“The system is primed for a report. To slow it down, or to stop it, takes effort.”
Vol 5, Issue 1: January 2025
Welcome back to the Lighthouse! Despite a lot of really awful shit happening this month, we also passed another Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the often-co-opted holiday (and legacy) that calls for us to remember and bring forward, as Critical Resistance describes it, “his commitment to rejecting racism, economic inequality, militarism and imperialism.” (And let’s not forget Coretta Scott King’s powerful legacy, either!)
Over in Palestine, a three-phase cease-fire agreement has been reached in Gaza, which is bringing about understandably mixed feelings for Palestinians. While Israel halting their genocidal bombardment is good news (even if it’s happening far too late), many are wary and asking, “Has the fire ceased?” And of course, it hasn’t, not entirely. But I can understand why even a short reprieve would be welcomed by people undergoing such terror, destruction, and death, including witnessing babies freeze to death amidst the bitter cold of winter due to the lack of adequate shelter. The work continues, until Palestine is free. (If you have young people in your life and are wondering how to talk to them about all of this, Rethinking Schools offers a good starting point.)
On the COVID-19 general public health front, I continue to look to the People’s CDC, The Sick Times, the Pandemic Accountability Index, and The Gauntlet for timely updates about the COVID-19 landscape, as well as other public health news (like how organizations like Mask Bloc LA and Clean Air LA were quick to distribute masks and air filters to communities affected by the fires, well before the government did). I’m also thankful to Truthout for continuing to cover topics like mask bans. Many of these sources are also tracking H5N1 (aka bird flu) updates, which recently caused the US’s first confirmed human death. If you’re in the Sheboygan area, I was able to buy some basic KN95s in bulk that just arrived, so please feel free to reach out to me if you ever need some!
Now, onto the newsletter!
Hospitals Gave Patients Meds During Childbirth, Then Reported Them For Positive Drug Tests
“What happened to Salinas and Villanueva are far from isolated incidents. Across the country, hospitals are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on subsequent drug tests, an investigation by The Marshall Project and Reveal has found.”
As the above quote from the article summarizes, The Marshal Project and Reveal have found numerous cases of people being given drugs during labor only to end up reported to child welfare agencies for drug use as a result. The drug tests are often done without consent and may not be confirmed before a report is submitted. In one case, the drug wasn’t documented in the patient’s chart, and it was only thanks to the extra effort of a nurse who tracked down the nurse that administered it that the patient was believed. These reports can lead to invasive investigations, as well as children being removed from their home in some cases, despite no actual threat to their health or safety. In another case, the woman’s child was stillborn, yet she was forced to spend the next four months dealing with the investigation while parenting her other children, leaving little room for her to grieve.
You may recall a previous Reveal investigation that found something similar to this happening, where things like poppy seeds were showing up on drug tests and leading to the same punitive outcomes. In all of these cases, I’m sure most people would agree that it’s a problem, seeing as the drugs they allegedly took were either given to them as medicine or weren’t actually taken. But I’d like to push us all to go further and recognize how the “medicine/drug” divide is a false binary, as Sluggish writer Jesse Meadows explains in this post. Why are we suddenly okay with drug use when it’s a hospital providing it but punishing people for self-medicating, especially in cases where it hasn’t actually affected their fetuses and we know that criminalizing people won’t actually help them anyway?
Some states are already trying to take action against this. Last year, the New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against hospital network Virtua Health, accusing them of, “discriminating against pregnant patients by requiring them to undergo drug tests and automatically reporting positive results to child welfare authorities.” The investigation that led to the suit found that hospital staff regularly drug tested people without their consent, despite it being a requirement in their own policies, as well as New Jersey law. It also found some of those aforementioned cases involving poppy seeds triggering a positive drug test. But at its heart, their core complaint is that it’s a civil right violation to do non-consensual drug tests in the first place. While they have been trying to find the best approach to this issue, given how hostile conservative-dominated courts are towards anything that respects the rights of pregnant people and drug users, it’s a lawsuit worth watching.
See also: The intersection of harm reduction and pregnancy/birth is at the center of the Academy of Perinatal Harm Reduction. Their site offers a plethora of evidence-based, non-stigmatizing information, covering topics like the specific effects of various drugs on pregnancy, lactation, etc., as well as the rights of pregnant people and drug users and tools for navigating care. They’ve also worked with the National Harm Reduction Coalition to create Pregnancy and Substance Use: A Harm Reduction Toolkit, which is currently available in English and Spanish.
What's Happening at Lakeshore Liberation?
I’ve been putting this off for too long, simply due to how busy life has been, but I’d like to make the shift from Wix to Squarespace before my Wix renewal comes up in the couple of months. If anyone has experience with making this shift as smoothly as possible, please let me know!
What’s Going on in Reproductive Justice
It’s been freezing here lately, but it frequently alternates between the 30s-40s and down into negative temperatures. Fluctuating winter temps can make it hard to figure out how to appropriately dress a baby so they’re not too cold or too hot, but Romper is here to help with a handy guide, broken down by temperate ranges.
ProPublica has found that the states that imposed the strictest abortion bans are failing to track the impacts these bans have on maternal mortality, sometimes openly trying to block those efforts from happening and in ways that also impact those who experienced pregnancy loss. And as Salon points out, this isn’t surprising — anti-abortion activists have historically not cared about people dying as a result of abortion bans, and their actions show it.
I’ve mentioned the child tax credit a number of times before, and things are still up in the air in terms of what will happen with it. In November, the 19th reported on where things stand and what might happen this year given the Republican majorities.
Here in Wisconsin, despite widespread, bipartisan support, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos stands in the way of expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage. As I’ve mentioned before, he has clearly stated his reasoning, and it’s literally just that he doesn’t like welfare and doesn’t think we collectively have a responsibility to new parents and babies. What an asshole.
A group of rad trans activists, organized by the Gender Liberation Movement, staged a sit-in inside a women’s bathroom on Capitol Hill in protest of the “bathroom bills” that attempt to force trans people (and especially trans women) to use the incorrect gendered bathroom and to call on elected officials to block bills like it. This led to just over a dozen arrests. GLM co-founder Raquel Willis and other activists are also showing up for the United States v. Skrmetti case, which could further threaten gender-affirming care for youth.
A Life Unschooled created a long list of ways to support children’s rights in 2025, aimed at parents and caregivers but relevant to anyone with children in their life. All of them may not apply or fit into your life and situation, but it’s a great starting point!
From the 19th, a look into the horrific fact that pregnant people are more likely to die by homicide (usually by a partner, usually with a gun) than any obstetric-related cause. They share stories of people affected by this violence to expose what is missed by only looking at data and offer us ways to prevent it.
What’s Going on in Wisconsin
As fewer Wisconsinites get their annual flu shot and stay up to date on their COVID vaccinations, hospitalizations for both to increase. One of the counties here with the lowest MMR vaccines rates also saw a case of mumps, norovirus has been going around in record-high numbers, and we’ve had our state’s first confirmed human case of bird flu, just in time for Trump to — *checks notes* — temporarily halt federal health communications. Cool!
Early in December, a Dane County judge struck down several sections of Act 10, which would restore public employee collective bargaining rights, although he also put the ruling on hold for now. It’s hard to know exactly what will happen next, but it’s likely that the end result will eventually be the case going to the State Supreme Court, where it could (hopefully) be upheld.
Also in December, the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the Eau Claire parents trying to challenge their school districts gender support policy, which means the original dismissal of the lawsuit stands. I’m glad they’re refusing to even hear it, but I’m concerned about what may happen with the new presidency started. Anyway, parents don’t own their children, and if your kids are using a different name and pronouns and not telling you, maybe ask yourself why they don’t feel safe enough to do so instead of throwing a tantrum at the school!
