The WNBA’s Pay Inequity and Arizona’s Abortion Ban

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Women’s Basketball and the WNBA

  • Arizona’s Abortion Law

  • The Consequences of Extreme Abortion Law with Dr. Daniel Grossman

  • Outside of Politics: The Gift of Interest

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:29] Thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to begin by talking about the WNBA and what we're learning from the uptick in focus on women's basketball. Then we're going to talk about the abortion ban that has gone into effect in Arizona. Doctor Daniel Grossman, a physician and researcher, will spend some time with us detailing the real world impacts of restrictive abortion laws on patients, clinicians and on the overall health care system. Outside of Politics, we're going to share a really beautiful story from one of our listeners. And what we are not going to talk about today is Donald Trump's trial. We will come back to that at some point. But as we sat down to record, we received the breaking news that one juror who had been seated for the trial contemplated the effect on her life that will happen if people find out she served on this jury and went back to the judge and said, "I don't think I can do this." And that's why we aren't going to track every development of jury selection in this case, because the system is more important than the man who is on trial here. And the sacrifices that jurors make in every case are real. They are very, very real in this case. And so it's important to us to do everything we can to respect the privacy of these folks who are doing their civic duty. We will return to the legal issues at some point, but we're not going to track jury selection today.  

Sarah [00:01:46] One of the interesting observations from Alexis de Tocqueville and his Democracy in America is the uniqueness of our jury trials, and our court system in America is one of the many things that we are learning and gaining insight into with our slow read along of his seminal work, Democracy in America. Always relevant. Always interesting. Every time I pick it up, I think, "Oh, hmm, he was right about that." On Wednesday, we shared our discussion of part one. In our main podcast feed is a bonus episode, so you could get a taste of this slow book club that we're pursuing on our premium channels. We're going to talk about book one of part two on April 26th on More to Say. So if you're interested, there's still plenty of time to just listen to part one. You can join us for this next episode next week. We are having such interesting conversations about democracy in America and we hope you'll join us.  

Beth [00:02:43] Next up, we're going to talk about the WNBA.  

[00:02:45] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:55] Unusually, this year, the NCAA tournament was really about the women's basketball more than the men's. And I'll tell you, Sarah, I don't follow women's basketball, but I will now because that championship game between South Carolina and Iowa was by far the most exciting game of basketball I watched all year, no question. And not just because of the novelty to me of watching women play basketball, but because it was just really good basketball. Fast paced, super aggressive, well executed basketball. So fun to watch.  

Sarah [00:03:33] I watched the Iowa-Connecticut game. It was the only basketball game I watched. It's the only basketball game, particularly NCAA basketball game-- probably not ever watched. I'm sure I watched them in high school, but in a long time. I'm very invested in all these women Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Juju Watkins and of course, Caitlin Clark. We've been following her on the News Brief for a while, and she was just sort of this phenomenon. And I thought, well, is there any there-there? Like, why are we all obsessed with her? She seems to be very good. And then she became the all time leading scorer ever for men or women in NCAA basketball. It's incredible. And just to watch her shoot and shoot and shoot is so fun. And she's dominating. Everybody is obsessed with her. And now her and a bunch of these other women, including Angel Reese, are heading to the WNBA.  

Beth [00:04:36] Which is bringing new attention to the WNBA, particularly to the pay disparity between the WNBA and the NBA. Caitlin Clark's new team, the Indiana Fever, combined-- all the players on the Indiana Fever-- will get paid about the same as one random backbencher in the NBA next year. It is a very big difference. Now, the answer to why is a legacy of the WNBA just being less profitable overall than the NBA? Less watched. The TV deals are lower. And also as Katie Stigers, one of our listeners who knows a lot about women's sports, points out the WNBA has focused on greater equity among players. Instead of putting a whole bunch of money into star players, they try to make sure that everyone is paid well. So some good and some tough news behind why that disparity is there. But hopefully all the attention on the NCAA tournament this year will shift that attention and encourage more people to go to WNBA games and buy merchandise and watch the games on TV, and we'll start to see that disparity decrease.  

