WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Hey Ben.

Who is this?

It's me, it's Grace.

Oh hey Grace.

New phone, who does Grace?

Well, as you all know, I'm a producer here on Unlustrad and Amherst Not Here.

She's hard at work at something else, but last summer I was the one who worked with you and Amhery on an episode about a subreddit called the Aunty Network.

That feels like a million years ago, even though I remember it well.

People, aunties, offer to help people who need help getting abortions.

Exactly, yeah.

We looked at how the group's membership had exploded right after this Supreme Court decision of returning row, which triggered abortion bands across the country.

And then as we were about to publish the episode, we got ourselves a little update. I remember.

Yep, right before we clicked publish.

In the Herried Climate after the Supreme Court decision, the moderators of the Aunty Network decided they needed to stop and think about exactly how they wanted to help.

They shut our slash Aunty Network down.

And now our slash Aunty Network is back and the abortion landscape already looks a whole lot different than it did a while back now, which is part of the reason why we wanted to talk about this again, right Grace?

Yeah, since that episode aired 13 states and counting have banned abortion.

And last time we talked about how when things seem dire, it can be heartening to look at the helpers, the people who are helping.

Now the gaps the helpers are trying to fill are a whole lot wider.

Yeah, and online communities are playing a more important role than ever and how people access abortion.

The internet is where people are figuring out their options where they're getting medical advice because if you live in a state where it's banned, you can't go to a doctor.

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