Kellen Squire: Abortion Politics in the Spotlight
This week, Michael is joined by Kellen Squire, an emergency care nurse and a candidate running in the Democratic primary for Virginia's 55th state House District. Squire recently came under fire for a 2017 draft of his campaign website that claimed he was "pro-life," only to advocate for progressive policies rather than restriction of abortion access. Squire says the framing was intended to build credibility with Republican voters who agree with progressive positions (such as providing maternal care, school lunches, and sex education)--and that he dropped the tactic shortly after receiving feedback that it would backfire. In this episode, Squire explicitly rules out any restrictions on abortion access and discusses the criticism from his primary opponent, who he says was aware of his position before the most recent wave of of media attention. Content Warning: This episode includes a description of an ectopic pregnancy and abortion. Note: this episode includes some distorted audio. When asked about 35 minutes into the episode whether he supports any restrictions on abortion, the first word of Squire's response is "No."
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope. And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast that is your source for the latest developments in this year's primaries. And boy, howdy do we have some developments in the last few weeks; one particular primary has become red hot with accusations and counter-accusations. And we're joined by the candidate at the center of it all. He is running for the Democratic nomination for the 55th House District, which includes Albemarle, Louisa, Nelson, and Fluvanna. Kellen Squire, thanks for joining us.
Kellen Squire
It's my pleasure. Really surreal, to be honest; I've been just listening to it from the other side.
Michael Pope
Well, thank you for listening.
Kellen Squire
You're welcome.
Michael Pope
Okay, so I want to get to the controversy surrounding abortion politics. But before we do that, I want to hear about why you're running for office. So I'm gonna ask you a question that I totally stole from Mary Kim, my longtime editor at the Alexandria Gazette Packet. It's a question she always asks candidates who are running for office, Kellen Squire, why are you doing this to yourself?
Kellen Squire
Especially lately, I've been asking myself that in particular, but the reason I'm running is because, you know, I've been an emergency department nurse for 12 years now. Before that, I worked in pediatric acute and intensive care; I've been an Elementary and Middle school nurse, and all of that, in between schools, and nursing in general, it's sort of like the front line of the social safety net. And so you get to see, like, firsthand where everything is broken. You know, in the emergency department in particular, like we're the last line of defense, and, so if we don't fix things, they don't get fixed, right. So any problems anybody else can't fix end up in our laps. And so it was just, it was long enough that it was like pulling people out of the river. And it's like, you know, maybe I can go upstream to get them to keep them from being pushed in in the first place. Because especially what really did it for me was after the COVID, right, watching people die, they didn't have to watch how broken and how strained the healthcare system would become and how it exacerbated all the other problems that we have, you know, with mental health or domestic violence or gun violence in the Charlottesville area, we've had an epidemic in the last year. And so, you know, I figured I could sit around and complain about it or keep trying to, like, bail out the rowboat with a thimble where I could try and keep, you know, stop the leak in the first place. Does that make sense?
Michael Pope
Bail out the rowboat with a thimble? Well, that's some. That definitely paints a mental image there. So I want to get into why we have you on the show today, which I'm sure our listeners have heard about this, and why your primary has suddenly become the talk of the primary season. Over the Memorial Day weekend, your opponent in the race, Amy Laufer, dropped a bombshell voters in the 55th House District received a piece of direct mail that quotes you, quotes your language from back in 2017, when you were running against incumbent Republican Delegate Rob Bell, in which you call yourself unabashedly Pro-Life, you also call for the Democratic Party platform to include eliminating abortion in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She says you can't be trusted to protect reproductive rights. What's your reaction to that?
Kellen Squire
Actually, it wasn't just one piece of mail; it was three. So we had three pieces in a week, all sorts of duplicates of that, and obviously, when I encountered that, I was out knocking on doors and ruling. I think it was Louisa, and this was actually my first day back on the campaign trail. I had just gotten cleared from having melanoma surgery. So I'd had really bad melanoma and had the surgery. The biopsy came back clear, it was my first day back on the trail, and I was chatting with a voter who was walking to her mailbox. Good time. So she gets her mail out. And there's a picture of me, which was like, maybe like a legitimate triple take. Like it was like a syntax error, like a reboot. And so I looked at that, and it's just so far out of the left field because, you know, With the language that was quoted on it, it was from a draft version of my website and 2017. It was actually before I officially filed for office. And so what I was trying to go for then, so, you know, after Trump got elected, a lot of us were in shock. And I'm sure many of the people that are listening to this remember, and we were all trying to figure out what to do to make a difference. And what I had looked at doing, after years of working behind the scenes, mostly in democratic politics, as I said, maybe I should run for office, and I took a look, and where I lived in Albemarle county, rural Albemarle County, there was a delegate by the name of Delegate Rob Bell, who was very entrenched. I think that the old 58th district and, if you know Chaz Nutteycombe, I think he said it was the most gerrymandered district in Virginia.
Michael Pope
And that's something,
Kellen Squire
Yeah, no, that's saying something for sure, especially considering the gems that came out of the 2010 cycle. So, you know, I was like, nobody would run against him for almost 10 years. And traditionally, what you do is raise half a million, I think, and he'd mostly hand those checks out to other candidates around the state that had more competitive elections. And so, you know, I wasn't stupid. I took a look at the partisan rating of the district. I think, God, I'm I have to look and see, but I'm pretty sure that Hillary Clinton didn't even clear 10% in Rockingham, right. And so I was like, Alright, so I'm a progressive; I've been pretty aggressive and unapologetic progressive at that point. I think I had in my, you know, you run yourself oppo, and I had things out there. Like, I think it was a comment that I'd made about right to work. I said, Right to Work is like Netflix and chill because neither phrase means what it seems. And in both cases, somebody's getting... and there was an expletive there. And so, you know, I knew that. And so the problem was, I'm like, if I'm going to run against Rob Bell, and voters here, see that it's like an instant, you know, like, instant shutdown, right? So I'm like, so what do I need to do to like to reframe what I'm saying, to be able to take it to people here. And so what would you what was stumbled on? There was actually an early draft version on my website; it wasn't live at any point while I was running because once I reached out to people and said, here's what I'm going for. I was like, right. I was like, we know that. Most of these, and we know now, it was true back then. And I wish more people understood that, you know, most of these positions in these policy positions, like, I think the progressive policies are the new American center. I mean, because if you break them down individually, I mean, like, there's gun control, gun violence prevention, law, things that are out there that like rate up with, like, what an 80%, like, I don't think you can get puppies to be rated that high. And obviously, you see abortion, they don't even let it be put on the ballot anymore. Because every time they do like in Kansas, and places like that, and so I knew that stuff I knew, like most of the people, you know, because I grew up in rural America, and rural Virginia and rural Iowa. But even if they would call themselves things like Pro-Life if you went down to it, they actually wouldn't, and you and I, and the people listening here, would be called Pro-Choice, but they would never call themselves that because they've been steeped in a culture, like, you know, Republican culture and stuff. It's places the Democrats hadn't even bothered to try and stem the tide. And I mean, you could see the difference between, like, when Mark Warner ran for governor, and now, you know, so we're riding off large swaths of Virginia, and after watching Trump get elected, that was really like, we can't do that anymore, we have to go and take the fight back here. And my thought was, you know, I had a pretty realistic view of my chances of beating Rob Bell. But I was like, you know if I get him to blow a quarter of a million, half a million dollars on me on this race out here, that's money, he can't send other places, and I can start pushing the conversation back. So if you take a look, I mean, you got the excerpts that you read, but all of those things like below it, if you take a look and read it's exactly I mean, I think that the eliminate abortion when the very next line is, but we can't make it illegal, because that would be a catastrophe.
Michael Pope
Well, actually, I'm glad you're glad you brought that up. Because I am a little bit confused about the difference between stuff that was posted on daily costs versus stuff that was on your website., right? So the language that Scott everyone worked up is this quote on fervently and unabashedly Pro-Life, it was if it were up to me, I'd advocate for the addition of applied to the Democratic Party platform that we eliminate abortion in the Commonwealth of Virginia as soon as possible. So explain that language; where was that posted? And what were you trying to do there?
