Three Questions About…This Year’s Winter Olympics
The trailblazers to watch, and the ICE of it all
By Shannon Melero
Jamie Mittleman has the kind of job that, if it were explained in a Netflix rom-com, would sound entirely made up: She talks to Olympic and Paralympic athletes all day. Fine, it’s more than that; she’s the CEO and founder of Flame Bearers, a media company centered around women Olympians and their stories. But the fun part of her job is working with athletes and traveling to the Games.
The summer Olympics usually get all of the shine, but this year, the roster for Team USA is, as I think the kids say, bussin’. Two-time gold medalist Chloe Kim is back chasing a third podium. Figure skater Alysa Liu is out of retirement at the ripe old age of 22 and skating better than ever. Lindsey Vonn plans to compete on a totally destroyed ACL (girl, please don’t do that) and, of course, we’re all ready to get our Heated Rivalry on and cheer for the women’s ice hockey team captained by the incomparable Hilary Knight.
Ahead of her travels to the Milan/Cortina Olympics, Mittleman took some time to talk to us non-Olympians about what to expect.
The Olympics have always had political undertones. As someone working closely with so many women athletes ahead of Milan/Cortina, are there themes you’re seeing pop up?
A major theme I’m hearing from athletes is access. Who gets into winter sports? Who can afford it? Who sees themselves in it?
Winter sports remain some of the least diverse athletic spaces in the world, and athletes are acutely aware of that. They talk about the cost of equipment – how expensive is a ski pass? Hockey gear? A bobsled? [Plus] the lack of local facilities. Do they have to drive to get to the track? What if they don’t have a car? Nobody from my community competes in this sport…and how all of these compound over time.
There’s also a strong thread of athletes wanting to use their visibility to widen the doorway for the next generation. I’ve now worked with just shy of 400 Olympians and Paralympians from 55 countries, and many are navigating being “firsts” in their sport—first from their country, first openly queer, first Black athlete in their discipline. They’re proud, but they’re also very aware of the weight of representation they carry. It’s a privilege, but it’s also a responsibility they didn’t necessarily sign up for.
Speaking of firsts, Team USA has two major ones on the roster this year with Amber Glenn, the team’s first openly queer figure skater, and Laila Edwards, the first Black woman to play ice hockey for the U.S. What are you hoping viewers can take from watching them compete?
Seeing Amber Glenn and Laila Edwards on this stage matters far beyond medals. I hope young viewers see that there is no single mold for who belongs in sport. In her "Making It To Milan" interview, Hilary Knight mentioned, "There is a place for everyone in sport.” You can be openly queer and compete at the highest level. You can be a Black woman in a sport that has historically excluded you. You don’t have to shrink yourself to fit into a system.
For many young people watching, this may be the first time they see someone who looks like them, loves like them, or comes from a background like theirs on Olympic ice and snow. That moment of recognition matters. It’s often the first spark of belief: Maybe I belong there too. That belief is why my company exists—to make it clear that you do.
It’s also important to mention that just as many “firsts” exist in the Paralympics, which begin immediately after the Olympics—and I highly recommend tuning in.
We recently learned that ICE is also going to Milan with Team USA—which as an Olympic fan, fills me with embarrassment during a time I’d normally be feeling a rare moment of national pride. Does that change the viewing experience for you at all?
ICE traveling with the U.S. delegation is fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the Olympic Games, a hollow stunt of performative power. While hidden under the guise of ‘protection’, this move reads less as a safety measure and more as a PR maneuver—an attempt by the Trump administration to reclaim international relevance and authority at a moment when the US is increasingly isolated and losing credibility. Coming on the heels of Davos, where international leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled clear resistance to Trump’s agenda, ICE’s presence is an attempt to project strength at a time when US influence has clearly decayed.
Outside the US, the context is very clear: ICE is not relevant, nor wanted. The International Olympic Committee has said their presence is ‘distracting and sad.’ The Mayor of Milan explicitly said they are not welcome. Since the announcement of their presence, several organizations have moved to disassociate from the word “ICE.” The Milan hospitality suite, once called the “Ice House” has already been renamed.
[But their presence] reinforces why the athletes’ stories—and their humanity—matter even more. The athletes are showing up to compete after lifetimes of work. This is about them. Their journeys. Many come from immigrant families, from underrepresented communities, from places where sport was their pathway to opportunity. The geopolitical backdrop is real, but what I see up close is athletes trying to hold onto the purity of why they do this in the first place.
A Bigger, Badder, Bunnier Bowl
  February 5, 2026 Hey there Meteor readers, Nona and I both woke up this morning with fevers and intense cases of the daycare schmutz. So this newsletter is brought to you by Tylenol, Ricola, and some nasty-ass ginger tea.  Today, we’re going full Sporty Spice with some emotional prep for Bad Bunny’s halftime performance this weekend. Plus three questions about what athletes are facing at the Winter Olympics. Achoo 🤧, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONDomingo Gigante: Last weekend, during his Grammy acceptance speech for Album of the Year, Bad Bunny opened with a vastly underappreciated line: “Puerto Rico, créeme cuando te digo que somos mucho más grandes que 100 por 35.” If you haven’t gotten your Duolingo minutes in today, that’s “Believe me when I tell you, we’re so much bigger than 100x35,” which are the land measurements of Puerto Rico’s main island. The rest of his message, delivered mostly in Spanish, touched on perseverance. But the idea of being bigger is what’s stayed with me these last few days, particularly in a political moment where the best thing anyone can be is unseen. Unseen by ICE agents lingering in train stations. Unseen by trigger-happy police officers. Unseen by right-wing extremists. Stepping out of my house every day, my greatest desire is for my family to go completely unnoticed and make it back safely. But throughout his career, Bad Bunny has defied the idea of being small, of asking permission to enter a space as his authentic self. He just shows up. He simply is, and he does it loudly, boldly, and sometimes in a fabulous gown. He’s done so in a way that his musical forefathers—DY, Marc Anthony, Tego Calderon—never could because they were either trapped in the Latin music gilded cage, or chose to avoid politics until much later in life. For all their fame, they were also kept smaller by (mostly) American audiences and an industry that sees Latin music and people as separate from the American identity. But in the words of another great, Residente, “América no es solo USA, papá.”  HOW WE'RE ALL ABOUT TO BE SMILING THIS SUNDAY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Of course, the ability to make yourself more or less visible is rooted in privilege. White and light-skinned artists can take a step back *cough* JLo *cough* in a way that protects them from the ire of entire administrations. After all, Turning Point wasn’t running counter programming in 2020 when JLo and Shakira headlined the halftime show. Conservatives did, however, have a ton to say after Kendrick Lamar’s performance last year. (I guess a Black, California-born Pulitzer Prize winner just isn’t American enough?) And despite making no noise over Green Day, who are performing on Sunday as well and have an entire album devoted to political criticism, conservatives have been spending the last few months proselytizing about how un-American it is to have a Spanish-language artist take center stage at the Super Bowl. (Let’s all be honest with ourselves for a minute, y'all don’t want most of these songs translated. I promise you chocha is not going to hit the same in English.) Which is why Bad Bunny’s choice to use his privilege to step into the fray rather than avoid it is so important. His pride is not a performance piece he takes on and off when the mood suits—and that kind of authenticity encourages others to walk in pride. It’s bigger than a 15-minute set we won’t remember a year from now. It’s bigger than 100x35. It’s a call to know who you are—your history, your symbols, your land, your people—and to stand tall, whether or not you are acceptable to the powers that be. Especially when you’re not. AND (promise a sports break):