Sarah [00:05:55] Yeah. I mean, the minimum wage basically in the NBA is $1.5 million a year. Meanwhile, the highest paid WNBA player makes a little less than $250,000. A lot of what I've been reading from sports journalist and analyst is that the WNBA is really well situated for this surge and interest driven by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The NBA draft, which was quite the glamorous event, the women brought a lot of exciting energy to fashion and otherwise to the draft. It was like more people watch that draft than have watched the highest watched game from the NBA. So it was exciting. Everybody was watching. Obviously, Clayton Clark was the number one pick. She's going to the Indiana Fever, like you said. I have already purchased my tickets to an Indiana Fever game in September. I'm very, very excited that their ticket sales are up 200%. Man, you go on these games, they're not a lot of seats left, friends. I'm up in the rafters and I'm going to a game in September. So I think it's been building gradually. But much like the NCAA women's tournament, what you're going to see is an explosion. I mean, I read so many articles and talked to people. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, their names were in everybody's mouth and nobody could name a male player. I think this is going to happen in the WNBA too. It's just this surge is going to hit fertile ground. There's a lot of good players. Las Vegas rented a bigger stadium for when they're playing the Indiana Fever. I think it's going to be really exciting. And I don't think that people who are sort of joining the surge are ready for the inequities, are ready to really see the difference. I think the shock you see in these pay inequities is part of it. And I think the people who understand and who've known all about this, and who maybe as male journalists have been rolling their eyes at the WNBA, are ready for the shift either. I think this is a bigger cultural shift than we maybe understand where women are going to dominate a sport. I'm not sure that culturally or societally, we're ready-- I think we are ready, but I think it's going to be tough.  

Beth [00:08:19] On Wednesday, there was an illustration of how not ready some of the culture around sports is for women to be dominant. It came in the form of a really unfortunate exchange between Caitlin Clark and a reporter, and I don't want to pile on to that reporter. He has apologized and written a column, and then people dispute whether he just wrote the column to get more clicks and eyeballs on himself. I don't know. I don't know this person. But the point is, in the midst of all of that, Clinton Yates, who writes for ESPN, wrote a really powerful thread on X about how exactly what you said, Sarah, women are positioned-- this is a tipping point. Women are positioned to be absolutely dominant figures, not just in basketball but in many, many sports. And people are not ready for all of the implications that will have. It was interesting to me that when John Calipari, the head coach of Kentucky's men's basketball team, left, there was a huge surge of social media interest from Kentucky in saying, we would love to get Dawn Staley here. The South Carolina women's coach is so good. We would like to see her coach the men's basketball team, and I think it's only a matter of time. You see lots of men as the head coaches of women's teams. I love to see women as head coaches on men's teams. There are just so many ramifications. I think we can't even begin to imagine what it would mean for women's sports to be more dominant than men's sports, and where that could take us. I think it's really exciting, and I think it's going to be fun to watch what happens when you have to rent bigger stadiums for women to play in, and you can't get tickets to games six months out for women.  

Sarah [00:10:02] And I think they just need more eyeballs. And I think Caitlin Clark has been the impetus for that because it feels like, well, it's not just some abstract reason we're all watching her. It's not just that she looks the right way or she plays for the right team. It's that she broke the record for men and women, period. Full stop. She is the best there has been. And so I think that is just such a huge part of it. And she has done such a good job. I think all of them have. I think Angel Reese, and like so many of these players, are doing a good job of taking advantage of this moment. I saw where Angel Reese was like, it was so fun to be at the draft and get to know all these women that we have been competing against and just hang out and get to know each other. And I think that's really fun. Watching their camaraderie and watching them enjoy this moment and take advantage of it and watching people watch. Because they need bigger media deals, but they're going to be up to renegotiate their contracts as WNBA players, and they also need a bigger slice of that. They only get 10% of the revenues at the WNBA. Meanwhile, the men get 40. So I hope they have better union representatives, more shark-like union representatives over at the WNBA too, because they deserve it. I mean, look, Caitlin Clark is only making $75,000 a year from the Indiana Fever, but believe she's going to be making a lot more money from Nike and all her endorsement deals. And good for her cash those checks, girl.  

Beth [00:11:32] That will change a lot too, to see women getting bigger licensing deals and being spokespeople. And I think it's important to acknowledge how frustrated a number of people are with Caitlin Clark as bringing us to this tipping point when so many black women have been amazing basketball players for so long and have done so much to build the sport. At the same time, I hope that this is just like a rising tide lifting all boats, that everybody benefits from what's happened this year and that we have reached that tipping point and that we're going to have many, many women's names who we know. We do know more than Caitlin Clark this year, but I think in the future it's just going to be even more a part of the lexicon. I've started following, in the off season, what's going on with building Kentucky's women's basketball team. Because I just think this is all really exciting, and I want to be part of it at the collegiate level in addition to watching the WNBA now.  

Sarah [00:12:32] Yeah, I mean, I think the attention to Caitlin Clark, where you find the racism is in the criticism of teams like the LSU team. It's not necessarily in the absence of praise, it's just the totally opaque criticism. I just don't like how they act. What the hell does that even mean? It's so easy to sniff out and it's so ridiculous. And these women are incredible players. I mean, damn, when they played Connecticut, I was like, don't let Aliyah Edwards get the ball. Y'all, just don't let her have it. Keep it away from her. I was like who can we keep it away from more, Aliyah or Caitlin? And it was just both teams. Like, don't let her get the ball. Don't let her get the ball because she's so good. And so it's just going to be so fun, I think, to experience all of these women who everybody's learned their name, everybody's invested in, because so many of them graduated this year and are heading to the WNBA. I think Angel Reese was number seven in the draft, and I think she's going to Chicago. It's going to be so exciting.  

Beth [00:13:36] Well, we will continue to watch that. It is a weird split screen to see how much power women are acquiring in some sectors of society, at the same time as some fundamental rights that women have enjoyed for 50 years are being rolled back. So next up, we're going to talk about the ban on abortion in Arizona that has come into effect and the reality that follows in the wake of these bans.  

[00:14:01] Music Interlude.  

[00:14:12] On April 9th, the Arizona Supreme Court decided Planned Parenthood Arizona versus maze-- which is a weird case because it is the resurrection of a ghost case. After Roe versus Wade was decided, an Arizona court issued a permanent injunction against enforcing a very old law that banned all abortion, except when the life of the mother is at risk. Now that law is being called in almost every media outlet, the 1864 law, because it does trace back to laws in effect when Arizona was just a territory before it was even a state. What kind of bugs me about that is how much it lets legislators in subsequent years off the hook, because it was not just that that 1864 law was in effect before Arizona was a state but it also was later codified and recorded. And even after Roe versus Wade was decided, the legislature continued to pass law after law after law, restricting abortion as much as they could in the wake of Row and other cases. And after the Dobbs decision was decided, overturning Roe versus Wade, the court didn't on its own decide to go back to this injunction. The Republican attorney general of the state of Arizona went to court asking for it to alleviate that permanent injunction so that the law could go into effect again. I feel like there's this real sense of the passive voice being used by a number of Republicans around the situation in Arizona. Well, we're going to do what the Supreme Court said, that the law is back in effect. Well, no. An attorney general went seeking that order. And the legislature has had plenty of time since the Dobbs decision to figure out what it wants to do next, and it hasn't acted. So the Supreme Court was faced with an issue of statutory interpretation. Does that law still exist, even though lots of other laws, including one that criminalizes abortion after 15 weeks, has been passed? And it said, just looking at the plain language of the statutes and the clear intention of the legislature, yes, this is basically a problem that the legislature has created, and it's going to have to fix it. Now, it's not a constitutional challenge. They were not considering whether you can have this ban under Arizona's constitution. They were just saying, our lawmakers have said every which way over a matter of 100 years or more that they want to ban abortion here, and so that's what they're going to have to live with right now.  

