Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson is a self-described “movement baby" as her parents fought for racial equality during the civil rights movement. As an adult, she mixed pop culture with civic engagement to turn out young voters of color. Even though she credited her success to the women who raised her, she wasn’t specifically thinking about the role of gender in social justice issues. Then she walked by a billboard in SoHo depicting the dire state of reproductive health care for Black women. It quickly became all she could think about.
In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Alexis shares:
Her go-to bagel order as a certified Jersey girl
The biggest lesson her mom taught her about community organizing
Why a Princeton professor thanked her after she called out his racial prejudice
How she finds time to plan for the future of the org with so much uncertainty
Her secret to getting people to see her perspective on politicized issues like abortion
On How Her Mom Impacted Her Own Advocacy
Alexis: She had ascended the corporate ladder at AT&T with a guidance counselor who told her that basically the best she could hope for was to be in a typing pool. Somebody who graduated top of her class and was a stellar student. And she's still the smartest person I know. And she got into her position, and at every turn used her position to bring somebody else in and out and invested in them all the way for 40 years. She lasted at AT&T until she was the lead labor negotiator for the company and at her 40th retirement party…just the cross section of people that she touched across the company was so powerful. Everyone from the facility staff to the union organizers to the top executive brass and everybody in between – they all loved and valued her. And I just learned so much about what it means to bring a community together to really organize yourself around your values and to be a little feisty and a little fiery while you do it.
On What to be Optimistic About in Reproductive Health News
Alexis: Since 2018, every time Reproductive Freedom has been on the ballot, we have won. We have powered through. We've transformed state houses, we've won ballot initiatives, we've won elections, major federal elections, senate races, and politics really got us into this situation. It's a really key component to getting us out. But we have to believe that it is achievable, right? We have to believe that what we do matters in this moment, and so I do feel that hope generally and genuinely from the wins. I think on the care side, it's very much the same that we choose hope every day. My affiliate colleagues or health center colleagues, they are choosing hope so that they can be there for other people who are choosing hope. Because there are folks who are literally getting in cars and driving 18 hours, taking off work, just really extraordinary circumstances. And the only thing that is motivating them is hope.
On the Role of Government in Health Care
Alexis: This is the same court that overturned Roe and Casey. This is the same court that in these hearings were actually debating how many organ failures would be sufficient to require emergency abortion care, whether or not someone with one less organ should be airlifted out of Idaho. The cruelty and the dispassion with which these cases were considered by some of the opposition on the court, doesn't give me a lot of heart or hope. And so we are preparing. We always prepare for the worst case scenario because that's the place to not be disappointed, to be focused on what the work is, and to not let it jar you when you have to step in and step up. We would obviously be pleased if there were outcomes that helped Americans complicate the very clear notion that what we see in all of our data: people don't want politicians, they don't want judges and justices involved in their medical decisions. They want to make these decisions by themselves, with their providers, with their families, and whoever they want to bring in, but they don't want politicians or justices in it.
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