Denied Care in Tennessee, She Became a Candidate, Plaintiff, and...a Movie Star? | Allie Phillips

I was like losing the grip of hope after every piece of anomaly.

She was giving me every new detail.

She was like, and there's this, and there's that.

And now here's this.

And I was just like, I was like losing hope as she was talking.

And it was like an out of body experience, to be honest.

And my second option was to terminate my pregnancy.

But she said, due to Tennessee's ban on abortion, you cannot do that here.

and you would have to look out of state and I cannot help you with those resources.

Hello and welcome to the Dr. Kristen Lyerle Show.

I'm Dr. Kristen Lyerle and you guys, I am hanging out with the amazing, badass, Allie Phillips today.

She and I share something really special.

We're actually in a film together.

It's called Perilous Passage Birth in America.

This is Christie Tirlington Burns documentary.

It's on HBO Max right now and it's about what happened to maternal health since Dobbs.

Allie's story, and we're going to talk about it, is one that really broke a lot of people's hearts.

And then it made them furious, and then it actually gave them hope.

She was denied a medically necessary abortion in Tennessee after learning that her daughter, Miley Rose, wouldn't survive.

She had to fly to New York by herself to get the care that she couldn't get in her home state of Tennessee.

She told the story on TikTok, and it reached hundreds of thousands of people.

But she didn't stop there.

She then became a plaintiff in a multi-state lawsuit.

She ran for the Tennessee House in 2024, and she's now running again in Montgomery County, which is the Clarksville area.

Not only that, but she's a mom, she's a union member, and honestly, one of the fiercest, I've already said it, but I'll say it again, most bad-ass people I have met in this fight.

Allie Phillips, my friend.

Welcome.

Oh my gosh.

That was quite the intro.

I don't know if I deserve all that.

Thank you so much.

You're really, really sweet and kind.

You do deserve it because you have been through so much and you've taken your anguish.

And I just remember seeing your TikTok video when you first found out about Miley Rose and everything you've been through and the journey to get to where you are right now.

So let's start with Miley.

What happened after you got the diagnosis, and what did the state of Tennessee tell you when you asked for help?

So, like many couples, you know, this was a planned for and wanted pregnancy.

My husband and I, we just got married in March of 22.

We just moved into our home in October, bought our first house, and in that first week of moving in to our home, I found out I was pregnant.

And so we were just like over the moon because that was the timeline of what we wanted.

Marriage, home, expand the family.

And so everything was fine, normal, no issues up until the anatomy scan.

And at that anatomy scan, we found out that there were some issues and I was referred over to a maternal fetal medicine specialist.

And I went to that doctor four days after my anatomy scan.

This was on February 24th of 2023 and during that ultrasound is where we found out that everything that could have been wrong was wrong Both of my least kidneys her stomach her bladder had formed abnormally.

We're not functioning properly She only had two out of four working chambers in her heart.

She had little to no amniotic fluid around her She stopped growing at 15 weeks and by this point she was 20 weeks supposed to be 20 weeks in development

and she was diagnosed with a rare brain defect called semi low bar holoprosencephaly and with just that diagnosis alone only 3% of fetuses usually survive to birth with that and typically pass within the first year of life if they do survive and so you know the specialist had said that Miley was not compatible and the longer that I stayed pregnant the worse she was gonna get the higher risk my health would become and

I had a daughter at home already my daughter Adelie and I couldn't take the risk of leaving her without a mom my husband without his wife my parents without their daughter my brothers without their sister though I feel that they would be just fine without me they were my biggest bullies my whole life but I do think they may be brothers at some point yeah but you know it wasn't my time to leave I was 28 I just turned 28 years old the Friday before

my anatomy scan.

It was my birthday Friday.

My anatomy scan was on Monday.

And so I asked the question that I feel anybody would ask in that moment is, what are we supposed to do?

What do we do next?

And she, and mind you, this is like, I think we're roughly around six months post trigger ban in Tennessee.

And she said, you know,

You have two options here.

You can stay pregnant, continue your pregnancy, but know that you're at a greater risk of miscarriage, a stillbirth, or if she were to survive birth, we would have hospice care set up for her because another one of the things was that there wasn't any signs of lung development either.

So we would have hospice care set up for her to pass after she's born.

But know that...

That comes with the risks.

What risks to

you, right?

I

mean, the risk of carrying a pregnancy to term is significantly great.

