeo with video scams, but this was much more elaborate than anything we’d seen before. It would later become clear—after the damage had already been done—that these videos had come from the same people responsible for ten separate video smear campaigns over the last eight years. This time around, they had spent tens of thousands of dollars creating a fake website and building a fake organization. Posing as representatives of a biotechnology company, they infiltrated medical conferences with sophisticated spy cameras and asked leading questions of Planned Parenthood doctors and staff while they secretly recorded them. We had become the victims of fake news before anyone had ever coined the phrase. We just didn’t know it yet.
The videos were on every news channel. The next day’s headline in the New York Times read, “Video Accuses Planned Parenthood of Crime.” Politicians seized the opportunity to pile on. Louisiana’s governor Bobby Jindal, who was seeking the Republican presidential nomination, called for an investigation into “this alleged evil and illegal activity.” One of his primary opponents, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, called the videos “a disturbing reminder of the organization’s penchant for profiting off the tragedy of a destroyed human life.” We were under siege.
My first concern was for our patients and for our staff on the front lines who had been the unknowing victims of the video campaign. If what was happening was awful for the rest of us, it was even more excruciating for them.
I will never forget the people who called me in solidarity—and there were many. To balance out the calls from reporters and the anger I felt about what had happened, I tore off a sheet from a gigantic roll of paper and taped it to the wall of my office in Washington. Every time someone called to offer help, I wrote down their name. The early calls came from across the board. My friend Will Robinson in Maine sent a donation right away, writing, “I am 100 percent behind you and Planned Parenthood!” I heard from Senator Cory Booker in New Jersey, who had been a champion of our work since his first day in office. Author and Planned Parenthood board member Anna Quindlen called. By the end of the first week, there were so many names on the list I had to add more sheets, until the wall was completely covered. It was an important way to remind my staff and myself of the outpouring of love and support for Planned Parenthood at such a terrifying time.
Of course not all the calls were helpful. Plenty of folks offered unsolicited advice about how to make it all go away. If you’d just do this or that, they suggested, everything would be okay again. It was hard to make it clear even to some of our strongest supporters that we had been the victim of a scam. Several of our progressive allies called asking what they could do to protect themselves and their work from similar attacks. We were all on high alert. We would get to the other side of this, but it would be painful and take time.
For the rest of the summer and into the fall we were living in a state of fear and uncertainty; it was almost like dealing with kidnappers. I’d wake up every morning not knowing what was coming, while the group continued releasing more doctored footage. Each video unleashed a new frenzy of harassment and threats that were worse than anything we’d ever seen. Our clinicians, doctors, volunteers, and patients were facing an even more insidious kind of assault: the outrageous rhetoric from politicians and others who painted them as coldhearted conspirators in an illicit business, rather than the caring, compassionate, and deeply committed people I knew them to be.
Everyone at Planned Parenthood felt incredibly vulnerable, knowing our opponents were trying to infiltrate the organization. There were people out there with hidden cameras, trying to entrap our staff, “befriend” them, or even get a job at Planned Parenthood—all for the purpose of shutting us down. Still, we banded together and didn’t lose a single national staff member during that time. I’m really proud of that.
Folks dug deep to find ways to stay focused and sane, and I was no exception. I had a hard time sleeping, and felt even worse knowing how worried my kids were about me. I could understand; I had felt the same way years earlier watching my own mother, Ann Richards, endure withering political attacks as governor of Texas. My friend Laurie Rubiner, who was working as a chief of staff on Capitol Hill and was one of our staunchest allies, had been through plenty of tough battles before. One night over dinner she asked, “Have you ever tried meditation?” She had downloaded Headspace on her phone and said it was a lifesaver. So I tried it. It was a bewildering sight for my husband: me, the frenetic organizer, sitting quietly every morning, listening to meditation exercises. Thank goodness for friends with practical advice.
It quickly became clear to us that the creators of these videos had been coordinating with other anti-abortion activists and were colluding with members of Congress who were trying to defund Planned Parenthood. Many Republicans in Congress were licking their chops. They thought they finally had their chance to get rid of us. As we dealt with the constant attacks, they held vote after vote to try to block Medicaid patients from being able to come to Planned Parenthood for preventive care.