 PENNY THE DOBERMAN PINSCHER, THIS YEAR'S BEST IN SHOW. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)  Three Questions About...This Year's Winter OlympicsThe trailblazers to watch and the ICE of it all.BY SHANNON MELERO  LAILA EDWARDS (FRONT, BLUE) AND TEAM USA HOCKEY FACED OFF AGAINST CZECHIA THIS WEEK, AND SECURED THEIR FIRST WIN OF THE GAMES. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Jamie Mittleman has the kind of job that, if it were explained in a Netflix rom-com, would sound entirely made up: She talks to Olympic and Paralympic athletes all day. Fine, it’s more than that; she’s the CEO and founder of Flame Bearers, a media company centered around women Olympians and their stories. But the fun part of her job is working with athletes and traveling to the Games. The summer Olympics usually get all of the shine, but this year, the roster for Team USA is, as I think the kids say, bussin’. Two-time gold medalist Chloe Kim is back chasing a third podium. Figure skater Alysa Liu is out of retirement at the ripe old age of 22 and skating better than ever. Lindsey Vonn plans to compete on a totally destroyed ACL (girl, please don’t do that) and, of course, we’re all ready to get our Heated Rivalry on and cheer for the women’s ice hockey team captained by the incomparable Hilary Knight. Ahead of her travels to the Milan/Cortina Olympics, Mittleman took some time to talk to us non-Olympians about what to expect. The Olympics have always had political undertones. As someone working closely with so many women athletes ahead of Milan/Cortina, are there themes you’re seeing pop up? A major theme I’m hearing from athletes is access. Who gets into winter sports? Who can afford it? Who sees themselves in it? Winter sports remain some of the least diverse athletic spaces in the world, and athletes are acutely aware of that. They talk about the cost of equipment – how expensive is a ski pass? Hockey gear? A bobsled? [Plus] the lack of local facilities. Do they have to drive to get to the track? What if they don’t have a car? Nobody from my community competes in this sport…and how all of these compound over time. There’s also a strong thread of athletes wanting to use their visibility to widen the doorway for the next generation. I’ve now worked with just shy of 400 Olympians and Paralympians from 55 countries, and many are navigating being “firsts” in their sport—first from their country, first openly queer, first Black athlete in their discipline. They’re proud, but they’re also very aware of the weight of representation they carry. It’s a privilege, but it’s also a responsibility they didn’t necessarily sign up for. Speaking of firsts, Team USA has two major ones on the roster this year with Amber Glenn, the team’s first openly queer figure skater, and Laila Edwards, the first Black woman to play ice hockey for the U.S. What are you hoping viewers can take from watching them compete?  EDWARDS AT A WELCOME EVENT IN MILAN MAKING BLACK HISTORY DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) Seeing Amber Glenn and Laila Edwards on this stage matters far beyond medals. I hope young viewers see that there is no single mold for who belongs in sport. In her "Making It To Milan" interview, Hilary Knight mentioned, "There is a place for everyone in sport.” You can be openly queer and compete at the highest level. You can be a Black woman in a sport that has historically excluded you. You don’t have to shrink yourself to fit into a system. For many young people watching, this may be the first time they see someone who looks like them, loves like them, or comes from a background like theirs on Olympic ice and snow. That moment of recognition matters. It’s often the first spark of belief: Maybe I belong there too. That belief is why my company exists—to make it clear that you do. It’s also important to mention that just as many “firsts” exist in the Paralympics, which begin immediately after the Olympics—and I highly recommend tuning in. We recently learned that ICE is also going to Milan with Team USA—which as an Olympic fan, fills me with embarrassment during a time I’d normally be feeling a rare moment of national pride. Does that change the viewing experience for you at all? ICE traveling with the U.S. delegation is fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the Olympic Games, a hollow stunt of performative power. While hidden under the guise of ‘protection’, this move reads less as a safety measure and more as a PR maneuver—an attempt by the Trump administration to reclaim international relevance and authority at a moment when the US is increasingly isolated and losing credibility. Coming on the heels of Davos, where international leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled clear resistance to Trump’s agenda, ICE’s presence is an attempt to project strength at a time when US influence has clearly decayed. Outside the US, the context is very clear: ICE is not relevant, nor wanted. The International Olympic Committee has said their presence is ‘distracting and sad.’ The Mayor of Milan explicitly said they are not welcome. Since the announcement of their presence, several organizations have moved to disassociate from the word “ICE.” The Milan hospitality suite, once called the “Ice House” has already been renamed. [But their presence] reinforces why the athletes’ stories—and their humanity—matter even more. The athletes are showing up to compete after lifetimes of work. This is about them. Their journeys. Many come from immigrant families, from underrepresented communities, from places where sport was their pathway to opportunity. The geopolitical backdrop is real, but what I see up close is athletes trying to hold onto the purity of why they do this in the first place. You can listen to Flame Bearers' full Making it to Milan series here.  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
The Formula for Equal Parenting
  February 3, 2026 Greetings, Meteor readers, I made croissants this weekend. From scratch. I’m not saying that I’m better than y’all now, but I am typing this with my nose up a little higher than usual.  