Allie Phillips Fled TN to Have An Abortion; Now She’s Running for Office

her and no chance of survival for her baby. As Allie was scrambling to secure an abortion in a state other than her native Tennessee, where abortions were banned, Miley, the name she had given her second daughter, died in utero. To say the whole ordeal was traumatic doesn't even begin

to describe what Ali and her family went through. When she returned to Tennessee, Ali met with her state representative, who told her that he hadn't thought of situations like hers because he thought only first pregnancies could have serious complications. She was dumbfounded by his ignorance, so she decided she needed to do more. She's running for office, and she's suing Tennessee with the help of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Ali's story is both harrowing and inspiring, and shows in stark terms what happens in many states when a woman no longer has access to abortion care. Here's Ali in her own words.

like that. And when I turned sixteen, I got my first job at Sonic and from there, I've just had a job ever since, and I've just kind of worked in food industry. I've worked in retail, just a little bit of everything, kind of public work. And then when I was twenty, I was in a relationship with somebody and found out I was pregnant very early on, and

that relationship ended shortly after she was born. She was two weeks old when we separated, and I was a single mom after that, not really getting help from him, but my parents helped as much as they could. I was going into my last semester of college the time she was born. She was born in the middle summer, and so I was a full time college student, a newly single mom with an infant, and I was working three jobs to one make sure my daughter had her

formula because she had a lot of digestive issues. Had by the expense to formula, and I was on wick to alleviate some of the costs, but she wouldn't take so much formula. I had to buy a lot out of pocket. So I was working three jobs to make sure I could get through college. My daughter was fed and clothed, and that we were just Our bills were paid and everything was kind of stable.

Twenty twenty two was a very interesting year. We got married that March, and then we bought the house that we're in right now in October, and I found out we were pregnant the beginning of November, and so that was the timeline we kind of wanted for ourselves, was get married, by a house and then try for a

baby because we wanted to expand our family. He wanted a biological child, and so the fact that we bought the house and then two weeks later found out I was pregnant, it was just like, okay, well, we wasted no time at all. So we were really excited and we immediately called friends and family, really close friends and family.

But I told him that I wanted to make sure everything was okay with the pregnancy before we told like the public, before I posted on Facebook and stuff like that, because you know, it's never official unless it's Facebook official, right. So we went through the first trimester and everything was fine. There was never any reason for concern, and we hit that twelve thirteen week mark and everything is again still

was perfect. So we went ahead and made our public posts that we were expecting in July of twenty twenty three, and so the love and support that we received from friends and family was so phenomenal and it just made us that much more excited. And we had already started buying things that you need for a newborn. We have the crib, we had blankets, swaddles, pacifiers, bottles, diapers, whites, toys, everything you can think of we had ready to go

in the garage. And it was around fifteen weeks. My mom actually got me one of those four D ultrasound gender reveal little things, and so we went and did that. We were hoping for a boy since we already have a daughter, but nonetheless we found out we were having a girl, and so we were still very excited. I told him that he just gets to be a girl dad now, and you know, he should be proud of that. He'll get his nails painted and bows in his hair. And so we started thinking about girl names, and I

personally don't like the super common names. Like my daughter's name is Adalie. I don't know any other Adalie's. So I wanted her to have a unique name. And we are both big Miley Cyrus fans, and I thought about it and I was like, you know what, Miley is a household name because of Miley Cyrus, but I personally don't really know. I don't know any other Miley's. It's a common no name, but I don't know any Miley's.

And so I started thinking about the name Miley. And then her song Flowers had just dropped, and I was like, Okay, well let's think about a flower. And so I called my husband he was at work, and I was like, what do you think of the name Miley Rose? And that's how her name came about.

at her and said, why do you look sad? And she just, very kind of under her breath, said I just don't want to tell anybody bad news, and then she walked out of the room. Immediately, I got like a knot in my throat, my hands started getting sweaty, my heart's beating really fast, and I'm like, oh my god, like this is new to me. This is only my second pregnancy. My first pregnancy was completely fine, had no issues,

so I didn't know what to expect. And my ob came in so I just looked at your ultrasound images and the fetus seems to have no fluid ambiotic fluid around her. Also, both of her kidneys seemed to have not formed correctly and aren't functioning. And she's measuring about fifteen weeks, so about a month behind. So with that, they said that there was further testing that they wanted to be done. So they referres over to a maternal fetal medicine specialist and so we set up that appointment

four days later. This was on February twentieth last year. February twenty fourth was that Friday. We went to Nashville for the high risk doctor appointment, just me and Brian this time, and we go in start the ultrasound. This ultrasound lasted a little bit longer and again the technician was like, I need to go grab your doctor, stay right here, and so she went and grabbed the doctor. And one of the first things she asked me when

she came in was how was your first pregnancy? And I told her completely normal, didn't even have morning sickness. Labor and delivery went great, she came out healthy, perfectly fine, and she was like, okay, so this is what we're looking at. The ultrasound technician put the wand back on my lower abdomen, and so as we were looking at the TV seeing Miley in my womb, the doctor was explaining what we were looking at. She reconfirmed what my ob had said and said that there was little to

no ambiotic fluid around the fetus. She confirmed that both of her kidneys did not form correctly, and then she did confirm that she was measuring a month behind. But then she continued, and she continued to say that her bladder and her stomach did not form correctly either and were not functioning. She said that they could not find lung development, and she said that her heart only had

two out of four working chambers in it. Now, while she was saying all of these things, in my mind, I'm going through all of the like okay, well she can get a heart transplant. She can live with one kidney, so we can get a kidney transplant. You know, we can tube feed her, like trying to think of like everything, like okay, these things are fixable, like this is okay, we can do something. But then she continued up and she went to her head and she said, and up here,

we're looking at her brain. And as soon as she said we're looking at her brain. I just felt my chest sink because I knew the brain is the engine of your body, and if there's something wrong with the brain, there's a good possibility it's not good. And so she continued to show me on the ultrasound image that there is a line between her brain that did not completely complete, and she said that her brain didn't split into two hemispheres at the early stages of pregnancy, and that is

diagnosed as semi lobar holoprosencephale and semi lowbar HPE. Only three percent of fetuses usually survived to birth with that diagnosis slone, and then they usually passed within that first year of life. So with the HPE and everything else that was wrong, she was deemed incompatible with life, and so my doctor had said that she would likely not survive outside of the womb and possibly could pass in utero. Hearing all that information, it was it was like a

surreal kind of moment. I felt like I was in a haze. I was just kind of waiting for her to be like just kidding, like she's totally fine, but like it was just kind of one of those it's so awful, How can this be true, and so the first thing I thought to ask was what are we supposed to do? And she said that I had two options.

She said that I could continue my pregnancy, but if I chose to continue my pregnancy, I'd be putting myself at risk for a miscarriage is still birth, or if she did survive birth, she'd be put into hospice care immediately after to pass. And then she said, my other option was to terminate. She said, if you chose to terminate because of Tennessee's ban, you would have to look out of state and I cannot offer you any resources.

You would have to do that on your own. And so my husband chimed in because at this point, I'm just stunned. I'm like frozen in place, and he asked her how long does she have? Like what are the chances if we continue? How long is she going to live for? And she said that there's no way to tell, but the longer I stayed pregnant, the worse she was going to get and the higher risk my health would become.

Because her growth stunted at fifteen weeks, even though I was nineteen weeks, Miley was never going to hit viability. So even if I stayed pregnant and I was progressing in my pregnancy, she was staying at a fifteen week fetus, and so she told us that we didn't have to make a decision right then and there, but to call her if we had any further questions, and then we left. They didn't really tell me specifics of what was going

to cause me to be at risk. I think because she stopped growing at fifteen weeks and had all of these fatal anomalies that the longer I stayed pregnant, she was essentially just kind of going to kind of deteriorate in my uterus, which is going to cause health problems for me. With the little to know ambionic fluid, at some point, the uterus is going to most likely shrink

with her, and it could cause infertility to happen. It could cause me to lose my uterus, and if her body so when organs aren't working, they essentially just kind of start decaying, and so that would put me at risk for infections and things like that, possibly going septic. So they didn't really give me a diagnosis of like, if you stayed pregnant, you're going to end up with this. She just said, the longer I stay pregnant, the worst Miley's going to get, the higher risk my health becomes.

