 Welcome everyone. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. My name is Piper Steggy Nelson and I am the publisher of The Quickest Observer. I will be your moderator for this evening. And before we start I want to let you know that we do have a great opportunity. The event is being live streamed so if anybody would like to let their friends and family know at home that they can watch it on their computers or if you are a big fan of the Tweets, it's nowcastSA.com is where you can find the live stream. Again thank you all so much for coming out for what we think is a very very important conversation. The genesis of this conversation is that we held a similar conversation in Austin a month and a half ago and the response was just overwhelming. Not only in terms of people saying oh I want to be there but then that evening the sort of the outpouring of emotion and information was just great and we realized that we needed to have this conversation in other parts of the state. Austin is not the only city in Texas and so we're here in San Antonio and we'll get to Houston at some point in the coming months. What I'm going to do tonight is tell you just a little bit about The Observer, a tiny bit about what we've been doing on Women's Health. I'm then going to introduce this incredible panel that we have and let each of them speak for about 10 minutes on their particular area of expertise. I'm going to ask them a couple of questions and then we're going to get your questions. So as you're listening to their remarks I encourage you to be thinking about what it is you'd like to hear from them. As I mentioned I'm going to be publisher of The Texans Observer. We've been around since 1954, 60 years of telling the untold stories of Texas. We are unapologetic investigative reporting into the issues that the mainstream media is either not reporting or under reporting. We pride ourselves on telling stories that are often ignored by other media outlets. On particular on the women's health front for example about a year ago, year and a half now, April of last year, a woman named Carolyn Jones came to The Observer and said, I have actually had to undergo some of the regulations passed by the Texas Sonogram Law and I need to write about it and I would like to give you a first person account of what the Texas Sonogram Law meant to me. Well she shot this story to a number of different outlets and they said, oh that is not what we do. Fortunately it's exactly what we do when we publish this essay and I still cannot read it without crying. It's extremely potent. It's very compelling and we're very proud that we were the only outlet to run that. Since then we have done a stellar job and I can say this because I have nothing to do with the editorial side so I can be proud about such things without being boastful. But we've done a stellar job of covering women's health and the issues of women's health in this state, whether it is the filibuster this summer, the legislation that was passed, or the current challenge to the legislation, which is why we understood that it was so important to have this particular conversation. And I'm really excited to be here tonight and hear from this particular panel about the issues that are of importance both before the legislation, after the legislation, and the challenges to the legislation. So with that I'm going to introduce our stellar panel. I'll start from my right. But Tima Gifford is the director of marketing and public relations for whole women's health and she's going to tell you a little bit about what whole women's health is. She's worked as a marketing and advertising industry for over 11 years. She's new to reproductive health care and joined the whole women's health family in March of 2013 and she recognized the need for more women to speak up and share their voices and encourage others within their community to join the fight for their own reproductive health care. Prior to that, she developed and managed national marketing, advertising and public relations campaigns for the Army National Guard as the marketing manager for over eight years. So we welcome Tima. To her right, we have Jeffrey Hans, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, South Texas Trust of South Texas. Born and raised in San Antonio, he has 25 years of experience with family planning organizations, including 20 years of Planned Parenthood. He began there in 1994 as the director of education, then became vice president for client services. And since 1999, has served as president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Trust of South Texas. His work and civic interests have long centered on healthcare, the needs of the poor, the environment and social justice concerns. Personal interests and hobbies include reading, gardening, food and wine, fitness and nutrition. He comes from a large family and is proud of the six night nieces and nephews. Thank you. Welcome. And finally, the woman who probably needs no introduction, Senator Leticia Vande Pute is your representative, your senator in the Texas Senate. She is a practicing pharmacist since 1980, representing a large portion of San Antonio and Bear County. A former five term state representative, she is representative of the Texas State District 26 since 1999. From 2003 until 2011, she served as the chair of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus. I look forward to hearing from her specifically about this legislative session and her role in the session. But I should note that after this this 2013 legislative session, she was named to Texas Monthly's 10 best legislators list. Welcome, thank you. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to actually, I'm going to start if it's okay with you all, I'm going to start on the other end. Senator, would you be willing to start by telling us a little bit about what happened this summer, what it was like being there and sort of the legislative process? Thank you very much. And thank you to the observer. And it is a joy to join these great people on the panel here. And I want to thank University Health Systems, and particularly Teresa that Ohio who made this space available to us. You know, when the legislature meets, it's always contentious. And this legislative session, the regular session was really no different, except that we had a few more resources. And so to talk about the special sessions this summer, you really have to reflect on what happened during the regular session. Well, the comptroller had made a horrific error in the revenue estimate, telling us when we left in 2011, that we had to cut the budget so badly. When we came back in, in January of 2013, not only had it been miscalculated, but we found out that we had $8 billion more, which meant that we never had to cut things like public education by $4 billion, or the women's health program, and the horrific cuts of 2011. So there was a outcry to restore some of the precious programs that we had lost and fortify those that we knew that we could do better like mental health. And so for the most part, operating under the regular rules of the house and the regular rules of the Senate, the legislature stuck to its core mission, doing a budget, schools, criminal justice, health and human services, water, utilities, the whole gamut. And we were pretty successful. Sure, we fought hard, and we had disagreements. But at the end of the day, we focused on the important business of the people of the state. Now bills were filed that affected women's health and health care. There were all sorts of bills filed, anti immigrant, some very toxic subjects. But in the Senate's two thirds rule, which says that two thirds of the senators need to approve to bring a measure before the entire Senate. With the Democrats having 12 seats in that 31 seat body, we were able to contain many of those toxic measures. Special session, all bets are off. The normal rules don't apply. So think about it, those of you from San Antonio, think about the San Antonio spurs and us going through the regular season, we have four quarters, you have so many fouls and you're rejected, there's a 20 point shot clock, and everybody knows those rules. So then when we get to the playoffs, what if when the spurs win the final game, they don't know, no, no, we're going to go by a different set of rules. Well, that's kind of special session, where the two thirds rule is not in play, where it is very difficult for those in the minority to have a voice. And that's where the bills affecting women's health came up. We've never seen so much activity at the Capitol. Hundreds and even thousands of people showed up to testify both in the house on the Senate side, so much that they didn't even know what to do with the people, particularly those who are in opposition. I watched people stay at the Capitol over 24 hours, just for the ability to have two minutes before a committee to voice their displeasure with these bills. People as far away as California and New York and Minnesota saw online that these people were in waiting to testify and they just started ordering pizzas to be delivered. Because there were no food outlets, because the cafeteria closes at four o'clock. And they couldn't lose their place online. We saw a tremendous amount of activism. The House did a tremendous job of getting the bill to the floor. And really the bill that was quite controversial was the one that was wrapped up all in one that had to do with all of the women's health, the regulations on abortion facilities, on abortion providers, and the time frames. It was really very difficult to see. But we knew that people were left without their voice. They didn't get a chance to testify. And so on the 21st, which was the Friday and Saturday of June and I think the 22nd, we knew that the House was going to have it on the floor. And if the House did a really good job of making sure that bill was deliberated and amendments and we tried to some members tried to fix things that if it got to the Senate on a Monday or Tuesday that we would be in filibuster territory. Now the Senate tradition is to allow any senator to filibuster. Many of my Senate