43. How the Overturning of Roe vs. Wade Impacts Us All and What We Can Do About It with Kia Guarino

Within this podcast episode, we discuss topics that may be upsetting or triggering to some listeners. Topics such as abortion, maternal mortality rate, racism, sexism, white supremacy, and white nationalism will be mentioned.

Featuring Kia Guarino (she/her), the executive director at Pro-Choice Washington; the lead organization focused on political and legislative advocacy for reproductive freedom in Washington state.

Kia has a background in global health and international development, economics, policy, and advocacy, having worked at several global organizations, including Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Albright Stonebridge Group, the Clinton Foundation, and Amnesty International. She is dedicated to the advancement of reproductive rights and social justice.

Pro Choice Washington

Website: https://prochoicewashington.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prochoicewashington/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prochoicewa

5 Ways to Take Action Now: https://prochoicewashington.org/activism/5-actions/

Episode Resources

Finding Care: abortionfinder.org, INeedAnA.com, Washington Department of Health Abortion Funds: donate to abortion funds in your area (https://secure.actblue.com/donate/supportabortionfunds?refcode=PPFA)

Checking Legal Action: https://www.reprolegalhelpline.org/

Statement from the Sierra Club: https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2022/06/sierra-club-scotus-decision-west-virginia-v-epa-deeply-disappointing-and

This transcript was edited to remove some filler words and phrases and is not verbatim according to what is spoken in the audio recording.

Meg: Thank you so much, Kia, for jumping on today to chat about this important topic. I know it was really last minute, but it’s something everyone should be talking about and caring about. I'm really happy that someone as educated on the topic as you can help explain a lot of things.

Before we jump into the heavier stuff, let’s start with something a little more light-hearted. Can you tell us what you enjoy about the outdoors and some of your favorite activities?

Kia: Yeah, absolutely—thank you, Meg, for having me.

I am absolutely an outdoor enthusiast. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and obviously there is an incredible range of outdoor options here. I’m a big fan of backpacking, kayaking, climbing—just really exploring all the different beautiful parts of this state. I’ve been doing that for many years, and I’m really excited to be on this podcast for all the reasons you mentioned—and because I truly believe in the power of outdoor activities.

Meg: Just out of curiosity—are you from the Pacific Northwest originally?

Kia: I’m actually from New England originally. My family has been in New England for many generations. I moved out here about five and a half years ago and really fell in love with it.

Meg: That’s awesome! Yeah, I’m also a transplant to the Pacific Northwest, and it’s beautiful here.

So, let’s talk a little bit about your role. As I mentioned in the introduction, you’re the Executive Director of Pro-Choice Washington. How long have you been in this role, and what is Pro-Choice Washington?

Kia: Pro-Choice Washington is the only grassroots advocacy nonprofit solely focused on driving political and legislative change to protect reproductive rights and freedoms in Washington state. I’ve been in this role since 2020.

My very first day on the job was actually the day that Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in, so we’ve really been working ever since that moment in preparation for the decision that came down last week.

Meg: Yeah, and I think for a lot of people, that decision was really surprising—but it wasn’t necessarily sudden.

First of all, I love the work you’re doing, and I’m really glad that Pro-Choice Washington exists. But before we talk about the actual overturn of Roe v. Wade, can we talk about the progression it took to get to this place?

Kia: I love that question. It does feel really sudden for many people across the country, but this has actually been a concerted effort by far-right and conservative groups for about 50 years.

Ever since Roe was put into place, there has been a long-term, very persistent, very well-funded campaign to achieve what was achieved last week—the overturning of federal protection for reproductive rights.

It’s taken a lot of investment at the local level by these conservative groups. It’s involved a narrative shift around what abortion care actually means in people’s everyday lives, and it’s taken consistent participation in elections—even at the very local level.

What we’re seeing now is the culmination of decades of work that often went unseen. It took place under the radar or was obscured by the idea that abortion is somehow fringe or not a legitimate healthcare issue. So, a lot of people just weren’t seeing the movement happening in the public sphere.

Meg: Yeah, I think unless you're kind of integrated into those more conservative environments, it would be hard to notice—because we do tend to just pay attention to what's happening in our own communities. That can be kind of dangerous.

Kia: Yeah, like I said, it was a very well-coordinated and concerted effort. That’s why we talk about how important grassroots advocacy is on the side of protecting healthcare. Because it takes so long, and it takes so much collective action, as we've seen. We really need to be matching that energy—or really exceeding it—to protect our rights.

