It Could Happen Here - Medication Abortions and the People Trying to Ban Them

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

James talks to to Kaveh Hoda about medication abortions and the recent attempts to ban them in the USA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello, podcast fans. Today, it's me, James, and I'm joined by Kaveh Hoda, who's a doctor in the Bay Area and also host of the House of Pod podcast, which is an excellent podcast for you to add to what you've done listening to this podcast. medication abortions and specifically about attempts to ban medication abortions by anti-abortion activists which have included a recent case at the supreme court so kaveh would you maybe like to add anything i'd missed from your introduction no yeah that was pretty much all the good stuff uh thank you for having me this is super fun i i love all your podcasts i like your work so thank you for having me and yeah And yeah, the topic is it's super duper, duper important. And it is in the headlines a lot, but at the same time, not enough. You know what I mean?

It's like people are talking about it a ton, but I don't know if they're talking about it enough or if the gravity of the situation is really hitting people or if it is we're just overwhelmed by how much bullshit we've had to deal with in regards to this and people are kind of feeling a little bit beaten about it and feeling a little bit disheartened but i i am super glad that we're gonna discuss it today yeah i think maybe it is bizarre how i don't you know i think we're dealing with so much bullshit and every day something terrible happens uh like so i can understand how this kind of came and went in the news cycle at the same time it does seem like why the fuck were there not 10 million people out in the streets trying to burn things down when like i don't like if you're listening to this

and you don't think you know anyone who's used this it's most likely because someone in your life hasn't shared that with you like i can think of more people than i can count on my fingers who i care about very dearly who have used this absolutely someone posted this once and i thought it was really actually pretty brilliant it was like if you don't know anyone that has that means they don't trust you enough to tell you or they think you're a douche uh so like there's there's a there's a reason you know um so yeah it's very common right and so i think maybe to to start out with we should explain like what what is a medication abortion and and how does it work

and why is it so common yeah i'll talk a little bit about that i think maybe we could touch a little bit on the history of it too because i think it is kind of interesting to look at it from a bigger perspective medication abortions they account for more than half of all abortions nationwide it's usually done there are a couple different ways of doing it but the most common one by far is a two-drug combination, mifeprostone and misoprostol. And these are the ones that are used generally in the United States and in other countries as well. You can use misoprostol alone, but it's just not as effective as these two drugs together. Mifeprostone blocks progesterone, and what that is, it's a hormone that you need to make the

pregnancy happen it makes the the uterus a hospitable place for it to occur um and we'll talk a little bit i think about the the miso uh the mifeprostone i'm sorry the misoprostol uh as well because that's a prostaglandin and they do a bunch of things in the the body but one of them is to cause contractions of the uterus and that that's two these two drugs together one makes the pregnancy uh less able to progress and then the other one expels it so that's how these two medications work um what i think is really interesting about them is a little bit of the backstory to it. So my understanding that there might be some medical anthropologists or historians who know more about them, I'm sure that's the case,

but you have to put this all in perspective because when I grew up, abortions were all invasive, surgical, essentially. And you had to have it done in a very specific manner now we have the opportunity and the option to do it in a much I think safer controlled less traumatic way and you know the it kind of started in Brazil because in Brazil you know I know because it doesn't make sense right but abortion is illegal there as you might imagine yeah and women there like women in any place are going to look for ways to have abortions if they want or need one and one of the things they would do is it basically go to like a drugstore or pharmacy and they would look for uh that said, beware, this could cause abortions.

