By Skylar Baker-Jordan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Chance Dorland for the Tennessee News Service/Public News Service Collaboration

The end of Roe v. Wade - the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that prevents excessive government restriction of abortion services - could create multi-state regions where abortion is illegal, greatly complicating access for rural women who already must travel farther to terminate a pregnancy.

"The effect of this will... fall disproportionately on those who are unable to travel," said Sarah Traxler, M.D., the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which covers Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

"It is important to underscore that an abortion ban is not an abortion ban for all people. It is only an abortion ban for those who lack the means to travel to a state where abortion is safe and accessible, and that is one of the true moral outrages of this situation."

A 2017 study from the medical journal the Lancet found that 20% of women must travel more than 43 miles to get access to an abortion. This problem will be exacerbated as states bordering one another enact bans, which could ostensibly create regions where abortion is prohibited. The 50 states will transform into a patchwork quilt of reproductive rights.

Some states, like California and New York, would not be affected as state legislatures and courts have recognized a right to abortion at the state level. The situation elsewhere is much more restrictive. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, abortion would become illegal in 13 states thanks to so-called "trigger bans" designed to go into effect should they ever become legally permissible. Other states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, are expected to try to enact bans should Roe be overturned.

Exacerbating an Existing Problem

Many pro-life activists, however, are quick to caution abortion rights supporters against panicking. While acknowledging that "a post-Roe nation will look different," Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center - a conservative think tank - said in an interview that "in rural parts of the country and in redder states, it's not going to be a huge paradigm shift..." Those places, he said in an interview, already lack nearby abortion clinics, which means women are already forced to travel to access abortion care.

This pragmatism is shared even by some pro-choice activists. "In seeking abortion care, we already know rural clients are already traveling," said Katie* with the Mountain Access Brigade, an abortion doula collective and abortion fund in East Tennessee, in an interview. "They will continue traveling, their travels will just be further."

Traxler with Planned Parenthood echoed this sentiment in a recording of a video press conference. "There are patients in South Dakota who are already traveling to other places to access abortion," she pointed out. The same is true for other states where legislatures have already burdened abortion providers and restricted access to legal abortions. In that regard, repealing Roe will exacerbate a problem many rural women are already facing.

Abortion providers and reproductive rights activists have been preparing for that eventuality, though. "Our assumption has been that in some way Roe would be decimated and there would be a lack of access to abortion," Traxler said. "So, we've been thinking about our surrounding states and how that might impact patients who live there." To buttress their existing resources and prepare for a surge in interstate patients, Planned Parenthood has "been planning on a regional scale and a national scale about how to navigate places where abortion is accessible."

This is a sentiment shared by Katie with Mountain Access Brigade. "We have been preparing for quite a while," she said. "We are very realistic, down-to-earth people and we kind of had an idea that this was coming." Like Planned Parenthood North Central, the Mountain Access Brigade has been working to strengthen its relationship with providers in nearby states where abortion is likely to remain legal.

Both organizations are also looking at addressing the needs of rural women in a post-Roe world, including logistical challenges women face when seeking abortion. "It's really just going to up the cost," Katie said, listing the cost of travel, lodging, childcare, and lost wages. "That's why abortion funds are so important and so crucial in bridging the gap between clients getting the care that they can't afford. Because the price of an abortion is not going to change, but the price of getting there will."

Conservative Response to Cost of Parenthood?

The cost of parenthood is something that Brown at the Ethics and Public Policy Center has thought about. Though pro-life, Brown supports an economic agenda that he says would empower women and families - including those women who find themselves with an unexpected pregnancy. "I've been encouraging Republicans to be thinking about this and taking it seriously for a while now," he says.

The Republican base has been shifting "more away from the sort of chamber of commerce towards the blue collar or middle-income families," and Brown has been pushing the GOP and pro-life activists to consider how to help women who will no longer have the right to an abortion. Red states such as Tennessee and South Carolina - where he lives - are expanding Medicaid for new mothers, he points out.

This makes him hopeful that conservatives will begin thinking more about how to help expectant mothers. He points to conversations around the child tax credit, which he hopes will help empower women and families and help meet their needs in a post-Roe world. "If you're a mom facing an unplanned pregnancy," he says, "the knowledge that you'll be getting $300 a month after your child is born [is helpful]."

Brown hopes that overturning Roe could serve as a "tipping point towards an economic agenda that's more concerned with strengthening families and supporting parents than lowering tax rates and assuming everything will work out in the end." In an ideal world, he says, this would include expanding access to and options for early-years childcare. "If you have a kid who is under 5 and you want to have a parent stay home, let's make that achievable," he says. "If you're looking for childcare, let's try to make that affordable."

Others on the right have also been considering how to best help women once their constitutional right to abortion has been abolished. "The populist pro-life movement is far more than just making abortion illegal," the blogger Populist Pundit* told me in an email interview. He told me that he and others like him support "enacting an industrial family policy" which would mix "pro-family economics" such as marriage and child subsidies with "industrial policy" around things like trade and antitrust legislation.

"We need to focus on ensuring there are good men and a good economy ready to support our mothers," Populist Pundit says. This includes enacting universal healthcare and childcare in the long term while increasing the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid access in the short-term, as well as "requiring prenatal child support from deadbeat dads."

