3 - Post-Roe America: Trust Women
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Why did Allie Block travel to Wichita and what motivated her to learn second‑trimester abortions?
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, 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 US 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 to 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 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.
You're listening to the Nocturnists, Post Roe America. I'm Doctor Allie Block. It was the winter of twenty twenty two, the first time I flew out to Wichita, Kansas. I'd been an attending in California for eight years and a first trimester abortion provider for over a decade. But I wanted to learn second trimester abortions. Both because I was moving to a new part of the country that needed second trimester providers, and also because I knew the Dobbs decision was coming. And I worried that soon a lot of women wouldn't be able to get their abortions in the first trimester. So I went to Trust Women, one of the highest volume abortion clinics in the country. Not as an attending, but as a 40-year-old medical trainee.
I never thought Wichita would become such a big part of my life, somewhere I probably couldn't have pointed to on a map before I visited. But after I got the skills I needed, I kept going back as one of the clinic providers. Each time I returned, the staff was facing some fresh new crisis. First SB8, then the Oklahoma ban, then Dobbs. Patients from hundreds of miles away were streaming to Wichita, and the clinic was scrambling to accommodate the rush. Today you'll join me on one of my bi-monthly trips to Kansas. We'll take you inside the clinic so you can see firsthand what happens when a small-town clinic suddenly has to absorb the reproductive health needs for a vast swath of the country.
How did the Dobbs decision and surrounding state bans transform Trust Women’s patient volume?
Do you all have like caffeine and everything that you require for starting your morning? There's
this is Doctor Christina Bourne. We used to work together in California and she was my original connection to trust women.
I've never been like chased by so many stray dogs in my life as I have in Witched Hogs. Yeah, my name is Christina Bourne. My title is I'm our medical director and kind of what that means is to make sure that we are meeting medical care standards and guidelines and saying medically afloat.
Christina says the job looks pretty different now than she thought it would when she first got offered the position back in twenty twenty one.
And I was like, sure, it'll be like a pretty chill job. I'll take it on for a year. This was July twenty twenty one, so right before SBA to L O L. At that point, like it's hard to think about what the impact was gonna be. So, you know, Texas was chugging along at like fifty-five thousand abortions a year, and then to say like, oh, nobody c in Texas can get abortion access uh past six weeks, it's like where are these, you know, fifty thousand people gonna go? Our phones literally blew up. We had to, you know, invest in like more staff, a whole new phone system, really think about what our role in this geopolitical crisis was gonna be.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Allie Block travel to Wichita and what motivated her to learn second‑trimester abortions?
0:00–2:51
2
How did the Dobbs decision and surrounding state bans transform Trust Women’s patient volume?
2:51–7:05
3
What role does medical director Christina Bourne play in coordinating urgent care at the clinic?
7:05–11:24
4
How does Trust Women’s call‑center and appointment system handle thousands of daily calls?
11:24–15:24
5
What policies and cultural shifts did the staff implement to prevent burnout and improve care?
15:24–18:36
6
How do protests, security measures, and community hostility affect daily operations?
18:36–22:33
7
What impact did the possible ban on mifepristone have on clinic protocols and staff morale?
22:33–27:00
8
How do patients and staff express gratitude and support within the clinic’s community?
27:00–37:18