Pop star Olivia Rodrigo toured a Planned Parenthood facility in Los Angeles and taped a series of advocacy videos with the organization this week, timed to promote her upcoming all-women music festival benefiting the abortion provider and other left-wing groups.
In clips posted Tuesday by Planned Parenthood, Ms. Rodrigo sat down with Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California president Jodi Hicks and Rachel Rodriguez, chief people and culture officer for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, touring the facility and discussing the organization’s services.
“Even just walking around, seeing all the people doing various jobs here, it’s just so inspiring,” Ms. Rodrigo said. “They’re all united in this common mission.”
In a separate clip, Ms. Rodrigo was asked whether she worries about speaking up for reproductive rights.
“No,” she said, adding she doesn’t believe “you need to know every statistic or have a PhD” to know that “women should be able to be in control of their own bodies.” She also credited the organization’s STI testing and cancer screening services, saying Planned Parenthood “would always have a special place in my heart.”
Asked about the difference between emergency contraception and medication abortion, Ms. Rodrigo said abortion pills are “under attack,” calling claims that they are unsafe false because the drugs have “been very safe… for many years.”
Separately, a music video posted this week to social accounts for Ms. Rodrigo’s festival blamed the Trump administration for the closure of nearly 30 Planned Parenthood health centers, set to her song “My Way,” with on-screen text vowing supporters would “never stop fighting for sexual and reproductive health care.”
A safety fight over the abortion pill
Ms. Rodrigo’s comments come as the abortion drug mifepristone faces renewed scrutiny. The Food and Drug Administration is conducting a safety review of the drug, with the agency saying as of April it was still working through data collection before deciding whether changes to the drug’s safety protocols are warranted.
The review followed a study published in April 2025 by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank rather than an academic or medical research institution. The self-published study, which has not undergone peer review or appeared in a medical journal, analyzed roughly 865,000 mifepristone prescriptions and found nearly 11% of women experienced sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging or another serious adverse event within 45 days — a rate the group said was more than 20 times higher than the under-0.5% rate on the FDA-approved label. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) cited the findings in pressing the FDA to restore stricter safeguards. Numerous obstetricians and epidemiologists, including the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a UCSF professor of obstetrics and gynecology, have disputed the study’s methodology, saying it relies on undisclosed data and broadly defined “adverse events” that don’t meet the FDA’s own criteria for the term.
Record abortion numbers, declining preventive care
Planned Parenthood’s own 2024-25 annual report showed the organization performed 434,450 abortions, a record and an 8% increase from the prior year. The Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion research group, argues that abortions accounted for roughly 97% of the pregnancy-related services in that count when measured against prenatal care, miscarriage care and adoption referrals — which made up 1.7%, 0.6% and 0.7% of those services, respectively, by Lozier’s calculation. The same analysis found cancer screening and prevention services have fallen 43% since 2014, including declines of 55% in breast exams and 38% in pap tests, while prenatal services are down 56% and contraceptive services are down 23%.
A pattern of advocacy
Ms. Rodrigo’s advocacy for abortion access dates back years. During her 2024 “Guts” world tour, she partnered with the National Network of Abortion Funds, directing a portion of North American ticket sales to the group and allowing local chapters to set up tables at shows; some stops also saw volunteers hand out free emergency contraception before her team asked them to stop.
At Glastonbury in 2022, Ms. Rodrigo dedicated Lily Allen’s song “F—- You” to the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, telling the crowd, “I’m devastated and terrified that so many women and so many girls are going to die because of this.”
Her festival, Daisy Chain Fields, is set for Aug. 29 at Great Park in Irvine, California, and will feature Chappell Roan, Doechii, Stevie Nicks and Garbage, among others. Organizers say 100% of net proceeds will go to charities including the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood.
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