In a 4-3 decision, the ruling marks the first time abortion has been protected under the Pennsylvania Constitution and could reshape reproductive healthcare access for low-income women across Pennsylvania.

This ruling is a perfect example of the importance of electing the right judges to represent us. Who sits on these courts directly affects whether our fundamental rights are expanded or restricted.

This decision shows the power of the hard work by women across the state, including at Red Wine & Blue, during 2025 to protect our majority in the Pennsylvania courts.

Red Wine & Blue collaborated with Every Child NC and Pastors for NC Children to bring together parents, educators, and advocates from across the state to demand that lawmakers stop delaying and finally fund public education.

Speakers called on legislators to take immediate action by implementing the Leandro Plan and passing a state budget that makes meaningful investments in public schools. These investments would substantially increase the amount of state funding that goes to each district, funding these counties are owed!

This would go to critical resources such as teachers, classroom supplies and textbooks, counselors, nurses, and more. They also highlighted the damaging effects of chronic underfunding and emphasized the importance of protecting public schools from privatization.

This Public Education Advocacy Day just goes to show the power of people coming together to fight for their community. When they go low, we go local!

There’s still work to be done, and Red Wine & Blue will be there every step of the way.

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In her dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”

Today’s podcast was already a deep dive into Louisiana vs. Callais with a guest who knows more about the case than anyone else: Janai Nelson, the President and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the woman who argued the case in front of the Supreme Court — not once, but twice.

LISTEN HERE

Janai and Katie’s conversation covered all of the basics of what’s happening (simplified so we can all understand it), how it could change the midterms, what it was like to present a case to the full-on United States Supreme Court, and what gives her hope despite it all.

Now that the decision is out, Red Wine & Blue will be organizing another virtual event soon to talk more about what this decision means, how it might affect upcoming elections (including the primaries), and where we go from here. Stay tuned.

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This is an average of 50 U.S. citizen children per day whose parents are detained.

The impact on women has escalated too.

Trump is deporting roughly four times as many mothers of U.S. citizen children each day as the previous administration.

More are being arrested, and far fewer are allowed to return home, with nearly 60% of these cases now ending in deportation (compared to about 30% under Biden).

The article recounts the story of a sobbing Florida mother handing her 4-month-old baby and 8-year-old daughter to her pastors, a married couple, so they could be cared for and avoid entering the foster system after she was detained by local law enforcement working with federal immigration authorities.

We can’t just stand by and watch this happen in our communities. We need to take our fear and anger and turn them into action.

Red Wine & Blue’s Moms for Good movement has ways for all of us — moms or not, and politically active or not — to get involved.

Join us today.

Virginia will revert to its old system after the census in 2030, but for now, it’s an important emergency measure to balance out Republican gerrymandering in states like Texas.

Now, does it feel a little weird to fight gerrymandering with… more gerrymandering? Yes. Obviously, in a perfect world, we’d prefer no biased redistricting at all!

But Democrats in Congress have tried to pass bills banning gerrymandering from both parties, with no support from the other side of the aisle. In fact, five years ago, there was a bill called the For The People Act that would’ve ended congressional gerrymandering — and exactly zero Republicans voted for it.

Last Tuesday, Virginians took matters into their own hands and voted Yes on the proposal for Democrats to redraw their maps. It was a complicated issue with very confusing messaging (on both sides), and Red Wine & Blue members worked hard to make sure their neighbors and friends could understand the amendment and get to the polls.

Of course, the amendment is already being challenged in court, but VA Attorney General Jay Jones remains hopeful. “Virginia voters have spoken,” he said on Wednesday. “We look forward to defending the outcome of last night's election in court."

Meanwhile, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger made history for maternal health by signing a “Momnibus” bill that will help protect moms and families across the state.

As she held adorable two-month-old Breydan, Governor Spanberger signed bills to expand mental health screenings of new parents and require health insurance companies to cover maternal mental health screenings.

Alexis Patterson, Breydan’s mom and a doula with Birth In Color, was grateful to be part of the moment. “I’m excited to see the Momnibus bills be signed, not just as a doula, but as someone who has needed some of these services,” she said.