Sarah [00:16:52] It's so fascinating because the Supreme Court was like, well, let's go to the states. And it feels like the state supreme courts are like, no, you can go to the legislators, you can knock on their door. And for better or for worse, people have not been paying attention to state legislators. And so you have a lot of ideologues who aren't even following what little leadership comes from the head of the Republican Party, which is Donald Trump, who said, let's just leave it up to the states. Much like Covid, he doesn't actually want to lead or exhibit any sort of clarity around the policy positions of the Republican Party. He wants to avoid having to make actual decisions, because that's not the part of being president that he enjoys. And so there's a vacuum and it's being filled by state legislators who are extremist because that's who they were elected to be. So I'm not really mad at the Arizona Supreme Court any more than I was mad at the Alabama Supreme Court for saying, y'all said a million which ways that this is what you want. That you want the most extreme abortion policy possible. And so here you go. You've got it. And they've tried. You've got their Senate candidate, Kari Lake. You've got Donald Trump saying fix it, which the Alabama legislature did do. But the Arizona twice refused to do because, again, they're extremist. They hold extreme positions about abortion. They held extreme positions about gun control. And they sit in positions of power, thanks to the United States Supreme Court and state legislatures, not only in Arizona or Alabama, but across the country.  

Beth [00:18:19] And the incentives are all pretty weird right now because we are in an election year, presidential election year. When they have a big Senate race in Arizona, there is a one seat majority for Republicans in the House. There's Democratic governors. So Democrats in the Arizona legislature have proposed a fix that they tried to fast track. And that's what Republicans are shooting down. They are not allowing it procedurally to come to the floor quickly. And, again, it feels ridiculous that we have to keep talking about this. But timing is everything when you're talking about abortion rights. If you don't fast track it, even if you believe everybody is going to kind of coalesce around that 15 week law as what will stand on the other side of this, a whole lot of people get hurt in the meantime. And that's what we really want to put a spotlight on today. The very real consequences of extremist legislators putting laws on the books that are broad and divorced from the reality of what clinicians see every single day. The Arizona majority wrote in the Supreme Court opinion, physicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life are illegal, and that additional criminal and regulatory sanctions may apply to abortions performed after 15 weeks gestation. So we have with us today, Doctor Daniel Grossman, a physician and researcher who's documenting what follows when legislatures-- not doctors-- decide what medical care is available.  

[00:19:55] Music Interlude.  

[00:20:05] Doctor Daniel Grossman is an OB-GYN and researcher based at UCSF. He's coauthored the first report examining the impact of repealing Roe versus Wade on the care available to patients. We recently discussed that report, and the conversation you're about to hear involves pregnancy loss and very upsetting, but very real, very important stories about what clinicians and patients are experiencing across the United States. So I would love to start if we could, with the report you coauthored about care post Dobbs. I loved this report because I think so often when we talk about abortion care, there is one particular sense of morality brought to the table. And as I read this report, I kept thinking about moral injury for physicians and for patients. I wondered how much you had that question in mind when you convened this study.  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:20:58] I mean, it's a really good point because that's something that has definitely emerged from this study. We hear from the clinicians who are caring for these patients about the moral injury that they're experiencing and where that they say that their hands are tied because they can't provide evidence based care, or they're providing substandard care, which is so different from the way they were taught to provide medicine. One of the most disturbing stories-- I mean, there are many of them are very disturbing-- but it's from a medical student who was present for the delivery of a patient who was forced to continue the pregnancy of a fetus that essentially whose brain wasn't fully formed, had an [inaudible]. The woman was so traumatized by the whole experience of having to give birth to her baby that she knew wouldn't survive. And was just screaming out because of the psychological, moral pain that she was going through and how that was transferred to this medical student that just knew that this was not the way that medicine should be practiced, but they were being forced to provide care this way. So all this to say, this has definitely emerged from the research, but it actually wasn't what originally motivated me, and motivated our team when we got started as a doctor and as anyone who cares for pregnant people. I think we all knew before Dobbs, even before SB8 and Texas went into effect, that this was the kind of thing that was going to happen. And so I was really concerned about the impact that these laws were going to have on pregnant women. So we started to hear some of these stories coming out in the media and was great that reporters were starting to cover some of these stories. But we also started hearing about how doctors were being told by either their employers or the hospitals where they worked not to talk to the media. Doctors were essentially being muzzled. And I was really worried that these stories weren't going to continue to come out. And so that's really what motivated us to start the study, to provide a confidential and potentially anonymous way first for clinicians to share these stories.  