Meg: Yeah, it's a long haul. It’s not going to happen overnight. So, how long has Pro-Choice Washington been an organization? I’m not sure if you already said that.

Kia: No, I didn’t.Pro-Choice Washington has been around in some shape or form for about 50 years, pretty much since the early 1970s and the passage of Roe.We transitioned to a completely independent organization in the fall of last year. So now we're fully focused on our state and regional work. Previously, we were part of NARAL.

Meg: And for people that don’t know, can you explain what that is?

Kia: Yeah, so NARAL was—and is—a national-level organization focused on reproductive rights activism. We were part of its state-affiliated structure, but they’ve now shifted to being fully focused on national work. All the state affiliates, like us, are now focused on state and regional work.

We’re all still collaborating—this work takes everybody and all hands—but the idea is that because Roe v. Wade was the federal protection for abortion rights, and now that there’s no federal floor, each state is going to be where rights are decided.

So having organizations that are specifically focused on state policy—who are very familiar, knowledgeable, and effective in those spaces—is critical. And thinking about what it means to be uniquely situated within the Pacific Northwest region, that’s where this work is going forward.

Meg: I think that’s a good jumping-off point for why this really matters, and how this impacts the nation as a whole. Because like you said, now a lot of these efforts are shifting from the federal level to more localized strategies. So with the overturn—why is this important, and why should people care?

Kia: That’s a great question. With something as significant as this decision, it's going to take a while to fully see the ramifications. But even in Washington state, where we still have legal protections for abortion care, those protections are pretty precarious.

That’s not to say we haven’t spent decades building these legal safeguards—but what we’ve seen is that it doesn’t take much for a legislature to overturn those rights. We’ve seen that in our neighboring states and across the country.

So, each individual, depending on where they live, is now going to face a very different reproductive journey in America.Washington will be one of the few states receiving patients from others that have lost access. The Guttmacher Institute—which is one of the leading research institutes on this issue—has predicted about a 400% increase in patients seeking care in Washington.

That’s a massive uptick in people needing access to a healthcare system that already has barriers, especially for folks who have historically been treated less well by that system or by broader systems.

So even if that's your only interaction with this issue—you’ll see the strain on the healthcare system. But more broadly, access to abortion is specifically linked to a huge range of socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. We know that by taking that right away from millions of people, we're going to see long-term consequences.

We’re expecting a double-digit increase in maternal mortality rates—which means more pregnant people will die. We expect a significant drop in female participation in the workforce.We expect a drop in college graduation rates. There was a study in 2020 that showed if you are denied a wanted abortion, you’re four times more likely to end up below the federal poverty line.

So even though it’s often talked about as a niche “women’s issue,” it’s far beyond that.It’s a broad socioeconomic and environmental issue—because of how all these systems interact, and how the people most harmed by decisions like this are also the people most harmed by things like reduced climate protections or inequities in education. Everybody in this country is going to feel the effects of this decision for a long time.

And the last piece I like to share is that abortion is often painted as a decision made by a young woman who doesn’t want to have a child. And while that is a valid and real story, there are so many other scenarios where abortion care is necessary to save lives.

For example, ectopic pregnancies—when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. If that’s not treated with an abortion procedure, the person can die. Then there are miscarriages that don’t release on their own—something that can happen at any point in pregnancy. That’s also a very common experience, and if it doesn’t resolve naturally, an abortion procedure is required. Otherwise, people die.

And now, these states are already pushing these ideas into areas like fertility treatments and IVF. So we are talking about something much broader than what’s typically painted as a single-issue topic.

Meg: Yeah, you touched on a lot of different things there—which are all very important. I kind of want to break it down a little bit into different sections, and then it will all come together. So like you said, Washington is going to be one of those states that people are coming to for abortions and medical procedures related to that.

Can we talk a little bit about which areas of the United States are most affected, and then even more specifically, what demographics of people?

Kia: Right now, there were several states that had trigger laws in place—which you’ve probably heard that terminology. It basically means that states have been preparing for the end of Roe by passing policies that weren’t legal until Roe was removed. These laws restricted abortion care, and about 18 of them went into effect immediately across the country.

Then there are several more states—another seven or eight—that are in the process of passing restrictive policies. That means half of the country is now in states that are restricting abortion care.

The ones that are protected—we're calling them "sanctuary states" or "oasis states"—often include places like Washington, Oregon, California, so the West Coast, as well as Colorado, New Mexico, and the New England area.

