Family

Half of the first language speakers of Kodiak Alutiiq died between 2020 and 2022. But that’s not stopping new speakers from learning the language and passing along a distinct culture and worldview to the next generations.

At the Sun’aq Tribe’s language house, everything is a lesson—catching up on gossip, making a grocery list or washing the dishes.

No one lives here full time, but the Sun’aq Tribe uses a federal grant to pay a group of language apprentices and mentors to master the language.

“To really get the language down, you gotta use it in practice,” said Dehrich Chya, a mentor at the language house. “The point of a language house is it’s a place where you can just get together and use the language in your day to day life.”

“Heritage languages are so important,” said mentor Stevi Frets. “And when you learn them, it’s like, ‘Okay, I’m part of the crew saving it now.’ There’s no like, ‘Yeah, I learn a little Alutiiq on weekends, when I can.’ All of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, my language, I have to save it, I have to do everything I can’.”

Kodiak is home to a powerful movement to bring the Alutiiq language back into daily use. For about 100 years, American schools and governments suppressed the language and punished children for speaking it. Now the last Elders who speak it fluently are almost gone.

Frets says there are a few Elders in town she can speak with, and a lot of folks who have gone through some basic language classes at the University.

“But there’s not a lot of people you can like have a conversation with around. Like, I think they’re mostly in this room right now,” she said with a laugh.

In some ways, Frets says she feels like she missed out. The tribe estimates there are now only about 17 Elders who are fluent Alutiiq speakers left. They lost about that many during the pandemic. It’s a turning point.

But the language movement isn’t giving up, it’s moving forward.

Hailey Thompson administers the grant. She says part of the Sun’aq Tribe’s goal is to train fluent speakers who can in turn teach the language.

“We have a lot of motivation to learn Alutiiq. People want Alutiiq preschools, and Alutiiq language classes at the high school, and Alutiiq language class at the college,” she said. “But the problem is we don’t have the teachers to teach those classes and workshops.”

A solid foundation of language revitalization already exists in Kodiak. But Thompson says it’s different now—there were a lot more elders before.

“The next wave of what it looks like is building resources, archiving things that we know we’re going to need, spending the time that we know we can get with elders,” she said. “That’s what it looks like right now. Just cherishing all the things, that all the resources we can get… before we know that they’re gone.”

The stakes are high, but the rewards are immense. Frets and the others are building fluency to be able to teach the next generation of Alutiiq speakers.

At the Alutiingcut Childcare Center about a dozen preschoolers learn numbers in Alutiiq and Alutiiq versions of popular kids songs. There probably won’t be any birth speakers left by the time they’re older, but the language movement is working to ensure they’ll have teachers.

An Alutiiq language program exists at the Kodiak college and courses at the high school. And the tribe hopes to put 18 people through its program at the Language House over the course of its 3-year grant.

Learners meet up with Elders at the museum once a week. Three of the Elders that used to be at those sessions  died during the pandemic, but the museum records them so new learners and descendants of the speakers can hear their stories.

Florence Pestrikoff didn’t grow up speaking Alutiiq, even though most people in her village did. But for the last couple of decades she has been an active speaker and teacher–she learned in the first wave of language revitalization about 20 years ago.

“I love speaking my language,” she said. “In the past it was — people were ashamed of the language. It’s sad. Really sad.”

American missionaries and schools enforced strict English-only policies for years. Parents like hers encouraged English to protect their children. The result was a swift decline in speaker numbers.

Pestrikoff answers her cell phone in Alutiiq and says she speaks it with her husband. And that’s the vision of the language movement—to have the language be in use. At home, in the grocery store, on the street.

And to carry the values that are embedded in the words.

“We never say goodbye. There is no goodbye in Alutiiq,” Pestrikoff said. “You say ‘Tang’rciqamken. I will see you later.’ I like that.”

Just like the language in Kodiak schools and homes — quiet for a while, but coming back.

Fewer Alaska children are getting common vaccinations for debilitating and wildly contagious illnesses like polio, which decades ago used to infect and paralyze kids before vaccines wiped it out in the U.S.

