As the Supreme Court moves toward repealing Roe v. Wade, access to abortion pills over the internet could become a key frontier in the fight for abortion access in the United States.
On this week’s Dead Cat podcast, Tom Dotan, Katie Benner, and I talked to Kiki Freedman, the co-founder and CEO of the digital clinic for abortion access Hey Jane. (Freedman also worked at Uber for four years as an early Uber Eats employee.)
Hey Jane has raised more than $3 million in funding to provide abortion pills in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, and Washington.
Like companies treating ADHD that we talked about earlier this month on the podcast, Hey Jane has been able to expand access to medication through telemedicine. Instead of prescribing Adderall, however, Hey Jane is prescribing abortion pills.
Benner, who writes about the U.S. Department of Justice for the New York Times, updates us on her prognosis for the legal status of abortions in America.
This week, Politico published a story headlined The Coming Legal Battles Over Abortion Pills:
“The anti-abortion movement has prepared for this moment and is already focusing on restricting access to pills, knowing that abortion bans will be far less effective if states cannot keep the drugs from entering their borders. Nineteen states do not allow medication abortion via telehealth, others prohibit sending pills through the mail, and some states are introducing legislation that would ban the drugs entirely. But enforcing those laws will be uncharted territory, with new avenues for evading state bans as well as new legal challenges about whether federal or state law reigns supreme in some instances.”
In our interview, Freedman recommends that people looking to support the right to abortion access donate to groups subsidizing abortions. Hey Jane has pulled together a list of funds that you can donate to.
On the podcast, we discuss the role that tech companies can play in expanding access to abortion.
Give it a listen.
Read the automated transcript.
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:06
Welcome everybody. It's your dead cat for the week.
00:00:15
It's Tom dote on here joined by Eric newcomer and Katie Benner,
00:00:19
and our special. Guest this week is Kiki
00:00:21
Friedman. Kiki is the CEO of, hey Jane
00:00:25
which is a startup that provides abortion pills by mail.
00:00:29
So obviously, SLI. Very topical and company.
00:00:32
That is offering something that will be very much more in need
00:00:35
too many people in the coming months and years ahead.
00:00:39
So first of all, Kiki, thank you for joining us.
00:00:42
Thank you guys for having me. So before we get into all of the
00:00:45
reasons that your company is fascinating and too many people
00:00:50
vital, I think we should just give a better explanation of
00:00:53
what exactly. Hey Jane does, what sort of
00:00:56
person it is helping and trying to reach.
00:01:00
Yeah, let's just, let's just start there.
00:01:01
Great. And so, we are a digital clinic
00:01:04
for abortion access. I think, the first place to
00:01:07
start is, how do we do that? And it's through the abortion
00:01:10
pill, only one in five people right now know, with the
00:01:13
abortion Philly, but is so I could give a quick overview of
00:01:16
that. It's a set of medications that
00:01:18
have been approved by the FDA since 2000.
00:01:21
So, I've been around a while. Super super safe.
00:01:24
Actually have a lower adverse reaction rate than Tylenol and
00:01:28
very effective in that 90 percent. % they're approved for
00:01:31
use up to 11 weeks in the US, which is were the ninety percent
00:01:34
of abortions. And so, you know most patients
00:01:36
will be eligible for them though.
00:01:38
He did works. Is that folks can go online and
00:01:42
fill out a really easy sort of medical history consult and then
00:01:46
have a prescription confirmed by a licensed clinician.
00:01:49
Usually within 24 hours, the medications will then be mailed
00:01:52
to their home. Where they'll have lots of
00:01:54
information on how to take them and which I think most unique
00:01:58
about hey Jane is Route. They'll have access to On Demand
00:02:02
emotional support and online community.
00:02:05
Should they want it to be able to connect with others?
00:02:07
Going through the same thing? At the same time?
00:02:09
Is the ability to prescribe this through telemedicine?
00:02:12
New is that a pain? You know, we had an episode
00:02:14
about, you know, the ADHD medication.
00:02:17
So I'm just wondering is, is this also possible because of
00:02:21
telemedicine rules, or is it has been the case, that's a great
00:02:24
question. So, prior to covid it was sort
00:02:28
of Legally ambiguous, whether you're not the medications.
00:02:30
Could be dispensed via the mail it.
00:02:33
Basically, they had just been given in clinics, doctors
00:02:36
offices hospitals. But there'd been already some
00:02:39
strong momentum and research and policy making towards allowing,
00:02:44
you know, easier forms of access to align with the safety.
00:02:47
So there's a great study called the tella, worsen studied and
00:02:49
pre covid. And then at the beginning of
00:02:52
covid, the UK actually launched a large-scale offering and of
00:02:56
abortion pills by mail and the FDA.
00:03:00
Finally meet get permanently legal, just last December.
00:03:03
Let me start with the pills themselves because since we're
00:03:06
diving into like the, you know, medical industry part of it, is
00:03:09
this prescribed means it's a certain company that makes these
00:03:12
pills as their multiple providers of it.
00:03:14
Like what exactly is the business behind?
00:03:17
You know, the pills themselves, there's too many factors of it
00:03:21
and there's the sort of name brand manufacturer that's been
00:03:24
producing it since 2000. And that a generic came onto the
00:03:27
market Mentor recently, I believe in 2018, And it's
00:03:30
covered by health insurance. I mean, how much do these things
00:03:33
cost? Typically it depends.