This is what’s possible when Democratic women lead!

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The episode centered on conversion therapy, a trauma that Drew survived as a teenager. But it also got into some really thorny and important issues about joy. The queer…

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But today, we’re not just talking about music; we’re actually listening to it.

On this episode, Katie and LaFonda were joined by folk musician Inda Eaton. Together, they listened to songs that have moved them, inspired them, made them laugh, and kept their feet moving in the right direction — from funny viral videos to Inda’s own poignant song FREE.

There’s a reason that music is often said to be “deeper than words.” It captures a feeling, a shared humanity that goes beyond the battlefield of rhetoric. As Inda says, it’s the common ground of the heart.

We encourage everyone to check out the musicians whose work we shared today: Hostile Government Takeover by AGiftFromTodd), Join ICE by Jesse Welles, Minnesota by the Marsh Family, FREE by Inda Eaton, and Heavy Foot by Mon Rovia.

And there are so many other songs we wished we could’ve shared but couldn’t or this episode would’ve been 3 hours long! We also recommend All You Fascists Are Bound To Lose, Living In The Future, We Run, Thank You For Replacing The Ayatollah, and How Can You Sing The Blues. There are so many amazing artists out there making music to get us through these hard times, just like there have been throughout history.

What songs have been helping you not lose your shit lately?

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The reason? The board said they were “inappropriate for younger readers” — AKA the books contained LGBTQ+ themes and characters.

Luanne James says she stands by her decision to keep LGBTQ+ books in the children’s section and would make the same decision again.

She said that while the outcome has been difficult, she hopes it will make a difference for librarians and help move the conversation forward.

Luanne also sees her dismissal as part of a broader shift in which public institutions are being dragged into political fights. Across the country, librarians are facing pressure, harassment, and even losing their jobs over books that discuss race and LGBTQ+ lives.

We can’t just stand by and watch this keep happening.

Here is How to Recognize Soft Censorship in Your Community

• Moving books to restricted sections.

• Pressuring libraries and schools to exclude specific titles from public displays.

• Removing books from shelves for review for extended or indefinite periods of time.

• Coordinating to check out all the books on a particular topic and delaying or refusing to return them.

• Using the standard library practice of ‘weeding’ (removing old, unused, or damaged books from circulation) to quietly remove targeted books.

• Implementing policies or passing laws making it easier to challenge books while simultaneously requiring complicated, time-consuming, and expensive review processes.

To learn more about standing up for our freedom to read, just like Luanne James did, ‘Freedom to Parent’ is a movement of mainstream moms (and dads, grandparents, caregivers, and educators!) who are standing up for our freedom to decide how to prepare our kids for the 21st century.

Join us.

The clinic in Mount Auburn, Ohio, is an important resource in the area for women’s healthcare. And like many Planned Parenthood locations across the country, it’s also a magnet for anti-choice protestors. (Just as a reminder, abortion care is only a fraction of the services that Planned Parenthood provides; they also offer cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, contraception, and more.)

So far, nothing about this story is unexpected. Planned Parenthood has become a figurehead and scapegoat for anti-abortion politicians and activists across the country, and occasionally those extremists escalate into outright violence.

But here’s the inspiring part. Despite some serious fire damage, the Mount Auburn clinic opened the following morning and saw every patient who came through their doors.

Nan Whaley, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, said that it’s '“clear this fire was set intentionally, but if the goal was to scare Planned Parenthood into closing their doors, they failed.”

She wasn’t the only one who refused to back down. “If I’m honest, my first response when I heard of the attack was, ‘Oh, hell no,’” said Gwen Perry, the assistant medical director for Planned Parenthood SW Ohio. “It’s unacceptable. Every single person was looking past their fears and their concerns and their questions to show up and be present for the people who counted on us. Because that’s what we do.”

In many communities, Planned Parenthood is the only place women can access reproductive healthcare. In fact, some clinics are the only abortion care for hundreds of miles, helping women from nearby states that have criminalized care.

It takes courage keep showing up to provide that critical service when you have to walk through a crowd of angry protestors just to get to work each day. How much braver is it to walk into a partially-burned clinic that was just attacked the night before?