State health data show that from 2013 to 2021, the number of children in Alaska who completed the childhood series of vaccinations decreased from about 60% to about 46%. A steeper drop-off started in 2020, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink says that concerns her. And while Zink says she thinks the pandemic is a factor, she doesn’t point directly to some Americans’ distrust of COVID vaccines as an explanation for the declining rates of other vaccinations.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Anne Zink: Many people are trying to answer that question from numerous angles. Particularly, in the national data that I’ve seen, the reason that people choose to not get vaccinated are multifactorial, and there’s not a single reason. The role that COVID-19 has played, or concerns about the vaccine, is a component for some people. But what I think is really interesting from some recent data that I saw is the single biggest reason people had not gotten their children vaccinated was just convenience and time. “I hadn’t gotten into the appointment yet,” (or) “I hadn’t been able to just ask my doctor a couple questions.” And so I think there’s a lot more that we can do for convenience and just making this easy. And then making sure we’re answering questions. It may be about, “Do they really need it? What are the side effects of it?” Concern about needles. And I just encourage people to be open and honest with their provider about what their questions are.

But I think it’s important to remember that vaccines are probably the safest thing that we do in medicine, and they’re safer than most over-the-counter medications. I have much more concern about, you know, people taking ibuprofen daily than vaccination. You know, in Alaska, we winterize we get ready for the winter as it comes. And as we winterize, we should be also considering immunizing. So winterize and immunize. Make sure that you’re getting your booster shots. So this year will be flu, we’ll be having a COVID booster that will be bivalent, meaning that it is being able to address (COVID-19’s) Omicron (variant) as well as, kind of, the old variant as well. So it’s, I don’t want to say “new and improved,” but it’s updated, based on the current variants that we’re seeing. So it’s a multiple-variant vaccine. So we’ll be having that really the beginning of September, and then making sure that your kids are vaccinated prior to going to school and getting caught up in the vaccine series. So just like we take care of our normal health, we change out our tires, and we winterize our houses and we pull out the snow jackets, there’s things that we need to do to get ready for school and get ready for the winter, and part of that is teaching your immune system about these viruses so that they can be prepared.

Casey Grove: I have to ask, are you worried about what might happen if that trend continues, with with fewer people getting childhood vaccines?

Anne Zink: Oh, yeah, definitely I’m concerned about that. I mean, (for) a couple of different reasons. First of all, as a clinician, it’s heartbreaking to see something that was potentially preventable impact people. And that can be everything from a car accident where someone wasn’t seat belted, or seeing someone get really sick from an infection that could have been minimized if they had been vaccinated prior to that. It’s just, it feels like a failure as a public health leader if we did not do more to encourage people to take those preventative measures. Early on, too, it’s so much easier to slow things down early than it is later.

And so we have an opportunity as a state right now to increase our vaccine rates so that we aren’t seeing our first case of polio in the state or we aren’t having a measles outbreak or mumps outbreak in the state, or transferring more kids from, you know, a village because of bad pertussis. Our health care capacity right now is really full. I mean, our hospitals are incredibly full right now, just because there’s a lot of people out doing a lot of different things. It’s not because of any one factor. But we have limited health care capacity in this state. And we all play a major role in keeping ourselves healthy and well and our communities healthy and well. And we have tools and vaccines are one of the simplest, easiest tools that we have to keep ourselves healthy and safe.

I mean, diseases like polio, the majority of cases are asymptomatic, and so it spreads person to person asymptomatically until someone ends up paralyzed. So before we get to that point, we really need to do what we can to try to increase those rates to protect each other, and I think Alaskans are– I think part of I love working up here is people check on each other when you have a flat tire, neighbors bring you food, we work with each other as a community, and we’re also good at being tough and caring for ourselves. And so I would just encourage Alaskans to take care of themselves and their community by making sure that they’re vaccinated and their loved ones are as well.

Hospitals and doctors around the country are facing harassment and even death threats over the medical care they offer to transgender kids. In many cases, they have been the subject of posts by a Twitter account called Libs of TikTok, as well as stories in conservative media outlets casting gender-affirming care as child abuse and mutilation.

Which raises the question: where should social networks draw the line with accounts promoting narratives that spark harassment campaigns on their platforms and beyond?

Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. became the most recent target this week when Libs of TikTok posted an audio recording in which hospital staff appeared to say that gender-affirming hysterectomies had been performed on minors. The hospital said that claim was incorrect and that none of the people recorded deliver care to patients.

“The information in the recording is not accurate. We do not and have never performed gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18,” Children’s National said in a statement to NPR. “The operator speaking provided wrong information.”

The statement continued: “Since the spreading of misinformation on Twitter, we have been the target of a large volume of hostile and threatening phone calls and emails.”

Childrens’ hospitals in Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, have also been targeted. Last week, Boston Children’s Hospital warned it was receiving “a large volume of hostile internet activity, phone calls, and harassing emails including threats of violence toward our clinicians and staff” after false claims it performs genital surgeries on minors.

The U.S. Justice Department even weighed in, with the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts calling the attacks “disturbing.”

False claims, out-of-context videos

These false narratives about pediatric gender-affirming care are rooted in fundamental “misperceptions,” said Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd, a pediatrician and director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota.

“People have misperceptions that we’re doing surgery on young kids. People have misperceptions that we are changing kids from boys into girls at a very young age,” they said.

They said care for transgender kids is wide-ranging, from efforts to help children socially transition to puberty-blocking medications, and is undertaken with the input of pediatric psychologists, clinical social workers, hormone experts and endocrinologists, as well as families. Gender-affirming surgeries are not a routine part of pediatric gender care, they said, and Children’s Minnesota does not perform any such surgeries.

Some of the claims about Children’s National, Boston Children’s and other hospitals were pushed by the Libs of TikTok account, which regularly reposts videos and social media posts from LGBTQ people, teachers, schools and other institutions. The clips are sometimes taken out of context and framed to fuel outrage or ridicule of LGBTQ and anti-racist causes, in what the account owner has described as “exposés” of “the crazies.”

For example, a short clip about gender-affirming hysterectomies from a video originally posted by Boston Children’s that Libs of TikTok reposted makes no mention of patients’ ages. But Libs of TikTok tweeted alongside the clip the false claim that the hospital offers the surgery “for young girls.”

Libs of TikTok, run by a Brooklyn woman named Chaya Raichik, has 1.3 million followers on its biggest platform, Twitter. It’s gained prominence and influence in right-wing circles over the last year as conservatives increasingly try to use anti-LGBTQ sentiment to gain support.

NPR reached out to Raichik for this story. She initially responded and agreed to an interview, but did not respond to a follow-up message. Raichik frequently condemns criticism of her online activities as efforts to “cancel and silence” her. She has said that she has also been targeted with death threats.

Platforms struggle with harassment networks

Twitter and Facebook prohibit bullying and harassment, coordinated mass attacks, and incitement to violence. Both companies ban the use of the word “groomer” as a smear against LGBTQ people under their rules against hate speech.

The platforms have taken down some of the threats against the hospitals. But it’s less clear how much accountability the companies can or will put on accounts that draw attention to the targets that end up getting harassed.

Twitter has previously temporarily suspended Libs of TikTok for breaking its rules. The company declined to comment on the account. Following Boston Children’s Hospital’s reported threats, Libs of TikTok said it had been permanently suspended by Facebook for violating the platform’s community standards. But that was quickly reversed, and the account returned to posting on Facebook, saying the social network said that was an error. Facebook declined to comment on the suspension.

Libs of TikTok appears to have evaded outright bans by coming right up to the edge of the platforms’ rules but not breaking them. The account does not explicitly encourage followers to threaten anyone, and typically uses its target’s own words, sometimes stripped of context, to imply wrongdoing.

But while its individual posts may stick to the letter of the platforms’ rules, their cumulative effect is what worries researchers like Joan Donovan, who studies online extremism, media manipulation and disinformation at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

“We’ve reached this phase in social media where people know what to do when an account like Libs of TikTok calls out another account or a person or institution,” she said. Call-outs can spark harassment campaigns known as “brigading,” where commenters pile on a common target.

In the case of the children’s hospitals, “the threats have moved from insulting people or targeted accounts online into more direct threats,” Donovan said. “The online threat escalates very quickly into offline violence when we start to see these patterns of attack.”