That's one of the ways this all started. One of those was misoprostol, that medication I mentioned that's a prostaglandin. Again, prostaglands do a lot of things. I'm a GI doctor by trade. And, you know, from my perspective, they're also used for treatment of ulcers. Not really something we go to that much for anymore but there are other uses for it and so they found that it could cause these contractions of the uterus and they would use it there for that purpose the

French were actually the ones that worked on mifeprostone or ru486 and that's the one that blocks the progesterone and stops the pregnancy from progressing so the the background I, is really interesting and how far it's come during this time, you know, how it started with our use here to how it changed during COVID, I think is a really fascinating thing. And where we're at now with these medications, I can't, we're going to talk about that. I'm sorry, I don't want to jump ahead, but I'm just so, about i'm sorry i don't want to jump ahead but i'm just so i'm so upset and i know i should be at this point in my life much more used to like these weirdly cynical uh bs moves of a republican judge or whatever um promoting this as being a safety issue i know i shouldn't be surprised and

upset by it but i am and that's the part that really uh bothers me right now is the argument they're using against it is so bullshit and cynical that um i and again i don't think enough people are talking about it no it is like i'm the same way like i should be a lot of my work has been border reporting and like i should by now be like uh no i shouldn't because those people are fucking terrible like there's a group of journalists who just seem to have lost their capacity to care for other human beings and and can report on human suffering without taking any toll on their uh on their personal mental health and they congregate on

various facebook groups and in bars and expensive hotels all around the world and i don't like that um but like similarly a number of conservative conservatives are on word like anti-immigration states used title 42 they sued to keep title 42 right citing the the risk of covid 19 from migrants crossing our borders and these are the same fucking people who have been like, we don't want to wear masks, we shouldn't have vaccine mandates. Like, yeah, it is infuriating that they can't just be like, yeah, I don't think you should have the right to bodily autonomy

and I don't care how I get there, so I'm just going to use this troll-ass methodology. It bothers me that there were doctors involved in in this case the court case and it does bother me that there are doctors that are are fighting this i mean i get it if not every doctor wants to do an abortion i totally understand that um but to not stand for a woman's autonomy over her own body is the part that I can't get. I mean, it's like it's I'm not an ethicist by any means, but that's like the bare minimum is like you're supposed to believe in someone's autonomy over themselves. And the fact that it's being removed piece by piece, it should be bothering doctors who are who are supposed to be following ethics.

You know what I mean? And so I'm also a little bit from that end. I'm mad at our own people. I'm mad at doctors. And I am on my little echo chamber in Twitter where there's lots of doctors who feel the same way I do. And I hear from them. But I know that it's kind of there alone I'm not hearing it from uh other doctors out in the real world you know and not enough at least yeah

we should explain a little bit that like the original case the complainants were doctors right who were claiming that they were having to treat complications that arose from medication abortion is that right yeah they're a part of it I don't know how big a part of it or if they're just used because they're like a lot of times people for good or bad reasons will bring a doctor out in a white coat at like a press conference which is like you know like we're just wearing white coats all the time you know and uh just the sound in the background and sort of add some sort of weight to the argument. And so I don't know how much of it was that in this situation. But I mean, the argument that they're making that these medications are not safe, it's a silly argument. I mean, we know that the mortality rate for medical abortion is less dramatically than the mortality rate for childbirth. And that

changes too, depending on if you're like a white woman in a wealthy neighborhood or a black woman, there's different mortality rates, but pretty much across the board, it's going to be safer. I mean, the chance of a serious complication is there. It can happen. Any medication, it can happen. Penicillin, it can happen. Higher rates, by the way. Viagra. viagra came out there was the first year it came out there was about 550 deaths from viagra i mean granted the cardiovascular problems the patients had whatever but still there was a it's not it's not without risk you don't see any judge from texas you know coming out to talk about viagra being an issue. No, I think you're right to highlight that being pregnant is also a risk, and a much greater risk in many cases, especially, like you said,

because of these different intersectional things which can make it a greater risk for some people. So I would love to talk about why these became more, popular is the wrong word word but maybe more widely used to facilitate uh abortions during covid because that's super interesting yeah so the the long and the short of it is um when they first started doing these tasks i'm sorry when they first started doing these uh medication abortions there was a a bit of a process that had to go into it like doctors were worried i mean we're always conservative.

