Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Pulling the Thread: The Real Impact of the Mifepristone Ruling

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

In this episode, we unzip the recent Fifth Circuit Appeals Court ruling impacting access to mifepristone through telehealth and mail delivery, and why this fight is about so much more than one medication.We walk through what the ruling—and the drug maker’s appeal—means for people living under the Fifth Circuit and beyond. We emphasize why telehealth access matters, and how decisions like this ripple far beyond abortion care alone. Because when access to medication, providers, and healthcare delivery methods starts getting restricted, it rarely stops with just one issue.We also talk honestly about who carries the heaviest burden when healthcare becomes harder to access: women, people in rural communities, low-income families, and marginalized populations who are already navigating systems that were never built with them in mind to begin with.Throughout the conversation, we call attention to the fear-based narratives that often dominate these issues, the disconnect between policy and public opinion, and the bigger picture of bodily autonomy, healthcare access, and reproductive justice in the United States.And because staying informed matters now more than ever, we share a few ways listeners can take action—from contacting elected officials, to following reliable reporting like Jessica Valenti’s “ABORTION, EVERY DAY” to supporting organizations like The Brigid Alliance that help people access reproductive healthcare when barriers stand in the way.This is a timely, frustrated, deeply human conversation about what happens when healthcare becomes political—and why these conversations cannot stay taboo.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey, everyone, welcome to unzipping taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to explore the questions you've always been curious about, but don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. No judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversation. And sometimes we get into the current events that are going on around us. And that's going to be today. We are recording this the week of what is this the week of the week of May 4th. And there was some things that happened around Mifepristone on May 1st. And so we felt it very important to record, to talk about this today. So I just want to get that out there right now. By the time you hear this next week, you think Dr. Sue? Yeah. There could have been more

developments after we um after we did post production on this yes i do also want to point out it's 2026 i don't know if we said that but hopefully we didn't okay podcast will go on for years and years and years so yes yes so this is very specific yeah this is being recorded the week of may 4th 2026 there were some interesting things that happened around the drug mifepristone on May 1st, 2026, and this will air May 13th, 2026. You did that math way faster than I could. I have a calendar right next to me. It's really, really helpful.

So with all of that, we're going to zip down and get candid around Mephepristone and all the current events surrounding it as we know them as of right now. Before we do that, I'm with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue, how's it going? I don't know. I'm fucking pissed. Yeah. As I was starting to say, how's it going? And I was like, wait, I know this answer. Yeah. Not well. Yeah. Not well. Well, given the topic that we are going to talk about,

would you like to tailor your background introduction to today? So I want to do my credentials, but I don't really want to talk. I know if you've heard this before, I like mentioned that I do the professor thing, but that is the least important part of what I do right now. Not that I don't love my job and want my job and appreciate my job, just in case anyone from my job is listening. So I have a bachelor's and a master's in health education. It has always been really important to me that I am providing information and out there giving people what they need to make decisions that work for them. I have a PhD in human sexuality education. And while I went in and did the professor thing, I also do a lot

of work in the community. I have now and I have throughout my career. I have worked in reproductive health clinics, primarily in areas where access to health care is not so easy. I have worked in reproductive health clinics serving underserved youth and other populations that cannot always get access to the care that they need. Yeah. I think that's the important part is that because we're not to give away the not to give away the store but we're going to screw those people over um that's me i'm sure more of this is going to come out i am not by any stretch of the imagination a legal scholar nor should you be to understand your health your human rights and your access to health care so we're going to muddle through this and i'll introduce charlie

in a second and she is as far as i know not a legal scholar she is she's been absolutely not okay you're like actually let me whip out this JD I've had in my pocket the whole time um but one of one of the things that I let me just pass it off to you because I feel like I'm about to go down 18 rabbit holes and it's really important people know you so for those of you who don't know who the you is that I'm talking about it is our wonderful Charlie Charlie is our um ever curious co-host who likes to mimic children and say why a lot. But why? But more importantly, she lets me get pissed about things that we should all be pissed about. And yeah, we're gonna do a little bit about how

