That’s a good one. I remember most of my dreams/nightmares, and I also had one that came true in a spooky way when I was a teen. I actually wrote about it for this contest a few years ago and was one of the chosen! Hope yours gets picked, it gave me chills.

“Tales from an ER Laboratory”

Yes, while she’s trying to labor normally. Once they decide to cut into her and sentence her to death, all bets are off.

For context, I’m a cis woman who works in abortion care: I watch EVERYTHING through that lens, intentional or not.

Is there a clinic there? If so it wasn’t listed on www.ineedanabortion.com. Note that not all repro clinics (planned parenthoods) provide abortions.

I remember when I moved to Champaign from another Midwestern state for a bit I wondered, “why do these people have southern accents?” Of course, those were the “locals,” not the folks who also relocated to attend or work at UIUC.

The thing is, these cases have always happened — people were just able to get quick, private care. Now that states have decided to legislate their disdain for women and pregnant people, these stories are coming to the forefront.

There are several IL clinics further south than CU, so you can probably shave 2-3 hours off of that commute.

The All-Options Pregnancy Talkline can help people process their thoughts/feelings/circumstances and come to a pregnancy decision that’s right for them: https://www.all-options.org/find-support/talkline/

Honestly, depending on where she is in Louisiana, it may be faster and better to go to Illinois, which goes up to 24+ weeks. She could also order pills online and take them at home, though now that she’s gone public with her situation, she is probably more scrutinized.

Yep. Add in my poor/working class aging parents with no retirement savings who are still paying a (2nd or 3rd) mortgage on a house they’ve been in for 40 years, and its going to get even more dismal as time goes on. His parents are stable low-end of middle class and have told us they’re going to die broke, spending…

I come from a poor/working class background. I was able to go to college and then grad school on scholarship (still ended up with $40k in loans for everything, which isn’t bad compared to my peers) and have jobs in the healthcare and higher ed sectors. I was scrappily clawing my way into the lower middle class. Then I…

I know men with all three of those manners!

Also for people with gender neutral or ambiguous names and/or are nonbinary. My workplace has a Sam, Max, Jamie, and Lenny. Two are she/her, one they/them and one he/him.

...Illinois would like a word...

Good questions about the writing choices. I’ll have to re-watch that season (which I overall enjoyed). It’s a narrow line to walk between sexual agency, naïveté, and exploitation. Sounds like you fear that we’re so far to the former that we can’t critique someone’s behavior without being called slut shaming?

I thought they framed it as she was really horny, excited to be in college and sexually experiment, and saw it as a “win” that she could mess around with dudes, get more sexual experience, AND hopefully get on the staff. That’s not to say it isn’t problematic, but I thought they set her up as sexually empowered,…

I’m in my late 30s and I get choked up watching this show because I WISH there had been portrayals of complex and contradictory young women when I was a teen. Of course teens watching this may not get all of the nuance, since this is clearly a show written by adults, for adults. I binge watched the whole 3rd season…

I was 11 in the mid-90s and visiting family in Florida. A neighborhood girl, 13, told me about this game, which she called “yes, yes, no.” The boy would start at the knee and start making his way up the thigh of the girl. You were supposed to say “yes” with each movement, until you *wanted* to say no. I didn’t…

I’ve wondered about that and don’t know what online circles he runs in, but he seems a bit too aloof and not angry at the world. His complaints about not finding dates are more exasperation and confusion, like he just doesn’t get it. He likes his job and coworkers and has women friends (as much as one can be friends…