The Daily - A Post-Roe America, Part 2: The Abortion Providers

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence.  In Part 1 of our two-part series, we spoke to anti-abortion activists about their preparations for a future without Roe v. Wade.Today, we talk to people working in abortion clinics about what the potential change could mean for their patients.“Everybody’s scared,” said one provider from Oklahoma. “Every single person that walks in our clinic, you can see the fear on their faces.”Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Half of women in the United States could lose access to abortion without Roe v. Wade.Here’s how Democrats in Congress are trying to protect abortion rights.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Where were you, Jennifer, when you heard the news about the leak draft opinion from the Supreme Court? And tell me about that moment. What happened? these horrible bills are being signed, but if we get, if a row can just hold, you know, we have a foothold and you know, whenever you're kind of hoping that that's the one thing that's going to save you. And then to find out that more than likely it's going to fall, it was just, you know, it was almost like, well, that's, that's perfect. Great. You know, what are we going to do now? That's perfect. Great. You know, what are we going to do now? You know, everybody's scared. Every single person that walks in our clinic, you can see the fear on their faces. So as of last week in Oklahoma, we cannot go above six weeks. There's the SB 612. So that's going to make it a felony for any doctor to perform abortion in Oklahoma at any stage. And so we had women coming in knowing that they may be the last

patients that will get their abortion in our clinic. And it was just fear because they're like, what if this happens again? What am I supposed to do? So in a way, Roe was your life raft. Yeah. Did it mean, you know, this bill that bans it entirely, did you think about yourself, Jennifer, that you could potentially be charged with a felony? I mean, just by doing this work? work? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've definitely, you know, I've thought about it and I definitely know that I'm part of that. But I just feel like if that's what's going to have to happen to me to continue to give these women the support they need, then I'll take it. What's going to happen is going to happen. I'll take whatever's going to come from it. So what's going to happen is going to happen. I'll take whatever's going to come from it.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily. Last week, we spoke to anti-abortion activists about how they were preparing for a future without Roe v. Wade. Today, we talk to people working in abortion clinics about how they are preparing for that future and what it means for their patients and their lives. It's Wednesday, May 11th. Susan, where were you when you first heard about the leak from the Supreme Court, the draft opinion on the Mississippi case? I was here at my home.

I was in bed, just scrolling. That's my quiet time, and I don't have to wake up my husband and all that. I just remember reading that, and I'm just devastated. But it's just like one blow after another. It's like I can't, you know. It's just like being in a prize fight and getting one knockdown after another. And it's just really sad. My name is Dr. Susan Dodd. I'm a board-certified OBGYN doctor who practiced my career in Knoxville, Tennessee. So I finished working there about a year ago. I'm 67

and enjoying retirement. So Susan, tell me a little bit about your background. Did you grow up in Tennessee? Yes, I grew up in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is right at the foot of the Smoky Mountains National Park. That's Dolly Parton territory, right? Yeah. Oh, Dolly Parton used to babysit me. Really? Yeah.

Wow. But anyway, I always enjoyed school and also enjoyed my boyfriend probably a little too much. And at age 16, our condom failed. And when I found out to my dismay that I was pregnant and I wanted to go on to college. My older sister came into town and we found a doctor in Knoxville who was doing abortions illegally in his clinic. What year would that have been, Susan? That was, let's see, I was 16. I'm 67. 1972, the year before. So the year before Roe. Roe, right. But I went to see him in Knoxville.

My sister took me and told the doctor I was pregnant. He did a gynecologic exam and said, yes, you're fairly early. You'll come back at five o'clock. And he told me how much money to bring. How much was it? $500. Wow.

That's a lot in 1970s dollars. Yeah. So my boyfriend helped me out at that point. He asked us to come back after the clinic had closed. We did so. Was it scary? Oh, it was scary as hell. It was my first gynecologic experience, and it was pretty traumatic.

It hurt quite a bit. Of course, back then, you didn't have any anesthesia at all. My sister told me she was in the waiting room waiting, and she said, I heard you screaming and almost came back. I said, well, yeah, it really hurt. But he knew what he was doing. He did it very well. I suffered no consequences. And I was kind of a naive 16-year-old. But it changed the course of my life. I would not have had the opportunity to go on to college. Would you have been the first generation to go to college, you and your sisters?

