After Dobbs: Health care in America

Also: Sharing stories from the African diaspora [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  June 25, 2023 Dear Cog reader, It’s been a year since the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs, and, boy, reproductive health care in America has changed. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization, 13 states — in the South, Midwest and Plains states — have banned abortion since Dobbs, leaving roughly 16.5 million people who may need an abortion without access to that care. Meanwhile, other states including Massachusetts, California, Illinois and New Mexico have taken action provide more protections for abortion. Research by the [Commonwealth Fund]( suggests states with more restrictive abortion policies have maternal and infant death rates that are 62% and 15% higher, respectively. (Did you do a double take on those numbers? So did I.) We published a flurry of essays in the wake of this controversial decision last year, and it was important for us to mark the anniversary. We’re grateful to share two very different takes. The first essay is by Dr. Charlotte Lee, a third-year resident physician in OB/GYN. Her essay is about her continued commitment to providing abortion care, but also how Dobbs has [changed the calculus for young doctors](. She won't practice medicine in a state where abortion is illegal, so in just a year's time, the map of where she can build her professional career has changed dramatically. She also recounts what it means to provide abortion care, and why it’s important. "I never ask patients why they want an abortion, but often people want to share. I heard about pregnancies as the result of rape, parents who could not get enough food on the table for the children they already had, fetuses with fatal anomalies, missing kidneys or partial brains," she writes. "And then there are the patients for whom abortion is not really a choice — they may not survive without one." The second piece is by Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and author. She wrote a stirring piece for us just after the decision came down last year, and she’s back this week with a thoughtful reflection on the constant dance between[life and death](. “We prefer not to think of it this way, but any pregnancy is rife with the specter of death,” she writes. “That’s true for the person pregnant as much as their growing fetus, and the shadow of death lingers long after birth.” We’ll be sharing these essays — and many more — on Instagram this weekend. If you haven’t joined us there already, our handle is @cogwbur. Until soon, Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [A year after Dobbs, the abortion care I provide is more important than ever]( I care deeply about my patients who need abortions, writes Dr. Charlotte Lee. I care about their families and their futures, their physical safety; I care about keeping them alive. [Read more.]( [A year after Dobbs, the abortion care I provide is more important than ever]( I care deeply about my patients who need abortions, writes Dr. Charlotte Lee. I care about their families and their futures, their physical safety; I care about keeping them alive. [Read more.]( [Abortion-rights opponents don’t understand that death — like life — is sacred]( All pregnancy is rife with thespecter of death, although we prefer not to think about it, writes Anita Hannig. We have sacrificed an entire generation on the altar of death denial and religious orthodoxy. [Read more.]( [Abortion-rights opponents don’t understand that death — like life — is sacred]( All pregnancy is rife with thespecter of death, although we prefer not to think about it, writes Anita Hannig. We have sacrificed an entire generation on the altar of death denial and religious orthodoxy. [Read more.]( [The man Alice Sebold ID’d as her rapist was exonerated. But her memoir is still important]( I need to keep teaching "Lucky" — and my students need to keep reading it — because it’s more essential than ever, writes Joshua Pederson. [Read more.]( [The man Alice Sebold ID’d as her rapist was exonerated. But her memoir is still important]( I need to keep teaching "Lucky" — and my students need to keep reading it — because it’s more essential than ever, writes Joshua Pederson. [Read more.]( [America is purple. Our Supreme Court is red. Here's how to fix it]( There’s no shortage of possible Supreme Court reforms. Expand the Court. Impose ethics reforms. Term limits or retirement ages. Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield has a different idea: a minimum age requirement, which would have many of the same benefits -- without the constitutional hurdles. [Read more.]( [America is purple. Our Supreme Court is red. Here's how to fix it]( There’s no shortage of possible Supreme Court reforms. Expand the Court. Impose ethics reforms. Term limits or retirement ages. Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield has a different idea: a minimum age requirement, which would have many of the same benefits -- without the constitutional hurdles. [Read more.]( [‘We are our ancestors' wildest dreams’: Sharing stories from the African diaspora]( We want to make theater in a way that we're not just replicating the same damaging systems. We’re thinking about whose stories we tell, and whose experience we center in telling those stories, say Dawn Meredith Simmons and Maurice Emmanuel Parent who are co-founders and co-artistic producers of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theater company. [Read more.]( [‘We are our ancestors' wildest dreams’: Sharing stories from the African diaspora]( We want to make theater in a way that we're not just replicating the same damaging systems. We’re thinking about whose stories we tell, and whose experience we center in telling those stories, say Dawn Meredith Simmons and Maurice Emmanuel Parent who are co-founders and co-artistic producers of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theater company. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "Take a moment to remember the women who have been denied abortions since Dobbs — those who are hurt and threatened by their pregnancies, and those who simply do not want them — and grieve for them. Grieve, and wonder about what other lives they might have led, if they had a choice." "[A year ago Roe v Wade was overturned. Grieve for the new America]( The Guardian. "[A]s I pieced together these stories of seeing the world and fighting back against injustice, I realized that a quiet life isn’t a passive life. Sitting still on the porch doesn’t mean letting the world go by ... Being content doesn’t mean being blind. It means knowing the difference between a good fight and a selfish one." "[Obituary for a Quiet Life]( The Bitter Southerner. "There’s a reason many of us Black folk struggle to understand why many White, wealthy folk participate in extreme, death-defying experiences and pay (often lots of money) to experience smallness and powerlessness. It’s a romanticism of peril, of death, as a way to appreciate life — in other words, a privilege. For the poor and the marginalized, the threat of social obsolescence and powerlessness is a lived, everyday reality." "[Leave the deep ocean alone]( The Washington Post. "We prefer not to think of it this way, but any pregnancy is rife with the specter of death." — Anita Hannig, "[Abortion-rights opponents don’t understand that death — like life — is sacred]( ICYMI [How my wife and I entered the bizarre world of MrBeast]( At 70, my wife was chosen for the latest competition of a YouTube sensation known to a much younger demographic, writes Anne Gardner. But the experience was a rare chance, in her Medicare years, to test her mettle. [Read more.]( [How my wife and I entered the bizarre world of MrBeast]( At 70, my wife was chosen for the latest competition of a YouTube sensation known to a much younger demographic, writes Anne Gardner. But the experience was a rare chance, in her Medicare years, to test her mettle. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. 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