Some data even shows it's 40 times greater than having an abortion in the first trimester.

So here you are, heartbroken, thinking about you, your family, and your own life.

And these are the only options that you have.

Yeah.

And it was it was hard to hear that in no scenario, Miley was going to be OK.

Because

while she was going through all the diagnoses and the anomalies in my brain, I'm like, okay, well, I'm sure there's kidney transplants.

We can tube feed her through her stomach.

We can do all these things, but then you get into the heart and lung development and the brain deformity.

Every time I thought there was an answer, she hit me with something else.

I was like losing the grip of hope after every piece of anomaly.

She was giving me every new detail.

She was like, and there's this, and there's that.

And now here's this.

And I was just like, I was like losing hope as she was talking.

And it was like an out of body experience, to be honest.

And my second option was to terminate my pregnancy.

But she said, due to Tennessee's ban on abortion, you cannot do that here.

and you would have to look out of state and I cannot help you with those resources.

At the time, that is what she thought to be true per the law.

Per the law was so vague at the time.

Now doctors can help with patients getting resources, but at that time, you know, my doctor was like, they were even scared to say the word abortion to patients.

And so she was like, essentially you're on your own if you choose termination.

I can't help you.

Did you know that this was technically an abortion?

I mean this is a desired pregnancy that has problems and it puts your health at risk and she's not gonna survive so it doesn't make sense that this is something that is forbidden.

I know because I knew because I I mean I watched as Roe v. Wade was a return in the Dobs decision and I had been a

I mean more of like no, I wasn't a big re-bro advocate like I you know would post videos online and talk about pro-choice and That kind of stuff, but I knew the second that she started telling me that all of these anomalies in her being incompatible immediately my brain went to like Okay, Tennessee as a band like what am I supposed to do which is that was why that was my first question is what are we supposed to do I knew it would be an abortion because I educated myself on

this process of health care and regardless if it was a wanted baby or not it's still an abortion procedure and I knew that that was the health care I was going to need and I couldn't get it in my state and at the time I also had state insurance I had 10 care which is

Medicaid

so that is something that would have been covered by my state insurance now I have to look at a state I have to travel I have to pay out of pocket for a procedure that otherwise would have been covered

home and so that was a Friday that next Monday my mom and I both took the day off at work and at this time I was running an in-home daycare so I just closed the daycare for the day the parents knew what was going on and we spent the day calling clinics I called like five different states multiple clinics in each state and

Now I'm in a new week, I'm approaching 21 weeks pregnant, right?

And so I call a clinic in, I think it was Chicago, Illinois, and they were like, oh, well, if you came in this week, it would be $1,500.

And I was like, okay, well, I can't get in this week, I still have to figure out childcare for my kid, and also my husband needs to get time off work, and so what about next week?

Do you have anything next week?

Well, next week you'll be 22 weeks, so it'll be $2,500.

$1,000 more.

$1,000

more for an additional week.

Yeah.

They charge base off, and this sounds awful, but they charge base off of the size of the fetus.

It's a more complicated procedure, the

further along you are.

Yes, the bigger it is, the more complicated it is.

But I also, you know how to tell, I'm like, listen, she's, she stunted growth at 15 weeks.

So though I'm...

you know almost 21 weeks she's not and they're like well we would have to do a sonogram when you get here to confirm her size and like all this other stuff so it was all the tangent on me actually getting to a clinic so I had no idea how much this procedure was actually going to cost until I got there and they could tell me hey okay she's 15 weeks this is how much we charge for 15 week abortion or hey she's measuring closer to 20 weeks this is how much we charge so I had no idea

right

I just had a guesstimate based off of

what they were giving me, and what they were giving me is how far along I was, and that's all I had to go off of.

And it's

not like you've got this giant pocketbook full of 20s that you

can just... Well, and we just moved into our house, right?

Right.

Like, we were broke.

We didn't have crap for money.

My husband was just starting this job that was only commission-based, and he was still learning the ropes, and didn't have any income, and, you know, I had the in-home daycare, and I...

I started in-home daycare to be cheaper than the daycares in the area, so single parents, families with lower income, could afford childcare so they could go to work.

That's why I did what I did because I've been there.

So I was taking in four kids plus mine, so five kids a day, and not getting paid a lot because I wanted to help these families.

But I did it because it's what I wanted to do and it's what was helpful, but it also hurt us financially doing that.

You know, I looked at starting Well, we looked at like loans taking out personal loans to go do this and we were like well, we're not gonna get approved for anything because we just took out like a 220,000 dollar mortgage, right and So my mom was like why don't people are asking because at this point I had posted online about my these diagnoses And my mom was like, why don't you start to go find me people are

Offering to help let them help you and I was just like I really like this isn't anybody else's burden I don't want to take people's money like I'll figure it out.

She's like Allison You've got to let people help you like you or you have no other options here, so We found a clinic in lower Manhattan that could get me in the following week on March 7th and It was gonna be around $1100

for the procedure and then we had round-trip airfare and then figuring out where we're gonna stay all that and so I started to go fund me because we were estimating it was gonna cost like with everything being said and done because I also had to pay for COVID testing and all this other stuff.

Right.

And the time missing from work because I don't have PTO having it in home daycare and he had a commission-based job, no PTO because he just started.

We were both missing a week of work a week of pay And so we were guesstimating around like five thousand four to five thousand dollars that it was gonna cost to go get this done And within 24 hours Eight thousand dollars was raised on that go fund me just simply because I posted on tiktok and was like I need help and Complete strangers

I mean I had people messaging me they're like I want to pay for your flight I want to I want you to stay here like however I can help like I'll drive you there I'll fly you like whatever let us help you and I've never seen that amount of community come together so quickly for an issue like this because I've never been exposed to it before I just figured people were kind of like left to their own devices to figure it out but you know

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, I really think it turned a stone for a lot of people to realize that this isn't okay.

Like you may not agree with abortion, but limiting it, criminalizing it, it's not okay.

It makes me wonder how many of these people who've reached out to you, who donated, who followed along on TikTok, were experiencing this along with you?

They too.

had, and we know one in four women in this country will have an abortion in their lifetime, how many of them were on their own journey as you were on yours?

I can't tell you, I mean hundreds of messages flooded into my inbox from women who had gone through something similar, whether it be back in the 70s or the 90s or the early 2000s or even then, there was actually a woman

named Charlotte that I went to DC with recently for the free and just day on the hill for the anniversary of the Dobbs decision and She was also from the Clarksville area and she told me that my tiktoks.

She was watching my tiktoks At the same time that she was going through her pregnancy loss and she said my tiktoks helped her through it and I've gotten messages similar to that from I mean

Tens of hundreds of women.

I mean just and I still get them today.

Yeah, it's been Years, it's been three years

But you're still doing the work Ali.

I mean it would have been easy for you to say we're done with this I'm gonna move on we're gonna try again, but instead You sued your state.

Yeah, yeah

How did that all happen and where are you at with that?

So I So after New York and I want to say this for anybody watching I arrived to the New York Clinic ten days after my anatomy scan and found out during the sonogram that Miley had passed away At some point in that ten days.

She no longer had a heartbeat and my body wasn't expelling her

And so I end up undergoing what I call an emergency abortion.

I've had people tell me that's not a real thing, but it was within an hour of me finding out that she was gone, that they had me back in the surgery room because they were like, there's a two week window that when a fetus passes and your body doesn't recognize it, you become a greater risk of infections, blood clots are going septic.

You're at the end of that two week window.

We need to do this like now.

And so again, less than an hour of finding out that my daughter was gone.

I was in a gown in surgery.

And I had to call and tell my husband over the phone because he wasn't allowed to the clinic, you know, that his daughter was gone.

I had to go through that alone.

I didn't have my support person there.

And it was awful.

It was traumatizing.

And I shared every single bit of everything that happened.

It was like a vlog that I shared on TikTok because I wanted people to see the real raw damage that these abortion bans were causing.

Because one thing to read an article, but it's another thing to see

see it happening to somebody.

And so at the end of March, I received a DM from somebody with the Center for Reproductive Rights, and they were like, hey, I'm an outreach person for the attorneys with the center.

We are currently running this case in Texas called Zyrowski versus Texas.

I think there was maybe five women at the time when they first reached out to me.

I think they went up to 18 or something.

love to do something similar in Tennessee if you're interested.

I don't think I've said yes to anything quicker in my life.

Because this is so messed up.

I have to do something.

I can't just go through this, document it like I have, and have all these women reach out to me saying thank you so much for showing the world how hard this is, and then go home and sit on my ass.