this episode came to be. But first, Charlie, you should do more than that introduction. That was my suckiest introduction ever. No, that's all right. I also get pissed alongside Dr. Sue on many similar things the majority of the time. But I am Charlie. I am here. I am the co-host that you hear week in, week out. And I am, as Dr. Sue kind of highlighted, I am curious. I want to understand and especially unpack and change harmful social conditioning habits that many of us have grown up with and want to have an understanding of the impacts of some of these things beyond just my little microcosm of the universe, how it ripples out into impacted communities, impacted populations, et cetera, so that we can be better for those that don't

have a voice don't have the means don't have access so that we're not in our own little kind of bubble doing making these decisions without any thought about how that impacts others that we coexist with and that's the thing that I that always drives my curiosity my activism my allyship um is how can we coexist better yes and and less selfishly so with all of that let me do a little about how we got here yes and and let me let me also say that normally we have a game plan which i usually deviate from in the first five minutes although i think it may have been 20 seconds this time we don't have much of a game plan on this one because we just don't so just it may be a little all over the

place just kind of deal with that so um for those of you who don't know i do a thing where people can submit an anonymous and you can too an anonymous sex question to me via my website and then every sunday i answer one and i post the answer all over social media and all my places and i was starting to queue up an answer you know i try to work on that like wednesday thursday i'm starting to queue up a question and answer and then friday happens and on friday what happened was the fifth circuit appeals court which is based out of louisiana breath made a decision that impacted everyone in the u.s's access to mifepristone by telehealth and by mail and i suddenly started getting a lot of text messages um basically along the lines of

what the fuck just happened you know here I am in my little cave like not paying attention I'm like what you're talking about and it's like people sending me headlines and people sending me stories and people sending me all these things and I'm like okay hold on I gotta like actually go be around people and then my in-person conversations were all like what the fuck is actually happening right now and so my my my sex Q&A my hey Dr. Sue Q&A last week which would have been I'm mathing May 3rd it was actually on this topic and at some point I reached out to you and I know we had something already scheduled to do and I was like hey I really want to talk about this and Charlie doesn't take much convincing when she knows it's a human rights issue or when

she knows that something's just wrong and in our eyes I think it's okay for me to own that for you this is just wrong absolutely yes yeah so that's kind of how we got here okay we prefer to talk about happier topics yeah i mean we we do but we are we are a show about sex sex health and and many times regulatory um turn of events impact sex health yeah this is one such case so uh shall i sum up the case so far yes the case i feel like this is the beginning of a what we know so far. So on Friday, May 1st, there was a decision that was passed out of Louisiana, out of the Circuit Appeals Court. I'm getting federal appeals. Thank you. And that basically said, and again, we're not legal scholars, and I don't think you should

have to be to understand what's happening to your health and your access to health care. But they basically said no more Mifepristone by telehealth and no more Mifepristone by U.S. mail. So for those of you unfamiliar with Mifepristone, let me just go through the case and then I'm sure we'll go back and do some of the language. So then on May 1st, two different companies, the companies that make Mifepristone, filed an emergency with the Supreme Court like, hey, hey, hey, hey, like we you have just totally let this happen and interrupted everything that not that they let it happen. But like this is going to impact care. We need to do something that Monday. Yeah. It wasn't just impacting care. The thing that I found fascinating is the appeal

was tied to their ability to make money. See, I didn't even look at that. It's capitalism. Thank you. So on that Monday, May 4th, the Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court said, hey, we're going to put a stay on this for one week. Nothing changes. You got to get your paperwork and by Thursday blah blah blah blah again by the time we go to press air whatever words we're using this may be totally out of date here's what you need to know mifepristone is one of two drugs that's generally used for a medical abortion a medical abortion is an abortion that you do by pill and you can do it up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and that's it for those of you like oh they're aborting like fetuses in the third month in the you know third trimester that's absolutely not

true. Those two drugs are used up to the 10th week of pregnancy. Getting the pill by telehealth means that you, in case you don't know, I don't want to assume people know, if you cannot get down to a doctor to see a doctor in person, you get online, not through Zoom, because there's HIPAA stuff, but you go in usually through a portal of some sort. And you have an appointment and the doctor asks you all the questions they would have asked you in person. They make sure that what they want to prescribe for you, and it's not just mifepristone. I mean, there's so many things that people use telehealth for. So that's the telehealth aspect.