For social networks to deal with what Donovan calls “networked incitement,” she says effectively tracking those threats means looking beyond single posts on specific platforms.

“The precipitating comments may not be that incendiary, but if that creates a pattern of attack that is recognizable, which it is with an account like Libs of TikTok, then these companies are well within their jurisdiction to warn and then ban the account.”

Right-wing groups target LGBTQ events, education and healthcare

Pediatricians and children’s hospitals are just the latest targets of right-wing outrage, in a new iteration of decades-old smears of gay, lesbian and transgender people as pedophiles or “groomers.”

“The Libs of TikTok account has been a major actor in driving a lot of the harassment campaigns that we’ve seen over the past year,” said Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director at Media Matters for America, the liberal advocacy group.

In some cases, events and figures publicized by Libs of TikTok have been targeted offline by far-right extremists known for brawling.

On a single day this summer, for example, men with ties to the white nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested outside a Pride event in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and alleged members of the far-right Proud Boys crashed a drag queen story hour at a library in San Lorenzo, Calif. Libs of TikTok had tweeted about both events, although there’s no conclusive link between the posts and the extremist groups’ activities.

As the Washington Post reported in April, the account’s subjects and posts are regularly featured and promoted by other conservative influencers and media figures, including podcaster Joe Rogan. Raichik has appeared on Tucker Carlson’s prime time Fox News show.

The escalating stigmatization of transgender medical care has doctors worried.

“This is a developmentally appropriate, team-based approach that allows kids time to figure out their identities,” said Dr. Goepferd of Children’s Minnesota.

Threats to hospitals ripple out, affecting not only hospital staff but also patients and families seeking all kinds of care, as well as longer-term research needed in the field. “I worry that this type of false narrative would make research institutions or funders nervous to fund more research into finding out what is the best possible care we could be providing right now,” Goepferd said.

“The fact that somewhere the message has gotten through that it’s okay to attack physicians, pediatricians, children’s hospitals in this way is just a really disturbing societal trend,” they said.

Editor’s Note: Facebook parent Meta pays NPR to license NPR content.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Editor’s Note: August 25, 2022
This story has been updated to clarify that Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd said gender-affirming surgeries are not a routine part of pediatric gender care, and that Children’s Minnesota does not perform any gender-affirming surgeries.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week marks two months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision reversed decades of precedent guaranteeing abortion rights, and the effects of the decision are continuing to unfold as abortion bans take effect around the country.

Well before the opinion was issued on June 24, more than a dozen states had so-called “trigger bans” in place – laws written to prohibit abortion as soon as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had legalized the procedure for nearly 50 years, was overturned.

Some took effect almost immediately; at least eight states have implemented total or near-total abortion bans, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Others were at least temporarily delayed by litigation, or by brief waiting periods written into the laws. This week, a new round of bans — in Tennessee, Texas, Idaho, and North Dakota – is set to take effect, barring intervention from the courts.

A cascade of “trigger bans” around the country

To a large degree, the impact of these laws already is a reality – even before they’re officially implemented – due to multiple layers of restrictions.

In Texas, where abortion has been prohibited after about six weeks of pregnancy since last September under a law that allowed private citizens to sue abortion providers, the shift was already well under way before the Dobbs decision. The state’s trigger ban – which prohibits the procedure almost entirely – takes effect this week. But already, there are no clinics providing abortions in Texas, and some have made plans to move out of state to places like New Mexico.

Idaho, too, has an abortion ban in place that relies on civil enforcement, where individuals can sue people accused of illegally providing abortions after about six weeks. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued in an effort to block another, even more restrictive law — Idaho’s trigger ban, which is set to take effect Aug. 25.

North Dakota’s only remaining clinic has — at least for now — moved its abortion services to Minnesota, where abortion remains legal. Lawyers for the clinic have asked a judge to block the law from taking effect on Friday.

In Tennessee, which already has very limited abortion access because of a ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, the law scheduled to take effect this week goes even farther, essentially banning all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The law also lacks explicit exceptions for medical emergencies, although it includes a provision that would allow doctors to mount a defense against felony abortion charges by arguing they intervened to save a pregnant woman’s life or avoid the “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Battles continue in state, federal courts

Abortion rights groups have been trying to argue that many state constitutions offer protections for abortion rights.