So for me, I was like, I have to do something.

I have to protect my family.

I have to protect my daughter.

I have to protect the women in my community.

How can I do that?

And this opportunity was just thrown into my lap.

So why wouldn't I?

Well, here we are.

Three years later, we were supposed to have...

our our hearing our trial sorry our trial a few months ago but the state has done everything they can to postpone that and I had waited three years for that trial had done so much prep for it we were ready to do it it was I think it was like a Thursday that I received the email that court I think was Monday or Tuesday was off hmm

After all

of

the mental the preparation the mental anguish knowing that this was going to be a Moment a moment from Miley.

Yeah, we and me and the other plaintiffs the other patients the doctors We were about to finally have our time in court right on record sharing what happened to us

and how this band has impacted our lives in such a negative way in the state.

It was like, no, not today.

That's not gonna stop us from sharing our stories, right?

We as social media is a very big small town and we will keep sharing our stories.

But once we get it on record in our court system, it's a done deal.

Once we get that in black and white on printed paper,

It's a done deal.

They can't say it didn't happen.

You can't tell me my story didn't happen.

You weren't there.

I was there.

So it'll come in maybe another year.

It'll happen, but we're not stopping.

Do you see the tide shifting in Tennessee?

Because Tennessee is a really, really hard state right now, especially when it comes to reproductive rights, but it is it's so very red and it's getting redder.

How do you fix that?

You know, I tell people, Tennessee is not a red state.

We're just a non-voting state.

Tennessee is actually more independent voters than anything.

I think we're like maybe 34, 35% Republican.

It's not really that much.

And so with that being said, we, so for example, in Montgomery County, where I live, Clarksville area.

In this last election for the county, like sheriff, county commission, school board, all that, court clerk, we actually flipped our county commission blue.

We now have 11 out of 21 seats.

We have the majority.

It's a one seat majority.

But you'll take it, right?

We'll take it.

And we won three out of the four school board seats that were up.

and our school board does alternating districts every cycle.

So we won three out of four school board seats.

Now we didn't win the mayor, we didn't win the sheriff, but that's okay because we now, I don't want to say control, but we now have the majority in the commission.

Now, when I ran for the seat in 24, I lost, I think by 10 points, I had 45% of the vote.

And my opponent passed away.

And there was an appointment for his seat last November.

The commission was mostly Republicans then.

Some independents that always vote Republican, but mostly Republican.

And because of that, I went for the appointment vote.

It ended in a tie between me and the Republican.

And then the mayor.

broke the tie and he's a Republican.

So he gave the seats to his Republican colleague.

But if we would have had this one seat majority last November, I would have had the appointment.

I would have been at the state house this whole past year.

I would be running for reelection, not really reelection, but you know what I'm saying?

Like the difference it would have made, but not just Montgomery County.

I mean, there's counties across the state that

Flipped seats for county commission seats.

They flip school board seats.

They might they may have flipped some judge seats like It didn't just happen here.

It happened in some rural areas now Also, if you look back at the special election that we had for Congressional District 7 yet Afton Bain running against Matt Van Aps

We were all watching.

Yes.

This was like an R plus 22 district something like that

I often shifted this district 13 points to the left during that race.

Every single county in this district.

Now it used to stretch from the top of the border down to the bottom of the border of Tennessee.

That's a lot of rural area.

Every single county went to the left.

Even if it was just a percentage, it went to the left.

Now they have gerrymandered our maps.

So now Congressional District 7 does not look anywhere close to the same that it used to.

But regardless, Montgomery County and my district, we still shifted.

And so now in my race with my opponent, I still have the name recognition from last time.

I've still been active and, you know, been in the community and online and my messaging hasn't really changed.

It's just become stronger.

More it's resonated more with people because I mean I still talk about abortion I'll still talk about Miley, but that's not the focal point of my campaign this time My focal point is working people.

I'm a working-class mom.

I got two little babies at home now.

Well, yeah, you do babies and a 16 month old that came after Miley and so Working people I mean I work for a union, you know, it's

I'm literally on payroll for the working class.

And I'm talking about the issues that are impacting everybody, regardless of the political party that you're in.

And I've had elected Republicans come and tell me they think I'm going to win.

I've had staunch Republican voters come and tell me, hey, I've never voted for a Democrat before, but I really like what you had to say here.

