Carter Sherman

Hey, it's Carter Sherman here, host of The Guardian's new podcast Stateside with Kyan Carter.

Today we're bringing you one of our latest episodes.

It looks at why the political and legal fight over abortion pills in the U.S.

is really just at the beginning.

Listen on to hear the episode in full and find all of our shows every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on Apple Video Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you are hearing this.

From The Guardian, this is Stateside.

I'm Carter Sherman.

I'm Kai Wright.

Today, the fight over abortion pills is just beginning.

Kai, as you know, before I entered the glorious world of podcasting with this show, I covered gender and sexuality for 10 years.

So I wanted to bring you a fact you might not know.

In the years since the U.S.

Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortions in the U.S.

have actually gone up, not down.

In 2024, for example, there were more than 1.1 million abortions in the United States, which is the highest number on record in recent years.

Well, I think it speaks to the breadth and the depth of the organizing that advocates have undertaken in the years since Roe fell.

In particular, advocates have worked very hard on expanding access to abortion pills, and they have started mailing pills into states with abortion bans so that even people who live under those bans can still end their pregnancies.

For the anti-abortion movement, though, this isn't as essential a threat.

And recently, the fight over abortion pills made its way all the way back up to the Supreme Court.

Well, in a medication abortion, which is abortion that is mediated through drugs, there are two drugs that people tend to take.