By Belle Taylor-McGhee for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration

"We had hoped the decision would come down on one of the days we were not doing procedures," Dr. Sanithia Williams said. "We had a waiting room full of people. People were horrified and desperate. There were people crying. There were people begging. Some people offered to pay extra if we could just do the procedure-not fully understanding what was happening. We had to turn all those people away.

"To know that you have the skills to provide care at that moment and make such a difference in their life-something they have asked for-and the state has decided that [it knows] best. It was a really hard day."

Fighting back tears, WIlliams, an ob-gyn and abortion provider in northern Alabama, recalls the day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. It was the same day the state's abortion ban went into effect-a law that allows no exception for rape or incest or lethal fetal anomaly and carries a sentence of life in prison for doctors who perform the procedure.

The Alabama clinic where she worked has since closed its doors. The state now sits in the middle of what is known as an abortion desert-where people need to travel 100 miles or more, one way, to reach an abortion facility; where abortion access is virtually inaccessible.

Mississippi, the neighboring state at the center of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that dealt the final blow to Roe, has a total abortion ban with an exception for rape-but not incest.

Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas have total abortion bans with zero exceptions for rape or incest.

Georgia and South Carolina have six-week bans, and Florida has a 15-week ban.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a leading research and policy organization on sexual and reproductive health, at the start of this month, 66 clinics across 15 states have been forced to stop offering abortions. These 15 states-all in the South and the Midwest-were enforcing either total or six-week abortion bans as of Oct. 2

In Ohio, where abortion is banned at six weeks with few exceptions, doctors are not only grappling with the impact of the Dobbs decision on women's health and lives, but also on their own decision-making around abortion care.

"It has become devastating to practice medicine," said Dr. Ellie Ragsdale, an ob-gyn who specializes in high-risk obstetrics and fetal therapy at an academic medical center in Cleveland. "You come to work every day and hope that the decisions you make are the best decisions for your patients, and that those decisions don't land you in jail."

Many worry that in this post-Roe landscape, women will die because they are too sick to carry a pregnancy to term.

"We have seen women who had major medical care morbidities when their life was at risk by pregnancy who had to leave our state to have a termination," Ragsdale said. "We have seen patients who had lethal fetal malformations-babies who had no chance to survive outside the womb-who had to leave our state for a termination."

Research shows that despite the frequency with which women have abortions in the U.S., it is the only type of healthcare that requires such a large number of individuals to leave their state to obtain care. For those living in Ohio, the median distance at press time to access abortion is 162 miles, plus another 162 miles to get back home.

"Gas prices are incredibly expensive right now. [For] plenty of folks, gas is the reason they can't access their care," said Maggie Scotece, the interim executive director of the nonprofit Abortion Fund of Ohio, the only statewide abortion fund in Ohio. Scotece said she is encouraged, though, by how many people have stepped up to offer their support, including donations for the cost of the procedure, as well as assistance for childcare, lodging and transportation.

In Michigan, one of the few Midwestern states where abortion remains legal, Planned Parenthood told NPR that since Roe was overturned, three times as many out-of-state patients seeking abortion care have arrived at their clinics.

"I work in a hospital and an outpatient setting. [Before Dobbs,] I might see 10 to 28 patients a week who are from out of state; instead we're [now] seeing 50 to 60," said Dr. Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and associate chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan.

Harris said women and other pregnant people are coming from Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky and Texas. "The laws are certainly not stopping many people from ending their pregnancies; it's just making it more difficult for them to do that."

One solution is to expand the use of abortion pills, which can be safely self-administered until the 11th week of pregnancy. But while courts have ruled that banning medication abortion is unconstitutional, this has not stopped a wave of restrictive state laws limiting access to this effective, nonsurgical method. According to Guttmacher, "29 states now require that clinicians who administer medication abortion be physicians; two states prohibit medication abortion after a specific point early in a pregnancy; and 19 states require the clinician providing a medication abortion to be physically present when the medication is administered, prohibiting the use of telemedicine to prescribe medication for abortion."

Meanwhile, major medical institutions, including the World Health Organization; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and the National Abortion Federation, have found that mid-level providers, such as physician assistants and advanced practice nurses, can safely provide medication abortion-and they can do so by mail.

Harris said barriers to obtaining abortions compound problems faced by women of color, particularly Black women, whose maternal mortality rate is three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She asserts that because of the way racism intersects with economic inequity, as well as decreased access to healthcare and racism in medical systems, it is vital that every part of this issue is viewed through a racial equity lens.

"It means that women of color, including Black women, have less access to contraception in the first place, less access to healthcare in general, which means they are more likely to have an untreated underlying health issue or chronic illness," Harris said.

In addition to economic insecurities, Harris said Black women are more likely to face criminal penalties for self-managed abortions.

The criminalization of abortion alarms reproductive justice advocates like Janette Robinson Flint, executive director of Black Women for Wellness, a woman-centered, community-based organization in Los Angeles. Flint said for women and other pregnant people who experience intimate partner violence, abortion bans are dangerously harmful.

She recalled the story of a woman who chose to have an abortion after she realized she could not face a fourth pregnancy with a man who physically abused her, a man who was careful to ensure that she showed no visible signs of his ongoing abuse.

"You don't know what happens behind closed doors," Flint said. "We are talking now about laws that will weaponize pregnancy, which will give weapons to abusers who can threaten you with that pregnancy. They can threaten to send you to jail; they can threaten you with more physical harm."

Beyond abortion, health services overall are at risk, with the loss of abortion care creating repercussions along the full range of reproductive health services.

"When clinics close their doors, we lose access to birth control, pap smears, HIV and STI screening; we lose mammograms as well as prenatal care. ... It puts an interesting burden on women who seek services," Flint said.

