Whether it’s entitlement or ignorance or a dangerous combination of both, this kind of cavalier approach to reporting is bound to either directly land someone in jail or provide a motivated prosecutor with the building blocks they need to target someone for ending their pregnancy. That’s how little preparation had been put into asking a stranger: Will you put your freedom on the line for my professional benefit?
A couple were not even aware that a woman in South Texas was arrested on murder charges for allegedly self-managing her care just two months ago. Some pressured me to put them in touch with people who’ve had self-managed abortions, or who support others in having self-managed abortions, after I turned them down myself. None of them initially contacted me through secure channels, nor volunteered information about what protections or legal support their publications are prepared to offer me or my sources. None of these journalists were people with whom I had any prior relationship. Wade, I’ve been contacted by a handful of mainstream and legacy journalists asking me to engage in legally risky activities around self-managed abortion, a beat I’ve been covering since 2015, and an issue I worked on for two years leading the communications team at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. In the month since a leaked draft opinion revealed that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v.
