Can you talk about abortion in therapy?

February 18, 2025

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February 18, 2025

Fair Monduesday, Meteor readers,

I am still emotionally recovering from watching my two husbands reunite during the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary special. I am, of course, talking about José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal Melero and Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio Melero. Yes, they took my last name because we’re a very progressive throuple.

In today’s newsletter, we try to understand what you can and can’t talk about with your therapist in abortion-ban states. Plus, a big payday for the athletes at Unrivaled.

I love all my husbands equally,

Shannon Pascal Ocasio Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

How do you feel about that?: Therapy couches are sacred spaces, where people are encouraged to say anything and everything to process, heal, and move forward. But what happens when you live in a place like Texas or Mississippi, and the thing you need to talk about is an abortion that your state has made illegal? “I have this fear of bringing this subject up to my therapist because lines can get very blurry with mandated reporting,” one young Texas woman told Public Health Watch in a story released last week. The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, said she had used abortion pills to terminate a wanted but risky pregnancy and has been grieving ever since. But she feels she can’t work through that grief with a professional because of the “climate of fear” in anti-abortion states, where conservatives promise that anyone seen to be aiding and abetting abortion will be punished.

How concerned should folks in therapy be? In most states, social workers and healthcare professionals are also mandated reporters, meaning they have an obligation to report any known or suspected abuse, child neglect, or intent to commit harm—so it’s understandable to be concerned that in a state that criminalizes abortion, a therapist could be pressed to report. But patient confidentiality laws are extremely clear about what qualifies as abuse or harm, and so far, abortion has not qualified. Still, the abortion laws in Texas, with their bounty rewards, are written just vaguely enough that healthcare professionals across fields are unsure of exactly what their clients can say to them or how they can respond, according to Public Health Watch’s reporting.

As usual, the chaos is the point. “The intention behind these laws is to stoke confusion and fear so that people don’t seek abortion care and that providers are afraid to provide abortion care and that functionally people stop talking about it altogether out of fear,” Lucie Arvallo of the Texas reproductive rights group Jane’s Due Process told Public Health Watch.

But as much as abortion ban states may try to fearmonger, confidentiality laws still protect those in therapy. If you’re concerned your therapist may not be trustworthy, you have options and, more importantly, you have rights. A mental health professional cannot share your name, contact information, or session notes without your consent or a subpoena from law enforcement.

More suggestions for addressing the issue (and finding a new therapist if you need one):

Ask your therapist how they would handle a conversation about abortion (or a request for your records). It is not illegal to talk about abortion, so do so, without divulging your personal experience until you’re ready.
If you do decide you need a new provider, you can take a look at the Pro-Choice Therapists directory which lists vetted mental health professionals who are “aligned with pro-choice values” and who have undergone extra training to understand the “state of abortion restrictions/legislation, common misconceptions about abortion,” and to help patients identify and avoid crisis pregnancy centers.
If you need to talk sooner than later, consider other confidential resources in the meantime.

AND:

An intriguing pattern is emerging among the high-profile resignations of officials unwilling to do the Trump administration’s bidding: Many of them are women. In protest of an apparent quid pro quo deal between Trump and New York mayor Eric Adams, several prominent women resigned, including U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon and three of Adams’ deputy mayors. On Sunday, Michelle King, the acting commissioner of the Social Security administration quit after DOGE demanded access to sensitive government records. And veteran federal prosecutor Denise Cheung resigned today after a request from the Trump administration to freeze a government contractor’s assets. So, are women more strong in the spine than their male peers? There is some evidence that women leaders are more impervious to corruption than men; then again, Trump’s cabinet has twice the amount of women it did in 2016, and they seem to be more than fine with it. We’ll call it a draw.
Advocates working to end the practice of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s executive order on ending gender-affirming care, which “wrongly and dangerously conflates” FGM/C and gender-affirming genital surgeries, according to a report from The 19th. The order seeks to warp and expand FGM/C laws, using them not only to ban the methods of forced mutilation they were intended to address, but also gender-affirming care for minors, including non-surgical treatment like hormones. But activists and lawyers emphasize the order willfully ignores the difference between FGM/C and gender-affirming care: The former is “non-consensual and without any medical purpose” and the latter is “provided with robust informed consent processes and for recognized medical purposes,” a representative from Equality Now explained to The 19th. Not to mention that, despite what you may have read, doctors rarely perform gender-affirming surgeries on patients under 18.
Pope Francis has been hospitalized with pneumonia in both lungs, the Vatican reported today. The 88-year-old pontiff is reportedly in stable condition and “in good spirits,” although his weekly general audience has been canceled. However, he was still able to appear in a video call with the Holy Family Parish in Gaza over the weekend. Speaking of which…
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in the West Bank after facing several weeks of Israeli military raids. Experts told the New York Times that this is the largest displacement of civilians in that region since 1967. While some West Bank Palestinians are now returning to their homes—or what’s left of them—many are reminded of the 1948 displacement during al-Nakba, the “central trauma of Palestinian history.”
Last Friday, women’s basketball league Unrivaled held its inaugural 1-on-1 tournament, in which the prize was a hefty check for $200,000. This year the (literal) crown and prize money went to Napheesa Collier (Lunar Owls BC/Minnesota Lynx) who said in a post-game interview, “My entire WNBA salary is what I just got in 30 minutes of playing one-on-one…A lot of people, this is their full contract, so you’re playing seven months for this kind of money.” Aaliyah Edwards (Mist BC/Washington Mystics) earned $50,000 for making it to the finals of the tournament.

COLLIER AND THE NATASHA CLOUD DURING A GAME EARLIER THIS MONTH. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has threatened to sue Google over the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. In a press conference yesterday Sheinbaum noted that the new “Gulf of America” label in Google Maps incorrectly changed the name of the entire Gulf, including the portion controlled by Mexico and Cuba (which is a majority of the Gulf). Sheinbaum is waiting for a response from Google, but says she will proceed to court if an adjustment isn’t made.
Stefano Vukov, the ex-coach of former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, has been banned from coaching for one year by the Women’s Tennis Association after an investigation revealed he had engaged in “abuse of authority and abusive conduct towards [Rybakina]” and exploited his relationship with her for personal gain. The investigation has been made all the more complicated due to an alleged romantic relationship between Vukov, 37, and Rybakina, 25.
Our favorite pop-culture podcast, In Retrospect, has been nominated for an Ambie in the Best Society & Culture category! Congratulations to hosts Susie Banikarim and Jessica Bennett, along with the entire In Retrospect crew. Not a listener yet? Start with the “General Hospital” episode and proceed down the rabbit hole from there.