00:03:34
So we see that the majority of abortion patients are within 200
00:03:39
percent of the federal poverty line.
00:03:41
And so we really look at Medicaid access as being the
00:03:44
most important indicator of insurance coverage.
00:03:48
There is something called the Hyde Amendment federally that
00:03:50
prevents Federal abortion funds from being used or federal funds
00:03:55
are being used to pay for or Downs.
00:03:57
Yeah. However, some states Provide
00:04:00
their own allocations of Medicaid funding to cover it.
00:04:03
So, long story short, it just depends based at the state
00:04:06
whether or not Medicaid will pay for services.
00:04:08
And if you're paying out of pocket, I mean.
00:04:10
How much is it? Paging is $249.
00:04:13
The national average is 550 and we also work with really great
00:04:17
abortion funds who are able to provide financial assistance, to
00:04:20
patients who can't afford it. Got it.
00:04:21
Have you yet created a large enough customer base to see any
00:04:24
Trends in the sorts of folks who are coming to you does it tend
00:04:27
to be people who skew younger Of skew older.
00:04:31
Yeah, these are of demographic information without giving away,
00:04:33
I know understand. They're obviously privacy issues
00:04:35
around patient privacy laws but just sort of in general like who
00:04:39
are you who you're reaching a new video?
00:04:40
Hope to reach. Yeah absolutely.
00:04:42
So we've served almost 10 patients now so we definitely
00:04:45
have some good data and what's really struck me as just the
00:04:49
diversity of our patient base. It really just does speak to the
00:04:52
fact that everyone gets abortion.
00:04:55
We see folks really approached the Gana in terms of Financial
00:04:58
Security in terms of I'm Urban versus rural in terms of
00:05:02
Education, etcetera, on average. Our patients are sort of in
00:05:05
their mid to late 20s and they are skewing a little bit more
00:05:08
urban, you know, like based in cities and pretty much aligned
00:05:13
with the national statistics on the average abortion patient.
00:05:16
And as of right now, this is going to get very different.
00:05:19
I imagine. Well, maybe not.
00:05:21
But what states that? Do you guys currently serve
00:05:24
people in? Like, where'd that people live?
00:05:26
Can they can access your service.
00:05:28
We're currently live in. Date so New York, California,
00:05:31
Washington, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico and we did pick
00:05:35
states that have the highest treatment volume but also some
00:05:38
that are just too tickly positioned to be those anchor
00:05:41
States in a post real world, where many people will need to
00:05:44
travel across state lines in order to get care.
00:05:46
Did you have to prove residency or what it?
00:05:49
You know, obviously this is an important sort of service
00:05:52
business generally, but in the context of a world where people
00:05:57
are going to be getting these pills, The rules will be
00:06:00
state-by-state, people's ability to move from state to state, is
00:06:04
so important. So just curious what's possible.
00:06:06
They're totally. So the log traditionally in
00:06:09
telemedicine, says that the patient must be located in the
00:06:12
state where your license in order to receive treatment.
00:06:15
So they do not need to be a resident at, right?
00:06:17
I've had two. I've told doctors that I was in
00:06:19
Connecticut when they were like, no, you're in New York.
00:06:24
Yes. We can only serve patients if
00:06:26
they're physically located in one of those six states and the
00:06:29
patients were Of a test of their location, the, our intake, by
00:06:32
saying I live in that state if they provide you know utility
00:06:36
bills or it's really just like check this box if you say you
00:06:38
live in Washington. Yeah they don't need to provide
00:06:41
and any proof of residency because they don't need to be a
00:06:43
resident they just need to be physically there at the time of
00:06:46
the treatment. Right?
00:06:46
Which is why you can legally leave the state of Texas for
00:06:49
example, to go to another place to get an abortion.
00:06:53
Exactly, exactly. No sense.
00:06:55
These are trying to get creative with this.
00:06:57
Missouri did recently included one of their The essentially
00:07:01
restrictions on traveling to another state to get care from
00:07:05
Missouri residents, which is quite disturbing, it sort of
00:07:08
unprecedented and I don't think we've seen anything like that
00:07:10
since like, you just slave laws. Yeah.
00:07:12
And so I think that that idea of what to do about leaving the
00:07:15
state and whether or not people will try to control physical
00:07:18
movement is something that will certainly be adjudicated.
00:07:22
You can imagine that if any state were to pass a law like
00:07:24
that, they're a lawsuit would immediately follow.
00:07:27
Yes, we have to Katie just because we do Do have you as an
00:07:30
x-ray? Can you give your like one
00:07:32
minute state of play on likelihood that the Supreme, you
00:07:36
know, where the opinion is? Or just your view?
00:07:39
I think most people believe that this summer will see a Roe
00:07:42
versus Wade be overturned and if for some reason not this summer
00:07:44
very very soon. I think that alito's opinion
00:07:48
shows a lot of intent and so anybody who thinks that you can
00:07:51
stop that train, they can stop that train.
00:07:53
I think those people are pretty delicious all.
00:07:55
That's that is wrong. That then throws the question of
00:07:58
abortion to the 50 state. Yours.