But the middle of the country, outside of those spaces, has really seen a massive reduction in rights. It varies depending on the state how extreme those restrictions are.

As far as demographics—it’s not surprising—but the folks who have already been struggling with health equity in our country are the most impacted by this.

So we know for a fact that Black women, Indigenous women, other folks of color, folks with lower incomes, people in rural areas with fewer healthcare options, immigrants, and folks with insufficient insurance are going to feel this much more than others.

Because even though access is limited for everyone, all the barriers these groups already face will be exacerbated. Abortion care is not cheap unless you have the right insurance to cover it. And if you live far from a health center, it can be very expensive to get there.

Sometimes it's impossible to take three days off work or to find child care while you go. That’s especially true if you're seeking out-of-state care, because it's pretty prohibitive to fly somewhere—especially now, with the cost of airfare.

So it just takes everything that was already hard about healthcare access and makes it significantly worse.

Meg: Yeah, and so if someone who is seeking this type of medical care is planning to travel—or is required to travel—how would they get to a sanctuary state, especially if they don’t have those resources?

Do organizations like Pro-Choice Washington have programs in place, or is it kind of just up to the individual to sort that out?

Kia: I think this is such an important question. You're seeing a lot of euphemisms on social media—people saying things like "going camping" or "visiting the flower shop" as code for helping someone get an abortion.

But it’s a pretty risky space to be in right now, with laws tightening around what it actually means to “aid” in abortion care.

So we strongly encourage folks—rather than trying to create a new system—to invest in and support abortion funds.

Abortion funds are lesser-known structures, but they've been in place for a long time. They're specifically designed to get people the care they need.

There are a bunch of different abortion funds across the country that help with transportation, lodging, finding quality care, child care—they’re designed to overcome those barriers.

So I highly encourage people to look into donating to or volunteering with those existing systems. They really understand how to navigate what’s already in play and help folks do it well—especially for those who are interested in helping out.

Meg: Yeah, and I'll look into that and hopefully post a few links in the episode notes if people want to look into those organizations after they’re done listening to this.

But you did mention something that I’ve been curious about and trying to research a little more on my own—the repercussions of aiding and abetting someone who is seeking that type of medical care. It seems like a really big gray area. Like, can another state control what is happening in a different state if this is up to the states? I guess that’s where my confusion comes in.

Kia: I think all the best legal minds are equally as apprehensive about what this will look like in practice.Right now, there aren't laws in place that can punish folks for providing care to people out of state, but there are efforts by certain states—like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Idaho—to look into making that part of their bills.

Typically, there’s been a long-standing understanding that state sovereignty matters, right?

That’s the idea: if you’re giving the power to the states, then you shouldn’t have the power to reach into another state and enforce your laws there. This is probably the first issue in modern history—although it has come up before—where these concepts are being tested again.

I think right now there is a lot of gray area.And there are resources—which I’ll also share with you, Meg—that can help you look into the risks and assess them. Not only as someone seeking care, but also as someone helping others get care. That’s why I really encourage investing in the organizations that are doing that research, so you can make sure you’re helping in a way that’s safe for both yourself and for the people receiving care.

Meg: Awesome, yeah—I’ll make sure I share whatever resources you have, just so people can access that kind of information.I have so many questions—you touched on a lot of really great things earlier.

So I’m going to shift back toward what this means in terms of rights in general.

This is obviously a women’s rights issue, as well as really anyone with a uterus. So how does this infringe on the rights of women and people with uteruses?

Kia: This decision infringes on every single part of a person’s—or a woman’s—right to be a full member of our society. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s a myth around who is impacted by this. And I really need everyone to understand: we’re all impacted by this.

For a long time, the effort to control female bodies—or birthing bodies—has been deeply connected to consolidating power, wealth, and influence away from women. There’s no more effective way to control women than by removing their right to decide if or when they want to have children.

It's extremely effective at removing people from positions where they can vote, participate in the economy, access education, or take on leadership roles. Much of that participation has become possible because of Roe. There are direct lines between Roe v. Wade and women’s ability to be full participants in society since the 1970s.

So by taking that away, you're removing the basic structure needed for broader female participation—really, for the participation of any birthing body—in society. It’s hard to overstate what this means in terms of what could now be taken away from people trying to fully engage in public life.

And even the way the decision was written—that’s something you’ve probably seen covered on social media or in the news—it opens the door to rolling back any civil rights gains established after the Constitution was written. Any decision rooted in the concept of privacy is now at risk. Because that’s really what Roe was about: the right to make private decisions about your body and how you participate in society.