Kellen Squire
So and again, that was on a draft version, my website, but again, and the next line after that, Michael was, but doing that can't mean making it illegal because that would be a catastrophe. And so then the whole piece fills in that if you really want to tackle if abortion rates are what you really care about, and the things that you need to tackle are, you know, it needs to be maternal care. It needs to be primary care, it needs to be birth control, and school lunches, I think was actually even on that on that, you know, because those are what we would truly call quote. To quote Pro-Life things. And so what it was trying to do is get the people in an R +25 judiciary was to catch them there. And to be able to pull them in and be like, so that they could be like, well, yeah, I'm pro-life, but I can vote for this guy, because look at all these things he's for, right And it's because, you know, obviously, in my job as an emergency department nurse, I provide abortion care, that's what we do in the emergency department, you know, and at the time, with the initial draft website there, I was, like, well, people, like Democrats will read and understand what I meant. And then they'll know that as an emergency department nurse actually do that as part of my job. And I was quickly disabused by that notion because of the people that I shared that with, they're like, no, no, this is not gonna go over the way that you think I have, for obvious reasons, are you and I would not be having this conversation right now, right? And so, you know, I got enough of that feedback. And it's like, okay, and one, the one piece of feedback that really stuck with me, there was somebody who is almost like, mad at me. And I'm like, What, are you mad? It's like, you got Donald Trump in the White House, calls himself Pro-Life. He's paid mistresses to have abortions like he doesn't give a damn about any of that. Ope, I hope I can curse. I'm sorry.
Michael Pope
Of course, you can. Yes.
Kellen Squire
But, we had people like the election, you know, had been like six weeks before, at the time that I wrote all that stuff. I was like, and people are saying, well, we voted for the only Pro-Life candidate on the ballot. And so it's just like a moment of being so incensed and be like, oh, yeah.
Michael Pope
I kind of understand the idea, or at least the notion that it might be a good idea to redefine what Pro-Life means. I can kind of understand that language is evolving. And, you know, it's possible that at some point in the future, people might use the expression Pro-Life in a way differently than we use it today. And I can understand that. But what about this language that you would advocate for an addition of a plank to the platform to eliminate abortion? Explain that part.
Kellen Squire
I mean, we're kind of hit on that already. Because once again, farther in the piece, it says we can't make it illegal, and we shouldn't. I said, but what we can do to do that is, and I listed all the things that I said before. I said if we make sure and actually on a different part of the website, we talked about education. And that was a big thing, too. I said sex education reduces abortion rates, right? Birth control reduces abortion rates and things like that. So it was trying to get all of those people in there. Again, my thought at the time was running in an R +25. District, and I needed to be, you know, enough of a serious challenge to make the Virginia Republican Party actually be like, Well, yeah, we got to spend some money to fight that guy off, right? And so that was the whole thought there. And so, but I mean, and you're hitting on exactly, you're not wrong, like well, I mean, that's why I changed that language before I actually started running for office was because people pointed out exactly what you did. They said I know what you're going for. But this is way too bombastic. And I was I said, the story that I was in the middle of telling was one person in particular struggle with me; they said, listen, if you want to truly be a leader, like if you want to be a community leader and stuff, you have to understand that words matter. And you can't use your language like that. They said I understand what you're trying to do. But I said, even if you don't think, even if you think you're gonna have a hard time winning, like people are looking at this, and you have to, and so it was a very sort of, I don't wanna say somber, but it was very, like a sobering. So I was okay. All right, that is feedback well taken. And that's why it's contrary to the opinion of my colleague; I did not pay the Wayback Machine to delete anything. I don't think that they allow that. But, that's why I said before I went live before I actually started running for office, I changed it to be what you can find, you know, now. So in 2017, I had to go through a lot of this, although admittedly at, like, 1% of the intensity, maybe less, right? Because people found that and they had concerns, which was understandable, right? I mean, like, That's why I've never bothered to try and hide that this happened. And explain, you know, I had to explain all this multiple times in 2017. To. And I said I never bothered to try and hide or run from it. So this is what I was trying to do. It didn't work. That was why I didn't run on it at all, at any point. That wasn't in my campaign literature. I never said it, like on the campaign trail, so this was all trying to be like initial attempts to evolve and get people in. And you'll see stuff like that. If you look at the other pages on the website, like there was a vote, there was a page on voter ID. And where I said on that, it's like, yeah, voter ID is fine, as long as Virginia is gonna pay to, like, drive everybody's house and give them a voter ID personally, we're gonna pay for that, sure. Let's do voter ID. And then on that page, I quoted, I said, we can't do what states like Texas and Wisconsin have done because they're effectively just making it harder for people to vote and so right, and so that was my whole short sort of stick at the time. And again, I was told by people that they're like, look, you're not going to be the one person that is so smart that they will be able to turn these conversations around after they've been argued and rehashed for years if not decades. And so I was like, well, alright, duly noted and move forward with it. But like I said, we did, we did move forward with it. Like we, I mean, I fixed the language, and I never excused or, you know, tried to explain away what had happened. I've had pretty much the same conversation every time to say it was a stupid thing to do. Even like I said, even if I thought that I was gonna have a hard time beating Rob Bell, and obviously said, we ended up not doing that. But we did end up making him and the Virginia Republican Party spend a half-a-million dollars fighting us off.
