Fall of Roe

Today's State of Roe sets its sights on Kansas, which has had a rich history of progressive policies with regards to women, including granting them suffrage even before 1920, but these days heavily regulates bodily autonomy.

This August 2nd, a ballot initiative could determine if the Kansas legislature bans all legal abortion in the state. We urge as many Kansas listeners as possible to vote NO on "No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment" to ensure that the legal precedent enshrining abortion in the state remains.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 7526. If you already have an appointment and are concerned about anything you hear on the news, call your provider. They will have the most up-to-date information in a changing landscape.

Kansas Abortion Fund

Seek abortion resources in nearby States on AbortionFinder.org

On today’s episode of Fall of Roe, Chris’ guest is her former colleague Stacy Cross, who runs Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte in California, one of the biggest affiliates in the country. Chris and Stacy discuss what’s going on with abortion access in California and everything about the state in our post-Roe world. Stacy begins by sharing some details about California’s response to the fall of Roe as a state that supports reproductive rights and justice, including protecting both local patients and those from out of state. She also talks about what’s been happening on the ground in California as it prepares to handle hundreds of additional patients and helps to allay confusion over what is still legal and where.

The discussion then turns to the importance of taking action, especially voting, and Stacy gives details on some upcoming ballot initiatives to keep an eye on. She also highlights SCA 10, which has just been passed and makes explicit the fundamental constitutional right to abortion and contraceptives in California. In addition to voting, Stacy urges the need to normalize stories of the positive impact abortion has and discusses the long-term negative impact losing access to reproductive autonomy will have, narrowing the choices for those who can get pregnant and adding an extra burden onto lives that are already challenging. She and Chris also highlight the hypocrisy of pro-lifers, their disinterest in protecting children once they’re out of the womb, and their desire for power and control. Finally, Stacy closes the episode on a hopeful note, emphasizing that there are places to find safe, compassionate, and confidential care, California amongst them, and highlighting the response of young people who are ready to stand up and finish the fight for reproductive rights.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• California’s response to the fall of Roe
• Dealing with confusion over what’s legal
• Getting the vote out
• The long-term impact of losing access to reproductive autonomy
• What gives Stacy hope

Quotes:

“There’s so much confusion and fear out there that even people from California and Nevada were calling our response center saying, ‘Are we still safe and legal in our states?’”

“People are going to do what it takes. Making abortion illegal doesn’t make it go away, it just makes it unsafe.”

“The biggest fear that we have is that people don’t know that they can look up Planned Parenthood, that they can go to an independent provider, that we are all uniting together to make sure that women and people seeking abortion have access, and that when they walk through our doors, they are met with love and compassion.”

“Our average patient, as you know, is nineteen to thirty-four, already has children, they just don’t think they can afford to care for another child to the capacity that they want to. So forcing a birth, how is that going to improve the lives of anyone? And this attack on women is an attack on families, which is an attack on our country.”

“We want people to disrupt, and by disrupt, we mean not only rally but also tell your story. One in four women in our country have had an abortion. We need to normalize this, we need to tell the stories of the positive impact by making a choice that involves your body.”

Links:

Fall of Roe Homepage

Abortion Finder

In this timely episode of the Fall of Roe podcast, Chris Charbonneau chats with Dr. Lora Shahine, a reproductive endocrinologist at Pacific NW Fertility and the host of the Baby or Bust podcast. As a doctor who deals with IVF treatments for those struggling to build families, Dr. Shahine is very familiar with the trigger laws that are making her practice all the more challenging, especially in red states. Misoprostol is the drug most commonly associated with abortion and is already being targeted by the government, despite being known as a wonder drug that solves a host of other reproductive issues. As a result of this political interference, the U.S. is currently seeing a mass exodus of doctors to blue states where they are able to work with embryos to the best of their capabilities.