You are actually seeing someone. You're just not seeing them in person. But it's not like you're calling in and there's no faces and there's no interaction or you're just putting something in online. There's actual conversation happening in these. the other part of this was that some some of the time the pills were being sent by u.s mail because people cannot always get to um a place to get these pills they can't get to a pharmacy they they just can't take the time they've got a sick kid at home they can't just leave to go to the pharmacy so it's delivered by mail and and i want to throw that out there because when we start

limiting medication access specifically for telehealth or specifically for things through the U.S. mail, that can have a domino effect to lots of other things that people use telehealth for and that people use the U.S. mail for. So if you take any medication that, you know, every three months they send you a new supply by mail, theoretically, if we're going to start attacking what's sent through the mail, we could start attacking that as well. But we're not because we're only really attacking women right now, because that's apparently what we do here. In this country, not this podcast. important clarification important clarification so i think i got the nuts and bolts of all the

things yes okay before i move on with my proselytizing is there anything you'd like to um i think it's i find it interesting that um that i mean this happened in louisiana as you said yes because louisiana has been kind of at the forefront And vanguarding these anti-abortion access regulatory issues, cases, and what I find interesting and frustratingly so, maddeningly so, rage-inducing so, is that this, the ruling that the telemedicine access to Mifepristone, quote from judge stewart kyle duncan in his 19 page opinion injures louisiana by undermining its laws protecting unborn human life to say nothing of the existing human oh she doesn't know um and that's that's what's so maddening about all of these anti-abortion movements is that many times, many times there's the rhetoric that they have to do this to prevent late-term

abortions and moms changing their minds at the ninth month. And I will say, and we've said it in our past episodes, there is rarely a woman, because I don't want to deal in absolutes, But there is rarely a pregnant person who has decided to carry that pregnancy, who at the seventh, eighth or ninth month is like, you know what? I changed my mind. Never mind. Yeah. The only time. Oh, go ahead.

The only time you might see that is that there's a medical complication. That's exactly what I was about to say. It's never it's never just this. And that's the and I'm pointing to the rhetoric right now of anti-abortion movements. the rhetoric is well you can't just not decide to have the baby um that's not that's not what happens here that's not what happens when women are pregnant and then they carry into the third trimester and then they're forced with a heartbreaking likely heartbreaking decision because largely it is because something has happened with the the fetus the fetal health

the mom's health uh-huh that it is it is a heartbreaking decision if they are forced with with that kind of decision late term yes and so and what we are what we see with project 2025 and everything and the 85 percent of it that has been achieved um is that none of this is aimed at any of that it is aimed solely at women's women's health it's not it's not science-based yep no it is absolutely not science-based it's not science-based because if it were science-based the the early turn the the first 10 weeks would be like not not discussed or something i don't know so i don't i usually make up numbers anyone who's listening to the show i usually make up numbers I am not making this number up and I happen to know this one off the top of my head because I

get this one quite a bit 99 of all abortions in the United States are done within the first 20 weeks so Charlie like you were talking about when you're talking about late term or partial late term we're going to use term late term late term abortions we are looking at less than one percent actually it's small and then I believe it's less than one half of one percent yeah um so there's two I have so many right there's just arrows all over my page at this point I have all these web tab opens. So not to take Louisiana aside, I don't even like how that felt, like saying that part of it. This does violate the law that Louisiana has on its books, which is why they were able to couch this decision the way they were.

It is against the law. So the question I was getting a lot of because again, again, I just want to say against Louisiana's state law. Yes. Against Louisiana, Louisiana state law. I do want to point out that most of my friends live on coasts, either West Coast or East Coast. as you not have well and i guess the coast of whatever lake is in chicago um so so the question i was getting from a lot of my friends is like why the fuck is this impacting me and i'm cursing a lot because they were cursing a lot and i'm angry um the question they were getting is like i don't live anywhere near louisiana on purpose so like why and so the decision that comes out of um this this appeals court oversees mississippi louisiana and texas but it's a federal ruling because it's federal policy that was involved which is the u.s mail so that's why it's affecting