Doctors are always conservative. We always start with like probably more than it's absolutely necessary. And then over time we do enough research, we get enough like evidence behind us that we can peel back parts of it. So when it first started, you know, people wanted ultrasounds, lab tests, make sure that they weren't, people weren't anemic or didn't have a risk of bleeding. They wanted to make sure the liver was were OK. Labs are probably weren't totally necessary.

The ultrasound, I think, scared people a lot or people really wanted there always be an ultrasound just to make sure there wasn't like an ectopic pregnancy or a pregnancy where it doesn't occur where it's supposed to outside of where we expect it to. or a pregnancy where it doesn't occur where it's supposed to outside of where we expect it to and those can be dangerous and if you do uh take these medications you know obviously you're going to be a bit more of a risk if you don't uh if you don't know that's an ectopic pregnancy so there was a lot of a lot of things that people had to do back then then things started to peel away slowly like doctors might we're starting to be like all right do i really need to get a liver test if i'm going to give this patient a medication abortion uh and those tests start to peel off slowly like doctors might we're starting to be like all right do i really need to get a liver test if i'm going to give this patient a medication abortion uh and those tests started to peel off slowly and then when covid happened um basically people weren't able to go to the doctor as much or as easily there weren't doctor offices that were open um it was harder

for people to get to in the beginning you know it only got harder with COVID. So the ACLU actually sued the FDA, and they actually won. And through that, the women didn't have to come in anymore for these. They could all be done via like teleconference or a video chat, basically. Okay. Which is a big game changer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes it much easier and so it used to be the case at least so you could get these things in the mail right uh presumably after some kind of teleconference or video chat is that still is that still the case in states where there isn't like the strictest

kind of abortion ban or is it universal no it's my understanding it's still as of now possible it's still available you're supposed to be able to do it I think we're going to find that it's becoming more difficult we're already seeing cases um I mean they've been highlighted on social media how often they're happening now I don't know but there we see cases now of you know a pharmacist not uh fulfilling uh medical abortion pills and in the comment section when you look at why why not they're saying because it's now banned by a federal judge so i mean it's not true it was the the supreme court has you know has okayed it for now i mean for now it's still okay and and allowed but there's going to be enough confusion about it there's going to be enough worry about it that people are going to have a harder time

doing it getting it or even finding you know people that are willing to do it at this point there's probably a lot of concern from patients and medical providers so you know even though it is technically still allowed i mean i don't know how for how long, you know, I am worried. And also, I don't know if this is really hindered, you know, people being able to access this, I think it probably is. Yeah, it certainly hasn't made it smoother, as you said, right? Like it, it only takes, you know, one person to have a

delay of a number of weeks or whatever. And it might not be an an option or it might not be as safe and how uh do you know how long how far along these these medical medication abortions are like generally advised you know the medication abortions are considered safe in the second and i think even parts of the third trimester. But generally, after the first trimester is when it's considered a little bit more dangerous, and most medical professionals would want you to come in to have it done. So, I mean, that's my understanding. I'm not an OB-GYN. I should make that clear. But I think for the most part within the first trimester people generally consider that something that's manageable at

home outside of that uh i think you're probably more likely to to have the medical professional want you to come in and see them yeah that makes sense and in some states that's going to be a lot harder it's not impossible or countries or like i know for instance um i've come across groups in myanmar were distributing these uh drugs again abortion has been illegal there more or less for since british colonial rule like since it was united as a as a sort of state not really a nation um the it's been a it's been illegal they've sort of made some moves towards it being less legal and then obviously with with the coup it's become more illegal again um and people there have been there was a website up in in 2021 about how they

facilitated mutual aid distribution of it which i found super interesting and then at some point they obviously that that must have got them some heat and they took it down but it's used all over the world in places where people don't have access to care right alongside being used here where people may or may not have access to care which is pretty fucked up yeah i mean it's funny that like you know uh we're we're comparing ourselves i mean it it's you would think in 2023, we wouldn't be, you know, looking to other countries to guide us at this point. You would hopefully, we would have figured this out by ourselves after, after everything. But yeah, I mean, it's funny. You look at the historical, you look at it from a global perspective, it is interesting. It's really a global effort to try and get these medications out to people.