What we’re seeing is a willingness from the court to totally bypass the majority opinion—which was to uphold Roe v. Wade—and instead take a step that is incredibly far-reaching.We don’t really know what the end of this will look like. It may sound like a doomsday scenario, but it’s truly hard to overstate what protecting abortion rights means for the ability to participate in society.

Meg: Yeah, and I think that can be really hard to conceptualize for a lot of people—whether or not you have a uterus. But especially for people outside of that experience, it’s hard to understand the ramifications it has on individuals in their lives.

Would you be able to break down in more detail how the stripping of this fundamental human right is now creating not just a "less-than" mentality, but how it has a trickle-down effect into every aspect of a woman’s life?

Kia: It's hard to conceptualize, but I think, basically, our government just said that 50% of this country—your wife, your sister, your daughter, your friend, whomever—does not count when it comes to a consideration of life and well-being.

Effectively, the government has decided that our job is to be vessels, and that is more important than our ability to get a job, go to school, or not die from a complication.

And just think about that for a second. If you’re someone without a uterus—say, if you're a man in this country—just picture what it would be like for your government to suddenly say, “You don't actually get to make any choices about your body. We’re going to implement vasectomies for everyone.”

Now, that's not even close to as harmful as what just happened—but even that would feel shocking, right? If the government said, “Every man is getting a vasectomy because we believe that’s more important than your individual choices.”

That’s effectively what just happened to people with uteruses. Except the risks of pregnancy are, I think, 30 times higher than the risks of abortion. So, we’re saying, “This thing we’re making you do—because we decided it’s more important than your life—could actually result in you dying.” But that doesn’t matter.

Not to mention the impact it has on your ability to vote, make money, or get yourself out of poverty.

So even if you’re not directly impacted—meaning your own body isn’t being legislated—think about what that feels like for your friends. How scary that is.

For some reason, we've managed to think about abortion as something separate, like it’s a charity issue or something not related to us individually. But that’s not what this decision was about—not at all.

Meg: You touched on this a little earlier, and I really want to emphasize that this is not just about one right being attacked. It’s part of a much bigger problem—a broader issue of the government encroaching on many rights and on equity itself in the United States.

As you mentioned, the right to healthcare is being infringed on. But how is this connected to racial injustices or environmental injustices?

Kia: This is so deeply interconnected with all of those justice movements.

From the perspective of what's being taken away, the same groups—nationalist groups who were part of January 6th, who are working to take away trans healthcare, voting rights, and abortion rights—they're all connected.

It’s the same movement. There is a clear, collective agenda to remove power from historically marginalized groups—women, people of color, queer folks, anyone who holds less social or political power.

And there’s no better demonstration of that than the Supreme Court decisions from this past session. They touched nearly every one of those issues—and they consistently sided away from collective well-being and justice. Instead, they protected guns and corporations’ rights to harm the environment.

It’s a consolidation of power from a very capitalist and harmful perspective, away from broader human rights.

And the movements fighting back are also interconnected—because the same folks face the greatest barriers across all of these issues.

In the environmental justice movement, for example, we’re fighting to ensure that people can live in a safe, healthy, sustainable environment. Reproductive justice is the same—it’s about being able to raise families in that kind of environment.

But it’s Black folks, Indigenous folks, low-income communities, immigrants—these are the same people experiencing all these compounded barriers.

And this has been the strategy for hundreds of years: controlling people in order to keep power in the hands of a few. We’re just seeing that on a large scale again now.

What’s really scary is what’s coming next for the Supreme Court in future sessions—like challenges to voting rights and to our ability to safely participate in this society at all.

Meg: Since the time of this recording, it’s been, I think, a week since Roe was overturned. I think a lot of people are still moving through the stages of grief or are in a heightened state of anger and anxiety.

That makes it really hard to engage in collective action or even have constructive conversations.

I actually have two questions. I’ll start with this one since it relates to what you were just talking about.

I think it’s important to understand how interconnected all of these justice issues are—because that knowledge can fuel more collective action.

So if someone cares about climate change, racial justice, healthcare access, poverty—how can they work toward this collective goal of reinstating these rights?

Kia: On the progressive side, we’ve sort of factioned ourselves into different social issue areas. And I get it—it’s a complex system, and breaking it down helps us process it.

But ultimately, we’re all fighting for the same thing: progress. We’re working toward better, more inclusive policies.

