2 - Post-Roe America: The Canary
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What was Texas’s SB 8 law and how did it change abortion care before Dobbs?
Before we jump into today's episode, I wanted to tell you about a podcast that I love and that I think can help us understand this moment in abortion care. Hosted by Dahlia Lithwick, Slate's Amicus Podcast is all about the Supreme Court and the law, but you don't have to be a constitutional lawyer to listen to it. And actually, last week I had the pleasure of talking with Dahlia as a guest on the show. Here's Dahlia. Thanks.
Thanks, Allie. On Amicus, we have this basic guiding principle that knowledge is power, and that even, or perhaps especially, an opaque and lofty institution like the U.S. Supreme Court could do with more people understanding where its decisions come from and what those decisions can mean for the rest of us, the American public. Because as this six Three supermajority conservative court has shown those decisions reach into every single corner of our lives, and they reach ever further into the lives of healthcare workers. So find us on Saturdays wherever you listen to your podcasts. It's Amicus, that's A-M-I-C-U-S from the Latin, your friend with me, Dahlia Lithwick, looking for Forward to talking to you.
At the Nocturnist, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
Welcome back to the Nocturnists, Post Row America. I'm Dr. Allie Block. For a lot of people in the US, I think the day the sky officially fell for the abortion movement was the day of the Dobbs leak. But there was another event almost a year before that wasn't as talked about, but gave those paying attention a preview of what a postro landscape would look like. In September 2021, there was a bill in Texas that was passed called SB8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act. It said, if you can detect cardiac activity, which usually happens around six weeks, a time when most people don't even know they're pregnant, performing that abortion or even aiding and abetting a patient in seeking abortion care makes you vulnerable to a lawsuit from any private citizen.
So when SB eight happened, it was just Texas. This
is Bava Kumar. He's a doctor living in Houston who was providing abortions there, right when SB eight came down.
The rest of the country had some access to abortion care. Nobody had a ban like Texas. And we had that ban for about 10 months. So there was curiosity. People wanted to know what it was like. There was a lot of sympathy. And a lot of what I was trying to do was to get people to be ready and share what we were experiencing, sort of calling out where this is going to come to other states. This is going to happen, whether it's with this decision or another decision, this will happen soon. So when the Dobbs decision happened and people were all of a sudden having to shut down their clinic overnight or drastically reduce the kinds of care that they were providing, this was shocking for so many people. But it's something that we had experienced for a long time.
A long time, meaning the 10 months of SB8 before Dobbs. But honestly, before that too. We talked to a lot of Texans for this episode, and it was like talking to people who had to deal with the destruction of Godzilla before it made its way through the bigger cities. In this episode, we're gonna hear stories from Texans and providers in neighboring states about what it was like to be on the leading edge of America's crumbling abortion rights.
How did Dr. Bhavik Kumar and other providers navigate the new SB 8 restrictions?
To start, we're gonna go all the way back to the Texas before SV8.
So I'm from Texas. We moved here when I was about 10, and Corsicana is really a racist town. There's a railroad track that divides where the black people live and the white people live. Of course, it's not a law, right? But that's kind of how it is. The parking lot of our high school, the white people parked on one side and the folks of color parked on the other. Straight line in the middle, and it's a clear division. Same thing in the cafeteria. You walk in, all the white people sit on one
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was Texas’s SB 8 law and how did it change abortion care before Dobbs?
0:00–3:30
2
How did Dr. Bhavik Kumar and other providers navigate the new SB 8 restrictions?
3:30–6:25
3
What impact did SB 8 have on neighboring states like Oklahoma and Arkansas?
6:25–9:53
4
How did clinics such as Trust Women in Oklahoma adapt to the influx of Texas patients?
9:53–13:49
5
What were the personal and professional challenges faced by Texas clinicians after the law took effect?
13:49–16:55
6
How did the “private‑citizen lawsuit” mechanism of SB 8 affect medical practice and patient counseling?
16:55–21:05
7
What strategies are providers like Lydia and Bhavik using to continue care and activism in a post‑Roe landscape?
21:05–24:55
8
What does the future look like for abortion access across the U.S. after the Texas‑Oklahoma ripple effect?
24:55–28:40