So we drove home after the appointment. We live in Clarksville, so it's about an hour north of Nashville, and it was a very quiet drive. We didn't talk to each other. We just sat in silence, kind of reliving everything we were just told. And my parents drove up from Nashville to meet us at home because we had to break the news to my then five year old that her

little sister wasn't coming home. And so we sat and we talked to my parents and I talked to my husband, and it was a very hard decision to come to the route of termination. I kept telling my that I'm not in the best health as it is due to a recent surgery I had a couple of years ago. I struggle with vitamins, hydration, protein, things like that for a healthy body. So I knew if I was putting my life at risk, it was going to be a

very challenging situation to go through. And knowing that I don't have the healthiest body as it is, I didn't want to risk leaving my five year old without a mom. I didn't want to risk leaving my husband without his wife. I didn't want to risk leaving my parents without their daughter. So, knowing that Miley was going to die at some point, whether in utero or immediately after birth, it didn't make sense to put my life at risk too and cause much,

so much more damage than needed. So ultimately we decided that termination was the best route to preserve my health and fertility and to keep my family stable in together. I shared my journey on TikTok one because I was already on TikTok before all of this happened, and my followers knew that I was pregnant, And the week before I had posted a video saying my daughter's name is hidden in this video, can you guess it? And it was me and Adalie dancing around to Miley Cyrus's song Flowers,

and Adalie was holding a rose. And so my idea was I was going to go to my anatomy scan, get new ultrasound images, come home, and then make a video with the new images stating like this is Miley's name, or this is her name Miley Rose, like a lot of you guys guess it, and just kind of be like a fun reveal. So we got home. That was Friday. It wasn't until Saturday when I made that follow up video of Miley's diagnoses, because after my parents left that day,

I cried myself to sleep. I didn't want to be awake. I just wanted everything to be a nightmare and hoped that I woke up and everything was going to be okay. So I went to sleep, and so the next day is when I followed up and made the video, because that Monday, I posted video saying my doctor said there's something's wrong, so we're going to see a high risk doctor. So a lot of my followers were like, keep us posted, what's the update, hope everything's okay, let us know what's

going on, and so I wanted to update them. And I'm very transparent on my account. I don't really sugarcoat things. I'm very upfront, and so when I made that video, I didn't expect it to go viral. I didn't expect to get any sort of news media requests from it. I just wanted to update my followers on what was

going on. Also, I was paying very close attention to Roe v Wade being overturned, and I was very vocal on my account about how I felt about Tennessee's trigger band, and so, knowing that I was fighting for abortion access, never knowing I was going to need one myself, I thought it was extra important that I pointed out the fact that this is a non viable pregnancy and I

have to flee my state. And I wanted that reality to be documented because so many women don't talk about things like this because they're made to feel ashamed or disgusted or whatever it is society makes us feel about abortions. I wanted to make sure that one my emotions were documented and to show how real and raw it is. So I made that video, and I think that's my most viewed video as far as my pregnancy journey goes,

and it went viral. It actually went international, and so I started getting media requests to talk about it, and then that amplified the story, and then I started showing up in the news and news articles and people were seeing like, oh my god, this woman has to leave her state for pregnancy that's threatening her life, a non viable pregnancy, and so throughout the process, I wanted to make sure I documented every single moment of it. Good

and bad. And I did that because when you read an article, you read very minimal details, you just kind of get the overview of what happened. But me kind of logging what was happening to me made it so much more real for people to see the raw emotion that I was going through. One of the videos being me in New York City crying in a corner by myself. That was a video of the most raw emotion I

think I've ever posted online. And a lot of people ask me why I'm putting that on the internet, and I said, because it needs to be on the internet, because people need to see what women are going through that live in these states that have completely taken away our right to abortion care or just healthcare like that in general. So I documented it for the sole purpose of humanizing the situation, so it's not just black and white words on a screen, it's a face and a person.

to get your abortion? And quite frankly, Ali paid for it.

