Thank you for this interview, Rick. And thank you Ryan and Jess for going public with this horrific story. Government does not belong in pregnancy. We all deserve better than this.
It was one of the most painful interviews I have listened to. I can't believe how Ryan and his wife were treated and what they had to endure. I can't believe this is happening in the U.S. in 2024. But it is. Texas will be the rest of the U.S. if Trump gets re-elected in Nov.
I am glad that Ryan and his wife got so much caring support from all over the US after their story became known. It doesn't make up for the appalling cruelty, indifference and malpractice displayed by medical staff. How did it ever become 'pro life' that women who are miscarrying must be almost at the point of death before doctors will do a D&C - even when they have known from the start that the fetus has been dead for a number of days? Will there be new courses in Texas medical schools about how to identify this precise point? My God... It felt like my heart was bleeding as I listened to Ryan talk about what happened to them. I wept. How can people - especially those bound by the Hippocratic oath - be so uncaring, especially for people who live in areas remote from medical facilities? How can these legislators - who apparently deliberately wrote imprecise laws - live with themselves, especially when they are sitting in their church pews?
I looked it up. Apparently they don’t swear to uphold the Hippocratic oath now; it doesn’t apply well to current day. Some added “do no harm.” There is a new oath.
I’m furious that politicians put doctors in the position of having to choose between patients and a fear of prosecution.
Politicians have no place in establishing a medical standard of care.
Any husband or father of daughters surely would not want their wife or daughter to face the situation Ryan faced. This affects men too. I hope this story motivates the men too.
And I'm glad that Ryan and his wife have gotten a lot of support, and been supported in moving from the trauma to telling their story, to activism. It's empowering. It helps to produce post-traumatic growth, in addition to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. People need to be in supportive community to process this kind of evil adequately enough to support growth. Like Ryan said, he's learning and growing. Hopefully his wife can rebuild some trust of doctors as she continues her journey.
Thank you for doing this interview. My husband listened with me and I could see it deepened his understanding. We married in our 40s and he wasn't there when I had an ectopic and a miscarriage. He knows about the abuse me and my boys suffered from their violent fundamentalist father. But I could see he was imagining what it would be like to be in Ryan's shoes, and that he was moved. Deeply. Men learning about women't bodies and how things really work, and what can go wrong, is a good thing.
That is the injustice of others imposing their religious beliefs on others; a minority imposing their laws over an individuals HEALTHCARE!? Then getting harassed by zealots who have no clue but are there to pass their Christian judgement… I am so sorry that Ryan’s wife had to nearly die in order to get CARE! That is not healthcare -that is cruel and unusual punishment of WOMEN!!! Texas has criminalized womanhood.
Can we finally see the real reason this is happening to women in certain states??? It’s control. That’s it!!
These governors, lawmakers, supreme courts don’t give a flying toss about children, women or a zygote!! They have a sick and twisted view of women and their power!! And they will have none of it.
What better way to control a women?? Deny her medical care in her most vulnerable time!! WHEN SHE’S PREGNANT and she has issues with her pregnancy or she doesn’t damn well want to be!!!!!
This story of the pain and terror she endured makes me furious. I contacted Ryan online and offered to get them lodging and whatever they needed if they came to New Mexico for treatment. Hi Probably the thousandth person to do so. When I was little, I remember the day my mom had a miscarriage. Way before Roe. I didn't know what was going on but I remember the term D&C. I asked what it was and got a 5 yr old appropriate answer. I knew it was something important that was going to make my mom feel better and come home. If this routine procedure was OK then, why is it so horrid now? When are these terrible old men going to lose power and go away?
Key facts were missing from this story: the name of the physician who said he refused to conduct an abortion when he knew or should have known the fetus was dead, and the name of the facility that offered to schedule a D&C many weeks out. It's situations like these when I wish I had very deep pockets to pay for Hamiltons' legal defense in the event those named retaliated by suing them. This is not a time to go high when the deplorables go low. (Hint: it never is.)
Naming and shaming is just the beginning. I wish I could cover the cost of the Hamiltons' lawsuits against the individuals and organizations responsible for their ordeal.
As for the army of online hate, we have Congress and successive presidential administrations to thank for completely abdicating their responsibility to regulate the internet in general and social media in particular in order to protect the public. And we have soulless tech titans who are drunk on power and their own nightmarish visions for the future to thank for neutering Congress and successive administrations with their money.