everybody and i think people need to understand that you know because a lot of times it's like well i don't agree with the policies in the south so i'm either going to leave there if i'm there or i'm just not going to go there it doesn't we are 50 states it the things that happen in other states do impact us in some in the things that have happened in other states impact us in our states yeah the thing that you had just said which was actually not one of my errors um was the something about something being untrue because there was a line in the decision i did not read let me own it i did not read the 19 page decision there's a line in the decision because that it says that they are there are concerns about the safety of mifepristone and that's just bullshit there's no science

questions about the safety of mifepristone um cdc has said excuse me the fda has said that themselves there is no concern about that what there is fake concern about is people saying that enough when now people believe that there's concerns about the safety but there's no science behind them yeah and i need to veer a little off topic just so i can cross off this last arrow that's on my page um because what happened was a lot of so some of this was happening in group chat some of it was happening in person some of it was happening in group chat and it was like oh okay so i would explain it and be like oh okay so mythic persona isn't banned i'm like well not yet to me that's quite an obvious where that might go and then one of my friends

i don't think i told her i was gonna do this well tough shit she goes oh okay so i'll be okay i'm like okay sweetheart so you need to check your privilege and i need everyone here who's sitting there thinking, oh, okay, Mr. Preston's still available. I'm okay. I can get to a doctor. I can get to a pharmacy. You're right, because it's probably not targeting you. And I'm guessing you're white, by the way. This isn't targeting white privileged women. It is targeting populations that are already struggling in a system that wasn't built for them or with them or by them or even with their concerns in mind. We are looking at marginalized communities. We are talking about rural communities. We are talking about poor communities who may not be able to

take off work to go to a clinic and then go to a pharmacy so for those of you who are like this doesn't impact me as long as Mifepristone is still legal I really need you to check your privilege and then I need you to take the power you have to help fight for the people who are being targeted right now because you will eventually be targeted yeah and that's and that's the thing that's that ripple effect right of um of coexisting together even if you're not impacted there are things there are things like this that factually are beneficial to all the availability of it is beneficial to all and we'll also get into um and forgive me because i was reading so um but there is another use for mifepristone yes it is

used oh did you want to say it sorry uh go ahead it's used um for some people with cushing syndrome it is used to treat hyperglycemia, which is high blood sugar. It's not the only medication for it, but some people do react well to it. High blood sugar, well, for anyone, but also people who have Cushing syndrome can actually be fatal. It can cause organ damage. Probably should have reversed those and gone in severity. But it's no joke. I know people like, oh, high blood sugar. It's It's no joke. Like it can cause serious problems, if not death. Yeah. So so that that is to say that these kinds of decisions centered around a use of a drug that can be used for medical abortions can impact more than just people seeking abortions. And and this ruling, we already have a shortage of providers.

So the impact on providers. Sometimes, as Dr. Sue was highlighting, telehealth is the only way that people can receive consultations, prescriptions, etc. So this, I shudder to think what this does for telehealth broadly, because it's rarely, it's rarely, the end goal is rarely ever just one specific thing. Because when we look at Mifepristone in the galaxy of pharmaceuticals, it's minute. you know so so this is when things like this happen where we are limiting access we all have to pay attention because it is the tip of the iceberg and if you're sitting there thinking well i can get again i can get to a doctor's office can get to a specialist right if you were diagnosed with something and there was only one doctor and they were the other side of the country can you afford to fly to the other side of the country to go see them

and i think that's the piece people are missing like this is about access to care yes in this case it happens to be access to medical abortion but it's access to care in general um and we're seeing more and more of that with the big pharma companies it's like oh you don't have a prescription come meet with one of our doctors we'll go through the checklist we'll make sure you're eligible and then we'll get you the medication you need all of that falls into that category of telehealth so yeah i'm just angry because this isn't it's it's an attack on women it's an it's just a blatant attack on women it's it's an attack on women who are pregnant in a country that has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world

it is forcing women to be pregnant which is a human rights violation according to the united vaccinations it is it is i feel like we've kind of rang the spell before about why forcing people to be pregnant when they don't want to or can't afford it or physically or emotionally can't handle just torturous well and to say nothing of the public opinion surrounding abortions and access to abortion care most most nobody wants wants people to have access to abortion yeah most people don't want people to have access to late term abortion. Most of us agree on that. Most of us don't actually want a woman to be in a position where she's, her life is in danger. And there's an interesting, I don't know if I want to get into this. Someone, someone pointed this out to me

