My mom just told me she cancelled her subscription to The Washington Post. She reads every one of my stories. It was a heartbreaking call.

I understand why she did it, but I asked her to reconsider. To anyone who has cancelled or is thinking about cancelling, here’s what I said: Post reporters had no part in this decision. But when you cancel, you are hurting us, not our owner.

Thousands of women every month are now self-managing their abortions with pills in states with bans. For some, the process is straightforward. But for many others, it's confusing and very scary — especially for those who assume they could be prosecuted. 🧵washingtonpost.com/politics/inter… This is a story I’ve wanted to write for a long time, capturing the experiences of women who — while extremely grateful to have access to pills — feel afraid and alone.

These women bravely shared their experiences for the same reason: They wanted others to know what to expect 2/

NEW: Highways are the next antiabortion target. Activists are traveling from city to city in TX to pass new laws that make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion out of state on roads within the city or county limits.

Reporting from Llano, TX: washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… The activists are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state.

NEW: Researchers at UCSF have released a first-of-its-kind report documenting dozens of health complications resulting from abortion bans, including patients turned away with cesarean scar ectopic pregnancies. washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… Since Dobbs, we’ve seen a lot of isolated reports of patients turned away from hospitals because of abortion bans. This report is an important effort to take a broader and deeper look at what’s happening. From @DrDGrossman and his team.

It’s been the honor of a lifetime to earn the trust of women navigating post-Roe America. Thank you, Pulitzer board, for recognizing the importance of their stories. It means the world to me, and to them. pulitzer.org/winners/caroli… This work was a true collaboration with my wonderful editor, @peterwallsten. The product of hundreds of hours of conversations about the reporting and pouring over drafts. I am so lucky to have him as a partner in this coverage.

Reporting this morning from Raleigh, where NC lawmakers are about to start a hearing on the 12-week abortion ban. This bill is being rushed through in a way longtime advocates in Raleigh say they’ve never seen before. Here’s what we know so far 🧵 Instead of introducing this as a new bill in the regular way, Republicans gutted a different, unrelated piece of legislation on a safe surrender law and inserted the 46-page abortion bill.

Breaking: The DOJ has appealed the abortion pills case, asking the Supreme Court to intervene. It's a very tight timeline -- if SCOTUS doesn't act before midnight tonight, strict restrictions on mifepristone will take effect across the country. Read @scotusreporter on how this could play out at the country's highest court washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…

Breaking: Florida passes a 6-week abortion ban. This outlaws abortion in one of the country's most populous states and eliminates a critical access point for abortions in the South.

One clinic director said: “That’s a crisis that’s going to ripple all across the entire country" The bill passed the senate earlier this month and now heads to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it.

Breaking: Florida Dem Rep. Bartleman just proposed an amendment that would allow an exception for PPROM pregnancies, the life-threatening complication that Anya and Shanae experienced.

The amendment failed on party lines, 33-80. washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… "Her water burst at 15 weeks, the hospital decided to send her home and she delivered the fetus in a toilet, alone... she lost so much blood..."

Bartleman says she worked with several doctors to draft an amendment that would ensure this doesn't happen to anyone else.

Breaking: The SC legislature rejects a near-total abortion ban, with lawmakers unable to agree on exceptions. A 6-week ban is temporarily blocked.

Two months post Roe, SC has become an unlikely haven for abortion access (for now). Abortion is still legal up to 20 weeks. Some striking parallels to the special session in WV in late July — another state that definitely had the Republican votes to pass a total ban, but gridlocked because lawmakers couldn’t agree on specifics.

Abortion also still legal in WV.

SCOOP: Top antiabortion leaders and GOP lawmakers have been meeting behind the scenes to strategize for a national abortion ban, mobilizing around a proposal that would outlaw the procedure at 6 weeks.

Here’s what I’ve learned about their plans 🧵washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05… States have taken the lead in restricting abortion ahead of the SCOTUS decision. They will make the first moves after Dobbs — but GOP lawmakers plan to respond with federal legislation soon after that. 2/

It's extremely unclear what TX prosecutors are getting at with the arrest of Lizelle Herrera, who has been charged with murder for "self-induced abortion." A few thoughts, based on what I know and a helpful conversation with @steve_vladeck... 🧵 What law are they saying she violated? Prosecutors haven't been specific, so we are left to guess.

One important thing to note: She is not being charged under SB 8. That law imposes civil, not criminal, penalties. Also it does not target the person who actually got the abortion.

NEW: A Republican legislator has proposed a first-of-its-kind law to stop Missouri residents from accessing abortion *outside of Missouri.*

Planned Parenthood calls it “the most extraordinary provision we have ever seen.”
washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/… This could be a preview of the next phase of the antiabortion strategy. Again and again, Republican lawmakers tell me it’s “not enough” to ban abortion in Republican states.

Rep. Coleman said she’s been trying to figure out how to stop out-of-state abortions for two years. 2/

Last month, I heard about a TX woman with an ectopic pregnancy who was turned away by her doctor, then her ER. Ectopics must be terminated immediately or the patient can die.

She drove 12+ hours to New Mexico.

I wanted to understand how that happened 🧵thelily.com/the-texas-abor… The TX ban does have a medical exception — but it’s narrow and extremely vague. Doctors are allowed to perform abortions in a “medical emergency.” SB 8 says little about how that’s defined.

I've talked to dozens of antiabortion protestors since I got to Texas: I've yet to find someone who is planning to file a tip or a lawsuit.

"Why would we?" one protestor said: Abortions have stopped — and a lawsuit would give courts a chance to block the law.

a 🧵on tiplines Every time I ask Texas Right to Life about their tipline, they shrug it off. No serious tips have come in, they said, because no one is performing abortions. They don't have a test case prepped because they don't need one. They're already winning.

Six weeks into widespread self-quarantine, editors of academic journals have started noticing a trend: Women — who (ofc) shoulder more family responsibility — seem to be submitting fewer papers than usual. There is some evidence that men are submitting *more.* (a thread) This could have a major impact on the careers of women in academia, esp women going up for tenure. One expert told me: “We don’t want a committee to look at the outlier productivity of, say, a white hetero man with a spouse at home and say, ‘Well, this person managed it.’”

On March 30, @thelilynews asked to hear from women who are self-quarantined alone. We got almost 1,300 responses. Those responses became 20+ interviews, which became 7 stories: one woman living alone in each decade, ages 24 to 86. (a thread) There have never been this many women living alone. The last time we experienced anything like this — the 1918 flu — most women left their parents' homes to move in with their husbands. Now we're staying single longer, choosing to end marriages or not get married at all.