"[S]tates need to step up and commit to protecting providers and patients from antiabortion violence."
Vol 5, Issue 6: June 2025
Welcome back to the Lighthouse! It’s been hot and humid here lately, with a sprinkling of poor air quality to boot. I’ve been staying indoors a lot more than I’d like, but I’m thankful to have been able to take this week off for a much-needed break from my day job. Hopefully we’ll have some cooler days so I can hit some local trails (and maybe the beach) with my partner. And while we don’t have kids to factor into our plans (yet), for those of you that do, Romper has some timely information on what to do if your baby decides to taste-test a handful of sand, and Children’s Hospital Colorado has tips on keeping babies cool during the heat of summer. Be safe out there, and be sure to wear sunscreen and UV barriers!
Most people know June as Pride month, as well as the month when Juneteenth is celebrated. This year, the Movement for Family Power has also declared it the first annual Stolen Children’s Month, highlighting the many ways in which children are stolen and separated from their families, through family policing, incarceration, deportation, and all other forms of state-enacted violence. While this month’s events and vigils will be over by the time this newsletter goes out, I highly recommend signing up for their mailing list and checking out the various ways to get involved, including donating to support their work and checking out their resource library and calendar.
On the public health front, RFK Jr. & team have been working hard to dismantle any semblance of evidence-based medicine in the federal government, removing all members of the CDC vaccine advisory committee to install people who are anti-vaccine and changing COVID vaccination polices (which will disproportionately impact Black families and pregnant people) while justifying it in a document riddled with medical misinformation. As the government hopes we’ll believe whatever nonsense they say without question, it’s important to stay up to date on what the evidence is actually telling us and use it to dispel common myths about public health issues like COVID, including the fact that kids aren’t actually magically immune as many have claimed and that it is very much still important for pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID. Julia Serano just put out a really compelling piece on how negativity bias plays a role in people buying into conspiracy theories that can help us all recognize it in ourselves and those we’re talking to. In more positive news, the FDA approved a new HIV-prevention drug that seems very promising!
Now, onto the newsletter!
As Antiabortion Violence Surges, Republicans Vote to Strip Federal Protections for Providers
“The FACE Act, passed with strong bipartisan support and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, prohibits ‘violent, threatening, obstructive and destructive conduct’ with the goal of blocking a patient or doctor from obtaining or providing reproductive healthcare. It also makes it illegal to intentionally damage or destroy a reproductive health facility, as well as prohibiting interfering with people’s right to express their religious freedom at a place of worship. After the FACE Act passed in 1994, clinics immediately reported a decrease in violence. […] However, clinic violence rates have been steadily rising over the 25 years since then.”
On June 14th, a man believed to be Vance Boelter impersonated a police officer to gain entrance to the home of Democratic Minnesota state legislator (and former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives) Melissa Hortman and proceeded to shoot and kill both Melissa and her husband Mark. He did the same to State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, although they thankfully survived after having emergency surgery that saved their lives. Before he was apprehended, police found a hit list in his abandoned vehicle that included additional Minnesota Democrats, as well as abortion providers, pro-choice activists, and Planned Parenthood centers. While we can’t say for sure what his full motivations were, it’s clear that at least a part of his intended murder spree was targeting anyone working to make abortion accessible.
Violence has been rising against abortion providers and clinics in recent years, with the National Abortion Federation’s 2022 Violence & Disruption Report and their 2024 report showing an increase in incidents such as stalking, burglary, arson, invasions, and even bioterrorism threats. Yet in the midst of all of this, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance HR 589, otherwise known as the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025. The FACE Act — as the intro quote explains — is in part meant to address this kind of violence that seeks to prevent people from safely providing or accessing abortion care. This comes as no surprise when Trump started his latest term with the “great honor” of pardoning anti-abortion protestors, who had invaded and blockaded a reproductive health clinic. While I’m not necessarily in favor of people being in prison (I’m an abolitionist, after all!), this action didn’t come from a place of believing imprisonment is wrong but rather that these specific people didn’t do anything wrong. Meanwhile, he has no problem ordering people be kidnapped and deported for simply existing in the “wrong” place or saying the “wrong” thing.
It can feel defeating to see our federal government strip away not just access to abortion itself but also resources to help keep abortion providers, supporters, and seekers safe. But there are still ways to help prevent and combat this violence. The National Abortion Federation, for example, is still offering resources like staff preparedness trainings and security assessments for abortion providers and clinics. Organizations like Planned Parenthood are still sharing information on how people can deal with anti-abortion protestors trying to harass people at clinics. States could work to put state-level protections in place in the absence of federal ones (although this, of course, wouldn’t help Republican-controlled states). Supporting access to at-home abortion via medication can provide those with a safer space at their home (or the home of a friend or loved one) to avoid run-ins with people trying to restrict their bodily autonomy. And creating local networks to fund and facilitate abortion access can help create a decentralized system that is harder for violent extremists to target. No matter what those in power do, we will continue to protect one another and fight for full and safe bodily autonomy for all.