Beth [00:23:15] It feels like such a catch 22, because we hear so often about how concern about medical malpractice lawsuits changes the way care is provided. And now we have physicians who can't provide the standard of care because of laws related to abortion. One of the things that so surprised me in your report was reading about how other care providers not just OB-GYNs, but anesthesiologists and nurses and other folks in the hospital, are concerned about aiding and abetting laws. And there was a quote from someone saying, like, "Even if I offer a hand up on to a gurney for someone, I'm worried that I have exposure."  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:23:56] Yeah, that was also a really disturbing narrative to read. And I think in most of the narratives and the interviews we hear from the clinicians talking about how they're in conflict with the state, or sometimes the policies in their institution where they're trying to provide care and they feel like they're being limited and restricted. They can't provide evidence based care. But in a few of the narratives, it was conflict with other clinicians, sometimes physicians and other specialties, who the doctors thought were over interpreting laws in some cases or letting these policies, which are inherently unclear, kind of cloud their medical judgment, which was also interesting and disturbing to read.  

Beth [00:24:48] Well, it makes sense reading the case studies, because physicians aren't lawyers. And I think the people who wrote these laws did not write them with any level of specificity to make clear what the expectations are. I also think they just did not take into account the most common examples of issues that you cite in the report. Can you talk a little bit about ectopic pregnancy, early miscarriage, the pre-term pre labor, rupture of membranes and just the kinds of issues that are coming to physicians and that they're struggling through post Dobbs in states where abortion has been banned.  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:25:22] You're on the report for about 50 narratives describing a range of different kinds of scenarios. And each one of them is unique. I guess I would say they kind of fall into three different categories. There's one category related to medical complications experienced by the pregnant women where there's a medical need to end the pregnancy. These include things like medical complications in the second trimester of pregnancy, like ruptured membranes, where it's unlikely that the pregnancy is going to continue to a point where the fetus could survive, if it was born. And there's a high risk that by just waiting that the patient could develop a serious infection. And we have several cases of this that were reported to us from a number of different states and wasn't unique to a certain state where patients presented, they were evaluated, found to have ruptured membranes in the second trimester. They were not offered the option of an abortion and essentially sent home and told to come back when they had evidence of labor or signs of infection. And several people developed very serious infections and even sepsis, where the infection kind of gets into the bloodstream and it was everywhere in [inaudible]. And they were really on the brink of death and were admitted to the intensive care unit. This kind of management is so far astray from the usual standard of care. It's shocking.  

[00:26:53] Similarly, management of ectopic pregnancy, as you mentioned, that kind of falls into this category as well. The most common place where an ectopic pregnancy develops is when the pregnancy develops outside of the uterus. The most common place for that to happen is in the fallopian tube. But yet we still saw several cases where it's very clear this pregnancy cannot develop normally and lead to the delivery of of a baby. And not intervening with an ectopic pregnancy puts the pregnant patient at high risk of having that tube rupture and having severe bleeding internally. And we still saw cases where just there were delays in standard of care management of these patients, where the doctors have to jump through extra hoops to get approval from various people, including the hospital lawyer, in order to provide this care. Kind of another related case to ectopic pregnancy is what's called cesarean scar ectopic pregnancy where the pregnancy implants in the scar of a prior cesarean section. it's very, very rare. I think we had three cases reported. Because it kind of looks like initially that the pregnancy may be at least partially inside the uterus when you look at it on ultrasound. In these cases, it was very hard for patients to get the care that they needed. The society for Maternal Fetal Medicine recognizes that these pregnancies are exceedingly high risk. People are at risk of having the uterus rupture, having serious, catastrophic bleeding, requiring hysterectomy, removal of the whole uterus, if the pregnancy is allowed to develop. So the recommendation is to treat these as soon as they're identified.  

