rePROs Fight Back

September 30th, 2026, marked the 50th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment—a provision enacted in 1976 in response to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized nationwide abortion. It restricts federally funded abortions through federal healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare. Lupe Rodriguez, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (NLIRJ) sits down to talk with us about Hyde’s tragic, dangerous legacy, and how it is past time for repeal. 

Not only does the Hyde Amendment restrict funding under Medicare and Medicaid, but it does also so for certain disabled individuals under 65, and for certain community health centers providing primary care in underserved areas, as well. Seven states fund abortions under Medicaid and instances of life endangerment, rape and incest, and 21 states fund abortions beyond federal requirements and using their own resources. Yet, exceptions are not consistently applied.

The Hyde Amendment has prevented millions of people in the U.S. from accessing abortion. In 1977, unable to receive a needed and financially covered abortion shortly after the amendment’s passing, Rosie Jimenez sought an unsafe abortion and died from complications shortly thereafter. Today, the existing provisions of the Hyde Amendment, coupled with harm caused by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and ICE harassment, will continue to have a devastating impact on Latine communities and immigrants in the U.S. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Viriginia plays a critical role for abortion access in the South. In fact, Virginia is the only southern state that did not enact a post-Dobbs abortion ban, leaving it the only southern state without a full abortion ban or extremely restrictive ban on the books. April Greene, Executive Director at the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund, talks to us about Virginia’s important role in continuing to provide care for the southern region and help ensure reproductive freedom nationwide. 

In 2024, more than any other state, Virginia saw the largest increase in out-of-state abortion seekers. Patients are coming from all over, but the largest number of abortion seekers come from Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. As patients are traveling to access care, they encounter practical barriers, including transportation, lodging, childcare, food, and time away from work. These barriers can impact if and when someone accesses an abortion. The post-Dobbs landscape makes access more complicated for patients and abortion funds who support them. Before Dobbs, Blue Ridge Abortion Fund’s funding budget ranged from $9,000 - $14,000 a week. After Dobbs, the budget increased to $20,000 a week to account for new needs.

Virginia voters have the opportunity in November to vote on a ballot initiative that would enshrine reproductive freedom in the state’s constitution, protecting abortion and other reproductive healthcare into the Virginia constitution. 

Links:
Blue Ridge Abortion Fund
Support the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund
Blue Ridge Abortion Fund on Instagram
Blue Ridge Abortion Fund on Facebook
The Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Independent abortion clinics collectively provide 58% of abortions in the United States. After 26 weeks of gestation, abortion clinics provide 100% of abortion care in the country. Yet, independent clinics have faced unrelenting attacks to their funding, resources, and physical wellbeing, especially over the past decade. Nikki Madsen and Erin Grant, Co-Executive Directors at the Abortion Care Network (ACN), sit down to talk with us about the critical, community-based work of independent clinics and the importance of International Safe Abortion Day around the world. 

The Abortion Care Network is the national organization for independent, community-based abortion clinics, whose programming supports sustainability and professional development for clinics and their staff. Providers are navigating providing care to patients plus those that are arriving from out of state, with low pay, little time, and low support for their mental health and wellbeing. Independent providers, showing up every day to under resourced and threatened clinics, believe in provide the human right of sexual and reproductive health care.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

**Trigger Warning: Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss

“One of the most prevalent myths about human pregnancy is that of all possible outcomes, a baby is the most likely. Pregnancy Interrupted challenges the misleadingly linear narrative that begins with two lines on a pregnancy test and ends with a newborn. Kate Clancy shares her own deeply personal stories of pregnancy loss and moving interviews with others, and reveals how the frequency of loss and miscarriage is far more common than most realize.”

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Planned Parenthood has been under attack in Texas for years. This has resulted in a lack of access to affordable healthcare, lack of access to birth control, and worsening maternal health outcomes. Shellie Hayes-McMahon, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Texas, which is the 501(c)(3) arm of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, sits down to talk with us about the perfect storm of attacks to reproductive health and rights in Texas, which provides a perfect blueprint for other states who wish to follow suit. 

The current push at the national level centers on defunding Planned Parenthood via Medicaid. Patients who lose their Planned Parenthood provider in Texas cannot just find a new provider. In fact, the state is currently seeing a decrease in providers generally, as well as medical students. Cancer screenings, birth control provision, critical counseling, and more, are services that are becoming increasingly more expensive for Planned Parenthood to provide, while crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are receiving millions of state dollars. In Texas, public school-provided sex education is abstinence-only, while misinformation around birth control is currently skyrocketing. The nationwide attacks on mifepristone, one of the safe and effective drugs used in a medication abortion, began in Texas. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are unregulated storefronts that exist as a way of pushing out anti-abortion misinformation and blocking people’s access to care through deception, shame, delay, and intimidation. Tara Romano, Executive Director of Pro-Choice North Carolina, talks to us about North Carolina’s CPC landscape.