Dr. Shahine goes on to discuss just how worried she is about the future of reproductive healthcare. Not only will medical training not be as inclusive, but proper care will become even more inaccessible. By waging a war on abortion and embryos, the government has targeted women with miscarriage trauma and families struggling to get pregnant just as much. That’s why Dr. Shahine has founded Doctors for Fertility to try to help people understand how IVF is currently practiced, and to help keep it that way. The goal is to increase access and take the best care of their patients. Dr. Shahine and Charbonneau close out the episode by talking about a potential silver lining here: the fall of Roe V. Wade is an opportunity to strengthen women’s rights once and for all. Don’t forget that women aren’t even explicitly mentioned in the Constitution after all, and moments like this remind us of all the work yet to be done.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• Trigger laws impacting IVF
• Mass exodus of doctors
• Targeting misoprostol
• The future of medical training
• The pandemic burnout
• Miscarriage trauma
• IVF expenses
• Doctors for Fertility
• Opportunities moving forward

Quotes:

“I think I can provide a really important perspective that people have not thought of yet how these trigger laws and laws that are focused on protecting life at every stage could impact people who are trying to build their family with IVF.”

“Defining life and protecting life at fertilization means protecting an embryo, and as an IVF Doctor, we are working with embryos every single day as a way to build a family. So what this could mean is if those personhood bills do go into effect, someone else gets to decide whether we're hurting embryos; it's basically giving rights to embryos, like people. And so someone else can decide that it's not okay to freeze embryos, someone else can decide it's not okay to do genetic screening on embryos.”

“All of these changes could only increase costs and increase limits to something that is already far too limited.”

“There's so few people graduating from this field. Where are they going to want to practice? They're going to want to practice in states where they're able to practice medicine, that's the best for their patients. And there's going to be a mass exodus of doctors from states that are really limiting them.”

“According to the World Health Organization, one of the wonder drugs of the last 40 years, they have a list of drugs that have been the most life saving on the planet…And misoprostol is one of those listed because of its life saving properties in the care of women.”

“I do really worry about the, you know, medical deserts, right?  Like places in the country where women just can't get reproductive care because nobody wants to practice there.”

“I can't tell you how many people picketing outside the clinic that then brought their daughters in. One guy said to me, ‘Well, she's only 14.' And I said, ‘Well, a lot of them are only 14, you know.’… So people find ways to justify what they do.”

“People who are struggling with infertility and with recurrent miscarriages are already feeling marginalized.”

"We have a grassroots effort that is going to launch officially next week. It's called Doctors for Fertility, and it's some reproductive endocrinologists, just like me, trying to come together to form a pack, try to get ahead of this, and really support our colleagues in different states that are not protected like I am.”

“We were trying to get contraception covered. And I said, 'Well, now that you're covering Viagra, surely it's clear to you why you'd need to cover contraception as well.’ And they were like, ‘Well, Viagra solves a medical problem, and pregnancy is not a medical problem’.”

“This is going to wake us up and help us change with something more permanent.”

Links:

Fall of Roe Homepage

Dr. Lora Shahine's Homepage

Dr. Lora Shahine on Instagram

Dr. Lora Shahine on YouTube

Baby or Bust Podcast

Wyoming, this episode's State of Roe, is sadly an unsafe state due to its Republican supermajority that intends to shut down the few available abortion options as soon as they can. While there currently aren't any trigger laws in effect, they can be implemented at any moment, and so if you do have an abortion scheduled within Wyoming, be sure to check with your provider immediately.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 75 26

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

Seek abortion resources in nearby States on AbortionFinder.org

Today's State of Roe takes us to the southwest with New Mexico, a Safe State with high quality, experienced providers. You can find them at AbortionFinder.org they are vetted on this site.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has implemented protections for those seeking abortion care and people who help those seeking abortion care.

One problem New Mexicans may face is the availability of abortions, since both Texas and Oklahoma women are traveling there to get care on large numbers.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 75 26

This State of Roe sets its sights on Hawaii, one of the states which had legal abortion before the Roe v Wade decision, and barring a national abortion ban, a woman’s right to choose will remain legal in this state long into the future. Abortions in Hawaii are done by Planned Parenthood and the University of Hawaii.  The providers are highly qualified.