What we need now is the willingness to come together and recognize exactly what you just said: this is all the same work.

We all bring different areas of expertise, and that’s valuable. But in the big picture, we’re seeing the same people—marginalized folks—facing a massive reduction of rights and systemic efforts to control their power, influence, and participation in society.

Now is the time to come together and work to protect what’s left of our democracy.

I’ve seen a lot of understandable frustration with our political system. It’s imperfect. But I encourage folks to still participate—even when it feels fruitless—because the only guaranteed way to lose more power is to stop participating altogether.

We’re in a very fragile moment. We have to agree to keep far-right and white nationalist candidates out of power.

And we need to show up together—across all these issue areas—and trust that this is a long-term fight we’re in.

This is a collective movement. And, importantly, we are the majority.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, especially when we fracture into smaller groups—but we are a vast majority.

And by breaking ourselves up, we feed the narrative that we’re not unified in our belief in progress. But we are.

So, yes—figure out how your issue intersects with everything the Supreme Court is reviewing this year. And then start building partnerships across those spaces.

Meg: Yeah, I think it can be really easy to fall into that idea of individualism because it's really been beaten into us in the American education system. I think that’s a big barrier for people because you start to see yourself only as an individual—alone—so you don’t necessarily always grasp that when all the individuals come together, it’s very powerful.

I do kind of feel like the idea of polarization in the country—especially during the Trump era, then COVID, and all this other stuff—was incredibly politically polarizing. People drifted away from each other, even if some of their beliefs overlapped.

So I do want to talk about a lot of action items here as we come to the end. The first one is: how can we constructively have conversations about this? Because I know in a lot of family systems, friend groups, even partnerships, there will be varying views around healthcare, women’s rights, etc. How can we talk about this—maybe to a pro-life uncle?

Kia: We published a guide called How to Talk About Abortion, and it dives into some of the language that can be helpful in those conversations. One of the main things in that guide—and this is true even in a time of contention—is that most of the time, people’s core values are actually quite aligned.

Even by using the term “pro-life,” we can recognize that the movement for abortion care is inherently much more pro-life. There’s a lot of death associated with the removal of abortion rights. So, if you believe in life and in the protection of individualism—which the pro-life movement often claims to do—then there are a lot of core values that can align.

I also think it’s very easy—and again, very reasonable—to feel like it’s hard to have a conversation with someone who isn’t willing to understand that your humanity is being questioned, or that your life is quite literally being threatened by this decision.

It’s easy to come at it with anger, dismissal, criticism of someone’s intelligence—all of those things—because it is scary to have someone question whether your life is worth protecting. Because that’s inherently what that conversation is about.

But if you come at it from a place of understanding—being clear that you recognize they are coming from a place of, in theory, love or wanting to protect life—you can reach a better understanding by starting from a value-based space.

There’s also a lot of misinformation out there. Educating yourself on the truth is a really powerful way to engage in dialogue without being angry or combative. A lot of people are being fed false information, so being prepared to counter that clearly and calmly is super helpful.

Meg: I really like that you said at the core of both sides, for most people—I can’t necessarily say all people—but for most, we are coming from the same place. It’s just that our understanding of things is different.

If we could have more empathy during those conversations, I think we could become less polarized, and that would be really beneficial.

Kia: The irony is that Roe v. Wade was one of the most inherently individual and American value-based decisions. The folks who were fighting to overturn it often actually hold those same values very publicly—like the individual right to make a decision about your body, the right to privacy, and the ability to participate in society as an individual.

Those are such inherently American values. And I’d say the majority of folks who consider themselves on the quote-unquote “other side” talk about those issues every single day. It’s core to their other work.

But for some reason, abortion has been exceptionalized from that narrative. And really, that’s what it’s about.

Meg: Yeah, that is really interesting. So something I personally have been struggling with—and I know a lot of my friends have as well—is how we carry on and work together in a space that is productive. A lot of people have really high levels of anxiety. We’re trying to navigate all of the news and information, and most of us are becoming oversaturated. We can’t really tackle any action items.

Before we get to those action items, I think it's important to talk first about how we can manage our emotions, our anxiety, and our stress. One of the main tactics of the groups working to take away rights is to overwhelm. It’s effective because it’s really easy to retreat into burnout or shut down when you're being faced with the magnitude of what we talked about earlier—what it really means to be told something like that by your government.

Kia: I encourage folks not to doom scroll, as tempting as that is. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, even on the progressive advocacy side and on social platforms.

