New Year Dawns with Focus on Shared Knowledge, Building Community, Expanding Health & Reproductive Justice
AMSA Reproductive Health Project eNews #62 – January 10, 2026
Greetings from the AMSA Reproductive Health Project!
This is the first of our Repro Newsletters for 2026, and we send you new year’s blessings filled with energy and hope for a better world! (Reminder: hope, as we see it, is an action word!)
This first week has already been filled with events that portend a tumultuous year. Already, in just the first week, events here in the US, in Venezuela, and elsewhere in the world are stretching our capacity to hold the enormity of what we are witnessing with our own eyes (or through the camera lenses of those who upload the photographic and videographic documentation of what is happening).
We witness the US illegally invade a sovereign nation, Venezuela, in order to capture its oil reserve and are told by US government agents, including President Trump himself, that this is part of a “war against narcoterrorism.” We witness an ICE agent shoot and murder Renee Good, mother of three, in Minneapolis and we are told by US government agents, including Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that Renee is the domestic terrorist in this tragic situation, not the ICE agent who drew his gun and shot her dead.
We witness things happening with our own eyes…then government agents tell us that what we know we have seen and heard is NOTwhat we actually saw, or heard.
As this new year begins we must ask will the future George Orwell envisioned in this critical thought-provoking novel 1984 be forced upon us? In 2026, will two plus two still equal four? Or will we be told, no, it equals five – and then be forced to live as if two plus two actually equals five?
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into history and became truth.”
– George Orwell, 1984 (Orwell completed the book’s manuscript in 1948)
Of course, this manipulation of people’s perception of reality – to enforce a mis-perception of objective reality in alignment with the preferred version of a falsified reality (unreality) which serves the malignant interests of those who abuse their governmental, institutional, and systemic power – is not a new phenomenon. It wasn’t even a new phenomenon when Orwell wrote 1984, now nearly 80 years ago.
The control of information and the manipulation of narrative in order to sever people from
a shared understanding of objective reality – what is actually seen and actually heard – had long been a tactic of authoritarian and totalitarian governments.
But in the 20th Century – and continuing into the 21st Century – humanity had entered what we now call the Information Age – and information control became one of the most effective techniques for authoritarian governments to totally and utterly control people’s minds, spirits, and bodies. And those in power who have done this and continue to do this, don’t really make much effort to hide their actions, or their intentions. In 2004, a senior member of George W. Bush’s administration (most likely the notorious and odious Karl Rove) referred to “the reality-based community” with unironic disdain and derision.
More recently – and increasingly so over the past several years – in the realm of reproductive health and healthcare, we have witnessed many attempts to manipulate medical terminology in order to serve ideological goals: pro-life, rather than anti-abortion; chemical abortion, rather than medical or medication abortion; abortion pill reversal rather than…rather than, nothing – abortion pill reversal is not supported by scientific and medical evidence; and the biggest manipulation of all: abortion isn’t healthcare, because there is never a medically-necessary abortion. Each one of these manipulations of language and terminology is the medical equivalent of two plus two equals five. And to our dismay, the propaganda has been successful, to varying degrees.
However, just this week, we who actually are committed to being part of the reality-based community were able to claim a much-needed win in the legal battle around abortion care.
The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled this week against the state’s two anti-abortion laws, and in their decision, they referenced the Merriam Webster definition of health, and concluded that in relation to pregnancy and pregnant people’s health, abortion care is in fact healthcare, and that the state’s citizens do in fact have the constitutional right to access the healthcare that they need, including abortion care. To hear – or, to read – a state Supreme Court (Wyoming!) take a swipe at authoritarian manipulation of medical terminology and language and to assert that, by definition, abortion care is healthcare is affirmation of the intrinsic goodness and necessity of fighting relentlessly against authoritarianism and totalitarianism, no matter the outcome. For if we do not relentlessly fight against political forces that seek to dominate and control, the outcome is guaranteed: authoritarianism will win absolutely.
But if we fight, and fight unrelentingly, we will win, eventually if not immediately,
because we have reality and truth on our side.
As we move into 2026, we are grateful to be in the company of those, such as you, who pursue truth, who pursue deeper understanding of reality, and who pursue justice. We’re in this together – in clinging to each other, we strengthen our resolve to maintain a tenacious grasp on truth and reality, and resist the abuses of political power which seek to unmoor us.
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Speaking Truth to Power & Preserving History – Resources Explore & Share
- Lessons and warnings from George Orwell, NPR 1AA – Link
- Catholic Vice President Vance takes to social media to justify killing of Renee Good, National Catholic Reporter – Link
“In times past, a politician might offer thoughts and prayers, encourage those reacting to wait for the full results of the investigation and generally try to lower the temperature. A leader might take the opportunity provided by a fresh day to soothe the broken heart of a nation and appeal to the better angels among us.
JD Vance went in a different direction…
As a Catholic, Vance knows better than to peddle this brand of gaslighting and agitation. Vance knows that, by virtue of her humanity, Good was endowed with inherent dignity, made in the image and likeness of God. Vance knows that only God can take life. Vance knows that protesting, fleeing or even interfering in an ICE investigation (which there is no evidence that Good did) does not carry a death sentence. Vance knows that lying and killing are sins.
Vance knows. He doesn’t care. Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes. His Catholicism seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power.” Read More