yesterday, not yesterday, recently, and I don't know enough about it. Can I throw it out there and claim, so not only am I not a legal scholar, I am also not a religious scholar. Let's just throw out all the things I'm not today. Yeah. But I was talking to someone about access to abortion And someone said it's a violation of religion. And I'm like, all right, you got to give me more on that. And she's Jewish. And she said that in the Jewish faith, understanding I'm talking to someone who may or may not be practicing based off how it's supposed to be, the life of the mother always comes first. It always comes first.

And so limiting a person's ability to get an abortion is a violation of their right to practice religion, which, yeah. And if I'm wrong about that, by the way, if there are religious scholars who are like, nope, that's not it, please let me know and I will absolutely issue a, not retraction, but whatever we call it in the digital age. Well, the other thing that I want to point out that we talked a little bit about in our show prep is that the United States is frustratingly holding on to an archaic set of something, I don't know what I want to call it, surrounding abortion care. Yeah. I mean, if you take a look, and I don't know these numbers, you can always tell when I'm making up numbers because things become ish. There's only like upper teens, lower 20-ish number of countries in the entire world that prohibits abortion, which is where I think some folks want to go in this country. Vatican City is the one that always sticks out to me because it's obvious to me why it is. Yeah. But it's not like we're in the majority. It's like virtually no major industrialized nascent in Europe. It's it's not. The rest of the world is looking at us going, what are you doing? Yeah. So it's not even like we're going, oh, here's the science. OK, let's follow it. Here's the idea that people have the right to their bodies and autonomy.

So it's not like we're keeping in league with what everybody else is doing. it's right y'all you know we're for so many reasons right now we're the we're the country that other countries look at and go that's what happens when that gets all jacked up all right so yeah i think i think the heart of it and i think this is what people people start getting into the nitty-gritty as they should like okay how are people going to access abortion this is not just about abortion this is about limiting access to health care this is about limiting access to medical care in terms of access to medication this is targeting women and this is targeting minority women it's this this whole not that women of color are the only ones who get

pregnant but that's when they make policies that restrict people's access isn't it's targeting usually racial racial minorities which they won't be much longer um if you look at the birth rates um but it's also targeting um people who are already being shut out of the system it's racist in nature it is it is misogynistic in nature and i think sometimes we get so in the weeds about abortion that we need to call it out for the bigger picture that it is right right stop hating women yeah just yeah patriarchy hurts everybody not just women but especially women um i it it also for a country who woefully underserves and has the highest mortality rate for black women maternal death rate is appalling yep and for an industrialized

country um i mean it's it's bad overall for an industrialized country but that when dr sue says this is meant to target people of color that's exactly what it's doing yep i mean we look at we look at the case in georgia of the the pregnant woman who was in a coma because of these laws yeah they turned women into incubators and and to just take this back this is a little bit of charlie's commentary now but just to take this a step back when when you have i i do not call anti-abortion movements pro-life movements because they're not pro-life they are pro-birth they're anti-abortion and and the reason why is because using that case as an example you have now forced a child to be motherless your policies kill and yes and you forced a family because the family

had to pay for the medical care for that person right i don't know anyone who could afford three months of medical care or whatever it was so now you have forced an entire family into some sort of medical debt yes which i mean most of the country is like what one big illness away from being in medical debt yeah that system's broken yeah it's all it's only meant to serve though the privileged it's only meant to serve the people who got to make the system and that's the thing I talk about when I talk about systemic racism. And if you're like, why are we talking about that when we're talking about abortion? Because this is built into the system and we have to call it out every single place that we can. Yes. The system was built by white people.