For groups opposed to abortion rights, like Alliance Defending Freedom, efforts are under way to push states to enforce abortion restrictions.

Erin Hawley, the group’s senior counsel, said she hopes to see courts in Wyoming, Arizona, and elsewhere allow abortion bans to take effect.

“I think we’ll see in a number of other states, that these laws will come online — that intermediate courts of appeals and the state supreme courts will hopefully find that there is no state constitutional right to abortion,” Hawley said.

There are also federal court challenges. A federal judge is expected to take action this week in response to the Department of Justice suit, which challenges Idaho’s trigger ban under a federal labor law.

Post-Roe, state lawmakers consider new abortion laws

The Dobbs decision has prompted some Republican state officials to look at passing new laws. In early August, Indiana lawmakers approved a near-total abortion ban, which takes effect in mid-September.

Elisabeth Smith, state policy and advocacy director with the Center for Reproductive Rights, notes that some abortion rights opponents have proposed legislation designed to prevent people from seeking abortions in other states.

“I think it’s important to talk about the fact that we will also likely see novel criminal penalties for abortion providers and helpers, and some states trying to prevent people from crossing state lines,” Smith said.

That said, abortion rights advocates are encouraged by the results of a ballot initiative in Kansas earlier this month, in which voters strongly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have opened the door to allow state lawmakers to ban abortion. Smith notes that ballot questions related to abortion are slated to go before voters in several states — among them California, Vermont, Kentucky, and Michigan — in November.

Jennifer Driver is senior director of reproductive rights for the State Innovation Exchange, a group that works with lawmakers trying to increase abortion access, even in a post-Roe environment.

As new restrictions continue to take effect, Driver said more patients who have the means will rely on out-of-state travel or use abortion pills at home. She says doctors and other healthcare providers in many states will continue to face dilemmas when helping patients through medical crises.

“The chipping away at abortion rights didn’t happen overnight, and the fight to get them back won’t as well,” Driver said.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Transgender youth face challenges in school that most students don’t — like finding a gender-neutral bathroom or asking to be called by a different name.

To help students learn how to get what they need, the Zach Gordon Youth Center and the Juneau branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness has created new guides for Juneau middle and high school students.

“It can be hard enough and scary enough to be a kid at school trying to figure things out,” said program coordinator Meryl Connelly-Chew. “Add in the piece of being a trans or gender-diverse young person, and potentially not having a supportive adult at home who’s helping you.”

The guides have answers to questions like how to handle name changes and negotiate activities that are typically gender-segregated — and what to do if somebody disrespects a student’s identity. 

And they explain how to navigate those problems in each of the district’s middle and high schools, complete with lists of people students may need to know, like counselors, principals and registrars.

They also have an explanation of the district’s non-discrimination policy, written for students.

“It just really became clear to us that we need to simplify some of the school district’s anti-discrimination policy into a way that young people can understand and use for themselves,” Connelly-Chew said.

The booklets debuted at the Zach’s Trans Youth Advocacy Workshop earlier this month, when trans youth were able to ask questions and hear from school staff and the people who put the booklets together.

On Aug. 23, the youth center and NAMI are hosting a webinar about the guides for family members, teachers and school staff who want to better support transgender students in Juneau.

“Okay, you are the trusted adult,” Connelly-Chew said. “So what can you do, and how might you support a young person, if they come to you, and say, ‘You’re my trusted adult, I need help with this thing?’”

The guides are available at the Zach Gordon Youth Center and online at namijuneau.org/lgbtq2.

When the Supreme Court issued its ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the court “should reconsider” its past rulings related to contraception.

Thomas’ words highlighted a new battle over reproductive rights in the U.S., advocacy groups say. Republican lawmakers in some states have pushed for new restrictions on contraceptive access, and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation last month to protect the right to contraception.

Part of that fight centers on Title X, a federal program that offers birth control and other reproductive health care to low-income patients. Title X had bipartisan support when President Richard Nixon created it in 1970, but it has become a lightning rod in the debate over abortion.

Advocates like Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association in Washington, D.C., are now calling for Democrats to use every tool at their disposal to increase financial support for Title X, which they say has long been underfunded.

