Editor’s Note: Roxanne Jones, founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and former vice president of ESPN, has served as a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of “Say It Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black AthleteShe discusses politics, sports and culture every week on Philadelphia’s WURD at 900. The opinions expressed here are her own. Read more reviews on CNN.
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The decision earlier this month by a federal judge in Texas to halt the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a drug commonly used for medical abortions is deeply personal to me.
This is because I took mifepristone years ago during a miscarriage, and it saved my life.
When I was prescribed mifepristone, it was not yet at the center of the war on abortion in the United States. I did not have to make a hasty trip from state to state to get my medication, unlike many women who need the drug but live in one of the many states that have restricted access to medication abortion or enacted near-total abortion bans.
I didn’t have to arrange a secret meeting with a stranger to buy my medication on the black market, as several women I spoke to recently said they planned to do. Nor did I have to order mifepristone online and find myself wandering among the many scammers who take advantage of America’s current patchwork of abortion laws.
Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in medical abortion, and the other, misoprostol, was not affected by the Texas judge’s ruling. Both drugs can be given to a woman who is having a miscarriage, allowing her to terminate the pregnancy when the fetus is not viable.
This happened a few years ago: after experiencing more than a day of bleeding during the first trimester of my pregnancy, I consulted my gynecologist, who explained to me, after examining me, that my blood pressure was dropping rapidly and that the heavy bleeding I was experiencing was an unmistakable sign of a miscarriage.
For many women, mifepristone is a routine part of their medical care. That wasn’t the case for me: As my doctor explained, I was facing a serious medical emergency. I was grateful to have received this life-saving medication.
My miscarriage took me by surprise. I had loved being pregnant the first time, a decade earlier. And as a healthy woman, I had no reason to be afraid when I became pregnant again. By the time I was given mifepristone, I was losing a life I had already come to love. And like many other women, no matter my education or economic status, I couldn’t escape the statistics that put black women at risk.
Up to one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. And for black women, the numbers are much higher. According to an analysis of 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries, the risk of miscarriage is 43% higher for black women than for white women.
In the Black community, women have traditionally been taught to carry their burdens in silence, to keep their affairs to themselves, even after an event as devastating as a miscarriage. We are conditioned to do as I did then, and to keep moving forward while trying to stay ahead of the laundry list of statistics that tell us our lives are in danger on all sides, whether it be health risks, social injustices, or other stressors.
When I miscarried, I was a frightened, hemorrhaging, and suffering woman in desperate need of safe emergency medical care. With the administration of mifepristone, I was able to experience my miscarriage with dignity. This is what every woman deserves, whether she is facing a life-threatening miscarriage or seeking an abortion.
My experience has taught me that every miscarriage matters. Women should have access to all the medications and counseling they need to heal, including mifepristone. What we don’t need is criminalization by politicians and punitive reproductive laws that have long been out of step with public opinion. Despite ongoing political attacks on women’s reproductive rights, more than 61 percent of American adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.
After the U.S. Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary order to preserve the status quo, ensuring access to the drug while giving the justices more time to study the issue.
I hope the justices can put politics aside and focus on the science surrounding the safety of mifepristone, a medication that, fortunately, I had access to when my life was in danger. Mifepristone, a synthetic steroid, is even safer than common prescription drugs, including penicillin and Viagra.
Science demands that no matter where you stand on the issue of abortion, you must consider cases like mine and the millions of other women who have used this drug safely for years for complications related to miscarriage.
We don’t know how the legal battle over medication abortion will play out. But women across the country—in Democratic and Republican states alike—are watching. Punitive laws like the one signed last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seek to criminalize reproductive health care providers. And worse, they take away rights that men take for granted—they are unlikely to be legally barred from making decisions about their own bodies’ health care.
This has to stop. And I bet that, whether it’s by our voice or our vote, women will have the last word.
