Carrie Baker: Looming Decision That Could Ban Abortion Medication

Looming Decision That Could Ban Abortion Medication

Refuse Fasicsm Episode 146

Sun, Feb 26, 2023 10:06AM • 40:32

Dr. Carrie Baker 00:00

They’re trying to shut down access and make it as hard as possible for people to get abortion medications. They’re trying to get the judge to order the FDA to withdraw mifepristone from the market in the US. This judge has the power to do that, so that it affects everybody in all 50 states. It is a fascist thing to try to ban an abortion, to try to control women’s bodies to take away their bodily autonomy. I certainly think that we need to get in the streets and say: No, we should not respect this law. It’s a form of involuntary servitude. You are forcing women to serve these fetuses against their will. I mean, to me, it’s just appalling that we’re at the stage in this country. We’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot of fight to do.

Sam Goldman 01:08

Welcome to Episode 146 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. In today’s episode, you’ll hear an interview with Dr. Carrie Baker, professor at Smith College and contributing editor at Ms. Magazine, on the looming decision poised to effectively ban mifepristone, one of the two medications used in medication abortions. This would effectively ban mifepristone nationwide.

Sam Goldman 01:53

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Sam Goldman 03:24

Before we get into it, I want to give a couple shout outs. First off, cheers to the approximately 5000 students throughout Florida that walked out to protest Ron DeSantis’s attacks on education, especially students were taking action to protest the targeting of people of color and LGBTQ people in higher education. I had the opportunity to interview some of these courageous young people with Stand for Freedom Florida and you are going to want to tune in next week to hear from them.

Very importantly as well, cheers to activists with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights.org, who took action in several cities this past weekend, declaring: fascist judges keep your hands off abortion medication; legal abortion on demand and without apology nationwide and everywhere; forced motherhood equals female enslavement. The Christian fascist movement that is driving the assault on abortion rights will not stop until abortion and even birth control is completely eradicated and women are reduced to incubators subservient to men. and LGBTQ people are put back in the closet, if not entirely erased from society, their very existence criminalized.

Before we get into the interview, I just want to remind folks that that which you do not resist a mobilize to stop, you will learn to accept. And let’s get real, too many are accepting the unacceptable with a deafening silence as lives hang in the balance, dreams are shattered and futures are foreclosed.

Now with that, here’s my interview with Carrie.

Last summer, the illegitimate fascist-packed Supreme Court revoked the constitutional protection for the right to abortion. Overnight, women and girls in every part of this country were turned into second class citizens in the eyes of the law. This is being felt most harshly by the millions of women in the 14 states where there is no longer access to safe legal abortion, but this rendering women as second class citizens is no less true in the states where abortion is still legal; it is just that they haven’t been hit directly yet. But that could change soon.

Right now, a Trump appointed federal judge in Texas is being asked to withdraw the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for mifepristone; one of the pills used in the medication abortion regimen. This medication has been used safely and effectively for decades. If he does this, it could immediately ban abortion providers everywhere from prescribing the medication. Absent major public outcry, such a decision would likely be upheld by the Supreme Court.

To get into this, what’s happening and why it matters, I am so glad to welcome on Dr. Carrie Ann Baker. She is the Bellman Chair of American Studies and a professor in the program for the Study of Women & Gender at Smith College and a contributing editor for ms magazine writing regularly on women’s legal rights and feminist activism. Hi, Carrie, thanks for joining us.

Dr. Carrie Baker 06:23

Hi. Great to be here. Thanks.

Sam Goldman 06:26

Before we get into this lawsuit, and most importantly the implications, I was hoping that you could talk to us a little bit about medication abortion and what it is how popular it is. And just the basics for listeners who may only be familiar with a surgical abortion.

Dr. Carrie Baker 06:45

There are two pills involved in the standard regimen for medication abortion: mifepristone, which is the pill at issue in the lawsuit you just mentioned, and misoprostol. Mifepristone, basically prevents progesterone from being absorbed in the uterus, and progesterone is what keeps a pregnancy going. So if you take mifepristone, the pregnancy begins to shed from the uterus. And then 24 hours later you take the other pill, misoprostol, which causes contractions and you expel the pregnancy — usually within about six hours. You can take abortion pills in the first 12 weeks. They’re extremely effective, like 98% effective, and they’re extremely safe. They’re actually safer than many over-the-counter medications like Tylenol, and they’re much safer than medications like Viagra, which is handed out so quickly all over the place.

Despite that, the FDA has restricted the medication and they only allow certified prescribers to distribute it. Up until last December, doctors have to provide the pill to patients in person by the official FDA regimen. Now they’ve changed that, and soon pharmacies are going to be able to distribute it if this judge doesn’t try to ban it. These medications are really safe, really effective, it’s been 23 years on the market. There’s tons of data showing how safe they are. They’re used around the world. The other thing I just wanted to mention is you can actually use the second medication, misoprostol, for abortion as well — so you can use it alone.

So if, god forbid, mifepristone is taken off the market, people can still use misoprostol. Now, misoprostol is a ulcer medication, it’s widely available, every pharmacy has it, it is by prescription, and it can be prescribed off label for abortion, but it’s a little bit more of a difficult process to have an abortion in that case. People shouldn’t have to have second rate care in the United States. They should have first rate care, which is the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol.

The other thing I just wanted to mention was that in 2020, 54% of abortions happened with pills — probably a lot more now, because pills have become much more known because of COVID, a lot of doctors began to prescribe pills by telemedicine. That’s another thing, is that if mifepristone is restricted, then that means that the 54% plus of abortions that are occurring by medications couldn’t happen the way that they’ve happened. So it would be huge.

Sam Goldman 09:30

I definitely want to get back to what those implications would mean, what it would mean for women and others seeking abortions and what it would mean for the doctors and the whole medical apparatus that would have to handle that surge. But, I first want to talk about how strange this case is. I don’t have a legal background like yourself, but it doesn’t seem lnormal that [after] 23 years something’s been around that we gotta revoke this. Who are the plaintiffs that have brought this forward? What is going on here? Why is this lawsuit even happening? Am I right that it’s kind of not a typical thing?

Dr. Carrie Baker 10:13

Absolutely, you’re right. No drug has ever been taken off in these kinds of circumstances — particularly a drug that’s been so safe. It’s been on the market for 23 years, has been proven over and over again, through research to show that it’s safe. The lawsuit is brought by Alliance Defending Freedom. It’s a conservative legal group, they’re behind a lot of anti-abortion actions. And also, it’s brought on behalf of four anti-abortion medical organizations and several doctors. It’s brought against the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Health and Human Services. ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom, represented Mississippi in the case that led to the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade, so that gives you a sense of who they are.

They’ve also helped draft many anti-abortion laws that have been adopted in states that have banned and restricted abortion. That’s one of their major causes. The lawsuit itself, they did what we call in the law “judge shopping”. They filed it in Amarillo, Texas, knowing that they would get this very extreme judge who used to be an attorney with First Liberty Institute, which is a Christian conservative legal organization that represents religious people that are alleging that they’ve been discriminated against because of their religion. So, he is very much cut from the same cloth as the Alliance Defending Freedom folks. I mean, he’s been about — these are evangelical Christians that want to create a Christian nation and a Christian government that puts in place laws based on these crazy Christian beliefs — like medication abortion is dangerous or immoral. So, that’s who they are. And this lawsuit, as you say, is unprecedented and the arguments — we can get into them but the arguments — are wacky.

Dr. Carrie Baker 12:28

Yeah, they are claiming that it’s unsafe. Their claim is that when the FDA approved the abortion pill 20 years ago, that they fast-tracked it and didn’t do adequate scientific research into the safety of the medication, and that it should, as a result, be pulled off the market. These are arguments that the anti-abortion movement has been making for years; that abortion pills are dangerous. There’s no scientific evidence to support that. In fact, all of the scientific evidence is on the other side, that it’s very, very safe, as I mentioned before, safer than Tylenol.

The FDA has repeatedly addressed their claims about safety, including just last December, when the FDA made its most recent ruling allowing pharmacists to distribute the medication. They issued a 40-page response chock-full of scientific studies showing that the medication was safe and countering all the arguments of the anti-abortion movement. They’re just regurgitating them again in this lawsuit. So that’s one side, they’re trying to get the judge to order the FDA to withdraw mifepristone from the market in the US, and this judge has the power to do that, so that it affects everybody in all 50 states, not just in Amarillo, Texas, not just in Texas, but across the country.

In theory, that judge could order the FDA to remove the drug and it could potentially be pulled from the market across the country. The second part of the case, which has gotten a lot of attention, but I think is still very, very important is that they’re making this argument that the FDA’s recent ruling that telemedicine abortion is okay, that doctors can mail abortion pills to patients after they’ve screened them by telemedicine, that that violates the Comstock Act. The Comstock Act is a 19th century law. You’re laughing so clearly, you know who Anthony Comstock was. He was this anti-vice crusader in the 19th century who was behind the Comstock Act which banned putting anything obscene in the US mail, including anything about sexuality, anything about birth control, anything about abortion. Then he became the US Postmaster General and rifled through everybody’s mail so he could go after everybody if they put a girlie magazine in the mail, and like put them in jail for decades.

This is what Margaret Sanger was fighting against back in the day. She got herself arrested, and actually the law eventually got invalidated. Basically, when Roe happened, it couldn’t be enforced, and now that Roe has been overturned, they’re trying to get it enforced again. So I use the hashtag: #ZombieLaws, because it literally is like this zombie law coming back to life — or that they want to bring back to life. The problem with this — I mean, obviously if he gets abortion pills banned throughout the country, this part’s not relevant — but this part is very relevant because telemedicine abortion is becoming a really important way for people to get access to abortion, particularly people that live in rural areas.

Abortion clinics are concentrated in cities, and many people have to travel many hours to get to abortion health care if they can only get it in person. This has really expanded access to care. People living in rural areas, or living in states with very few clinics, can still get this care mailed right to their door. So, if in fact they’re able to — and I’m sure the judge is gonna rule on both of these things against abortion — this provision in particular would shut down access to pills, even ithey were still legal, and could potentially affect misoprostol, too. Let’s say, he bans mifepristone and then doctors would not be able to send misoprostol either, so everybody would have to go back to traveling long distances to get these pills.

Sam Goldman 15:06

What are they arguing that has even gotten it to be a lawsuit? You can’t just say we don’t like abortion, therefore, ban the pill. They’re claiming that it’s unsafe? What is their claim? Can you say that one more time, how can his decision affect both medications?

Dr. Carrie Baker 16:32

Challenging the FDA approval of mifepristone would obviously take mifepristone off the market, but as I said earlier, people could still use misoprostol. They could still get misoprostol through the mail from their doctors. But if the second part of the lawsuit is upheld, then people would not be able to get any abortion medication through the mail. They would have to travel in person to doctors, and as we know, many people live in rural areas, many people cannot travel long distances.

Sam Goldman 16:59

And it’s not an immediate effect. It’s not like popping a Tylenol and getting in your car and driving. So then you’re having to get childcare and uproot yourself for something that you should be able to just go to the pharmacy and grab. I don’t think that there’s enough media coverage overall on this case. What you’re telling me, I feel like I’ve been reading things and this point didn’t stand out to me the way you’re putting it so starkly.

Dr. Carrie Baker 17:28

People are not paying attention to that second part, and unlike mifepristone, misoprostol is available pretty broadly at pharmacies. In theory, a doctor could send a prescription to a pharmacy and then somebody could go and pick it up. But in conservative areas, a lot of pharmacists are refusing to give people misoprostol, even if they’re using it for ulcers, because they’re worried it will be used for abortion. The danger is that it’s a matter of access. They’re trying to shut down access and make it as hard as possible for people to get abortion medications. This sort of one-two punch of trying to shut down mailing abortion pills and then shut down mifepristone more generally, I think it could really damage people’s access to abortion health care across the United States in all 50 statesO

Sam Goldman 18:16

On top of what is already a situation in which 30 million or so in the 14 states, 13 states plus I include Georgia [CB: I would too.], because Georgia’s six week ban is basically a full out ban.

Dr. Carrie Baker 18:28

One thing I do want to say, Sam, is that there is a robust underground movement that’s getting pills in people’s hands. Organizations like Red State Access, which will mail people pills for free — if you go on their website, you’ll see their information. People like Los Libros in Mexico City, which is mailing pills to people. Massachusetts just passed a telemedicine provider law that allows Massachusetts physicians to mail pills to people in any state and be protected by that provider shield law.

We just got our first doc that started to do that; I’m in Massachusetts so I say we. New York is thinking about passing a similar law. Now, of course, this could be stymied with this lawsuit to some degree, but there’s a very robust underground movement. Aid Access, which is an Austria-based organization, that is mailing pills to people in all 50 states. It takes a little while because it’s being mailed from out of the country, but there are also a lot of online pharmacies where people can order pills and get them quite quickly. There’s an organization called Plan C, and it’s PlanCpills.org. They have a guide to pills, and it’s by state so they have a drop-down menu. You can select your state — all 50 states are there — and you can see exactly what your options are, how long it will take and how much it will cost. So there really is quite a robust movement for abortion pills, which is great — obviously, people shouldn’t have to be going underground to get these medications.

Sam Goldman 20:00

I think that there is tremendous resiliency from women and girls and people who care about their lives and humanity to always find ways and means to not just survive, but to thrive. That’s beautiful and needs to be celebrated, and it needs to be amplified, and people need to know about the resources. However, I think that there is something so people confronting that those on the other side are not going to stop. They’re not going to stop, and it should not be the burden of girls in rural communities and women who have multiple children, on doctors — the burden should not be on just the decent folks who are out there mailing pills. The burden should be on those in power to make sure that this doesn’t go down. This one fascist shouldn’t be able to decide the lives and futures of women and girls, it’s their absolute right.

Dr. Carrie Baker 20:59

Picking up on what you just said, I say that there are three differences between pre-Roe and post-Roe. One is that we have the internet. Two is that we have abortion pills. But three, that we have a massive criminal justice system that did not exist pre-Roe. So while you have much greater access to information through the internet and the ability to order abortion pills — you have these very safe, very effective pills that people can get from international providers or underground.

All of that is wonderful and all of that will mean that unlike before Roe, we are not going to have emergency rooms packed with septic women, women bleeding and with infections dying of illegal abortions. We won’t have that. We’ll have some people that have those experiences, but not in the scope of — I mean, it was vast before Roe — but what we could see is people getting arrested. Women who got abortions pre-Roe usually didn’t get arrested, they went off to the providers, but I fear that today the women themselves who are getting these pills are going to be criminalized.

Now, currently, only South Carolina and Nevada criminalize self-managed abortion, but, despite that, many states have criminalized women that have used abortion pills through other laws. Like fetal homicide laws that technically exempt pregnant people but, in fact, have been used against them. Also, by the way, surveillance. What websites are we looking at? Where are we going? What are we ordering? We’re using our credit card to order pills.

So my concern is that these sort of wacky anti abortion people are going to use that sort of surveillance and begin to try to go after people who are ordering and using abortion pills. Now all that said, I think that there will be massive resistance. There already is and the underground abortion movement. There are organizations like Plan C, which is getting people information. There are organizations like the miscarriage and abortion hotline, which is providing medical care to people who are self managing — that is confidential, it is qualified medical professionals. If you order pills from abroad and you’re taking them and you’re worried about how to use them, or you’re worried that maybe you’re bleeding too much are you you don’t feel well, you can call and talk to a feminist sympathetic medical provider who will walk you through the process and it will be entirely safe; it will be confidential.

And then there’s an organization called If When How, which is created the repro legal helpline, which will give advice about, like, if you’re thinking about worrying pills, or you’re self managing abortion, what are your legal rights. They’re providing free legal care, including a legal defense fund if God forbid you get arrested or investigated to support. So all of that exists. There’s organizations like Red State access and others. But as you said, we shouldn’t have to be doing this. It is a fascist thing to try to ban an abortion, to try to control women’s bodies, to take away their bodily autonomy. I argue in my writing that it violates the 13th amendment. It’s a form of involuntary servitude, you are forcing women to serve these fetuses against their will, and in a very intimate bodily way. To me, it’s just appalling that we’re at this stage in this country. We’ve got a lot of work to do a lot of fight to do.

Sam Goldman 24:26

I wholeheartedly agree, and I appreciate you sharing the resources as well as where this comes from and where it’s headed. I wanted to return to the lawsuit just for a moment. We’re recording this on Tuesday, as early as Friday, a decision could be made. Based on what you’re saying he could either take both their arguments or take only one. All indicators are he’s going to take it off. What will that mean for doctors and those who seek abortions? Okay, He makes this decision what happens.

Dr. Carrie Baker 25:02

Technically, he is empowered to issue a nationwide ruling to basically take it off the market so that nobody can get it. So doctors, I’m sure, they’re very worried about a legal liability will stop prescribing it; including by telemedicine, but also in person. I know that a lot of those providers are prepared to prescribe misoprostol alone. That’s not an issue as far as removing it from the market. It could be affected though, as I mentioned, by the second part of the lawsuit, mailing [SG: mailing], to mean that doctors could prescribe to a nearby pharmacy — and somebody could go to a pharmacy to get it — or patients could go to the doctors themselves and get it, but that’s kind of where we are.

Friday is when the issue will be fully briefed, and this judge is known for issuing his rulings pretty quick. It’s pretty clear that he has already made up his mind — I think he did before the suit was filed. I think that we’ll get the decision relatively quickly, and it will be immediately appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The Department of Justice has already said that, but the Fifth Circuit [SG laughs] is a fully conservative, Trump-packed circuit as is the Supreme Court.

Sam Goldman 26:12

They were the ones that upheld SB8 [Texas anti-abortion law], and th`en they did another one after that. Did they uphold the domestic abuse thing? [CB: Yes] Yeah. [CB: Fugitives can have guns.] Yes.

Dr. Carrie Baker 26:23

Yeah. And, by the way, this judge, this district court judge that’s ruling in this case, is the same judge who said that minors have to get their parents’ permission to get contraception. For years minors have had the right to contraception without notifying their parents. So, yeah, this is a really wacky circuit; a really wacky part of the country as far as judges and law. However, Representative Ron Wyden got on the floor of the House last week and gave a long talk, urging the FDA and the Biden administration to ignore this judge if he does this, which is so interesting.

We are going to have a federalism crisis where there’s this conflict between two branches of the federal government: the judicial branch and the executive branch, if they refuse to do it. It’s such a specious argument. The courts don’t really have a way to enforce their decisions other than just their legitimacy, and when they completely undermine their own legitimacy by making ridiculous arguments — and by the way, I think that Dobbs was pretty ridiculous the way they completely disregarded precedent, the way they just made up history, the way they completely jettisoned decades and decades of constitutional law and removed constitutional rights for the first time.

I certainly think that we need to get in the streets and say: No, we should not respect this law. I think that there are a lot of people saying that if this judge does this, we should push back. We shouldn’t just do what they say. I think about Jonathan Snyder’s book ‘On Tyranny’, where he said one of the first rules of tyranny is don’t comply. Don’t comply in advance with tyranny. Don’t do what they say. Resist, refuse, fight back. That’s what we’re going to have to do if this is what this guy does.

Sam Goldman 28:15

I really agree. I think that as you were talking about earlier, given the fact that abortion medication now accounts for over 50%, all those people would not be able to get the abortions that they want, the abortions that they need. It would overwhelm providers who are already overwhelmed in so many states, because of the 14 states that banned abortion. The waiting list would be so long that people wouldn’t get them. Already over 100,000 women and girls have been forced to bear children against their will. That number then goes up. And the fact that this affects states where abortion is still legal is just insane.

Dr. Carrie Baker 28:15

Yeah. They’re going after it nationwide. They can say: Oh, let’s throw it back to the states, that was always the line. But that’s not what they want. They want to put this in all 50 states.

Sam Goldman 28:52

This is one of their ways to do it. I feel strongly about what you were saying about people refusing to comply. I’m really hoping that that does happen and that people don’t accept a society where physicians are basically turned into an arm of the state, forced to operationalize anti-women hardcore ideology of theocratic judges like this district judge in Texas. I worry honestly, Carrie, because of how things went down with Dobbs, that people will adjust to another, in my view, Christian fascist escalation.

Dr. Carrie Baker 29:46

Which, again, it’s just gonna make them do more and more things like this. This is just the beginning. They want to take over the US government. They want to run it as a theocratic Christian evangelical state. That is their agenda. They say that’s their agenda. They’re very open about it. They used to hide it now they’re pretty open. This is why I think that we can’t ignore this. No matter what your politics are around abortion, you shouldn’t ignore it. It’s terrifying.

I wanted to just mention Sam, another thing: The Department of Justice issued a ruling on the issue of whether the Comstock law bans mailing abortion pills because rafter Dobbs there was concerned about this, and the Postal Service asked the Office of Legal Counsel and Department of Justice their opinion, could they still deliver abortion pills? The Department of Justice said yes; they did not think that abortion pills fell under the Comstock law and that it was fine for people to send pills and to deliver pills — not just the US Postal Service, but common carriers as well. The Department of Justice has already gone on the record that they disagree with the plaintiffs argument in the Texas case, and I’m sure will intervene immediately if this judge makes this ruling and argue against this.

The other thing I just wanted to mention is there two other lawsuits involving abortion pills, but they’re brought by the abortion rights side. A doctor in North Carolina has brought a lawsuit challenging North Carolina laws that restrict abortion pills more than the FDA does. The argument is that federal law preempts state law and state laws that conflict with federal law are not enforceable. So, this involves things like requiring a waiting period before you can get abortion pills requiring different kinds of restrictions on who can provide the pills and what kind of facilities that can be provided through, prohibiting telemedicine abortion. 20 states prohibit telemedicine abortion, and North Carolina is one of the states that still allows abortion but prohibits telemedicine abortion.

So, now that the FDA allows telemedicine abortion, what this doctor is saying is that these laws in North Carolina should not be enforceable. So that’s a really exciting suit. Then there’s another suit in West Virginia brought by GenBioPro, which is the maker of the generic version of the mifepristone. What GenBioPro is arguing is, similarly, that West Virginia restrictions on abortion pills are not enforceable because they’re preempted by the FDA ruling. What GenBioPro is arguing is we put a lot of money into getting FDA approval for our drug, and now you’re banning it, and so this is really hurting our bottom line.

It’s a pharmaceutical argument, that the pharmaceutical company — if in fact states can restrict drugs, pharmaceutical companies are gonna lose a lot of money, potentially, by states doing this. Really the pharmaceutical industry should be concerned about these restrictions on abortion pills, of course, they’re not stepping up because it’s abortion, and they don’t care about women. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that it’s not just this horrible Texas suit, that advocates for abortion rights are trying to expand access to abortion pills. Now, these lawsuits potentially could be moot if this Texas judge wins and takes it off the market, but I do think folks should know about these other two lawsuits as well.