Some offer medical exceptions, some don't. So you have to call these individual states and individual clinics and truly ask them the question, like when is your cutoff? And some of the states I are. Some of the clinics I called, their cutoff was eighteen weeks or fifteen weeks or twenty weeks.

And at that point I was going into my twentieth week, and I knew that I needed to go the following week because I had to give my daycare moms enough notice to find backup care for their kiddos, so I wasn't able to do it that week, also for the simple fact of the cost. So we called five different states and I ended up calling the New York abortion line and gave them the information that they asked for,

and they connected me to a clinic in Manhattan. Now, another problem that women like me are facing is when calling these clinics and trying to get an appointment, there's a long wait list because not only are they seeing patients from in state, they're seeing an influx of out of state patients as well. And not knowing how long I had before something bad happened with my pregnancy, I couldn't wait two weeks, three weeks, a month or two before I could get in for the procedure because my

doctor couldn't tell me what longer meant. An hour, a month, we don't know, and so I was kind of just playing a guessing game every day with my life, not knowing women things were going to get bad. So I got a hold of this clinic in Manhattan, and one of the things I wanted to make sure the clinic was accommodating for was one I wanted to do the surgical procedure. I didn't want to do it induced labor. I love Miley to death, but I didn't want to see her in that way. I didn't want to see

her deceased. And then the other thing was being able to have that coordination with a funeral home to obtain her remains to get her cremated so I could bring her home. Some clinics do not work with funeral homes. So there were a few things that I wanted to make sure we're done, and this clinic was very helpful and they checked every box I needed. Midtermber abortions are a two day procedure. The first day is a lot of pre op stuff and the second day is the

actual surgery. And once we confirmed everything was good, they told me how much it was going to be. And at twenty weeks, I was looking at around one thy to eleven hundred, and then at twenty one weeks, I was looking closer to two thousand dollars, and so it jumps a grand based off of a week, and so I was like, OKAYT let's just confirm this day and

me and my husband will figure it out. So the thousand to eleven hundred dollars for the procedure was already a lot for a low income family, and then we're looking at a three day stay in Manhattan that's also a lot of money, and also round trip from Nashville to LaGuardia for two people, and then taxis, ubers, food, whatever you know. It added up. It ended up being close to five thousand dollars, which we don't have anything

in savings. We don't even have five thousand dollars in our account, so trying to pay for that was impossible for us. We started looking into taking out loans. We reached out to family, but our families aren't independently wealthy, so you know, they could only help with a little bit. And I shared that online how much show was going to cost, and some of my followers had suggested I started to go fundme. And at first I didn't want to start to go fund me because it wasn't anybody

else's problem but mine. I want people to think I was being just taking money from people from my situation. But it got to the point that I was like if I don't get to New York, I don't know what's going to happen to me. And so I bit the bullet and I started to gofund me and I shared it online and my followers matched the goal the same day even exceeded the goal, and so we were able to book our round trip airfare. We were able to pay for the abortion, and everything was covered. All

costs were covered, and I was able. We were both able to take that week off of work. That's another thing is we both had to take that week off of work, which is two weeks technically of a paycheck being cut from us. So the cost is very damaging for low income families. And that is something I've talked about with these abortion bands, is these affect low income families because if you're wealthy enough, you can just go out of state and it's not going to hurt your

bank account. But for us, it's a big ask. My husband flew to New York together, Ada Lee stayed with my parents in Nashville, and we got to New York City on that Monday in March seventh was my appointment. I had to go to that appointment alone because a lot of abortion clinics are patient only, one for privacy and two to just kind of keep the traffic inside the clinic down. So I had to leave my husband behind at the apartment we were at, and then I

went to the clinic. I was told i'd be there for about five or six hours that day, so to plan for a long day, and so I started the day doing blood work, just random things that you need to do if you're going to be going under anesthesia. And I was there for a couple hours when I

was called back to do my sonogram. They do the sonogram before the abortion to make sure they're charging the correct amount for the feet of size, and because I was twenty weeks but she was measuring it fifteen weeks, they just wanted to make sure they were charging me correctly. And so I went in and we started the ultrasound.

