Post-Roe America: Conversation with Alison Block, MD
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What sparked the creation of The Nocturnist’s Post‑Roe America storytelling project?
Support for The Nocturnist comes from the California Medical Association.
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.
Today we have a very special guest on the show, but before I introduce her, I want to provide a little bit of context. So here at the Nocturnists, we were really rocked by the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. And really upset and disturbed by the reports that were coming out from the physician community about the moral distress of having to withhold abortion care from patients. Stories out of Texas and Oklahoma of women being asked to go home and come back after their septic. Physicians and other clinicians being criminalized for the work that they do. Widespread confusion about what can and can't be done. What is legal? What is not? It's just a catastrophe, to be honest. And part of our goal as an organization is to serve our community and to document history and to stand up for what we believe is right.
And so that's why we are launching this new storytelling project, The Nocturnist Post-Roe America. So our goal is to collect the voices and stories of people. Any clinician who takes care of pregnant patients, whether you're an OBGYN or a nurse or a doula or a primary care doctor or a family medicine doctor, whether you are a pharmacist or a rheumatologist or an oncologist, we want to hear your stories. We want to hear it all. So much of this conversation is dominated by media personalities and politicians who have really variable medical literacy, and part of our goal with this project is to amplify the voices of healthcare workers who can speak to the reality of what is going on on the ground. Our plan is to publish this series next summer, on the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
And we invite you to contribute. If you know anybody who you think might be interested in adding their voice to this project, sponsoring this project, supporting it in any way, shape, or form, please, please let us know. We are eager and hungry for collaboration. And if you want to learn more, visit our website, thenocturnist.com backslash post-row-america. With that, we want to kick off this project with today's interview.
You're listening to The Nocturness. I'm Emily Silverman. Today I'll be speaking to Dr. Alison Block. Ali is our executive producer here at The Nocturness. She's also a family medicine physician, an abortion provider, and the author of a recent op-ed in the New York Times that was called Why I Learned to Perform Second-Trimester Abortions for a Post-Roe America. She's an amazing person and just has so much to say about this topic and what we can do moving forward. And I'm thrilled to be putting out this conversation that I had with her recently, which covers a lot of ground ranging from Ali's personal journey to a career in reproductive health to how we think and talk about the political polarization around this issue and so much more.
Before I spoke with Ali, I asked her to read an excerpt from her op-ed in the New York Times. So without further ado, here is Ali.
When I walked into the Trust Women Clinic in Oklahoma City on the first day of my training, I felt a little scared. We get anti-abortion protesters outside my clinic in California, but the environment in Oklahoma feels more intense. There's a truck parked outside that's plastered with graphic images of fetuses, analogizing abortion providers to ISIS fighters. During my clinic tour, I'm shown the emergency exit in case something crazy goes down, code for anti-abortion violence. You have to be dedicated to work in an abortion clinic anywhere, but those on the Trust Women staff are among the most dedicated I've met. They're up against some of the most restrictive laws in the country, laws that disproportionately affect poor people and people of color.
The governor just signed a Texas-style ban on most abortions this week.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What sparked the creation of The Nocturnist’s Post‑Roe America storytelling project?
0:00–6:15
2
How did Dr. Alison Block’s early training in Oklahoma shape her view of abortion care?
6:15–10:58
3
Why did Dr. Block decide to write the New York Times op‑ed “Why I Learned to Perform Second‑Trimester Abortions for a Post‑Roe America”?
10:58–17:43
4
What was the response to the op‑ed and how did it influence her advocacy work?
17:43–23:25
5
How are clinicians across the country adapting to the rapid changes after the Dobbs decision?
23:25–29:16
6
What challenges exist in training new abortion providers and how are they being addressed?
29:16–35:40
7
Why is the “safe, legal, and rare” framework problematic for reproductive‑justice advocates?
35:40–41:05
8
How can listeners contribute their own stories to document the fallout of Post‑Roe America?
41:05–48:01