Thursday, March 7th, 2024 Today, we have a very special episode of the Daily Beans. I sit down and chat with Gina Ortiz Jones, the founder of the Find out PAC, and Lauren Miller, whose incredibly brave story helped inspire the creation of the Find Out PAC. So please enjoy this interview, and Dana and I will be back in your ears tomorrow.
Thursday, March 7th, 2024
Today, we have a very special episode of the Daily Beans. I sit down and chat with Gina Ortiz Jones, the founder of the Find out PAC, and Lauren Miller, whose incredibly brave story helped inspire the creation of the Find Out PAC. So please enjoy this interview, and Dana and I will be back in your ears tomorrow.
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Hello, and welcome to the Daily Beans for Thursday, March 7, 2024. Today we have a very special episode of the Daily Beans. I am going to sit down and chat with Gina Ortiz Jones. She's the founder of the Find out Pack, and Lauren Miller, uh, whose incredibly brave story helped inspire the creation of the find out pack. So please enjoy this interview, and, uh, we will be back in your ears, Dana and I, tomorrow.
Hey, everybody.
There's a new pack in town. It's called the Find out pack, and it's working to unseat three anti choice Texas supreme court justices. They're very extreme justices. And I want to welcome the founder of the Find out pack, former undersecretary of the air force, Gina Ortiz Jones, and one of the women whose story inspired the find out pac, Lauren Miller. Uh, Gina. Lauren, welcome.
Thanks, Allison.
Thank you.
I'm really excited to talk to you today. I've read a lot about your pack. I've listened to some interviews that you all have done. First of all, love the name inspired by, uh, f around and find out.
I assume it's a scientific concept, Allison.
It is. I've seen the graph of how much you fuck around versus how much you find out. So I'm very glad, uh, that based in science. But one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, um, working really hard in Texas to get these three judges off the bench, is that it's not just about how the fall of roe directly impacts people's right to choose, although it does, but how the ambiguity of the law can really chill doctor's choices and patient's choices and can chill life saving care, because no one is sure how the law is applied. It's very difficult. People are very afraid. I've seen this happening now with IVF in Alabama. There's a hospital that's just completely pulling it because they aren't sure. And that really, uh, sort of impacted you, Lauren. And I was hoping you could tell us your story, what happened with your pregnancy, and how that sort of chilling effect had an impact on what you had to go.
So I'm very much a case of, uh, this ambiguity is intentional, and it's designed to create this culture of fear so that there will be no abortions, even if it means killing us. In my situation, I was surprised but thrilled to find out that I was pregnant with twins. And despite ending up in the ER from really severe morning sickness called Hyperemesis gravidarum, I was still excited. And unfortunately, that was short lived. We found out that one of our twins had trisomy 18 and a long list of fatal abnormalities, including fluid where most of his brain should have been. But we couldn't do anything, and I was still so sick. I remember the second time I went to the ER, I was vomiting so much that I'm pretty sure I was throwing up chunks of esophagus. I thought the placenta was going to detach and that my toddler would just find his mommy and his brothers in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. And that's the reality of Texas now, because I wasn't dead enough. So even though we had this unviable twin and a healthy twin and myself, I wasn't dead enough for the state of Texas. I wasn't dead enough for the state where my family's lived for generations, to be able to get the abortion that I needed. And it's because of this culture of fear. Doctors, nurses, genetic counselors, they were scared to even say the word abortion out. Um, know, I remember they'd get halfway through a sentence and then just stop, frozen in fear. And it's just this completely dystopian hellscape where we're operating now with reproductive care in Texas.
My God. And you wanted to save, um. The other.
Was a. There was a twin where we knew he'd never survive. I mean, best case scenario for him was maybe a few hours. You can't live without half your brain. That just doesn't work. Um, most doctors even said he wasn't going to make it to birth. So there was no life for him, there was no scenario in which he would live. And in the meanwhile, we were just trying to make the best decision and take the best action for myself and for our healthy twin, who's now my nearly one year old son. And he wouldn't be here today if I hadn't been able to go out of state for an abortion, um, for his twin brother. And that just shouldn't be the case. Um, I spent over $3,000 and traveled for three days, 800 miles each way, and it should have been $50.15 minutes.
I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. And, um, I thank you for telling your story, because not only does it help other people in this situation, first of all, feel like they're not alone and that they're not crazy for feeling like they live in a dystopian nightmare, because feeling like you're not alone is very powerful, but also because it inspired this pack. Um, and, Gina, you're the founder of the find out pack. Can you talk a little bit about the mission of the pack and what inspired you to start it? I imagine stories like Lauren's.
