 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. We're back. We're live Thursday morning. Whoa! I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. And more specifically, this is Community Matters, I think. Okay? And we have special guests. We have the CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands, Christine Sharbonow. And we have a board member also, Marjorie Al. Thank you very much for being here both of you. Thank you for inviting me. So pleased to be here. Yeah, yeah. Great to have you. Come to Hawaii. You live in Hawaii. And then you get together and you have meetings and you talk to people and you find out yet again there's a lot of love for Planned Parenthood here in Hawaii. Hawaii is wonderful and miraculous in this way and we appreciate every single person here. Yeah. I've seen you. I've seen you. We know each other. Yes. We're kind of the same firm, but hey, we know each other. So I want to talk about what it means to be CEO of Planned Parenthood for the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands. What does it mean? What do you do in the morning when you get up? Well, I take care of four states worth of Planned Parenthood, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii. And right now being the CEO of Planned Parenthood means being in the eye of the tornado. Ah, we're going to get into that. And Marge, what do you do for the board? I mean, are you an active member? I guess you are. You're here. I certainly am. And I really love being an advocate for Planned Parenthood in different ways in terms of strategic planning, implementation, fund development, being in touch with folks in the community. And we have such a lovely, strong community behind Planned Parenthood and it's very much appreciated. Yeah. I met Chris at the home of the whites a few months ago. Maisie Hirona was there to talk and it was a strong crowd and I felt all of them, including me in my life, felt very strongly about what you do. Thank you. You're a mainstay in the development of our society. Tell us when you got started and why and how and how you have evolved since then. I'm celebrating 35 years in leadership at Planned Parenthood and 25 actually in our affiliate as it's put together. And biggest honor recently is being given the opportunity by Marjorie and fellow board members to make sure that this goes well in Hawaii. And so it's been a real adventure over the years, been through many, many, many administrations worth presidents seen how various people handle women decision making rights and have had the opportunity to work in a great many states to figure out how states can do their part in protecting all of those services and rights for families and people to live their best lives. Did Planned Parenthood exist before Roe v. Wade? Absolutely. Planned Parenthood is 100 years old this year and 50 years old here in Hawaii. What was the initial mission on it and how has that changed, if at all? Well Margaret Sanger and her colleagues smuggled diaphragms into New York City 100 years ago. Against the law? Yes. Absolutely against the law in pickle vats. They labeled them pickle so that nobody would know what was in there and it was illegal to use them, it was illegal to sell them, it was illegal to educate about them and talk about them. So good many women, middle and upper class women interestingly went to jail to prove the concept that women really needed to be able to do this and that was not obscenity, that it was actually part of the mainstream and thanks to all the supporters of Planned Parenthood over the many, many decades now using contraception has become incredibly normative. It's part of the Affordable Care Act, all the insurance policies include it now and it's seen as part of what creates a healthy society and I couldn't agree more. So Robi Wade to me was very important, I'll tell you why, there was a specific incident when I was in school, a good friend of mine, his girlfriend got pregnant and there was no choice for them, their parents would have thrown them out of the house, would have been the end of their school, it would have been terrible. So they found a place on the docks in Brooklyn that was a woman that was going to help them. It was dangerous business, it was a coat hanger business and we went down there for moral support, it happened, she was okay and they're happily married today but it was so shattering to see the depths that they had to sink in order to save their lives and it was so easy if the thing had just been legal and I personally that defined my view over since then and then Robi Wade came along and that was an enlightenment and I thought wow what a great country we live in, what a fabulous system, what moral ethical people are running this place good for the Supreme Court and then something happened. I don't know what happened in this country, all of a sudden there were people attacking it and first it was shrill but after a while it was relatively successful and they are working hard today and your organization has had to beat them back all this time. What happened in this country? Well when I was a very young 20s and began to work at Planned Parenthood I once got a chance to sit in an audience with Gloria Steinem talking to us and she said never forget this is not about a romance with babies this is not about actually any of that this is about controlling women at its heart and ultimately while abortion seems like something you could have a debate about the issue is really making sure that women don't leave their lane that they stay where they belong and therefore at some point the opposition to us in our movement is going to have to go after contraception. I thought what could she be talking about like who could credibly go after contraception now and Jay we're seeing that we're seeing that every day suddenly it's let's redefine half the birth control methods and call them abortifations even though they're not it's why should we cover these things in insurance it covers everything else including Rogaine for male pattern baldness but let's not you know let's not do contraception because somehow that's frivolous and we're really seeing an attack every day on just women's right to use birth control methods and and define when their families when they're gonna have babies and what their families are gonna look like and it's a front to every couple in America this reminds me of that that old