Some writing and some ~personal~ news...
As usual, my newsletter comes to you belatedly, and thus many of you have already seen my big announcement: this week was my first as a full-time staff reporter at Rewire News Group.
It feels only right that it wouldn’t be until the end days of Twitter that the time would come for me to do a ✨personal news✨: Starting next week, I will be joining @RewireNewsGroup full-time as a senior reporter! I am honored and thrilled to join this expert team.
— Garnet Henderson (@garnethenderson) 6:21 PM ∙ Feb 6, 2023
I really couldn’t be more excited to dedicate myself to the kind of reporting I most love to do full-time. Having been a freelancer for a decade, I am also thrilled to have good health insurance (insurance that actually covers things? A whole new world!).
In addition to writing, I’ll be developing a new podcast and probably doing some other multimedia work, a mix of responsibilities I find really energizing. ACCESS will continue independently—though I’m not yet sure what the production schedule will look like—so please continue to subscribe and support my little pod.
Speaking of which, the most recent episode of ACCESS examines how anti-abortion bias shapes news coverage as well as scripted media like film and TV. Come for the sharp analysis from my guests, stay for the appreciation of the best abortion movie (it’s Dirty Dancing, obviously).
Speaking of pre-Roe America, did you know that the reason abortion bans exist in our country in the first place is because of… the American Medical Association? That’s right! In the mid-19th century, university-trained physicians—almost all men—were desperate to legitimize themselves and push other medical practitioners—including midwives, all women—out of the field. So they landed on abortion as their unifying issue.
(If that sounds familiar, it’s because the Christian right did exactly the same thing about 100 years later, after Brown v. Board of Education rained on their segregationist parade.)
Physicians framed abortion as a uniquely dangerous procedure (again, sound familiar?) that should be outlawed in order to protect women. Their campaign was resoundingly successful, and within a matter of decades, every U.S. state had banned abortion.
In my last freelance piece for Rewire, I examined this alarming history, and its echoes in the AMA’s refusal to defend Dr. Cailtin Bernard, an Indiana abortion provider who is at risk of being disciplined or losing her medical license for providing lawful abortion care.
In other bleak news (sorry!), you may have heard that “the abortion pill” will now be available in retail pharmacies, and well, that’s kind of true and also not the whole picture. I broke it down at Truthout, and spoke with some experts about what the federal government could do if it were really serious about protecting and expanding access to medication abortion.
Also mentioned in that article is the very alarming lawsuit before a Trump-appointed federal judge that could (read: likely will) remove mifepristone, one of the drugs used for medication abortion, from the market entirely.
I broke down some of my concerns about the lawsuit on Twitter in a thread here (click through to Twitter to read the rest):
The thing I’m most concerned about, in the event that a Trump-appointed judge bans the sale of mifepristone, is that a lot of abortion patients who attempt the misoprostol-only method are likely to face unnecessary intervention if and when they seek follow-up care in ERs.
— Garnet Henderson (@garnethenderson) 6:56 PM ∙ Feb 7, 2023
The good(-ish) news is that Danco Laboratories, one of the makers of mifepristone, is intervening in the lawsuit. This has delayed its progress. There won’t be a ruling until after briefs are due on February 24th at the earliest, and there will likely hearing which will delay any decision even further. I can’t lie, it’s bad news, but again, headlines blaring that the abortion pill will soon be banned are not entirely accurate. There are two abortion pills, and only one of them is at risk here.
Mifepristone is not “the abortion pill.” There are two drugs used for medication abortion. Mifepristone is one. It is ONLY used in combination with the other, misoprostol. Misoprostol, however, can be used on its own to end a pregnancy.
— Garnet Henderson (@garnethenderson) 3:03 AM ∙ Feb 7, 2023
That said, medication abortion is the next big target for the anti-abortion movement and they’re coming for it on every front (it’s another thread, sorry):
This lawsuit is highly, highly unlikely to take miso off the market, because miso was approved for other purposes prior to its use for abortion. In fact, despite being very widespread, its obstetric uses are generally off-label. That said, OF COURSE antis are coming for miso, too https://t.co/y2et0GR9GG
— Garnet Henderson (@garnethenderson) 3:59 PM ∙ Feb 17, 2023
To close on a somewhat brighter note, before the end of 2022, for Truthout, I rounded up of some of the wins celebrated by the reproductive justice movement last year. In an incredibly dark and difficult time, I am endlessly inspired by the movement I get to report on. You haven’t seen grit, determination, and commitment to justice until you’ve met these people. If you missed this end-of-year piece, I promise it will lift your spirits at least a bit!
Finally, one more bit of news: I’m adopting a more formal schedule for this newsletter I SWEAR and will be sending it out at least every other week. All posts will remain free for now, but if you want to support my work, please sign up for an optional subscription! In the future, I might introduce some subscriber-only content. If that’s something that interests you, please let me know!