“I think the Supreme Court has sent a signal to those who oppose both abortion and contraception to have at it, to come and attack these programs,” Coleman said. “We’re hopeful … Democrats will fight to the wall.”

A low-cost option for people in need

For many patients, like New York resident Rhea Beddoe, Title X is a lifeline that stretches beyond birth control.

Beddoe was working at a law firm and had a medical procedure to remove precancerous cells. Then she got laid off and lost her benefits. She needed a follow-up appointment that would have cost $300 without insurance.

So Beddoe called a local Planned Parenthood, filled out paperwork on her income and scheduled an appointment. She could afford it because the Title X-funded clinic charged on a sliding fee scale. And her follow-up tests showed no signs of cancer.

“It was such a relief that I was able to get the care that I needed when I was uninsured and unemployed,” Beddoe said.

Title X-funded clinics are often a first stop for reproductive health care.

Adela Griswold, a nurse-midwife at a Title X-funded clinic in Virginia, says a patient might come in looking for birth control and leave having had their first pap smear, gotten a COVID-19 booster and been tested for STIs.

Griswold also provides referrals for other services, including mental health.

“We are often the sole entry point to care for folks,” she said. “They wouldn’t be getting care elsewhere otherwise.”

The ‘gag rule’ and a funding crunch

Those Title X services aren’t available everywhere. Not only has the program been underfunded, Coleman says, some longtime providers even faced surprise funding cuts this year as their grants either weren’t renewed or were scaled back.

California’s Title X allocation dipped by about $8 million in the latest round of funding. In Nevada, a local health department is shelving plans to hire new staff because of budget cuts. And in Virginia, a health department serving parts of the Shenandoah Valley announced last month it would no longer offer family planning services.

The cutbacks are connected to changes the Trump administration made to Title X in 2019. It banned participants from providing or referring patients for abortion services, except in the case of incest, rape or medical emergency.

The regulation was popular with former President Donald Trump’s base but sparked a backlash — critics called it the “gag rule.” In response, about 25% of Title X clinics withdrew from the program or stopped receiving funding.

The Biden administration reversed those rules in October 2021, prompting a flood of new applications from healthcare providers — but Congress didn’t approve new funding. So more health care providers are now competing for a share of that money, and some lose out.

A fight at the federal and state levels

Olivia Gans Turner is head of the Virginia Society for Human Life, as well as American Victims of Abortion. Both groups are part of the National Right to Life Committee, which says it doesn’t take a position on Title X funding but supported the Trump administration’s ban on providers making abortion referrals.

“We had no problems with funding going to legitimate contraceptive programs because we don’t take a position on contraception,” Turner said. “What we wanted to prevent was the funding of organizations or programs that were also promoting or practicing abortion.”

Title X doesn’t actually fund abortions. But Turner said abortion providers shouldn’t be eligible for any federal funds — even if it’s earmarked for other services such as birth control.

“You could say, ‘Well, the one doesn’t go to the other,’ ” Turner said. “Except, if I give you the money to pay the rent, you’ve got a lot more money to go to the movies this week, don’t you?”

It’s not an argument likely to sway Democrats, who still control Congress. But as with many issues, they face an obstacle in the U.S. Senate’s filibuster rules. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who is among the Democrats pushing to increase Title X funding, said that “finding Republican support for Title X has not been easy.”

Kaine believes the Supreme Court decision overturning a Constitutional right to abortion might galvanize support for access to contraception. “I think people are realizing, well, we can’t take this for granted, that may open up an opportunity for us to be successful,” he said.

Meanwhile, legislative battles are playing out at the state level. Earlier this year, some Republican lawmakers in Missouri unsuccessfully tried to ban taxpayer funding for emergency contraception, which some lawmakers consider a form of abortion. And Republicans in several states, including Missouri and Texas, have passed laws barring Planned Parenthood from seeing Medicaid patients for family planning services.

Coleman said she expects more legislation during upcoming statehouse sessions this winter. And she thinks the Supreme Court’s decision underscores the urgency that access to contraception not be taken for granted.

“We need to stop questioning whether or not this is possible,” Coleman said. “This is clearly possible. The legitimacy and legality of contraception is threatened.”

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.