Petri Dish of Hate

on four Floridians Protecting Freedom. You know that we have spent a lot of time on WOKAF speaking about the Petri dish of hate that is the state of Florida and what Ron DeSantis has done to roll back the clock on women, on queer people, on black people, and

essentially turn that state into an abyss. And in this conversation with Lauren, she talks about the on the ground organizing effort to get an initiative on the ballot that would grant Floridians access to abortion in the state's constitution. At the time of our conversation, she had received over nine hundred thousand signatures, which is what is needed to put this referendum on the ballot. It is going to be voted on in November in the state of Florida.

I cannot express to how just excited I was to talk to Lauren, to hear about the work that she's doing on the ground in Florida, to be reminded right that there are people who are in Florida that are fighting back against the fascist ron de Santis. And while I continue to talk about the dangers and the existential threat that Project twenty twenty five has in store in a Trump two point zero never ending regime, people are

already experiencing that in states like Florida. Project twenty twenty five is already underway in places like Florida, and so Lauren gives us some insight into what is going on there and also provides opportunities for you, even if you do not live in the state, how you can support their efforts. So that conversation is coming up next, folks.

I am very happy to welcome to OKF Daily for the first time Lauren Brenzel, who is the campaign director for Yes on four for Laardians Protecting Freedom, which is a ballot initiative to you essentially protect or enshrine I should say, abortion rights in Florida Lauren, give us the rundown on where things are in Florida right now. We talk about it on the show all the time. You're horrific Governor. Every single proposal that he has put out

that just brings Florida into the depths of hell. So talk to us on about your organization and where things stand now with abortion rights and protections.

that kind of work nout. I don't want to go too deep into it because I know that this is not the question, but it's something that I feel incredibly passionate about, because if you think of being in the position where you have built a nursery, you have chosen a name, you have imagined a life for a child, and you find out that you have a non viable pregnancy or you've gotten a terminal diagnosis and you have

to access later in pregnancy care. I just as an aside, want to say, I think one of the most equal things that the anti abortion movement has done is villainize those women.

is since last monstrel period. I've been trying to contextualize this for people by noting that most women find out

they're pregnant at five weeks in five days. If you research studies that show when when women find out, it's five weeks five days, and you have to be in a health center starting your appointment because of our twenty four hour waiting period at five weeks and six days, So the average Floridian finding out at the average time women find out they're pregnant who wants to access an abortion has twenty four hours in order to find care.

We are having people come into health centers who are so early that they can't even see their ultra They can't even see a pregnancy and ultrasound, so they can't be delivered care. We are having people come in at six weeks and one day who can't have care delivered to them. We are having to turn patients away in this state who are experiencing mental health crisises because they cannot believe that this is a law in place, and because they don't feel like they can fly to DC

or New York or Illinois to access care. The South is in a crisis with regards to abortion access. So there are right now who states in our entire region that have care past six weeks, North Carolina and Virginia, and in totality, those states see less than fifty thousand patients per year. By context, Florida used to see eighty

four thousand patients. So you try to imagine jamming in additional tens of thousands of patients into these states that are already over capacity because care has been all throughout the South, and we are already seeing devastating stories from patients who have been denied access to care. I can't imagine the continued magnitude of that over the upcoming years if we don't figure out how to get constitutionally protected access in the Southeast.

for folks to have some more context too. I always offer this statistic, which is that a majority of Americans, if a four hundred dollars bill came up, can't pay it. Right, a four hundred dollar bill outside of the norm of what you are dealing with, can't pay that bill. So you're saying that at five weeks and six days, if

I'm in Florida, and I am now pregnant. I have to decide if I can fly drive train to only two states that are relatively close to Floorlorida, Virginia or North Carolina, and then when I get there, what you're saying to me is that then I'm also competing with the tens of thousands of people that were already receiving care in that state, and now the tens and tens of thousands coming in from around the area that this is the closest refuge that they have.

arduous and incredibly marred by governmental interference. So in order for us to qualify, we had to not only collect over eight hundred thousand signatures eight hundred and ninety one five hundred and twenty three signatures, which is burned deeply into my brain at this point, but we also had to have Supreme Court review, which happened after we had collected all the signatures, So we had to be done with signatures December thirty first, they all had to be

turned in. We did not get approval to be on the constitution or excuse me, on the ballot until April first. So I just feel a deep appreciation for everybody who contributed to this campaign in phase one because they were taking a huge risk and it's so telling that word on whether or not we would be on the ballot was held for that long. They don't have to hold it until April first. The decision was made to hold

until April first. We also had to do a financial impact estimating conference where they decide what the financial impact of this initiative would be. That has now happened twice it happened once in a way that was correct, but then became outdated when the six week ban was put into effect, when the near total band was put into effect, and then we just had one again where they wrote deceptive and confusing language that reads more like an opposition

advertisement than it does like battle language. And that's their playbook. They did it in Ohio, they did it in Michigan, they're doing it in Arizona right now. There are politicians who are so afraid of this issue that they tried to at every step make the initiative process as hard as possible. I want to note too, just going back, we only had eight months to collect all of the

signatures that we needed. If we didn't have the right amount of signatures by December thirty, first, they don't roll over like we were going to have to restart.

But once this is pasted, it is enshrined inner state's constitution. It exists beyond any individual person within the Florida government. It exists beyond any administration. It is for the people, by the people in Florida's constitution.

So if folks are interested in making calls, knocking doors, sending postcards for the campaign, they should visit Floridians Protecting Freedom dot com and we can find a way for you to get involved. We actually structured our volunteer program so that it not only included ways to get involved

in person. But our hope is and our belief is that people understand how important this campaign is at a national level for access to care and that they will be interested in doing things like making phone calls or sending postcards from all over the countries. So we have organizers who are specifically focused on supporting folks who are in more rural regions of Florida that might not have an organizer on the ground, but there's volunteer leaders who

are organizers on the ground. And then we have folks to help structure. If you are in Pennsylvania and you want to have a phone bank for the US on four campaign, we have an organizer who can support you with that. So we're trying to create as many avenues for everyday people to get involved in this campaign as possible. We are also working to be in spaces like this where we just get to share the narrative and what's important. Florida has become a little bit of a national joke,

and it's not a joke. There are people who live here and who survive here, and we deserve to all live in an America where we have protected rights and protected access. We can't have an entirely bifurcated nation. And abortion is healthcare, like normal people understand, no matter what

their political ideology is, abortion to be healthcare. Nobody goes into their doctor's office and hands the receptionist a voter registration card, it's not how this process works, and the political ideology around abortion is so out of touch with what everyday people feel that one of our main goals is just to talk to people about this issue and let them know so that before they get to the voting booth in November, they already know what this issue

is and they know that they're going to vote yes to end Florida's abortion ban. And then we are also trying to raise a ton of money, because that is another part of it. Florida is a huge state. We have over twenty one million people in the state. We're the size of multiple states. So we have to do everything we can to raise the resources that we need to share the stories of Floridians who have been harmed by these abortion bans in a way that reaches people

on radio, on TV, in their mailboxes. One of the things that I worry the most about at night is we have all of these brave and powerful storytellers who are willing to share their incredibly harrowing experiences of what Florida's bands have meant for them, and we at the campaign want to do everything we can to make sure that those stories get the treatment and the due diligence that they need to be with voters across the state.

Party wants to do nationwide. Right where there is no place to go, there will be no safe space where you are targeted as a woman, as a pregnant person. You know, there are so many things that have been passed in that state that just have turned it into a dystopian nightmare. I mean, that motherfucker just just blocked arts programming, Like who does that? Like what kind of cartoon villain does that?

The issue of abortion is so endemic in that repro folks have been screaming for years that Roby Waite was going away yep. And there's so many politicians on both sides of the aisle for whom the word abortion would not come out of their mouth. And it is not until a terrorizing event occurs that stripped access to care that people are willing to say the word abortion and are not actually throwing down in the way that we need them to on this issue to provide people with

access to care. There are so many people who don't experience pregnancy and who can't fully understand what a loss of this access means, and it is campaign fodder for many people. It is not healthcare. For many people. It is something that they think of of like this is a really efficient thing that I can run on on whatever side they're on to mobilize. Turnout, that's not what's going on here. Women will die because of this policy.

And so if people don't vote on this initiative in November, I don't think we get a second fite to do this in the way that we're doing it right now. We are experts who are nationally talking about they think it is thirty years before we get a durable federal protection back for abortion, before we get something like or

hopefully better than ROW. That means there are for Laridians today who are turning eighteen years old, who are registering to vote for the first time, who will be entering menopause before yeah, before, there is a durable federal protection. So this is a shot that we get for them, and we have to do everything we can to make sure that every Floridian, but also folks across the nation know that this is a shot for protected access in

the Southeast. You cannot do better than a constitutional protection, and you cannot do better than an explicit constitutional protection. Word abortion is set in our initiative and it's set out loud. This is the way that we can maintain access to care in Florida, that we can get back access to care, and that we can ensure that there is a protected right for our community. We have to

get people out to the polls in November. And another thing that I would just say to listeners is if you know someone in Florida, if you know someone in the Southeast, tell them about this campaign. Talk to your friends and family about this campaign, even if you don't live here. We just need the buzz around moving on because folks can't afford to stay home on this issue. I also just think there's something to be said about the party dynamic around abortion. Our path to success involves

Republican voters. It involves independent voters. We have a sixty percent threshold. We're in a state that has a Republican advantage for voter registration. There is something so powerful about a message being sent that a state like Florida could enshrine access to care and their constitution could decide to limit government access to interfering with abortion. My belief truly is that if we can do this here, we can make stuffs. Definitely to put this issue to bed.

trying to build those reserves for voter communications efforts. And then we have an events page on our website where you can learn about both in person and virtual options for getting involved.