[00:28:39] So we saw that several patients couldn't get the treatment that they needed in states with bans. And a long way to say that's sort of the first category. The second category is related to medical complications with the fetus. Often these were cases where woman was pregnant with a fetus that had an anomaly, either genetic anomaly or malformation, that was not compatible with life. It was clear that if the baby were allowed to be born would die very shortly after being born, but yet these people couldn't get termination care in the States where they lived with bans. I remember one of the narratives a doctor describes a patient in a state with a complete abortion ban, who just kind of went through all the counseling with the patient who had this. It was pregnant with a fetus that definitely could not survive once it was born. And the doctor had to explain all that to the patient and say we can't treat you here. The only option would be for you to travel to another state to receive abortion care. Your husband will have to take off work to travel with you. You'll have to find childcare for your other children while you're gone. Someone else ended up mentioning something to the patient about how potentially the husband could be charged for aiding and abetting in this situation, which is again, just shocking. And after all this, the patient was just like, how can you say that I have a choice in this matter because this is not a choice. And then the third category is just like a range of situations that really shouldn't even be affected by abortion bans. These are, like you mentioned, the category of miscarriage. A miscarriage is not an abortion. And still we had several reports of patients who either had documented miscarriages and couldn't get the treatment that they needed in a state with an abortion ban. Or in some cases, patients were just so terrified because of what they were hearing, and they were worried that they could potentially be charged with a crime if they sought care in a hospital in a state with a ban, that instead they decided to at their own expense to fly to another state or drive to another state in order to receive care. And then they got miscarriage care in other states. So now all these are really very disturbing.  

Beth [00:31:04] They are disturbing. And it was so striking to me reading the report, which I urge people listening to click and read. We will link it in our notes here. That you were describing scenario after scenario where there was not going to be a viable delivery. And there was extreme risk to the mother. And you would read about what happened and then you would read, here's what should have happened and recognize the unbelievable trauma created by the process because of these laws, the astronomical costs, and just the suffering that followed.  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:31:40] Yeah. First, there are many limitations to this research that we're doing. And one is that we are capturing the prospective, healthcare team, the providers that are offering care to these patients. So we're not hearing directly from the patient's own perspectives. Still, I think it certainly comes out- the suffering that patients are going through. And as you said earlier, there's also a lot of suffering that the health care team and clinicians are going through. We mentioned the moral injury that they are experiencing because they feel like their hands are tied. They can't provide the type of care that they were trained to provide. I mean, they also just talked about how the extra work that was kind of foisted upon them, that they had to use their own personal networks and using secure messaging platforms to try to find where a patient could be sent in another state in order to provide the care that the patient needed. And it's like that was taking time away from the care that they should have been providing for other patients is just not the thing. Your own health care shouldn't depend on who your doctor might know in another state. That's just not optimal care. My hope is that certainly over time, those networks kind of get more established and it becomes easier to a certain degree. But still it's just not appropriate that patients have to get in their own car and potentially drive hundreds of miles while they're in the process of experiencing a medical complication to another state in order to get care that isn't available where they live.  

Beth [00:33:30] I'm talking to you from Kentucky. I mean, we are surrounded by states with very restrictive abortion laws. We'd have to go really far here. We're kind of trapped in this area where the time and expense associated with travel is catastrophic in so many cases. Understanding that we are in a situation right now that seems unsustainable in terms of its effects on everyone, patients and clinicians, I wonder having looked hard at sort of the short term implications of Dobbs, what you think that the medium term looks like, what are you anticipating comes next in your research? Is that a fair question?  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:34:16] No, it's an interesting question. I think it's just so interesting to see what the research is showing, for example, that the abortion numbers are going up. And I don't think that is sustainable. I don't think that either the financial investment that has helped to make that possible to help people access care, including both people who live in states where abortion remains protected as well as helping patients travel from from states with bans, I'm worried that level of support isn't going to be maintained. And that if anything, we're going to see more of the kind of harms that we're documenting. So I am also worried about sort of the expansion of self-managed abortion. Which particularly self-managed abortion with medications either with mifepristone alone or mifepristone together with misoprostol, is all the evidence that we have indicates that this is safe and effective. I am worried as that becomes more and more common, that we are going to see more people being criminalized for allegedly self-managing their own abortion or for helping someone else to do that. I'm very concerned about some of the legal research that's coming out around this, that is especially research from the group if, when, how, documenting that these cases even happened before Dobbs. But I am worried that they will become more and more common. But also one of the findings from the research is that unlike half of the cases that they've documented, it was members of the care team, either health care providers or social workers, who essentially turned the patient over to the police. And that's just really shocking. I mean, as health care provider we're in medical facilities to provide medical care to our patients, not to help the police. And at the moment, anyway, there is no jurisdiction-- I understand from talking to lawyers-- that mandates reporting patients who have allegedly self-manage their abortion. So we shouldn't be involved in these kind of scenarios. And I hope there will be more work done to educate healthcare providers about that, and that there isn't a need to report and that we shouldn't be involved in turning patients over to the police. But that said, I'm really worried that there's going to be more prosecutions of pregnant people who are allegedly self-managing their abortion and more of a crackdown or another.  

