ASRM Today: Advocacy and Activism

On this episode, we kick off a new season of ASRM Today, a season that will focus on reproductive rights and reproductive justice in reproductive medicine. On this episode, I talk with Jessie Losch from our Washington, D.C. headquarters, who is ASRM Director of Government Affairs, about the current climate and role of advocacy and activism in reproductive medicine. 

Welcome to ASRM Today, a podcast that takes a deeper dive into the current topics in reproductive medicine. I'm Jeffrey Hayes, and this season we are focusing on reproductive rights and reproductive justice. For our first episode today, I wanted to check in with Jessie Losch, who's our ASRM Director of Government Affairs, to talk about the current temperature of advocacy and activism in reproductive medicine.

Here's my interview with Jessie. Advocacy groups often push for change, right, in policy, in public opinion. From our office's perspective, you know, how much influence do they really have? I think that our listeners, our members, and I really mean this, have more power than we do, than policy groups, because they are the affected population.

You know, they're the people for whom policy would make a difference and can speak to that difference personally, and what we really try to do is to send our members to their own representatives. So it's one thing when me, you know, representing ASRM, not a doctor, first of all, from, you know, our national office goes in to speak to a legislator, and that's fine, and we do that often, but it is a totally other thing when I can send one of our doctors to their own representative. So now they're a constituent and a voter who can speak to the specifics of potential legislation.

That moves the needle way more. They can also answer questions. I think, you know, most of the time, your elected official is not an expert on the type of legislation that they're passing, and they really rely on the expertise of their constituents.

So we'll get questions from legislative staff about, you know, PGT or, you know, ART because they don't know, you know, so we send our members in, and our members can answer specific questions. And that, I mean, every week that translates into policy, because if we don't have that expert voice, then a piece of legislation is going to miss something, or it's going to define something inappropriately, or it's, you know, going to have to go into regulations to figure out compliance. If I get to send in a member who can say, in actuality, passing this piece of legislation would mean that everybody has to do IUI 27 times standing on their head, we can fix that.

Yeah, it sounds like it can get a little complicated. Is it complicated when sort of the medical community meets this advocacy sort of mindset? Such a good question. I don't know if, you know what, I think that that's where we really try to do our best to use that to create those relationships and also make the relationship as streamlined as possible.

So it could be complicated if you're sending, it's almost like two people who don't speak the same language. You know, you have a legislative staffer and you have a doctor and you really, we sort of aim to be the interpreters in between that. We will make the connection.

We'll make the connection with the right staffer so you don't have a doctor speaking to like the staffer in charge of taxes. We'll send them to the health staffer. We'll prep both sides.

What I hope is that our Office of Public Affairs can really make the process as simple as it really should be. What kinds of advocacy efforts seem to actually move the needle, as it were, that in our experience, like the Office of Public Affairs and everything like, what have you seen that sort of seems to work? Stories work. And as you know, I think that, you know, it's one thing to go in with reams of data and we do that.

It's not to say like you do need that, that backup, especially when you're speaking about like, you know, cost benefit analysis. It is helpful to have that data, but data does not, data doesn't move. I mean, I shouldn't generalize.

Maybe there are two people who are moved by data and I'm not one of them. I think stories that really show the human impact matter so much more or matters is the wrong choice of word. I think really move people so much more.

I think stories can humanize the data, can provide more of an impulse to move legislation. I think a lot of times, like my former boss would have, you know, tens, sometimes more pieces of legislation that she was thinking about and you don't have the bandwidth, you know, one legislator doesn't have the bandwidth to move that many pieces of legislation of policy. So when you can attach stories to a piece of policy, that one sort of moves to the front of the pack.

If you could say that, like, you know, this legislation on hubcaps, I don't know why that boring one came to my head. You know, we have that we have the hubcap legislation on your desk, but we also have this, you know, fertility preservation mandate. And we've heard from three providers who talked about their dozens of patients who would be impacted.

The hubcaps are not going to move. But you're also empowering that legislator to speak to their peers. And I think that really matters because, you know, it's you need you need co-sponsors, you need votes.

And so when you send in, you know, when one of our members can send their legislator to the floor with that rich history behind the piece of legislation, then you're you're helping them. You know, you're allowing them to say, I've heard from my constituents and your constituents are affected as well. So you really like what our members are doing is it's like that ripple effect.

You know, they tell one story and that story goes, you know, around the around the halls of Congress, as it were. Yeah. So looking to the future, this is this is a complicated time.

Do I have to look to the future? OK, fine. Let's do it. Let's look to the future.

Let's look to the future. Let's be optimistic. Where do you think advocacy could make the biggest difference in especially in our field? I think aside from obviously the biggest differences is, you know, the day to day that our that our members provide to their patients.

Aside from that, I really think not just because it's my job, but I really think that advocacy has the greatest possibility for impact, especially in this moment, in this pandemic, when the focus of national and state attention is on not only reproductive medicine, but IVF in particular, when and that's that can lead to so many things that can lead to expansion or restrictions. We are responsible for where that goes. You know, if it's not our stories and our voices and our expertise, and I'm privileged to put myself in that, but that is the members, you know, when it's not our members expertise leading the conversation, then we are then that can be derailed.

That can go in any possible direction. So it really is. I think it's it's our advocacy that is going to ensure that IVF is not restricted, that hopefully access is expanded and protected, that more and more people have coverage and also education and information about it.

That is all advocacy and that is all ASRM members. That was Jessie Losch, and I want to thank her for her time. Please make sure to subscribe and rate the show on whatever podcast platform you prefer.

And until next time, I'm Jeffrey Hayes and this is ASRM Today. This concludes this episode of ASRM Today. For show notes, author information and discussions, go to ASRMtoday.org. This material is copyrighted by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and may not be reproduced or used without express consent from ASRM.

ASRM Today series podcasts are supported in part by the ASRM Corporate Member Council. The information and opinions expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of ASRM and its affiliates. These are provided as a source of general information and are not a substitute for consultation with a physician.