The term "crisis pregnancy center" refers to anti-abortion facilities that mislead, confuse, delay, misinform, and purposefully re-direct pregnant people looking for education and services, including abortion care. North Carolina has 16 abortion clinics and approximately 100 CPCs, which are typically clustered around college campuses. CPCs in the state began receiving money from the sale of “Choose Life” license plates and $350,000 from general funds in 2013. By 2023, the number was closer to $20 million. Because these are not medical centers, they do not have medical restrictions or medical privacy restrictions. 

Map photo citation: Swartzendruber A and Lambert D. Crisis Pregnancy Center Map. https://www.cpcmap.com. August 17, 2026. Accessed: August 24, 2026.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, started in 2003 and is the largest country-to-country bilateral investment in addressing any single disease. PEPFAR is not only funding, but expertise, and has saved millions of lives since the Bush administration. Dr. Jennifer Sherwood, Director of Research in the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) public policy office, talks to us about attacks to PEPFAR, the populations that are impacted, and some recent protections to PEPFAR’s crucial work. 

Early in 2025, a pause on new funding going out into the field was announced, in combination with a stop-work order. Soon after, a PEPFAR waiver was announced, yet it included extremely specific restrictions. amfAR completed a survey across 46 different countries asking about grant status, service provision, and more. It found that nearly 80% of organizations surveyed had grant cuts or eliminations. Because of the cuts, amfAR documented 1,700 site closures, including drop-in clinics that are essential to key populations. Local organizations were also disproportionately impacted by closures and grant impacts. 

The term “key populations” refers to populations that are at high risk of acquiring HIV and experiencing additional, structural barriers to care. Often, this is sex workers, men who have sex with men, other gay and bisexual men, transgender individuals, and those that use or inject drugs. Programs particular to key populations were absolutely decimated, as strongly documented in amfAR’s survey. These impacts are also being exacerbated by the recent expansion of the Global Gag Rule.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Maintaining hope during this moment in reproductive health and rights, plenty of book-talk, and even a deep-dive into Jennie’s sex education in Catholic school. Tarah Demant, Interim National Director of Programs, Advocacy, and Government Affairs at Amnesty International USA, asks host Jennie Wetter a series of ask me anything (AMA) questions.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Trigger warning: This episode references child marriage, maternal death, and suicide.

August 15th marks the fifth anniversary of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. Gender-based discrimination is a tenet of the Taliban’s policies, which is being enforced and institutionalized across the country. We hear from Metra Mehran, a self-described person exiled from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021, and who now focuses on advocacy work related to gender apartheid with the End Gender Apartheid Campaign, as well as advocacy with Congress to hold the Taliban accountable through Amnesty International.

In Afghanistan, there is a systematic level of discrimination that impacts every single facet of life for women and girls. Women cannot work, go to school beyond primary school, or have freedom of movement. The enforcement and institutionalization of this gender discrimination funnels into the crime of the grand-scale gender apartheid being perpetrated in Afghanistan. Child marriage has peaked in the past five years, interrupting a girl’s inability to finish their education. Women and girls face higher rates of domestic violence, reproductive violence, and suicide. And while underground schooling does exist, girls seek education at extreme risk to themselves and their families.

Advocates are pushing to use the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to take Afghanistan to the International Court of Justice and encouraging the continued proceedings against Taliban leaders before the International Criminal Court. Conversations to include gender apartheid in treaty negotiations are also a testament to the strength and power of the women of Afghanistan.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!

Reproductive rights, LGBTQI+ rights, and democracy cannot be discussed in isolation; fundamentally, they are all about who has the freedom to make choices for themselves, and each one affects the other. Cristina Uribe, Chief of Programs at the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity (CGRE) and Director of the Gender Equity Action Fund (GEAF), sits down with us to explain how these topics are deeply interconnected.

Attacks on women and LGBTQ+ communities weaken our democracy by pitting Americans against Americans and creating enemies out of neighbors. Opponents of these communities—and democracy at large—understand these connections and use strategies like ballot measures and wedge issues to divide coalitions and erode rights. Responding to these coordinated attacks requires coalition-building, commitment to civic engagement, and a recognition that attacks to one group’s rights ultimately threaten everyone’s freedoms.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

Support the show

Follow Us on Social:
Twitter: @rePROsFightBack
Instagram: @reprosfb
Facebook: rePROs Fight Back
Bluesky: @reprosfightback.bsky.social

Buy rePROs Merch: Bonfire store

Email us: [email protected]
Rate and Review on Apple Podcast

Thanks for listening & keep fighting back!