I'll consider voting for you or I will vote for you or I did vote for you I've had a woman message me the other day or emailed and she was like Telling me that she's a night nurse and that she appreciated our canvasser not knocking on her door because she was sleeping But she got the lit and she was like also I want to tell you that you converted my Republican husband in 2024 Wow.

Yeah, and she was like can you have both of our votes again this year and so

There's people out there that I haven't even heard from that my story touched enough that they were like, listen, we may not agree with her on every issue, which I don't want you to.

Nobody does.

No.

If you agree with a politician, and I don't even like being called a politician, but if you agree with a politician on every single issue, that's not a leader.

That is some cultish following that I can't get behind.

You have to have disagreements because if you don't have disagreements, they can't improve.

Right if you're like hey everything you're doing is fantastic keep doing it, but they suck at their job You're not telling them to make improvements.

There's no character building going on here I want to learn.

I don't know everything.

I'm so like I ran as a first-time candidate last time I didn't know shit about shit.

I just knew I didn't want people to suffer

From bad policy, right?

I don't have a degree in political science.

I have a degree in multimedia journalism.

I want to be a news anchor for God's sakes.

I want to be a storyteller.

I want to share stories.

You are a storyteller.

You did

that.

That's what got you into this in the first place.

I hear you saying that even though from an outside perspective, people might look at Tennessee and say, too red.

We give up on Tennessee.

It's not because the grass roots are coming alive and they see what's happening.

It's not about Republicans and Democrats.

It's about what does our community need?

And not only that, but it's about the infrastructure that you've built.

It's about all of this work that you've put in over all of this time with your talent, with your community, your community links, with the work that you've done in other areas.

I mean, I want to talk about perilous.

passage because when you and I Together were in this film.

We were both telling our individual stories You were so inspiring to me as I'm watching what you're dealing with down in Tennessee and how you are making your way through this Challenging environment, you don't know what you're doing like you said it's you're totally out of your league, but you're fighting through it every single day Yeah, how did you decide that you were gonna go from?

having your terrible experience, becoming an advocate and a storyteller, suing the state, and now you're running for office.

How?

You know, I don't think it was a one issue that just like flipped a switch for me.

I think it accumulated over time, over those months after losing Miley.

You know, what's the lawsuit?

officially started I mean we filed September 11th of 23 and I knew they told me from the get-go this could take years like this isn't gonna be an overnight we win and move on or whatever and I was like I don't want to wait years like women are hurting now women are dying now

And so, over the summer that year, I met with my representative, the one that passed away, and I met with him for two hours.

I told him my story in detail of what happened to me.

And something that he said to me during that meeting, and I shared this online during my campaign, because, oh listen, a little tidbit for anybody that's listening.

Always record your elected officials.

Because you never know what they're going to say.

And you might need it later.

And they're regular people.

I think we tend to put them on a pedestal.

But the truth is, they are regular people.

And they often have areas of expertise that are different than ours.

Lack of a different is a word of choice there.

But during that meeting, he said to me, he was like, your first pregnancy was good.

And I was like, yeah.

He was like, in your second pregnancy.

And I was like, right.

And he was like, well, maybe I'm just a guy, but usually what you hear is that it's the first pregnancies that go bad.

No, no.

And he's like, I mean, that's just what you hear.

I'm like, from who?

Who is telling you that just the first pregnancy or normally the first pregnancy.

But sir, you are voting on women having access to reproductive health care.

and you don't know the first thing about reproductive health care.

You can have your first and second pregnancy fantastic and then lose five and then have a healthy baby, like nothing ever happened.

There's no handbook here.

It happens, it happens, right?

And that's why we need to have access to full-blown maternal health care, prenatal care, whatever we need, right?

And so after that meeting,

Or during another part of that meeting is I I tried to humanize my story with him He has a daughter.

That's only a few years younger than me and I was like, you know put put my story on your daughter, you know, she calls you and says hey dad like Pregnancy is not compatible and it's putting my life at risk.

You know, what do I do?

What are you gonna tell your daughter?

And he was like well, you know, I'm gonna tell her I think she should continue the pregnancy I was like even if it's gonna kill her and he said that's just the way I was raised

And I said, if you were my father, I said, if you were my father, I would, I would hate you because you were essentially telling her her life is expendable for the potential chance of another life that has already been told isn't going to survive.

And at that moment, it just kind of solidified for me that he didn't even see his own daughter as worthy of protecting.