They did not. For white people. For white people. They did not think about people of color. They did not think about other minorities. They did not really think about women. It was designed by men. It was not designed for them to ever get what they needed. And at no point have we given them the opportunity to really get involved and help make changes is a system that is not made by them for them and has no need has no real desire to serve them no and so we need to call that out every single time and that's my biggest thing and I say this in the piece that I do and I usually try not to repeat what I've already written but it's it's really important to me if you're us and they're thinking this doesn't impact me I can't get pregnant maybe you don't have the right body

parts um or i only have sex with women and i i can't get pregnant or i'm done with my child whatever i don't care who you are i don't care what genitals you have this is a human issue and you don't get to take you don't get to take a knee on this one because you think it doesn't impact you everyone has to get involved everyone does have to get involved and and it's it's Reproductive health. I mean, I think that's one of the things that I get frustrated with when I talk about this issue, when I talk about abortion care, health care with those who purport to or with those who are anti-abortion. It's health care. It is, again, to go back to what I said about the universe of pharmaceuticals and Mifepristone being one tiny particle of that universe, abortion is a piece of health care.

It is not the entirety of health care. And so when they attack one piece of health care that only impacts women, that doesn't, it doesn't go well for all of us. Because it is, again, like I said earlier, it is the tip of the iceberg. Yep. and and you we some some people may know what's next and that's why that's why we have to get involved to protect this access yep and for those of you who are like okay i understand this isn't a talk on women but i really for my own personal religion cultural whatever struggle with abortion i hear you you don't get to make a decision about what i do with my body or someone else

does with their body um but when we limit access when we limit access to one thing we're limiting access to other things and i think that's the point charlie you're trying trying to drive yeah yeah i always use the example when we take a look at um reproductive health clinics i'm going to speak specifically about planned parenthood because i watch this happen in a clinic not too far from me the anti the anti-choice anti-abortion people decided to go after planned parenthood not every planned parenthood by the way does abortions i used to work at two planned parenthood facilities we did not do any abortions we didn't even come close to it um the one that was being attacked was not one that did abortion but it was being attacked anyway and they were very proud of

themselves when they closed but the thing people don't get is that Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health care clinics they do STI testing they do gynecological care they do access to contraception um they can don't they do care for men too some of them do do care for men some of them do not um it depends on the clinic um i worked at one clinic where we we did not see men um but but we do sometimes do care for men as well like sti testing is everybody needs sti testing yeah um it's also a place where people can go if they're in domestic violence in abusive relationships because part of the conversation you're going to have with the provider and hopefully with the educator if there is one on staff is going to be about how safe you feel at

home um it is a time that we do other things other preventive medicine mammograms like you are that that win against abortion is really hurting so many women and maybe men and families that you just don't see and that's what people don't get it is never a single issue it is never an issue about abortion it is never an issue of mifepristone it is it is always a bigger issue which is why i think we have to keep calling out that this is anti-woman and this is anti anyone who's not white this is anti anyone who doesn't have privilege and so if that's offending you do something yeah because it it goes and i'm gonna i'm gonna just i'm gonna say it again it goes to coexisting together we don't have to agree or immediately like each other when we meet each other in the

streets but I want people to have an opportunity to live a fulfilling life one that is that is good and and that they get to travel and things like that if they can or just enjoy being and when things like this happen and we are constantly in this fight this state of hyper vigilance because of these things that come out that doesn't help anyone and and if there are people in your lives if or if you are a listener who supports what's been going on it's gonna impact you i mean we we have seen many of those videos of like the face yeah the air quote buyer's remorse Yeah, there is no surprise to a lot of us who were sounding the alarm over 10 years ago, when this became when this movement became mainstream. None of this is surprising to many of us.

And that's why we are so angry and upset and like, okay, yeah, you have buyer's remorse, but also, fuck all, you should have paid attention earlier. if you're paying attention now great do something more than just say i have buyer's remorse now get into activism get into allyship get into finding ways that you can show up to help with access to help to help your local lawmakers understand that you're the one that they're accountable to not their donors not their corporate donors yes i do want to point out in a random fact just also lighten the mood a little bit this is not the first time we've tried to limit what can be sent through the mail there was a very big push about sending obscene things through the mail 150 the comstock laws i think if my history reminds me right um which is also getting to a privacy issue

like how the hell do you know what's on my mail yeah so um can we can we do the what do i do like you've told us now to do something charlie and dr sue you told us to do something and now the question is okay what like i'm angry great or yeah now what and i want and i'm i'm walking away from this episode wanting to do something so what is it okay so here's what i need to do one i need to start having more conversations with people about this randomly bring it up i don't care if it's awkward be awkward be weird I need people to be weird and get this center stage again because we've already gone through like 10 news cycles and now I don't even know what we're focusing on anymore today definitely not Epstein because that never seems to make it back in the news