colleagues offered to filibuster, including many of our male colleagues. But when it came down to it, we knew that it would have to be a woman because they weren't listening to most of the women who came to the Capitol. And my father was killed in a traffic accident on that Friday. And as I left the Capitol, I let Kirk Watson know that Wendy would have to do it. Now, we didn't know if Wendy was going to be able to filibuster. Because again, if the House started that bill on Saturday and it got to the Senate, how can you filibuster for three days? It was an amazing time and a very hurtful time for our family as my dad was really healthy. And he was killed in a horrific traffic accident. We were still grieving over the loss of our infant grandson who we lost in May. He would have been almost six months. And he just didn't wake up one morning. So I asked Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in a formal letter to please give me an hour and a half notice to return to the Capitol. Should we take any important vote or process? And he said he would. Well, my dad's rosary was set for Monday night, the 24th at seven o'clock. And the Lieutenant Governor called for the vote to be on Monday night at seven o'clock. And many of the story that people don't know is that they were going to try to do to move the calendar because the bill was not eligible until 11 o'clock on Tuesday. We knew Wendy could filibuster from 11 o'clock to midnight. But having her filibuster for 31 hours would have been very difficult. Even someone with Wendy strength and so when I asked Lieutenant Governor if he would give me that notice and he did. And I said this is this is the exact time of my father's rosary. Well, it was decided it was much too important to pass this bill. And so I got in the car and headed to Austin. My colleagues, a particular Senator Eddie Lucio from the Valley, who was by the way for the bill. And a group of senators who were for the bill and were against went to the Lieutenant Governor and asked if they that was not fair that they would have they would have the votes to start the debate then. But they realized that was the wrong thing to do. For three of them who petitioned the Lieutenant Governor, I had been with them and their families when they lost their moms or dads. In the Senate is a really close body. There's only 31 of us and we celebrate mainly grand grand babies, right? Because we're an older body. And so they went to the Lieutenant Governor and said that if Leticia wasn't here that they would not show up. I think he thought that maybe if they would come to the rosary and come back at 10 that they could start and they informed him that they would not be there until 11 o'clock on Tuesday. So for even those who in the Senate were for this bill, you have to understand that they all stood up and said, we don't do that. Therefore given Wendy the opportunity and I had no doubt that she could do that. I had no plans to return on June the 25th. We had a very late burial for my dad. That was the only one that we could secure at Fort St Houston where he wanted to be buried. And after that late afternoon burial, we gathered as a family to remember my dad. And we were all together and members of my staff were there having known him, some of them for now almost 20 years. And there was the video pictures, you know, how families will collect video pictures. And we were watching that video montage. And there was a picture there of my dad taken in May two days before the baby died as I celebrated the governor for the day. And I called him out because he was an amazing man. And he stood up and he was clapping, he was blowing kisses at me. And I saw it and he was standing up for me and everybody else was seated. And that visual of him and the Capitol and everybody looking at him and him standing up for me just jarred me thinking, Wendy standing up right now. Few minutes after that, my chief of staff approached me and he said, I know I don't want to bother you with this but they just called Senator Davis on the second point of order. The debate rules are that if you're called on three successive successful points of orders, then the filibuster is ended. And normally you can do all sorts of things during the filibuster. People will give you candy, sip you a little water, not so with Wendy. She couldn't move. She couldn't touch her desk. There was no sip of water. She had to stay perfectly on topic. And the first point of order was called by someone because she had the audacity to say Roe v Wade and they said that Roe v Wade wasn't germane to the subject of the bill. Second point of order was when Senator Ellis was holding this back brace that she was trying to put on. And they said he was assisting her. And I told my chief of staff, what are they doing? And he says they've decided to watch in 30 minute segments. One senator to watch everything Senator Davis does so that if she touched her desk, that would be it. And the other senator to hear every word she said. So she was perfectly on topic. And he said, boss, they're going to get her. And I thought I said I have to go because I thought maybe if I go and she sees me, it will give her some strength, right? And I said, but by now it's like almost 8, 830 at night. And I said, I don't think I can get there in time. My chief said DPS is waiting for you outside. So when I got there, I really had no emotional energy. It was nothing. And we had no idea that people were watching online, by the way, throughout the thing, the Senate, the members of the Senate, we had no idea. We knew of the thousands of people there. And as I drove up, I mean, I was driven up. I was met by a dear friend who almost collapsed when she saw me because she didn't think I would be there. And I said I'm not but I just I think if she sees me. And I went in and I was just I just had no energy, nothing. I was at the bottom of my well just and I couldn't go on the floor. Because I was really too emotional. And in the members lounge, I was greeted by the women of the house. Symphonia Thompson, Jessica Ferrar, Anna Bettis, Donna Howard, Ruth Jones McClendon, and they comforted me. And they said, you're here, you're here, it'll be fine. And I went out, but I didn't want to really look at Wendy. She saw me, but I thought if I went to her, then maybe she would want to hug me and that would have been it that would have been a point of order. So I stayed way on the other side, reading Iran. And it was Senator West wife Carol who came to me and all the women were I sit pretty close to the railing on one side and said, you know, you're here, but you're not here. Because I wasn't engaging at all. And I couldn't I had nothing. I mean, I had nothing. And Carol said, you know, I know your dad and your dad was here and he stood up and it just jarred me that yeah, my dad stood up and I saw Wendy standing up. And at that moment, Senator Campbell called the third point of order because Wendy said sonogram. And they were going to rule that the sonogram was not germane to the subject. And when I heard that I turned around and actually Carol West was holding my hand and I went, Oh, hell no. And I walked to the dais because I thought this is ridiculous. And I think it was more anger. I wish I could tell you it was some more divine or that I had this great leadership or something. I was angry. I was really angry that someone would twist the rules so much in a representative democracy where debate needs to be done, that they were so incessant on having this bill passed that they would throw the rulebook by the side. And so I went and I defended it and said, okay, sonogram is in the Texas statute. It's the only thing that's required before a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy. And I argued, you know, in the state of Texas, if you have an apodectomy, a sonogram is not required. If you have a tonsillectomy, a sonogram is not required. However, in the termination of a pregnancy, a sonogram is required is in the statute. And this is a bill about it. So they decided that they were going to let the Senate vote, which meant that yes, they were going to end it. At that time, I'm going to tell you, your senators kicked in every single parliamentary procedure we could asking to appeal the ruling, asking to do everything we could because we knew that we had almost two hours to go. And 30 minutes before the strike of midnight, I think the folks in charge got really desperate because they realized that we were doing it very effectively on parliamentary procedure and stuff. And and then it was the frustration of me not being able to be recognized. And so about 20 minutes till or about really a quarter till, I could not be recognized. By that time, they realized that every time that I would be recognized, I would draw that clock out. And so my mic was turned off. And I know that the presiding officer heard me or the press heard me, the gallery heard me. I mean, I was jumping up and down. And so it was out of frustration when I finally got recognized after screaming. That I said at what point Mr. Female Senator raise her hand or her voice to be heard over the male colleagues in the room, because they were recognizing every one of the men and they weren't recognizing me. And I think what happened is that it encapsulated exactly what was happening at the Capitol and in our state is that they're not listening to women. They weren't respecting women. They weren't respecting gynecologists and obstetricians who all opposed this bill as bad for women's health. And so the crowd erupted. They have been pretty good before that very respectful. But they could no longer be contained after watching hour after hour of rules being thrown to the side. And it was the people who finished the filibuster. Now that building that we call the pink dome and the Capitol is larger than the US Capitol. It's tall. That building was shaking. I mean, I remember being so scared. I'm thinking it was vibrating so hard. I thought, it's a granite four story building. But the people were going to be heard. And so at least for one night, the people's voices were heard. But what happened then was the