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Audrey Moorhead
48 million people in the United States are adolescents between the ages of 14 and 24. They're working, parenting, leading, sometimes all at once. I'm balancing work and being a mom at the same time, and I'm still on track to graduate with my Bachelor's next year. So what do today's young people need to truly thrive? Tune in to good things from Lemonada Media to hear the six part Thrive series. From Executive producer Isaac Saul. This is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you can get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. This is Associate Editor Audrey Moorhead and today we're going to be covering the complicated legal battle surrounding the mail order abortion pill. But first, just wanted to give you all a heads up on an interesting interview that we released today Back in March, you may have seen the headline A 25 country study from the Pew Research center said that Americans were especially likely to view fellow citizens as morally bad. In today's interview, Associate editor Lindsay Knuth talks to one of the study's co authors, Jonathan Evans, and Pew's Associate Director of Global Attitudes Research, Laura Silver, to talk about Americans national pride, partisan differences and the state of professional polling. So after you're through listening to today's podcast, I definitely recommend checking that out. It's a fascinating conversation. With that, I'll pass it over to Will, who will tell you some more about today's story and then you'll see me again for my take.
Will Kabeck
Thanks, Audrey. All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, Indiana held primary elections for the 2026 midterms, and at least five of seven Republican state senators who opposed an effort to redraw the state's congressional map were defeated by challengers backed by President Donald Trump. One other race is too close to call. Separately, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican nomination for Ohio's gubernatorial election. He will face former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton in the general election. Number two, President Trump announced he is suspending a US Military operation to assist ships in their passage through the Strait of Hormuz, saying the pause will allow for renewed discussions over a potential peace agreement with Iran. Number three, the Spanish government said it will accept a cruise ship experiencing a hantavirus outbreak, which has killed three people on board and infected at least three others. The ship was previously denied entry by the African island nation of Cabo Verde, but will now travel to the Canary Islands to receive assistance. Number four, Russia carried out strikes across eastern Ukraine, killing at least 27 people. The attacks came hours before the deadline expired for a Ukraine proposed ceasefire. And finally, number five, officials at the Food and Drug Administration reportedly blocked the publication of studies conducted by agency scientists that supported the safety of vaccines for COVID 19 and shingles. An FDA spokesperson said the scientists drew overly broad conclusions that were not supported by data.
Audrey Moorhead
The Supreme Court yesterday restored broad access to the abortion pill mifepristone, blocking a lower court ruling. The order temporarily allows women seeking abortions to obtain the pill at pharmacies or through the mail without an in person visit to a doctor. Those practices had been permitted for several years until a federal appeals court imposed new restrictions last week. The latest order will remain in effect for another week while the high court considers the issue more fully.
Will Kabeck
On Monday, May 4, the Supreme Court issued a temporary stay on a lower court's order that mifepristone, a drug commonly used in early term abortions, can only be prescribed and dispensed in person. The order pauses A 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to prevent the drug from being accessed by mail. In a brief order, Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees appeals from the 5th Circuit, paused that court's order until May 11, restoring telehealth access to the drug and giving challengers until May 7th to respond. MifePressOne is a drug taken to treat hormone disorders, manage miscarriages and chemically induce abortions in combination with another drug, misoprostol. From 2000 to 2022, more than 6 million patients in the US used mifeprestone, and 63% of US abortions in 2023 were medication abortions. Today, roughly a quarter of abortions are provided through telehealth prescriptions, and as of 2024, the FDA has reported 36 deaths of patients using mifepristone since 2000. The Food and Drug Administration the FDA has relaxed restrictions on mifepressone several times since its approval. In 2016, the FDA deemed mifeprestone safe to use to terminate pregnancies up to 10 weeks, and in 2021 it removed a requirement that it be prescribed in person. Finally, in 2023, the agency finalized rules allowing for drugs used in abortions to be accessed by mail. Pro life medical groups and Doctors challenged the 2016 and 2021 rulings, and the Supreme Court unanimously rejected that challenge in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in June 2024, saying they did not have the standing to sue. In October 2025, Louisiana sued the FDA, arguing its policies of allowing mifeprestone to be delivered by mail was unsafe for women and allowed abortion to continue in Louisiana despite a statewide ban. On May 1 of this year, the 5th Circuit sided with Louisiana. Danko Laboratories and GenBio Pro, two manufacturers of the drug, challenged that decision on May 2, arguing that Louisiana did not have standing to sue, and Justice Alito issued the temporary pause two days later. The Supreme Court's order is not a final decision in this case. After the challengers respond by May 7, the court will decide whether to let the circuit court's decision stand, take up the case itself or extend the stay while it considers the arguments, the Supreme Court will decide how to proceed before the stay is lifted on May 11th. Today we'll get into what the left and right are saying about this case. Then Associate Editor Audrey Moorhead gives her take.
Audrey Moorhead
Foreign.
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick break.
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Will Kabeck
Here's what the left is saying Many on the left suggest mifepressone could create a political crisis for Trump. Some believe that the case is part of a national effort to restrict abortion access, and others say the Supreme Court is to blame for the uncertainty over mifeprestone. In Ms. Now, Mary Ziegler suggested the mifeprestone ruling could bring Trump's high wire act on abortion crash down. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump largely neutralized the abortion issue by simultaneously claiming credit for the end of Roe and suggesting that if he was returned to the presidency, each state could continue to set its own abortion policy. After he was elected, anti abortion groups rolled out a Make America Pro Life Again wish list, much of it focused on eliminating access to mifeprestone. The Trump White House mostly ignored these demands. Acutely aware of polls showing that most Americans opposed sweeping criminal laws and favored access to mifeprestone. This equilibrium has worked for the president and the gop, but changes to the broader landscape made it increasingly untenable in the long term. While Trump has continued picking judges with strong anti abortion credentials, social conservatives have grown tired of waiting for the president. The 5th Circuit ruling could bring Republicans High Wire act crashing down Trump is trapped between increasingly angry social conservatives and an electorate broadly approving of abortion rights and access. The fifth Circuit's ruling could harm an already wounded Republican Party and, if it stands, bring home for the first time the reality of Roe's end. In the Hill, Nikki Sapiro Vinkier said an abortion ban won't happen all at once if a press down is just the next phase. In Trump v. Casa, the Supreme Court signaled that even when courts step in, they may not be able to block these kinds of restrictions nationwide. That means access may increasingly depend on where you live and whether a specific challenge has been brought in your state. So even when access is restored, it is fragile, temporary and inconsistent at the same time. Pressure is building from every direction. Federal lawmakers are introducing legislation aimed at revoking the FDA's approval of mifeprestone entirely. Advocacy groups are pushing agencies to revisit decades of settled science. None of these actions exist in isolation. They reinforce one another. The result is not one clear moment where abortion becomes illegal everywhere, but a series of decisions that slowly reshape access. The care is technically available, but the path to get it becomes more difficult, more confusing and less reliable. Banning medication abortion outright is deeply unpopular. Anti abortion extremists think they can change access quietly without people noticing and without having to own it. In Slate, Jill Filipovich wrote, abortion access is in chaos. Blame the Supreme Court Overturning Roe didn't resolve a contentious national argument and bring about an end of an era of considered debate followed by a democratic process to set abortion laws that reflect public opinion. It just made abortion rights far more fragile, including in the liberal states that seek to protect them. Instead of turning the issue back to the states, abortion opponents are now focused on ending abortion access nationwide. Instead of providing clarity, the courts have created chaos. The provision of mifepresstone via telemedicine is at the core of this most recent legal about face that led the Supreme Court to temporarily allow telemedicine abortion to continue. But the court didn't issue a ruling on the issue itself. It did not say that telemedicine abortion is legal. Case closed. It has just acquiesced to the status quo until it can decide. In the meantime, the anti abortion movement has pressured the Trump administration into forcing an FDA review of mifeprestone, the results of which are supposed to come later this year. The movement's great hope is that the FDA will revoke the drug's approval entirely, and so women and their doctors remain in limbo. Now, here's what the right is. The right supports restricting mifeprestone because of its medical risks. Some expect the 5th Circuit's ruling to eventually win out. Others say the FDA must complete a thorough review of mifeprestone. In the Wall street journal, Sierra Dawn McLean called mifeprestone a tool of coercion. The Fifth Circuit's order has a sound basis. Mifeprestone poses clinical risks and is a potential tool of coercion and abuse. Its distribution without safeguards heightens these dangers. An in person doctor's visit is the only reliable way to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy, a life threatening condition in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. Because the symptoms of chemical abortion, abdominal pain and uterine bleeding can be similar to those of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, a woman who doesn't get an ultrasound or physical exam may mistake an emergency for a normal drug side effect. Pro abortion groups say they champion women's rights, yet they promote a policy that endangers women. It is possible to hold divergent views on the legality and morality of abortion while still demanding a return to basic medical standards. The Fifth Circuit's order is a necessary corrective to the FDA's failures. The agency should use this pause as an opportunity to reinstate permanently in person dispensing and physician led follow up visits which are necessary to protect women's health and freedom. In Hot Air, Ed Morrissey explored the Supreme Court's stay in the case. The Fifth Circuit shut the requirement for medical supervision down three years ago, but the Supreme Court overruled it on the basis of standing. The panel attempted to address that challenge in anticipation of another appeal to the Supreme Court. This puts the new ruling on solid ground for standing, not to mention the FDA's acknowledgment of the use of incomplete data for its 2021 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy since the 2023 reversal. The state of Louisiana can also point to specific financial losses due to the 2021 Risk Evaluation and mitigation strategy and the likelihood that those costs will increase in the future as more misuses occur. I'd guess that Alito issued a temporary stay to allow both sides to refresh the 2023 argument's overstanding. It makes sense to suspend the impact of the 5th Circuit ruling for a brief period while hashing this out. But if Alito thought the court would just follow suit from their earlier ruling, he would have referred the case to the full court for cert along with a more substantive injunction against the ruling. This looks more like a quick way to reverse the previous ruling on standing, allowing the ruling to take full effect while Danko and Genbio Pro pursue an appeal the hard way. In national review, Dan McLaughlin made the case for staying the FDA rule on the abortion pill. The stay request that is advanced through the fifth Circuit to the Supreme Court doesn't ask those courts to ban the pill entirely from the market, but simply to restore the pre2023 rules for dispensing it, which required a single in person doctor visit. The case isn't brought by doctors, so it doesn't have the same standing to sue issues that doomed a similar challenge in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine in 2024. Louisiana has laws against using the pill to commit homicide against an unborn child, and allowing the pill to be mailed into the state without the participation of a Louisiana licensed doctor undermines its ability to enforce that unquestionably constitutional law, the fifth Circuit found. Unsurprisingly, given the lack of studies and the fact that the current FDA isn't even defending the rule, that Louisiana is likely to win its suit on the merits. That's always the most important factor in practice to granting an injunction, stay, temporary restraining order or other emergency relief. Louisiana isn't asking to stop the FDA from asking the right questions or from answering them. It's just asking the courts to tell the agency to stop acting as if it has the answers and before it even starts asking the questions. All right, that is it for what the left and right are saying now. I'll pass it back over to Audrey for her take.
Audrey Moorhead
Thanks, Will. Here is my take. Let's rip the bias band aid off. My most strongly held political conviction is my commitment to a pro life ethic. Most of my other political convictions are downstream of my belief that the preservation of human life is the single greatest goal of a secular government. And chief among those convictions is my view that abortion and physician assisted suicide are the most pressing moral injustices in the United States today. The only non tango political work I've ever done is pro life volunteering. With that said, I celebrated the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision for two reasons. First, and most pressingly, the court acknowledged that abortion is not a federal constitutional right. Second, it asserted that states had the right to regulate abortion. Opinions on abortion vary across the country because the interest in preserving children's lives and the interest in women's autonomy and security are in tension, and our constitutional system was designed to allow the states to represent that variance in how they govern themselves. Therefore, the state by state variance in the current map of abortion access across the country is constitutionally necessary. Mail order access to mifepristone and misoprostol, however, throws a wrench into the state level gears, a wrench that staunchly pro life states are trying to remove through legal appeals. In 2023, the FDA changed its Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies or REMS policy to remove the in person visit requirement to access abortion drugs. That meant in practice that people in pro life states gained the ability to order the drugs online from pro choice states where doctors aren't subject to restrictions on providing abortions. Additionally, several pro choice states have enacted shield laws that protect in state medical providers from out of state civil and criminal enforcement. Pro life states have challenged those shield laws by attempting to charge doctors in pro choice states, but so far those challenges have failed. I have a few concerns with the FDA's REMS revision regarding mifepristone and misoprostol. For one, the FDA ordered the change without a significant new evidence suggesting further assurance of the drug's safety. The last significant review of mifepristone occurred in the early 2010s, and it resulted in no change to the in person visit protocol. Out of an abundance of caution, the FDA temporarily allowed practitioners to bypass that requirement during the pandemic. But when it completely removed the in person rule following the Dobbs decision in 2023, it didn't seem to conduct a new, completely independent review. In fact, the agency only began such a review of the drug in 2025, and that review is ongoing. The FDA did cite some international evidence as part of its reasoning for relaxing the REMs. But I think the FDA was also motivated more by changing state policies in the wake of Dobbs, and I'm alarmed that it made this decision without conducting further review on its own. No matter which direction it comes from. That sort of federal agency politicization is not good for a few reasons. It reduces trust in the agencies themselves, and in this case it undermines the state's ability to