so I need you to talk about this with people I need you to share accurate information as we know it which can be really dicey right now because the information is literally changing from day to day possibly from hour to hour as things gets filed in the court I need you to be as informed as you can be and i i know what you're thinking because i can read your mind what you're thinking is i'm gonna google this and i'm gonna go down the biggest rabbit hole and that's gonna be the end of my life and i can't do this so i want you to find sources that you like and i very rarely give out people that i don't know personally but i follow but i'm gonna do it now because i think it's important jessica valente does a sub stack called abortion every day

and her stuff boils it down in a way that makes it digestible um and you can and charlie neither charlie nor i get any kind of kickback from this um and we'll make it we'll put a link to it if that's okay with you charlie yeah well consent is a thing um we'll put a link to it in the description but i find her i find her stuff easier to read and digest and then i keep reading more so i'm like oh like she's a lot of links but sometimes she'll say something i'll be like oh i'm not sure I know about that. Let me go look that up on my own. But it's hard to stay on top of everything right now, right? When there are more gas prices, food prices, living prices. And Epstein should be back in that list as well. Let's just throw that there. So Jessica Valente is a good person to

follow. I Need an A. And we did a podcast episode with the founder and director of I Need an A or I Need an Abortion.com. One of the first things I did after the ruling came out is I went to their website and they have as updated information as they can um plan c pills has not been updating their their website as fast but they are an organization that gives that provides um mail order pills for medical abortion again they weren't updating nearly as fast as not that we're pitting them against each other no um and then if you can i i want to say call your representative and i did actually say this in my post last sunday and then a friend of mine was like this isn't a voting issue yet like there's no what am i

supposed to do call my senator and just be like i'm pissed i'm like yes you should be calling your senators yeah you're a congressman every single day why not one and it for those of you who don't know this rule by the way you make one call per issue so if you have five things you want to talk about when you call your elected official you don't do it in one phone call because then it only gets logged as one phone call. You make one call per issue. You call, you say where you are on the issue and why you feel that way. If you even want to include that, you hang up, you pick up, you call, you call about the next issue because then it gets logged as five different phone calls. If you make five complaints in one call, it is logged as one call. Make one of your

phone calls letting the office know how concerned you are about what you're doing to women in general and women who are often underprivileged and ignored by the system. Do something. And if you have a better idea if you're like there's an advocacy group you need to know about let us know send us and there'll be a link to this in the description as well send us a an idea send us some information if you know someone who'd be a great guest for this podcast on this episode please and if they're a legal scholar even better even better yeah but there you are not powerless until you decide that you have given up all your rights to your body and your voice you are not powerless and they need you to do something right now or if you're waiting for when it is black and

white on a ballot issue everything is a voting issue everything isn't is a voting issue i mean that's because you have to understand what a presidential election how that will impact the makeup of the supreme court yep um your local politics that's really where a lot of this starts too is local politics and then it works its way up to the mainstream and the federal level and the news cycles and everything like that but you know your local political level is is also just as important as the federal level and and you can't wait i would argue you can't wait till an election cycle or a ballot petition or anything like that because because they have to they have to log those issues when you call they have to log those calls they have to pay attention

And I know it can feel it for many of us that voting is a feeble exercise, but it's it's our vote and our choices being being recorded. And if you haven't been paying attention to some local elections around the country, there have been several in the last few months that have been decided by less than 500 votes. Yes. If you think your vote doesn't matter. Yeah. You're missing the bigger picture. Sure. And to go back to what I said a little bit earlier in the show about the majority of people in this country are support early term abortions. We saw that in in a state law that was voted on by Kansas voters.