concept that sex sexual abuse harassment it's not about sex it's about power that's right and the same thing here in a parallel this whole anti-abortion movement that has existed I guess before and now after Roe v. Wade it's not about it's not about abortion it's about about recognition of women it's what it's about it's that these people want to put down women that's what that's really at the heart of it you agree absolutely absolutely that's what it's about it's about women shouldn't be allowed to decide and you know you know that because I have been witness to all kinds of anti-choice people who bring their daughters in for abortion services and when you ask them how they can manage to make that transition in their head they'll say things like well you know I asked God and God said it was okay this time and you know I don't have that kind of Verizon easy connection yeah to the almighty perfect telephone yeah it's nice but but but basically it's like because I could decide it not her and I say what happens and so you know all the rest of this there are people who generally in general genuinely have sort of been bought into various pieces of this tale but at its heart the people who organize think these things are not about any kind of superior morality and we saw that play out this last week in Alabama we've seen this play out this very interesting what happened yeah we've seen this play out in the last bit of time it's all kinds of deals being made to allow people to retain power let's put aside any kind of moral situation while at the same time I'm trying to claim the moral high ground and I think that it's never been so transparent as that is yes right and maybe maybe we have a sort of national recognition by virtue of what happened in Alabama so Marjorie you know how much of what Chris has said do you agree with completely 101% I don't think that it started partly with the election that we saw it come out misogyny really manifested itself against the candidate and then I think the me to movement that has taken place has been a reaction to that yeah you know my sister-in-law Linda greenhouse used to write for the New York Times she wrote for the New York Times on a Supreme Court for 30 30 more years and she wrote a book she was she's very interested in Roe v. Wade even as a reporter and the book was called before Roe v. Wade it's very interesting to find you know what was going on in this country what was going on with women before Roe v. Wade makes so clear you know how how a lack of Roe v. Wade a lack of allowing women to make their own choice undermines the society can you talk about that absolutely well women used to die all the time people aren't used to it now the idea that a woman would die from something like this is so shocking to all of us even those of us in the middle of this that you know it's almost unthinkable when this the history of this century is written one of the huge advances of this century will be called out as Roe v. Wade almost nothing changes a mortality rate to that degree and so there are a few things like that contraception also being one when people have control of their fertility they live longer when people have control of their fertility they can keep their education going when people have control of their fertility they get and keep jobs that they need the next generation becomes more educated there is simply no bad side of being able to contracept no bad side of being able to make your own reproductive you know on the other hand there is a terrible bad side if you don't allow a contraception and it does wreck your life and and extending that erects our society and our society according you know to the book and we all know of our own knowledge that's right how much trouble there was before Roe v. Wade and we are very fortunate in Hawaii to have Governor Burns to this Catholic but Rose above to be able to see how yes choice would benefit this was one of the first states that permitted abortion one of the very first some a real claim to foresight on Hawaii and in fact being in four states I have to say the excitement I had coming to Hawaii is I believe Hawaii is in the position to tell the rest of the United States how this needs to exactly work and so it's my new plan that every innovative thing needs to start here and then we'll roll it across the rest of the west coast in the northeast and after that there will be critical mass yeah Hawaii the point of the arrow yeah and this is the wonder of having a blue state two blue states versus two red states in our affiliate that the blue states can be leveraged very well against the red right right okay I'm not no we're going to take a short break we come back I want to ask you more about how Planned Parents was organized what it does you know how it operates and how we can find out more we'll be right back after this break my life what big eyes you have she said what are you doing research says reading from birth accelerates our baby's brain development push read aloud 15 minutes every child every parent every day it's RV Kelly I'm your host of out of the comfort zone where I find cool people with cool solutions to problems that all of us face now the thing is we're really cool and I only invite really cool people but the thing is I think you're kind of cool too so I think you should come and watch that Thursdays at 11 a.m. here on OC 16 television with think tech Hawaii I'm RB Kelly host of out of the comfort zone and I will see you next Thursday okay it's community matters and we have the honor of having with us a CEO of the Planned Parenthood of the great northwest and Hawaiian islands and a member of the board that is Chris Charbonneau and also Marjorie thank you ladies for being here thanks Jay I want to I want to go into you know exactly how you're organized how you what you do how you do it and so forth so let's start with that you have this this region it's blue states and red states both right it's very interesting reason I'm sure it is so how do you how do you say travel of Hawaii we like that but but how do you how do you function I mean you have offices in all major cities yes what do they do so we have when we did the merger we had very good people in all the merger in the region the merger to create the region so Washington Alaska and Idaho and Hawaii we had very talented people in all those places people we wanted to retain so we have a little bit of