In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz upsets all the granola moms. But before that, we take a look at the DOJ’s latest blunder. Butter fingers, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON“Indefensible”: Like manna from the depths of hell, another bundle of Epstein files was released to the public last Friday, six weeks later than promised. The drop included millions of documents and redactions to the nth degree, but as we quickly learned, not everyone got the same level of black-box protection. The New York Times first reported that the DOJ published several images of naked women, some of whom may have been teenagers, while covering the faces of Donald Trump and other unnamed men who are seen in photos with well-known figures (Steve Tisch, Elon Musk, and Casey Wasserman, to name a few). As ABC News reported over the weekend, names of and identifying information about victims that had not previously been made public were also exposed in this drop. The images were later corrected after the Times alerted the DOJ to the errors. But, for those whose names and identifying information were left unredacted for hours on Friday, the damage had already been done. Lawyers representing over 200 accusers requested that the documents be taken down altogether so the DOJ could redact the documents properly. Another group of survivors released a statement, which reads in part, “This is a betrayal of the very people this process is supposed to serve. The scale of this failure is staggering and indefensible.” It couldn’t be any clearer who the DOJ truly wants to protect, which is probably why survivors are calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer for these failures when she appears before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11. What happens now? According to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, “There’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him,” he said, “but that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody.” He also added that with the release, everyone could check the documents themselves and “see if we got it right.” My law degree from the academy of Dick Wolf Productions doesn’t exactly qualify me to double-check the work of the Department of Justice, but it’s safe to say that telling victims to DIY their own cases against the richest and most powerful men in the country is a non-starter. Meanwhile, Bill (who appears in several photos in the latest files) and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee. It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one if, after their testimony, the DOJ suddenly decides prosecuting Trump’s biggest enemy is a top priority. AND:
 A Feminist Love Letter to Baby FormulaIs it the key to a more equitable partnership? The Meteor’s Nona Willis Aronowitz makes the caseBY CINDI LEIVE  NONA'S PARTNER, DOM, AND THEIR TWO CHILDREN. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR) Two days ago, in The New York Times, my colleague Nona tossed a lovingly crafted, deeply researched grenade into one of the more passionately held beliefs about parenting: that breast is best. The title of her piece, “The Secret to Marriage Equality is Formula,” argues exactly that, but it goes further—Nona argues that formula (often a source of raised eyebrows in feminist circles for some very good reasons) can also be the secret to less stress and happier parenting for women in or out of partnerships. The piece struck such a nerve that the comment section is now closed. But after breast-feeding two babies myself, and feeling guilty whenever I used formula, I had questions. First off, for those who didn't read the piece, how did you personally discover that the secret to marriage equality is baby formula? I discovered this the hard way. The first time around, with my daughter Dorie, I breastfed because it seemed like the default: Everybody assumes that if you can breastfeed, you should breastfeed. While breastfeeding was a very nice way to bond, the experience was also very intense: It led me to desperately want to control the feeding realm. I was learning so much about her, which led me to push my partner, Dom, out of the space (he didn’t exactly argue—socialization runs deep!). Meanwhile, I was sleep-deprived, isolated, and resentful. I felt like I hadn’t signed up for being Mom-In-Chief with a hapless underling as a co-parent. My husband and I fought constantly, which wasn’t good for any of us, including the baby. So, when we had a second daughter, Pearl, we figured we should try to prioritize equality, even if it undermined breastfeeding. It seemed like a small price to pay for a harmonious experience, and for my baby to genuinely have a wonderful bond with her father from the get-go. And you know what? It worked almost instantly. I breastfed exclusively for two weeks just to establish breastfeeding, and it was like PTSD—all of the bad feelings came flooding back. But as soon as we started introducing formula and Dom started doing overnight feeds, the vibe in our household totally changed.I felt so much closer to him, I felt so much happier to see my baby in the morning, and he really learned Pearl in a way that he didn't learn Dorie until she was a toddler. As we used more formula and bottles, he was just as good at soothing the baby as me. The comments on your piece are copious and mostly very positive, from women saying thank you, we should have options. There were two other strains of responses I wanted to ask you about. First, from people who say: Just pump! And second, from people noting that the scientific evidence shows that breastfeeding is medically superior. Let’s start with the idea that pumping breast milk could solve the equal parenting issue.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
A Feminist Love Letter to Baby Formula
Is it the key to a more equitable partnership? The Meteor’s Nona Willis Aronowitz makes the case
By Cindi Leive
Two days ago, in The New York Times, my colleague Nona tossed a lovingly crafted, deeply researched grenade into one of the more passionately held beliefs about parenting: that breast is best. The title of her piece, “The Secret to Marriage Equality is Formula,” argues exactly that, but it goes further—Nona argues that formula (often a source of raised eyebrows in feminist circles for some very good reasons) can also be the secret to less stress and happier parenting for women in or out of partnerships.
The piece struck such a nerve that the comment section is now closed. But after breastfeeding two babies myself, and feeling guilty whenever I used formula, I had questions.
First off, for those who didn't read the piece, how did you personally discover that the secret to marriage equality is baby formula?
I discovered this the hard way. The first time around, with my daughter Dorie, I breastfed because it seemed like the default: Everybody assumes that if you can breastfeed, you should breastfeed. While breastfeeding was a very nice way to bond, the experience was also very intense: It led me to desperately want to control the feeding realm. I was learning so much about her, which led me to push my partner, Dom, out of the space (he didn’t exactly argue—socialization runs deep!). Meanwhile, I was sleep-deprived, isolated, and resentful. I felt like I hadn’t signed up for being Mom-In-Chief with a hapless underling as a co-parent. My husband and I fought constantly, which wasn’t good for any of us, including the baby.
So, when we had a second daughter, Pearl, we figured we should try to prioritize equality, even if it undermined breastfeeding.
It seemed like a small price to pay for a harmonious experience, and for my baby to genuinely have a wonderful bond with her father from the get-go. And you know what? It worked almost instantly. I breastfed exclusively for two weeks just to establish breastfeeding, and it was like PTSD—all of the bad feelings came flooding back. But as soon as we started introducing formula and Dom started doing overnight feeds, the vibe in our household totally changed.
I felt so much closer to him, I felt so much happier to see my baby in the morning, and he really learned Pearl in a way that he didn't learn Dorie until she was a toddler. As we used more formula and bottles, he was just as good at soothing the baby as me.
The comments on your piece are copious and mostly very positive, from women saying thank you, we should have options. There were two other strains of responses I wanted to ask you about. First, from people who say: Just pump! And second, from people noting that the scientific evidence shows that breastfeeding is medically superior. Let’s start with the idea that pumping breast milk could solve the equal parenting issue.
Pumping is not the same as formula! First of all, it involves joyless labor from the lactating parent—time I could be spending with my baby or my older child. It also still creates that executive/employee dynamic, where I give my husband this precious breast milk that he better not waste. He once likened it to borrowing the company car and being told to return it without a scratch on it. Pumped breastmilk isn’t a total responsibility transfer.