Michael Pope
Yeah, 2017 was a huge wave election year that saw a ton of Republicans unseated, and I can certainly understand the thought that Rob Bell might have been among them at the time.
Kellen Squire
Well, I mean, again, R +25, like I, you know, I understood, but I mean, I said I had to be credible enough for him to spend the money he did. And so what I always took from that on election night was that, you know, my friend Tom Perriello called me, and he said, look, I know losing sucks, but I think you really hit the sacrifice fly that helped us get our other runs on the board. And we passed Medicaid expansion the next year by a single vote, right. And so I've ever used the emergency department nurse, I took that, you know, I mean, that meant a lot to me. But, you know, as I said, in 2017, and, you know, even later in the care, even after the, you know, the language was, so it was never live on my site as I was a candidate. I never ran on that language. But you know, like, when Planned Parenthood called, I had to spend 90 minutes on the phone. They, I still remember, you know, that conversation because they were pretty, they're pretty unapologetic, which is obviously to their credit. And so you know, we had a long talk, and they went over like each like line by line. And they said You need to explain, you know, all of this. And so we did. And, you know, after that, they said, all right, well, you have our full and enthusiastic endorsement, and they said, If you tried to hide or run from any of that, we would not have endorsed you, if we thought you'd excused it or tried to erase it or anything like that, we would not have endorsed you, but we believe, and I said, we know that you're a Pro-Choice champion and that you'll go out there and fight for them. And then another thing that we did that year, which I really took a lot of pride in, as we worked with an organization called Vote Pro-Choice. And what I did was I used some of these lessons, and I reached out to male candidates running around the country and other races to say, here are, look at the mistakes I made number one. And I said, here's how you can not make them yourself and get you to know, men, if you're texting, you know, things on the phone like we were doing issue texting, I was like, here's how you pull hears arguments that you can make to pull them in to get them like to make a pro-choice argument and get them hooked in on that. And so, we did that then, too. And I've, you know, I took a lot of pride in that. And then obviously, the last, what, six years, especially the last year, you know, I've tried to be outspoken because, you know, I think that, you know, and one of the things I think that is probably was part of this was you don't hear too many, you know, rednecks with sort of a twangy accent, you know, passionately advocating for abortion access, right? It's a pretty rare thing. I think the Republican party thinks that they've got people like me, you know, that look like maybe that sound like me sort of locked up. But that was my whole issue at the time and in 2017.
Michael Pope
Part of the discussion here that people have been having is that there was some discussion about a democratic counter-operation and a bid to get conservatives to respond and then say, aha, like I caught you like, well, it's playing this part.