And if he can't or they can't fight, and I'm trying not to speak ill of him because he has passed, but if they can't fight,

for their own kids and their own families they're not fighting for the rest of us and that conversation along with seeing article after news article after news article of women in different states being denied access and I would say the cherry on top was the ten-year-old in Ohio that had a travel across state lines to get an abortion and my daughter being seven at the time I was like this is this is

she's getting really close to reproductive age.

And I say reproductive age, I just mean her starting a menstrual cycle, right?

That could be her, right?

And we are in a state that does not allow her access to healthcare.

And I think that ultimately all of that combined together was like, I'm not gonna sit around and wait for men to save us.

When I can do it my damn self women we can do it our damn selves and so I decided to run for office and I ran like hell.

I ran a 13 month campaign.

It was hard.

I cried a lot.

I almost quit often.

I almost lost my marriage.

We almost lost our house like it was a very Challenging campaign

you had to do it though

had to do it

And now I'm doing it again.

I didn't get enough abuse the first time.

I really liked it.

But now I'm closing the gap.

My work wasn't done.

You don't lose once in give up.

You're a mom.

You don't just fall and stay down.

You get the fuck back up.

And people were relying on me.

And I'll tell you, there was one thing that was said to me that made me decide to run again because I wasn't going to.

I was like, listen, if it was meant to happen, I would have won.

That's what I believe the universe would have put me in that seat if that's where I was meant to be.

But there was one person that came up to me at, where was I?

I was at Dave and Buster's.

It had just opened up here in Clarksville.

And I know, we're like so with the times.

Just opened up here in Clarksville last year.

And I was walking around with my family.

It was just around Christmas time, I think, right before or right after.

It was right after the appointment vote.

I know that so it was must have been right before Christmas and I had a Taylor Swift Torture Poets sweatshirt on my hair was up in a ponytail.

I looked like shit and She came out to me and she was like, hey, are you are you Ally Phillips?

And I was like Yes

Who's asking and she was like no she's like oh my god She's like we're like I'm such a big fan of yours like I voted for you last cycle and she's like my 16 year old daughter I told her all about you and she introduced me to her daughter and her daughter asked me about a couple of reproductive things And then her like roommate came over and she was like oh this is the girl you're always talking about And then what she said to me is what made me rethink she said you know I still have your yard sign in my yard

I said, you do?

It's been over a year.

And she said, yeah, but your campaign in 2024 gave me so much hope that I couldn't take it out of my yard because every day when I walk outside nightly for work, I see your name and it reminds me that there's still hope.

Holy shit, that wrecked me.

That conversation, her saying that, oh my God.

When you run for office, you know, it is a very lonely experience.

you don't realize how many people you're actually touching.

And me personally, like my story obviously went worldwide.

I mean, I did international interviews and I have no idea how many people Miley and I reached.

I had no idea.

I could never know.

I don't think my brain could compute that.

But having a physical person come to me and say like a year later, you know, I took a hiatus after I had RG.

I wasn't really out anywhere for like five or six months.

Having a real person stand in front of me and tell me you gave me hope then and you still give me hope now How many other people feel that and how many other people are waiting and Anticipating and hoping that I'm gonna step in again because they still believe in me even though at that moment I didn't believe in myself So after that conversation I sat down with my husband

I sat down with my mom and my friends and I was like, what if?

After everything you had been through.

What if?

What if?

And, you know, there was a lot of people that were like, Ali, we don't think it's a good idea.

You need to take care of your mental health.

You know, you guys need to, you just had a baby.

You're going through a postpartum.

And I had just started going to therapy at the time because I realized my post-partum was really bad.

and you know I was like yeah but like I really think I could do it this year like this is the year right and they were like there was a lot of people that did not want me to run

mm-hmm

people that were my biggest supporters last time people that I relied on for advice and guidance and mentorship were like absolutely not

they were worried about you

well they were like if you run I want nothing to do with your campaign some of it was harsh mm-hmm

Had some people tell me well, I think you're running for the wrong reasons now Like what reason would that be the attention?

Whatever I'm like, I don't give a shit about the attention.

I want to help people Mm-hmm, like I won't do another interview if that's what you think that's about but I Decided that I don't need their approval It's the people in my community that were

hoping that I would run again that matter most.

It's the people in my community that relied on me that saw comfort and they resonated with me as a mom in the community.

