I struggle with this topic. I’m staunching pro-choice, and I don’t want mistoprostol to ever have a hint of criminal consequences.
And also, to say this drug is safe without in person follow up, will always feel reckless to me. Not because the drug is dangerous, but because every body is different, every pregnancy is different and if it doesn’t do its job, the consequences can be sepsis and death.
I’ve had four miscarriages. Three required misoprostol. Only once did it work without a D&C. Now I know I’m an outlier, but there were no signs it didn’t work, and I had retained tissue. The only thing that told me an infection was brewing was an ultrasound in person.
This drug shouldn’t be illegal, but women who take it do deserve follow up care to ensure no retained tissue threatens their ability to have kids in the future or even their life.
When you are delivering death, the outliers need to be a part of how best practices are established.
To the sovereign injury of it all, the federal government is using the same against the states. The US is suing CA over our law regulating the treatment of egg-laying hens, claiming standing to “vindicate its sovereign interests.” (Legal nerds: US cannot claim preemption bc Supreme Court already said no wrt the same law’s treatment of pigs, plus federal law is about egg inspection and safety and CA is about treatment of hens.) So far the district court has said the US has not shown any actual injury sufficient for standing. The (Trump-appointed) judge said to allow standing based on such vague sovereign interest would allow the US to sue a state anytime it didn’t like a state’s policy. (Yes!) It seems like lots of folks are waiving sovereign injury around awfully casually. (The judge also could not resist chicken jokes, starting with “Seeking to enforce the pecking order between federal and state laws . . .”)
As someone who took mifepristone 24 hours ago and will be taking misoprostol imminently for a missed miscarriage, I am so angry that there are places in this country where there is more red tape and administrative process needed for anyone experiencing something where they need these drugs. Maternal health care is worse for everyone because of all this nonsense.
For the Pulitzer discussion - my first thought was the Weingarten piece about leaving kids in cars. I was pregnant with my second kid and my oldest was a toddler so it really hit close to home.
This is a book, but my personal Pulitzer is Everyone Who is Gone is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. It just informs so much for me - from understanding the history of my own city, to politics, to how we travel. I think about it all the time.
“This is not about states’ rights. This is about red states’ rights.” SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS. This is exactly what we’ve just seen in Virginia with their Supreme Court knocking down their redistricting map. Can’t wait to see the SCOTUS tie themselves in knots defending this one.
Loved the conversation on long reads! I totally agree that many books would be more effective if edited down to a long read. As a school librarian and writer, I’ve found myself using this approach in advocacy this year. I wrote a piece for The Texas Observer about our school’s struggles with Moms for Liberty, and have found it to be more effective at moving people and building awareness than anything else I’ve done this year. I suspect that as we move further into the age of AI, the value of intensive, human-produced pieces will only grow.
I RAN here to tell Sarah that the New Yorker piece “The Big One” also lives in my head and will forever! Why? BECAUSE MY CHILDREN WENT TO THE SCHOOL MENTIONED IN THE PIECE!!!
In 2016, we got orders to Astoria, OR. We were SO excited because it was our first choice and meant we didn’t have to move back to Alaska with 2 small children. And then, shortly after we got there, probably after my 2nd grader did her first tsunami evacuation drill, that piece popped up in my Facebook feed for some reason and I flipped allllll the way out. The school, Gearhart Elementary, was the school I sent my sweet child to every day (and eventually both my girls!). And the tsunami evacuation drill led the kids to the tiny hill just up the driveway from my house. And none of it mattered because, if the big one hit, they wouldn’t make it out of the school and the evacuation zone was below the predicted height of any tsunami. WHAT???? I spent 3 years absolutely sure we were all going to die.
And the year after we moved, they closed that school, updated the one the next town over and made it the elementary school for all the kids in both towns, and built a new high school and middle school above the tsunami level. So it’s better now, but we still would’ve been living in the evac zone (we literally had neighbors that kept kayaks tied to a tree in their yard) and I’ve never been happier to drive away from a duty station as I was from that one!!!
I’m wondering if any part of a reduction in pro-choice activism has to do with the fire hose of attacks on all kinds of rights coming from all sides. It’s hard to prioritize everything all the time.
My practice for many years now has been to always read the Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. I have read all of the winners back to 1994 and it is my goal one day to have read them all. Some of my favorite books of all time-Gilead, Demon Copperhead, The Overstory, A Visit from The Goon Squad, Interpreter of Maladies, and The Road are on that list and I am so grateful to have been introduced to them through this practice. There are also some absolute stinkers (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Martin Dressler were TERRIBLE) but I have found it to be a generally expansive and useful practice to try to read what is deemed the best writing in any given year.
You've now inspired me to read more of the Pulitzer Prize winning journalism! I know this is not journalism, but this NYT essay on "The Referendum"-the way childless and child-bearing adults look sideways at each other lives, which I read in the year when I had my first child at 26, is my Roman empire. If you are in the stage of life where you are deciding to have kids or just had them, give it a read. https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-referendum/
I just kept thinking about how Louisiana is literally sinking (as you mentioned on one of the last shows) and again, this is what they are spending their time on. I am currently in school studying to become a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and all of this is why. As usual, the women who suffer most are poor women. I guess Louisiana would rather pay for their pregnancies, births, and children? They certainly don’t want to support them have healthy lives, pregnancies, or children. It really is astounding how contradictory this all is. I also would love to know what procedures for 2 women cost the state $90,000k and was that the billed amount or paid amount? Ugh- sooooooo maddening!!
I had that same thought too, that the state is literally sinking but y’all have time for this nonsense. 🫠
Re: costs, we all know how hospital bills are insane, but I also wonder if some of the costs were associated with the ban itself - i.e. if these women needed a D&C, did that mean more time in the hospital while administration and legal waffled around to see if they could allow doctors to perform that, extra confirmations and documentation of fetal demise for cya purposes, more care required to stabilize the patient after these delays, etc. Not sure if there’s a way of finding that out in these particular circumstances, but I’m sure this community has insights.
I’d love if we could add to the conversation that mifepristone and similar drugs aren not just for abortions. They are for inducing a period which is needed for some uterine surgeries as well. What this looks like in practice is a doctor in TX prescribes it for a legal reason. The pharmacy is nervous so they call the doctor to validate which takes time away from patients. Eventually, someone in a board room sees that it costing them serious man hours which are expensive AND opening them to massive liability which is not worth the cost to them. They will then just stop providing it because it’s too expensive for them not because it is illegal. The end result? More emergency room visits, more dangerous surgeries which will lead to greater healthcare costs for everyone. This is not just about the morality, the legality, or even duty of care. It’s about what insurance and businesses will accept as risk and how much they’ll squeeze out of us to do so.
Yes to this. I miscarried last February and used Misopristol to induce contractions (after waiting a week to see if I would naturally start them). I was so thankful to live in Illinois where both Misopristol and a D&C were offered as soon as we knew there wasn’t a heart beat. I couldn’t imagine having to wait like women in Texas. It was already agony knowing I would probably miscarry and having to wait two weeks for that to occur.
I struggle with this topic. I’m staunching pro-choice, and I don’t want mistoprostol to ever have a hint of criminal consequences.
And also, to say this drug is safe without in person follow up, will always feel reckless to me. Not because the drug is dangerous, but because every body is different, every pregnancy is different and if it doesn’t do its job, the consequences can be sepsis and death.
I’ve had four miscarriages. Three required misoprostol. Only once did it work without a D&C. Now I know I’m an outlier, but there were no signs it didn’t work, and I had retained tissue. The only thing that told me an infection was brewing was an ultrasound in person.
This drug shouldn’t be illegal, but women who take it do deserve follow up care to ensure no retained tissue threatens their ability to have kids in the future or even their life.
When you are delivering death, the outliers need to be a part of how best practices are established.
That is also reproductive freedom and care.
The most powerful Pulitzer winning long form piece just won. Just read it. Absolutely brilliant and crushing. https://www.texasmonthly.com/press-room/senior-editor-aaron-parsley-wins-2026-pulitzer-prize-for-feature-writing/
To the sovereign injury of it all, the federal government is using the same against the states. The US is suing CA over our law regulating the treatment of egg-laying hens, claiming standing to “vindicate its sovereign interests.” (Legal nerds: US cannot claim preemption bc Supreme Court already said no wrt the same law’s treatment of pigs, plus federal law is about egg inspection and safety and CA is about treatment of hens.) So far the district court has said the US has not shown any actual injury sufficient for standing. The (Trump-appointed) judge said to allow standing based on such vague sovereign interest would allow the US to sue a state anytime it didn’t like a state’s policy. (Yes!) It seems like lots of folks are waiving sovereign injury around awfully casually. (The judge also could not resist chicken jokes, starting with “Seeking to enforce the pecking order between federal and state laws . . .”)
I would LOVE a “book” club series on these incredible pieces of journalism.
As someone who took mifepristone 24 hours ago and will be taking misoprostol imminently for a missed miscarriage, I am so angry that there are places in this country where there is more red tape and administrative process needed for anyone experiencing something where they need these drugs. Maternal health care is worse for everyone because of all this nonsense.
For the Pulitzer discussion - my first thought was the Weingarten piece about leaving kids in cars. I was pregnant with my second kid and my oldest was a toddler so it really hit close to home.
That article about hot car children deaths absolutely will live in my head forever.
This is a book, but my personal Pulitzer is Everyone Who is Gone is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. It just informs so much for me - from understanding the history of my own city, to politics, to how we travel. I think about it all the time.
“This is not about states’ rights. This is about red states’ rights.” SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS. This is exactly what we’ve just seen in Virginia with their Supreme Court knocking down their redistricting map. Can’t wait to see the SCOTUS tie themselves in knots defending this one.
I've decided that people who are anti-abortion are just intellectually lazy.
Loved the conversation on long reads! I totally agree that many books would be more effective if edited down to a long read. As a school librarian and writer, I’ve found myself using this approach in advocacy this year. I wrote a piece for The Texas Observer about our school’s struggles with Moms for Liberty, and have found it to be more effective at moving people and building awareness than anything else I’ve done this year. I suspect that as we move further into the age of AI, the value of intensive, human-produced pieces will only grow.
I RAN here to tell Sarah that the New Yorker piece “The Big One” also lives in my head and will forever! Why? BECAUSE MY CHILDREN WENT TO THE SCHOOL MENTIONED IN THE PIECE!!!
In 2016, we got orders to Astoria, OR. We were SO excited because it was our first choice and meant we didn’t have to move back to Alaska with 2 small children. And then, shortly after we got there, probably after my 2nd grader did her first tsunami evacuation drill, that piece popped up in my Facebook feed for some reason and I flipped allllll the way out. The school, Gearhart Elementary, was the school I sent my sweet child to every day (and eventually both my girls!). And the tsunami evacuation drill led the kids to the tiny hill just up the driveway from my house. And none of it mattered because, if the big one hit, they wouldn’t make it out of the school and the evacuation zone was below the predicted height of any tsunami. WHAT???? I spent 3 years absolutely sure we were all going to die.
And the year after we moved, they closed that school, updated the one the next town over and made it the elementary school for all the kids in both towns, and built a new high school and middle school above the tsunami level. So it’s better now, but we still would’ve been living in the evac zone (we literally had neighbors that kept kayaks tied to a tree in their yard) and I’ve never been happier to drive away from a duty station as I was from that one!!!
I’m wondering if any part of a reduction in pro-choice activism has to do with the fire hose of attacks on all kinds of rights coming from all sides. It’s hard to prioritize everything all the time.
Yeah, when you have people being actually grabbed off the street… 😔
My practice for many years now has been to always read the Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. I have read all of the winners back to 1994 and it is my goal one day to have read them all. Some of my favorite books of all time-Gilead, Demon Copperhead, The Overstory, A Visit from The Goon Squad, Interpreter of Maladies, and The Road are on that list and I am so grateful to have been introduced to them through this practice. There are also some absolute stinkers (The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Martin Dressler were TERRIBLE) but I have found it to be a generally expansive and useful practice to try to read what is deemed the best writing in any given year.
You've now inspired me to read more of the Pulitzer Prize winning journalism! I know this is not journalism, but this NYT essay on "The Referendum"-the way childless and child-bearing adults look sideways at each other lives, which I read in the year when I had my first child at 26, is my Roman empire. If you are in the stage of life where you are deciding to have kids or just had them, give it a read. https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-referendum/
What a great new reading list you’ve given me! Thank you!
I just kept thinking about how Louisiana is literally sinking (as you mentioned on one of the last shows) and again, this is what they are spending their time on. I am currently in school studying to become a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and all of this is why. As usual, the women who suffer most are poor women. I guess Louisiana would rather pay for their pregnancies, births, and children? They certainly don’t want to support them have healthy lives, pregnancies, or children. It really is astounding how contradictory this all is. I also would love to know what procedures for 2 women cost the state $90,000k and was that the billed amount or paid amount? Ugh- sooooooo maddening!!
I had that same thought too, that the state is literally sinking but y’all have time for this nonsense. 🫠
Re: costs, we all know how hospital bills are insane, but I also wonder if some of the costs were associated with the ban itself - i.e. if these women needed a D&C, did that mean more time in the hospital while administration and legal waffled around to see if they could allow doctors to perform that, extra confirmations and documentation of fetal demise for cya purposes, more care required to stabilize the patient after these delays, etc. Not sure if there’s a way of finding that out in these particular circumstances, but I’m sure this community has insights.
I’d love if we could add to the conversation that mifepristone and similar drugs aren not just for abortions. They are for inducing a period which is needed for some uterine surgeries as well. What this looks like in practice is a doctor in TX prescribes it for a legal reason. The pharmacy is nervous so they call the doctor to validate which takes time away from patients. Eventually, someone in a board room sees that it costing them serious man hours which are expensive AND opening them to massive liability which is not worth the cost to them. They will then just stop providing it because it’s too expensive for them not because it is illegal. The end result? More emergency room visits, more dangerous surgeries which will lead to greater healthcare costs for everyone. This is not just about the morality, the legality, or even duty of care. It’s about what insurance and businesses will accept as risk and how much they’ll squeeze out of us to do so.
Yes to this. I miscarried last February and used Misopristol to induce contractions (after waiting a week to see if I would naturally start them). I was so thankful to live in Illinois where both Misopristol and a D&C were offered as soon as we knew there wasn’t a heart beat. I couldn’t imagine having to wait like women in Texas. It was already agony knowing I would probably miscarry and having to wait two weeks for that to occur.
Same boat in CA. I am so grateful for the access I have and devastated for those who don’t.