And the difference between this ultrasound and the ones before is ultrasounds before you have the technician next to you and the sonogram machine, but then there's a TV in front of you so you can see what the technician is seeing. In this room, there was no TV. I was just facing a brick wall, and for a moment, I was like, why is there not a TV in here? Because I was looking forward to seeing Miley again one

last time. But then it kind of clicked in my head that some women may not want to see and I understood, and so I lay there and I just stare at the ceiling and she starts the ultrasound and she quickly asks me when my last ultrasound was. I told her it was about a week and three days prior, and she was like, okay, and there was a heartbeat then, and I said, yeah, there was a heartbeat. I went and got it saved in a little bunny and she was like, oh, okay, and then she was just quiet

and I looked at her. I was like, is there not a heartbeat? And she said, no, ma'am, there's not. And so I sat up and I looked at her screen while she still had the wand on my stomach, and I said, why she's not moving and she goes, no, ma'am, she's not. And then I just it immediately hit me and I just cried, and I cried out loud like a mom does when she finds out that her she

just lost her child. I'm sorry, And this technician helped me and she cried with me, and she told me, in all the years that she's worked there, she's never had a telewoman that her baby was already gone. And so she looked at me and she said, I need to go get the doctor and tell him what I found, if you don't mind just going back to the waiting room for a moment. So instead of going into the

waiting room, I walked out of the clinic. The clinic was an on a sixth floor of a skyscraper, and I walked out of the clinic into the hallway where the elevators are, and I sat down in a corner of that hallway and I called my husband and I had to tell my husband over the phone that his daughter was gone. And at the time I didn't really think about this, but afterwards I realized that yes, I was alone in that clinic, but I was surrounded by

nurses and doctors that were able to comfort me. My husband was completely and utterly alone in that room at

the apartment we were at. And so I told him that she was gone, and I heard his voice crack and tell me that he would he would talk to me later, that he needed to go, and so he hung up the phone, and I called my mom because my mom was waiting for updates, and I told her what happened, and she said to me, Honey, I am so sorry, but I think this is the best gift Miley could have given you, because you went to New York with so much doubt and so much guilt about

the decision you were making, that she took all of that away from you. Because I did go to New York with guilt, because I let people online get in my head saying doctors are wrong all the time, that their pregnancy was deemed incompatible, but their babies tend now and doing great, and I just got in my head, like, what if my doctor's wrong? What if I'm making the wrong decision here? What if I'm prematurely ending her life

when she could be okay? And so my mom said that she took all of that away from me, and she went on her own. And it still sucked at the time, but now I'm grateful that that happened because I don't have to live with that guilt anymore. My doctors were right, she wasn't compatible, and she showed us that. So within the next light ten to fifteen minutes, I was called back. I was called back to speak to the doctor, and the first thing he said to me was,

I don't want you to blame yourself. I know you're blaming yourself right now, but please know there was nothing you could have done differently to change this outcome. But then he continued to say, because my last confirmed fetal heartbeat was almost two weeks ago, there's a two week window when a fetus dies that when your body doesn't recognize it, you're now at risk for blood cloths, infections,

and going septic. And since they can't confirm when her heart actually stopped, they have to go off the last fetal heart beat. And so he said that because of that risk, I was now at a higher risk because I was closer to that two weeks that they wanted to push my abortion that same day instead of the next day. So he did a pelvic exam, a quick pelvic exam to feel my cervix, and he said that

my servix is very hard. Normally, they give you a cervix softener to go home with and take the night before, and he said that due to my cervix being so hard, they're going to try, but they may not be able to get through my cervix today and if that's the case, they'll give me the medication and the spacers to go home and then come back first thing the next morning. So I was going into the surgery not knowing if

it was going to be successful or not. After he said that it was very quick, I went and signed paperwork for the anesthesia. I had to undress and put a gown on, and then I was in the surgery room and I climbed up in the bed and the anesthesia anesthesiologist came in and told me that I was going to go to sleep, and that's what I did, and I woke up, not in the same room, not in the same bed, and there was a nurse standing

next to me. And immediately when I woke up, I felt the pain in my lower abdomen, and she said, miss Phillips, how are you feeling? And I said, I'm in a lot of pain and she said that is normal. And then I cut her off and I said was the surgery successful? She said, yes, man, the surgery was successful. And I said, so I'm not pregnant anymore. She goes, no, ma'am,

you're not. And then of course I just started crying again because that reality hit that I came to New York pregnant and I was leaving I was leaving not pregnant. When I got back home from New York. Postpartum depression hits whether you had your baby or not, and I've already struggled with depression since I was fourteen. I've been on medication for it, so my mental health was already

in a rough space getting back from New York. I ended up taking an extra week from the daycare center I run from my home because I just couldn't function as a person and I was struggling with suicidal thoughts. I didn't want to be in a world without Miley and my daycare I took care of four kids under the age of three, so one of them being an eight month old baby at the time, and I just knew if I saw a young baby, it would just

kind of shove that knife in deeper. And so I continued to share my journey on TikTok, and my grief went from heartache to being very angry after that two weeks. It took a very stern conversation from my mom and husband to tell me that me sit laying in bed isn't going to bring Miley back. Addalie was losing her mom. I needed to get up, get myself together, and get back into a part of life, and so I didn't want to neglect Attalie any longer than I already was.

So I pulled myself together the best I could. But I got very angry, and I got angry because what I went through I shouldn't have had to gone through. I shouldn't have had to been in a different state. I shouldn't have had to figure out logistics to fly to a clinic. I shouldn't have been alone when I went through surgery and sat in recovery. I shouldn't have had to go through any of that. I should have been able to get a procedure here in my home state and go home and sleep in my own bed,

surrounded by my husband and daughter. But that wasn't the case, because male politicians think they know it's best for women. And so I turned my anger into more vocal activism and more of my video started gaining traction, and the Center for Reproductive Rights had reached out to me because they currently had a case in Texas with women, and they asked me if i'd be interested in suing Tennessee. Yes. Immediately, I didn't even think about my answer. I said yes

because I wanted Miley. I wanted her story to be the change that happens. And so while I was starting the process of being a plaintiff in a legal case, I started thinking about what I could do on a lower level, I just as a citizen, and so I thought of Miley's Law. And Miley's Law essentially would just give exceptions back to parents when diagnosed with fetal anomalies. For me, exceptions aren't enough. But I know, being in a majority GOP state, just banning the ban altogether wasn't

going to be possible. So I figured if I could throw them a bone and we take some baby steps, that that would be the best course. And so I met with my representative on June eighth last year, and I told him my story. We sat in a two hour meeting. I told him my story, and I told him my idea for Miley's Law, and I asked for

his help to create the bill. Because I've never written a before, I have no idea how to do that, and so I wanted his help to write that bill and get it up to the legislature, and he said he would help me. And during that conversation I kind of confirmed the thoughts I already had about our male lawmakers. I had told him that I already had a daughter here and that this was my second pregnancy that I lost, and he said, wait a second, and I quote this, I'm just a man, but I only thought it was

the first pregnancy that could go bad. And I said, first pregnancies can go bad. Any pregnancy can go bad, though it's not just the first pregnancy. He was told that it was just first pregnancies that go bad, and so it didn't make sense to him when my second pregnancy failed. On top of that, I tried to humanize my story with him, because he made sure to tell me that he is pro life and that I wasn't going to make him pro choice, and I said, I'm not trying to make you pro choice. I'm just trying