When I was in college almost 50 years ago, the birth control method my girlfriend and I were using failed and she became pregnant. Speaking strictly for myself, there was nothing "morally complicated and terrible," to quote Rick Wilson, about the decision to abort the pregnancy. From my standpoint, it was the only acceptable solution to an extremely serious problem. One of the reasons Americans lost the constitutional right to abortion is that we allowed the other side to frame it exclusively in moral terms. Not everyone sees abortion that way. It should not be necessary to pretend it is.
"supposed to", but America's neo-fascists don't care about the Constitution, they only care about "winning" and imposing their own values on everyone else.
No wonder one of the first books banned by the Cons is Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" - all about a fascist theocracy taking over America. And look at how they treat women there!
My wife says it's up to the Women of America to stand up to these threats by VOTING out Trump's MAGA party. Then America can get back to becoming a "more perfect union", rather than descending into fascist madness.
Germany was at this point when they elected Hitler and the Nazis (running on the platform of "Make Germany Great Again" - and how did that turn out?
Along with Rick and so many others, I've been warning for 2 years about the rise of neo-fascism in America; I hope enough voters are listening.
Historian Tim Snyder says "any election can be the last" - American Women, be forewarned, America could become Gilead, and it's up to you to prevent it.
A gentle partial disagreement. Please, guys, stop saying it’s up to the women. It’s up to all of us If the women are the only ones who can save us and Orange Man wins, that makes the horrible outcome our fault? Not the voters who sit at home or vote third-party? Not the corrupt gerrymandering, voter suppression, calls for armed “poll watchers?” There would be plenty of blame to pass around. And we would all pay.
you're right, Marge, we can't put the full responsibility for beating Trump on women. Or blame if the outcome is horrible.
I'm just saying the women are the largest voting block, and therefore can have an exceptional impact on the results. So I guess I'm just encouraging them to use their voting power. But you're right; it's gonna be a collective effort; everyone who cares about these issues has to act by voting.
If Trump wins, we can definitely point a finger at the sit-at-home or 3rd-party voters who could have helped to stop the Orange Train of Doom.
I'm learning that the Trump/MAGA folks are simply unshakeable in their commitment to Trump (for a lot of reasons) and the sane folks who see the danger are motivated to use their vote, but like you say, those sit-it-out or 3rd party voters, they're the ones who lose the whole thing for everyone.
If ever there was an every-vote-counts election, this is it.
Absolutely, Ollie. Abortion is not universally opposed in the Judeo/Christian tradition; the Judaic tradition pegs the beginning of personhood at the drawing of first breath, and that's supported in the Pentateuch. There's only an embryonic pro-life movement in Israel, supported by the wealthy premillennial evangelicals who are over there to await the building of the Third Temple to usher in the End Times. In the Christian tradition, personhood began for centuries with "the quickening," when the fetus is first detectable outside the mother's body, at about 24-26 weeks, even in the Catholic tradition. Then a mid-19th century papal bull declared, ex nihilo, with no direct scriptural evidence, that personhood begins at conception.
For evangelicals, this was a considered a niche Catholic issue even immediately after Roe was decided. But then they lost their battle to keep segregation academies from being taxed and cast about for a new issue to organize around. Bingo, opposing abortion. Just that cynical.
It’s “Handmaid’s Tale” plain and simple. It is not fiction any longer. The state of TX is Gilead. Get the fuck out while you can. NM and CO will be happy to have you. This is what the entire country will look like if Trump is elected in November and the GOP wins control of Congress.
Thank you for this interview, Rick. And thank you Ryan and Jess for going public with this horrific story. Government does not belong in pregnancy. We all deserve better than this.
Roevember is coming. They are terrified of us and they should be.
It was one of the most painful interviews I have listened to. I can't believe how Ryan and his wife were treated and what they had to endure. I can't believe this is happening in the U.S. in 2024. But it is. Texas will be the rest of the U.S. if Trump gets re-elected in Nov.
Supreme Court Decisions For Sale.
No Payment Upfront.
Get Your Required Result in Record Time!
If Not Totally Satisfied_(ah who are we kidding? You will be).
in America no one is above the love, except, apparently, members of the Supreme Court.
Absolute immunity and no accountability.
And they're the ones with the final word on "the law".
If Trump wins, he'll get to put another couple far-right extremists on the ultimate bench.
Biden and Dems should start talking up the "future" Supreme Court as a major reason to stop Trump.
It is vital that they do.
Right, the future of the country depends on defeating Trump and his neo-fascist mob. Absolutely vital.