social media and the Twitter world. We had no idea that there were hundreds of thousands of tweets, or Facebook's, or people watching online. And what happened is that people all over this country, and particularly women and the men who love women, were watching an astonishment. Mark your calendar, June 25, 2013. It was the turning point. Because women had just had enough. Thanks. Thank you so much. That was, that was remarkable. Thank you. Jeffrey, can you tell us a little bit about the legislation, the role that the legislation has had will have on women's health programming in the state? Sure, I can't do so without being overcome with appreciation for what you did. But the damn thing passed. But it is interesting how it changed things and electrified people. And I think that there's a whole lot going on now that traces its origins back to that night. So they passed this bill, House Bill 2, HB2. Fatima was in Austin earlier today, where it's being heard in the lawsuit challenging it is being heard in Judge Jacobs Court. We don't know what'll happen with the judges ruling exactly which way this is going to go. But whichever way he goes, this thing is going to go to the Fifth Circuit Court. And there are four main provisions of this bill that that constitute its its efforts to change and dramatically reduce the availability of abortion care in the state of Texas. Those four things are the bill requires that all physicians who have all physicians who provide abortion care must have what they're called active admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles location of where the abortion is performed. We got to remember, you know, Texas is big and remote. And there's lots of places where you can drive 30 miles 10 times and not pass one hospital. So we have to just think about the practicalities of this. Requirement number two is that medication abortion, which is performed using two medications. One, the brand name is called miffy prex and the second medication given is called mysoprostyl. Those two medications when given together can effectively end a pregnancy in the earliest stages of gestation. Well, the law is going to change what you can and can't do with the prescribing dosage timing and administration of those medications, forcing physicians to follow a protocol for those drugs that is outdated and is not supported by current evidence based best practices. The third requirement of the bill is that all abortion care, including the placement of a pill in a woman's hand, all abortion care must take place in an ambulatory surgery center. And the fourth element main element of the bill is an outright ban on all abortion care beyond 20 weeks gestation. Now, I want to take a couple of minutes just to point out what this actually means and what it does because there's some of this stuff. You know, I was reading the coverage in the paper while people like Senator Vaniput are up there heroically doing what she's doing. And I'm thinking there are a lot of people who are going to read about this are going to say, well, no, wait a minute, what this doesn't seem out of step, you know, doctors admitting privileges at hospitals like, well, don't doctors have admitting privileges at hospitals and, you know, using medications according to, you know, an FDA approval system and the label of use. There's a lot of things that you would say, well, this seems like, like, shouldn't we be supporting this? Well, let's pick this apart a little bit. On the 20 week ban. So very few abortion procedures happen that late in pregnancy, that we all just have to pause and realize the people who are seeking abortion care at that time are doing so in the midst of circumstances that would break your heart to think that someone who at some point in pregnancy results from amniocentesis, genetic information, an accident, something happens where a pregnancy that was wanted and planned for a nursery that already has furniture bought for it. And now someone is faced with terrible information about a pregnancy gone horribly wrong. And the family has next to no time to grieve and think about what might be best in light of what might need to happen so that this family, its mother, its existing children might move forward in a way that that family believes is best and strongest for its future. One thing to think about with this, and I won't go through every example, but there's a whole lot we should all try to keep learning about this 20 week ban. You can't start cancer therapy while you're pregnant. So if you are pregnant, and then there is a diagnosis of cancer, a woman who is pregnant has to decide, do I continue this pregnancy and delay the beginning of my cancer treatment until after I've delivered? Or do I end this pregnancy and start cancer treatment as soon as possible? And what do I think as the woman as the mother, what do I think is best for me, my spouse and my existing children? And I just don't see how an action or decision of law of government can come in and make a decision that would say what is best all the time. These are after 20 weeks gestation. These are all very, very unique and tragic situations. And I think we're just gonna simply have to trust a woman, trust the woman to be the moral agent to determine what's best for her and her family. The ambulatory surgery center requirement. Planned Parenthood in San Antonio provides abortion care only in the first trimester of pregnancy. After 13 and a half or so weeks of pregnancy, we don't provide abortion care. Because we limit our abortion care service to the first trimester of pregnancy. And just to be sure, the reason we've done so is that that's what 90% of all abortion care is accessed. That's when women need the service overwhelming majority of women are early in pregnancy. So that's what we've been doing. So early in pregnancy, the kinds of things that are required to be in existence at a surgery center are never going to be used by Planned Parenthood in San Antonio when providing first trimester abortion care. So we will establish an ambulatory surgery center so that we can continue providing abortion care to women who choose to end their pregnancies. But in the meetings I'm having with the architect about the floor plan and laying this out, the architect is telling me things that we need to have. And I keep trying to say we don't need them. And the architect says no, I've designed like 40 of these surgery centers. And I said, okay, well, I don't need an onion and this aspect of it is required. And do you want, you know, like an operating room? Do you want like three, five of them? I said, one. It's like, well, why one? Because we're never going to use it. No one will go in there. Well, but you're building a surgery center, I know, but we don't actually need that. We're just going to have it there so that a woman can stand in this building and we can put a pill in her hand. And we can all look at the beautiful OR. Okay. And now that's a little overstated because then they're what if abortion care evaporates in Texas and more and more women are driving from all over four, five, seven, nine hours away driving to find abortion care in San Antonio because all the places close to them have closed. And because they've all closed, it took her longer to get here. And because it took her longer to get here because she had to save more money because it got more expensive. Now it is later in pregnancy. And maybe we will need to start helping people beyond the first trimester. But these are these are actual women whose lives are going to be changed very much by all of this. I give you one story of what's already happened. So there was a Planned Parenthood Health Center in San Angelo, Texas that was providing abortion care with Miffy Pristone, just the medication that the Miffy Prex. So only up through the first few weeks of pregnancy, about you know, eight and a half nine weeks. Well, they closed because they lost their family planning funding two years ago, they were blocked out of the women's health program for revenue to cover their clients who did not have money for family planning. And now they can't stay open to provide any of these services because they don't have the resources. So abortion care is also going away. So we have a woman from San Angelo who makes an appointment for her abortion in San Antonio. And on the day of her appointment, we get a phone call from the bus station in San Antonio. She's there. She has an appointment at our clinic. Well, she didn't understand exactly how much the bus ticket was going to cost. And then she didn't understand how expensive a cab could be because it's all in the same city and can't believe the cab is going to be this much to go from the bus station to Planned Parenthood's facility. And I don't have enough money for all this then and then I won't be able to pay for everything. And we just said, you know, stop talking, stop crying. Tell us what street corner you'll be at by the bus station and we're going to send someone to come pick you up. This is just going to happen again and again and again. And it's not just an idea. It's not a public policy debate. It's the way people's lives are going to unfold now. Two more things quickly. On the medication abortion and the prescription of the administration of these medications. This is approved by the FDA over a decade ago. When are you 486 the French developed medication brought to this country under the drug named Miffy Pristone and the brand Miffy Prex. This was approved about 13 years ago when there was no practical use of it to fall back on. After over a decade of this use, there's just a much better evidence based protocol on how to use the medication dosage timing. One of the biggest changes we made is at the second medication, the mysoprosyl. We just send her with that. She has to take it sometime after the first medication, the Miffy Pristone. She takes that at home or at her sister's home, if that's where she's gonna maybe that's where she's staying while this happens or her best friend. Well, now she's gonna have to come back to the clinic for that medication as well. And what if she did drive from Fort Davis