Take the space and time you need to actually grieve and mourn what just happened—the loss of something really core to your rights. Probably all of us have participated in reproductive systems to be able to be where we are, so it’s about mourning what we thought was settled law.

And then think about this as a long-term process. We're going to be shocked a lot by the changes happening in our country. Yet, we know this is going to take probably more generations to get back to where we were, and we have a responsibility in the arc of history to be willing to be in it.

I think there are a lot of things people can do every day to maintain the power we do have. Even though it feels like we’ve lost power—and in some ways, it has been deeply curtailed—we actually still have a lot.

If we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and removed from action or from this conversation, then we give space to the folks who have been doing this—like I said, for 50 years—who know it’s a long game and are ready to keep pushing. We don’t really have the luxury of standing back. That’s true for all justice movements, including climate justice. We don’t have the luxury if we believe in investing in the future of our country.

So I think taking the time to mourn is really important. Step away from the fear and anxiety that come from reading too much. And then, when you’re ready, step back in, knowing there are a lot of things you can do.

That includes having really informed one-on-one conversations, rather than just heated social media exchanges. Who are the people in your life that you can start to create ground-level change with through dialogue?

It also includes activism through dollars. Donating is actually a powerful form of activism. There are groups that have been around a long time—like the abortion funds, like Pro-Choice Washington—that actually know what to do but have been chronically under-resourced because this issue has been considered so fringe and so political.

So speaking with your dollars—voting with your dollars—is important. That includes thinking about which companies and organizations are standing up in this moment. There are also opportunities to volunteer with abortion funds; they’re looking for people who want to help and be more hands-on.

And then finally, as I mentioned before, voting is essential. As difficult as it feels to be in a system that doesn’t represent the majority well, ceding ground to folks who want to take our power entirely is the best way to ensure that they do. This election—this midterm—is critical.

A bill to introduce a federal abortion ban has already been proposed, and it won’t take much over the next few years to get it through if we aren’t really careful about who we vote for and what we demand from them.

That includes every single level of government. One of the areas where we've really lost ground is in hyperlocal elections. And that’s true across all justice issues. There are judges and school board members being placed in power by white nationalist groups—folks who’ve been strategically filling those seats for years.

So think about your civic participation as bigger than just voting every four years—or not voting at all out of frustration, which is a valid feeling. But those are still tangible ways you have influence. We don’t have the luxury of giving up that power, nor should we, because that’s exactly what’s being asked of us. We should lean into it.

Meg: And I think on your website, you have those action items listed out. I’ll make sure to share that page in the show notes so people can reference it. There are a lot of great resources on the Pro-Choice Washington website. Whether or not you live in Washington State, it can give you a good jumping-off point.

The topic of voting with your dollar and showing up for local and midterm elections is so, so powerful. It’s something that all movements for justice have in common.

To kind of close things out, I want to touch on two things. One, when you’re voting in midterm and future elections—because like you said, this is a long game—many of those hyperlocal seats go unopposed. So beyond just voting, if you’re someone who’s knowledgeable in politics and lives in that area, you could also consider running.

That might sound dangerous to say, but why not? If we’re not represented—which is generally true—then we need to be out there to protect and improve these systems.

And then, on the idea of voting with your dollar: this is something that comes up all the time in the Outdoor Minimalist book, podcast, and mission as a whole. In full climate action and advocacy, we talk about this point probably way too much—but somehow not enough at the same time.

People hear me say it all the time: vote with your dollar. It is a boycott. And it’s something you have to do for more than just a few days. I’ve seen social media posts saying, “Just don’t buy things over the Fourth of July weekend, and that’ll show them.” And like, that’s great—I’m glad people are starting to think about this and research where their money is going.

But like you’re saying, this is going to take a long time. You have to divest from harmful companies and make it a lifestyle. So instead of not buying, support local businesses, farmers markets, women-owned, minority-owned—everything we’ve been preaching for so long.

It’s becoming less fringe, as you say. We’re used to a time period where actions are quick and short-lived, and we move on to the next thing. But we can’t fall into that pattern when it comes to these movements.

Meg: Awesome. I really appreciate you being here, Kia. It has been a difficult week for a lot of people, and I think it’s helpful to have someone as educated as you on the topic guiding us in the right direction.

Kia: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the link between these two movements and the work we’re all doing together.

Meg: If you want to learn more about Pro-Choice Washington, need resources about reproductive healthcare, or want to support their work, please visit prochoicewashington.org.