Editor’s Note: Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN Magazine and former vice president of ESPN, has served as a producer, reporter, and editor for the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is the co-author of “Say It Out Loud: The Illustrated History of Black Athletes.” She talks about politics, sports and culture weekly on Philadelphia’s WRD 900AM. The views expressed here are solely hers. Read more comments on CNN.
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A ruling earlier this month by a Texas federal judge suspending the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a drug commonly used for medical abortions has very specific implications for with me.
That’s because I took mifepristone years ago during a miscarriage, and it saved my life.
When I was prescribed mifepristone, it had not yet taken center stage in the war on abortion in America. I don’t have to make a hasty trip across state boundaries to get my medication, unlike many women who need the drug but live in one of the many states that restrict access to medical abortion or nearly passed a ban on abortion.
I am not forced to arrange a secret meeting with a stranger to buy my drugs on the black market, as several women I spoke with recently said they plan to do so. I’m not either order mifepristone online and find myself navigating many scammers take advantage of the current patchwork of state abortion laws in the United States.
Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in medical abortions and the other, misoprostol, is not subject to the Texas judge’s ruling. These two drugs can be used for people who have had a miscarriage, allowing them to terminate a pregnancy when the fetus is not viable.
What happened a few years ago: After bleeding for more than a day during the first trimester of my pregnancy, I went to my gynecologist who, after examining me, explained that my blood pressure The rapid reduction and heavy bleeding I experienced was due to the unmistakable sign of a miscarriage.
For many women, being prescribed mifepristone is part of their usual medical care. Not mine: As the doctor explained, I am facing a serious medical emergency. I am so grateful for the medicine that saved my life.
The miscarriage took me by surprise. I fell in love with my first pregnancy, about a decade earlier. And as a healthy woman, I have no reason to fear being pregnant again. By the time I was given mifepristone, I had lost a life that I had begun to enjoy. And like many other women, regardless of my education or economic status, I can’t get past the statistics that put Black women at higher risk.
Up to one in four known pregnancies will end in a miscarriage. And for Black women, the number is alarmingly higher. According to an analysis of 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries, the risk of miscarriage for Black women is 43% higher than white women.
In the Black community, women were traditionally taught to shoulder their burdens quietly – keep your business to yourself – even after something as devastating as a miscarriage. We are conditioned to do as I did back then, and continue to grow as we strive through the long list of statistics that tell us that our lives are in jeopardy from every direction, whether it is health care risks or social injustice or other stressors.
During my miscarriage, I was a woman of fear, bleeding, and excruciating pain, in dire need of safe, urgent medical care. Thanks to using mifepristone, I was respected during my miscarriage. It’s what every woman deserves – whether it’s facing a potentially life-threatening miscarriage or seeking an abortion.
I have learned from my experience that every miscarriage matters. Women must have access to any medications and counseling we need to help us heal and that includes mifepristone. What we don’t need is criminalization by politicians and punitive reproductive laws that have long been out of line with public opinion. Despite continued political attacks on women’s reproductive rights, more than 61 percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Pew Research Center.
After the US Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Judge Samuel Alito ruled temporary order to maintain the status quo, ensure access to the drug, and at the same time give judges more time to study the issue.
I hope the judges can put the politics aside and focus on the science around the safety of mifepristone, a drug that fortunately, I had access to when my life was in danger. Mifepristone, a synthetic steroid, even Safer Common prescription drugs include penicillin and Viagra.
It is required by science that, no matter where you stand on abortion, it is necessary to consider cases like mine and millions of other women who have gone through the years. use this medicine safely for complications surrounding miscarriage.
We don’t know how the legal battle over medical abortion will play out. But women across the country – in the blue and red states – are watching. The law of punishment as a signed last week of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seeks to criminalize fertility care providers. And worse still, they are taking away from us the rights that men take for granted – it is unlikely that they will be prohibited by law from making health care decisions for their own bodies.
It must end. And I bet whether by our voices or by our votes, women will have the final say.
