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shefali.bsky.social
Reproductive health @19thnews.bsky.social. I wrote UNDUE BURDEN, a book about abortion in post-Dobbs America. Past lives: KHN, The Texas Tribune. Julien Baker + Boston Celtics enthusiast. She / Her. sbluthra(at)19thnews(dot)org; Signal: shefaliluthra.94
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Scoop: Texas police used Flock's license plate cameras to search *nationwide* for a woman who had a self-managed abortion. Claim it was "about her safety" www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-...

MO’s Supreme Court has reimposed the state’s abortion restrictions — effectively banning the procedure despite the voter-approved constitutional amendment. A lower court will now reconsider those laws Planned Parenthood has already canceled appointments for next week

Huge news. This bill was heralded as a model for other states. My guess is that it was taken down by its language blocking state courts from ruling on its constitutionality. Don't be surprised if many of these proposals are back, in TX and elsewhere, minus that idea.

In a shocking turn of events, Texas' abortion medication bill is dead, @shefali.bsky.social reports. This is a big deal: The anti-abortion movement was looking at this as a potential blueprint for blocking an extremely common abortion method. 19thnews.org/2025/05/texa...

A TX bill to let private citizens sue people who mail abortion pills into the state WON'T pass after missing a key deadline. It's a loss for the state's anti-abortion movement. The bill had been cited as a possible model for other ban states. I spoke to anti-abortion activists about what's next.

The Medicaid work requirement in the House bill is a lot stricter than work requirements in previous legislation. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u... with Sarah Kliff

In addition to defunding Planned Parenthood, the bill the House passed this a.m. includes a last-minute change that would make it difficult-to-impossible for private plans on the Obamacare exchanges to cover abortion. Some states, including NY and CA, require such coverage.

1 in 5 trans adults are insured through Medicaid - and this is what happens when they can’t use that coverage for gender-affirming care 19thnews.org/2025/02/red-...

paperback day, one year of undue burden

“A one-time payment in the year of birth is not, I think, a credible pathway to long-term stabilization of family incomes” — the literal director of the Pronatalism Institute at the Institute for Family Studies

More than 3 in 10 D.C.-area residents say someone in their household worked for the federal government or a federal contractor at the beginning of the year, and of those, about a quarter say the employee or contractor had been fired, laid off or put on leave.

live soundtrack from the room of tears www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ48...

Each time you ask an AI chatbot a question, it sends a request to a data center and strains an increasingly scarce resource: water. A 🧵on our investigation into how the data centers that power AI are increasingly being built in highly water-stressed places: www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

“why is brooklyn barbecue taking over the world” dot gif

What happens after red state voters pass an abortion rights initiative 19thnews.org/2025/05/miss...

The anti-abortion movement is preparing a new effort to push for national abortion pill restrictions — relying on a conservative think tank’s report that actual medical researchers say massively inflates the medication’s risks Vital reporting from the great @alicemiranda.bsky.social

!!! The DOJ will continue to defend mifepristone's availability in federal court, per a new court briefing filed today. The case is a continuation of the AHM challenge SCOTUS dismissed in 2024; now, Idaho, Missouri & Kansas are seeking mife restrictions. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I've been reporting for years on anti-abortion groups' strategy to push bills like this in many states and in Congress: www.politico.com/news/2025/01... www.politico.com/news/2022/11...

Missouri is now on the frontlines of the anti-abortion movement’s growing effort to reverse abortion rights state by state, trying to undo the ballot measures voters approved to enshrine abortion rights.

In the fight over Medicaid, House Speaker Mike Johnson has targeted "able-bodied" men in the name of protecting women and others. But the changes he's talking about could reduce services for the very people he says he wants to protect. My latest for @19thnews.org: 19thnews.org/2025/05/medi...

"Available research on puberty blockers found high satisfaction ratings and low rates of regret. A systematic review of hormone replacement therapy described improved gender dysphoria and body satisfaction." @oriion.bsky.social on the actual evidence about gender-affirming care for minors

“Abortion saves lives at times," one Texas mother told me after using Aid Access to order pills to her home. She's one of the thousands who've found their way around the state's ban, using online options staffed by doctors in other states. Now, Texas state lawmakers want to shut down the practice.

watched chungking express a week and a half ago, and now waking up my wife each day to tell her “all the leaves are brown”

good news is that two friends are watching mad men for the first time … bad news is that now I have no choice but to rewatch mad men

In communities along the border, empty freezers, fired workers and fear tell a story of Trump’s return to power.

🚨 The NIH’s sweeping cuts of research grants are inflicting pain almost universally across the U.S., @raelnb.bsky.social and I found. At least 43% of organizations that had grants terminated are public universities. About 40% are in states Trump won in November. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

It took Peter Staley two weeks to build 200 full-sized coffins. The longtime AIDS activist, with a group of volunteers, fashioned them out of styrofoam, tape and velcro. On Thursday, the volunteers stacked coffins 10 layers deep outside the State Department to protest cuts to global AIDS relief.

My new book, Personhood, is out a week from tomorrow. Thanks to Margaret Talbot for this generous @newyorker.com review. Hope you enjoy the book! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

There is a whole body of research that shows delaying the closure of coal plants has big implications for the health of pregnancies. 19thnews.org/2025/04/trum...

“All of D.C.’s public charter schools – which educate half of the city’s school kids – were told to submit ‘doomsday’ budgets for the estimated $165 million in collective cuts they could face”

"Children Seeking Cholera Care Die After U.S. Cuts Aid, Charity Says" www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/w...

A spox told the Post that the district “supports parents’ rights to be the primary decision-makers in their children’s lives, and Florida law affirms their right to be informed.” Except Florida also bans gender-affirming care for minors, even when parents are on board apnews.com/article/tran...

News: Diana Greene Foster, the MacArthur-winning author of the Turnaway Study, learned her NIH grant — funding a multi-year study on Dobbs' impact — has been pulled. She was told its bc the govt won't study "gender identity." Her work has shaped our understanding of abortion bans' consequences.

NEW from me: When states ban abortion, they make it harder for doctors to even learn how to perform it. Now, a small but growing number of doctors are leaving the US to learn to become abortion providers. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Gross. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/b...

Trump says “We’re going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals,” per pool — in other words, increasing the price of prescription drugs. In his first term, his admin gestured toward lowering prices (though that didn’t actually happen)

The more experts I speak to, the more I believe state Republicans intro these bills (none of which are likely to pass) to normalize fetal personhood language. Slowly & quietly, they're moving the needle. 8 states weigh bills to treat abortion as homicide, from @shefali.bsky.social:

The president of RISD doesn’t know why the US revoked the visa for one of its students www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

not enough people saying dr. robbie has a gender problem

Deeply proud today to be an alum of @browndailyherald.bsky.social, whose coverage of the looming federal funding freeze has just been top-notch. Amid everything, today is a great day to support student journalists. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

1/ A federal move to withhold 16 family planning grants across 22 states could undercut access to basic reproductive health care. The impact will likely be felt hardest in states with conservative leadership, which include some of the poorest states in the country. 🧵:

on switch 2 day no less

Today the Supreme Court will hear its first abortion-related case since Trump was re-elected. The DOJ is arguing in support of South Carolina's policy that would prevent Medicaid coverage from being used at Planned Parenthood clinics. 19thnews.org/2025/03/supr...