00:08:00
So again, if you will need an abortion rights, then you really
00:08:04
shouldn't looking at State legislatures, who becomes the
00:08:07
governor who is thin and who's making state law among the state
00:08:11
laws, several states have so-called trigger laws that are
00:08:14
set to go into effect, the minute row Falls boosts, it will
00:08:18
lose access to abortion. And then, of course, you've
00:08:20
Orchid, Mississippi has only one abortion clinic Texas has
00:08:23
essentially made the practice incredibly difficult to have so
00:08:27
much so that some people say that it's now, Actually Dan we
00:08:30
yeah, effectively banned. And so you'll see a large swath
00:08:34
of the country immediately. Rescinded, access to abortions.
00:08:39
And so the question then becomes one will people inevitably we've
00:08:44
already seen lots and lots of people travel across state lines
00:08:46
to receive the procedure to undergo the procedure or to
00:08:49
receive abortion medication to the big question and sort of the
00:08:54
next legal fight is around services.
00:08:56
Like, Kiki's, how do those Services continue to operate
00:08:59
Legally who do they serve and then even questions about how do
00:09:02
you advertise, which I'd be so curious to hear from you.
00:09:05
How do you advertise this service?
00:09:06
Even today in a world where it's not illegal and and you know,
00:09:11
about half the country and then three sort of what does the
00:09:16
fight look like on the ground state to state with the lunch
00:09:19
with legislators? Because Republicans have been
00:09:21
extremely good on the ground organizing a strong ground game
00:09:25
and taking back local governments and we should say, I
00:09:29
mean to kick Get back over to you.
00:09:30
Kiki. Like your company, obviously
00:09:32
launched several years ago, right?
00:09:34
But was it when you kind of conceived of this business and,
00:09:38
and this service was it with this day in mind, that one day,
00:09:42
there would be, you know, a Supreme Court decision,
00:09:45
overturning the basic right to an abortion that would affect
00:09:48
millions and millions of women across, you know, half the
00:09:51
states in this country. I think we definitely saw the
00:09:53
writing on the wall, that things were going to get a lot worse.
00:09:55
As Katie mentioned, there's no six states.
00:09:57
That have one abortion clinic left across the Our state, I
00:10:00
went to school in one of them and summary teen as summer.
00:10:03
2019, that clinic was almost shut down.
00:10:06
That's what sort of prompted, the work that I've been doing on
00:10:08
heating, but really, if you'd asked me that, if I got Road be
00:10:12
falling in the next few years, the answer is a definite.
00:10:14
No, I think how extreme and quickly said of these changes
00:10:18
have role in it. I've taken place has definitely
00:10:21
been surprising to be so but the specifics of your business like
00:10:24
Katie was mentioning like what happens to you.
00:10:28
Now I remember talking to you about, Out this company it was
00:10:31
like 20 21. It was a piece I had done about
00:10:34
like ubereats alumni. You went in a very different
00:10:37
direction. What what exactly is going to
00:10:40
materially change about the way you run this company, who it can
00:10:44
serve by Katie was saying how you Market it.
00:10:46
I mean, like what, what is the direct impact for you?
00:10:48
Yeah, so the present state of things is that there are 18
00:10:52
states that have already banned access to telemedicine abortion.
00:10:55
So we cannot serve patients in those States.
00:10:57
But unfortunately, in a poster World.
00:11:00
All of those States will be an abortion completely and so those
00:11:04
patients will need to travel to states where telemedicine is an
00:11:07
option and they are forecasting, that 26 seats in total will be
00:11:11
an abortion after row. And essentially, all of the
00:11:15
people who need treatments within the states will be, you
00:11:18
know, funneled into a much smaller number of geographies.
00:11:21
There are forecasting that California is expected to see a
00:11:24
three thousand percent increase in the number of out-of-state
00:11:27
patients. In Illinois, it's almost 9:00
00:11:29
thousand percent and the clinics.
00:11:32
There are just going to be experiencing a surge in demand.
00:11:34
That will be very very difficult for them to accommodate.
00:11:37
We're already hearing of increased wait times sometimes
00:11:39
two to three weeks for clinics and that can be untenable for a
00:11:44
time-sensitive treatment and one that also may come with quite a
00:11:47
bit of anxiety and eagerness to just, you know, get it done.
00:11:52
And so we view he Gene a survey you know a role in stepping in
00:11:56
and absorbing a lot of that excess demand creating a
00:11:59
Additional channel for access in addition to the enforcement
00:12:03
context, which I want to emphasize are such an important
00:12:05
part of this ecosystem and needs to continue existing, no matter
00:12:10
what. And telemedicine will not be a
00:12:12
Panacea for everything, but certainly having an additional
00:12:15
and potentially more scalable form of choice will be will be
00:12:19
necessary. This is a basic what?
00:12:21
But the pills need to be prescribed or yeah.
00:12:25
And then if you are going to a clinic, Even during this sort of
00:12:31
early period. Where the pill Works, would they
00:12:35
prescribe a pill or would they have sort of a different
00:12:37
solution? Yeah, it depends on the clinic
00:12:39
but certainly many of them do prescribed medication abortion
00:12:42
in person? Yeah, you know, it's speaking
00:12:44
about geography also. I one more thing I want to note,
00:12:47
we talk about the State Legislative battles.