One of the major companies that sends these pills and mails these pills is in Europe, and they try to get them to other countries. It is sort of a global effort at this point to try, which is kind of cool. That's one good thing about this. It shows you that most of the world seems to be on board with this, whether or not governments are or not. You know, I hear 80% here in the United States is for it. I mean, I think that sounds about right, you know. And the fact that there's so many people in the country and in the world trying to figure out ways to get these medications to people. That's one, I guess, sort of reaffirming thing about this.

It's impressive to see people just doing grassroots mutual aid. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything

from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. videos on do it yourself abortion pills or like homemade I think it was misoprostol it may have been both it may have been mifepristone as well obviously like this is empowering and like we want people to be empowered to make decisions about their own body but perhaps you could explain why like it it's also suboptimal yeah you know it's it is definitely suboptimal i i mean i'm not i'm not every time i say something like that there's always some corner of the internet that's like well you're a shill for big pharma or you're like part of the the medical industry or whatever and yeah sure whatever but i mean it's it is uh it's a risk i

mean these medications like i said they're safe but they're not without risk you know there are things that that can occur when you have this are contraindications to some of these medications like there's contraindications to mifeprostone like ectopic pregnancy like i mentioned and you can get that worked up to be evaluated or you can at least have the very basic questionnaire filled out that would help at least give you the hint if it's there. Chronic adrenal failure, porphyria, inherited porphyria. These are things that doctors who do this think about and know and as part of the process to get these medications, even if it's just a questionnaire that you fill out online.

So there are risks. There are bad things that can happen with these medications, as there are with penicillin. Like I mentioned, I've seen people with life-threatening allergies to penicillin. I've seen people who have liver failure from basic stuff that people take all the time, like Tylenol. So it does make me very nervous. liver failure from basic stuff that, you know, people take all the time, like Tylenol. So, you know, it's, it's, it does make me very nervous. And I like do it yourself, I like that, that people are trying to find ways around it. But, and I hope we never get to a place where this is, that's absolutely necessary. I hope, you know but i i understand why people are are curious about it and why i'm looking into it and and reading about it i obviously i'm not going to ever really

promote do-it-yourself medicine to that far of a degree yeah like someone i use insulin every day right and people have been making their own insulin i I've seen on the internet for a long time, and I find it super fascinating. Insulin also costs fuck all to produce, like a couple of cents, and it costs hundreds of dollars to buy. Folks can accuse me of being a shill for Big Pharma, but I have plenty of publications

pointing in the other direction. You and me both, brother. Yeah, look at us. Presented by Pfizer. Two guys just raking in the parma dough that's it yeah that's that's why i'm recording in this shed um provided by pfizer no um it yeah there is these things are not expensive to make they uh shouldn't be expensive to buy and they can be had extremely safely and the things that are stopping you from accessing them cheaply and safely and easily are politicians and also pharmaceutical companies sometimes. You know, that's the funny thing, too, is that you think for like these right wingers are always talking about like relaxing regulations and whatever.

like relaxing regulations and whatever. It's like, I wonder if they recognize is that on some level, what this is doing is it's just going to impinge on quote unquote innovation in pharma. Like if you're a pharma company and you're thinking about some medication that could be used for this, or you're thinking about creating a new medication

for something that could in the slightest way be deemed inappropriate by some judge somewhere and then if they're making the decision not the fda like if you're a pharma industry you may be like i screw it i'm not gonna worry about that medication at all you know it's nothing else this is going to cut back on innovation in pharmacy yeah like anything with a contraindication for being pregnant would be vulnerable to this right we should probably explain that. The use of mifepristone as an abortion drug was approved by the FDA in an expedited process, right? And that was what was being challenged.

Can you explain why, although it's faster, that doesn't mean it's any less thorough? In my understanding, I might be wrong, the FDA went like, yeah, fuck it, let's give it a try, see what happens. No, I mean, it's a very good question. I mean, we do have safety data behind it. So again, you're exactly right. This is not done in a vacuum.