See also: While it has more to do with legal action than direct violence, there are efforts to remove doctor’s names (and even patient’s names) from prescription labels for mifepristone and misoprostol, which could also play a role in limiting paper trails that could put both prescribers and patients at risk.
What’s Happening at Lakeshore Liberation?
Nothing new to share at this time!
What’s Going on in Reproductive Justice
Hala H., a Palestinian mother in the occupied West Bank, shares in +972 magazine the horrific reality of what it’s like to be pregnant under occupation.
Adriana Smith, who I shared about last month, has finally been taken off of life support following the cesarean birth of her child. As many have pointed out, this elevation of a fetus’ rights necessarily demotes the rights of the person gestating them, even in (and perhaps especially in) death. It’s Been a Minute’s host Brittany Luse led a great discussion about how this child’s birth — considered a medical marvel by some — is marred by the fact that the mother and her family weren’t given a say in the matter, rendering her deceased body an incubator regardless of what she’d have wanted. It’s particularly chilling considering the long history of Black women’s bodies being experimented on by doctors without their consent.
While it’s typical for people who are pregnant or have just given birth to experience some psychological changes as their bodies adjust to the huge shifts in hormones during and after pregnancy (and a huge shift in their lives!), perinatal and postnatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) generally require outside help to address. It’s important for both pregnant people and the people closest to them to learn how to recognize the signs and symptoms of PMADs, which may not occur until months later but are still just as important to address. It’s also good to listen to firsthand accounts from people who have experienced PMADs, as these personal stories humanize what otherwise might just be a list of symptoms and show real-world examples of what it can look and feel like.
In another egregious decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the very-obviously-sex-based discrimination of trans youth is totally fine, allowing healthcare bans for trans minors to remain in place. In response to the ruling, Gender Liberation Movement held a demonstration in protest, which included trans people publicly taking their HRT. Nine of the protestors were arrested and released two hours later. Jules Gill-Peterson, who co-authored an amicus brief for the court detailing the long history of trans kids transitioning, talked to Wired about the need to focus on trans people’s material needs (such as access to hormones and surgery) over the increasingly common “you’re valid” platitudes. (Unpaywalled version here!)
What’s Going on in Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Examiner shared a succinct commentary piece on the dangers posed by Enbridge’s Line 5.
What I’ve Been Reading
From Romper, Anna Zivarts uses the lens of school drop-off culture to imagine how prioritizing nondrivers off all kinds could improve our transportation infrastructure for everyone.
Advocates for Youth created a new resource, written by LGBTQ youth and titled “I Think I Might Be,” that is aimed at helping people who are newly questioning their gender and/or sexuality to help provide the answers they need. Some are available in Spanish and Arabic as well, and others are specifically written for Muslims. I hope to see more of these released in the future!
From The Cut, Natasha K. Boyd investigates why UTIs are getting more common and harder to treat. While antibiotic resistance definitely plays a role, it’s fascinating how many other factors have been found as well. (Here’s a non-paywall version!)
AI slop isn’t just bad for users, it’s also polluting the very data supply that AI needs to train on.
What I’m Watching
This video on automation vs human flourishing is a quick and very informative watch!
What I’m Listening To
It’s Been a Minute has been doing a limited series called “Your Body, Whose Choice?” where they’re focusing on various aspects of reproductive health. All of the episodes have been great, but I especially wanted to share the one they did about the politicization of menstrual cycles and how social media has been used to push a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach to bodies that can be dangerous.
Throughline re-aired an episode from 2022 about the abortion landscape before Roe v Wade. Not only do they explain how non-controversial abortion was in colonial America, they also show how racist fearmongering and anti-midwife sentiment were integral pieces of the crusade against abortion.
Code Switch is always great at talking about copaganda, and this time, they dug into how it has been so effective in recent years, even after people seemed willing to support defunding the police…until they weren’t and went back to calling for more cops. They also did a really cool episode talking to author Caro de Robertis about their new book So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Gender Queer, and Two-Spirit People of Color.
Reveal host Al Letson has been amazing in the new Reveal-adjacent series “More to the Story,” where his interviewing skills really shine. In a recent episode, he sat down with Mohsen Mahdawi to hear firsthand the story of his kidnapping by ICE and his history as a refugee in the West Bank. From the main Reveal series, they also covered pro-natalism and the tenuous marriage between tech bros and trad conservatives promoting it.
Places to Donate To, Actions to Take, & Resources to Share
The Trans Youth Emergency Project helps transgender youth and their families navigate the logistics and travel needed to obtain healthcare in the midst of patchwork bans. If you’re able to, please donate to support their efforts.
Veia is fundraising for their bottom surgery (and associated medical care/costs) and is currently just over 40% to her goal. Please share and donate if you can!
Briauna Morgan’s 1-year-old son Kemari tragically died in the foster system after being forcibly separated from her. To support her and her family in seeking justice and to help care for them during this time of immeasurable grief, there are a GoFundMe and a meal train set up that could use donations and sharing.
Latoya is facing homelessness after leaving an abusive marriage and is seeking help to cover bills in order to stay housed. Please share and donate!
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
Feel free to share them below or contact me directly.