Traxler cautioned that if Roe is overturned, agencies in states where abortion would still be legal may have trouble meeting demand, - a problem compounded by the overall healthcare worker shortage. "In the short term, as states see a surge, we may actually be at a point where we are not able to meet all the demand in the short term," she said. "But that will eventually work itself out as everything sort of falls into places and we figure out where people will be traveling to."

For his part, Brown hopes that Republicans will pivot away from cultural battles and onto the hard economics of family and childrearing. Pointing to "culture war fights down in Florida and in other places," he hopes that conservatives will adopt an economic platform that helps mothers, families, and the working- and middle-classes. "Actually being for parents involves not just taking their cultural interests seriously," he says, "but also their material interests as well."

As for Katie and the Mountain Access Brigade, they remain ready to help any women they can. "We do this work to meet people's needs, and as those needs change, the work changes," she says. "We've been working really hard to get ready for this, and we do have people's backs - especially here in rural Appalachia."

*Names have been changed or omitted at the interviewees' requests because of fear of reprisals.

Skylar Baker-Jordan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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A new report on lung cancer by the American Lung Association showed Maryland has quite a bit of room to improve diagnoses and treatment but experts said the state has taken some big steps in tackling it.

The report showed almost 17% of Marylanders at high risk for lung cancer were screened, a little less than the national average. Maryland fared better in other metrics, including lower rates of adult smokers and people unable to access treatment.

Aleks Casper, Maryland director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, said to improve the state's standing, Marylanders at risk of lung cancer need to be screened at higher rates.

"If we can get people screened, our chances of impacting all the other metrics improve," Casper explained. "If we get people screened and we can find it early, then we can connect them to treatment and we can connect them to surgery, which impacts outcomes."

The report also noted Latinos in Maryland are the least likely group to be diagnosed early.

Casper pointed out certain policies in Maryland have removed barriers to diagnosis and treatment. Just this year, Maryland became one of 15 states to require insurance to cover biomarker testing, including for lung cancer. The National Cancer Institute described biomarker testing as using a sample of tissue, blood or other fluid to look for genes or chromosomes which could increase a person's likelihood of developing certain cancers, which Casper emphasized is critical.

"Being able to test and determine what the best type of treatment for that person's disease, that kind of really individualized care and giving people access to that, is really important," Casper added.

Those who want to find out if they're eligible to be screened for lung cancer can take a quick test at savedbythescan.org.


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By Kyla Russell for WISH-TV.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the WISH-TV-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration

Walking pneumonia cases in central Indiana have seen a steep increase in recent weeks, local physicians say.

"But what we've seen this summer, starting in July and August, was an explosion in the number of cases," said Dr. John Christenson, associate medical director of infection prevention at Riley Hospital for Children. "Some require admissions to intensive care units. Children die, adults die .. sometimes it invades the brain and it can cause an infection there."

Walking pneumonia is generally considered less severe than pneumonia, but can have lasting impacts if not caught early on. The disease is caused by mycoplasma pneumoniae, which can damage the lining of the respiratory tract, according to the CDC.

It is spread through droplets released when someone coughs or sneezes.

"Symptoms can begin mildly with sore throat, cough, or chest pain," Christenson said.

About two million people are diagnosed with the disease each year. This year is different, though.

While it's common for young children and adolescents to be impacted, small children born during the Covid-19 lockdown are seeing a surge in cases.

The CDC said diagnoses in kids between two and four years old jumped from 1% to 7.2% over a six-month time span this year.

"We saw a rebound after Covid," Christenson said.

During lockdown, people were wearing masks, staying home, and were not at school and work.

"What happened was a lot of people who could acquire an infection around that time, didn't," Christenson said. "So, now they're all susceptible. You bring in a new germ or an old germ into an environment and it spreads like wildfire."

Several local schools have seen an increase in students, asking parents to be on the lookout for symptoms and to take their child to a physician if needed.

As holiday gatherings begin, Christenson is heeding a similar call, especially in severe cases.

"That's when you need to take them to their healthcare professional to have them seen, and in some cases, get X-rays," Christenson said.

Additionally, Christenson said it is important to make sure families are up-to-date on all vaccinations.


Kyla Russell wrote this article for WISH-TV.


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More than one in three children is now overweight or obese, according to new research published in the Lancet medical journal.

The study found while Kentucky and other southern states are forecast to continue seeing rising levels of childhood obesity, some other states, such as Utah, will experience even higher spikes.

Ben Chandler, CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, said the Commonwealth is struggling to address health care and quality of life for kids.

"I think we're 45th in being overweight," Chandler observed. "It leads to a shorter life expectancy. It leads to tremendous spikes in the odds of getting any number of diseases and it has a huge cost attributed to it. "

Almost half of teens and young adults now are either overweight or obese, compared with 29% in 1990. The number is expected to jump by between 31% and 50% for adolescents, and by 29% to 33% for kids ages 6-11.

Chandler argued the state should increase funding for physical activity programs in schools and address the persistent lack of access to healthy and affordable fresh food. He added the issue cannot be tackled solely through individual behavior changes.

"There are a lot of environmental factors that are involved here," Chandler pointed out. "There's a lot of money, quite frankly, being spent in advertising for things that are bad for you."

The study also found among U.S. adults, if the current pattern continues, more than 250 million people will be overweight or obese by 2050.