rePROs Fight Back

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case which overturned Roe v. Wade was decided, there’s been an abortion access crisis, an assault on legal precedent for abortion protections, and an opportunity to create a stronger and even more inclusive plan to reproductive autonomy than Roe ever provided. Amy Myrick, Senior Council at the Center for Reproductive Rights, sits down to talk with us about legal trends in federal and state courts in the past four years. 

Currently, legal cases have been aimed towards medication abortion and telehealth (a lifeline after Dobbs). It is important to remember that legal attacks on abortion have broader implications, including for transgender health and rights (particularly for young people). Increasingly, anti-abortion actors have had to pivot to tactics that are often blatantly anti-democratic. In several states, ballot amendments have been taken to court.

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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The Supreme Court has heard two cases on transgender women and girl’s ability to participate in school sports after states have issued categorical bans on trans women playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back and Deputy Editor and Senior Contributor at the legal commentary outlet Balls and Strikes, sits down to talk with us about these cases as part of the broad, comprehensive attacks on trans people’s health and wellbeing. 

The Supreme Court justified this discriminatory decision against trans women and girls by arguing that the state cases don't turn on transgender status, but on sex alone—a step toward defining transgender people out of existence. It isn’t just sports and it isn’t just bathrooms; birth certificates, driver's licenses, freedom of travel, ability to work, ability to have healthcare, and ability to learn basic information in schools are all interconnected. The U.S. is also exporting this philosophy abroad through the expanded Global Gag Rule. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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This week’s special bonus pod features the abortion story of Hannah, a full-spectrum doula, an abortion doula, a childbirth educator, and a social worker. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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The Title X Family Planning Program was created in 1970 to fund reproductive health and contraceptive services and remains the federal government’s only dedicated source of family planning funding. Since his first term in office, Trump and his administration have repeatedly targeted the Title X Program, most recently by changing the application process for funding. Clare Coleman, President and CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), joins us to talk about what the latest funding announcement means for Title X and its grant recipients, and the lawsuit that NFPRHA, the ACLU, and FHCCP are pursuing against the Trump administration’s blatant contradiction of the Title X statute. 

Title X-funded programs provide contraceptive services, STI and pregnancy testing, and other crucial preventative and reproductive health services. The new funding announcement changes the process of applying for Title X grants, undermining Title X’s statutory mission by giving political appointees the power to decide who even gets considered for funding. This politicization of family planning resources promotes the President’s narrow agenda and poses a threat to the millions who rely on Title X-funded clinics and resources. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law that protects the right to emergency healthcare, including abortion. There has been, post-Dobbs, a clash between these federal protections and states with abortion bans. Amani Echols, Senior Policy Analyst for Maternal Health at the National Partnership for Women and Families and Ashley Kurzweil, Senior Policy Analyst for Reproductive Health and Rights at the National Partnership for Women and Families, sit down to talk with us about this unleashing of chaos and confusion around whether and when emergency abortion care is permitted. 

In many states, patient health must deteriorate to an extremely risky state before qualifying for the “health exceptions” to abortion bans that are in place. In addition, hospital closures are occurring around the country after Trump’s recent One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and for those who have emergencies in rural communities, that is extremely dangerous. For women of color who often experience dismissal or de-prioritization in medical settings, the pain, stress, and complications are often exacerbated. 

Abortion restrictions will no doubt worsen the maternal health crisis in the United States, which has the highest rate of maternal deaths of any other high-income nation. Black and Indigenous women are more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts and are even more likely to experience morbidity or severe maternal morbidity related to their pregnancy.

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The most recent numbers show that two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. are medication abortions, while 29 percent of all U.S. abortions were telehealth medication abortions. Dr. Angel Foster, researcher at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Health Sciences, global abortion researcher, and co-founder of the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (MAP) sits down to talk with us about the work that MAP performs and the importance of shield laws for reproductive health care and gender-affirming care.

Mifepristone, the first of two medications that people will take during a medication abortion, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000. Decades of evidence shows its safety and effectiveness. Access to the two-drug regimen increased significantly via telehealth during the pandemic, which required a new regulatory framework in 2023. MAP, through state shield law protections, allows licensed Massachusetts clinicians to prescribe medication abortion to those anywhere in the country, regardless of the legal status of abortion in their state. This year, the Fifth-Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would prevent providers from sending medication abortion through the mail—thankfully, MAP was able to shift to a misoprostol-only regimen (also safe and effective)—but the mass confusion had been immediately impactful. As of now, a stay has been issued to halt this decision by the Fifth Circuit. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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Art and activism intersect! Shannon Downey, full-time art activist, author, and educator, sits down to talk with us about art and activism and her new activism handbook for artists, crafters, and creators, Let’s Move the Needle, providing a how-to manual for using artistic skills to contribute to community building. 

Shannon learned how to cross stitch as a child. As an adult, doing work around gun violence and immigrant rights, Shannon leaned on cross stitch during moments when she felt politically fatigued. When she participated in a weekend art show that fundraised $5,000 dollars for art classes for survivors of gun violence, the intersection and importance between art and activism became very clear. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Brittany Fonteno, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and the National Abortion Hotline, sits down to talk with us about NAF’s new report, which shows a marked uptick in anti-abortion violence in the years since Roe’s overturning. 

The Roe decision came down in 1973. NAF was formed in 1977 and began tracking violence and disruption against independent abortion providers, Planned Parenthood affiliates, hospitals, and individual providers that very same year. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act was passed on bipartisan lines in 1994 to combat harassment, violence, blockading, and threats in front of abortion clinics. But in his first few weeks in office this term, Trump pardoned nearly two dozen anti-abortion extremists and has set aside a $2 billion fund-- partly to protect those who violate the FACE Act-- from legal consequences. 

There is still in-person harassment outside of clinics, but rates of online harassment, death threats to providers, and harassment rooted in racism and xenophobia have skyrocketed in recent years. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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Pronatalism is an ideology, cultural orientation, and emerging policy framework promoting higher birthrates by framing reproduction as a social duty or moral good. Oftentimes, pronatalism can emphasize certain gender roles and can be rooted in extreme nationalism and patriarchal ideals. Varina Winder, the former Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues at the U.S. Department of State and co-founder of the ARCH Collaborative, sits down to talk with us about the ways in which pronatalist ideology is present in the U.S. and what a true pro-family vision should look like.

Increasingly, pronatalism is being driven by governments. The Trump administration, for example, have been manipulating language to advance pronatalist ideology, including describing American women as “under babied” and referring to the expansion of the Global Gag Rule as the “Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance” Act. Government restrictions and cultural interventions are the tools used for pronatalism, and the language (often rooted in a low-fertility and birthrate “crisis”) global administrations use support these tools. 

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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Telling pregnant people what to do and enforcing pregnancy criminalization has been a decades-long threat. Dr. Grace Howard sits down with us to discuss her new book, which “traces the long history of state attempts to regulate and control people who have the capacity for pregnancy--from the early twentieth century's white supremacist eugenics to the end of Roe and the ever-increasing criminalization of abortion across the United States.”

For more information, check out Relationscapes: https://www.relationscapes.org/

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