to accept. to survive. good night. as i wrote in the journal i kept, it's too easy to look away from prison and prisoners. dignity is earned. hope is essential. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? with absorbine pro, pain won't hold you back from your passions. it's the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro. hi, i'm tali and i lost 85 pounds on golo. following golo and taking release i was able to lose weight gradually and keep it off. i wish i started sooner. don't wait go straight to golo.com. what is cirkul? cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul is your frosted treat with a sweet kick of confidence. cirkul is the effortless energy that gets you in the zone. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. you. 6 hi, i'm tali and i lost 85 pounds on golo. following golo and taking release i was able to lose weight gradually and keep it off. i wish i started sooner. don't wait go straight to golo.com. . i've talked a lot on this show about a threat to abortion rights around the country, but now there's an effort to go even farther due to the sowing of misinformation that is causing the limiting of access and blocking up efforts to expand access to contraceptives. in louisiana a bill to enshrine the right to birth control was killed. in idaho religious activists are pushing lawmakers to ban emergency contraception and enter uterine devices. and in missouri lawmakers blocked access to birth control pills by falsely claiming they induce abortions. a co-sponsor of that bill is republican tara peters who you should know is not a supporter of abortion rights. peters said, quote, it surprises me that the ones who know nothing about these types of things are the ones that are making the decisions. very well said. and joining me now is missouri state representative tara peters. thank you so much for meeting with me. in the quote, i said, i want to hear more about this. you allude to a lack of understanding of how contraception works among opponents of this bill, which i thought was such an interesting callout. what exactly did they not understand? i think any woman out there knows how contraception works. >> well, jen, actually the bill was very simple. it was one page. all it allowed was a woman who had a year's supply of an already existing prescription to get all of her prescription at once. it was an annual supply. the simple bill does not always mean less complicated. i thought this was going to be a shoo-in and it was going to be spread. we went before the committee trying to explain the difference, and initially once the education was proposed, then they were still making roadblocks, then there was something that was a lot deeper than that, so very surprised, again, that the -- even after education, there were still attempts to stop this legislation. >> it's surprising and i would note birth control and access is broadly supported by democrats, republicans. it's not a controversial issue among the public. where is this information coming from. do you have a sense of where people who are proponents of it are getting their information? >> i true i to put my feelers out. the only thing i can think about is it's a lot easier for the base to just go along with the base as opposed to like understanding it, and i think we lose it sometimes when we think we're representing all of our constituents, not just the ones that are a party base, and so i think that's been forgotten a little bit, was never able to actually pinpoint besides after the education was initially done, why the efforts continued. but, anyway, just, again, it's not rocket science. there is some science to it, right? the contraceptive actually prevents pregnancy. i don't understand why that's so complicated. >> what do you make -- i mean you just noted why it's so important for people in your state to have access. what do you make of this pattern that's happening? it's happening in your state and other states where there is efforts to block access to contraception or to bills like yours that are trying to protect women's rights to this? >> well, i was joking recently that, you know, in the state of missouri, we just passed legislation to make marijuana legal in our state, right? there are millions of women in our country who are happy. i understand in missouri we're a nonabortion state. very pro-life, but we need to make sure we're giving the women the tools that they need to prevent preg nancy. this should not be a fight in this country. this should be easily things that we make a priority for. >> i think so many women across the country, democrats, republicans, independents, unaffiliated people would agree with you, women, men, and others. so thank you so much for joining me today and help me explain it. it stuck out so much to me and i wanted to talk about it. senator tara peters, i appreciate it. i've got one more thing to tell you about before we go today. we're back after a quick break. today. we're back after a quick break a slow network is no network for business. that's why more choose comcast business. and now, we're introducing ultimate speed for business —our fastest plans yet. we're up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds... at no additional cost. it's ultimate speed for ultimate business. don't miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! that does it for me today, but we've got a big show planned for tomorrow night. my guests will include pennsylvania governor josh shapiro and new york congressman dan goldman. i'm very excited to talk to both of them. in the meantime be sure to follow the show on twitter, tick tock, and instagram, and a reminder you can listen to every episode of the podcast for free. we'll see you back here tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern, but stay right where you are because there's much more news coming up on msnbc. . jill > . jill jill and i wanted to pay our respects. it means a hot. >> everybody was worried about you and they nerve mentioned me. i'm up here sweating like a dog. >> there's no quit in america. none