Their actions prompted many impassioned speeches on the Senate floor. One night I was sitting in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, watching the television monitor as one senator after another stood up and voiced support for Planned Parenthood. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat from Massachusetts, began: “I come to the Senate floor today to ask my Republican colleagues a question: Do you have any idea what year it is? Did you fall down, hit your head, and think you woke up in the 1950s or the 1890s? Should we call for a doctor? Because I simply cannot believe that in the year 2015, the United States would be spending its time trying to defund women’s health care centers.” Despite the heroic efforts of allies like Senator Warren, congressional Republican leadership managed to pass a bill defunding Planned Parenthood. If not for President Obama’s veto pen, it would have become law.
At that point four congressional committees were investigating Planned Parenthood. To put that in perspective, that’s more congressional committees than were assigned to investigate Enron or the 2008 global financial crisis. We were asked to provide thousands of pages of confidential documents to Congress, which we knew full well could show up in the newspaper the next day. We knew that our attackers had direct communication with our opponents in Congress—some members even acknowledged that they had seen the videos before they became public. We felt like we were dealing with a well-financed, well-organized conspiracy. The intent of our opponents on Capitol Hill was to destroy Planned Parenthood. And leading the opposition was the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its politically ambitious leader, Jason Chaffetz. This was the same highly partisan committee that spent months hounding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over events related to the attack on US personnel in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. They were taking the lead, and they were determined to have my head.
Dana Singiser, Planned Parenthood’s director of government relations, who was doing daily combat, warned us that we should be prepared for a no-holds-barred public hearing on Planned Parenthood. The committee was going to use the videos as a chance to hold a fishing expedition, going after us for anything they could get. I had two choices: I could either appear voluntarily or have them subpoena me to testify. I knew there was nothing to hide and I believed it would be better to participate and tell our own story.
Along with members of our senior staff, I spent the weeks leading up to the September 29 hearing delving into any topic the committee might raise. In addition to Eric and Dana, our team consisted of Dawn Laguens, Planned Parenthood’s executive vice president, and my strategic partner through several years of improbable victories; Roger Evans, our director of litigation; chief medical officer Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley; and Amanda Harrington, an eagle-eyed member of the communications team and a veteran of past video smear campaigns. And of course there was our legal firm, O’Melveny and Myers, along with two advisers who were absolutely invaluable, Phil Schiliro and Phil Barnett.
Though my home was in New York, I had pretty much moved to Washington while we prepared for the hearing, staying in a temporary apartment. The days and nights were long, and my husband, Kirk, stayed with me. A big night for us was watching Law & Order reruns and eating take-out Thai food or frozen enchiladas. Kirk is a rock, and I could never have gotten through this without him. He has seen me through many nerve-racking moments: union campaigns, political elections, births, deaths, victories, and defeats. As I prepared for the hearing, he would remind me that I’m the quintessential “grace under pressure” performer: nervous and full of doubt beforehand, but when the bell rings, I somehow manage to pull it off.
Day after day our team pored over the thousands of documents we’d already submitted to Congress because I insisted on being up to speed on everything they requested. I knew that in a congressional hearing the members of the committee could call me on any obscure thing. Judging from the scope of the documents they’d asked for, the questions were certain to center on issues of character and morality, as well as every dollar we’d ever spent—for every hire, every trip, every one of our more than six hundred health centers, and the programs we worked with around the world. Every piece of information in every public document was fair game. As was I. I suspected that some of the committee members, rather than ask questions, would use their time to make statements intended to put me on edge. How can we make this woman squirm? How can we embarrass her, or trick her, and make her and Planned Parenthood look bad?
Tensions ran high as we got ready for the big day. I drove the team crazy, trying to memorize every relevant piece of paper and every fact. In my spare time I was researching everything from which forms of birth control a patient could get at a clinic in Oregon to how many young people use Planned Parenthood’s text/chat helpline each month. By the time I was finished, I had a gigantic binder of background information, easily six inches thick.
Throughout the preparation process, I asked the team over and over, Where are our patients in this? Where are their stories? I called Dayna Farris-Fisher, a woman from Texas whose experience with Planned Parenthood had stuck in my mind, and asked her, “Is it okay if I talk about you?” She bravely agreed and wished me luck.
A couple of days before the hearing, we did a run-through so our team could explain how the room would be set up and demonstrate how things would work. There was a row of chairs, raised on a platform, like a judge’s bench, and then a place for me in the front of the room.