It's not done haphazardly. I mean, there still always is a pretty strict process to go through for these medications. It's the same thing that we had to deal with Operation Warp Speed, one of the worst names for a very important medical advancement. So people are like, how can these things be safe? It's happened so quickly. And it's not really true. I mean, there is years of research behind all these things. There many done that it makes it easier to see the results. It makes it easier to see the numbers. Part of the reason we were able to follow COVID so well and get information so quickly was because it was everywhere. And when it's everywhere, it does raise the numbers. It makes it easier to get people enrolled in the study.

It makes it easier to make a study happen. So that's kind of what was happening here. This was something that there wasn't a lot of question about. Again, are there risks to the medication? Absolutely. There's risks to every single medication that you get. I mean, I've heard toxicologists say that if Tylenol had to go through the same vetting process that we have medications go through today, that Tylenol wouldn't make the cut. And as a liver specialist myself, I can attest to that. I mean, Tylenol is a great medication if it's used correctly, but I've also seen it cause a lot of liver failure it's a very common cause of it so um there's there's a pretty strict and there always is a pretty strict uh method to to the fda when it comes to this sort

of thing it's not done haphazardly right and i think most of the people attacking it and not attacking it from a place of of deep concern for the health of people who can get pregnant it's quite the opposite it's an attempt to control people's bodies right and right yeah they're not these are the same people they're not concerned about the fact that the mortality rate in like african-american women who are pregnant is so much higher they don't they'll never hear them talk about that they don't give a damn unless of course they want to somehow cynically tie this into like racism or something they'll find a way to twist it in this weird way to be like yes you see nymph

prosto is racist or something you know so uh i i yeah yeah sorry no i yeah it's it's cynical and asinine and pathetic but sadly like it's also the reality yeah i wonder like obviously none of us can see the future um and we've talked about how like mr prostol can be used on its own if i'm not mistaken right yeah it's not as good it's not as good if it's used together but yeah do you foresee a world where like that is targeted next yeah i mean if they're really serious about that they're gonna try i mean i think at the end of the day we can keep zealots out of the supreme court somehow you know a while before we get another crack at that yeah um then i think we should be okay because i mean it's it's a bad argument the argument doesn't really hold up

i mean some judge interpreting the medical data with or without the help of some you know quasi-scientific group of like uh pro-life doctors it's just not going to hold up to what the fda has done and has to go through so um i i don't i don't know i don't know i i want to say i really want to say i don't think it's going to be an issue but i can't guarantee it because the fact that, you know, this is such a relatively safe drug and it's been called the question. I mean, it's pretty brazen. I think that they're doing this. And will they do it again with other medications? Yeah, probably. Will it win, though? I hope not. But yeah, I think this is setting they're setting basically a roadmap for this to be done again and again for, for medications they don't like.

Yeah. And, and those are all going, but the medications they don't like are all going to affect a certain group of people, right? Like that's, that's just,

that seems to be the sort of target group for, like you said, a very small percentage of the, of the population who are just on their culture war bullshit and don't really care how this affects thousands of people's lives. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars,

from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community and breaking down barriers in

all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though.

I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Obviously, folks are also facing, they can't access gender-affirming care in lots of places, right? This is the other massive area of healthcare that Republicans seem to be very willing to ignore,

and some Democrats ignore the evidence on it and just attack people for culture war reasons. And I know that one thing folks do there is organize mutual aid networks to help people access medications that they need for their gender-affirming care. With medications like this, is it like, like you said, there are lots of contraindications and and it's not always

safe like are these things that people like people will be inclined and get to be like oh shit maybe i should stock up maybe i should like yeah load my medicine cabinet and maybe we could discuss that like you said that there are risks that come alongside that. Yeah, I mean, I certainly would understand if I was in a position where I thought my bodily autonomy could be going away anytime soon. I think I could see why someone would stock up on it. I mean, I don't know enough about the medication to tell you about its shelf life. I know that it does require some special handling. So I don't know if it's the kind of thing you can keep for long periods of time. But if that part of it was worked out, I certainly don't see... I mean, I could see why you'd want it. Again, it comes down to the do-it-yourself nature of it. Now,

