When Healthcare Meets the Law: Abortion, Cannabis, and Corporate Medicine

We like to think of our healthcare as personal and private — something that exists between us and our doctors. But healthcare can also be an intensely public matter, one that’s heavily influenced by our government and legal system.

Laws determine which treatments are available to patients and which aren’t, what kinds of research gets approved and funded — in some cases, they can even result in criminal charges against clinicians for prescribing drugs or providing treatments.
On this episode, we look at the intersection of health, medicine, and the law. We explore how the upcoming rescheduling of marijuana could impact research on the drug, hear the story of a doctor who faced manslaughter charges in the 1970s for performing an abortion, and learn about legislation that some states are using to try and regulate the influence of private equity on the practice of medicine.

SHOW NOTES:

• Near the end of 2025, President Donald Trump made an announcement that marijuana advocates had been waiting decades to hear — plans by the federal government to move cannabis from schedule 1 to schedule 3, a much less restrictive legal category that would allow scientists to more easily conduct research on the drug’s therapeutic value. Pulse reporter Liz Tung digs into the history of how cannabis first became a federally illicit drug, what impact that status has had on research, and how much of a difference rescheduling will really make.
• We talk with Britt Carpenter, a recovery advocate and executive director of Philly Unknown Project, about how medical marijuana helped him get off opioids after years of addiction — and how the stigma against marijuana may prevent others from doing the same.
• Abortion has been in a state of legal flux ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, putting many providers at risk of criminal prosecution. That might seem like a new development — but doctors faced similar pressures in the tumultuous years after Roe v. Wade was first decided. Reporter Linda Marsa tells the story of one young physician named Kenneth Edelin who became a national focal point of the debate after facing manslaughter charges for performing an abortion.
• It seems like a simple, common sense idea — that medical decisions should be made by doctors, not investors. But it’s an idea that’s been increasingly under threat, thanks to the rise of private equity in medicine. Now, some states are pushing back, with legislation aimed at curbing corporate influence in healthcare. Pulse reporter Alan Yu breaks down a recent court case out of Oregon that tested one such law, how it was decided, and what it could mean other states moving forward.