“Who sits with me at the table during the hearing, so I can ask questions or get help?” I asked.
Lee Blalack, one of our lawyers whom I grew to admire greatly, said, “I think it’s better if you are up there by yourself. You don’t need anyone.”
I had a brief moment of panic. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I’ve seen these hearings on TV. Everyone always has a lawyer!” I was madly racking my brain, recalling every TV courtroom drama I’d ever seen, from Perry Mason to Matlock. People on trial were always represented by lawyers sitting at their side.
“You can do it. You’ll be ready,” Lee replied. Though I wanted to strangle him at the time, his confidence in me went a long way.
For our last run-through, the lawyers said I had to come in the clothes I would wear on the day of the hearing. A kind of dress rehearsal, I guess. I picked out a basic blue suit and a pin of my mom’s that had always reminded me of a sheriff’s badge. Whenever I’m up against something really tough, I bring Ann Richards with me.
One of the young women associates looked me up and down. “If that’s what you’re going to wear, you should change your shoes,” she said.
“My shoes?”
She pointed out that the pair I had chosen had a designer decal on the sole: ammunition for the opposition.
I hadn’t even noticed. I don’t think I actually bought the shoes. I’m pretty sure I got them from Mom, who was much more fashion conscious than I. It was hard to imagine having such a serious conversation with a male witness about what he was wearing.
The mention of my shoes was when I understood that I was going to be scrutinized from head to toe. That realization was later confirmed when the right-wing blogs went into a frenzy over the fact that I had not worn panty hose to the hearing. You have to look pretty close to see a detail like that.
At day’s end there wasn’t much more to do. I’d reread the facts and packed my binder. I’d steamed my suit again and set out a different pair of shoes. Kirk made us dinner. “Just remember,” he said, “you know more about Planned Parenthood than anyone in that hearing room.” I stopped to consider that, but was loath to admit that he just might be right.
I called the kids. Lily was in Iowa, where she had moved for the Clinton campaign; Hannah was in Indiana, working on a campaign of her own; and Daniel was in school in Maryland. They each wished me luck, and I went to bed early.
When I woke up the next morning I tried to meditate. It didn’t work. The team packed into a car and we headed to Capitol Hill. There were protesters standing outside the hearing, which was nothing new. It reminded me of a Planned Parenthood luncheon we’d had years earlier on rural Long Island. The place was difficult to find, and at the turnoff we’d had to drive past a group of protesters with ugly signs. Once we made it inside, one of our elderly donors, neatly dressed in her “ladies who lunch” suit and pearls, approached me. “I saw those protesters outside,” she said, and before I could say anything, she went on: “I was so glad they were there—otherwise I never would have known where to turn!” Remembering her made me smile.
Walking into the hearing room, I checked my phone one last time. I had an incoming text from my friend Terry McGovern, who works in global and maternal health. Her message read, “Just remember to carry the rage of women through the centuries with you this morning!”
• • •
During their prepared remarks, I had quietly listened to the chairman and his committee members describe their version of women’s health, the videos, and Planned Parenthood. Now it was my turn.
Chaffetz looked at me. “We will now recognize our witness. Please welcome Ms. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Ms. Richards, pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. If you will, please rise and raise your right hand.”
I pushed back the chair, stood up, and smoothed my skirt. The room was silent except for the clicking of shutters. The photographers in front of me leaned in closer, so close they could rest their elbows on the edge of the desk. Surreal as the experience was, they were a comforting reminder that somewhere out in the ether, people across the country, including my family and thousands of Planned Parenthood patients and staff, were watching on C-SPAN and were with me. I raised my hand.
“Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“I do,” I said, smiling.
“Thank you,” said Chaffetz, looking at me the way Sylvester the cat looks at Tweety Bird in the cartoons. It was a look that said I’ve got you now! I could feel how desperately he wanted to trap me. But I wasn’t about to let that happen. Sitting there in front of the committee, composed on the Republican side almost exclusively of white men, I didn’t feel nervous, upset, or intimidated. I felt ready. I was overcome with a surprising sense of calm.
I took a deep breath and started my remarks. I talked about the long history of discredited attacks against Planned Parenthood and covered some basics about our patients. I ended with the experience of my friend Dayna: “Two weeks ago, I was in Plano, Texas, with one of these patients, Dayna Farris-Fisher. Dayna can’t be here today because she has a new job and she’s supporting her family, but if Dayna were here, she would tell you what she told me: that Planned Parenthood saved her life.