Kellen Squire
No, no. So I think that the journalists that I was chatting with misunderstood; I said because what I had just come from before I decided to run against Rob Bell was doing that work. And so what led me and so you know, I've done like, behind the scenes stuff for a number of years, like that's been, that's been the primary thing. I got hooked up with Obama's rapid response in 2008, which was super cool. They were doing some cutting edge, you know, stuff for like digital advocacy and volunteering. And in 2016, initially, I was, you know, once because at first, like many people, I didn't take Donald Trump seriously. And then we started winning, and it was clear that he was going to win the nomination. And I was like, this is a big problem; we have to do something. And so the first thing I did was I volunteered at a Hillary Clinton phone bank, which there was one with the Greene County Democrats, and I want to say Stanardsville up here. And I went to their meeting, and they had phone banking, and they had his phone banking into Nebraska. I said we're not going to phone bank, like, into Virginia, like with people that I can be like, Hey, I know you. I live down there. They're like, no, it's a waste of time. So we're going to phone banking in Nebraska. And that's sort of broke me, like really, and so I'm I've joined up with a few people that I'd had done similar things with before. And we spent that year doing things like we made sure Evan McMullen got on the ballot. Right, because we knew there were people out there that weren't going to vote for Hillary Clinton. But we didn't want them to vote for Donald Trump. And, of course, the Republicans; I still remember a local because I was getting stuff for that in a local Republican Party. Flack was like a red in the face. I know you're a Democrat. And so you know. And we worked, I mean, and McMullen actually did pretty good here in Virginia respectively that year, but I mean, that's why I went into election night in 2016 being like, I was almost giddy. I was like, Clinton's gonna win. I can go back to being interested in nobody, nothing. Right? I don't have to do any of this stuff anymore. We dodged the bullet. And then obviously, we see how that. So those are two separate that I said; I don't know if I didn't explain that well or if it didn't get caught in editing. But that's what I said. That is where I came from. Not that that was what my intent was at the time if that makes sense.
Michael Pope
Well, okay. So this is what I wanted to make sure that I understood because when I read this language about democratic counter operations and trying to bait Republicans, I thought I thought that that was referring to this language that we wrote about being fervently and unashamedly Pro-Life. So that was that democratic counter-operation? Or Is that referring to something else?
Kellen Squire
No, no, no, they said that; they said the reporter was very conscientious; I think she conflated those two things. So no, no, no. So I was saying I had just come off of doing that. And that had been my experience instead of running for office anywhere. So no, the language was a sincere attempt to try and be like, I'm a Pro-Choice, you know, Democrat running in our plus 25. District, but I can't, I can't say that out loud. But I know a lot of these people; if you drill down on the issues, and you get them in, you don't shut them out right away, then you can get them in on our side. It was sort of a rhetorical version of the. In 2019 I actually spent all of Election Day in Fredericksburg, Virginia, actually at the polls for not just Josh Cole but for my current primary opponent. And so one of the things I did there was I made sure I wore my cowboy boots and had my camouflage UVA hat. And my wife graduated from Liberty University School of Nursing. And so I wore a Liberty University School of Nursing hoodie and stood at the Democrat's table. Right. And boy, did I get some double takes, right. But I did that because that is not what people imagine if somebody's standing at a Democratic table, Right? And so it did engender a lot. Now it did engender a couple people to be pretty angry. I had a former Liberty football player that came up and accosted me and said that Dr. Falwell would never be well; what are you doing? What are you doing over here? He actually, this is a good one. He said, killers, what are you doing over here with these baby killers. What are you doing with these baby killers? I said what are you talking about? And he said, Well, you know, I mean, like, the blah, blah. And so I was like, well, you know, I just want abortion to be as available and accessible as it is to Donald Trump, as he wanted to beat his mistresses. Right. And so the guy got kind of red in the face. And the notable thing that I had about that was he never said Donald Trump wouldn't do that. Donald Trump didn't do that. That's not Donald Trump. He said I don't care what Donald Trump does. And I was like, well, you just, this is a microcosm of the whole problem with this debate, right? And so but I mean, so that's, that's what I was doing was that retorque, that was a rhetorical version of the same thing it was to get people in, and to be like, look, I know where you're from. I've been here. I'm steeped in this, right? Not only from having lived here, but have worked to try and, you know, get other candidates over the hump that way. Let's catch you in and make you so you mean, you can tell everybody you're Pro-Life, that's fine. But we'll make sure that you're actually Pro-Choice and voting Pro-Choice or can support people that are pro-choice, still thinking that you aren't, you know, I said, because most people use that language. I'm sure you know, Michael, again, as, as we've gone over during this interview, that even if they call themselves that, functionally, they are where you and I buy, what they believe and what they voted, and they're functionally Pro-Choice.