Oh, we were in our family, for sure. Yeah. I don't think my dad ever finished eighth grade. I'm not sure he could read. My mother had to fight her mother to finish high school. Her mother didn't see any reason for girls to get educated. Wow. So this was incredibly important to you. Yes. And Susan, what did this mean for your life, this experience? How did it change you? Yeah, it defined my whole life. It's the reason I became an OB-GYN. I finished my residency in 1987 and joined a group of older doctors at the University of Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville. In 2009, a main abortion provider in Knoxville, Tennessee, had a hemorrhagic stroke and tragically died. had a hemorrhagic stroke, and tragically died.

And when Dr. Campbell passed away, there was no other doctor performing abortions in Knoxville. And I felt very strongly that the women of East Tennessee needed an option that they didn't need to be driving hundreds of miles to have a termination of a pregnancy. And I explained this to my then partners and said, I'm going to go over to the clinic on my days off and perform abortions. And I would like you to join me. But what happened was the community outrage at abortion made every OBGYN in town afraid to do them. The other partners got together and they decided that going over to the abortion clinic was not good for our reputation in the community. And they instructed me to stop.

I didn't. And they fired me. So in 2009, after practicing with a group for 25 years, I was out of the group and I continued at at Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health, where Dr. Campbell had had his practice. Do you remember any patients that you provided abortions for, kind of a moment that really sticks in your memory? Oh, every patient I saw at the clinic. So many of them had so many sad stories about, this is why I'm doing this, doc. And, you know, I have three kids at home.

My husband and I are working full time. Our birth control failed. I can barely feed the three I have. You can just go through story after story after story. These women are doing it for the children they already have, for the commitments they already have, for the future they have planned. And to me, abortion is a part of women's reproductive health. Susan, has the environment become more hostile? Oh, yeah. A lot more. The protesters would be there. They'd be getting my license plate. I would get threatening letters. You know, mostly they were based on religiously I was going to go to hell and that I would regret this all my life and that kind of thing. I got outdoor lighting for my home so that people couldn't hide in the bushes

and so on. So it really affected our lives. My husband bought me a bulletproof vest. What? Yeah. Because going into the clinic, I was afraid I would get shot. And I was real good friends with the FBI. Did you wear it? Oh, yeah. Every time I went to the clinic. Wow. How often did you go to the clinic? Twice a week.

Susan, did you think it would get like this, end up like this? I mean, when you think about 50 years ago in 1973 and, you know, when you had your abortion illegally? I never dreamed that we would go this far against abortion. Right now we have a trigger law. If Roe versus Wade is overturned, trigger law. If Roe versus Wade is overturned, then immediately these laws will go into effect. No terminations after a heartbeat is found. The person performing the abortion is a Class E felony. There's no penalty to the woman having the abortion, but the provider is a felon. to the woman having an abortion, but the provider is a felon. And essentially, it will completely outlaw all abortions in Tennessee.

This is just all amazing to me that we've gone backwards so far. But what does it feel like to kind of have come full circle, Susan? Despair. I think we'll see a lot of women die and a lot of unfortunate situations happen. So many women, especially women who grew up poor like me, they're not going to be able to fly to California or New York. So it's going to be women who grew up like me, and they don't have the resources that are going to have to deal with the consequences of going to somebody they don't know and asking

them to perform a procedure that's illegal. And maybe isn't done right. To me it's still unbelievable that this day and time we would come to this. So my name is Sunithia Williams. I'm originally from Ohio. I'm 37 and I'm a full spectrum obstetrician and gynecologist. My practice includes abortion care. I've been practicing abortion since 2014, probably was the earliest, and had practiced in Missouri, California, Mississippi, and now Alabama. Oh, wow. When I started medical school, I knew that I was interested in obstetrics and gynecology. But I still hadn't made the connection of like, oh, this is something that I need to be doing.

And where that bridge came from was actually volunteering in a abortion clinic. You know, I am a Black woman. I saw that so many of the patients who were coming through were also Black women and other women of color. And the providers, while wonderful, were all older white men. And so, you know, while I wanted to serve all women, thinking about like serving and helping and providing for Black women was really something that was really important to me. And so from there, I kind of got really interested in abortion. So when I was in that space and really could see, okay, these are folks from my actual community, these are Black women. We are the same

person, right? I just happen to not be pregnant right now. We come from the same areas. But I think the ability to kind of see yourself reflected back can sometimes help with some of the stigma that oftentimes comes from seeking out abortion care or how it's perceived within personal communities and that sort of thing. And so that's kind of where all of that came from. You said they were me, except I wasn't pregnant. What do you mean? I mean, I'm just a regular Black girl, right? I didn't grow up in privilege. I grew up in an area where I don't think that we were necessarily in an area of poverty, but we definitely weren't like upper class or anything like that. We had a lot of people who had teenage pregnancies. When I was in high school, we all were like going to the local Planned Parenthood,

getting on birth control pills and all of those sorts of things. So, you know, I just happened to be somebody who was, for lack of a better term, lucky, right? I was lucky that I hadn't gotten pregnant to that point. But there wasn't anything that was different or special about me. Like literally, I would see people who I went to high school with and their recovery room. But I will say, you know, one of the things that frequently works out in my favor, one of the few times it does from this perspective is, you know, as a black woman going into abortion clinic, it's always presumed that I'm a patient. It's never presumed that I'm the doctor until they like see me a hundred times and know it. never presume that I'm the doctor until they like see me a hundred times and know it. And so that really protected me. I realized after doing the work several times, no matter what area of the

country you're in, the assumption always is as a black woman that you are the patient. I almost feel like it's kind of like a funny trick on the protesters, if that makes sense. Because I don't think that it's necessarily a negative to be presumed to be a patient. I mean, I could be a patient, right? Like we just talked about that. But it sometimes feels like their biases are actually kind of shooting them in the foot a little bit. Yeah. So in some ways, it feels sometimes like I'm being a little stealth about it. It's like they don't get to be their most effective because they're making an absolutely wrong assumption about you. And you're kind of going along with it and subverting them.

So in a way, you're in control. Right. Like I'm in on the joke. Exactly. No, you're making the joke. Well, that's true. Yes. Yes. making the joke. Well, that's true. Yes. Yes. Dr. Williams, where were you at the moment you heard about the leaked Supreme Court document? What were you doing at that exact moment? I think I was standing in my kitchen. I don't know exactly what I was doing, but I received it over a text message. So I have a text thread with a few other providers who provide across the South. Someone sent out the link to the Politico article. And I think my first thought was, oh my God, what are we going to do? I think my second thought was, I'm going to be sick. And I think

that comes from just how hateful it felt. Even with Ro currently being on the books, the people who suffer are people who look like me, right? People who are black and brown, people who have other marginalized identities, people who are queer, people who are lower income, all of those folks are the people who suffer the most. And, you know, what the draft decision said to me is I don't, I don't actually care about that. I don't care how it's going to change the way in which they're able to live their lives and create their lives. I don't care about that. And I think, of course, what they would say is, well, we are saving lives. And that is the thing that matters the most.

Yeah. I mean, I think that there is more to life than simply being alive, right? Being able to be loved and to be supported and to be able to thrive are, I think, vital to the human experience. And there have been and are ample opportunities to kind of create better lives for the people in this country, and it just hasn't panned out. And so I just, I don't, I just don't buy into that. We'll be right back. My name is Dr. David Eisenberg. I'm a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist, and I provide abortion care in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

I've been involved in abortion care and reproductive health issues since I started medical school in Birmingham, Alabama, and worked as a volunteer patient escort at the Planned Parenthood there. So for the last three years, we have been living with the reality that people are now waking up to, which is because of the regulatory burden in the state of Missouri and because of the persecution that happened the spring of 2019, the Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis region in Southwest Missouri spent time and money building out a new space in Southern Illinois to take care of the Missouri patients who needed us. And we knew we would

eventually not be able to provide care for in Missouri. And so 99% of the abortion care that our Planned Parenthood affiliate provides and has provided since early 2020, late 2019, has been in Southern Illinois. And because of the volume, I am no longer providing outpatient abortion care in the state of Missouri. All of the outpatient abortion care that I provide is now in the state of Illinois. And one of the things that has come up over and over again since the Supreme Court draft decision was leaked is people reaching out to me and saying, David, what are we going to do? What do we do when Roe falls? My answer is what we have been doing. What makes me angry, what I'm resentful about is how far we've gone backwards

and that we are going at a faster pace. we are going at a faster pace. David, a lot of the people we've been talking to on the other side are talking a lot about, you know, social services, that the end of Roe will mean lots more women will need more help with funding, help with getting apartments, help with getting diapers, because lots more women will be carrying their pregnancies to term. I'm interested what you think of that. I think it's disingenuous. How so? I think it's disingenuous because if people really cared about the children that come from these pregnancies, then we would have universal pre-K. We would have health care be a right and not a privilege in this country.

And that you don't just qualify for Medicaid when you're pregnant, but even when you're not. If we really cared about the outcome of every single pregnancy, we would make sure that people had paid maternity and paternity leave available to them that did not jeopardize their future. If people really valued families and children and the people who bear those children, then all of those other things would already be in place. But this is not about the children that may or may not come from a pregnancy. This is about the status of women and whether they are full, capable, society equals to men. You know, there's nothing black or white about this. I acknowledge that if someone chooses to not continue a pregnancy, that is ending the possibility of a child. That is ending the possibility of life.

I'm not discounting that. I value the lives of my children and all of the children who have been brought to bear, but it's not up to me. I'm not the one who has to carry that pregnancy. I'm not the one who has to put food on the table and clothe that child and make sure they're healthy. My job, and I believe every person's job in this world, is to be a nice person and to be respectful of each other and to give each other grace and, you know, respect their wishes and desires. And I recognize there are people out there who believe that life begins at some specific moment in time. But I expect them to respect my belief that they can choose to opt out of abortion care and abortion experiences if that's their worldview.

I choose to opt into it. I am a conscientious provider. It is a part of my moral and religious worldview. The person who's pregnant knows what's best for them and that I am trained and capable to provide them whatever aspect of care they need for that pregnancy. So, Jessica, by the way, is it okay if I call you Jess do you prefer Dr. Rubino how do you prefer I address you Jess is fine I really it's fine okay okay so I'm Dr. Jessica Rubino and I work at Austin Women's Health Center I've been there for about four years I've been doing abortions for

a little bit longer than that almost almost five years, I think, at this point. I am going to be 37 years old this summer and have been just practicing under all those other restrictions that made me mad. The 24-hour waiting period and the script of things that aren't true and blah, blah, blah. And that all lasted until September. And then September started and we entered a new kind of hell. We are only allowed to provide roughly up until six weeks. And that's SB8, the six-week ban, right, Jess? Correct. So not only do we have to wade through the stress of feeling like,

okay, are you too far? Are you not? I'm about to tell you, which is going to have some big implications for your life and what you have to do over the next few weeks if you're going to get an abortion. But even if they are okay and they're under the limit and I say, yes, I can see you, even then they are like, okay, well, I don't know if I even want to have an abortion yet. Some patients have told us that they feel so rushed in their choice, but they had to come to the clinic to get their consultation just in case because we also have the 24-hour waiting period. I had a patient yesterday who said, I wish I could just be in peace while I'm making this decision because right now, every social media feed everywhere, this is everywhere, and I just happen to be pregnant

during this time. And she's someone that I'm going to be able to see. She's early enough, but it's still so overwhelming for her to try to actually know what she really wants to do, aside from all the crap around us. Jess, what happens when a patient comes to you and you have to tell them that they're beyond six weeks? Once I tell them that they're beyond six weeks, that they're past the point, some patients just sit up and swear a lot. And they're like, it's not at you. I just can't believe that this is even happening. And there's just so much disbelief. Other patients, it's complete fear. And you know, like they're in a situation where they are probably not going to be able to get out. This is completely changing their life. And I had a patient who just

sat up and started crying the other day and said, well, I mean, if I don't get an abortion, my partner said they're going to kill me. What am I supposed to do? And what am I supposed to tell them? I can't offer you the appropriate medical care in this situation if that's what you want. If you want to terminate your pregnancy in this situation for your safety, you don't have the ability to do that. So she matters so much less than the pregnancy. What did you say to her? I literally like, okay, I have resources. Take a few breaths. Let's not give up. Here's what we need to do. And then I'm able, at least currently, I'm able to give her resources to get one legally outside of the state. And so I literally have a piece of paper.

Here's the funding organizations I recommend calling. Here's the clinic I recommend you get an appointment with. And for someone who's just disclosed something like that, her brain is in three other places and she's freaking out. But I also, I have to bring her back down to earth a little bit in that moment and be like, okay, but what are we going to do practically? What are you going to do? Here are the steps. Don't go to Louisiana unless you have extra time because it just requires multiple visits. They don't have a lot of clinics. Oklahoma, as of now, I'm telling patients this week, it's illegal. Don't go there.

So everybody I'm telling is to go to New Mexico and there are multiple clinics there, but I give them a name of one, but I'm like, but it may be several weeks wait. I don't know. They're getting very busy, but they will do their best. And I don't know, like I'm not on the other side of it. So I hear that as far as I know, patients are like, some are really being helped, but I am sort of stuck in my clinic world of seeing all of the patients, trying to determine if they're early, if they're too far. I mean, it's like you're watching kind of the doors closing in real time and having to game it out like some, I don't know, army general or something.

Yeah, we have patients who I had one two weeks ago. That day was really, really hard to be a provider was when she said, but this pregnancy wasn't a choice. I was raped and I want it out now. And I can't do it for her. And I can show her where to go legally. How long I'm even able to do that is questionable. Is there aiding and abending going to be a problem? And what do I tell her? I told her, I am a survivor. I know how you feel, but I need you to take some deep breaths. We need to get you some help here, our resources. Like we have to get back to earth from the trauma that you're in right now. And that is awful. That like she needs space to be taken care of and told that she's more important than that pregnancy. And that is not what she's getting right now.

It's really, I mean, it's absolutely, I mean, it's awful. My job has become awful. Were you a survivor of rape? Yes. Do you feel comfortable talking to us about it or would you rather not? Yeah, actually, I'm okay with that. You know,

I've actually traveled down to Mexico to study medical Spanish at one point during medical school. And it was someone that I knew. It was basically, I was just attacked. So it was a pretty brutal experience. And so at the time I was worried about like physical damage down there. I did a full exam and then I tested myself for pregnancy and I consider it's, I feel just really lucky that I didn't get pregnant from that encounter. I knew exactly what that patient was talking about when she said how that would feel something like from that person inside your body is just, just an appalling thought. I, I feel that in the pit of my stomach, but throughout that process of being in the hospital, being examined, I had good doctors here and there, but the vast majority were just sort of seemed uncomfortable and sort of embarrassed to ask me the questions and talk to me about it.

And I just wasn't, I didn't feel like a whole person. I felt like they were like, well, let's get in your pelvis and figure out if we need to treat anything. We'll get out of there. Okay. Goodbye. And it was like, that's not, that's not really healing for me as a person like that. I am a whole person and not just that area of my body. And so that is the part that I, I try to get across to my patients. And I don't talk about my, my trauma necessarily with the patients. It's very rare actually, but it has definitely made an impact on how careful I am with people's pelvises. I don't take for granted like doing vaginal ultrasounds. I do that with permission. We talk it learned that without having to go through it, but it definitely shaped my desire to give really good, safe care to someone and make them feel like I'm treating your body with respect. And I'm still doing all of those things amidst this. That's already difficult enough to do in Texas, even before SB8. And then it's way more

difficult during SB8 because it's a layer that I'm maintaining while also helping patients with all of the emotional layering on top. And we're just looking ahead at maybe the biggest train wreck I've ever seen in my lifetime so far. And it's just going to get worse. Jess, we've talked to some folks on the anti-abortion side. Yeah. And one thing that they were saying, a lot of people were saying was, you know, now is the moment when we really need to ramp up social services, diapers, help with transportation, that a lot more women are going to be carrying their

pregnancies to term and we need to kind of be out there in force helping with that how do you see that argument you know if there was a robust social safety net is there any world in which maybe this could actually work that you know you wouldn't necessarily need abortion that it would be you know okay no actually there's no world in which there aren't abortions. And I actually wish I could get them to understand that. Even if we give all the best birth control in the world and all of it works and no one has a failure, even if we give all of the best resources we have, Medicare for all, even if we had all that, all of the best resources we have, Medicare for all, even if we had all that, there will still be pregnancies where someone just doesn't want to continue it, where someone has a fetal anomaly

and decides that they would like to have an abortion as opposed to continuing to a delivery because that feels better for them and their body and their choice. The point that I really want them to understand is that having a delivery, taking a pregnancy all the way to term is at least 10 to 12 times more dangerous than having an abortion. So when you tell me that I have to do that, that that's my job, that that's once I'm pregnant, that's what's required of me because there's a human being inside of me, you are sentencing me to a process that is 10 to 12 times more dangerous than the one I want. You are possibly sentencing me to death or a uterine rupture or a rip during a C-section, something's cut, a problem with the intestines. I mean, pregnancy isn't a joke.

It isn't easy. For some people, it is. For some people. It isn't easy. For some people, it is. For some people, it's incredibly hard. And some people, it's incredibly dangerous. And none of that, none of that will change if Roe v. Wade's overturned. None of that will change, even if everyone had all the resources they need. Jess, what do you wish that they understood? I mean, the other side. I mean, if someone was sitting across from you right now, right now in your living room, and you were trying to get your point across to them, what would you be saying to them? I would say to them, it's okay if you personally believe that an abortion is wrong.

You do not have to have an abortion. No one is asking you to. What we are asking you is to not decide for other people what medical care is best for them. It does not matter what you actually think about it. It doesn't actually matter that you turn to God for that information. That's for you. That isn't for others. One of the most basic things we learn about in medicine, we have to take patients seriously. I can't force you to do something with your body. This is forced birth, not just outlawing abortions. It's pushing people into dangerous places. I mean, do you see it in some way just fundamentally,

like these two positions are just fundamentally incompatible? It's like it has to be one or the other. It can't, like where is the compromise? Is there a compromise anywhere in this? No, I really don't think so. It's not their body. Like I really, I think it's as basic as that. And I think when we get tangled up in everything else, it's just more confusing. But it really comes down to something really basic. I do not consider it acceptable to be a quote-unquote pro-life physician. I do not consider that acceptable. you believe that you know better what I should do with my pregnancy than I do, then who's to say you won't make that choice for me in other medical settings? You won't withhold a blood transfusion

because you don't think I need it. You won't withhold another medication because you don't like where it was manufactured. Where does that line stop? I don't think it's acceptable as a human being really to be anti-cho. Because you are telling someone that you think that you know better about themselves than themselves. That's insane. That just doesn't have a place in our society, period. But Jess, what about you? I mean, are you thinking that maybe you would need to leave the state? Is that something that's been weighing on your mind? I imagine that's kind of what it feels like now in New Mexico with the wait times and just how desperate people are.

And when we're so close to somewhere that needs help and I have the procedural skills to safely help, it's harder to sit here and not do that. It feels hard for me to stay. But I am also really tied to the patients I see here and I do I have some patients that have seen me more than once that I know trust me and so

it's also hard to think about leaving I really hate this position that I've been put in it's confusing like I shouldn't really be in this position I don't think what does it feel like Jess to have to make that choice?

It feels unbelievable, actually. I didn't think that we would in my lifetime. I thought that I would just hear the stories from the movements across the last century, and I would just learn from those. And I have. I feel like, okay, we've learned from these. Like we gotta be on top of our game. We gotta make sure that we're voting.

But like somehow it wasn't enough. And we didn't stop this from happening. And it feels devastating. piano plays softly We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, who struck a deal last month to buy Twitter, said he would, quote, reverse the permanent ban of former President Donald Trump and let him back on the platform. It was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.

Mr. Trump was banned from Twitter in January of 2021 after the attack by his followers on the U.S. Capitol building. Musk's comments were a preview of the kinds of sweeping changes he might make at Twitter, which he is expected to take ownership of in the next six months. And a new CDC report shows that gun deaths in 2020 reached the highest number ever recorded in the United States. More than 45,000 Americans died that year in gun-related incidents. Gun-related homicides were up by 35%,

the largest one-year increase in modern history. Experts said that the elevated toll could be related to stressors associated with the pandemic or to a rise in gun ownership that happened ahead of the presidential election. Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison, Diana Nguyen, and Jessica Chung, with help from Rob Zipko.

It was edited by Paige Cowett and Patricia Willans, contains original music by Dan Powell, Chelsea Daniel, Marion Lozano, and Alicia Baetube, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsferk of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.