the beauty of this is what we've seen with these medications is when we did the COVID, we took it when COVID happened and we kind of took it out of the doctor's hands and made it more directly to the patient. Actually, the outcomes weren't much different so that seems to be a very reaffirming thing um but you know i still would like for there to be medical involvement in this i would like doctors to be involved in this you know yeah perhaps we are progressing towards a place where like technology can help with some of that and then take away the liability from doctors in places where they could face a long time in jail yeah i mean that's that's the other thing it's going to be interesting to see how this pans out like for from doctors um in the future uh if if there's going to be people

still willing to learn these skills you know because not every abortion can be done you know medically still going to be a need for for um the the the more older fashion forms of abortion that's still going to need to be done so you know um i'm hoping that people are still going to be willing to learn from this if anything i'm actually hoping that people young medical students are more interested to learn uh from it so we'll see how it goes like you when when kovid first started there was a huge burst of people interested in medical school and going into infectious disease but then you know over time and in the er for that matter too they they saw the need for it they they saw the call to arms you know and uh it took three years of seeing what kind of bullshit ID doctors and ER doctors had to deal with before those medical school numbers dropped way off and people interested in those fields.

You know, in fact, ER for people trying to go into ER, they have to go through this whole match process, which is like a big deal. Like it's a stressful thing where you try to get into the best place you can. And ER has always been a pretty like sought after field it's not the most competitive but you know it there is there is a good amount of competition to get into the good places and this was like the first year i remember where there was a ton of unfilled spots at good institutions too so like you know how i i do worry will this be the same sort of thing will there be an uptick of people interested in women's health care and and providing that that vital that vital need um I think there probably will be but will it be sustained uh I don't know will they just

give up after seeing how much is thrown their way it's totally feasible yeah i mean if you're looking it has to be like an ideal my sister is an ob gyn and like does my sister doesn't live in the united states who doesn't have to deal with any of this bullshit uh and so like but very much enjoys her job and is very passionate about it but i can see how doing it here it would have to be almost a political ideological commitment as well like you can't right practice your your your career in half the state you i don't even know if you can go to medical school in like states where where it's banned and like that's a really interesting question i wonder if it'll affect the medical training in medical school yeah in in places where it'd be that's really interesting and scary now that i think about it it, it, yeah, it's going to be,

it's going to be available for people. There's always going to be organizations fighting to, to do this and to get it out there, but how, how hard it's going to be to find a provider to help you with this, that in the future, I'm hoping does not become a problem. Right. Yeah. I did all these little sort of,. Right. Yeah, I did. All these little sort of, it's really important, I guess,

like that folks do whatever they can to preserve these rights. Because generally, like the state doesn't give back power that it's able to take from people. And this could mean a lot of like this. And I'm not like trying to conflate fucking having to have a vaccine

to breathe on someone. And like, you know, like that is not really an attack on your body autonomy. Like you're attacking And I'm not trying to conflate fucking having to have a vaccine to breathe on someone. And that is not really an attack on your body autonomy. You're attacking someone else's body autonomy if you want to give them an infectious disease. But when it takes away things like this, that has other consequences. Even if you're not a person who can get pregnant and you don't think you're ever going to be getting someone pregnant,

this should matter to you because your autonomy should matter to you and it seems a matter to most the people in the country so i mean um that's the part of this i don't understand i mean i guess it's all ideologically driven um but because it doesn't seem like a winning proposition if you're a politician to do something this unpopular but i don't know i don't know much about politics i suppose yeah i mean what is popular and what wins elections in the united states can be vastly disparate things as as we've seen given the system which is deliberately organized to uh to like befuddle the results of a popular vote and i wonder like if there's anything else you want to discuss around this issue of abortion and bodily autonomy obviously it's going to be one that plays

