Evening, Meteor readers,

Last night was an incredible spectacle of athleticism and sportsmanship. Of course I’m talking about the most anticipated rematch of the year: LSU vs. Iowa. Both teams fought to the bitter end, but unfortunately for LSU (and baller-turned-meme Hailey Van Lith), Caitlin Clark’s three-pointers could not be stopped.

NOTE HAILEY IN THE BACKGROUND, MARVELING AT ANGEL REESE LIKE THE REST OF US. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

In today’s newsletter, reporter Susan Rinkunas talks to abortion provider Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi. Plus, a look at the new abortion ban coming out of Florida and a little good news for Olympics fans.

From my busted bracket,

Shannon Melero

ACROSS STATE LINES

“I’m Here As Long As I Can Be”

Texas abortion provider Ghazaleh Moayedi, D.O., provides care for her neighbors—but she has to leave the state to do it

BY SUSAN RINKUNAS

A TRAVELING HERO (IMAGE COURTESY OF DR. MAOYEDI)

After Ghazaleh Moayedi graduated college, she got a job working on the administrative side of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion clinic in Austin, Texas. She respected the providers who chose the work—many of whom had witnessed illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade—but also thought the patients deserved doctors who looked like them. “I didn’t have the language for it at the time,” she says “But I noticed these doctors, older white men, didn’t reflect the people that we were taking care of. I knew that we needed new doctors.”

So, she went to med school and became an OB/GYN and complex family planning specialist in Dallas in 2018. Less than two years later, Texas lawmakers enacted abortion bans, first during the height of the pandemic, and then via the 2021 bounty hunter law known as Senate Bill 8. A few months later, Roe fell, and now Moayedi travels to Kansas to provide abortions—often to other Texans. I talked to her about what she’s doing to care for people after they return home, and her message for people living in Democratic-led states who think they’re safe from abortion bans.

Susan Rinkunas: When did you start traveling to provide abortion care? 

Ghazaleh Moayedi: I started traveling to Oklahoma in 2020 [after] Gov. Greg Abbott shut down abortion care in our state under the guise of COVID restrictions. Abortion doctors traveling is common—but never from a state like Texas to somewhere else. That is the novel piece over the last few years. It’s always a doctor who lives on one of the coasts traveling to a restrictive state. That was a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, crap. In order to take care of Texans, I’m gonna have to start traveling.’ I started working at a couple of clinics there, in addition to the clinics I was working at in Dallas, and did that until Oklahoma shut down—it was about a month or so before Dobbs. Now, I am traveling to Kansas and working in a clinic there.

You’ve said it’s surreal to be a Texan leaving the state to care for other Texans leaving the state. Are you commiserating with patients? Do they know you’re from Texas?

I usually ask people when I make small talk when I’m doing an ultrasound. Like, “Where are you coming in from?” And people usually say Texas, then I ask where. “Oh, where in Dallas? I’m from Dallas, too, that’s why I’m asking.” I can just see people’s faces change. When I say, “Did you eat at that place? That place is really good,” I can see the light coming from people. It’s a moment for us both. We’re like, “Yeah, this is bullshit. It’s totally bullshit that we’re both here.” I had a patient who was like, “I wish you could have just done my abortion in the closet at this restaurant that we both knew.”

During a fall trip to Kansas, two of my patients were on the same flight I took. I’ve still been really processing that in and of itself, that we’re all on this flight together, how just stupid, pointless, [and] inhumane this is.

WHAT’S GOING ON

Sunshine state of mind: Oh, Florida, you never miss an opportunity for mess. Yesterday, the state’s Supreme Court upheld a six-week abortion ban, which will go into effect on May 1. Abortion seekers in the South who have used Florida as a sort of abortion haven over the last two years will now be thrown into a greater state of chaos and desperation than ever before. Last year, 84,052 abortions were performed in Florida—about 7,000 of which were for out-of-state patients.

The sliver of good news: The Supreme Court also ruled in favor of allowing Floridians to vote on Amendment 4 in November; that amendment would protect abortion rights through the state’s constitution, voiding the six-week ban entirely. And although Florida will always find a way to Florida, abortion does have a stellar track record when it comes to the ballot box. (Cue DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win.”)

If you’re reading this from your Golden Girls-esque lanai in Florida, learn more about Amendment 4 here.

AND:

• Despite the United Nations vote last month calling for a ceasefire, the Israeli military conducted a strike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy which was traveling in a “deconflicted zone” between Northern and Southern Gaza yesterday. Seven workers from WCK were killed, and the organization is now pausing its efforts in Gaza out of safety concerns. Over one million people are experiencing famine conditions in Gaza right now.

ONE OF THE TARGETED VEHICLES FROM WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

• Thousands of Black patients awaiting kidney transplants are now discovering that they were the victims of racially biased medical testing which “overestimated how well Black people’s kidneys were functioning,” according to AP. The specific race-based calculation that skewed the test has now been removed, and the more updated test found that approximately 14,000 Black patients were not added to the transplant list as swiftly as they should have been.

• We are just a few months away from the Paris Olympics, and as the city of lights prepares to welcome the world’s greatest athletes, they’re doing so with sustainability in mind. Organizers are working to cut the Games’ carbon emissions in half by reusing historic buildings (like a pool venue used in the 1924 Olympics) and putting solar panels in the Seine. C’est bon!

• Elder millennial Latine, I summon thee! Aventura released new music.

• Beyoncé’s much-anticipated COWBOY CARTER dropped at midnight last Thursday, leading to many sleepless nights and a yeehaw weekend. Critics are arguing over whether the album is a great contribution to the pantheon of Southern music or a revenge album aimed at the awards she’s been snubbed of—but whatever you think of it, Beyoncé’s foray into country has shone a bright light on a handful of Black country artists.

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