What I've Been Reading
Da'Shaun Harrison’s recent piece in Prism about anti-fatness as anti-blackness and the connections between anti-fatness and fascism is a fantastic and timely read. On the topic of fat politics, I also really enjoyed Marquisele Mercedes’ recent article in The New Inquiry about how the weight-loss industry uses Black celebrity as cover to claim they’re helping with “health equity.” On a more positive note, JewishCurrents interviewed Shoog McDaniel last year about their incredible photography and their connection to the lands and waters of Florida.
Davey Davis has been writing a new series about slurs on Substack, and the second part has been one of my favorite so far.
I’ve been getting hit extra hard with existential dread lately, and I talked to my therapist about ways to stay grounded to combat it, in part through finding tangible things I can do in my life to help my household and my community be safe and prepared. I really like Sharon Astyk’s “Purse of Doom” ideas and am want to sit down and talk to my partner about what types of things it makes sense for us to have, both in our home and in our bags when we’re out and about, to be of use to us and those around us. While I’m admittedly leery of people in my neighborhood (who tend to lean MAGA), I’m also considering if it would be worthwhile to start some form of neighborhood chat to build hyper-local community, which I read about here.
Prism and The Appeal have both been reporting on issues related to the financial burden of incarceration on incarcerated people and their loved ones, including the cost (and quality) of phone calls, tablets, and entertainment, as well as commissary items. It’s a topic I’m very familiar with; I have an incarcerated pen pal, and through him, I’ve seen this playing out first-hand. Aside from our weekly phone calls and occasional emails, one of the ways I support him is financially, helping with things like clothes, hygiene items, and craft/hobby supplies. Between the 15 cents per email message (with images having to be sent individually, each treated as a separate message) and the ridiculously high prices on anything from shoes to deodorant to beads, we often talk about how atrociously expensive it all is. And of course, that never translates into quality. It’s all just another way to exploit the incarcerated (and those supporting them) for profit.
What I'm Watching
After watching the original movie and loving it, we started watching the What We Do in the Shadows show. It’s so funny and charming!
What I'm Listening To
As usual, Code Switch has had great episodes lately, including one about talking to young Black kids about cops (especially with so many kid’s shows including copaganda) and another about motherhood in the age of momfluencers and tradwives.
Throughline’s The Mother of Thanksgiving looks at the history of the Thanksgiving narrative in the United States and the woman who pushed for it for the sake of a “national story,” even if it wasn’t an accurate one.
One of the Reveal episodes that stuck with me the most recently was 50 States of Mind, which offers an inside look at the Distinguished Young Woman of America competition via Shima Oliaee’s reporting on it while there as a judge. She set out to document what this competition was like for the 50 young women participating — one from each state — and ended up capturing a moment none of them could have expected: the overturning of Roe v Wade. Give it a listen to hear how the girls processed it all, as well as what some chose to do about it.
Places to Donate To & Actions to Take
The Midwest Immigration Bond Fund pays immigration bonds for IL, IN, WI, and KY residents, as funds allow. Donating helps keep their work going!
Abortion funds are always in need of donations, whether one time or recurring. The National Network of Abortion Funds is a great way to support them all, but you can also looking for specific funds in your area/region and donate directly as well!
TransClinique uses telemedicine to provide gender-affirming care to people in 28 states, and they’re working to provide free HRT to those who have had their access cut off. To help support their work and get HRT into more hands, you can donate to their GoFundMe campaign.
The Displaced Black Families GoFundMe Directory makes it easy to find people in need of financial support in light of the Eaton Fire. Even if you don’t have much to give, pick one and put your money there. Every bit counts!
Also in light of the fires, Flo Mask is offering 30% of their products using code CaliStrong30. Their masks are definitely pricier, since they’re high quality reusable ones, but they’re a great option if you can afford it (especially with the discount, and especially if you can send it to people affected by the fires).
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
Feel free to share them below or contact me directly.