by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
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AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News. |
The Trump administration has just sent $10m worth of birth control to be burned—rather than donate it as aid. The supplies, including pills and implants, have already been paid for by US taxpayers—and will cost another $167,000 to destroy. —The Independent (UK), July 29, 2025
Abortifacience is a word you may
Be unaware of: it's the use of meds
Or other agents to abort. Today
Republicans—who are at loggerheads
This week with global charities about
Incinerating contraceptive aid
For Senegal—have used the word without
Awareness of its meaning: what's unmade
Can not abort. The condom, coil or pill
Is saving lives, not ending them. The stocks
Expire not soon. America pays nil—
Not one red cent—to ship them to the docks ...
Can you explain why they'd be set alight—
Excepting that the reason is pure spite?
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly.