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‘The Nocturnists’ Podcast Paints a Stark Picture of Post-Roe America

Season 6 of the medical podcast centers physicians as they struggle to serve patients while also staying out of prison.
Rae Alexandra
An illustration of individuals wandering in the desert. In the center, a female figure stands pleading with a doctor. The doctor has half-disappeared, like a ghost.
‘The Nocturnists’ is a seven-part, weekly podcast about how the Dobbs decision has impacted medical professionals and their patients. (Nicole Xu/ Courtesy of ‘The Nocturnists’)

I was strolling up a busy street in Austin, Texas recently, deep in thought about the changes there in the last few years. The city is gentrifying, dealing with a population boom and very much in flux. Still, the liberals, artists and weirdos hang on tight to the fringes. Austin and San Francisco, I thought, are starting to look more and more alike.

That was until a Planned Parenthood volunteer appeared on the horizon, clipboard in hand, and I realized that, for the very first time, I was casually wandering around a place where abortion is illegal. The thought was jarring: How could two places that seemed so similar have such wildly different healthcare policies?

For most of us living in California — especially in the Bay Area — worrying about abortion access is still largely theoretical. For most of us, abortion certainly isn’t a daily preoccupation. But in the 26 states where abortion is now either banned or extremely restricted, no such oblivion exists — not for the tens of millions of women, transgender and nonbinary folks affected by the Dobbs decision, and not for the thousands of healthcare providers shackled by the ruling.

Now, two Bay Area doctors want to take us inside the daily realities of physicians around the country who are almost entirely immersed in post-Dobbs chaos. Dr. Emily Silverman — a doctor at SF General and an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF — and abortion provider Dr. Ali Block are dedicating Season 6 of their podcast The Nocturnists exclusively to the issue of abortion access in America. (The series usually tells a range of stories from the world of medicine.) Together, they visit the places where Dobbs has crushed choice, as well as those where abortion is still legal.

As physicians, Silverman and Block’s ability to convey the stresses on abortion providers is key to this seven-part series. On one side, the doctors in states with bans want only to do their jobs without risk of arrest and prison time. (“Oh my god,” one physician recalls thinking as a patient bled out from an unviable pregnancy. “I’m committing a felony and she’s going to die.”) On the other side, the doctors in states where abortion is still legal are often working around the clock, knowing full well they’ll never be able to see all of the patients who need their assistance now.

The Nocturnists is careful to also give props to the nurses and other medical staff trying to navigate the havoc left in Dobbs’ wake. Episode 3 takes us to Trust Women, an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, where Block sometimes works. There, two front desk employees are tasked with trying to field about 16,000 calls per day — two-thirds of which are from people in Texas trying to access abortion care as close to home as possible. The clinic typically sees between 30 and 60 patients a day — all of whom must pass an angry wall of protesters outside.

It is also these on-the-ground health workers’ stories that best impart the physical and emotional impacts of abortion bans and restrictions on the pregnant individuals that pass through their doors every day. Though always told in tones that are measured and resigned, the scenarios that many of them present are nothing short of heart-wrenching. Some veer headlong into the horrific.

The Nocturnists: Post-Roe America is bleak but essential listening, then — especially for those of us who live in states where abortion is still legal. The podcast tears apart the notion that abortion access is guaranteed anywhere, noting that a federal ban is likely on the way. By the end of the series, you’ll feel compelled to act, to donate to the cause and to view reproductive healthcare professionals for what they really are — heroes.

Weekly episodes of ‘The Nocturnists: Post-Roe America’ begin on Sept. 21, 2023. 

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