to San Antonio? And then if this medication starts to work, how she's supposed to drive home while this is happening. And then so she's supposed to get another hotel room night in San Antonio. And how does all this get paid for? And then on the admitting privileges. This one, you know, it's just been a long time since Marcus Welby was on television. And this idea that, you know, whenever we have to go to a hospital, our family physician is going to meet us at the hospital and is going to, you know, walk into the floor and start, you know, ordering nurses as to what should be done and all this. When you go to a hospital, you get taken care of by a hospitalist. And that is best. And there are so many physicians who do not have hospital privileges. Hospital privileges are also based on the number of procedures and surgeries you bring to that hospital, the number of patients that you admit to that hospital. Well, if you're doing as what we do at Planned Parenthood in San Antonio, first trimester abortion care that's very, very safe. Well, we're not bless you, we're not admitting all of these patients. We don't have all of his acute after care. It's not like a lot of our patients are ending up at a hospital at all to speak of. So no, our physicians don't have a lot of admissions. So why would they? And further, in some of these more rural remote and smaller towns in Texas, you might not be able, a physician might not be able to get admitting privileges based solely on subjective ideological decisions. My organization was trying to help the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Midland, Texas, hang on before it closed a couple of months ago. And they were the only ones providing in clinic abortion procedures and about a four to five hour radius. Well, long story short, there is no way and I got it on really good authority is as close to the horse's mouth as you can get from Midland Memorial Hospital. There is no way that a physician providing abortion care in Midland, Texas is going to be granted admitting privileges at Midland Memorial. It's just told it just ain't gonna happen. So even if you raised the money, the three to five million dollars for an ambulatory surgery center, and you built it in Midland, and you agreed to these ridiculous restrictions on medication abortion. And even if you found a doctor who would come out there and provide that doctor is not going to get admitting privileges at Midland Memorial Hospital and that's only hostile within 30 miles anyway. So it's set up to shut all of this down. Stay tuned to the lawsuit and let's hope we get some injunctive relief. Sorry one more minute before I turn to talk to Tima here at the fabulous Texas Diabetes Institute. Thank you, Senator. Thank you so much for hosting us. This is a glorious location for this event. I do need to note that there's a car in the parking lot with its lights on. It's a Toyota Camry beige in color. Texas license plate 495 YWB. Fatima, could you tell us a little bit about the challenges of the legislation? Yes, absolutely. So I actually want to start off and tell you a little bit about Homeland Health and what we do and who we are, because I think that has a direct correlation, correlation with the reasons why we are fighting so hard within the legislation right now. And Senator, it directly comes from what you guys did at the Capitol. We got our strength from you. The legislation came at a time where it kind of happened to us, you know, and we have always, we are a community based privately owned organization committed to providing comprehensive gynecological care, including abortion services. We have six clinics within the state. One of them is an ambulatory surgical center right here in San Antonio. And it is our philosophy that the woman is always in the center of her health care decisions. Hands down. We believe in holistic care. We believe in all women have the choice to make whatever decision they want to make with their health care decisions and whether that means they need an abortion. We provide that. We have a full spectrum. Jeffrey was talking about that they provide abortion services during the first trimester. However, we go all the way to about 24 weeks and we service women. We provide services for women who unfortunately they plan. They want this pregnancy. Everything has gone right. And then they find out there's some health care decision. There's something that happened and then something that happened in bed. And it's either, you know, their health in jeopardy or they have to terminate their pregnancy. So we provide services for that maternal fetal medicine patient here in San Antonio and we're one of few that do that within the state. And you know, when the legislation happened and we were completely deflated because this is what we've done. This is what we've always done. We've, Whole Women's Health has been around since 2003. We started in Austin and now we're in San Antonio. We're in McGowan. We're in Beaumont. We're in Fort Worth. I mean, we're trying to expand our reach as far as we can so that we can provide services for as many women as we can throughout the state. And so when this happened and it was just this perfect storm of a bill that that touched the regulations on the, you know, our providers facilities and the way that we administered, you know, medical abortions and it's like none of this improves the health care of women. None of it makes sense to us. So we're like, no, this is not happening to us. It'll never go through. So, you know, when the filibuster happened, we were all there. We were all cheering. We were all in the gallery. We were all on our feet. We were all excited and emotional. And it was just that this array of emotions that happened and we, I remember all of us with quite a few of us there and we all just kind of looked at each other. We all, in our one shirt, exhausted because we had been there day in and day out. Social media, we had one person just dedicated to social media every single day, every moment. Everything that happened, you know, we were tweeting. We were posting. We were sharing. We were engaging. We were communicating. And when the clock struck 12, we said we did it. And we just kind of ex-held. And then within 12 hours it was kind of superficial. We were starting all over again. So we realized that at that point this probably was going to happen. HB2 was going to go through. We were going to have to figure out a way to comply because there's no other option for us but to be able to provide compassionate abortion care for the women within Texas. And it's simply because HB2 does not take away the need for abortion. It just doesn't. Even though access is going to be scarce, women are still going to need abortions because that's what they want. That's their choice. And it's their prerogative. And it's always been our philosophy to operate as such. So we all put our thinking caps on and said how are we going to be able to provide these services and be whole women's health and treat women holistically throughout the state without closing? And then you see all of the regulations that Jennifer talked about and it's like how do you comply with an ambulatory surgical center regulate? How who has that type of revenue in order to remain open? What it doesn't make sense to increase a woman's visit to four visits just to get a pill in her hand and then to go home. It does it didn't none of it made sense to us. So we wanted to harness that momentum that we got from our heroes at the Capitol and we took it and we said we're going to fight legally because that's what we're supposed to do. Because no one else is going to do a force we have to do it. So we we are one of the plaintiffs along with Planned Parenthood a number of other providers and actually yesterday and today have been in federal court given testimony home as health was fortunate to have two people Amy Hachstrom Miller who would have been here today but you know she was fighting at the courthouse today testifying and Andrea Ferdinand who's our corporate vice president she also testified today and there were two other physicians and one demographer out of University of Texas that testified yesterday. So you know it was very very interesting we were really really nervous we got there yesterday we were like we're ready we the uncertainty of how the state we're going to react to us was nerve-wracking in itself because we weren't sure you know when we see them come in and it's all men of course it's all men and there were one female I believe it was 11 men and one woman on the state side and then us we come in and we're confident and we're ready and we were prepared and it was all one the one male very interesting very interesting because you know state gets up and says oh they're just blowing air there's no proof hb2 is going to improve the health care for women within the state of Texas this is important we need to you know keep it as is man and then you know our litigators stand up confident woman and says oh but you're wrong and these are the reasons why so it was very empowering it was very exciting to be in the courtroom yesterday um we weren't sure what the strategy was going to be um you know if they were going to have anyone testify we knew that we were going to have five people to testify um and we just weren't sure which direction that it was going to go in so right now basically the reasons why we chose to take legal action is because we need more time we know of course we would like to say hb2 go away but we have to be practical and realistic right so right now we are asking for more time in order to comply with whatever that final version of hb2 is going to be right so there were uh there was a lot of information that we presented that you know you gave us 90 days to comply with these very complex um and onerous stipulations of emitting privileges and that it just doesn't that's not enough time um simply because every hospital network has their own requirements you can go to san Antonio and one network and they say yes you need to be board certified with this amount of time um an amount of cases and you know here's your