Michael Pope
Okay, so I actually wanted to ask you about this, which is the future of the expression Pro-Life. Does it still need to be reframed? You know, in the world of journalism, years ago, the Associated Press decreed that people that follow APA style should no longer use Pro-Life and Pro-Choice because they're kind of confusing terms. And they don't tell you what the debate is about. And the real debate is about abortion rights. And so you either support abortion rights or you oppose abortion rights, and so that's why newspapers that follow APA style, which is most of them, you won't see people talking about Pro-Life and pro-choice because they're actually kind of confusing terms. And so I'm wondering, having tried to reframe it in 2017 and having this discussion that we have just had and should in the future? Should people try to sort of recast, reframe, and reuse the expression Pro-Life?
Kellen Squire
That's an excellent question. And now you know, I don't know, even with all of them, we have to do something we have to do. So I still believe very firmly we have to do something against that notion; we have to do something to break people out of those boxes that they're putting in, you know, and go for it. Because again, I like the same as gun violence. Again, when you break these issues down. Or really on a lot of progressive policy platforms, once you break them down and give them to people individually, again, you get upwards of like, 60%, 70%, 80% of people, like of Americans that, you know, agree and believe in that. So we have to do something with this. But again, I mean, as you say here, and you know, as I said, I didn't, didn't ever run on that in 2017. But the fact that we're having all these conversations now means that it is obviously a minefield that we've got to, and people are highly charged for good reason. And to be able to take, especially these days again, and the as Roe vs. Wade has been repealed and stuff, we have to do something to fight back and said, I don't know, at this point, like I said, you know, I've said for a long time, but I think we have perfect evidence now that the true difference between Republicans and Democrats on abortion is that Democrats want abortion to be safe and accessible for everybody that needs it. And Republicans want it safe, accessible for their wives and mistresses and daughters and things like that. Right. So if you after Donald Trump and Herschel Walker, it's clear that, you know, they're just fine with abortions that they like, right? It's just that whoever they don't like shouldn't have access to it. And so I'm not sure, maybe the term Pro-Life like is trying to reclaim it or something like that. Maybe it's like pointless at this because now they've pretty much just been like, yeah, we're all hypocrites, but we don't care anymore. So but I mean, I don't know. But what we can't do is let that go. We need to continue to, you know, and I think when we show up and fight for people, I mean, which is, again, was trying to do in 2017, being like, I'm out here in rural Virginia, trying to bring people in, like if I've got to be the edge of the sword out here. so other people can do what they need to do in other parts of the Commonwealth. That's fine. I said the bottom line is we have to. I mean, we're seeing we're already seeing the consequences of Roe vs. Wade being appealed and repealed, excuse me. And it's not good. Obviously, I have to be circumspect about what I can share. But I mean, we've already seen evidence of other states here in Virginia. And it's not good. I mean, the big part of the controversy that we had, right, other than I mean, there was a there's a lot of stuff I said with the attack mailers and stuff. Part of it was that my colleague and I actually had the same chat that you and I were having in 2019. Personally, she was getting ready to run for Senate, and we met. I think it was a Louisa Dems function, and as I say, it's like Roma, Roma's in Louisa, I'm pretty sure. And we sat down, and we chatted about exactly this, you know, I was like, here's what I did. Don't do it, you know, running a red district run against Brice Reeves. And so it wouldn't didn't take that long. I mean, it was an ancillary part of that discussion. But there was one reason I think that she chose not to mention abortion on her website in 2019. Right, which I knew, and I understood why again; as I said, you just try not to get into any of these minefields and try and look at more productive stuff. It's understandable as a strategy. I never regretted it for that because I knew where she stood on that issue. And I didn't have any questions about it. And I, I thought that because of the conversation, she knew where I stood to her; I mean, I'm certain that she did because for the last year, at every debate and forum and every news interview and stuff, we've been like, well, we're the same on policy, the only thing we have different experience and even you know, that was what was really what blew me away about seeing that mailer because