00:12:49
I think it's important never to resume which states will allow
00:12:53
abortions and which will not. I think New York is probably the
00:12:56
most interesting example, when you look at projections.
00:12:59
Of New York State elections over the next few Cycles.
00:13:04
New York could very well become a purple State.
00:13:06
And I think Heroes even just two years ago, people who could
00:13:09
never Envision York being anything but blue.
00:13:12
And so I think it is really so keep in my even like a purple
00:13:16
State though. You think it's possible that
00:13:17
they would take a step to Outlaw something like telemedicine.
00:13:20
Abortions, guess so d'you know. So again like this is when I say
00:13:25
this is going to be a legislative state by State
00:13:27
Legislative bottle, I really I do think that there's going to
00:13:30
be a lot of activity around abortion, and it's going to sort
00:13:34
informing State elections. Now, keep in mind, again, I
00:13:37
think I would argue Republicans been much better at paying
00:13:40
attention to what's going on state to state and trying to win
00:13:42
Governor's Mansions. I'm trying to win legislature so
00:13:45
that's important to look at but also on geography, you know,
00:13:48
Kiki, you're starting a company. I remember when I was covering
00:13:52
the valley ages ago, it was the question was, do you have to be
00:13:56
in the valley in San Francisco or even Allah in order to Start
00:14:00
a company to answer during the pandemic was a resounding though
00:14:03
and people flock to Texas and Florida.
00:14:07
Interestingly among other states, will it start to matter
00:14:11
to startups? Now where they establish
00:14:14
themselves for your own employee base for the kind of culture you
00:14:17
want to have? Will people think twice about
00:14:19
being in states that have banned something like abortion or even
00:14:22
looking ahead states, that raised questions about things
00:14:24
like same-sex marriage, which is also product made in a similar
00:14:27
reading of the Fourteenth Amendment that row is predicated
00:14:29
on. You know, so will your location
00:14:31
become a bigger question? I would have to think so.
00:14:35
I mean, besides sort of like the justice and rights issue of it
00:14:38
all there are real Economic Consequences to it.
00:14:41
We've already seen a number of large companies, like, Amazon,
00:14:44
and City, roll out travel, reimbursement for patients, who
00:14:48
need to prostate lines in order to get abortion care and one in
00:14:52
Four Women and, you know, other people with uteruses, will get
00:14:55
an abortion in their lives. It's not a fringe treatment and
00:14:58
so if you're needing to To our ball of these additional costs.
00:15:01
Let alone a loss in productivity from patients you know traveling
00:15:05
for many days in order to get care that significant and that's
00:15:08
sort of like the cold bottom line and view on it.
00:15:12
I think also we do see employees of tech companies.
00:15:15
Care a lot about this and I think may not want to
00:15:18
participate in a culture that is so restrictive on this and, you
00:15:21
know, potentially other issues moving forward.
00:15:23
What's your sense by the way on the response by tech companies
00:15:27
to very, I mean, to them, Employees.
00:15:30
But also signal more publicly that they are going to be
00:15:33
covering the cost of crossing state lines to get abortions if
00:15:37
they if they so need. I mean you know in one sense
00:15:41
you've seen Amazon and I believe Starbucks or two.
00:15:43
That come to mind. You probably have a list of
00:15:45
others that have said, they're willing to do that the same
00:15:48
time. There was a story that was in
00:15:50
The Verge, I think the other day that brought up, that on
00:15:54
Facebook, they are highly encouraging.
00:15:56
I don't even need it stricter than that too.
00:15:59
Admonishing employees to not discuss abortion on workplace
00:16:03
slack. So, you know, in one sense you
00:16:04
want to make it clear that it's a benefit.
00:16:06
These companies probably still even allow that as a benefit to,
00:16:09
You Know, cover crossing state lines to to receive the
00:16:12
treatment or care, but also they don't really want to discuss it
00:16:16
for fear of antagonizing or alienating.
00:16:18
The people who are morally opposed to it.
00:16:20
And where does text sit on that kind of spectrum.
00:16:23
Continuum, that is really interesting.
00:16:24
I will stay on after SBA. For example, the you know,
00:16:29
Texas. Glad that didn't portion after
00:16:31
six weeks. There is kind of a deafening
00:16:33
Silence from Tech across the board.
00:16:35
Right there were a few exceptions and but it was pretty
00:16:38
quiet in terms of responses. So I will say, I was pleasantly
00:16:42
surprised to see some of these companies step up and offer to
00:16:44
support their employees and traveling to get care.
00:16:48
I think they've gotten critique. You know they always could do
00:16:50
more but on an issue that folks have really been scared to talk
00:16:55
about at all. I think I'm happy too.
00:16:58
We'll take what we can get. He picked a happy to see at
00:17:01
least that acknowledgement. Well, I just see these companies
00:17:04
don't really know how to, you know, they're trying to walk
00:17:07
this line of expressing. What would be the moral outrage
00:17:11
of their employees? But also not trying to alienate
00:17:13
the people that could blow up into some media Firestorm on,
00:17:18
including their own employees. By the way some of their
00:17:21
employees are anti-choice. Some of their employees agree
00:17:25
with the overturning Roe versus Wade.
00:17:26
I don't think we can forget that.
00:17:28
I mean, so, Obviously, I've been thinking a lot about feminism
00:17:33
and what's terrible is happening more broadly.
00:17:35
And I go back to, you know an essay that was written by Joan
00:17:39
Didion where she talks about you know at the height of feminism
00:17:44
as we know from the mid-century this she validly questions.
00:17:49
The idea that any movement can capture a whole group of people
00:17:53
just because they all happen to have a uterus and why and sort
00:17:57
of the contortions the knees. Made for feminism to be relevant
00:18:01
to people who don't want it to be relevant to them.
00:18:03
And it was a really smart insightful.
00:18:07
Some questions that were never really answered.
00:18:09
I think, at the time, she posed them and we've seen successive
00:18:13
waves of feminism, common goal. And now we're at a point where
00:18:17
we're dealing with legal questions, run a medical
00:18:20
procedure but that really does speak to the heart of.
00:18:23
Can we make assumptions about groups of people simply because
00:18:26
they share a physical characteristic in this case
00:18:29
because they were At a certain kind of company.
00:18:30
So, I think the time is right. The companies are walking a
00:18:34
tightrope, but it's not just because they're trying to handle
00:18:36
it, internal conversation versus an excellent, General
00:18:39
conversation. I think that it would be wrong
00:18:42
to say that the internal conversation at a company that
00:18:45
has many employees is meta or alphabet formerly known as
00:18:49
Facebook and Google the but that they all those employees feel
00:18:54
the same way. Just throwing that out.
00:18:55
There is a caveat. Yeah and I think they'd be much
00:18:58
happier sort of They would rather no one ever discussed,
00:19:01
controversial topics, including abortion, ever, they know, but
00:19:05
they almost would feel much more comfortable providing this as a
00:19:08
benefit. I think, then they would ever
00:19:11
having people discuss it because it's a perk for the people who
00:19:14
want it and they can avoid what they view is like the toxic
00:19:17
workplace slack discussions. That they view is like, so
00:19:20
detrimental to productivity and morale.
00:19:22
And all of these issues Capital Areas, like we were saying
00:19:25
earlier, for hopped on line. It's like if I pop into my
00:19:29
Slack, A core group and I'm like, guys, I'm going to be out
00:19:31
on Friday because I have a dentist appointment.
00:19:33
I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed and be like, all right,
00:19:35
see you on Monday. If I pop in nose, like, I'm out
00:19:38
Friday, because I'm getting an abortion.
00:19:39
I'm probably going to be fine by Monday.
00:19:41
See you later. Like, what does a, what does the
00:19:45
company do with that conversation, right?
00:19:47
How do they treat it? If when there's no question of
00:19:50
legality, it was one thing, right?
00:19:52
When you could say that while in every state abortions, legal to,
00:19:57
at least some extent, there be nothing.
00:19:59
Be done. But if you're in a state where
00:20:01
it's illegal, is that Ben Akin to saying, guys, I gotta go
00:20:04
cause I'm going to shoot up. I'm going to use heroin all day
00:20:06
Friday and I'll see you on Monday, you know, like life on
00:20:10
its face at legal hacked. Right.
00:20:12
Right. I mean like it rolls into the
00:20:14
you know, almost the mentality of don't ask.
00:20:16
Don't tell they seemed fine to allow it to happen on some level
00:20:20
they just don't want to be aware of it as far as that part goes.
00:20:24
I mean like to even put it to a more like crafts business
00:20:26
question for you Kiki. Are you working with any of
00:20:29
these Companies, have you gotten Outreach from medium to large,
00:20:32
tech companies that are trying to tell their employees?
00:20:35
We've got you covered. If this is what you need.
00:20:38
I mean, is this a business opportunity?
00:20:41
We have not received Outreach directly from any of the
00:20:43
companies yet. But interestingly, we have seen
00:20:46
interest from insurers. So some of the payers, that
00:20:49
support these larger companies and particularly on, self paid
00:20:52
plans, they do seem to be expressing quite a bit of
00:20:55
appetite, for new ways to get their employees access to the
00:20:58
surface and I wouldn't be surprised if we do start seeing
00:21:01
more direct Outreach soon and we've historically, we thought
00:21:05
about it. As you, visit mentioned, thought
00:21:06
it was simply too controversial to be a B2B product and Crest
00:21:10
terms, but it does seem like that.
00:21:12
Is beginning to shift your startup, it's raise Capital.
00:21:16
What can you talk about? Sort of how much you've raised
00:21:19
and sort of the strategy there. But then there's also, you know,
00:21:23
a cause component where there are lots of people sort of, who
00:21:26
believe in it. Are there ways for people to
00:21:29
support Ort, you financially Beyond getting on the cap table,
00:21:32
or sort of how how do you think about sort of straddling the,
00:21:37
where normal Corporation and obviously there's a sort of,
00:21:40
well, well of people who want to support us anyway.
00:21:43
Yeah, so we raised three point six million last year and our
00:21:47
seed round. We got a really awesome, sort of
00:21:49
Syndicate of angels and existing groups.
00:21:53
You are all super aligned with the mission and just very, very
00:21:55
supportive of the work. So our super grateful for them.
00:21:58
And in terms of ways to Or heat Jean.
00:22:01
I think the donating to abortion funds is one of the best in
00:22:04
people can be doing right now and we partner with several in
00:22:07
the seats that were in and there are really great but I'm sort of
00:22:10
across the country. And those allow us to give free
00:22:13
care to patients who need it. There are also practical support
00:22:16
organizations. It's called tool.
00:22:18
I'm help patients cover. The cost of travel which is of
00:22:21
course, becoming increasingly relevant one other thing that
00:22:24
we've been thinking about a lot recently and could always use
00:22:27
support on sort of to what Katie Talking about earlier, is while
00:22:31
we see a lot of the Hostile States passing, these really
00:22:34
restrictive and Draconian bills at to beat a restrict access to
00:22:38
abortion. Some of them were Progressive
00:22:40
States like New York, California, Connecticut.
00:22:42
I've been passing protective measures to sort of counter
00:22:45
balances and limit the degree to which abortion providers or
00:22:50
other folks. Assisting with abortion access
00:22:52
could get sued by some of these other jurisdictions civilly or
00:22:55
criminally whatever. And so letting your local And
00:22:59
governments know that this is important as really helpful.
00:23:02
I mean, I just keep thinking about people going to Nevada, or
00:23:06
whatever to get a divorce or annulment.
00:23:09
I mean, now it's like or married, you know.
00:23:11
Now, all of a sudden, I don't know.
00:23:14
Yeah. Democrats are going to be
00:23:15
obsessed with retaining. Their blue states rights to
00:23:20
serve people in red City. I mean, if they weren't already
00:23:24
sort of touched on this with the corporate thing and, you know,
00:23:28
you don't necessarily need to have a strong opinion but I'm
00:23:30
curious. I mean, do you do you think
00:23:31
employees should demand that their employer, a tech company?
00:23:36
It you know, provide services for abortion or comes out as
00:23:40
sort of pro-choice explicitly or do you think that's sort of too
00:23:44
much to ask? I do think that abortion is
00:23:46
Healthcare and it again 14 women have people theaters, this will
00:23:50
get one. So I do think then covering it
00:23:53
is a must if they're gonna be offering robust Health Care
00:23:55
Services, whether or not they have to make a personal
00:23:58
statement on their opinions on I feel that I eat it, I feel as
00:24:00
strongly about, but they should absolutely be supporting access
00:24:03
to health care for their employees.
00:24:04
And this is a key part of it makes sense.
00:24:07
What's interesting is, the more we talked about this, it kind
00:24:09
of, it is very much within the capability of tech companies and
00:24:13
specifically the kind of consumer base, sharing economy,
00:24:16
type companies to provide National access to people.
00:24:21
And I think you've seen some movements towards that.
00:24:23
I don't know if Airbnb is explicitly said they're willing
00:24:25
to house someone for free that is crossing state lines to
00:24:28
receive an abortion. In, but they could, will it, you
00:24:31
know, they've offered up housing for Ukrainian refugees and other
00:24:35
people dealing with geopolitical crises, Uber and Lyft, could
00:24:38
very easily. And I don't want to speak
00:24:40
completely out of turn, right? I think they may have made some
00:24:42
gestures again towards this, but they could provide, you know,
00:24:46
assuming the driver would want to be on board with that
00:24:49
transportation for people. And it reminds me of the
00:24:52
conversation. We had a couple months back
00:24:53
about Spotify and how, you know, we've sort of out sourced
00:24:57
questions around free speech to Asians and having them kind of
00:25:00
adjudicate what is or isn't allowed to be discussed.
00:25:04
And where the line is drawn, and who should be responsible for
00:25:08
deciding when speech goes too far, the same exact thing could
00:25:13
happen with with abortion, and with tech companies.
00:25:15
And it's relatively easy probably to restrict or to set
00:25:20
lines around Free Speech, because that's just a matter of
00:25:22
turning an account off. But for something like this,
00:25:24
where real money real physical people, you're moving them
00:25:27
around, there's Logistics on the line.
00:25:29
Here, let's like, let's see what you do here like, let's see
00:25:32
where your morals, actually, stay, and how far you're willing
00:25:34
to go. The one, the one caution though,
00:25:36
Tom is keep in mind, states have proposed making it punishable to
00:25:41
Aid or abet. A person was receiving an
00:25:44
abortion. So what you've just described
00:25:45
could for some States run afoul of those laws by aiding and
00:25:49
abetting. Somebody who wants to get an
00:25:51
abortion? Well, I thought this was Supreme
00:25:53
Court was vociferous. Defender of corporate speech,
00:25:57
being free speech, and deploying.
00:25:59
Money being a form of exercising speech.
00:26:02
So you would think corporations expressing their first amendment
00:26:07
principles with their pocketbooks would be the most
00:26:11
thing I was most American thing you could do with conservatives
00:26:15
but that's very different from but that's different from
00:26:18
giving, somebody Free Housing who's left their state to get an
00:26:22
abortion. And is that then eating and
00:26:24
abetting, somebody who is committing an illegal act,
00:26:26
because keep in mind, soon this will be an illegal Eagle Act
00:26:30
Right In many states. So we're not talking about Free
00:26:32
Speech, free speech is not illegal anywhere.