One of the most revelatory findings of my research was a 2009 piece by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker that questioned our society’s promotion of breast pumps. “Should I take three twenty-minute pumping ‘breaks’ during my workday, or use formula and get home to my baby an hour earlier?” she asks pointedly. When we tell women to obsessively focus on the liquid itself rather than ways to better bond with their babies, it’s a Pyrrhic victory.
[She also writes] that many of the proven benefits of breastfeeding are social and emotional (“smiling and cuddling”), rather than nutritional. Which brings me to your second question: The medical benefits of breastfeeding are often overstated. The data shows that there are immune benefits [over] formula in the newborn stage, but they amount to, like, one fewer ear infection a year or slightly fewer GI issues. As economist Emily Oster puts it, these benefits are “real, but modest,” and some advertised benefits, like a higher IQ or protection from obesity, are more about correlation than causation: People who can breastfeed are wealthier and more educated. They often have more time off. There's all sorts of other factors affecting their babies’ lives that have nothing to do with the nutritional makeup of their breast milk.
Your column wasn’t about politics, but as you’ve noted, this is a political subject. RFK Jr.'s MAHA program has included breastfeeding as an official recommendation and been quite derogatory about the insufficiency of formula. So the government is encouraging women to breastfeed based on what you’re saying is insufficient medical data. Why do you think they are doing that and why was this an important column to write right now?
First of all, exclusive breastfeeding requires maternity leave. We don't have guaranteed paid maternity leave in this country, so asking any woman to exclusively breastfeed is implying that she shouldn't work. So let's get that out of the way. But there's this deeper assumption that women will sacrifice anything—their mental health, their career opportunities, their marriage, their sleep—for their baby. So even if there is a slight benefit to the nutritional makeup of breast milk, that still doesn’t justify pushing women this hard to breastfeed. It puts a huge amount of stress on a lot of women. And I think the message of the MAHA movement is, “You should prioritize your family, your baby. And if that means you can't work or have any time for yourself, well, that's just your role as a woman.” It couldn't be more clear.
Furthermore, the contrast between all the information we get about breastfeeding and the dearth of information we get about equal parenting—which upwards of 85 percent of parents claim they support—is one of the most insidious forms of sexism I can think of. All these parents are saying they want to split the load, and yet there's very little guidance on how to do that, which leaves it up to individuals (very sleep-deprived individuals) to figure it out. Before we had children, my partner and I agreed on a feminist partnership in broad terms, but we didn't talk about what that would look like day-to-day when we had a baby. We just assumed that I would breastfeed unless it didn't work. I didn't even know the term combo-feeding at the time. It would have been great to discuss this before the newborn scrum.
This could even start during the two-day period after birth, when experts are coming in and out of your room every few minutes. A lactation consultant or somebody else should also be educated on how to administer formula and why. I asked a lactation consultant a couple of months after Dorie’s birth, when breastfeeding was killing me, "How do I introduce formula while still breastfeeding?" And she clutched her pearls and said, "Oh, I don't know anything about that. You're gonna have to refer to the CDC website." The American Academy of Pediatrics has a lot to say about breastfeeding; they should also have information about formula and its benefits to families. And there should be more studies commissioned about combo-feeding—I found, like, two studies about it, as opposed to approximately one million studies about breastfeeding.
After your column came out, one of our colleagues, who had breastfed her child for two and a half years and was a self-described “breast is best” advocate—said that she felt you had unintentionally, but effectively, read her to filth.
[Laughs] That was absolutely not my intention. There can be lots of benefits to breastfeeding, and if you enjoy it, then by all means, do it. What I would like is for people to go into the very hard work of breastfeeding with their eyes open, knowing that this will likely impede domestic parity. It's just a fact. Some women (like our friend) may choose to exclusively breastfeed, anyway, because they want to. But if equal parenting is a priority for you, I invite you to consider other options—without shame or guilt.
She Fled Fear—and Found It Here
A woman who escaped danger in Afghanistan reflects on what life is like under ICE.
By Lima Halima-Khalil
I drop my three-year-old daughter off at library classes every morning. The library is two minutes from our home in Ashburn, Virginia. Each time, the same thought crosses my mind: Do I have my ID on me? Will my driver’s license be enough if I am stopped?
It is highly unlikely that I will encounter ICE on a two-minute drive to the library. Ashburn isn’t exactly an ICE hub. And yet my fear is constant, embodied, and real. And by the way, I am an American citizen.
I grew up believing America was a mighty country, one so powerful that the rest of the world stood intimidated by its strength. When I first came to the United States in 2006 for an education program from Afghanistan, a country still at war, the vastness of this place revealed itself not only in its size, but in the generosity of the people I met. After that, America became a place I always returned to. I have been part of the American education system since 2010, returning several times for various degrees. I’ve witnessed multiple presidential elections and participated in the most recent one as an American citizen myself.
But after all these years, one lesson about my new home stands out above the rest: This country is led, shaped, and sustained by fear. Outside this country, nations tremble at the military and economic power of the United States, but inside it, people live as though danger is always lurking.
Fear raises money and sustains campaigns. Fear keeps people glued to screens and locked into cycles of outrage. Fear sells guns, justifies surveillance, expands borders and prisons. Much of this fear is not grounded in lived reality but manufactured and amplified by politicians who rely on it to govern. Fear spills into kitchens, sidewalks, classrooms, and moments meant to be ordinary and human.
One of the most brutal tools in this ecosystem right now is ICE. Raids, detentions, and aggressive enforcement practices operate not simply as immigration policy, but as a mechanism of fear, reminding entire communities that their sense of belonging is fragile and conditional. ICE does not need to be everywhere to be effective. The possibility of its presence is enough.
This pervasive fear turns ordinary routines into sites of anxiety. I remember hesitating before offering to share our Thanksgiving meal with our nosy white neighbor, suddenly gripped by thoughts I never imagined I would carry. What if he calls the police on us and claims I was trying to poison him? What if kindness itself is misread as a threat, or hospitality as danger?
Afghans discovered how quickly they could become the “other,” regardless of their sacrifices, their loyalty, and their love for this country.
I recognize these impulses, because fear is not new to me. I lost my school, my home, my loved ones, and eventually my country because I wanted freedom from fear. Millions of Afghans had believed in democracy when America promised it to us for 20 years, until the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. We voted, we hoped, we worked alongside our American partners for a shared dream, but that freedom never came. In 2020, when my 24-year-old sister was killed by the Taliban in an IED attack in her car, that truth became undeniable. I understood then that Afghanistan was no longer safe, and that realization is what led me to come to the United States permanently.