checklist that is 15 pages long and then you may go to fort worth and their requirements may be 50 pages long and it may take you you know six months to get through just that process of applying so all of all of that should have been taken under consideration when saying that here's hb2 and it goes into effect on this day regardless next week on october 29th the 20 week ban will go into effect because that was not challenged the only two provisions that was challenged on our legal fight this time was the emitting privileges piece and then the um the miffy the miffy prex protocol so those two and it was simply because of exactly what jeffrey was talking about earlier is that there was a small population that is directly affected with procedures over 20 weeks so you kind of had to weigh out each provision so we looked at the emitting privileges part we also looked at the the medical abortion piece we put that together once we get through this legal fight then there will probably be a separate there will probably be separate legal action at looking at the a sc piece because that doesn't go into effect until 2014 september of 2014 so this is kind of going in some legal phases for us right now so that directly affects holmes health here in san antonio our ambulatory surgical center because we see numerous cases for women who are faced with you know health issues the pregnancy is not going in the right direction so we are getting a lot of calls currently right now from women who are terrified because i just found out yesterday that my child has a genetic disorder and i am 22 weeks so can i is this something that i have to do today and the answer has to be unfortunately yes unfortunately yes you you you'll have to see us as soon as possible because after october 29th there's we can't help you yeah we can't help you and that's devastating for us because we've always been in the forefront speaking to women helping women however we can with transportation with funding options with holding their hands when they need us to hold their hands you know where we'll be your escort we will give you information if it's talking to you for the next three hours just so that you understand the process and this is the option that's best for you and your family that's always been us and that's always been our philosophy but hb2 has gotten in the way of that and that that's something that's hard for us to understand that's something hard for us to actually say okay that is going to get in the way of the way that we at Whole Women's Health provide services for women so in a nutshell that is some of the the legal stuff that's going on right now Amy Haxter-Miller was last to testify today they've heard all of the testimony tomorrow they will hear closing remarks and then we just kind of have to wait on the judge to rule fingers crossed so of course he'll have to do that really before october 29th so and there's no way to know which way is going to go if we're going to get that injunction or not we either get it and that buys us more time for it to comply with you know the admitting privileges part and then the way we administer medical medications for abortions or he doesn't and this perfect storm of the anti-abortion regulations go into place and it directly affects every single provider in the state and all the women right so it's yet to be seen who will remain open if it does not go in our direction thank you thank you all very much I'm looking forward to getting your questions in just a moment as you're thinking about your questions I just have one question for the panel you each mentioned sort of where we are now in terms of a larger movement that seems to have started this summer and so I wanted to hear from from you all what what the activism that you saw senator at the capital this summer what it has led to and sort of what the changes are in both the pro-choice and the pro-life movements since things went down at the Texas capital this summer and I would love to hear from each of you if you have thoughts on it starting with the senator well things will never be the same it was the first case where the social media and the live stream really created this engagement and usually when people have a taste of how they can affect public policy they kind of like it I mean they understand that anchor is a really Putin motivator and it was I think the anger at not being heard at not listening to the academy of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who were vehemently against this bill and it also was extremely surprising but I think for me the whole nomenclature I never thought about the terminology and choice and when women make a choice it's okay we make a choice are we going to have the pumpkin latte are we going to have the you know carol mochiato we make a choice are we going to do this we're going to do that what I realized this summer was that it's not a choice it is a very serious heart-wrenching decision that women make and that so I've kind of referred to it now as this decision that it is this decision making of women that's at stake I've heard from women who told me that they were watching but it was more about a woman standing up and what I said what I said that it struck a chord but it wasn't particularly for them it wasn't about women's health it was about them being in the corporate board room or nonprofit board room or in the media and trying to pitch an idea or something and just kind of being dismissed and 10 minutes later some guy'll say the same sort of thing and boy you run with it we're going to give you staff that's a great thing and they're like didn't I just say that 20 minutes ago or the woman who told me and she was in her 80s she said you know I was so smart in school she said but they never called on the girls she said all the time I raised my hands and they always called on the little boy or the 60-year-old who told me I was so tired of them sending me the newest little NBA to come train in the company and I trained him and though that time came up for the next promotion I knew I had the credentials I was the one that was there and I had trained everybody and guess who got the promotion she says I've trained five of my bosses so for women this was not just about the disrespect they had on this particular bill about women's health it was about didn't we fight this 40 years ago right haven't we been through this already and it was on top of Governor Perry vetoing the women's equal pay for equal work damn you know he vetoed our Texas Lily Ledbetter bill it was what you don't want equal pay for equal work so it was about the disrespect of what what is it going to take and for that the only thing that I can tell you is that I have never seen women of all ages and all income brackets really engaged and it isn't and it's not just Texas women it's because these sort of policies are making their way through state legislatures all over the country some more successful than others but none as rigid really as rigid as ours we tried we tried to get an exception for rape and incest in that 20 week bill understanding that sometimes there is a 13 year old that's molested by her own father that doesn't even recognize she's pregnant and for the state to tell that family you have no options or your 13 year old is raped by a monster and she doesn't know and she's been told that if she says anything that she her cousin's gonna get killed or their little sister's gonna get killed folks those things happen and you know it and I know it and you go to the rape crisis center you go to the child abuse centers and they tell you that happens that's not the great Texas we know but it happens so we tried to get an amendment said how about rape or incest how about rape or incest of someone younger than 14 how no no no no and I think it was that sort of sentiment so what I see is we're gonna have to use my favorite four letter word and that's vote if women really want to and I think what's really maybe not a surprising is the young women who've never known it any other way and then all of a sudden they were like what what and those women on college campuses or those young professionals because you see their grandmothers told them and their mothers have told them just like my mother told me she said sweety reproductive rights are so important to you because if you can't plan your family you can't plan your career you can't plan your career you can't live a life of dignity and it's about the control it's not about anything more than somebody else being able to control your destiny and that's why we fought for reproductive rights and young women just kind of didn't get it why because they've grown up and it's been okay and now all of a sudden these young women are thinking wait a minute what and so I think it's really open that engagement you know government has a way of correcting itself when the pendulum swings too far one way or the other the pendulum that we have is pretty extreme and I think they just went too far and the people will react and hopefully common sense will come back there's some numbers to back that up really quickly with regard to the special session and the filibuster 175,000 people watched this on the Texas Tribune live stream there were 1.4 million tweets that were generated in relation to Wendy Davis's filibuster there were more than 34,000 calls to state legislatures opposing the bill and more than 15,000 people turned up in person in the first week of July alone to oppose the bill so you if you you know believe in the whole you know tip of iceberg stuff and when you think about what you just said right now senator I'm like this has gotten attention where's that going to go what's that going to pay out we'll see but you can't say that this was some sort of flash in the pan it just wasn't and I think that it before now you know we we didn't really use I know we haven't really used social media in that way so it was this amazing communication piece I remember us using Twitter where when people were getting rowdy standing in line and we were tweeting hey calm down we need you to calm down down there because you're making it rough for us up here on