enforce their laws. Answering whether mifepristone and misoprostol legitimately deserve the relaxed REMS standard is complicated by researchers, biased proclivities, or by data itself. For example, the most significant studies on the topic include a 2013 study of Planned Parenthood's agency reported data on adverse events following mifepristone use. That Data found a 0.65% rate of significant adverse events which would support relaxation of the FDA rules, but one of the authors of the paper was Planned Parenthood's medical director. The study defined significant adverse events without including things like incomplete abortions and some pro life scholars have issued a study challenging Planned Parenthood's numbers using FDA data obtained via Freedom of Information act requests, though pro choice organizations disputed the results of this particular study. On the other side, pro life think tanks have funded their own controversial research into the topic. The most recent such review, conducted by the Ethics and Public Policy center, found that the FDA underestimates the dangers of the drugs. However, their research was not peer reviewed. In one prominent controversy, a series of papers published by pro life researchers purporting to show increased health risks of mifepristone was retracted by the publishing journal in 2024 following concerns about methodology and conflict of interest, which the pro life authors disputed. Some studies carried out overseas indicate that mifepristone is generally safe, though it might need to be treated with caution. One UK study of telemedicine access to mifepristone and misoprostol found no significant safety issues from the drug. But a 2009 Finnish study found that medication abortions had a higher incidence of adverse events than surgical abortion, using a wider definition of adverse events than the 2013 Planned Parenthood study did. Much of the differences between various reports on mifepristone come from using different definitions of serious adverse events, and not only will different people reporting their issues define adverse events differently, but those effects may not necessarily be caused by the drug itself. That is, A causal connection between the drug and adverse symptoms is difficult to establish. And what's more, in the US the FDA changed its practice of collecting adverse event data in 2016 so that prescribers only needed to report deaths after use of the drug, not other serious events, limiting our understanding of the complexity of the issue. While I acknowledge that some research supports the safety of this medication, I think that competing findings should at least have necessitated an in house FDA review before the in person restrictions were lifted. It's possible that that review would have turned up similar results as seen in the UK and the restrictions could have been lifted anyway. But instead it seems like the rules were changed based on pressure from drug manufacturers and the apparent political climate. That said, even if the medication is reviewed and deemed safe for at home use, that practice still creates issues problems of autonomy that should disturb pro choice and pro life people alike. There has been case after case after case after case after case after case after case after case of people, usually male partners, but sometimes family members ordering the abortion pill regimen online than tricking, coercing, or forcing their partners or children into taking them. Often these cases can involve the improper administration of the medicine. Some partners force fed the pills beyond the 10 week gestational limit, which carries higher risk of complications. In some of those cases, the women lost their babies. In at least one case, a baby was born prematurely and has experienced developmental delays. In nearly all cases, the women experienced the many negative symptoms of taking abortion pills nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and heavy bleeding. While some of these instances occurred while the FDA's in person requirement was still in place, they can occur more easily absent any in person requirement. And they're made especially easy by mail order access across state lines into states where these pills are ostensibly banned in the first place. Ultimately, though, I'm genuinely unsure how the Supreme Court will rule on the 5th Circuit Court's order. Pausing the 2023 standards update, I found Dan McLaughlin's argument in National Review under what the Right Is Saying somewhat convincing that the court could legitimately decide to ban remote access to mifepristone. Such a ruling would be consistent with the court's recent limitations on agency power. Even so, I think stepping in to restrict the use of a drug with agency approval is a bridge too far for this court, especially when the president and new agency director have had ample opportunity to reverse the rule and just haven't. That point actually brings me to what I think is probably the most interesting aspect of the pro life movement at the moment its apparent standoff with President Trump. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece reporting that major pro life organizations and leaders are beginning to break with Trump over his refusal to do anything related to abortion at the national level. Before Trump was elected, Project 2025 raised the prospect of enforcing the Comstock act, an 1873 law banning the mailing of abortion producing substances. But Trump has neither done that nor restored the in person requirement on mifepristone access. If you ask me, though, pro life movement leaders fundamentally misunderstand the president, and they misunderstand how pro life activism needs to adapt to the Post Dobbs world. I'd say President Trump is actually pretty pro choice. He softened the abortion language in the 2024 GOP platform, which has been a party cornerstone since 1976. As a Florida voter in 2024, he only said he'd vote no on an abortion rights ballot measure, and after he received backlash for appearing to support the measure in an interview. I don't think President Trump was ever committed to pro life ideals. He was willing to bring in justices who might overturn Roe, sure. But I honestly think that had more to do with politics than principles. Once Roe was gone and abortion returned to the states, that calculus changed. National abortion bans have never been popular, and support for abortion rights as well as the number of abortions themselves, or only increased after Dobbs. Trump is a savvy politician who's tapped into populist instincts, and since he was never thoroughly committed to a pro life ethic to begin with, he sees the writing on the wall. He'd much rather spend his political capital pursuing the agenda items. He always cared about immigration tariffs and his theory of foreign policy than pursuing national pro life legislation. The pro life movement has been rudderless post Dobbs. It was designed as a national movement, not a state level one. But now, when pro life legislation in states like Tennessee and Texas can be compared against pro choice laws in California and Massachusetts, the pro life movement needs to focus on making sure that maternal outcomes in pro life states are competitive with or even better than pro choice states. As I said earlier, the interest of fetal life is often in direct tension with the interest of the mother's autonomy and financial stability. As long as those interests are in tension, and as long as fetal life and consciousness are debated, the pro life movement will never be able to impose federal top down anti abortion legislation. Likewise, the Supreme Court isn't likely to step in and provide those rules itself. Instead, pro life advocates should turn their focus to setting up pro family policies that address the demand for abortion, not rigidly prohibiting the supply. That's it for my take. With that, I'll pass it off to Executive Editor Isaac Saul with a staff dissent and then Senior Editor Will Kabeck is going to be back to round us out. Thanks so much for listening.
Isaac Saul
Thank you, Audrey. I'm just going to say I find Audrey's arguments here about the threats of mifepristone unconvincing. She and many other conservative writers engage in what is called the misuse fallacy, the idea that because a product is misused by some people, it needs to be more heavily regulated. I can find cases of antifreeze being used to murder spouses or family members. Similarly, I can find cases of over the counter insulin insulin being used in murder or manslaughter, typically against spouses. There are many such examples should either of these substances require stricter access because of potential misuse. Mifepristone is a well studied drug and the FDA has real world data from thousands and thousands of patients over more than 20 years to analyze in its decision making process. I trust trained regulators are taking a more even handed approach than pro life legal challenges, which have often been farcical concoctions downstream of the movement's success in striking down roe. Ultimately, where Audrey sees a regulatory agency under political pressure, I see an agency that acted cautiously over more than two decades before making a justifiable safety decision that made a popular drug more accessible.
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Foreign
Isaac Saul
we'll be right back after this quick break.
Grow Therapy Advertiser
The to do list doesn't stop, and neither does the pressure to keep up with it if you've been running on fumes. Grow Therapy makes it easier to find care that's covered by insurance and actually built around you. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growththerapy.com acast today to get started. That's growthherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
Will Kabeck
Here's today's under the radar story. On Tuesday, Meta, which owns the social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, said it will begin using artificial intelligence to scan users photos and videos to determine if they are underage. People 13 years old and younger are not allowed on the platforms, and Meta said the AI will look for general themes and visual cues such as height and bone structure to flag potential underage users. The system is currently operating in select countries, but Meta plans to expand its use in the near future. The announcement comes after a jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for violating New Mexico's consumer protection law and putting children at risk. And finally, here is our have a nice day story. In March, a new Zealander became separated from her dog Molly after falling down a waterfall during a hike. The owner was rescued, but Molly the dog remained missing. A helicopter crew equipped with thermal imaging technology located Molly a week later, lying down at the base of a waterfall. And then a rescuer accompanied by a support dog named Bingo was able to reach Molly and airlift her to safety. Dog and owner have since been reunited. Stuff has this story with a video of the rescue. We'll drop a link to it in today's show notes and definitely recommend checking this one out. All right, that is it for today's edition. Thanks for being with us. As always, we will talk to you tomorrow. Until then, have a great rest of the day and peace Our Executive Editor
Isaac Saul
and founder is me, Isaac Saul and our Executive Producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will Kaback and Associate Editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsey Knuth and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
Progressive Insurance Announcer
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings by $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.