I had people all the time that were like, you don't look like a politician.

I'm like, thank you.

I don't want to be.

I want to just be a friend.

I want to be somebody that you guys can call.

I want to be a community leader.

I want to be.

any title other than politician works for me but you know at the end of the day this is about the people in my community and I what my husband calls a bleeding heart liberal I care so deeply about people that would never dump a water dump water on me if I was burning alive right I would still help them and that's just the kind of person I am

One of my favorite Ally Phillips moments is captured in Perilous Passage.

It's surprisingly, at the end of the campaign, you have found out that you did not win.

You take the podium and you announce that you're expecting.

That's Archie.

That's Archie.

So I found out I was pregnant in August, right after the primary.

And so for the next three months, my whole first trimester,

Was the most grueling part of my Oh My god, I was so sick my campaign manager and I like I think maybe two people knew outside of my family We didn't tell anybody because I didn't want people to treat me differently And so I had this plan that

and it was right around the time I was getting my anatomy scan.

I got like a pre-anatomy scan done by a friend who I don't want to get her in trouble because I don't know if she was legally allowed to do that but a friend who is an obstetrician so she does have the equipment but she did like a pre-anatomy scan for me before election eight because my anatomy scan so election day was November 5th my anatomy scan was November 7th.

Oh my gosh.

Well, let's talk about why that's so important.

Because you had just gone through this entire journey with Miley that started with your anatomy scan.

So for your rainbow baby, which is the baby that comes after you've lost a baby, everything is so much more tense until you get to that point.

Even after that point, it can be tense.

But at least up until that point, it's so challenging.

And there you are running a race, trying to figure that piece out, pregnant, feeling bad.

And you are waiting for that official anatomy scan.

Wow.

I was, I mean, I was scared to sneeze.

I was scared to stand up too fast.

I was scared if I coughed or anything that I would do something to mess up the pregnancy.

Like I moved like I was glass.

And so having to move like that during the most like.

hard part of the campaign was really hard.

I mean, I had people that are like, why isn't Ally out knocking more doors?

And my campaign manager's like, oh, she's not feeling well.

Meanwhile, I'm like puking my brains out in my bathroom because of what our first trimester, you know, belly, but I knew that I wanted that to be a full circle moment.

Win or lose, I was sharing the news of Archie.

And so during my concession speech, you know, I talked about how

You know, I lost and whatever and how hard we worked.

But November 5th is also my husband's birthday.

And so I had brought a cake, right?

And we sung happy birthday earlier in the night.

And then I had this big box that was wrapped in wrapping paper.

And I told them that it was because people were like, what is that?

And I was like, oh, it's a present for Brian that I'll reveal later.

and so I was like oh and this present here isn't actually a present it's our gender reveal and so like the whole room just lit up and um you know being able to share so my what I said in the speech I was like you know everybody knows that this campaign started because of my pregnancy loss with Miley and like I'm so proud to share that it's now ending with a new pregnancy and uh at that point I was 15 weeks and

If anybody wants to see, that's Archie now.

Oh, he's so sweet, that face.

Oh my god, he's a little devil.

I'll tell you what, he likes to bite now.

He just got a molar in this past week, and so he's just been gnawing on everything.

You have outdone every gender reveal I've ever seen, because first of all, he didn't set anything on fire, but second, who does that during a concession speech?

That is...

chef's kiss

yes I literally I refuse to leave on a bad note I was like there's no way I'm not leaving on this sad we put in so much work the different organizations like equity alliance Turk Planned Parenthood you know they not

With us together, at that time we couldn't coordinate together, now the law has changed that we can, but once we realized how much we did together, over 100,000 doors were knocked with these organizations in my campaign.

These people put their blood, sweat, and tears into that district, and I wish it would have came out in a different result, but this was a Trump election year.

Republicans showed out more than the Democrats did, more than the independents did.

and you know we lost we lost every race in Tennessee that we were trying to flip a seat and thankfully we didn't lose any seats that we already had so that was good but we just 24 was hard i mean it's hard for people across the country but we've been seeing democrats flipping seats in some districts that have been republican held for generations

for decades right like they have been family owned like they just keep recycling literally now yeah and now they're they're not anymore because people are opening their eyes they're realizing that voting the same people in isn't helping them and what's interesting to me i'm gonna say this we have people like my opponent i'm not saying his name he doesn't deserve that airtime

With people like my opponent and other Republicans in the state of Tennessee that talk about what they're going to do to fix Tennessee what their plans are I'm sorry, but have you guys not been in complete total control for 16 years?