the third floor and they calmed down because everyone was following that was our means of communicating when during session that was our way of communicating was via Twitter and I mean it was it not only allowed us to engage with an audience that we may not have ever reached before but we also work together so many different organizations that we had never talked to before we were working together because we all wanted the same thing we all had the same common goal and that that was powerful for us that I mean it was really amazing just to see the reach the national reach that we had just by utilizing social media during this I mean it seems like a very long time frame but it really wasn't it really wasn't during this short time frame the reach in attention that it garnered just by tweeting or posting and it was just a beginning because everyone is still pissed off everyone is still mad so this is a great time to vote and to get people registered and to go out and educate within your communities it shouldn't have it shouldn't stop this summer it shouldn't have stopped we have to keep going we have to keep educating we have to get the people out that are passing these ridiculous laws and that's important that's important for all of us no matter what stance where we have to encourage everyone to vote that's important thank you my colleague Chrissy is actually going to bring a microphone around to those of you who might have questions is there a first question out there oh that was an immediate hand over there okay one of the things that I need I need a list of names because it wasn't until lobby day that I found out about Donald he ducked down a camel who are I could have murdered her but I weren't looking and I didn't even supposed to be because it was kind of a list when I get together and say this is good you know it's a waste of yes the following people because yeah I think I was you guys were being this all the time but I just found out it was a lot of Lawson who did the build out the young you know who's in the the elder stand so we need your information we need just we need you guys to say here's a great list of people for I think that there are a lot of I know that there's I'm looking for talking of of yeah so oh no there she is Patricia Rodriguez is the political director of our PAC and so she is someone who if you want to know those things you're going to want to make sure that you give her your email address so that she starts sending you her voter guide voter information stuff because it's a 501c3 organization of course I'm not going to get involved in electoral politics but just happen to know that that's what her job is and y'all don't have to contact me again I'm I'm good I'm good I'm good I have to contact me that's awesome contact email on the site and no but I wanted to share that there's so much misinformation and it's very important for us to correct the misinformation now part of the way that strategies are successful politically is to give out the misinformation but some of the blunders that the folks who promoted this bill were just atrocious the house sponsor of the bill when the house members tried to also get an exception for those who were sexually assaulted or victims of rape the house sponsor stood up and said well there are pregnancies do not occur as a result of rape oh no no no you know why she said because they go to the hospital and they have rape kits to clean you out so understanding that and people went oh yeah that's right these are the people voting on it and you're saying no rape kit is for forensic DNA purposes there's no way I'm sorry once those little scrums get in there they're you know basic basic or when we were debating the sonogram bill and they thought it was like the jelly on the belly and I had I was trying to talk to my colleagues and they said well let's see it but woman doesn't want to hear that you know they can get up and I and I said excuse me they said you know if they don't want you they can get up and I said have you ever been in the stirrups with your knees like this and a wand inside and they said what do you mean a wand I said it is a vaginal sonogram if they thought it was like jelly on the belly type thing and so it's important for us to get that information to people but also the information that's really important about because you say well we want to improve the quality because this is this is one of the weirdest things that I you need to vote for this bill because it'll improve the quality of the health of women who are seeking abortions and it's in it's an improvement so that they can have safe procedures because we'll have them an ambulatory care center and I said well what what part of taking a pill as a surgery you know I don't know but my favorite one is on your ambulatory surgical do they have to have men's lockers and men's dressing rooms and men's stuff I just don't know many men that have vaginas some that wish they did but I don't know you know some of the things are just you think why so we're not operating from a basis of I'm sorry I probably shouldn't say that of common sense and and so the regulations are just some what observed but it was and in people who believe it or you know I had folks that said well what's you know 20 weeks that's really that's you know that's for a long and I and I tried to explain to them and I said you know I don't think most women wake up at 20 weeks pregnant and say I'll go get one today I forgot I just forgot for 20 weeks I forgot I'll just go do it today I said what do you think I said when that happens it's really tragic less than one half less than a half of one percent so like zero point five percent or after 20 it's something horrible has gone on and and so it's just I can't tell you how important it is to get out the correct information because you are all of you in this room have a circle of influence with people that are your neighbors or that or at work or in other organizations and it's really important for you to to explain to them hey this was in an effort to really now I don't question people's motives because it is what it is but I do question when they ignore the best evidence and the science or they won't accept an amendment for rape or incest of a child when they don't that when they understand that they put into law a medication regimen and timing that is now considered detrimental to the woman's health it's not been the protocol for the last decade so get that information out and then and then I'll be quiet of the woman in the green side right there and we'll go to red and we'll go back I'm pretty loud great wonderful hi she's here I agree that we have to get this information out and thank you for giving us information tonight that I didn't know and I thought I was pretty well read and I thought I knew but that those are the important things to share life and medication and FBA approval et cetera et cetera and in fact we're going against those are very important pieces and so I guess one of the things I would really really love is those points and I you know where to I mean that's very succinct what we did tonight all of you just think there's a bullet point a bullet point a bullet point for each home wow we didn't know all that so that brings me to my second as I believe very strongly as we see everywhere women are going to decide in Texas through the next governor is and where I live we're all republicans and if I don't know how to break into to I need an audience I need to be able to find women that will be willing to to listen the way it is so polarized and hateful right now and Kendall County they don't really want to talk to you I've been fed on but I mean that's you know there too I just saw a caucus for me right but it's I think it goes on to how can we get some good ideas and you don't need to share it it's okay I know but if you could if we could communicate and get those ideas about how we can invite ourselves to organizations where we might have that audience and then your wonderful points that you've made and I guess this isn't a question and unless I say please can you give us some and give us some talking points and how we can receive that this is not in the best interest for women I mean we can we're putting together our list of what this means and trying to distill it down to you know here's the things we're gonna have to do and I think that's something we can make something available that could be shared and we could even put up on our website at Planned Parenthood another little piece of something you know learning things that those of us who read the paper and thought we knew what this bill involved here's something that never got any attention it's a tiny little thing but it really goes to this point of you know so the lawmakers who are pushing this bill so this is about improving women's health and improving the quality of the health care that is provided when a woman gets abortion well you know something we have an abortion facility licensed at Planned Parenthood right now not a surgical center and so I get an unscheduled unannounced license audit visit every year once I become a surgery center I'll get a visit once every three to six years so how does that improve oversight in regulation and quality of health care and that's something that never got to see the lie today yes red right here bring in mind that what most of this here already know and that is these the the override is not after abortion per se that's ancillary they're after birth control and I think it's important that we understand this and piggybacking on what this woman just brought up you know there's that discomfort of trying to talk with people who are you know middle class and above who are fairly well off who simply don't get it but how do we talk how do we start the conversation because it's got to happen with women of color in the women who live just above or at or below the poverty line and get them because they come from typically conservative socially conservative groups right we've got excuse me pick up we've got to learn how to talk to these people and we've got to start the conversation we've got to start now and