Well, absolutely. There's an aspect of Lauren's story that she didn't share, but that really resonates with me. And, um, I think Allison, as a veteran, would also resonate with you. I mean, in, uh, the land of the free, the home of the brave. Um, Lauren, I don't want to speak for you, but do you mind spending, like, 20 more seconds on, frankly, what you felt like at the airport?
Yeah. Just going out of state was bizarre because it felt like we had to flee in the night to go get basic health care. And I remember we're lucky to even been able to do that. I do want to preface what I'm saying with that. And I remember being in line at love Field in Dallas, and I was scared that I was going to get pulled out of line. I was visibly pregnant and was looking around paranoid that I was about to get pulled out of line and asked why I was going to Colorado. Uh, we'd even debated would we use credit cards, how would we travel there? And the reality was that I was so sick, a car ride, a 14 hours car ride was not going to be in the cards for us. And we knew that if we gone there, our phones would be tracking us. So what were we going to do, not have our phones? Um, no. My husband and I needed to know what was going on with our toddler, who was at home. We had to go via air, and so I just felt watched.
Again. Right. Like, as veterans, this is not what you think of when you think of our country and the freedoms that we should all be able to have, certainly in our own state. Um, but this idea of being hunted, because you do not have access to the health care that could save your life and your fertility in your own state. So you now have to, um, feel like you're escaping to a different place. It's just so unamerican. It's certainly untextin. Um, and so, yeah, so I started this pack. This was really in December, um, when I was reading about the. I, um, read a little bit about, um, uh, the case that Lauren is a part of. It was really the Kate Cox case when I read that seven page opinion, though. And frankly, this is everything. This is something that everybody should read because it's only seven pages. But it really, um, for me, was, um, illustrative of how these judges are thinking about this issue.
Right.
Which is gaslighting, essentially, is what it is. Um, and I think it's a really important piece because in there, they say that doctors need to use their reasonable judgment versus another standard, which talks about, um, their good faith. Right? So in the good faith, it's like, hey, I've been trained. I'm doing my job. I'm doing the best thing that I can do. Right. So you're not going to fault anybody for that. It's really hard to hold somebody accountable for that. But in the reasonable estimate, the reason they like that and the reason the judges were pushing for that, um, is because you can always find somebody. And this is the excellent argument that Molly Dwayne makes as part of their legal team. She's like, you could always find somebody that is going to say what you did is not reasonable. So all of a sudden, now you're attacking this care provider and calling into question what they did, which then they are facing jail time, loss of license, um, huge fines, et cetera. And so I just thought that that opinion, for me, I had a very visceral reaction to it. And frankly, that's where fuck around. Find out Pat came from. Right. It's just so, um, like, if she didn't qualify for it, um, because they thought she wasn't close enough. Well, it's like, know who are you, right? You partisan justices. And that's an important point for your listeners, Allison, is that in our state, we elect our judges through partisan elections to include the Texas supreme court. Who are these folks, though, to know better than her doctor, let alone anyone's? Um.
And then, like the Texas judge on Miffa Prestone, or any judge who's making any non doctor. There you go.
There's that.
It's very controversial to want your doctor to go to medical school and your justices to go to law school. Um, well, that's apparently not where we are.
And on that note, we do have to take a quick break, but we will be right back after these messages. We'll be right back.
Hey, everybody.
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And so it's like this question then, Allison, of like, oh, my God, how did we get here? Right? But then also, how do we very quickly get to where we need to be? And so these folks are elected. They can be unelected. And so that's what we're focused on doing. Jimmy, John and Jane. Um, is there Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine, Jane Bland? Those are the three that are up for election in November. And let me tell you a little bit why I'm optimistic about our efforts. One, this Texas supreme Court has never been challenged. We've never challenged the makeup of this court.
Right.
Um, and these individuals have never had serious challengers. But I think folks, Texans are seeing very clearly just how dangerous these folks can be, um, and the impact on their everyday lives of their decisions. Secondly, I think we are optimistic also, based on what we have seen in other conservative states, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, when this initiative equally gerrymandered. Right. Uh, equally conservative electorate. But when you put this issue to the voters directly, they respond, they have voted to protect reproductive freedoms. Now, our initiative is a little bit different in that it's an accountability measure, and in part because we don't have any other options in Texas, it's only the Texas legislature, um, that can put something on the ballot. And so this is our ballot initiative. Right. We are not hopeless, we are not helpless in Texas. And part of it, um, part of flipping the court in the future starts with at least flipping these three seats, um, this time around. So it's an accountability measure, but this is absolutely our ballot initiative here in Texas. And then I'm also encouraged by the fact that Texans are with us on this issue.