The doctors, nurses, and other staff in Mount Auburn are everyday heroes who are making a real difference — not just for the women of Ohio, but for people across the country who are looking for a reason to hope.

But for the nearly 700,000 LGBTQ+ Americans who have gone through conversion therapy, it’s a lot more than an abstract issue about free speech. It’s a trauma they’re still dealing with, even if it happened to them years or decades ago.

One of those 700,000 is Drew Amstutz, Red Wine & Blue’s Chief of Staff and all-around delightful human. On this week’s podcast, he shared some of the horrifying details of being forced through conversion therapy as a 15-year-old kid. You may have seen a short video of Drew we featured last week; this week’s pod is a chance to more deeply explore his experience alongside Katie and LaFonda.

Please be warned if you have trauma around religion or sexual harassment; Drew’s story is hard to hear. But it’s still happening every day to kids across the country, so it’s crucial that we talk about it.

If you’re not immersed in the conservative religious world, you may think that conversion therapy is an archaic practice that doesn’t really happen anymore. Unfortunately, it’s still heartbreakingly common. Only 24 states (and the District of Columbia) have banned conversion therapy for minors, and one of those states was Colorado. It’s still unclear what national effects the ruling will have on the remaining 23 states that ban the practice.

LGBTQ+ youth who go through conversion therapy face a higher suicide risk — not just while they’re experiencing it, but for the rest of their lives. And there is zero evidence that these “therapies” even work! What we know from medical science and from queer people themselves is that there is no “cure” for homosexuality. How could there be? It’s not a disease! We’re talking about a practice that manipulates parents into traumatizing their kids over simply being themselves.

When you hear about a 60-year-old man breaking down a 15-year-old child, including techniques like gaslighting and sexual harassment, it’s hard not to draw connections to other powerful abusers like Epstein. Again and again, we see this country protect the rich and powerful and cast aside women and children.

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The episode wasn’t all doom and gloom, though! After discussion Drew’s personal story, we talked about joy in the LGBTQ+ community. When so many powerful forces — from the government to your parents — are telling you that who you are is wrong, fun and community can be lifesaving. LaFonda shared similar insights about Black joy and how it’s necessary for survival… but can also be a stifling trope. Queer and Black people aren’t just the “fun best friend.” They’re main characters too.

This episode is honest and heartbreaking, but it’s also joyful and full of love. Despite the trauma he experienced, Drew is one of the most kind, uplifting, and competent people that all of us here at Red Wine & Blue have ever had the pleasure to meet. We know you’ll love him too. ❤️

According to a 2025 survey of over 170 attorneys and advocates for immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence, 75.6% reported that immigrant survivors have concerns about contacting the police.

Reports have documented multiple cases where women seeking help ended up in ICE custody: a mother and child detained in Austin after police responded to a domestic disturbance call; a woman in Houston who called 911 about abuse by her ex-husband, only for police to contact ICE; and a mother of eight in Sacramento detained after reporting sexual harassment by her ICE-contracted case specialist.

Protections like the Violence Against Women Act were designed to make it safe for survivors to seek help. But new policies, like involving local police in federal immigration actions and enforcing immigration laws at courthouses, have made it harder for survivors to access support and resources. These measures give abusers more control and put entire communities at greater risk.

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We can’t sit quietly while ICE forces women to live in fear and keeps them in dangerous situations.

We need to demand accountability for ICE agents and no additional ICE funding in the DHS budget. Join us and help put an end to ICE’s cruelty by contacting your members of Congress today.

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The conservative organization didn’t just endorse these conservative candidates. They poured money into the race too.

Campaign finance reports from Moms for Liberty show thousands of dollars paid to Florida-based Gator Consulting LLC for “media-phones-texting” services supporting school board candidates across Wisconsin, including in the Menomonee Falls district.

Despite that influx of campaign spending, voters in this traditionally Republican-leaning Wisconsin community rejected extremist influence in their schools, signaling another significant loss for the conservative organization and a win for common-sense politics.

And that’s not the only good news out of Wisconsin this week! Judge Chris Taylor won a seat on the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, which means that liberal-leaning judges now have a 5-to-2 majority.