we need your help on that and there is an organization out of Atlanta that I know called sister song yes and I and we need to do some training all around and how to talk about this so we talk a lot about this at home women's health simply because people like to be around like minded folks we all know that's just how the way we engage and communicate with one another and it's really really really important to identify and foster those relationships with whether it's community organizations whether it is um just a small coalition or whatever a group of women in a certain area that you know that everyone is going to listen to right so I think that is the first step identifying who they are for instance if you came to my neighborhood in south Austin no one would listen to you if I went to my neighborhood in south Austin and started speaking they would listen to me because it's like that mirror right sucks I understand it I get it but I just need you to listen that's what it all boils down to right so it's really really important to go out there and expand your reach like we we got really excited about it everyone who came to the capital and thousands and thousands of women from all over not just Texas other states as well but those are the same people that keep coming to you know all of our events what about everyone else what about the the other 13 million women within the state what about the women in the valley how about my girls in Beaumont like what about everyone else who did not go to the capital and still are oblivious to what is going on in their own state it doesn't make sense to me it probably doesn't make sense to you but we've already identified that it's an issue and that we have to go out and communicate with our women so for me it's a real passion because I didn't realize it was that bad until I was having this random conversation with a parent at my son's football team and she thought abortion was illegal and I mean this is recent like very recent and I was like what are you talking about you know where I work right just asked me and she completely was trying to school me the misinformation trying to school me on how abortion is illegal so I spent the rest of my son's football game explaining to her no and like throwing my cards out no it's not illegal this is what happened this is what you kind of saw on television because you really weren't paying attention but it was all of this and it's not ignorance it's not it's just misinformation and a lack of understanding so um yeah I'll go on and on I'm going to go back to here yes and it was pretty man first of all my question is was the judge who's hearing our case our case was that judge did he run for office or was he politically appointed and if he ran for office with which party does he align himself I actually don't know the answers to that he's a federal judge he was appointed by um he is a republican who was appointed by Reagan he answered my question well that actually not because he had heard one of our cases before and he came down squarely with women's health on a prior case yes including our phone I registered to vote when I was 18 years old Norma Susan Gutierrez four years later I got married and for the past 42 years I have voted using Norma Susan Gutierrez my husband doesn't give a damn which name I used to vote for with the state of Texas does my ID my legal Texas ID that is my married name Norma Gutierrez from all the novels I believe as the law states I believe that they are similar they are substantially similar you will hear about me when they cough me out if I go vote and I'm not allowed to vote I will not have the state of Texas tell me if I can vote using my maiden name or my married name if it does if my husband doesn't care why should the state was there a question up here one is present legislator excluded legislators are allowed to lie and not be tried in a court of law that did it all the time one of them is this man Dan Patrick from Houston who proposed this lousy sonogram law and that should be allowed also legislation should be evidence-based evidence-based meaning that you can reference it in appropriate journals scientific journals now and none of this legislation that has been proposed and about to be enacted without court review is not evidence-based to take one small part of it is the necessity of having a surgery center license I was I had the privilege you wouldn't call it a privilege it was a curse I guess to be involved in that 20 years ago when the health department which is the appropriate place to argue those things convene the panel to decide just that sort of thing and the panel had a number of sides to with the sort of empties and the pros and as much of the staff of the health department and evidence was presented that came from providers and at that time there was much evidence in the literature and all of the abortion procedures at the time that were performed were found to be safe in all of the facilities that wouldn't narrowly provide all of the abortion procedures except very close to term that was the evidence that terminated in that discussion and now here we are some legislator decided that that was going to be good I don't know which one of the well-informed legislators proposed that was it Patrick or somebody else so that's sort of what we're faced with legislators lying and not being called to task about it thank you thank you I practiced obstetrics and gynecology for some 50 years almost the last 10 of them were teaching residents, medical students and people involved in education and they were taught that their decisions needed to be based on evidence and that's what our legislators should be making their decisions on one more way to comment new folks are right the way in which our legislators will be influenced is through women that has to be very young women because they do not understand what it was like before Roe versus Roe I do, I saw it I was involved in treating them and it was not pleasant thank you so much I just want to tell you that it is so thankful to you my daughter Nicole is a practicing OBGYN here in San Antonio and you know all through this debate she said oh mama that's really going to happen and she said my professors would talk to us about what would happen and she said and so if this passes because women who are desperate and who don't have the money will resort back to what happened before Roe v. Wade and she said mama I know they have told me that I'm going to have to operate on a young woman who's come in with septic shock and I know that or it's a perforated internal organ and she said we heard horror stories like this from our professors who said this is what will happen and she said actually she's going and her partner and her the two female OBGYNs that work on the south side they actually are going to a seminar because she said we're not trained on these sort of things she says now they tell me you're going to have to perform hysterectomies on 23 year olds and she said it's going to come to that and so I've got to tell you the whole from the medical profession side that's why they have been with all of you and us in trying to get that evidence out there for women so even physicians who whatever in their own faith belief system think that this is not inappropriate whatever their belief system is we're against this because the way that it was done is going to be extremely harmful and detrimental and as my daughter said she said mama women are going to die and she said it's not me saying this she said because I don't know any better and you know she's 34 she says we don't know she says but I do know that what my professors told me so they're going to the seminar to try to figure out how do they practice now in this sort of realm and they're not neither Dr. Garza my daughter or abortion providers but they are going to be faced with the aftermath of the decisions that the legislature made if you guys weren't successful so good luck and we're all hoping for the best can we have time we have time for just maybe one more question maybe in the back there I didn't like so I didn't hear everything but I want to thank everyone for the wonderful work that you're doing I do a lot of work with environmental justice and climate justice they just in there tied together and one thing that I noticed is that we keep talking about the misrepresentations and the miscommunication about what's really going on and all of the lies and everything and the and just the number of people that don't know and I guess I just want I mean we've been talking about this the whole time but it just seems to me that we need something really big and we need something really big before the next election and I'm just you know wondering what is that and I guess I'm asking everybody I guess part of what it is is the amount of money that's being spent that I wanted to say the amount of money that's being spent this is not just by accident that people don't understand this is billions of dollars the keystone pipeline it's billions of dollars being spent to make that happen and billions that the people that are spending that will get out of that and at the same time it's going to destroy the earth and the same thing is happening here you know women's lives are at stake so I mean I don't want to be so sober and on a bad note like that but I want to I want to energize this somehow thank you if I actually I think there's one last question right here do you understand me thank you okay my name is Rebecca and those Kelo County people think they're better off you know wait till you come to Lattice Coastal County but I actually have a question for any of y'all how do you deal with Catholic regime I know that our pope has said you deal with love don't focus on anything else and I like to believe that because my daughter and I just found out today it wouldn't have been possible at the age of 14 she was raped at gunpoint and I like to believe I don't I don't believe in abortion until then and then I saw it's the life of that child or the life of my daughter and you know what I got an abortion but I hear that it's not possible anymore is that correct no abortion