administration in each of those states and then we have sort of a flyover administration including me we and I move myself around but it's really the kind of structure that entered the internet and and modern communications make possible yeah we can see each other for our meetings we don't all have to be in the same room breathing the same air you know when I'm on airplanes except for going across the Pacific I have internet access can stay fairly well connected you know so you know I really feel like I've been in meetings with the people that I'm not in the same room with but you know that are on the other end it's kind of a movable meeting it is it's like it sort of doesn't matter where anyone is so you can use what talent might as well use its technology you have wherever it is right so so um it's been absolutely delightful and to Marjorie's earlier earlier point having Washington and Hawaii be be blue and having Idaho and Alaska be red um means that we can basically use the strength of of Hawaii and Washington to make things better for the women in Alaska and I'm so for Hawaii though because we've worked about three years ago and of course being an old-time board member from the Hawaii board there's always some trepidation and some territorial protection cultural competency but I would say it's been so positive in every way and the main thing is that you want to deliver the best possible health care services to your patients and we're really headed in that direction and its economies of scale in terms of converting over to electronic medical records when you've got four states sharing an all-in-one system implementation and maintenance is so much more sensible things have changed absolutely in you take lessons from the Pacific Northwest at least the blue states there anyway so who's your who's your local CEO then your chair of the board whatever it's set up well we have an overall board chair for all four states the total I see the board is through the week that's right and each state is represented by members yes so we all meet as a complete board of the four states and the only rule we had was if you're going to be on the board you have to care about all the states you can fair enough tell us about your home but you need to care about all of it and and I think it's proof that that worked really well when we got the opportunity to invest in a giant new building in Honolulu to put our big headquarters here where is that it's on baritania street and we're in the process of building it very nice that there was huge excitement on the part of the whole yes and I think the merger really facilitated having the so-called dream come true where you own the land and the building and can really build your services to serve the entire state yeah that's great how about volunteers you have a lot of volunteers yes on on every island so what what what is the you know mechanic mechanics of the operation you're you're raising money yes it's part of your job yes part of your job I suppose what how do you spend the money what's what's the action plan you know for for making this work well I will say that right now with the election of Donald Trump the support of Planned Parenthood is skyrocketed people see giving to organizations like the ACLU and the the Southern Poverty Law Center and Planned Parenthood is an act of resistance yeah yeah and part of that is because it's those kinds of things that are being attacked and so we very much appreciated all of the support that has come from that the the way the the fundraising works is right now because we're really making sure we are as as deep into Hawaii as we want to be and we have big plans about that all the money that is raised in Hawaii obviously stays in Hawaii good this is not always a case that's not always a case and I'm really glad to say that Seattle where we're lucky to have two of the wealthiest people on the planet as donors yes and in addition to other a lot of other people are also extremely excited about their money going to Hawaii so all of Washington Seattle's money does not stay in Seattle and they don't care I will tell you there are so many people who love to come to Hawaii in February and not be in Seattle for that time frame that there are people who get downright weepy about the idea of maybe being able to do something to help from there and so when the the possibility of the building came up we were able to purchase the building itself with donations from Seattle oh that's great that's wonderful this really puts us on the map now it doesn't need that headquarters you want to be well now it's an opportunity for everyone in Hawaii to have a vested interest in this building and so there we're launching campaign in 2018 to raise funds I'm sure you get the same kind of response as you had before yes because Donald Trump is going to keep on attacking Planned Parenthood isn't he I can't imagine anything else yeah so how effective is that attack you know it seems to me that the religious right super conservatives regular conservatives congress yeah republicans in general are you know finding new ways to attack you creative every every which way they are attacking every day fortunately for us jay they are wildly incompetent good um and so they're their first three attacks not only on us but on everybody who is part of the affordable care act heaven sakes that's 32 million people in the united states you know threatened to take away health insurance from all those folks and while they were at it make sure that people couldn't use Medicaid when they came into Planned Parenthood not that they wouldn't have Medicaid and not that they couldn't use it elsewhere but as a direct attack on the organization itself if we can't get paid we can't survive and they were attempting to do that it failed three times not because of anything that that they were able to do but because the women the republican women senators said no so we we claim credit for Lisa Murkowski not being able to vote for that yeah good alaska yeah because she actually understands it's a red state it is and she understands and supports women having the ability in alaska to get care and so we made sure that we spoke to her early and often and that we reinforced her and so when it came time to take that vote she voted no that's great one one congressperson at a time yeah yeah that's fabulous so but you know that it'll continue and if you know trump is