Sam Goldman 33:13

It’s an important part of the train. I do want to give a shout out to a friend of the show, Kate Manning and her fabulous book, ‘My Notorious Life’. If you haven’t read it, it’s a fabulous fictionalized look at what the Comstock Laws did. It’s a great read!

Dr. Carrie Baker 33:30

Kate needs to write a public piece. Ms magazine would love to publish that, by the way.

Sam Goldman 33:35

She did write a piece, not too long ago, I can find it and send it to you. She wrote a really good piece. I don’t know if she’s written anything in the past five months, though about this. Now that Comstock Laws, the conversation is coming back, she should do that.

Dr. Carrie Baker 33:35

People need to know how ridiculous he was. He was like this uptight, like wanting to get into everybody’s sexual business and like regulate their everything.

Sam Goldman 34:01

She talks about him so well. We did an interview with her about the book and about its unfortunate relevance today with the laws and the way that she talks about it is just a really accessible and horrifying look at kind of who he was. I remember asking her who she thought the Comstock stuff today would be.

Dr. Carrie Baker 34:26

Oh, this judge in Texas is one of them. [SG: Yeah] Yeah, totally.

Sam Goldman 34:31

She should write more about it. Before we end, I just wanted to see if there were any things that you have been hearing or learning about from all the work that you do from providers or those who in some way are working with abortion, healthcare, or the legal rights surrounding abortion — if there’s anything that we didn’t touch on, that you want people to be aware of and paying attention to.

Dr. Carrie Baker 34:58

There are a whole range of tele-medicine abortion providers that started up during the pandemic. Since the FDA allows mailing pills, are operating around the country. Organizations like Choice or Just the Pill or Pills By Post. There’s a bunch of them. Hey, Jane is another, Abortion On Demand. A lot of those organizations have said that if this judge prohibits mailing mifepristone totally or takes mifepristone off the market, that they will prescribe misoprostol. Now, if he also prohibits the mailing, they may have to send the prescription to a local pharmacy, rather than sending the pills directly to the patient.

But I do think these organizations will continue to operate, and they have just been booming. It makes abortion much more affordable. If you go into a abortion clinic, it could cost like $500 to $700, even just for abortion pills. But if you go to some of these organizations like Forward Midwifery, charges like $150. Hey, Jane — they’re all really, really affordable. And they also, by the way, will give you pills in advance. So advanced provision, meaning if you just want to have abortion pills in your medicine cabinet, just in case, go ahead and order them now and have them available. Because if mifepristone is banned, you’ll still have it if you need it. Abortion medication is a time sensitive medication, you need to take it in the first 12 weeks.

So having it on hand is really important. I encourage people to order it, have it on hand just in case. But even if you don’t have it on hand, if you need it — and god forbid, this judge does ban mifepristone — get it through some of these providers. Now, if you’re in a red state, these providers aren’t offering the pills, but then contact Red State Access or Aid Access, which is based in Vienna and run by Dr. Rebecca Gomperts. They can also send you pills. And by the way, Aid Access works on a sliding scale fee. So if you can’t pay anything, they’ll send them to you for free. That’s really important to know.

Sam Goldman 37:05

Thank you, Carrie, for sharing with us all your expertise, your insight, your resources, and of course, your time with us. Really appreciate it.

Dr. Carrie Baker 37:15

Absolutely. Thank you so much for all the work that you do and for in particular raising attention to this really important issue.

Sam Goldman 37:23

Carrie mentions the work of Timothy Snyder, who wrote ‘On Tyranny, 20 Lessons from the 20th Century’. One of the quotes in the book that she was connecting to was, “Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” This escalated attack on abortion, on the health and futures of women of girls and people who can become pregnant and on the status of women and girls in society must not be downplayed or adjusted to. We cannot adjust to this injustice. We must rise up and stop it.

Sam Goldman 37:52

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