will remain legal but there will be very few places that will be able to provide it because this law will make it very expensive all right but over 20 weeks over 20 weeks so let's say you have a 14 year old daughter and she finds out she's seven weeks pregnant she'll still be able to have an abortion at one of the few facilities throughout the state because I was ready to break the law and I'm gonna but that comment that you're making right now is very relevant and I think all women feel that way they're ready to do whatever they have to do in order to get the service that they that they need that they feel that they need so if it means having an unsafe procedure we're going to see a lot more of that and that's frightening still on the face I think you deal with a Catholic religion I think this is a great question to end with if you all stop on that all I'll say on that is I remind people at every turn of two things number one the overwhelming majority of women who work at Planned Parenthood and I would guess the same thing at Holmen's Health and who come to Planned Parenthood for their birth control and their other healthcare in this city are Mexican-American Catholic women so if anyone says oh but Catholics don't obviously the Mexican-American Catholic women who work at Planned Parenthood say no no no us and the clients are all Catholic women so we have to remind people of that and then the second thing is I told the reporter once who was asking me about how does Planned Parenthood even able to operate in San Antonio such a heavily Catholic city I'm born and raised here I know the city very well and I said and across the street is the original taco and donut house and they put the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the sign facing Planned Parenthood and I said well I said look I said I feel so good having the Virgen de Guadalupe right here with me and the reporter it's like looking me and I said this was the first woman in recorded history to benefit from a pro-choice public policy from God Almighty when he sends a messenger and she says the messenger tells her this is the plan and she consents and chooses let this be done according to I will she was given a chance to decide her future we should lift up this Catholic icon that this is someone who benefited from a pro-choice public policy and that's how it should be and you know I like like for we have a facility in McAllen which is also very heavy Catholic population but my only comment would be that the need for abortion does not discriminate if their choice is is that I need an abortion they go receive an abortion it doesn't it doesn't matter like for us it you know it doesn't matter we have to lift up the reality of women's lives women of all faiths are getting birth control are seeking this healthcare are making decisions about abortion and we as much as I think you know at the places where we work we stand for privacy for those women that they should not have to tell anyone everything about their private life and then on another side and I don't know how to reconcile this that privacy has allowed the individual stories of women's decisions and lives and futures and careers to somehow get hidden in a way that does not attach it to these public policy positions with regard to availability of birth control availability and access to abortion care and we have to find a way to maintain the privacy for the individual client and lift up the stories of thousands and thousands of women who have relied upon birth control and legal abortion to plan their families control their bodies and plan their futures right I wanted to just briefly talk about your point I am Roman Catholic he and I got married in 1977 well shortly I have our 36th wedding anniversary actually tomorrow and he got a town and we had our first child in May of 1980 and those of you in the room that know me and there are a bunch of you here know that you know during the 80s between 1980 and 1989 I had six children I mean the question they always ask me is Leticia what do you do I mean all during the 80s or are you still pregnant or I said no I have that baby I'm pregnant again so when it was very difficult for me to know that my own faith I mean talk about practicing Roman Catholic six kids in nine years my choice my choice Pete's choice I don't know what we were thinking but it was our choice try having four in college at the same time but that is that was my decision that was our decision and somehow or another my duty as a legislator or to hold up the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Constitution right this is this is women's rights is somehow that I shouldn't do that because I'm Catholic or a practicing Catholic and somehow the discussion that I'm less Christian because my belief system says that I trust my sisters to make those decisions about their own reproductive health maybe not the decision that I would make but it's about the decision and so when people talk to me and there have been times when those who are in leadership position in the Catholic Church have called on me about my position on this and I tell them if I need to be disciplined within the sanctions of the Church then I readily accept that but I only ask that the Church is consistent and that if the Church is also anti-death penalty and there are practicing Catholics who are pro-death that if I'm excommunicated you better excommunicate everybody else that's pro-death penalty as well so the point is I have this belief system but I have the responsibility as a legislator and we just want it to be in a framework where it is so guess what happens the leadership in the Church has decided it does not want to push the edge I don't know how long that's gonna take place but I have conversations regularly there's a great organization called Catholics for Choice and there are women and men who believe in family planning and that it is the women's decision one of the things that I know we've gotta end that is I think the really positive thing of this is not only the engagement and the civic awareness but now all of a sudden I'm finding my very conservative colleagues talk about we need to have an interim charge on family planning and you know unintended pregnancies because the way that you reduce the need for abortions is not by limiting access it's by making them unnecessary in the first place and the family planning piece is extremely important so Texas is the stingiest state right? Medicaid program 60 days postpartum you're out of here and now the women's health program decimated so 60 days after the birth of her baby and so she can't get that continuum and the women's health program and you know the poverty stats and so now all of a sudden it's well maybe we should look and I said well you know I file that bill every year for the last four sessions to extend the Medicaid program and to at least one year like other states do and the other bill that I have that allows teen moms to consent to their own family planning because we have this you know that teen moms that teenagers need to well and it's a good public policy right? You want to know when your teenager starts to have sexual relationships but I know that if you're a parent and your daughter has a baby you can assume she's had sex at least once so why would we need the government to tell you that your daughter is actually sexually active and if she can consent for the medical treatment of her infant oh no that's how absurd it is if she can consent for the treatment and be the sole source of decision for that infant but still has to take her own parents to go access birth control and we lead the nation and repeat teen pregnancies so now all of a sudden my conservative colleague said Leticia you know that bill you have I think we need to you know that you know that that might be helpful yeah so if anything I think that we will have an interim because it's not just democratic women or independent women there are a lot of republican new women that are very pro family planning and spacing of it and want to be able to have their daughters be able to make those decisions whatever is in there and that's what it's about and so I'm hoping that as ugly and toxic as this was that it it's kind of like when you hit bottom and it's so bad that the only place to go is forward and it doesn't matter and we're finding these discussions all over the state and so we're going to have an active session I think and concentrate on family planning I think that women are engaged and the men who love women in their life are engaged about this so maybe we'll have a changing point and it we'll look back and say remember when this when we had to fight for this and we'll be really proud that we fought and that we stood up again like the women did 40 years ago on Thursday last Thursday we had a lunch with Ariana Huffington to benefit the text of thermal and she was actually fascinating and inspiring and one of the things she talked about was the third feminist revolution that she thinks is coming and she said you know the second feminist revolution was women wanted half of everything men had the third is going to be what men have is crap we don't want to do that we want to create our own whole thing and I feel like this sort of conversation and this sort of group of people is what's going to start doing that so thank you all very much for being here I'm very grateful for you thank you again to the Texas Diabetes Institute for having us thank you to the panelists as well all three of you were inspiring and informative and that is a difficult combination so thank you very much I will say you all asked for more information we have some of your emails if you are FTP'd if you would like us to send you information from Planned Parenthood or Whole Woman's Health about what's happening about who you should vote for not the 5-1-C-3s but the other groups if you would like to leave your email on the list outside I will make sure that these groups get it and they can pass that information on to you thank you all again for being here and have a good safe trip home thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you