either reelected or pence is elected afterward or any republican in that camp you're going to have to continue dealing with this we're going to have to work on it every single day and the next attack is likely to be on the nation's family planning program title 10 which is um which is money that is received not only by plan parenthood but a good many other providers here in hawaii and um and all throughout the various states um and they are able to um fund women that don't have any other way of getting birth control to get birth control so we're waiting for a set of new and and we've been told onerous rules that are coming that are likely to um make it very difficult for women to do appropriate abortion related referrals talk about choices and decision making um you know cut out some some uh providers out of the mix um if they they do x and y and z um it's likely to be a real game yeah you have to keep on going but you know what what troubles me and it's troubled me for a long time is that we're polarized on this issue and I frankly do not understand why anybody would oppose a woman's right to an abortion or you know contraception oh what is it that drives that what is happening in our country that sets this up as such a big controversy when it seems from a moral ethical point of view so obvious what is it is it religion is that what it is it is a little bit that um but I would say that um there was a very conscious decision made about 30 years ago um to make abortion one of the issues on which republicans raised funds and they were able to whip their supporters into such a frenzy over it that they can't let it go because they don't have anything else that brings in money um they also uh found that same kind of direct mail advantage in attacking the lgbt q q community and um once they lost marriage equality is an issue because the supreme court decided that that people were you know it was dignified to allow people to be married to whoever they decided to marry um they really only had abortion left yeah and so you can see whenever they get desperate out comes the flag and it gets waived yeah there's trouble because it's not going to go away right what about the churches in hawaii march the churches in hawaii oppose abortion i assume i mean i remember i talked to somebody attached to one of the big churches here and he was fulminating on the issue so much so like i couldn't have a rational conversation but i think it's divided but we have an interfaith community that it are is strongly supports planned parenthood and i think that is more so in hawaii than the anti-choice good so you have a relatively benign environment then absolutely yeah so uh again you raise the money obviously you spend some money lobbying against these guys who are trying to pull your wings out yes um how else an education tell me about the education arm of it you want to talk a little bit about i do in hawaii because we have a wonderful education program where folks in planned parenthood in hawaii are available to go out to schools and provide information on reproductive health and in fact there's no constraint about that no you have cooperation from the educational side people are invited people are invited by schools so it's up to the schools to invite and um this program actually won the apple award which is a significant education award we wish it's an educational award within planned parenthood and so um we're very proud of this really excellent program yeah and it exists on four islands um so we are we are also in the process of expanding what we call our teen councils we decided jay that if if kids are going to get their sex information from other kids on the street corner we want the street corner to be incredibly well educated yeah good so we um we get the leadership of the kids that that are the influential ones in each school and we take them through our teen council program give them all kinds of good you're examining the hierarchy the schematic of leadership in this school and and um kids love to get information from other kids you know once once you hit like 20 25 you get old and you know clearly your entire job is to make sure nobody young has any fun anymore and no one wants to listen to you we found that kids listen to each other very well and not only that adults let young people express themselves very honestly in ways that get edited later yeah um so having young super educated kids in all the schools that are backed up by adult you know proctors um allow us to make sure that young people have access to a whole different level of information you got to do that i mean i i can't make the comparison with other states i live i live here but you know it strikes me we've interviewed a lot of charitable organizations that are involved in the social safety net in hawaii one of the biggest problems is unread mothers and children who are who only you know who don't have a family and and if you don't have a family then not only you are at risk and jeopardy in your life and your education and your career um but the whole community is sure the community has to take care of you yeah so we're all better off not having unwanted children don't you think right well it takes a village and um and when there are babies um we need to be sure that we all rally around them so one of the shocking things to me is here we have an administration that's talking about birth control and and abortion being evil that is refusing to fund the child uh insurance program like how do we keep these families together if these parents can't take their kids to the doctor so the first thing you you deprive the woman of the right to an abortion right and then when she has a child you beat up on her and the child for the unwanted child now she's a taker and now we won't pay for anything and and it's it's sort of like why don't we mean that's what it is people into corners where they can't survive if you're going to insist that everybody have families then make it possible for people have families you don't get to have it both ways okay we're at the end of our time i have really enjoyed talking to you thank you so much for having a discussion but we we can't go until you tell people how to find you yes and how to how to uh you know learn from you and contribute money to you so tell the people www planned parenthood.org how much of that you agree with matri 110 percent thank you both thank you aloha aloha