“In 2013 her husband lost his job, and therefore their health insurance. And not long after, Dayna found a lump in her breast. And the only two clinics that would take a patient without health insurance couldn’t see her for at least two months. So Dayna came to Planned Parenthood for a breast exam. And there, our clinician of twenty-two years, Vivian, guided her through the process of follow-ups and referrals and helped make sure her treatment was covered. She called Dayna repeatedly to check on her treatment. And I am really happy to say today that Dayna is now cancer-free.
“Mr. Chairman, I wish this Congress would spend more time hearing from women like Dayna. All women in this country deserve to have the same opportunities as members of Congress and their families, for high-quality and timely health care.”
For all of Congressman Chaffetz’s earlier emotion when he was talking about family members and cancer and his wife’s job, he didn’t even acknowledge Dayna’s story. Instead, without a break, he launched into his first question, asking why Planned Parenthood funded work around the globe instead of focusing solely on the United States.
I started to answer: “Congressman, let me tell you—”
He immediately cut me off, shaking his head. “Oh no, no, no, we don’t have time for a big narrative.”
So that was how it was going to be.
After more rapid-fire questions and more interruptions, Chaffetz ended his remarks in time for a theatrical flourish, unveiling a slide.
The chart was labeled “Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Abortions up—life-saving procedures down.” It had two arrows, in pink and red, neither of which related to the other. It was completely unintelligible.
He asked me to explain the slide, and I told him I’d never seen it before. “I pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate reports,” he said without hesitation.
At that moment Lee Blalack, seated behind me, leaned over and pointed out that a well-known anti-abortion group had actually produced the chart. Its name was printed right on the slide.
“My lawyer’s informing me that the source of this is actually Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group. So I would check your source,” I told him.
Chaffetz was flustered. He ruffled some papers in front of him and his hands shook. “Then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that,” he exclaimed, and moved to recognize the next member of Congress.
His blunder helped me to realize, for the first time, how right Kirk had been the night before. This was my chance not only to defend Planned Parenthood but also to shine a light on the fact that many of the members of Congress who are the most obsessed with restricting women’s health care know the least about it.
What followed was a barrage of ridiculous questions, like “How does Planned Parenthood make a profit?” Anyone who had glanced at the thousands of pages we’d sent over would have known that the organization is a nonprofit. But the minute I opened my mouth to reply to their questions, the committee members would quickly shut me down, as if to say, “We are in charge here!” Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio kept raising his voice louder and louder until I finally said, “I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.” All the members were quick to point out why they were actually one of the good guys; one congressman even made sure to note that he was wearing a pink tie “in solidarity with women’s health issues” before launching into a rant against Planned Parenthood. Another member of Congress intoned about the “killing of children” and “acts of barbarity,” his voice growing more and more dramatic until his final declaration: “We cannot escape our accountability before the creator of life!” With that, he turned and walked out of the chamber without giving me the chance to respond.
The entire hearing was a painful display of the lack of interest in understanding the lives of the millions of women who turn to Planned Parenthood. Most of the committee members weren’t there to get answers; they were using the opportunity to grandstand. I was constantly cut off, questioned about my salary, my attitude, and my qualifications.
There were many choice moments. One of my favorites was from Congressman John Duncan from Tennessee, who clearly knew he and his colleagues were acting like fools. To try to rattle me he said, “I’m sure I have seen many male witnesses treated much tougher than you have today. And surely you don’t expect us to be easier on you because you’re a woman?”
“Absolutely not,” I replied. “That’s not how my mama raised me.”
Silence.
Coming to his final question, Duncan tried again. “I’m not clear on this: do you defend the sale of baby body parts?” he asked.
Seriously? “No,” I said definitively.
In the middle of the hearing we took a short break. I checked my phone and was glad that I did; because as usual, my son, Daniel, came to the rescue with a text message of support. He had been watching on C-SPAN and sent a note that only Daniel could write: “Mom, you are really doing a good job. I think raising me all those years helped prepare you for dealing with these guys.”
Then it was back into the lion’s den.
Since there were so many more Republicans than Democrats on the committee, eventually the Democrats ran out of opportunities to question me. After that, it was one Republican after another. I thought, Will this ever end?