When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, many Afghans, including members of my own family, were evacuated and brought into this country by our American allies. They arrived in this country under extremely harsh circumstances, believing they would find dignity, safety, and a chance to contribute. Instead, they discovered how quickly they could become the “other,” regardless of their sacrifices, their loyalty, and their love for this country.
I was reminded of this again in November of last year, after a man from Afghanistan, who had been trained and worked for the CIA in his country, shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Overnight, an entire community began to be seen, once again, as terrorists. Instead of a careful and humane conversation about mental health, trauma, or resettlement failures, the Trump administration halted all immigration from Afghanistan and pledged to re-examine green card holders from 19 countries. Afghans, many of whom fled the very forces America claims to oppose, were once again forced to prove their innocence.
This is how fear functions. It identifies a moment of tragedy, strips it of context, assigns collective guilt, and converts pain into political currency.
For a long time, I believed that fear in this country belonged primarily to people of color, that violence was uneven, predictable, and racialized. Then the killings of Renée Good and later Alex Pretti shattered that belief. They forced a painful realization that in today’s America, no one is safe, not five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, not women citizens like Dulce Consuelo Díaz Morales and Nasra Ahmed, not elderly citizens like Scott Thao or longtime residents like Harjit Kaur, not white Americans, either.
Lately, I have felt fear settle into my own body in a way I did not expect. I realized I had been going to sleep holding fear, living with the same quiet dread that so many people here carry without ever naming it. One night, I caught myself thinking, almost with disbelief: Congratulations, Lima, you are an American now.
But it does not have to be this way. Americans deserve more than this constant weight of dread, clinging to them like a second skin. We deserve a country where fear is not the engine that keeps the system running, where safety is not promised to some by threatening others, and where power is not sustained by keeping people afraid.
Lima Halima-Khalil, Ph.D., is the program director of the “I Stand With You” campaign at ArtLords, a collective she co-founded, where she mobilizes global awareness against gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Her research explores youth resilience amid violence and displacement. Her writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, TRT World, and academic publications.
Party Like It's 1946
  January 29, 2026 Salutations, Meteor readers, I’m in my nerd-girl history bag today—let’s get to it! Ahead of a planned general strike tomorrow, we take a look at civic actions of yesteryear and what we can learn from them now. Plus, Rebecca Carroll on Broadway’s “Liberation.” On the picket line, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONShut it down: Tomorrow, activist groups, student associations, labor unions, businesses, and regular people across the country will be protesting ICE by staging a national shutdown via a general strike: “no school, no work, and no shopping.” Leftists and even some establishment Democrats have long yearned for a sweeping general strike, and the impact of Minneapolis’s version last week has made the prospect seem more possible. But many who’ve lost hope may be wondering: How can anyone pull this off? Do these things even work? You don’t have to look too far back to answer those questions. We saw the power of a general strike in Puerto Rico in 2019 when the people ousted a corrupt governor. In 2024, South Koreans held a general strike as a direct response to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law. But the last time the U.S. mainland truly saw general strikes grind businesses to a screeching halt was in 1946. It was known as the greatest wave of strikes in American history, with over 4 million workers withholding labor in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, and California. The workers demanded better pay, safer working conditions, and an end to unfavorable union deals that came as a result of post-war economic policies. Entire industries were brought to their knees.  THE YEAR OF THE STRIKE, WHICH FIRST CAME TO LIFE AT THE END OF 1945, IMPACTED WORKERS ACROSS INDUSTRIES. IN NEW YORK, WORKERS WENT ON STRIKE IN JANUARY FOR FAIR WAGES FROM WESTERN UNION. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) The largest general strike that year happened in Oakland, California—and it was kicked off by a small group of determined women. During World War II, to replace men who had been enlisted, women took union jobs in shipyards and factories. But when the war ended in 1945, they had to give up those jobs for returning soldiers. Women who wanted or needed to continue working ended up in retail, where there were no unions and few labor protections. At Kahn’s Department store, workers were forced to endure a demoralizing “Ready Room,” where on-call workers would spend unpaid hours waiting for work that sometimes never came. In October of that year, women (and some men) retail workers organized a strike that was 400 strong. After violent face-offs with the police, the strike ballooned to more than 100,000 workers from various industries, effectively shutting down a major city for two days. The bars were allowed to stay open, on the condition that they put their juke boxes on the sidewalk to play for no charge; the hit song “Pistol Packin’ Mama, Lay That Pistol Down” filled the streets. “People who worked throughout the War had been taking all this crap from employers in the name of the war effort,” Stan Weir, who was an organizer for the United Auto Workers at the time and joined the strike in Oakland, recalled in a 1990 interview. It was “that kind of phony patriotism, instead of real patriotism.” (It’s a distinction worth revisiting in an era when some people define “patriotism” as weaponizing fear, white nationalism, and violence.) The government was so shaken by the events of 1946 that the following year, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which severely limited unions’ abilities to authorize general strikes. Meanwhile, the Oakland women were beaten, mocked, and ignored. But they kept going, and in May 1947, after what probably felt like months of hopelessness, Retail Clerks Local 1265 was recognized. The general strike they inspired in their city changed the course of history. So, could a mass shutdown on Friday really change anything? The proof is in the past. AND:
  What If We Centered Black Women in the Story of “Liberation”?A conversation with the women behind the Broadway playBY REBECCA CARROLL  CARROLL IN CONVERSATION WITH THE STARS OF "LIBERATION" AND GLORIA STEINEM. (COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR) Bess Wohl’s critically acclaimed play “Liberation” will take its final bow this Sunday. The Broadway show is a nuanced retelling of the feminist movement through the lens of an unnamed adult daughter seeking to understand her late mother, Lizzie, a journalist in 1970s Ohio. Lizzie (Susannah Flood plays both mother and daughter) is white, of course; stories from the feminist movement seem to almost always center white women. To Wohl’s credit, the play includes a few clear nods to the historical exclusion of Black women from the movement. There are two Black characters: Celeste (Kristolyn Lloyd), a book editor who is part of Lizzie’s consciousness-raising group, and Joanne (Kayla Davion), a working mother who is very much not part of the group. Still, these two Black women are pitted against each other in a key moment, wherein Joanne questions Celeste’s motivations for being part of the all-white women’s group. The scene concludes with Lizzie bringing it back to herself. I wanted to talk about it all, so, along with my colleagues at The Meteor and the extraordinary support of feminist icon Gloria Steinem, I moderated a talkback with Lloyd, Davion, Wohl, and much of the cast at Steinem’s home in Manhattan. On what feminism means to them: Davion: It’s about the confidence in my own skin…What does it mean to be alive? I can't talk about being alive without mentioning feminism. Wohl: I love what you just said, Kayla…as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to wonder how big can the definition of feminism be without losing meaning. How expansive can we make it? On why it’s so hard for Black women and white women to do feminism together: Davion: I code switch. Like, every day. So that means that I can’t live in the fullness of myself. [It’s often said or implied that] I should be doing something else, that there’s a more professional way of doing things, that my hair should be a specific way. But what does that have to do with the things that I have to say as the person that I am? I feel like we haven’t come into the real understanding of acceptance, because there’s still this idea of what it looks like to be a modern-day woman. Lloyd: The system allows for women who are not Black to experience much more ease. When it actually comes to fighting the fight and getting uncomfortable, they don’t know how. On how the actors approached their roles: Davion (who plays a white woman, Lizzie’s mother, in one scene): I was terrified…As a Black woman, knowing that this audience is about to watch me transform into a white woman, the first thing I'm thinking of is ‘I don’t wanna be targeted.’ I don't want people to think, ‘Why is this Black girl doing this?’ And for Black people, I don’t want them to look at me and be like, ‘Now Kayla, why?’ Lloyd (who grew up in a predominantly white community): On occasion, it does feel like a re-traumatization…[I’ve] been in therapy for healing from having to be in all-white spaces, and then [I] have to be the only one in this all-white space on stage telling the story of this woman who I don't imagine in New York spends much time in all-white spaces. She’s also being re-traumatized being back in Ohio, where she has to be closeted [as a lesbian] and there's no other group for her to express herself in. So, I find that I am able to pull on old feelings, which is why my ritual for getting out of Celeste is very specific. At the end of every show, I have to shower the smell of Celeste off. Before we go into the show, I tell myself: ‘You’re not a race traitor. Some woman out there is gonna be liberated because she sees you.’ There is something you have to turn on as a Black woman, and kind of, like, lower down when you’re in that space…these women are not gonna be able to meet you where you’re at. They just don't know your experience. They don’t have your skin.  WEEKEND READING 📚On the needles: Resistance knitting is back. (Slate) On (not) all women: Dayna Tortorici digs into feminism’s 200-year-old history of infighting. (n+1) On human rights: The Taliban outlawed all forms of birth control in Afghanistan. Women are being “broken” by pregnancies and untreated miscarriages. (The Guardian)  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Doctors and Nurses vs. ICE
  January 27, 2026 Hey there, Meteor readers, The ice outside my door is so thick, I could probably skate on it if I really tried. But considering everything going on in the world, that’s not the worst thing to see in the morning.  WNBA STAR AND UNRIVALED CO-FOUNDER BREANNA STEWART. (SCREENSHOT VIA INSTAGRAM). In today’s newsletter, Dr. Heather Irobunda helps us understand what healthcare providers are feeling right now. Plus, the next general strike is coming. Throwing salt, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONFighting for our health: “There’s this thought that our scrubs—our professions—would protect us,” says Dr. Heather Irobunda, a New York-based OB/GYN and reproductive rights advocate. To see Alex Pretti “shot like that was very jarring for our field.” Pretti, an ICU nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis who was murdered by federal agents on Saturday, has sparked action across the country. His killing—much like the killings of Renee Good, Keith Porter, and Silverio Villegas Gonzelez—has reminded us that everyone is unsafe as long as ICE and CBP agents are allowed to operate unchecked. While activists have long been raising the alarms about ICE’s unmitigated cruelty, Pretti’s status as a nurse has added a new dimension to the conversation. The medical field has come out strongly against Alex Pretti’s killing, emphasizing nurses’ roles as guardians of the vulnerable. (The Washington State Nurses Association pointed out a germane directive in The Code of Ethics for Nurses: “Where there are human rights violations, nurses ought to and must stand up for those rights and demand accountability.”) It’s hard to continue defending agents once they’ve murdered a caretaker who, in his last act on earth, was trying to shield someone from pepper spray. Is that not the kind of person—the kind of man—we ask our children to work toward becoming?  PROTESTORS IN MINNEAPOLIS THIS WEEK (VIA GETTY IMAGES) For those in the medical field, ICE’s increased presence isn’t just a question of morality or policy; it’s a threat to public health. On one level, Dr. Irobunda says, the connection is extremely straightforward. “One of the biggest markers of health is mortality,” she says. “They are killing people in the streets.” And there’s a ripple effect. Dr. Irobunda shares that one of her patients, a pregnant woman with gestational diabetes, lost her husband to deportation. He was the primary breadwinner, and when he was arrested, she couldn’t afford food and was eating only rice and plantain for days at a time. More than likely, her child will have diabetes at birth. Patients are also skipping appointments—including, as reporting from The 19th highlights, crucial prenatal care—for fear of being arrested on their way to the doctor or hospital. In Dr. Irobunda’s neighborhood hospital in Queens, ICE agents “routinely hang out down the street,” she says. ICE isn’t just looking to arrest patients, but also doctors and nurses with visas or permanent residence, who are “scared to come to work, too.” She explains that due to a shortage of healthcare workers in the U.S., doctors have been traveling from other countries to treat patients. But issues with visa delays and concerns over ICE have made getting doctors into hospitals that much harder. Despite the dangers, the medical community has been incredibly vocal about the health implications of ICE’s scare tactics. Just last month, healthcare workers staged a protest outside an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon. Doctors have also accused ICE of medical neglect for people in detention—a plausible accusation considering that in both the Good and Pretti killings, ICE blocked medical personnel from the scene.  PROTESTORS IN OREGON "EXERCISING" THEIR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OUTSIDE OF AN ICE FACILITY. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) “A lot of us were taught that this is an apolitical job,” Dr. Irobunda says. “In an ideal society where everybody's treated equally and getting what they need, we wouldn't have to be political.” But in a system where policy can have the power to change health outcomes for millions, Dr. Irobunda says, “we have to be involved. No one’s safe unless we’re all safe.” AND:
 THE SMILE OF A WINNER ON AND OFF THE FIELD (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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What activists knew when Roe was decided
  January 22, 2026 Hi, lovely Meteor readers, Today is one of my closest friends’ birthdays, a balm upon a far more bittersweet milestone: the 53rd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s now-overturned decision in Roe v. Wade. At least there’s birthday cake.  Today, we hear from early pro-choice activists on what it felt like that day when Roe was decided (hint: it’s complicated). Plus, some historic Oscar nominations and your weekend entertainment. Stuffing my face, Nona Willis Aronowitz  WHAT'S GOING ONHope and fear: Fifty-three years ago today, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision. In a 7 to 2 vote, the justices struck down state abortion bans, replacing them with detailed national guidelines based on weeks of pregnancy. Bending to the groundswell of the women’s movement, four states—Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Washington—had already repealed their abortion bans, and 13 others had expanded exceptions. But Roe made the right to abortion, based on the constitutional right to privacy, protected everywhere. What was that moment like for women active in the movement? In a post-Roe world, it’s easy to imagine that it was a day of unequivocal joy. I was curious, so I sought out some women who remember it clearly—and discovered that the truth is far more complicated. Yes, there was relief. Heather Booth, who’d started an underground abortion service called The Jane Collective eight years before when she was a student at the University of Chicago, remembers thinking: “FINALLY!” After nearly a decade of abortion advocacy, “the fear, hardship and danger for women who wanted to end an unwanted pregnancy would be addressed.” Dr. Wendy Chavkin, who’d occasionally lent the Janes her Chicago apartment and had organized travel for women to get abortions in New York, recalls the period after Roe as “heady days.” She and her fellow student activists felt “hope, determination and a big vision that saw links between gender and racial discrimination.” Shortly after the decision, she became a counselor at the first legal clinic in Detroit and eventually went to medical school to become an abortion provider herself.  