00:26:34
But I mean, the trees. This is abortion will literally
00:26:37
be illegal in several States. And if you're helping people to
00:26:39
break a state law, that is that depending on how the laws are
00:26:44
written state, where you're helping them, go to another
00:26:46
state and depending on how the laws are written in certain
00:26:49
states, that could be a punishable act as well.
00:26:52
I guess like the Fugitive Slave Law.
00:26:54
Basically thank you very much. It's a great example.
00:26:56
This is not a simple, something awesome speech.
00:26:59
Symbol. I'm being, I'm being cute and I
00:27:01
think I mean, I relations who feel very bold today.
00:27:05
Their General councils are going to be looking hard at all of
00:27:08
these state laws that get passed to figure out exactly what they
00:27:10
can do. Because they probably will be
00:27:13
disinclined to run afoul of the law.
00:27:17
That says may be aiding and abetting some.
00:27:18
Yeah, I think a lot of these states make it punishable to Aid
00:27:22
and abet, regardless of whether you did so knowingly.
00:27:25
So in the case of Texas, for example, there was a lot of
00:27:27
attention on the idea of an Uber driver.
00:27:29
We're dropping someone off near an abortion clinic potentially
00:27:32
unaware that they did that a new bird.
00:27:34
Lift, both did a believe launch live with legal, defense funds
00:27:38
for that type of scenario. But all of the the structure of
00:27:41
these laws is just so new and sort of untested that I think
00:27:44
the tech companies that and dealing with the physical world
00:27:47
in any way are going to be running up against them whether
00:27:50
they like it or not. Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:52
Absolutely, because the question is for them.
00:27:54
How hard do they want to try to test the limits of these laws?
00:27:58
And now, a lot of these companies aren't that Flush,
00:28:00
frankly. So you know how much they really
00:28:02
want to invest at times, that their stock prices are
00:28:04
plummeting in, you know, arguing novel legal defenses to why they
00:28:09
should be allowed to do, and perform these Services.
00:28:11
Could seem a huge distraction of financial, but at the same time,
00:28:16
if you truly are so in favor of the, you know, these
00:28:20
possibilities, these legalities for the broader public that you
00:28:24
serve stand for it, push for it. I mean, I'm not saying it's
00:28:28
easy, but but it seems a lot easier to put out a press
00:28:31
release or two very nominally provide low level services to
00:28:35
people, but something harder to like, truly be a part of the
00:28:38
legal cause that could provide the foundational support for
00:28:41
these people. I mean, I just think we've
00:28:43
gotten to a point where a lot of these tech companies have core
00:28:47
values. Sort of Express opinions about
00:28:49
all sorts of things and yeah it seems perfectly reasonable that
00:28:54
it would be sort of open supporters of choice.
00:28:59
Given that most of their employees support Choice.
00:29:02
Yeah, I mean, I can see why they don't want to do it, but, but
00:29:05
that seems perfectly in line with, you know, taking a stance
00:29:08
and lots of other issues. Well, it's interesting.
00:29:10
Also when these issues also cross, with other causes that
00:29:14
they're not in favor of so Amazon.
00:29:16
For example, announced that they were going to provide, you know,
00:29:18
abortion access for all of their employees but not for the people
00:29:21
that are not full-time. Now there's like practical
00:29:24
reasons for that which is that these people probably don't have
00:29:26
Amazon run health insurance, so So it might not be as simple as
00:29:30
to say or sort of saying our Amazon health care plan provides
00:29:34
for, you know, that sort of support but they could is the
00:29:37
thing. But then it crossed into another
00:29:39
line of like well are these people employees?
00:29:41
Do they need to be given rights Beyond just those of, you know,
00:29:44
1099 contractors and they're definitely not going to cross
00:29:47
that line anytime soon. Like, that's a, that's a hard
00:29:49
one for them. Can you talk about, I mean,
00:29:52
what's the scale that you're operating at right now?
00:29:56
And I mean, are there big medical companies that Competing
00:30:00
with you or what? Yeah, why why should a start-up
00:30:03
deliver this service? Instead of a traditional, I
00:30:06
don't know medical company. Yeah.
00:30:09
So there aren't any huge medical companies, doing telemedicine,
00:30:13
abortion, and the way that in the way that we are that, you
00:30:16
know, that it makes it fully digital.
00:30:19
There are other groups students offering similar products, but
00:30:24
it is new, there is that recent regulatory shift that's just
00:30:26
sort of made it possible. And I think there is also So
00:30:29
just across all of healthcare, a lot of Legacy momentum that
00:30:33
limits piloting is deaf. We have already seen quite a
00:30:37
steep increase in demand since the row memo leaked.
00:30:40
I think in part because more people are becoming aware of
00:30:42
this as an option, but also I think people are seeking out new
00:30:47
forms of excess. So sort of an unfortunate in the
00:30:52
rear lighting but definitely expecting demand to go up.
00:30:54
And did you say already how your offer to sizing to increase?
00:30:57
Customer your CO2? Write your customer base.
00:31:00
Yeah. So since you Google search it
00:31:02
said, you know, people are actively seeking out a solution
00:31:05
and and so they find us primarily through Google.
00:31:08
I think you asked earlier about maybe ability to advertise in
00:31:11
some of the states where some of the more hostile States.