Near the conclusion of the hearing, Congressman Trey Gowdy asked me if I understood the pro-life narrative. I replied, “I understand how people can disagree based on their religious beliefs, their background, their own personal experiences. And I also understand that people sometimes change over time and that’s the human condition.”
Gowdy looked at me with scorn and said, “I appreciate the way you try to frame these issues, that you’re the reasonable one, and those of us who have a contrary position are not reasonable.”
“I didn’t say that,” I said matter-of-factly. I knew he wanted me to take him up on his dare, and it made him absolutely crazy that I wouldn’t. I clarified that I had never called him unreasonable.
“No, that’s exactly the answer you gave,” he said.
I reiterated that he’d gotten it wrong and restated my case, to which he finally replied, “It’s not always what you say. It’s sometimes just what you mean.” As I looked him in the eye, there was something familiar about him. Then I realized what it was: with his face all scrunched up and twisted with anger, he looked just like Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter.
Sometimes, when someone is making an idiot of themselves, especially on live television, it’s just better to let them go ahead. I couldn’t help but think to myself, This is how Mom must have felt dealing with the old boys’ club in Texas. Listening to their blustering and bullying, I realized that I had given them the opportunity to show their ignorance and contempt for women’s health. That was almost more important than anything I could say.
Nearly five hours after we began, the inquisition finally ended.
I couldn’t believe I lived through it. The experience was utterly exhausting. I saw Congressman Elijah Cummings as I walked through the committee staff room. The panel’s top-ranking Democrat, Cummings had made an impassioned speech in support of Planned Parenthood during the hearing. He had recently lost his mother-in-law to breast cancer, and now he stopped and looked me in the eye.
“I just think of all the women who without Planned Parenthood wouldn’t get the care they need. Having just gone through this with my mother-in-law, I can’t tell you how important it is to me.”
I broke down in tears. His words had brought home exactly why we were there and why we had to keep fighting. I felt a combination of relief, exhaustion, and gratitude.
Afterward I went back to the office and had a group hug with the Planned Parenthood staff. At the first opportunity I changed out of my business suit and put on a Planned Parenthood pink dress. What I really wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed, but I was scheduled to go on The Rachel Maddow Show. As I was walking into the NBC studio, my phone rang.
“Cecile, it’s Hillary Clinton. I saw the hearing. You were wonderful. I’m going to be up there myself soon. Good for you for standing up to them.” She would be facing the same committee in just a few weeks and spend twice as long, with much the same results.
• • •
After the hearing, the floodgates opened. I could barely walk down the street without someone—women and men of all ages and backgrounds—sharing their exasperation at the rampant sexism on display that day. Women my mother’s age came up to me and said, “Those guys reminded me of every man who’s ever interrupted me in a meeting.” A young man on the subway in New York politely said, “Ms. Richards? I saw you testify before Congress. They were so awful—thank you for doing that. Can we take a picture?” I heard countless variations on “How did you sit up there for five hours and answer those questions?” The truth is, there was no other option—not for me or for Planned Parenthood patients and staff at health centers across the country. Besides, anyone who has ever worked at Planned Parenthood is used to dealing with people who don’t support what we do. And it’s not just the people who are grilling you in the middle of a congressional hearing and trying to shut down Planned Parenthood: the organization’s brilliant and brave doctors, nurses, clinic escorts, staff, and supporters are constantly confronted with folks who either don’t know any better or don’t want to know better. Having the chance to cast a bright light on the hostility and sexism so many members of the Planned Parenthood family experience every day was frankly satisfying.
It was clear that Congressman Chaffetz and his colleagues had unintentionally tapped into something universal. I realized how many people all across the country had been watching and paying attention. So as painful as it had been, the hearing had helped remind people in America about the important work of Planned Parenthood, and it had educated them about who was running Congress.
For me, the experience was remarkable in many ways. I saw firsthand how little interest there was in using hearings for actual information gathering. Most of the remarks by the members were geared toward television that they hoped would play well back home. There was a complete lack of empathy among the Republican members for the patients who rely on Planned Parenthood, and that was sobering.
