ICYMI
ICYMI: Sen. Tina Smith Discusses Reproductive Freedom, Resisting Authoritarianism, and Defending Democracy on My Body. My Pod.
ICYMI: Sen. Tina Smith Discusses Reproductive Freedom, Resisting Authoritarianism, and Defending Democracy on My Body. My Pod.
Mini Timmaraju and Senator Tina Smith: When Fear Blocks Access to Care: Repro Freedom & Defeating Authoritarianism
This week on My Body. My Pod., Senator Tina Smith joined Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju to talk about the resilience of Minnesotans in the face of escalating violence, the challenges of accessing reproductive care as ICE raids intensify, and Senate Democrats’ fight to defend essential health care for people across the country.
Timmaraju and Smith began by discussing what’s happening on the ground in Minnesota. Trump and his allies are targeting, surveilling, and subjecting undocumented people, immigrants, and people of color to state-sanctioned violence. Minnesota has become a litmus test to see how far they can push their power. As midterm elections approach, Republicans are attempting to wield fear and intimidation as tools to suppress voter turnout.
As Smith described, “It’s actually worse on the ground than what you see because it is not just a few isolated incidents. It is day after day after day, communities being terrorized by these roving bands of masked secret police immigration agents that have been pulling people literally out of their cars. They’re just going after folks that they think look like they might be immigrants.”
Timmaraju connected how that fear reaches into exam rooms and clinics, affecting access to abortion, prenatal care, and basic health care. When communities are being terrorized, meaningful reproductive freedom cannot exist in practice. According to recent reporting from The 19th, the heightened presence of ICE agents, especially near hospitals and clinics, is now driving pregnant immigrants in Minnesota to skip critical prenatal care altogether out of fear that a doctor’s appointment could lead to detainment.
“When folks asked us, well why is this something you’re engaging in? I’m like…the freedom to decide if, when, and how to have a family. The freedom to have a family includes freedom from state terrorism, right? Freedom to raise your children, freedom to take your kid to daycare, to go to your prenatal care clinic, to get to your Planned Parenthood for your basic wellness checks.
And women, pregnant women, in Minnesota and Minneapolis have not been able to make it to their appointments. Pregnant folks who’ve been detained by ICE haven’t been getting access to their maternal health,” Timmaraju said.
While this harm is unfolding in Minnesota, local communities are rolling up their sleeves and organizing to demand accountability and resist policies that threaten safety, democracy, and Midwestern values. Minnesotans have turned out in full force to protect their neighbors.
The same bad actors working to intimidate communities on the ground are also working to strip away access to affordable health care nationwide. At the federal level, Smith and her Democratic colleagues in the Senate are battling attacks on health care as anti-abortion extremists continue to drag out a months-long fight to extend ACA tax credits—forcing millions of Americans to face skyrocketing insurance premiums.
As Smith pointed out, voters are paying attention. And that has paved a clear pathway for major gains in the Senate during the 2026 election cycle.
“The Dobbs decision, as terrible as it was, flipped something in people’s brains about whether or not we really think as a country that people should have control over their own bodies and their own lives,” Smith said.
“We saw when you lose that ability to make your own decisions about your healthcare and your body and your lives and abortion, and you have politicians making those decisions, bad things happen. Women get sick and die. People lose their lives. People lose their ability to control their own destiny. And so my view is that we need to continue pushing that. It’s a fundamental question of freedom.”
That fundamental question now sits at the center of the 2026 election cycle. People in Minnesota—and across the country—have made clear that this coordinated attack on their rights is unacceptable. And when given the opportunity at the ballot box, they will show up to defend those rights.
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.