WE GOTTA BRING BACK “FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND.” CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES But many feminists were wary of the meticulous pregnancy timetable the Supreme Court had laid out. “I saw it as a serious compromise,” says Carol Giardina, an early member of the women’s liberation movement in Gainesville, Florida, who recalls referring girls in her freshman dorm to abortionists back in 1963. Although the decision did represent “a mighty win for organized feminism-people power,” she says, her cohort had been “fighting like tigers for repeal of any and all laws on abortion.” That demand, remembers Alix Kates Shulman, radical feminist and author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, sprung out of the worry that “any law would contain restrictions on full reproductive freedom and be vulnerable to constant attack. Which is precisely what happened.” Several women referred me to abortion activist and Redstockings member Lucinda Cisler’s 1970 essay in the feminist journal Notes From the Second Year. States were beginning to introduce laws that legalized abortion, but with exceptions—which, Cisler warned, “can buy off most middle-class women and make them believe things have really changed, while it leaves poor women to suffer and keeps us all saddled with abortion laws for many more years to come.” The only option, she argued, was total abolition of laws restricting abortion. And then there were the women who had other things on their minds. “I’m sorry to say I shrugged at Roe,” says Loretta Ross, who went on to be cofounder of SisterSong and one of 12 architects of the theory of reproductive justice, which encompasses far more than the right to abortion. In 1973, Ross was a teenage mother suffering from acute pelvic inflammatory disease as a result of the infamous Dalkon Shield IUD; instead of removing her IUD, a white, male OB/GYN misdiagnosed her for months until her fallopian tubes ruptured and she was forced to undergo sterilization. She’d had a “perfectly safe legal abortion” several years before in Washington, D.C.; “it wasn’t my lived experience to be denied.” So “while other people were celebrating Roe,” she recalls, “I was having the classic experience of a Black woman whose white doctor was deciding she doesn’t need to have any more kids.”  LORETTA ROSS IN 2022. CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES Although she wouldn’t read it until years later, Ross cited a 1973 editorial by the National Council of Negro Women’s Dorothy Height, who sounded a cautionary note about Roe v. Wade and its potential to worsen state control over Black women’s bodies: “We must be ever vigilant that what appears on the surface to be a step forward, does not in fact become yet another fetter or method of enslavement.” Ross’s sterilization led her to file (and win) a lawsuit against Dalkon Shield manufacturer A.H. Robins, and devote her life to bodily autonomy in all forms. If we don't “intersect race, class and gender,” Ross says, we’ll “never understand the full impact of Roe.” In our new landscape, after Dobbs, many activists are starting to come around to the idea that restrictions and exceptions have no place in abortion care. (They’ve succeeded in getting pro-choice states like New York, whose law goes further than Roe, to agree.) These early activists remind us that perhaps our north star shouldn’t be restoring Roe, but to wrest our reproductive justice out of the hands of politicians—and into our own. AND:
 RUTH E. CARTER IN AN EXTREMELY TACTILE PIECE OF CLOTH. CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
 WEEKEND READING, WATCHING, AND LISTENING 📖 👁️ 🔊On a complex heroine: On the occasion of the Roe anniversary, I rewatched “AKA Jane Roe,” a documentary on the case’s plaintiff, Norma McCorvey…and seriously, wow. (FX) On cop-hating: A close read of an uncollected Joan Didion essay asks the question: What made her consign the piece to obscurity? (Dispatches) On heteropessimism: I am embarrassingly late to Heated Rivalry but maybe you are too, and would enjoy Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei discussing the show as an escape from heterosexuality. (Dire Straights)  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Chrissy Teigen on the “sisterhood” women deserve
  January 21, 2026 Dear Meteor readers, We’re coming to you with a treat today—a story about reproductive healthcare that, for once, gives us hope. Tomorrow marks the 53rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. More than half a century later, in a country that no longer grants the freedom that that ruling declared, it’s easy to get mired in the onslaught of harrowing news about our bodies and our lives. But everywhere, there are warriors who keep doing the work of caring for pregnant people, and they are not mired. They are moving forward, every single day. TV personality and best-selling cookbook author Chrissy Teigen has herself helped to humanize reproductive healthcare. She has spoken about her own experience having a lifesaving late-term abortion; visited the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation, a clinic in Georgia, in 2024; and then discussed her experiences with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign. “I started crying once I saw this beautiful mural of butterflies above the operating suite” at the Feminist Center, Teigen told Harris at the time. A doctor there “looked me in the eye and she said, ‘You could have had butterflies.’”  Then, in 2025, The Meteor traveled to Tennessee with Teigen on another visit—one that shows that everyone deserves butterflies, and that you can’t talk about abortion care without talking about maternal care. CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health, a Memphis-based clinic, provides the full spectrum of care for people who can get pregnant. “All pregnancies are different,” says Jennifer Pepper, CEO and president of CHOICES. That’s why the center provides everything from midwife-assisted births to high-risk pregnancy care to prenatal classes—and, since abortion was banned in the state in 2022, abortions at their sister location three hours away in Carbondale, Illinois. (Pepper says CHOICES is the only nonprofit in the country where both birth and abortion take place. And after Dobbs, “we could not stomach the idea that [abortion] patients wouldn’t have anywhere to go,” she says.) Teigen was moved by how the clinic felt so “open and welcoming and airy and light,” with a “sisterhood” that was far from “the coldness” of her own hospital experience. “It never crossed my mind that I could give birth on all fours, or be in a tub at a birthing center,” she said. She saw a better way to give abortion care, too. When Pepper told Teigen she got her start at CHOICES as an abortion doula, Teigen said, “I can’t tell you how much I would have appreciated an abortion doula,” someone to explain “what was happening with my body.” Tennessee also has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the country—and so access to supportive birth care can mean the difference between life and death, particularly for Black women. One Black woman in the prenatal class, Jasmine, recalled a conversation with her doula at CHOICES that started with a heartbreaking wish—“First off, I don’t want to die”—and ended with her having a “beautiful experience” delivering her baby. “Every single woman deserves that level of care in America,” Teigen says. “This is what care looks like—people listening to you, and treating your body and your choices with dignity.” WATCH TEIGEN’S VISIT TO CHOICES HERE: PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/EDITOR: EMILY MURNANE PRODUCED WITH SUPPORT FROM POP CULTURE COLLABORATIVE, AS PART OF THE UNITED STATES OF ABORTION SERIES.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? |
Are women really being “coerced” into abortions?