out massively in 2024 but i want to i want to make it clear i mean this should be pretty evident my stance on it but i do believe abortion is a essential and evidence-based healthcare. It's in that evidence-based part of it, I think is important to reiterate because we do have data on it. We do have data that it is safe. We do have data that it's safer than some of the other options. And if it's removed as an option, we are not only taking away, you know, a woman's right to autonomy over her own body, but we're putting them at more health risks, potentially for it. And, you know, I'm not an ER doctor, I'm not an OB-GYN, but I can guarantee that they're going to have to deal with a lot more problems because of this, if that happens, they're going to be dealing with a lot more complications and difficulties

because of it. Yeah. There's one thing I wanted to hit that I totally forgot about. I don't want to, I don't want to phrase this in terms of like people wanting to end a pregnancy, have any more or less right to do so than people needing to end a pregnancy because everyone should have the right to choose what happens to

their body equally. Yeah i am i believe i'm right in thinking that many of these drugs are uh relied upon by people who have miscarried or have a pregnancy that isn't compatible with life right and yeah yeah yeah i mean the the horror stories about women that are forced to carry you know babies to term they're not compatible with life or, you know, a severe critical illness. It's, those are horrifying. And these are medications that can be done again at home for some, for some patients it can be done at home, which is, you know, not great. You know, it's still not going to be a, maybe a fun process, but it'll be a much better process for them, much less traumatic, I would hope, you know, than having to, to have it done later on and in a hospital in a much more clinical cold setting. And we try to

make these things as good as possible. Our nurses are amazing. And our doctors who do this are, are compassionate and but you know if someone could do something safely at home um you know and it can be done safely i don't see why not yeah it can the dignity and privacy of your own setting wherever you can choose your home or you know whatever with your family then yeah as opposed to being forced to carry a baby which isn't compatible with life like that's got to really fuck you up and it's i don't know i don't think people are thinking about what they're doing to other people when they make these these i don't know horrible

decisions but uh yeah i hope they don't get to keep making them i guess we can all interpret that however we want are there any uh are there any organizations that you'd suggest folks follow get involved with like um are there groups that are helping to facilitate access to care either where it's difficult or just trying to campaign to keep it legal you You know, I know there's been a lot of criticisms in the past towards this organization from all sides, but I've known a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood and I still think they do good work.

They're not perfect by any means, and they have valid criticisms from a couple of different angles. But still, the people I know that are working there are doing their best and really want to help. And then there are international organizations still that are involved in making the abortion pill accessible. And there's a lot of different ways to get to that. I don't have one in particular that I would recommend, but the one that I have worked with, the people that I've met and seen and talked to and have learned so much from, a lot of those people are from Planned Parenthood. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, they have been criticized, but they've also stepped up

to meet what is a pretty terrible terrible situation i know they're building more clinics on the borders of states where you don't have the right to terminate your pregnancy so that people can travel and uh yeah it's pretty fucked up that that's what we're doing now like we have the underground railroad for abortion kind of thing but uh yeah i mean it takes a big organization to deal with the organization that is the state or you know the state of texas or whatever so they've done really well is there anything uh like you'd like to plug or you'd like to tell people where they can find you uh so i'm available on twitter at the house of pod if uh you do twitter uh and you can listen

to our podcast the house of pod it's pretty much everywhere you find your podcast and uh guests uh range from like world expert physicians to like garrison davis so like you know and i'm sure contrasting those two things uh they're an expert in their own way and um and i'm sure we'll get you on soon enough, whether you like it or not. And so we get a lot of different guests. The range is pretty wide and we talk about medical related health topics and try to do it in a relatively informal way. And so I think it's relatively fun. It's been really educational for me. I'm really enjoying doing it.

And I get to meet cool people like you. So it's a good show, I think. But I'm biased because it's my show. Yeah, I enjoy it. People should listen. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, mate.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Brass. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.