But the visual that I can’t get out of my head is the partisan divide in Congress. On my right, the Republican side of the hearing, the committee members were, almost to a person, white men. In fact they were so desperate to have more diversity that they brought Republican congresswomen not on the committee into the hearing room so that the television coverage would look better (which it did not). On the left, the Democratic delegation was a diverse mix of gender, race, and ethnicity, more like our country in the twenty-first century. The image that day was so clearly the past on one side, and our future on the other.
Most of all, my respect for women in office, which was pretty dang high already, grew by leaps and bounds after sitting through five hours with their colleagues. The sneers, interruptions, and plain rudeness are more than we would ever tolerate from our kids. But like so many women faced with mansplaining and ignorance, they channel their anger and stay focused on what they’re there to do.
At one point during the hearing, in the middle of a contentious round of questioning, Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth bravely spoke up. Known for her heroism in combat, a double amputee, marathoner, and mother, she was headed into a very tough race for the US Senate. When her turn came, she adjusted her microphone and said, “I went to college based on student loans and Pell Grants and two jobs, one of which was as a waitress. I couldn’t get that waitressing job without getting a health exam. And I couldn’t afford to go to a doctor. And the job said, you can start Friday if you come in with a valid health exam. Go to your local Planned Parenthood, they’ll do it for you today, and you can start work in two days. It was a lifesaver.”
I was proud but not surprised. In the many fights over Planned Parenthood funding, women have gone to the floor of Congress repeatedly and bared their souls. Back in 2011 Congresswoman Gwen Moore from Milwaukee stood up and said, “I just want to tell you about what it’s like to not have Planned Parenthood. You have to add water to the formula. You have to give your kids ramen noodles at the end of the month to fill up their little bellies so that they won’t cry. You have to give them mayonnaise sandwiches. They get very few fresh fruits and vegetables because they’re expensive.” When she started talking, members on the floor were chatting and having side conversations. By the time she finished, you could hear a pin drop.
As part of that same debate, after hearing a male colleague’s vitriolic anti-abortion rant, Jackie Speier, a congresswoman from California, took the floor. She explained that she had planned to speak about something else, but the past few minutes had put her “stomach in knots.” “I am one of those women he spoke about just now. I lost a baby,” she said. “But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest as you have that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous.”
I firmly believe that when half of Congress can get pregnant, we will finally stop arguing about birth control, abortion, and Planned Parenthood—and we might even fully fund women’s health care. In the meantime, many women elected officials in Washington and across the country are doing their very best to stand up for an entire underrepresented gender. Time and time again they end up sharing their most personal experiences, just to try to evoke a scintilla of sympathy from some of their male colleagues.
A few months before my appearance before the committee, I had read that a state senator in Ohio, Teresa Fedor, told the story of being sexually assaulted and having an abortion. The debate over a particularly cruel bill that would have banned abortion as early as six weeks, with no exceptions for victims of rape and incest, had pushed her to her breaking point. She hadn’t talked publicly about her experiences before, especially not on the floor of the state legislature, but she mustered the courage to tell her story even as her voice was shaking with emotion.
It was painful to think of the backlash she was likely facing, so I had picked up the phone and called her. I couldn’t imagine what it took for her to tell her story publicly, and wanted her to know that I was grateful that she had been so courageous.
Talking to her reminded me of talking with other women who had spoken truth to power, like Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator whose epic thirteen-hour filibuster of an abortion bill had captured the world’s attention. Even when the writing was on the wall, and they knew telling their story wasn’t going to stop a horrific piece of legislation from passing, these women spoke out anyway. They hoped that eventually the sum total of so many women’s stories would overwhelm the powers that were trying to stifle them. And now, thanks to these brave and defiant women, and thousands more who are coming forward as part of the #MeToo movement, that’s finally starting to happen.
Here’s what I learned sitting in front of the committee: Focus on the people who are counting on you, not the ones who are trying to drag you down. The Republicans on the panel were simply interested in goading me into a fight, and the more I refused to get down in the mud with them, the more frustrated they became. But that was their problem, not mine. I couldn’t control what they did, but I could control how I reacted. At the end of the day, I knew my patience and resolve could outlast their hysteria.
And I’m glad to say that this story has a happy ending. Almost immediately after the hearing, Congressman Chaffetz announced that the committee had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood (though that hasn’t stopped politicians from continuing their efforts to block people from coming to us for care), and the committee disbanded. Later the Center for Medical Progress was indicted on fifteen felony counts. As for Chaffetz, he resigned his seat in Congress. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.