Audrey Moorhead
48 million people in the United States are adolescents between the ages of 14 and 24. They're working, parenting, leading, sometimes all at once. I'm balancing work and being a mom at the same time, and I'm still on track to graduate with my bachelor's next year. So what do today's young people need to truly thrive? Tune in to Good Things from Lemonada Media to hear the six part Thrive series. Marketers. You know that feeling when your creative clicks, when that social post sends engagement through the roof, when your outside of the box campaign hits ROI positive. When a personalized homepage turns prospects into customers. It's utter marketing bliss. Contentful, helps you create tailored omnichannel experiences without working overtime no stress, no limits, only possibilities. Get the feels@contentful.com.
Episode Title: Can abortion pills be prescribed online?
Host: Isaac Saul (with Will Kabeck & Audrey Moorhead)
Date: May 6, 2026
This episode centers on the ongoing legal and political battle over the prescription and delivery of abortion medication—specifically mifepristone—by mail and through telemedicine in the United States. The team dissects recent Supreme Court actions involving restrictions, the broader implications for abortion access post-Dobbs, and how both the left and right are responding. Associate Editor Audrey Moorhead, who holds a pro-life stance, delivers an extended analysis of the medical, legal, and ethical complexities, followed by a staff dissent from editor Isaac Saul.
“Trump is trapped between increasingly angry social conservatives and an electorate broadly approving of abortion rights and access.”
— Paraphrased from Mary Ziegler, Ms. Now ([10:53])
"Instead of turning the issue back to the states, abortion opponents are now focused on ending abortion access nationwide... Instead of providing clarity, the courts have created chaos."
— Jill Filipovich, Slate ([12:50])
“Mifepristone poses clinical risks and is a potential tool of coercion and abuse. Its distribution without safeguards heightens these dangers.”
— Sierra Dawn McLean, Wall Street Journal ([14:10])
“Allowing the pill to be mailed into the state without the participation of a Louisiana licensed doctor undermines its ability to enforce that unquestionably constitutional law.”
— Dan McLaughlin, National Review ([17:40])
“My most strongly held political conviction is my commitment to a pro-life ethic. Most of my other political convictions are downstream of my belief that the preservation of human life is the single greatest goal of a secular government.” ([19:08])
“No matter which direction it comes from. That sort of federal agency politicization is not good for a few reasons. It reduces trust in the agencies themselves, and in this case it undermines the state's ability to enforce their laws.” ([21:40])
“I don't think President Trump was ever committed to pro-life ideals. He was willing to bring in justices who might overturn Roe, sure. But... that had more to do with politics than principles.” ([27:40])
“She and many other conservative writers engage in what is called the misuse fallacy, the idea that because a product is misused by some people, it needs to be more heavily regulated.” ([29:42])
“Where Audrey sees a regulatory agency under political pressure, I see an agency that acted cautiously over more than two decades before making a justifiable safety decision that made a popular drug more accessible.” ([30:38])
Mary Ziegler on Trump’s dilemma:
“Trump is trapped between increasingly angry social conservatives and an electorate broadly approving of abortion rights and access.” ([10:53])
Jill Filipovich on national confusion:
“Instead of turning the issue back to the states, abortion opponents are now focused on ending abortion access nationwide... Instead of providing clarity, the courts have created chaos.” ([12:50])
Sierra Dawn McLean on health risks:
“Mifepristone poses clinical risks and is a potential tool of coercion and abuse. Its distribution without safeguards heightens these dangers.” ([14:10])
Audrey Moorhead on the impact of mail-order pills:
“Mail order access to mifepristone and misoprostol... throws a wrench into the state level gears, a wrench that staunchly pro-life states are trying to remove through legal appeals.” ([19:50])
Isaac Saul critiquing over-regulation due to misuse:
“She and many other conservative writers engage in what is called the misuse fallacy... should either of these substances require stricter access because of potential misuse?” ([29:42])
The episode delivers a nuanced, multi-voiced breakdown of the legal uncertainty surrounding mail-order abortion pills, the conflicting research on their safety, and the future of both the pro-life movement and the courts in the wake of Dobbs. The hosts fairly represent the strongest arguments from both sides, clarify the legal stakes, and model respectful disagreement on one of America’s most heated policy issues.
For further detail: