About The Pro-Voice Project
Abortion stigma leads to silence, isolation, misinformation, and harmful policies.
In Idaho, stigma around reproductive health silences public discourse and deepens isolation for those navigating reproductive healthcare decisions. Despite the fact that 1 in 4 women in the U.S. will have an abortion in their lifetime, fear of judgment and legal retaliation fuels misinformation, isolates patients, and creates ethical dilemmas for healthcare providers. When stories are not told, Idahoans suffer alone and harmful policies go unchecked.
We serve those most impacted by Idaho’s abortion stigma — rural, low-income, and religious communities — who remain unheard, unseen, and unserved.
The people most impacted by this climate of stigma are often rural, low-income, or religiously affiliated Idahoans who experience internal conflict between private realities and public expectations. Their voices are missing from public life, leaving their needs misunderstood and their pain politicized.
The healing is in the sharing.
The Pro‑Voice Project was founded not only to respond to legislative attacks on reproductive rights, but to disrupt the silence. The healing is in the sharing. When people speak honestly about their reproductive lives, without shame or censorship, they create the conditions for healing, solidarity, and collective action.
Pro-Voice Staff
Meet the people who make the movement possible.
Jen Jackson Quintano
Founder & Executive Director
Jen founded The Pro-Voice Project in the wake of the Dobbs decision, while grappling with a deep sense of powerlessness in a post-Roe world—especially as a mother raising a daughter. In that moment of reckoning, she returned to what she knew best: the transformative power of stories and the way they beget courage and empathy. She immediately set out to find and amplify those voices—bold, vulnerable, and authentic. PVP has since cultivated a chorus.
In addition to her work at the helm of The Pro-Voice Project, Jen is a writer, with work appearing in numerous publications and anthologies including High Country News, Mountain Gazette, High Desert Journal, Red Rock Stories, and more. She is under contract with Broadleaf Books for her second book (to be published Spring 2027), writing at the intersection of activism, extremism and wildness in Idaho. Jen is also co-authoring a screenplay and helped craft a recent Off-Broadway stage production, both of which chronicle the fallout from Idaho’s abortion bans. Additionally, she owns an arborist business with her husband in the dense forests of her state's northern reaches.
Blair Perez
Director of Development & Communications
Blair spent the last 15 years in marketing and advertising, with more than a decade at Meta working with the biggest tech and travel brands. She spent the last 4+ years leading the Google account, at the confluence of social media and digital technology, and advising Google as they launched their AI products and marketing strategy in 2024 and the first half of 2025.
At the same time, she spent a year volunteering with PVP - running their Meta advertising, moonlighting as unofficial poet-in-residence, and helping put on the play One Body: Dispatches from Idaho in New York. In the summer of 2025 she decided to devote herself full time to helping scale PVP’s mission. The deep connections she witnessed at PVP events brought her alive, and now she’s thrilled to apply her tech and marketing knowledge to this worthy cause, and help dismantle stigma and shame in Idaho and beyond.
Follow her story and read her poetry on The Wild Beckons, her new Substack.
Ashley Townend
Director of Programs & Development
Ashley Townend (she/her) draws on her background in theater, education, and social work to lead programming and development at The Pro-Voice Project. Her journey began in the performing arts, where she worked with local professional theaters and devised original works in Ecuador and New York, followed by over a decade teaching Shakespeare to young people, using performance as a path to self-expression.
Parallel to her artistic practice, Ashley worked for ten years in behavioral health hospitals, supporting individuals during mental health crises. These dual experiences, creative and clinical, shaped her belief in storytelling as both a healing practice and a vehicle for systemic change. While earning her Master of Social Work, Ashley interned with a senator and co-produced the Boise Pro-Voice production in 2023. Returning after graduating, Ashley is honored to once again stand with The Pro-Voice Project. Her passion for expanding access to reproductive care is both professional and personal, and she’s determined to make sure fewer people have to do it blindfolded and uphill.
Pro-Voice Board of Directors
Jen Jackson Quintano, President
Founder of PVP
Quintano is PVP’s founder and executive director. She is also a writer and co-owner of Sand Creek Tree Service in Sandpoint, Idaho, and serves on the board of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.
Rev. Sara LaWall, Vice-President
Unitarian Universalist Minister
Rev. LaWall is a Unitarian Universalist minister serving the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. She is a champion for social justice issues, integrating them into her spiritual and congregational life. She serves as a mentor for the Boards and Commissions Fellowship Program, which aims to diversify Idaho's civic leadership by preparing underrepresented individuals for public service roles, and is on the board of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.
Cynthia Dalsing, N.P. , Tresurer
Certified Nurse Midwife
Cynthia Dalsing is a retired Certified Nurse Midwife. She received her Masters degree from the University of Utah. Her private practice in Sandpoint provided women's health care for 20 years. Over the 40 years of her career, she has worked in every aspect of women's health from primary care to the delivery room, providing medical exams for women after sexual assault, and healthcare for women as they age. She has worked in university settings, taught students pursuing careers in healthcare, coordinated maternal transports for high risk pregnancies, and staffed Planned Parenthood clinics in Utah. In retirement she continues to be active in legislation and leadership roles that impact women's health.
Rev. Karen Hernandez, Secretary
United Methodist Minister
Rev. Hernandez serves as the Sage District Superintendent within the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church. In this capacity, she oversees congregations across Southern Idaho and Eastern Oregon, providing leadership and support to the district's ministries. She is particularly involved in social justice issues and is a vocal opponent of capital punishment in Idaho.