Ashley Leto has been lobbying legislators in South Carolina for more than 12 years.

She shared her sacred lobbying strategies recently with advocates who gathered for the annual Reproductive Health Advocacy Day.

Leto said Advocacy Day is about lending voices to support bills that are in favor of women’s reproductive health and voicing concerns about bills that could deny access to healthcare. 

“We’re making sure we’re going to every (lawmaker’s) office to let you know what the citizens of South Carolina want,” she said. “That’s reproductive freedom.” 

Leto is the chief strategy officer for the nonprofit Women’s Rights Empowerment Network. For Feb. 24’s Advocacy Day, she joined forces with other nonprofits, Planned Parenthood and Grand Strand Action Together, to host a  lobbying workday. 

Community members could sign up to learn how to approach their representatives and make “hard asks” of them.  

“It’s my mission to make it a space where you feel really comfortable, OK?” Leto said to the crowd. “Because we actually own this space, right?” 

Paige Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, described the advocacy as the fight of a lifetime.

“We believe our right to birth control is a fundamental right,” she said. “We believe our freedom to seek care when a pregnancy fails or to make informed decisions when a normal pregnancy becomes complex is a fundamental right.” 

The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the state’s six-week abortion ban in 2023. Since then, legislators have debated bills that would further restrict reproductive healthcare. 

Lawmakers have introduced more than 30 bills restricting reproductive healthcare this legislative session, which started in January. Advocacy Day attendees discussed four bills. House Bill 4756 and Senate bill 199 both would limit public restroom access to the gender a person is assigned at birth. House Bill 4760 would restrict medication used to induce abortions. And House bill 4757 would require parental medical consent for a range of child and adolescent medical services.

Johnson said rights advocates need to oppose the bills. 

“We’re going to make sure that (lawmakers) understand fully that they are out of line with South Carolina, and (that) their priorities are their priorities,” Johnson said. “They are not the priorities of people in South Carolina.” 

Attendees received manila folders containing a list of state representatives. In groups of four to five, the advocates approached lawmakers in their offices about their concerns about the bills.   

Ashlyn Praux, community organizer for the Grand Strand Action Together, said people shouldn’t be intimidated by lawmakers. 

“We love them all, but they got up and drove here, just like all of us,” she said. “They are elected. They work for us, and they’re dependent on your votes to stay in office.” 

USC professor Deborah Billings attended the event to speak out against an injustice, she said. 

“I think we need to hold up the mirror and be super self critical of my, of us – my generation,” Billings said. 

Older advocates didn’t do enough to stop Roe v. Wade from falling, she said, and now everyone is reaping the consequences.

Billings said she doesn’t plan to sit idly by. She said civility was not her priority. 

“I don’t want to go to prison, but until you knock down my door and take me away in handcuffs, I’m still going to be screaming this stuff,” Billings said. “Because this is ridiculous.”