The Newsletter Formerly Known as Lifecycles
COVID-19 and Abortion
In this edition:
Name change
COVID-19 and Abortion
COVID-19 and Pregnancy in New York
Polarization Claims Another One
A Musical hrön
Housekeeping: As promised in my last edition, I’ve changed the name of this newsletter from Lifecycles to The Pelican, based on feedback I received some time ago. I had the idea to call it The Pelican at least as far back as July, but for various reasons didn’t make the change until now.
The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to dueling responses from those involved in abortion laws and regulations. One such response is a push for relaxing regulations on drug-induced (medical) abortions. Though surgical abortions are still dominent, those seeking abortion in the U.S. are increasing turning to medical abortions. According to the CDC’s data, “In 2016, 27.9% of all abortions were early medical abortions (a nonsurgical abortion at ≤8 weeks’ gestation). The percentage of abortions reported as early medical abortions increased 113% from 2007 to 2016, with a 14% increase from 2015 to 2016.”
One abortion drug, Mifepristone, was approved by the FDA in 2000, but its use is regulated. As the FDA explains, “Mifeprex [Mifepristone] is supplied directly to healthcare providers who meet certain qualifications. It is only available to be dispensed in certain healthcare settings, specifically, clinics, medical offices, and hospitals, by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber. It is not available in retail pharmacies, and it is not legally available over the Internet. These requirements also apply to the approved generic version of Mifeprex.” These regulations are referred to as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS).
On March 30th, 21 Attorneys General released a letter asking that the drug’s REMS be waived in order to “increase access to reproductive healthcare, including safe and legal abortion, during this pandemic” (something which the UK has now reportedly done). The states represented include California, New York, Massachuttes, Iowa, the District of Columbia (not a state, I know), Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Virginia. So far it appears the FDA has not responded to this letter (Vice reported on March 19th, prior to the letter, that the FDA was not—at that time at least—prepared to lift the REMS).
Though some states, such as Texas and Louisiana, have moved in an opposite direction, seeking to suspend all abortions during the pandemic on the grounds that abortion is an elective—rather than an essential—service, an FDA policy change on the REMS would arguably be far more consequential in the long-term, creating a precedent or perhaps simply establishing by inertia a greater ease of accessing medical abortions. Needless to say, should medical abortions become easier to access and start to outpace surgical abortions, the effects could be profound. The number of abortions could rise. Think, also, of how in-person clinics that perform surgical abortions would be affected by such a change, including in the role such clinics play as sites of sidewalk counseling and the like for pro-lifers. It could truly ‘privatize’ abortion in a new way.
In March, New York ruled that partners of women giving birth would not be allowed to accompany them in labor and through delivery. A petition was circulated by a doula to reverse the ruling (receiving 613,657 signatures), and Gov. Cuomo did indeed reverse it, though only for labor and delivery (that is, not for postpartum). The New Yorker reports on this policy change, mixed reactions to it, and other aspects of childbirth in the COVID hot spot of New York. (H/T to folks on Twitter for the original petition—Leah Libresco Sargeant shared it, as I believe did others). I feel incompetent to judge one of the questions raised in the New Yorker piece, that is, the question of how much medical risk for all concerned is introduced by allowing partners in, but certainly for many women giving birth and for their partners, the reversal is a bright spot at this time.
The polarization of the two parties on abortion has claimed another victim—Chicago Congressman Dan Lipinski, who lost his primary in March to Marie Newman, a progressive. Though Rep. Lipinski was a more conservative Democratic on fronts other than abortion, abortion certainly factored into the race, with EMILY’s List and NARAL Pro-Choice spending one million dollars on TV spots to push Lipinski out.
Pro-choicers sometimes assume a moral high ground from which to berate pro-lifers who reluctantly vote Republican. Yet when pro-choice groups will (for example) contribute one million dollars to an effort to make really sure that any last, lonely pro-life Democrats are thrown out, that math does not add up.
Between 2005 and 2019, Lipinski received ratings of between 33% and 100% from the National Right to Life Committee, depending on the year.
Off-topic:
A musical hrön that perhaps only I will find entertaining: In 2011, Reggie Watts, who does surreal stand-up comedy, assumed the persona of a musical ethnomusicologist during a routine at a conference called PopTech (h/t Andy Quinn on this video). Early in the routine (which I highly recommend though tastes may differ) he says, “I’ve been collecting various tunes, if you will, throughout the epochs and eras, and the thing that I’ve landed upon this evening, I want to share for you, this is a Lemurian song. This is a civilization before the Mesopotamian, as many of you know, and they contained advanced technology, as we’ve been discussing earlier. They had the ability to levitate and decrease the volume and mass of objects at will, utilizing sequence thought processes, which entail very detailed memorization and visualization…” He then goes on to perform one of these songs.
Relatively recently, I subscribed to a newsletter called Flow State, thanks to a recommendation made on an episode of The Argument podcast (yes, I really typed that sentence, I’m embracing it). Flow State delivers music that’s selected on the basis of being music to work to; generally wordless and instrumental, the music, when the day’s choice is good, is great for desk and computer work. On March 16th the newsletter recommended Iasos, a “Greek composer based in San Francisco.” “Since the mid-70s,” the email continues, “Iasos has been a pioneer of New Age music.” Upon going to Iasos’ Spotify page, I discovered an album called “The Essence of Lemuria,” released in 2015. El mundo sera Lemuria?
Peter Blair