She said this post-Roe landscape requires a different approach, and more people are being called upon to be revolutionaries. This includes medical providers.

"Doctors are going to have to figure out how to be bold and audacious," she said. "They are going to have to be not afraid to offer services, and absolutely not report women's data."

Abortion rights advocates caution that reporting requirements are part of a larger move to further criminalize abortion, pointing to an Indiana law that went into effect in 2021 and mandates that doctors report when a patient had the abortion, the county and state of her residence, as well as her race and age.

Dr. Jamila Perritt, president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, an ob-gyn and self-described revolutionary, said part of her work involves combating misinformation-including getting the word out about mandatory reporting requirements and clearing up any confusion that surrounds it. She believes reporting on a woman's self-managed procedure is one example of how white supremacy shows up in our medical spaces.

"Just don't do it. Do not call the police on your patient. There is never a reason to ever do that," Perritt said. She calls for a different conversation about abortion, one that contextualizes access to abortion with an awareness of the conditions of women's lives.

"For people who are living in the intersection of multiple oppressions around our identities, ... the conversation has always been more complicated than abortion access. The challenge in this moment is to continue to push this complicated narrative and not to drill it down to oversimplified sound bites that single abortion out," Perritt said. "It really goes back to a lack of understanding around healthcare as a basic human right, and abortion is part of that."

Belle Taylor-McGhee wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.


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Oregon has the third highest percent of women in city government, according to a new report from Rutgers University.

It may be proof of the success of organizations working to support and encourage women to run.

Groups like Emerge Oregon and Vote Run Lead Action train women and nonbinary people to run for office - and win.

Emerge Oregon alums currently hold more than 100 elected positions on city councils, school boards and in the legislature.

Beyond campaigning and fundraising, women receive support to overcome gender-based barriers.

The group's outgoing director, Annie Ellison, noted that the political system wasn't designed with women - particularly women of color - in mind.

"This is a system that was built - like, pretty immaculately - to keep women and women of color out, even if it's not the intention now," said Ellison. "When do we have city council meetings? You know, most of these city council meetings are unpaid, and they're at 7:00 at night. If you're a caregiver, that's bedtime."

But research shows that female elected officials bring more money back to their districts, pass more bipartisan legislation, and get more done overall.

State Director of Vote Run Lead Action, Becca Phelps, said the challenge isn't just getting more women into office - it's keeping them there.

She said in the past few years, several women in the Oregon Legislature have had to leave prematurely or not run again, citing the low pay and added responsibilities of daily life.

This is where organizations can step in to fill these gaps - advocating for higher pay, helping with childcare and transportation costs, even providing emotional support.

"Sometimes," said Phelps, "it's that personal care of having a friend check in on you to see how you're doing when you're an elected leader."

After Tuesday's election, 15 graduates of Emerge Oregon programs may be in the Oregon House and four may hold seats in the Senate.

Ellison added that the biggest barrier women face in running for office is confidence.

"If he can do it, you can do it," said Ellison. "And here's how you're going to do it, and we're going to help you."




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A federal nutrition program for low-income moms and babies now includes canned fish and beans, whole grains such as quinoa and cornmeal, and more money for fruits and vegetables.

Theda Simpson, a former participant in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children from Metcalfe County, said she relied on the funds for extra help paying for supplemental formula for her daughter and sons, who had milk allergies as infants. She found out about the program through her local health department and stressed it was a lifesaver for preventing her children from going hungry.

"I hope that every mother finds out about it, knows about the program, is able to access and get the help that they need to be able to feed their children," Simpson emphasized.

Under the new changes, children ages 1-4 will now receive $24 per month, pregnant and postpartum women will now receive $43 per month and breastfeeding women will now receive $47 per month, under recent USDA updates.

Research has shown the WIC program helps improve pregnancy outcomes, including lower incidences of premature births, infant mortality and low-birthweight babies.

Karena Cash, data and research director for Kentucky Youth Advocates, said WIC is not reaching every available mom or mom-to-be in the state, although advocates have been doing work to reach more households, especially in Latino communities and among kinship caregivers. The data show two of every eligible five families are not participating in the program.

"About 96% of infants in Kentucky are enrolled, whereas only about 60% of women and 51% of eligible children one to five," Cash reported. "We see some pretty big discrepancies."

Tanya Torp, executive director of the nonprofit Step By Step in Lexington serving young, single mothers and their babies, said a major barrier is a lack of understanding among grocery stores about how WIC works and what products are covered under the program.

"For us, being able to work with some of the stores is going to be really important," Torp explained. "To train the employees at the stores so that they will be able to help when someone comes in and asks questions about WIC."

Advocacy groups have developed an online toolkit for local communities and leaders, and professionals who serve young children to help get the word out about the WIC program. Nationwide, more than 6 million women and children rely on WIC each month.


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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - and experts say in recent years, they've seen a rise in diagnoses among women younger than age 40, as well as Asian American women.

Patients should discuss their risk factors, such as family medical history, breast density, age and lifestyle with a doctor. Dr. Tran Ho, a breast surgical oncologist at El Camino Health in Mountain View, sees the issue firsthand.

"If we're thinking about early-stage breast cancers, for example, if it is caught at a very early stage, the five-year survival rates are near 99% for these women, and so patients do enormously well if we can catch these cancers early," she explained.

According to the California Cancer Registry, 25,000 women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, making it the second most common type of cancer among women in the Golden State.

Ho said certain aggressive types of breast cancer are seen in women age 40 and younger - but they respond well with early detection.

"Triple-negative breast cancers or HER-2 positive breast cancers are very treatable. It's just that these types of cancers can grow at a quicker rate, and so they're more likely to recur," she continued.

The good news is that survival rates are improving; surgeries are becoming less invasive, and radiation is now more targeted, which reduces long-term side effects.