00:31:15
The lawyers are still looking into that again, this is all so
00:31:17
new do but it seems as if that may dot be advisable, given sort
00:31:22
of some of the aiding and abetting restrictions that
00:31:24
extends but due to wonderful journalists.
00:31:27
Like you guys and social media, I think there has been more
00:31:31
visibility to. Hey, Jade, another telemedicine
00:31:33
models in those states. Are you surprised at all at?
00:31:37
I mean, you came to this like you said having worked or maybe,
00:31:40
like I said you were at ubereats for for your one of the earlier,
00:31:43
people that worked on that product and I think you were
00:31:46
running businesses in like Amia. So kind of like the more out
00:31:50
there extensions of ubereats has territories, the kind of more
00:31:54
ideological and cause based approach that a lot of tech
00:31:58
employees. Adopted in the last couple of
00:32:00
years, it seemed like, you know, the focus on growth and
00:32:04
transformational companies purely.
00:32:06
And like we can be very large and make a lot of money to find
00:32:10
a large era of text or the one that Katie and Eric, and I have
00:32:13
been been writing about, but are we moving towards a point now,
00:32:16
where you we are going to see more, you know, Tech employees,
00:32:19
start companies or be involved in, you know, capitalistic
00:32:23
Enterprises towards specific causes like yours, I hope so.
00:32:26
And there does seem to be quite a bit of research that that
00:32:29
consumers are valuing companies that have a strong social
00:32:32
Mission more. So I think you can support it
00:32:34
from a capitalistic justification.
00:32:36
But I also do think there's been a recognition of some of the
00:32:39
problematic Nature's of hyper growth and also just serving
00:32:43
underserved markets, can be really good business in addition
00:32:46
to serving an important social purpose.
00:32:48
Cool. I mean, if Hadrian were to grow
00:32:52
like, do you think eventually you would grow in the
00:32:54
telemedicine space or do you think you would grow into sort
00:32:58
of more Services around abortion or like yeah, what's obviously,
00:33:06
we're mostly interested in sort of the cause element, but as a
00:33:09
diligent startup reporter, what is the Tam for this business?
00:33:12
It seems so it's been really interesting since launching UGA.
00:33:18
And one of the things we've noticed is that we have like the
00:33:21
highest NPS of any telemedicine company that we've seen and has
00:33:25
been net promoter score sort of customer satisfaction.
00:33:28
And I think one of the reasons for that is because we've
00:33:30
developed a model that layers on emotional support and Community
00:33:35
Support over this core clinical experience and people seem to
00:33:39
really, really like it as opposed to traditional digital
00:33:42
Clinic models. That may be more transactional.
00:33:44
So now we are really excited to think about applying that model
00:33:48
to other underserved treatment. We actually just started,
00:33:50
testing into postpartum depression, which again is
00:33:53
extraordinarily common and also sort of ignored by the
00:33:55
healthcare system today and we have some other Big Ideas
00:33:59
Additional treatments in the future.
00:34:01
Hmm. Or investors like ever proposed
00:34:03
you be like why don't you just spend more time on that?
00:34:05
That's so much less controversial here, there are so
00:34:08
few Supreme Court decisions that could affect the growth of a y
00:34:11
plus part of depression. I side from Tom Cruise in
00:34:14
Scientology the name sort of locks you in right.
00:34:17
I mean is it? Hey Jane I mean it's like it's
00:34:21
like there's a sort of abortion advocacy reverence they're right
00:34:25
or what sort of the origin of the name.
00:34:27
Yeah I mean the name Jane has been Used I think throughout
00:34:30
abortion access in history. There's the Jane Collective
00:34:33
jinro, of course. And so, we're just trying to
00:34:35
sort of give a nod to that Historical Park that were now
00:34:38
building off of if you were to, you know, tell people that are
00:34:41
interested who maybe are not, you know, just being made aware
00:34:44
of your service, but want to support it in some way or the
00:34:47
other, I mean, can you direct us towards a couple of sites or
00:34:50
causes or people that we should check out?
00:34:53
Yeah, absolutely. We posted a bunch of resources
00:34:55
on our site at he doing .ko and on our Instagram at you.
00:34:59
Inhale, and with some great abortion funds to donate to and
00:35:02
other actions that you can take to sort of drive forward access.
00:35:06
The other thing you could do is just let people know that the
00:35:08
abortion pill exists and that options like hey Jane are out
00:35:10
there, we still see one in five people know about the abortion
00:35:13
pill and said we really want to make sure people are aware that
00:35:16
it's an option for them. Great, Kiki.
00:35:18
Thank you so much for joining. I'm sure it's a crazy busy time,
00:35:21
a lot of stuff changing that you have to deal with that.
00:35:24
We all have to deal with so some more than others but thank you
00:35:27
so much for joining and yeah. Yeah, we'll yeah.
00:35:30
Thank you so much for coming out.
00:35:31
Super, thank you guys, I really appreciate it.
00:35:45
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
00:35:48
Goodbye. Goodbye.
00:35:29
Yeah, we'll yeah. Thank you so much for coming
00:35:31
out. Super, thank you guys, I really
00:35:33
appreciate it. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
00:35:47
goodbye. Goodbye.
00:35:49
Goodbye.