Greetings, Meteor readers,
It is bitter cold in much of the U.S. due to an Arctic blast, which seems like an appropriate way for Mother Nature to celebrate the first anniversary of Trump 2.0. Keep your fam and friends close this week (and for the next three years), because it’s near-uninhabitable out there.
Today, we’re teaming up with Jessica Valenti—friend of The Meteor and founder of Abortion, Every Day—on a fresh series of videos demystifying anti-abortion speak. Plus, a history-making governorship begins, and a little bit of justice for Tylenol.
Choosing coziness,
Nona Willis Aronowitz
WHAT'S GOING ON
Who’s coercing whom?: How does the term “coerced abortions” make you feel? Sounds horrible, right? Perhaps something an abusive parent or boyfriend would perpetrate against a vulnerable woman? The phrase—crafted to elicit this precise reaction—is the latest bit of lingo anti-abortion extremists are using to make Americans think that abortion hurts women. If it sounds familiar, you may have encountered it in Republican talking points, lawsuits and state laws—or heard conservatives like Sen. Bill Cassidy (R.-La.) and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill mention it just last week during a Senate hearing meant to discredit abortion pills. The pills, Cassidy claimed, go “straight to [an abuser’s] mailbox, no questions asked, and then they coerce the woman to take it … Think of the women, the girls in abusive relationships, being trafficked whose voice is being silent.”
OME ANTI-CHOICE PROTESTERS IN 2022 WIELDING THE LANGUAGE OF COERCION. (CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)
Again: Sounds awful. But in a new edition of our series Anti-Abortion Glossary—in which Abortion, Every Day’s Jessica Valenti unpacks the misleading, misogynist terms used by the anti-abortion movement—Valenti explains that this kind of rhetoric is being specifically used to target doctors who provide abortion medication, or, as in one Louisiana case, a mother who helped her teenage daughter obtain abortion care.
To be clear, some abusers absolutely do force their partners to end a pregnancy. But in a post-Roe world, it is vastly more common that women will be coerced into continuing a pregnancy—either by an abusive partner, or, in the case of abortion bans, by the state itself. In fact, a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that abortion bans worsen intimate partner violence by as much as 10 percent. And sometimes, the government helps: in one case out of Texas, police used 83,000 cameras to track down an abortion patient because her abuser turned her in.
So why are conservatives so obsessed with “abortion coercion” when forced pregnancy is a far greater problem? Valenti’s reporting found that in 2023, anti-abortion leaders pinpointed “coercion” as their most effective tool to justify abortion bans—which, after all, are deeply unpopular with most Americans. “The new Republican message must be clear. No woman should ever be subjected to an unwanted abortion,” advised David Reardon of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America in an opinion piece for The Hill. Valenti sees right through this strategy. “They figured that pretending to care about coercion might make it seem like their laws are protecting women,” Valenti says. “They’re not.”
New episodes of Anti-Abortion Glossary will be dropping every Tuesday on Instagram. Watch here:
AND:
- Speaking of Arctic blasts: Thousands of Greenlanders (a number that constitutes a major chunk of the country’s population) marched in the streets on Saturday to protest Trump’s threat of invading the country. Among the protesters was Tillie Martinussen, a former member of parliament, who’s called the U.S. “greedy” and accused Trump of surrounding himself with “white power people.” The American government “started out as sort of touting themselves as [Greenland’s] friends and allies,” she told EuroNews at the protest. "And now they're just plain out threatening us.”
GREENLANDERS TURNED OUT ON SATURDAY AGAINST TRUMP’S IMPERIALIST PLANS. (CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES)
- Speaking of Arctic blasts: Thousands of Greenlanders (a number that constitutes a major chunk of the country’s population) marched in the streets on Saturday to protest Trump’s threat of invading the country. Among the protesters was Tillie Martinussen, a former member of parliament, who’s called the U.S. “greedy” and accused Trump of surrounding himself with “white power people.” The American government “started out as sort of touting themselves as [Greenland’s] friends and allies,” she told EuroNews at the protest. "And now they're just plain out threatening us.”
- Virginia’s first woman governor, Democrat and former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, was sworn in on Saturday, and she made it her first order of business to repeal her predecessor’s order to cooperate with ICE. “We will focus on the security and safety of all our neighbors,” she promised in her inauguration speech. “And in Virginia, our hardworking, law abiding immigrant neighbors will know that…we mean them, too.” Also sworn in: Ghazala Hashmi, Spanberger’s lieutenant governor, who’s the first Muslim woman ever elected to state office.
- A new scientific study published in the medical journal The Lancet should reassure pregnant women that they need not “tough it out,” as our esteemed president
andTrump recently advised: In a review of more than three dozen studies, the researchers found no link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism.maternal health expert - There’s no such thing as too much Magic Mike, as New Yorkers will soon discover.
- Heads up: a new epithet is spreading on the far-right to describe Renee Good and those close to her. Think we’ll take “organized gangs of wine moms,” please and thank you.
- Still pissed? Allow us to suggest a rage room.
- Prefer to be anesthetized instead? Subscribe to Collier Meyerson’s new Substack, Soothe Operator, a place to “look away from the sun, briefly,” because “it’s important to go soft in order to go even harder.”