Everywhere came up in the last five years. It has been it has it has passed or where the restrictions been voted down. Yeah. So I didn't want to. Yeah. It's always been protected whichever way that vote had to go. We're seeing more and more states that are trying to put it into their state constitution as a constitutional right. That only happens when they think that's important to the voters in the state. because to take it back a little bit the overturning of roe v wade what that meant was it went down to the state level so louisiana's case that's why that worked because the overturning of roe v wade meant that abortion access was no longer federally protected and the stance of this administration was that it should be regulated and decided at the state level so that's why we are where we are and now those states are also it's when we when we talk about it's never just one thing they were never just trying to get their rights to matter more to

no longer be beholden to a federal statute um now what they are trying to do is impact states where it's safe right so it's you have to pay attention to the chain of events and the and the ripple effect of these decisions and what it means because all too often i as a west coaster am impacted by the actions and the soapboxes of very small states that are over a thousand miles away for me yep but i'm impacted as you said earlier that in the show we all feel the ramifications of these decisions and these movements that are not in the best interest of women no and minorities so i have like two things left and they're really random go for it so part of there's a part of my brain that is yelling every time i say it which is why i've been hesitating to say it when i say

that women who are under who are underserved and then saying minority women i i'm not trying to make the insinuation that only only minority women are underserved or that women of color don't have power because or finance like i was starting to hear that connection in the way i was phrasing it and maybe this is just in my own brain um but we kept saying women who are underserved and women who are ignored those are predominantly populations of color and predominantly people who are low income, but I don't want people to make the connection always between those two things being the same. There are lots of women of color who are incredibly rich and powerful and have access to care that I will never have access to because I can't afford it. So I just want to make

sure I'm not doing that, like promoting that stereotype. And I just, I want to add on to that, that many of those women are at the forefront of the fight and the changes that we do see that we benefit from and so so there may be some people in your circle or in your social feed that where you can see um black black people other um other minority communities being like we're tired we've been fighting that's why it's time for people like dr sue and i who look like us to step up and do this fight because so often the change that we benefit from has been so hard fought yep by um our incredible minority communities especially the black community yep but i did want to make sure that i was starting to hear those two things always being said in the

same i get it i get it i just also wanted to add that layer yeah and and if you're like well what what are different communities doing check out our other podcasts we did this year for the podcast with um someone from the from sister song which is a black woman-owned organization that focuses on reproductive justice and birth justice there are communities that are doing the work um but we all have to do it together yeah i have one more random thing i don't know where to put it or how to tie it in let's go i feel like there should be a visual cue for i'm being random um there's an organization i really love and i just wish more people knew about it and i know we talked about them before. It's the Bridget Alliance. I don't know if I've ever talked to

you about them. They raise money to help women who need financial assistance to be able to get an abortion. So maybe that's giving them money to help pay for hotels or help pay for driving because gas is really expensive or just financially help women who need to get access to care. And if you don't want to give to the Bridget Alliance, you could look closer to home. there's definitely abortion funds even in states where abortion is illegal people don't always have access to it or they need help getting it

done so I just want to highlight the Bridget Alliance because I love the work they do beautiful we'll put a link to them in the description we'll link that in today's episode description so with that on May

13th 2026 I don't feel any better do you I don't. I was kind of hoping this was going to be catharsis for me. No, but it's not. And I think part of the reason why is because we don't know which way it's going to go, how it's going to go, but yeah.

So can I make a plea for the homework? Uh-huh. If you know someone who's doing the work, and we don't, this could just be between you and us, we don't have to publish it or highlight or spotlight it. But if you want to tell us some amazing stories of things you're doing or that people, you know, are doing or things that will give us hope that there's there's people who are fighting the fight. I would I would like some of that right now, please. And if you are a legal scholar, expert, reproductive rights expert, please reach out to us. We would love to have you on the show.

Yeah. To have these kinds of conversations. so again with that on may 13th 2026 i want to thank you all for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos we hope today's episode sparked uh some fight i was just about to say anger um some ideas for advocacy some ideas for activism to ensure that everyone has access to the health care and the medicines that they need for whatever reason, because at the end of the day, what they need their medicine for does not impact your day to day. So hopefully, hopefully this episode did a little bit of that will spark new ideas will open up conversations worth having.

And remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down these barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex relationships and sex health. I want to say, if you enjoyed this show, please, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with someone who you think might need to hear this. If you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip, please reach out to us via the link in the episode description. We want to give a very special shout out to composer and best friend of the show, Ali O'Brien for incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Ali. And until next time, everyone keep the conversation going. Keep unzipping those taboos and take care.