to make you understand what I went through. And he has a daughter who's not much younger than me, twenty five I think, and she doesn't have any children, and so I was like, great, imagine this was her first pregnancy and she called you and told you everything. I just told you told you that her pregnancy wasn't viable and that if she continued it was putting her life at risk. What advice would you give her? And he told me that I wasn't going to like his answer,

and I said, I want to hear it. What advice would you give your daughter? And he said that the way he grew up is that he would tell her that he thinks she should continue her pregnancy. And I said, even if it's putting her life at risk, and he said that's just how I grew up. I said, what happens if she gets the abortion? Are you going to disowner? He said, I wouldn't disowner, but I wouldn't be happy

with her. And I think at that moment, it's solidified for me that if these representatives don't even care about their own child's wellbeing, they sure as hell don't care about the rest of us. And so after that meeting, I followed up with him a few times, asking where we were, on him helping me, where we were on these meetings, like what's next? And I kept getting the run around, and I think it was after a month or two roughly I messaged him one final time. I

said what are we doing? Like, are you helping me or not? And he said that there's really nothing he can do until the session starts back in January. And I said, so women in Tennessee, ye are just supposed to suffer and die until January. And he never responded to me. And so that moment again, I was just like, you know what, I'm not going to sit around and wait for a man to help me do anything. I'm going to do it myself. And that's when people started

telling me I should run for office. Now, being a politician or being an elected official in any capacity was never something I thought I would do in my life. I went to school for journalism. I wanted to be a reporter. I wanted to write stories. That's my calling, I thought, And so people started to My mom was

the first one to susjust it. And I was like, you're crazy and she was like, no, but actually, like you have the passion, You're very well spoken, you have the heart, You're very relatable, and people listen to you. You already have the following and the platform. She's like why not. It's like why would I? I personally don't

like politics. The most I've ever done with politics is go out and vote, and I thought I was doing my due diligence, but more and more people started coming up to me and saying, have you ever thought about running for office? You should really think about running for office? Like what is wrong with you? Like? Do you guys just not have anybody else to run? Is that what's going on here? And I will say there wasn't like

an aha moment for me. It was kind of I was building this tier and with every layer gave me another reason to decide to run for office. These reasons being as I was on TikTok, I would also share other women's stories from Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, people other women having to flee their states, are being denied abortion access in their states. And it was the ten year old girl who was raped and had to go across state lines to get an abortion that really hit me.

And I was like, my daughter now at that point was six, she's very close to that age. I know what I went through as a twenty eight year old woman. I could not imagine the trauma and the damage that does to a ten year old girl. And that was the biggest slab for me was to be like Okay, you know what, I'm going to consider it. And then it came into there's other things that I care about my daughter, like I said before, as autistics, so she has an IEP in her school, she's special needs. She's

in a public school. Our state is currently trying to implement a voucher program that would take public school funding and put it into private schools. Or her public schools are already underfunded and we need to take away more funding that takes away these things like IEP assistants and these resources for kids that have disabilities. So it's like, that's going to affect my daughter, That's going to affect

my life. And then the fact that my six year old is scared to go to school some days because she does these active shooter drills, and the fact that I'm scared she's not going to come home some days. I try to remember what clothes she's wearing. I don't buy her light up shoes because I don't want her to be seen in a dark room. These are very

real things that American moms have to worry about. And then I realized I run an in home daycare for the simple fact that I know how hard it is to pay for daycare as a single mom, because I did it for three years. And there are so many more things. I didn't get a maternity leave. I took two weeks off of work when I had Adelie to heal. I didn't get paid for those two weeks. Those were two weeks unpaid. And then I went back to work

when she was two weeks old. And so I was like, there are so many things that I just kind of lived through and accept it because it is what it is. What am I going to do to change it? And then that's when I really started to accept that what our state is doing to women, families, and children is so far beyond unacceptable. Then I can't just sit here and complain on TikTok anymore. I can't just sit here

and vote for the blue guy anymore. I have got to be in one of those seats making decisions when we come back.

it's public now. But we have raised over ninety thousand dollars in the first like two and a half three months, which is crazy for a small local election for somebody that's never ran for office before. Now that we're in January, I have done community events. I've done fundraisers. I've been to other people's fundraisers. I've been to community meetings and things like that, school board meetings. I just went to a teacher union meeting last night and heard their concerns.