I am glad that Ryan and his wife got so much caring support from all over the US after their story became known. It doesn't make up for the appalling cruelty, indifference and malpractice displayed by medical staff. How did it ever become 'pro life' that women who are miscarrying must be almost at the point of death before doctors will do a D&C - even when they have known from the start that the fetus has been dead for a number of days? Will there be new courses in Texas medical schools about how to identify this precise point? My God... It felt like my heart was bleeding as I listened to Ryan talk about what happened to them. I wept. How can people - especially those bound by the Hippocratic oath - be so uncaring, especially for people who live in areas remote from medical facilities? How can these legislators - who apparently deliberately wrote imprecise laws - live with themselves, especially when they are sitting in their church pews?
I looked it up. Apparently they don’t swear to uphold the Hippocratic oath now; it doesn’t apply well to current day. Some added “do no harm.” There is a new oath.
I’m furious that politicians put doctors in the position of having to choose between patients and a fear of prosecution.
Politicians have no place in establishing a medical standard of care.
Thanks. I did look it up also and you are correct.
Women are the largest voting block in America.
Surely women's reproductive freedom should motivate the majority of them to vote out these misogynist neo-fascists in November.
I'll put my faith in women to save America.
Any husband or father of daughters surely would not want their wife or daughter to face the situation Ryan faced. This affects men too. I hope this story motivates the men too.
My hope too.
And I'm glad that Ryan and his wife have gotten a lot of support, and been supported in moving from the trauma to telling their story, to activism. It's empowering. It helps to produce post-traumatic growth, in addition to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. People need to be in supportive community to process this kind of evil adequately enough to support growth. Like Ryan said, he's learning and growing. Hopefully his wife can rebuild some trust of doctors as she continues her journey.
Thank you for doing this interview. My husband listened with me and I could see it deepened his understanding. We married in our 40s and he wasn't there when I had an ectopic and a miscarriage. He knows about the abuse me and my boys suffered from their violent fundamentalist father. But I could see he was imagining what it would be like to be in Ryan's shoes, and that he was moved. Deeply. Men learning about women't bodies and how things really work, and what can go wrong, is a good thing.
OMG!!
It sounded an observation made that physicians may have appeared uncomfortable, participating in these cruel acts of commission or omission.
Speaking from my gut, I doubt many Drs who have previously entered medicine
expected such strange caveats
to doing No Harm.
Just wait until a patient can no longer sense any sign of caregivers internal struggle.
Looking forward, I imagine Josh H.or the likes,
a fierce determination
and appearance
of such high ( Christian) intellect,
leading National Medical Licensing… fucking scary
Thanks, Rick.
That is the injustice of others imposing their religious beliefs on others; a minority imposing their laws over an individuals HEALTHCARE!? Then getting harassed by zealots who have no clue but are there to pass their Christian judgement… I am so sorry that Ryan’s wife had to nearly die in order to get CARE! That is not healthcare -that is cruel and unusual punishment of WOMEN!!! Texas has criminalized womanhood.
Can we finally see the real reason this is happening to women in certain states??? It’s control. That’s it!!
These governors, lawmakers, supreme courts don’t give a flying toss about children, women or a zygote!! They have a sick and twisted view of women and their power!! And they will have none of it.
What better way to control a women?? Deny her medical care in her most vulnerable time!! WHEN SHE’S PREGNANT and she has issues with her pregnancy or she doesn’t damn well want to be!!!!!
This story of the pain and terror she endured makes me furious. I contacted Ryan online and offered to get them lodging and whatever they needed if they came to New Mexico for treatment. Hi Probably the thousandth person to do so. When I was little, I remember the day my mom had a miscarriage. Way before Roe. I didn't know what was going on but I remember the term D&C. I asked what it was and got a 5 yr old appropriate answer. I knew it was something important that was going to make my mom feel better and come home. If this routine procedure was OK then, why is it so horrid now? When are these terrible old men going to lose power and go away?
Key facts were missing from this story: the name of the physician who said he refused to conduct an abortion when he knew or should have known the fetus was dead, and the name of the facility that offered to schedule a D&C many weeks out. It's situations like these when I wish I had very deep pockets to pay for Hamiltons' legal defense in the event those named retaliated by suing them. This is not a time to go high when the deplorables go low. (Hint: it never is.)
Naming and shaming is just the beginning. I wish I could cover the cost of the Hamiltons' lawsuits against the individuals and organizations responsible for their ordeal.