Beth [00:37:03] So final thoughts. If you could say anything to a legislator considering these issues right now, what would your main piece of advice or message be?  

Dr. Daniel Grossman [00:37:17] I want them to understand that these restrictions on abortion care are having a much broader impact. I mean, in our research, we're documenting the impact on pregnant people, including people with wanted pregnancies. But it's just having a broad impact on medical care generally. And now we're seeing it's having a broader impact even outside of these scenarios, in situations like in-vitro fertilization. So I want them to understand the broader impact, and as well that it's very clear that this is not what the majority of the population wants. When this issue is turned over to voters, we see that the general population rejects these kinds of restrictions. So these are not popular, and they're certainly not evidence based. And they are having a big impact on the health of the population. That's what I hope they realize.  

Beth [00:38:15] Thanks so much to Doctor Grossman for his work and for taking time to talk with us. Again, we're going to link that post jobs report in the notes and encourage you to spend a few minutes with it. It's very well-written. If you are like me and have no medical training, you can follow it. Doctor Grossman and I also discussed another report he's worked on about the availability of mifepristone. We will share that on our premium podcast More to Say next week and hope you will tune in for it. Next up, we will discuss what's on our minds outside of politics.  

[00:38:41] Music Interlude.  

[00:38:51] Sarah, we have an executive producer, Christina, who has been dealing with a sudden medical emergency for her dad that over a couple of months resulted in him passing away. And she really generously shared with me a video from his funeral service and I got to listen to her eulogy. And she told a story in the eulogy that she gave me permission to share here that I wanted to share with you, because it was so touching to me. She talked about how her dad never called her. My parents really never call me either, unless there's very bad news. But she called him most of the time on her commute from work and would just chat about her day. And that's something that I also relate to. I call my mom from the car all the time. And she said she would just share as much as she could think of to share about what was going on, and then he would kind of take a breath and say, what else? And she talked about the way that being asked what else was such a simple but powerful way of communicating his interest in her life. That she couldn't tell him anything too mundane or that would be unimportant to him, and what a signifier of his love for her that was. As a parent who often now finds my ears getting tired from the details that come home from my kids every day, I just found that really inspiring.  

Sarah [00:40:14] Yeah, I don't really connect with that. My ears don't get tired. I get the opposite from my boys, which is fine. Fine. It's fine. Everything was fine. But I do want them to know that I'm interested. And so I have to pursue it a little more doggedly and find different ways to get them to share with me or find them in the moments when they're ready to share what's going on, especially my middle son, who's more introverted, and you have to find him when he's talkative. And so pursuing that and showing that I am interested in their lives, yeah, it's a constant pursuit.  

Beth [00:40:48] My mom has always been so good at this too. She's a great listener. She is great at asking questions. She is great at showing that she not only here's what I'm saying, but also remembers it later. And will bring things up and be really thoughtful in the way that she kind of pulls back around something that's happened previously. And so when I heard Kristina say this, it was just like, man, a universal truth of parenting is that showing your interest is maybe the most beautiful representation of love. It's like that moment in Lady Bird when she says, maybe paying attention is love. So we are holding Christina and her family in our hearts as they grieve the loss of her dad, who sounded like a truly remarkable and special person in so many ways and is an inspiration to me as a parent. Thinking of all of you who are dealing with tough situations right now, we know that there are many of you out there. We're so grateful that you spent some time with us, and we will be back with you here next Tuesday. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:41:51] Music Interlude. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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