This piece first appeared in our weekly newsletter, The Fallout. Please consider donating today to help us tell the story of reproductive freedom into 2024. We need you now!

To put it bluntly, it’s been a hell of a year. As you know, it is the first full year since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, and we’ve seen conservatives around the country use the opportunity to attack trans rights, threaten birth control, and target the right to travel—on top of enacting abortion bans left and right, of course. Now, we’re gearing up for an election year where, for the first time in many voters’ lifetimes, abortion will be the central issue both nationally and statewide.

Part of what I love about my job is getting to edit and/or fact-check all the incredible content we publish. We have put out so many articles, podcast episodes, and special issues that I’m proud of this year (and even launched on TikTok!), and I wanted to highlight a few of our bangers to close out 2023. For our last edition of The Fallout this year, I hope you’ll revisit them with me as we wind down and get ready for the circus of a year ahead.

(P.S. My colleagues and I are so grateful for our RNG readers, as our work is only possible with your support! If you want to help us keep doing more of it, I’d so appreciate it if you’d consider donating to our year-end fundraising campaign to keep us fueled through 2024.)

Rewire News Group (Barbie’s Version)

Hi Barbie! I am always excited for our quarterly special issues, when we put a singular focus on one topic, but “They the People” really takes the cake. My favorite part, though, was the gorgeous Barbie visuals created by our art team, Austen Risolvato and Cage Rivera.

Collab of the century: Elie Mystal x Boom! Lawyered

For Boom! Lawyered’s 200th (!!!) episode, we had a special treat for our law nerds: The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, graced the pod with his presence. Mystal and Boom! Lawyered co-host Imani Gandy talked all things legal, from expanding the Supreme Court to the potential fate of medication abortion to originalism. It’s enough to make my head spin, but Gandy and Mystal kept us laughing throughout the episode—and gave us a small dose of hope toward the end.

Investigating “crisis pregnancy center” financials

Garnet Henderson joining Rewire News Group as our senior multiplatform reporter was a highlight of 2023. Every day is prime for a Henderson slay, but her investigation into the finances of “crisis pregnancy centers” is exceptional. She combed through more than 1,600 financial records over several months to find that these anti-abortion centers may actually be spending upward of $1 billion per year—and, worse, some of their funding is state-sponsored.

Idaho’s reproductive health crisis and rise in extremism

As I said… another day, another Henderson slay. She spent ten days in Idaho back in October to report on the fallout of the state’s total abortion ban and its rise in extremism. In this week’s second installment of the three-part series, Henderson covers how Christian nationalists—who are often transplants—have infiltrated local governments (and caused infrastructure chaos in the aftermath), how “abortion abolitionists” have made it to state office, and what locals are doing to stave them off. Many thanks to the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Reproductive Rights Reporting Fund for its support of this project.

Live from Washington D.C., it’s Boom! Lawyered!

My legal moms headed to the East Coast this past spring! Pieklo and Gandy brought their law nerdiness to the folks at the Summit for Religious Freedom, where they chatted about the slew of legal challenges threatening the fate of mifepristone, one of two pills used for medication abortion. This one’s special because it was the first time the podcast was taped in front of a live audience.

We (Ohio medical students) are so back

When states began enacting abortion bans after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, medical students like Meghana Kudrimoti felt like they were forced to leave their home states to get the training they needed. But when Ohio voters approved an abortion rights ballot measure in November, Kudrimoti could finally come home to provide care.

“Although Ohio still has dozens of abortion restrictions in place that will not go away overnight, passing Issue 1 is one step toward ensuring Ohioans have the right to take control of their reproductive decisions, no matter the circumstance. Ohioans deserve the same choices my patients have. I can’t wait to come back and provide those choices,” she writes.

Making abortion fundraising fun

Look, abortion news this year wasn’t all depressing: Organizations like the Marigold Project and These Puzzl3s Fund Abortion made abortion fundraising fun by hosting cook-offs and selling puzzles. At a time when abortion funds are seeing a slowdown in momentum after the shock and rage of SCOTUS overturning abortion rights wore off, reproductive rights advocates are getting creative to keep the fight going.

Paying a high price under Texas’ abortion bans

On a personal note, I was really proud—and devastated—to publish this piece by my friend Lauren Lee, who faced an ectopic pregnancy while living in Austin, Texas. At just 23, she found out her IUD hadn’t worked, and after days of panic over how to seek care, she booked a flight to Seattle. The process to end her pregnancy was harrowing, expensive, and didn’t need to be as difficult or horrific as it was. As she writes, “Health care shouldn’t be dependent on luck. No one should die in Texas because they don’t have a free place to stay in a better state.”