Geographically, surgical abortions are performed in Honolulu and in the town of Kahului on the Island of Maui.  People from the Big Island generally travel to either Honolulu or Kahului for care.  From Kauai most people travel to Honolulu, but there is a telemedicine project there to make medication abortion available to people on Kauai without having to fly.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 7526

Hawaii locals needing funding can call Planned Parenthood at 800-769-0045 or the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project www.wrrap.org

To find abortion care from any State: AbortionFinder.org

Anyone with appointments for care should stay in touch with their Planned Parenthood clinic (where most of the procedures in the State are done) for updates.

Get your long acting reversible contraceptives right away, as there is already a move afoot in the Idaho legislature to challenge legal contraceptives and Plan B morning after treatment.

Today’s State of Roe minisode focuses on Idaho. The new law makes performing any abortion a felony, including ones for rape or incest unless the victim has reported the assault(s) to the police and can present a physician with a police report. 

At the time of this recording, abortion is currently legal in Idaho, but the state does have a trigger ban and abortion will be illegal in Idaho in late August/early September.  After that, those seeking care might need to travel to a neighboring State (Washington, Oregon and Nevada are good choices) to get services. There is a lawsuit challenging the implementation of this new draconian law by Planned Parenthood.  It challenges the law on the basis of the Idaho constitution, so the issues are separate from those that the Supreme Court considered.

Abortion will remain legal to save a woman’s life, if you can find a doctor courageous enough to take the chance to do it before it is actually too late for you.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 7526

AbortionFinder.org

Anyone with appointments for care should stay in touch with their Planned Parenthood clinic (where most of the procedures in the State are done) for updates.

Get your long acting reversible contraceptives right away, as there is already a move afoot in the Idaho legislature to challenge legal contraceptives and Plan B morning after treatment.

Roe Has Fallen

Some States, as a result, have illegal abortions today: Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota. Some States will go through some machinations, albeit perhaps 30 days or less, then their States will join the others with total abortion bans. These are Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama.

If you have an abortion scheduled in ANY State, reach out to your provider for information.

President Biden has promised to do what is in his power to ensure legal delivery of Abortion Medication (Mifeprex/Misoprostol) to all States for use. He also committed that the Department of Justice will protect the right of pregnant people to travel, and the rights of people to help them do so.

If you are NOT already scheduled for an abortion, use AbortionFinder.org. Services at this site are vetted to be real providers who follow quality standards. NEVER call or visit any organization calling itself any version of a “Crisis Pregnancy Center.”

What you can do:

Advise the women and people with uteruses in their lives, to get long acting reversible contraceptive methods. This could save your life. Also, the Supreme Court seems poised to entertain challenges to Griswold v. Connecticut, which protects contraception. While undoing Griswold could take some time, this could get complex in Red States where their right-wing activists are feeling their oats.

Lay in supplies of early pregnancy tests and Plan B. We don’t want potentially pregnant people to be buying these, as we careen into the surveillance State.

Also order a supply of Abortifacients from Aid Access—these can be sent to non pregnant people for prophylactic use….then you have it and would have gotten it while it was legal to do so, with a few State exceptions.

Funding: give money to your local Abortion Access Fund. They pop up first on a Google search. Once again, avoid accidentally contributing to a Crisis Pregnancy Center.

Support health centers in Red States—we need for folks to have safe places to go in this tumultuous time—even for advice.

Let the young people in your life know that you are a resource to help.

Blue States: advocate for Shield laws to protect out-of-Staters who get abortions in your State, and for people in your State who help them. Above all protect the providers—they are rare and precious, be they MDs, DOs, Physicians Assistants or Nurse Practitioners.

Be prepared to collect stories of the mayhem—everyone needs to know how bad this gets lest people believe this does not need to be corrected. We need to hold the guilty accountable.