I was like, like, I knocked doors for her in 2018. I did three radio commercials for her in 2019, letters to the editor, and I said stood at a polling place all day. So I thought we were steeped enough, you know, in that shared history together. And so, but what really sealed it for me, Michael, was the, like, follow-up press release she sent out where she said was something to the effect of we have a candidate who says abortions give him nightmares, and that was when it really was like, okay, so this is just a super cynical ploy. Because the reason the story she's referring to, and I've told it, I mean, I tell it frequently on the campaign trail, she's probably heard it enough, and joint events that we've made, like debates and stuff that she could probably recite it too. And the story that I tell about that is a patient who came in with a burst ectopic pregnancy. So for whatever reason, she had not been able to access abortion care in time. And so most of the, you know, abortions that we do in the emergency department are pretty, I mean, 99% of the time, it's stable, you know, it's like an internal thing. It's not, you know, it's those few edge cases that make it the huge problem it is. And so I remember, it's one of those things where you never forget, like, I remember the room, like, every time I walked by the room, like in the ER, it's like, that was the room where that happened. You know, that happens with more than just that, obviously. But and so and this was a pretty young person. And so they were, I remember them coming in and, and their demeanor and stuff, but the thing with ectopic pregnancies is you can go from stable, and like, you're fine to like, about to die like it is truly like in a snap of a finger. Right. And so I remember her coming through triage, and I was like, something is seriously wrong, like we need to, and so I remember wheeling her back as fast as I could. And the problem again, with ectopic pregnancies in particular, is if you think about all the blood flow that's there, and so when that bursts, it is, um, it's something to see, man, it is not. And so, you know, I was, you know, watching the blood pool on the floor, and we had uncrossed match blood from the blood bank, you know, rushed up, we have the rapid and fuser ready. And so I'll never forget because we didn't have a rabid infuser ready. So I'm holding a bag of uncrossed matched blood; I'm squeezing it as hard as I can between my hands to try and get into infuse. And I remember the look, there's a look on somebody's face. The way that color drains out of their face when they're bleeding to death. They mean, if you've ever seen somebody like, Oh, you're looking kind of pale today, this is there isn't. I mean, it's due. I don't have the words for it. I just don't, I mean, and we got her to, oh, we got her to surgery. We got her stable enough to go to surgery; I think it took three units of blood. And the OB surgeon said five minutes later, she would have been dead. I mean, and so that's when we talk about we talked about Tennessee, where they basically now said, we had somebody, I think it was just last week, who they're like, Yeah, you got an ectopic pregnancy, but you're stable, you're fine. We'll wait until your vital signs decompensate to actually treat it, which is, I won't say the expletive I was just about to say, but it's insane. And so, you know, that's why I've been apologetic about all of these issues on the campaign trail this year. And that's what made it so hard to hear that, that press release that said, my opponent, my opponent says abortions give him nightmares because that's, that's what she was referring to. It was that story. Right. And obviously, I've told it as an example of why we cannot curtail abortion access and the consequences if we do. And I said that was when it really was like this is this is like a cynical ploy. And that was an, you know, hurt because again, that's, that's a hard domain even you can't see me. But that's a hard story to tell.
Michael Pope
I can hear it; I can hear it in your voice. But I'm also kind of wondering, you know, if your opponent had gone back to the length, this other language on the draft language on the website, you know, if your opponent had draft language like that, or even on a different issue, like say it was guns, and they were trying to reframe the issue about guns, wouldn't you have also used that language against your opponent?
Kellen Squire
I wouldn't do it if it wasn't sincere. I mean, again, which is what it was this way too. And so it's not sincere because not only that, not only did she and I have a chat about it personally, but I mean, she had a long time, and clearly with his sophisticated and as much effort that was put into all of this, it's clear that this was in the works for quite a while still saying on the record that we had no differences on any policies or anything like that.
Michael Pope
Okay, so your view is this is the primary equivalent of the October surprise that they that's been in the works all along?