Right.
There's a University of Houston Hobby School of Public affairs survey results that was published in February of last year. 82% of those survey, 82% support a medical exception. It's not even close, right? It's not even close. Um, and so while these folks are extremists and they're partisan, and they think they know better than your doctors, for anybody that is pissed off by how these women have been treated and, frankly, how women in Texas will continue to be treated, uh, with folks like them on that bench, findout pack is the way in which we unseat them. So please visit the website. Check out the launch video if you haven't already. We're working, um, to unseat these folks, I think. Look, we're also optimistic about how motivating this issue is. We're optimistic about some reverse coattails, right, for the top of the ticket, uh, for others that are going to, um, fight to protect our reproductive freedoms. Let me just say there's been a lot of news in the last week, um, or so also about, uh, where, uh, a second Trump term, uh, what that would look like for reproductive rights, and, uh, this idea that they're trying to portray a 16 week national abortion as somehow moderate in that New York Times article, I hope folks caught this. In that New York Times article, they actually cite the actions of the Texas Supreme Court justices to show why those exceptions could essentially be negated. Right? All you have to do is look at what they did in Texas. So, like, a ban, national ban. Even with these exceptions, Texas has shown, um, how you can move those very quickly.
Yeah.
So thanks to Allison for taking the time. And it's, um, findoutpack.com for folks that can throw in a couple dollars or a lot of dollars by the.
Yes. And, you know, that whole idea of going super extreme and then coming back to a place where we still don't have our full autonomy, uh, is shocking. In the Kate Cox, uh, decision in the lower court, they, you know, we want to preserve her fertility. It's so we can preserve her. Why that, like, why is that the line and not just what the person wants to do and what the freedom of the person, that just kind of blows me away and that we have to sort know, kind of pick at it that way. Um, is frustrating.
Exactly, Allison. And that's the thing, is the part of this that also gets me is that, uh, you and I were raised to think of justice as the woman in a row, blindfolded, right. Carrying the scales, and that it's impartial. And this person is going to only see the fact.
And the sword. She has a sword, too.
And the sword and the sword. But when you actually then look into the backgrounds of these folks, you're not going to get a fair shot. There's no possible way for you to get a fair shot. Right. Let me just for your listeners. So, Jimmy Blacklock, um, at a 2018 Texas rally for life, Governor Abbott said, quote, I don't have to guess or wonder how justice Blacklock is going to decide cases because of his proven record of fighting for pro life causes. That's one. John Devine. This guy is special. He has campaigned on his own wife's high risk pregnancy. And she lived, uh, the child lived only for about an hour. Um, but it was clear in that, that she could have lost her life. He's also campaigned on being arrested dozens of times for protesting in front of abortion clinics. And then lastly, Jane bland. She wrote an opinion in a separate case where the court ruled that anti abortion groups could not be held liable for defamation for equating abortion to murder. So I can only, like, you know, you've got courageous women like Lauren and all these others that are going through the legal system seeking justice, only to be confronted with these folks that are so clearly biased, um, on a lot of issues, but on certainly this issue in particular. And it's just such a slap in the face, which is why it's important that we unseat these folks. Um, come in November, Jimmy, John, and Jane.
November, right. So the primary that's going on in Texas right now, that's not this election. This is the general election in November where the Texans can unseat these three to. Just before I let you guys go, I wanted to bring up something that, uh, I have heard you talk about before, too, that is very important to you. And I also know Gina is very important to the find out pack is know you had the resources to travel. As frightening as it was on how you felt like you were being watched, you had the resources to travel, and there are so many Texans who don't. And that is, like, one of the reasons that you're telling your story, Lauren. And one of the reasons, Gina, that know, putting this pack together is for everybody. I mean, I remember, you know, trying to get my claim through for PTSD, for military sexual trauma, and nobody picked up the phone to call me for three years after multiple denials until I was in an Oscar nominated film about it. Then all of a sudden, oh, we want to make sure everything's okay with you. And I'm like, what about the thousands and tens of thousands of people who are not in a m movie? And so I understand that need to tell your story and to get that out there. Can you talk just for a minute, uh, about that access and how not everybody has that?