But now that we're in January and actually in the election year, now I'm going in like feet on the ground. I pulled my petition I think in a week or two and I'll be going and knocking on doors to get signatures so I can officially be on the ballot. And so I'm going to be posting round table discussions with different community organizations in my area and asking them what is it that using needs to be improved, What is it that you're concerned about I'm taking my story

and putting it on the back burner. My story's been told enough. Now I want to hear from them. One of the things that just recently came out on Wednesday from the Journal of American Medicine was that there are around sixty five thousand women and girls with rape related pregnancies. And these are just coming from the fourteen states that have a ban or a restriction on abortion access. And these are the women and girls that have reported it.

So how many are unreported? How many have just gone unnoticed, And so I think that brings a new light and a new fact to people that say, oh, rape related abortions are so rare, they don't happen that often. Sixty five thousand women and girls have come forward just within

the last year or so since Roe was overturned. The thing with the argument of it being birth control is for some women, it may be it may be that they accidentally got pregnant or you know, took precautions to not get pregnant, but they still ended up pregnant and they don't want to be pregnant, and so yeah, it could be used as a form of birth control for

some women. But to ban a life saving procedure for the woman who is going septic and bleeding out because you don't want your neighbor to go get an abortion because she accidentally got pregnant doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The thing with abortion that people need to understand is it is a medical procedure, whether that fetus

is dead or alive. I've had so many people in my comments telling me, well, your baby died, you didn't get an abortion, she was already dead, And I'm like, that is such an illogical explanation of what an abortion is. The abortion is literally the procedure the removal of the feudal tissue. So when I have to tell people, no, I still had an abortion, it doesn't matter that she was dead, it doesn't matter if they're alive. It is still the same process. Some people listen, some people don't.

But another way I try to humanize it to people is we can't pick and choose who gets healthcare and win. For example, if you have two patients that are diagnosed with cancer, one of them being Stage one, one of them being a stage four, you don't get to look at the stage one patient and say you're not sick enough, We're not going to let you have chemo, but then give the stage four patient chemo, because now you're just taking away that stage one patient their ability to get

healthcare and preserve their health. We want to be proactive and not reactive. But the whole point of choice isn't being pro abortion. That's something that I tell I tell people all the time. Could be pro choice without being pro abortion. Being pro choice is literally supporting women having the right to choose, whether that be they need an abortion or want an abortion, whether that be they want to have the baby and keep it, or whether that

be they want to put it up for adoption. It's whatever works best for that woman that you support their right to choose. And when you take away that right, you start seeing things like women dying, You start seeing things like rape increasing because there's there's no penalty, because how many convictions actually have happened from those sixty five thousand rapes that were recorded. How many That's the problem we face as women as well, is coming forward when

we are raped and being believed. This has become so important to me because I am a mom, and as a mom, it's my job to protect my children, and my daughter is growing up in this state and she may raise her own family in this state, and it's my job to make sure that she's protected and cared for. And so running for office, I don't know if I'm going to win my election. I hope I do, but showing her that just because something is doesn't mean it

has to be. If you know in your heart that something is wrong and it's hurting people, you have the right to stand up and speak out. And so I hope I'm leaving a legacy for my daughter to be active and be loud about the things she cares about and to never give up no matter how many people try to tear her down. The fact that I'm making so many people mad on the other side tells me I'm doing something right. So this is important for me now.

I feel like this is my purpose to keep Miley's name alive and to push Miley's Law, and to just push the fact that abortions are healthcare no matter how you look at it, and to normalize the word abortion. The stigma that's been on it has been on it far too long, and I just want to make sure that women and children across this state and across this country are not being attacked and having rights taken away because at this point we feel like second class citizens

and it's not okay. It's not okay, But I just hope that it's enough, and if it's not, I'm going to keep fighting until it is.

are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels.

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