Kellen Squire
Yes, that's my understanding. And you know, we got some, we'd gotten some pokes and said, I think something's percolating, you might want to pay attention. And we had a debate and Nelson County. So I had the Daily Progress for the article that I mentioned, the daily progress had called on a Monday, and I chatted with him about all of that. And then the next day, the Tuesday was, and they had gotten a quote, they said, they talked to her and so forth and so on. And so the very next day, we were in Nelson County at a debate, and they asked us point blank; they said to both of you are very progressive. Are there any issues or policies that you differ on? And she said, nope, just experience. And so when that happened, I was like, huh, I was like, Well, I don't know. Maybe. Like, I know, we've gotten some people poked at us. So it's like, maybe they're wrong. I don't know. I mean, this would be my like, if you were gonna say it, now's the time because I knew, you know, the reporter told me she'd already spoken to her. And I was like, so she's clearly familiar with all this. So here's your chance to say, nope, we definitely have serious policy differences if no other time, right? But she said no, we're the same. It's just experienced, and so, And then I said that lead after that led to being surprised by the mailer?
Michael Pope
Well, just to put a button on this conversation, I want to make sure that our listeners have an idea of exactly what your position is. And I want to ask the question this way, are there any limitations on abortion? You know, Republicans often criticize Democrats as wanting abortion up until the moment of birth? And so, are there any limitations on abortion at all that you would support?
Kellen Squire
No, because we should be able to trust doctors and health professionals. I mean, again, abortion up until birth is a made-up thing that Republicans did. And I think that is when again when we're talking about people that call themselves Pro-Life but are truly pro-choice. A lot of them are held there because of how radically the Republicans have to frame this debate to be able to keep people in, and they know that they're not stupid. There are a lot of things, but they're not stupid. And they understand that they're, maybe they missed, like I said, like putting abortion on the ballot, like in Kansas, maybe they thought, well, we'll get this one through, even if it's close, right. So they might be a little bit too optimistic, but they understand, by and large, people are not with him on that. Right. So they have to frame it in such an extreme way. The way that North Carolina has it now basically makes miscarriage illegal. So this was an article I actually wrote not too long ago to discuss that. So what you're saying is that because, you know, you have to prove, like, if you have a miscarriage as well, now you're guilty until proven innocent, like if they come into the emergency department now, am I not going to be subpoenaed? Is the ER nurse that helped that patient when they had a miscarriage, and they were hemorrhaging? Like, this is not where we want things to be is not where it should. We should let healthcare providers and patients do what they do. Right? The government should not intervene in that space because the consequences of them doing that are atrocious. And again, these are all things that I've seen firsthand and understand what and why will happen if we get there here in Virginia and what's going on in other states.
Michael Pope
All right. Well, we really appreciate your time coming on Pod Virginia; we talked a lot about abortion; is there anything else voters should know about what you would do in office if elected?
Kellen Squire
Sure, I want to really focus on, you know, a lot of common sense stuff like campaign finance reform we have; I believe we have more individual donations than any other primary campaign, maybe any other legislative primary campaign in the history of Virginia, which and I said, well, obviously, we have a new report coming up, too. And we're doing pretty well. And that goes, but so, but that's a lot harder. It's harder to run that way. But it keeps, it helps keep people honest, that we really need to get as much big money as we can out of politics; I would like to make it a lot easier for working-class people like me to run for office; the only reason that I was able to do this is that I worked so much overtime, during the COVID pandemic, I had 280 hours of vacation time saved up to allow me to do stuff my campaign full time right now. Right? We need to make it easier for that we need to do things lightly, we need to fight the climate crisis, we need to go after we had we've had just an awful rash of gun violence in the Charlottesville community, especially lately. And you know, we're not doing enough in any way, shape, or form to fight that. Mental Health, again, these are, I mean, I guess, the thing about being an emergency department nurse because I see the intersection of all those things as they hit the, you know, emergency department or have somebody who has to cut their pills into eights because their rent went up, you know, it's the intersection of all those things. And so understanding that we have to solve all those things because they're not just public, right? They're like a health crisis to in and of themselves, all the things like housing costs and rental increase and mental health and all these things. They're at the intersection of that, and so, you know, those are all things that I want to tackle. Those are all things I want to fix. We can give people as much happy and healthy time at home with their families as we can.
Michael Pope
All right. He is the self-proclaimed redneck with the twangy voice running in the Democratic primary for the 55th House District, Kellen Squire; thanks for joining us.
Kellen Squire
It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