That's something that is always infuriating to me, is just how it's layers of privilege to determine whether or not you can access health care, whether or not you can even live is really it. Because now the states also said, ken Paxton said this from the very beginning. He doesn't want our emergency rooms to be walk in abortion clinics, which, uh, is absurd. Trying to just save your life. Somehow, in his mind, that's a walk in abortion clinic. It's bizarre. And I was the best case scenario. I had everything stacked in my favor. I was texting with a friend of a friend who was a doctor in Colorado. I had the money to be able to travel. We had the flexibility of schedules to be able to make it to that, uh, maternal fetal medicine specialist appointment. It was just down the road from us, um, to travel to Colorado. We were able. We're close to an airport. We could get there quickly. Even going through the additional testing, we're not in rural Texas, where there's 147 counties.
Ah.
Well, at last count, we probably lost some more now that don't have any ob. So you're hours from a doctor. Ah. Or an obstetrician um, to put that in number in perspective, that's like having the population of phoenix not have an ob. That's what we're dealing with in Texas. And it's just getting know I didn't have any of those issues, and it was still hard, it was still traumatic, and that shouldn't be the case. People are literally dying because of access to health care. Um, a story came out about somebody who that did happen to, um, she'd had a high risk pregnancy and ultimately died. And her name was Yanni Glick. And I think that's important to remember her, and that's the reality. That is what we're headed towards. Um, and as we lose more doctors, it's just going to get worse. We are going to end up in a situation where, know, go boil some water and have the towels ready. Um, I mean, we treat lives well.
That's the other thing, too. These doctors are so afraid of the ambiguous laws, they're leaving states, um, where trigger laws or abortion bans or any of these laws are in place.
Right.
Because they don't want to risk their license to do the right thing and save a life.
Yes, I think there's a fear of risk for doctors leaving the state. I think there's also a burnout. I mean, I think it's taking a huge emotional toll to be there just day after day, looking at patients and saying, I have everything to be able to help you. I have the knowledge, I have the training, and I can't do anything because of the laws of the state. And I think we're seeing burnout. And, uh, what I think we haven't seen yet, but we're going to come to it is going to be the NICU care burnout for babies that are forced to be born. You're forcing a pregnancy, you're forcing this fetus to go through, developing all the pain receptors and then be born unviable. I mean, that's what would have happened in my case. And how many nurses can be there taking care and just watching baby after baby? Real babies, not a fetus like real born babies, just die in their care.
That's horrible to think about.
Allison, you mentioned earlier this idea of access, and it is certainly, um, about resources to a certain extent. I think also, as I've listened to these stories time and again, what I'm always struck by is the lack of access to just the basic information that you need to make a decision about your own body. Right. So the lack of access translating to a lack of agency, this idea that, as Lauren has mentioned previously, like these doctors, when they all of a sudden talk about abortion, it's like hushed tones, right? And just this idea, like, when you and I go to a doctor, you and I ask questions and we expect to get answers, right? And certainly that is the last kind of environment where you don't want to feel like you're being told the truth or that you're being given all the information that is in your own best interest or being told ridiculous things. Like, I heard Colorado is nice this time of year. Like, excuse me, right? I mean, this is idea of access to the information that you should have the ability, uh, to have at any point in time because you want to make decisions to save your life, save your fertility, but also just because you're an american citizen and have that right to that information.
My God.
And I actually had that conversation with my ob. Um, uh, it was kind of ironic looking back. It was at my very first prenatal appointment, and she and I have known each other. Um, she got me through my first pregnancy.
Ah.
I already had a toddler. And I remember us talking, know, hopefully I won't need a camping trip to Colorado. Um, unfortunately, that did end up being the case, and we knew what one another was talking about with that. Um, but it's all of the medical professionals in the state who are just gagged by these laws, especially this bounty law, where anybody can report anybody you don't know who thinks what and who may report you and put you in prison. Cause thousands of dollars in fine challenge your livelihood, your safety. Um, so genetic counselors, so that's somebody who just, they're supposed to tell you and counsel you on options. There are no options now. And instead of being able to say, hey, I'm sorry, these are the different steps. It was just, I'm sorry. And that's it. They don't even perform abortions. And they were too scared to say more.
Unbelievable. It's truly dystopian. And not only are we headed there, we're there. Um, and thank you for telling your story. And, uh, Gina, thanks for standing up. This pack choice is on the ballot in Texas in November in the form of removing these three justices from the Texas supreme court. You can go to findoutpac.com to donate, get more information, and, uh, see how you can help. It's going to save so many lives. And thank you so much for everything that you both are doing. And, uh, I hope to have you back on the show again as we approach to remind everybody about what we need to do in November in Texas. Sound good deal.
Thanks, Allison. Absolutely.
All right, great. That is the show for today. Thank you very much. We will be back tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, and take care of your mental health. I've been Ag and them's the beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison Gill, with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they might be Giants, and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information, please visit mswmedia.com msw media.