Yes, if you need to fix something, it's your own fucking problem Excuse my language, but it's your own.

It's your own error.

This is what you

built.

Yeah, you yes Yes, you built a glass house and you threw a rock

Now it's shattered and now you want to fix it.

Why don't you let someone come in and build a brick house,

right?

Let the Democrats come in granted not every Democrat is worthy of election right or being elected But at the end of the day You have ran this state for 16 years if it needs to be fixed you you're fixing it from your own party, so Let's let's get some new blood in there.

Let's get some new ideas in there

Let's have, we have 24 Democrats out of 99 seats in our state house.

We are a super minority.

We don't even have to show up and they have a quorum to vote.

And they'll do it.

They can do whatever they want.

They changed the law in order to redraw our maps in the middle of a decade.

They changed the law.

We've got to stop letting this one party control everything.

I'm not here to say let the Democrats take over.

I don't want to see that either.

I would like to see more of an even playing field because like I said earlier, Tennessee is an independent voting state.

We are majority independents.

We are not being represented right now by having a majority GOP and it's a stronghold and they will hold on to it until people start waking up and stop looking at this party politics and realize like, hey,

You're not going to burn in the pits of hell if you vote for a Democrat.

I promise.

I promise.

Nobody's going to know unless you tell them, right?

It's

true.

And this time around, you've got the experience.

You've got the infrastructure.

You've got the momentum.

Nationally, we see what's happening because of the Trump administration.

People are souring.

They understand that gas prices are high.

They can't afford housing.

They can't afford food.

It's all lining up in your favor.

And you're such a.

inspiration, Allie, to so many of us all across the country.

For our listeners who feel the same way that I do about you, how can people get involved?

So we will take all the help we can get, wherever we can get it.

My website is alliep4tn.com.

That's A-L-L-I-E.

P is in Paul, the number four, tn.com.

You can report down there.

LAP for

Tennessee?

Is that LAP for Tennessee?

That's all I'm saying.

It rhymes.

But you can learn more about me there.

Financial help, obviously.

Campaigns cost money.

I'm a working class mom.

I can't fund this by myself.

So we are small grassroots donor base.

So if you got five bucks...

Heck yeah, I'll take it.

If you got 500 bucks, even better.

I'll take whatever you got if you got extra cash to throw.

We also need volunteers.

If you were in Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, Clarksville area and you want to come out and knock doors with us, amazing.

If you want to write postcards for us, you can do that from anywhere in the country.

We're also doing phone banking.

We do virtual phone banks.

You can also do that anywhere in the country.

As long as you have a computer or smartphone that you can get online through a

Google Meet or Zoom, you can join us and you can help us call voters in the area.

So sharing my social media posts, Ali4TN on Instagram and Facebook.

I think it's Ali Phillips for change on Facebook.

We'll put

all the links in the show

notes.

They'll be out there.

Yeah, you can find me.

But just be involved and don't sleep on the South.

I've had so many people tell me, why don't you just move to a blue state and run there?

It'd be so much easier.

Why would I want to do something easy?

Tennessee is my home.

It wasn't born here.

I was born in upstate New York, but we moved down here when I was three months old.

So I claim to be a native Tennessean.

I think I qualify, but this is my home.

This is where I grew up.

This is where I went to school.

This is where my family is.

This is where my kids are growing up.

This is where my memories are.

Tennessee didn't used to be like this.

16 years ago, before the GOP took over, we were a blue state.

People forget that.

Tennessee used to be a blue state.

We don't have to go back to being blue, but we can go back to an even playing field at least so people have representation.

I want equal representation for everybody.

I believe everybody should have someone up there that looks like them, that thinks like them, and will represent them properly.

And right now, we don't have that.

So I will advocate whether winter lose this November.

I will still be advocating.

I'm not going anywhere, but we could use the help and the support.

in every race that you can get involved in, but I'm going to be biased and tell you to help me.

Perfect.

Allie P for Tennessee.

You are such an inspiration.

You are the future of Tennessee.

You're not going anywhere.

I am so honored to be your friend and so grateful to spend this time with you today.

Thank you.

Thank

you.

Thank you so much.

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