As for the army of online hate, we have Congress and successive presidential administrations to thank for completely abdicating their responsibility to regulate the internet in general and social media in particular in order to protect the public. And we have soulless tech titans who are drunk on power and their own nightmarish visions for the future to thank for neutering Congress and successive administrations with their money.
When I was in college almost 50 years ago, the birth control method my girlfriend and I were using failed and she became pregnant. Speaking strictly for myself, there was nothing "morally complicated and terrible," to quote Rick Wilson, about the decision to abort the pregnancy. From my standpoint, it was the only acceptable solution to an extremely serious problem. One of the reasons Americans lost the constitutional right to abortion is that we allowed the other side to frame it exclusively in moral terms. Not everyone sees abortion that way. It should not be necessary to pretend it is.
Not all religions worship the fetus. We are supposed to have an unassailable wall between Church and State.
"supposed to", but America's neo-fascists don't care about the Constitution, they only care about "winning" and imposing their own values on everyone else.
No wonder one of the first books banned by the Cons is Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" - all about a fascist theocracy taking over America. And look at how they treat women there!
My wife says it's up to the Women of America to stand up to these threats by VOTING out Trump's MAGA party. Then America can get back to becoming a "more perfect union", rather than descending into fascist madness.
Germany was at this point when they elected Hitler and the Nazis (running on the platform of "Make Germany Great Again" - and how did that turn out?
Along with Rick and so many others, I've been warning for 2 years about the rise of neo-fascism in America; I hope enough voters are listening.
Historian Tim Snyder says "any election can be the last" - American Women, be forewarned, America could become Gilead, and it's up to you to prevent it.
A gentle partial disagreement. Please, guys, stop saying it’s up to the women. It’s up to all of us If the women are the only ones who can save us and Orange Man wins, that makes the horrible outcome our fault? Not the voters who sit at home or vote third-party? Not the corrupt gerrymandering, voter suppression, calls for armed “poll watchers?” There would be plenty of blame to pass around. And we would all pay.
you're right, Marge, we can't put the full responsibility for beating Trump on women. Or blame if the outcome is horrible.
I'm just saying the women are the largest voting block, and therefore can have an exceptional impact on the results. So I guess I'm just encouraging them to use their voting power. But you're right; it's gonna be a collective effort; everyone who cares about these issues has to act by voting.
If Trump wins, we can definitely point a finger at the sit-at-home or 3rd-party voters who could have helped to stop the Orange Train of Doom.
I'm learning that the Trump/MAGA folks are simply unshakeable in their commitment to Trump (for a lot of reasons) and the sane folks who see the danger are motivated to use their vote, but like you say, those sit-it-out or 3rd party voters, they're the ones who lose the whole thing for everyone.
If ever there was an every-vote-counts election, this is it.
Absolutely, Ollie. Abortion is not universally opposed in the Judeo/Christian tradition; the Judaic tradition pegs the beginning of personhood at the drawing of first breath, and that's supported in the Pentateuch. There's only an embryonic pro-life movement in Israel, supported by the wealthy premillennial evangelicals who are over there to await the building of the Third Temple to usher in the End Times. In the Christian tradition, personhood began for centuries with "the quickening," when the fetus is first detectable outside the mother's body, at about 24-26 weeks, even in the Catholic tradition. Then a mid-19th century papal bull declared, ex nihilo, with no direct scriptural evidence, that personhood begins at conception.
For evangelicals, this was a considered a niche Catholic issue even immediately after Roe was decided. But then they lost their battle to keep segregation academies from being taxed and cast about for a new issue to organize around. Bingo, opposing abortion. Just that cynical.
Thank you for connecting these dots. This history is too often obscured.
It’s “Handmaid’s Tale” plain and simple. It is not fiction any longer. The state of TX is Gilead. Get the fuck out while you can. NM and CO will be happy to have you. This is what the entire country will look like if Trump is elected in November and the GOP wins control of Congress.
right on, MF. It's not for nothing that Handmaid's Tale is always one of the first books to be banned in America.
I bought a red cape and hat. Haven’t decided what mischief shall occur.
I'm re-reading Handmaid's Tale and writing a review for my newsletter.
Like you say, Gilead is becoming real, right before our eyes.
So maybe it's time for another "neo-fascism -warning" in the form of a Handmaid's Tale book review.
Scary times we live in.
Pro life has never been about life . Period.
right, it's always been about power, male power over women.
So it's up to American Women to stop these neo-fascists in November. Before it's too late.