Corporations: make Red States pay with the loss of your Headquarters. Challenge the smug Governors to explain how this is good for your business. Do what the corporate leaders did in fighting LGBTQ hate.

Tell everyone how pro-choice you are. Do not allow the other side to silence us with renewed stigma. It is they who should be hiding in shame.

Vote. Vote. Vote. No Republican can be elected to office or we stand to lose abortion access in EVERY State.

Today the Court did the most Un-American thing possible: they took a religious view from one Church and shoved it down the throats of all Americans. They took our freedom. This will not stand.

Today, Reverend Monica Corsaro, Planned Parenthood's first affiliate-based Chaplain, joins Chris to discuss the historical role of the clergy in the abortion field. Brought into the Planned Parenthood fold to provide a particular level of counseling to people who were in various stages of crisis in their reproductive health decision making, Monica has gone on to be a Chaplain for various universities and other church concerns. In this episode, she shares some history of the clergy and their spiritual and practical role in ensuring the safety and health of women, and also offers her perspective on what needs to happen now that we find ourselves in this current crisis involving the fall of Roe.

Monica begins by recounting the historical role of the clergy and their spouses in the pre-Roe era, the founding of what would become the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and a particularly hopeful note from this history which may apply to the current movement forward. She and Chris go on to discuss such key players as Reverend Tom Davis and Minister Daniel Kanter, bemoan the level of religious illiteracy these day, and Monica shares a breakdown of the various religious organizations which hold pro-choice tenets. Monica also shares details about the interfaith table she has assembled, Chris offers her insights into the policies of Catholic hospitals, and together they send forth a call to action with the steps we all need to take at this crucial moment in history, bolstered by a vision of people of all faiths getting organized and working together. 

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• The historical role of clergy pre-Roe
• The story of the founding of what became the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
• A note from this history that is very interesting as we go forward these days
• Reverend Tom Davis
• The current state of religious illiteracy in society
• The pro-choice religious tenets that are currently in many organized religions
• Monica’s interfaith table
• Minister Daniel Kanter and his inspirational actions
• Catholic hospitals
• Steps we all need to take
• People of all faiths organizing and working together
• A call to action

Quotes:

“We are not a theocracy. I am a religious leader. I take care of people. That's part of what I do, is my call as clergy.”

“There is no tension in that we are going to do this because we are saving lives and God trusts women. And in trusting these women who are making these decisions.”

“We have to educate people on what Christianity is.”

“I'm trying to figure out how to not scare us, but I think we need to scare everybody.”

“I really do think it's doing a little wake up call, literally a wake up call, to our sisters, brothers and siblings and saying, ‘We need to get to work.’”

“The power of the purse is great and Medicaid should not be paying people who don't follow certain kinds of rules in terms of quality of care and expectation of the community.”

“ There are lines that can't be crossed here. And I think it's incredibly important that we understand the limitations of who gets to put what ideology down anyone else's throat.”

“The United States is this wonderful place of - I like to say it's a rainbow coalition in every definition of the rainbow, like where people come from, who they love, what they do, what religion they are, brown black, white, everything in between and beyond.”

“I kind of feel like we are this great democracy, so we have some responsibilities to keep it so.”

Links: 

Fall of Roe Homepage

Reverend Corsaro on LinkedIn

The second State of Roe minisode takes us to the far northwest of Alaska, one state which had abortion enshrined in law prior to Roe v. Wade. Despite the state legislature’s many attempts to remove abortion access, a strong judiciary in Alaska has upheld this essential right.

Resources:

Fall of Roe Homepage

For information and services, call Planned Parenthood at 1 800 240 7526

If you need an abortion in Alaska, your insurance is likely to cover the costs. If you are a recipient of Alaska Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act plan, or are covered as a Native Alaskan, your abortion is also covered.

Further, if you need to travel to Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau or out of State for care, your plan should cover travel and hotel costs for you and a travel companion to support you.

If you are not covered by any of these plans, contact the Northwest Abortion Access Fund at https://nwaafund.org