June 16, 2025
Podcast: 13 minutes, with transcript
By Jade Hindmon, Andrew Bracken
A new limited podcast series "Embedded: The Network" tells the story of how a community of women and activists worked to make abortion access easier and safer in Latin America.
On Midday Edition Monday, podcast hosts Victoria Estrada and Marta Martínez give us a preview and share why they wanted to tell this particular story.
MSI’s deputy medical director on the upcoming vote that could end women being prosecuted for abortions
By Sarah Salkeld
June 15, 2025
Next week, MPs will have the chance to vote on the NC1 amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would prevent women from being prosecuted for ending their own pregnancy. Here, Sarah Salkeld, deputy medical director at MSI Reproductive Choices, discusses current abortion law, the need for reform and why this vote could signal a monumental shift in reproductive care for women.
As told to Susanne Norris
Abortion law is complicated – I can see why a lot of people might be confused about it or feel like they don’t have enough information to hand. Essentially, in England, Scotland and Wales, the Abortion Act of 1967 means that abortion is legal, but you’ve got to meet a specific set of criteria – including two doctors giving consent for the abortion and for women to give certain reasons for wanting one – in order to access it. At MSI, we can provide abortions up to 23 weeks and six days. The law only allows an abortion to take place after this if there is a risk to someone’s life or a very severe foetal abnormality is found.
Continued: https://www.stylist.co.uk/health/abortion-decriminalisation-vote-crime-policing-bill/993811
season 24, episode 3
June 12, 2025
43-Minute Listen, with Transcript
by Marta Martínez, Victoria Estrada, Abby Wendle
The network and its method took off in countries where women didn't have a legal option for abortion. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many Americans have found themselves in that very situation.
We travel to the US to see how the network is responding to exploding demand and mounting abortion restrictions.
Podcast and transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263508255
season 24, episode 2
June 12, 2025
34-Minute Listen, with Transcript
by Marta Martínez, Victoria Estrada, Abby Wendle
The network had developed a method that had the potential to get women widespread access to safe abortions. But to make that happen, a whisper network wasn't enough.
Hosts Marta and Victoria take us across Latin America to trace how the network entered a new era. Women spoke up and teamed up. They challenged each other and sometimes even broke the law.
Podcast and transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1263508253
June 8, 2025
By Marta Martínez, Liana Simstrom
Podcast: 41-Minute Listen
In November 1990, more than 3,000 women descended on the sleepy beach town of San Bernardo del Tuyú, Argentina, for what was becoming a legendary event.
Activists, doctors, academics, social workers and lawyers from across the Americas traveled all the way to attend a feminist gathering known as an Encuentro.
While they publicly debated their political demands, the piece of information that made the biggest impact on the future of abortion was exchanged in private, in whispers.
Continued; https://www.npr.org/2025/06/08/g-s1-68729/latin-america-abortion-activism
By Kyle Kellams
June 6, 2025
Podcast: 9:12 minutes
The Network is a new documentary podcast from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media's Latino USA that explores a global effort to provide access to safe abortions outside of a medical clinic. Hosts Victoria Estrada and Marta Martínez explain how women in Brazil first repurposed an over-the-counter medication to safely end pregnancies. The reporters joined Ozarks at Large host Kyle Kellams for a preview of the series that premiered this week.
June 5, 2025
By Marta Martínez, Victoria Estrada
Podcast: 41-Minute Listen
In the mid-1980s, an OBGYN in Brazil noticed that far fewer pregnant women at his hospital were dying from abortion complications.
It wasn't a coincidence.
Brazilian women had made a discovery that allowed them to safely have abortions at home, despite the country's abortion restrictions. That discovery eventually spread across the globe.
Continued: https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1263508251/the-network-saintotec
Orla Barry, The World
June 2, 2025
Podcast: 4 minutes
Poland has elected a new conservative nationalist as president in a major blow to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Karol Nawrocki won the election by a razor thin margin. The result threatens to derail Tusk’s promise to ease Poland’s near-total abortion ban and reform the country’s judiciary. The World’s Europe Correspondent Orla Barry joins Host Carolyn Beeler.
May 16, 2025
Michigan Public Radio, by Kate Wells
4-Minute Listen, with Transcript
On the last day of patient care at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Marquette, Mich., a port town on the shore of Lake Superior, dozens of people crowded into the parking lot and alley, holding pink homemade signs that read "Thank You!" and "Forever Grateful."
"Oh my god," physician assistant Anna Rink gasped, as she and three other Planned Parenthood employees finally walked outside. The crowd whooped and cheered. Then Rink addressed the gathering.
The Trump administration's policy ideas to incentivize women to have more kids resemble those pushed by authoritarian regimes throughout history.
By Alanna Vagianos
May 9, 2025
President Donald Trump is reportedly entertaining policy proposals to incentivize American women to have more children. But the proposals don’t include basic and undeniably effective ideas like subsidized child care or paid parental leave. Instead, the Trump administration appears to be considering a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” and a “National Medal of Motherhood” for any woman who has six or more children.
The policy proposals are part of a larger push from conservative Republicans to boost the United States’ declining birth rates by persuading families to have more kids. The proposals fall squarely into what’s known as the pro-natalist movement — an ideology created to raise declining population rates that has historically been co-opted by far-right misogynist groups, including fascist and authoritarian regimes.
Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-pro-natalism-fascism-eugenics_n_681bc59ee4b07abf7dea4fc8
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