Remember when all eyes were on the last WI Supreme Court race? In April 2025, people across the country watched with bated breath as Judge Susan Crawford defeated Judge Brad Schimel to gain a liberal majority on the state’s highest court. It became the most expensive judicial election in US history, with total spending over $100 million — including $25 million from Elon Musk. Even Trump got involved.

It was a crucial race because Republican lawmakers were pushing for gerrymandered maps. Since Wisconsin is a swing state, their electoral maps have the power to change the results of national elections.

Now, progressive-leaning judges have solidified their control of the state Supreme Court. On the same day that Trump threatened mass atrocities in Iran to distract us, voters in Wisconsin secured fair elections in one of the most pivotal electoral states in the nation. Local action is how we win — now and for the long term.

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In moments like this, we’re desperate to make a difference. To take action that actually matters. There’s so much that we can’t directly affect, from the war in Iran to the Epstein files to ICE to the tech billionaires who are surveilling us at all times.

But if you’ve followed Red Wine & Blue for a while, you know where you can make a real difference: in your own community.

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This week we were joined by Erin and Dave, two of Katie Paris’ neighbors. Along with a few other members of their community in Shaker Heights, Ohio, they’ve been working together to stop the AI surveillance company Flock from sharing their data with ICE.

It’s a complicated issue! There’s the technical side of it — how exactly does Flock work and how are they sharing data with ICE and Border Patrol? It’s also tricky on the advocacy side. How can we know if Flock is sharing our data with ICE and what can we do to stop it? Neither the federal government nor the tech billionaires who own Flock have exactly been upfront about it. (What a surprise!)

Erin and Dave broke it all down and explained what we can do if we’re worried about Flock in our own community. A great place to start is https://deflock.org/, a crowdsourced website where people have been sharing where cameras are located all across the country.

From there, you can find people in your community who are also concerned about this issue and push for change on the local level. It’s important to advocate on the federal level for changes to ICE and Border Patrol, but you can actually have a conversation with your local city council member or chief of police. After all, they’re part of your community too.

Erin, Dave and Katie all agreed that as scary as everything feels right now, it’s been empowering to talk to their local leaders about Flock... and of course, become better friends along the way.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in Louisiana v. Callais could seriously weaken or end Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It would remove one of the last protections against extreme gerrymandering, creating a system in which politicians pick their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives.

And the Supreme Court’s decision would affect the whole country, not just Louisiana.

If the Court limits or weakens Section 2, states could redraw maps in ways that dilute the voting power of people of color, making it harder for them to elect candidates who represent their communities and more difficult to challenge unfair or gerrymandered districts in court.

What makes this case especially important is its timing.

If the Court’s ruling comes early this spring, some states could redraw congressional maps before the 2026 midterms.

If the decision comes in June, most maps will likely already be set.

That timing could determine whether voters have fair representation and full access to the ballot box in the 2026 midterm elections, or whether their voices will be diluted through gerrymandering.

If you want to learn more about the impact of this case, join us on Tuesday, April 7, to hear from Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who argued this case before the Court.

Janai will break down what the case is about, why it matters so deeply for voting rights, and how it could reshape the protections established under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

See you there!

To help close this gap, the University of Florida launched the OB/GYN Mobile Outreach Clinic, which offers prenatal and postpartum care, breastfeeding support, family planning, annual exams, and preventive screenings.

This innovative approach is helping expand access to care, bringing essential maternal health services directly to communities that have been left without options.

The OB/GYN Mobile Outreach Clinic is a free service, with the retrofitted bus equipped with two exam rooms, an ultrasound machine, and lab testing supplies for prenatal care. It meets patients where they already are, setting up at familiar community spaces like family resource centers, churches, and public libraries.

The clinic was launched in February 2025, and by the end of 2025, they had provided essential care to 194 women in 616 visits.

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This problem isn’t unique to Florida. Around 2.5 million U.S. women of childbearing age live in maternity care deserts—counties without a hospital, birthing center, or OB provider. Over the past decade, hundreds of obstetric units have closed, particularly in rural areas. As a result, women in these areas have to travel an average of 35 miles for care, compared to 9 miles in full-access counties, a gap linked to worse maternal and infant health outcomes.

The Trump administration’s cuts to Medicaid—which covers more than 40 percent of births in the U.S.—will only expand maternity care deserts and further limit access to prenatal and postpartum care for patients.

Mobile clinics like this are an effective way to close gaps in care and reach patients in maternity care deserts, but they can’t do it alone.

We need to talk to our friends and family about the danger of maternity care deserts and call on our lawmakers to protect Medicaid coverage, because every woman deserves care close to home.

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The Court sided with a Christian counselor who argued that banning conversion therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court.

But conversion therapy isn’t just any kind of “free speech.” Studies from the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association show that kids who are forced through conversion therapy experience higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and an increased risk of suicide.

Every one of those data points is a real person. Drew Amstutz is one of them.

But you know what? Not everyone can start every day by drinking lemon water barefoot outdoors for an hour. Some of us have kids!

This week on the podcast, we talked to Emily Oster, the founder of ParentData and the author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet. As a woman who professionally helps parents (and everyone else) understand data, she had so much good advice.

Turns out, data can help us make good decisions but there’s no one way to “optimize” our parenting or our lives.

It’s about balancing data alongside our own experiences, values, and the reality of our daily lives. There’s a stereotype that women only rely on their hearts (our “women’s intuition”) while men rely on evidence and data. But we’re all capable of doing both, regardless of our gender!

The answer isn’t ignoring data — not at all. It’s about understanding the data and making the best decision for ourselves and our families. As Emily said, “data isn’t bossy.”

It’s also not political. We talked with Emily about RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign and how there are nuggets of good advice in there, like making school lunches healthier, alongside dangerous disinformation about vaccines and autism. It’s not about listening to one person or one study — it’s about learning how to understand the data for ourselves.

Understanding scientific studies or other kinds of data might feel intimidating, but don’t underestimate yourself — you can understand data! Every data point in a spreadsheet or a medical study is actually just a person. A story. Data isn’t the be-all end-all; it’s about telling a better, truer story.

Expertise is important! But what happens when one “authoritative expert” says the data shows one thing, and another “expert” says the data shows the exact opposite? The answer isn’t to throw your hands in the air and give up on finding the truth altogether. It’s to look more closely at the evidence yourself. As Emily put it, it’s about learning to fish instead of waiting for someone to hand us a fish.

This was such a fascinating conversation and we’re so grateful to Emily for joining us. Don’t miss this week’s episode!

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And it doesn’t stop there.

If that pregnancy ends, whether it’s a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, that would also have to be reported to the state, and a cause of death has to be certified within 48 hours.

And if the state — an anti-abortion state, I might add — decides the pregnancy ended in a way that seems “suspicious,” a coroner or medical examiner could get involved.

I have a lot of questions, starting with, “Who decides what’s ‘suspicious’?”

Around 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. They’re incredibly common and deeply personal.

Most of the time, people don’t even know why a miscarriage happened. Now imagine going through something like that and knowing the government is collecting records about your pregnancy and how it ended.

That’s not healthcare. That’s surveillance.

And this is happening after Ohio voters already passed a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, which tells you that even when voters make their voices clear, some politicians are still looking for new ways to control reproductive healthcare.

Now this bill will likely face serious legal challenges if it passes. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

Because bills like this show us exactly what some lawmakers are trying to build: a system where the government monitors pregnancy from beginning to end.

And I think most of us can agree that our pregnancies, our healthcare, and our personal medical decisions should not be part of a government database.

That spirit of in-person bonding has already begun as Red Wine & Blue Network groups have been gathering for sign-making parties. Here are a few of our favorites!

If this looks like fun, you can find an RWB Network group near you here.

And if going to a No Kings protest isn’t your cup of tea, that’s also completely fine! There are so many ways to make a difference, especially on a local level. You can write letters, show up to school board meetings, donate to local organizations, call your representatives, and so much more.

Are you going to a protest tomorrow? We’d love to hear what’s on your sign!

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We don’t usually release our full podcast interviews on video, but all of us (Katie, LaFonda, and me, Amy — the producer/editor of the pod) have continued to think about it.

So I wanted to sh…

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