This week, the hosts unpack a chilling case out of Texas, where law enforcement used 83,000 automated license plate readers to track down a woman suspected of self-managing her abortion. It’s a stark look at how surveillance infrastructure built for “public safety” is being weaponized against patients.
The panel also reflects on the deaths of Senator Lindsey Graham and the hospitalization of Mitch McConnell, weighing legacy, accountability, and the discomfort of not speaking ill of the dead when that legacy includes real harm.
From there, the conversation turns to Graham Platner’s collapsed Senate campaign in Maine, the accountability movement that brought his history of alleged assault to light, and hard questions about why gender violence so often gets a pass across party lines. There’s genuinely good news too: wins for reproductive rights advocates in Minnesota (a new bill to fund OB/GYN abortion training across state lines), Nebraska (a failed anti-abortion ballot push), and Idaho (a successful signature drive to roll back a strict abortion ban). We have all of the details in today’s show.
The episode closes with an interview with Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the National Redistricting Foundation, on a topic most people never connect to their healthcare: gerrymandering. Jenkins breaks down how manipulated legislative maps in states like North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina allowed lawmakers to pass abortion restrictions that don’t reflect majority public opinion and what ordinary citizens can do to fight back.
LINKS
EFF: She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down
The Center For Reproductive Rights’ Texas page
Flock Safety: Setting the Record Straight: Statement on Flock Network Sharing, Use Cases, and Federal Cooperation
Jolynn Dellinger and Stephanie K. Pell’s paper Bodies of Evidence: The Criminalization of Abortion and Surveillance of Women in a Post-Dobbs World
Digital Handmaidens: ‘Your Body, Their Data’—Surveillance Capitalism as Reproductive Injustice in the Post-Roe Era
Bioethics Today: The Dark Side of Wearables: A Potential Fertility Surveillance Network
The Daily Beast: MAGA Candidate [Ken Paxton] Torched for July 4 Europe Trip With Mistress
The 19th News, Abortion is at stake in the Maine senate race
National Redistricting Foundation: How Partisan Gerrymandering Limits Access To Reproductive Freedom
FOLLOW THE DOCS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Dr Kristin Lyerly (@drkristinlyerly)
Dr Erin Stevens (@erinstevensmdobgyn)
Dr Chris Ford (@doc_4ord)
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