VCs for Repro: Abortion is Your Business - Episode 228

FemTech Focus

In this episode, we talk to Janna Meyrowitz Turner, co-founder of VCs for Repro. Dedicated to championing reproductive rights within the venture capital landscape, VCs for Repro strives to dismantle barriers and biases surrounding reproductive health, justice, and equity.

Their coalition member firms are reshaping the conversation around reproductive rights, ensuring that entrepreneurs and innovators in the space have access to the resources and support they need to thrive.

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Guest bio

Janna Meyrowitz Turner is a strategist focused on systems change, leadership development, and communication in all its forms.

She started her first company, Style House, at the age of 23 in 2006 which became an award-winning strategic communications and business development consultancy known for taking a holistic, progressive, and multicultural lens to brand building, strategic partnerships, platform development, marketing, and communications. With clients ranging from Estee Lauder to the WNBA, Janna became a trusted advisor to senior leadership teams on a broad range of issues - from internal and external affairs, preparation for board meetings, company retreats, and other pivotal public moments.

Today she runs Synastry Capital with three main areas of focus – investing in and building startups, conducting Personal Brand Alignment with executives and entrepreneurs, high impact leaders, and other people who do lots of things, and incubating projects designed to change the ways money and power flow in the world. Janna is the co-founder of VCs For Repro, honored as a Fast Company “World Changing Idea” for 2023, and she also sits on the board of A CALL TO MEN, a national violence prevention organization training and educating men and boys on healthy manhood.

Organization bio

VCs For Repro is a coalition of venture capital firms that frames abortion as an economic and innovation imperative.

The coalition began in early 2022 with a thesis that the venture capital community, with enormous power to shape society, and laser focused on innovation and the future, has an obligation to lead on reproductive rights.

FemTech Focus Podcast bio

The FemTech Focus Podcast is brought to you by FemHealth Insights, the leader in Women’s Health market research and consulting. In this show, Dr. Brittany Barreto hosts meaningfully provocative conversations that bring FemTech experts - including doctors, scientists, inventors, and founders - on air to talk about the innovative technology, services, and products (collectively known as FemTech) that are improving women's health and wellness. Though many leaders in FemTech are women, this podcast is not specifically about female founders, nor is it geared toward a specifically female audience. The podcast gives our host, Dr. Brittany Barreto, and guests an engaging, friendly environment to learn about the past, present, and future of women’s health and wellness.

FemHealth Insights bio

Led by a team of analysts and advisors who specialize in female health, FemHealth Insights is a female health-specific market research and analysis firm, offering businesses in diverse industries unparalleled access to the comprehensive data and insights needed to illuminate areas of untapped potential in the nuanced women’s health market.

Time Stamps

[5:02] Janna intro

[7:38] Defining personal brand alignment

[15:25] Origin of VCs for Repro

[16:10] Personhood laws and their impact to women and women’s health companies

[19:25] Role of risk in women’s health investment

[24:15] Who is part of VCs for Repro? Why do they join?

[27:00] People underestimate their power and influence

[29:18] Abortion as a tool of economic suppression

[33:00] How to get involved in VCs for Repro

[36:00] Financial impact of reproductive rights and misogyny

[38:30] Call to action – fund abortion access, talk about abortion with others

[41:30] Conclusion

Episode Contributors

Janna Meyrowitz Turner

LinkedIn: @Janna Meyrowitz Turner

Blog Post about Similarities between Marijuana and Abortion

VCs for Repro

Website: https://www.vcsforrepro.com/

LinkedIn: @VCs for Repro

Dr. Brittany Barreto

LinkedIn: @Brittany Barreto, Ph.D.

Twitter: @DrBrittB

Instagram: @drbrittanybarreto

FemTech Focus Podcast

Website: https://femtechfocus.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/femtechfocus

Twitter: @FemTech_Focus

Instagram: @femtechfocus

FemHealth Insights

Website: https://www.femhealthinsights.com/

LinkedIn: @FemHealth Insights