Siena Peterson lives in Fryeburg.

I’ve never spoken publicly about my miscarriage. It’s the kind of experience that lives quietly in you, not always as loss, but sometimes as something harder to name.

For me, it wasn’t grief over a future I’d imagined; I didn’t dream of having children. What I felt was something more insidious: the quiet, corrosive sense that my body had failed at the one thing women are told from birth that we are built to do. I felt like something was wrong with me. It shook my sense of self-worth and the fact that society has trained women to feel that way is something we should all be troubled by.

My body handled it on its own. For many women, that outcome isn’t possible. Without medical intervention, without mifepristone, what I experienced could have become a medical emergency or a death.

That’s not hyperbole. That’s obstetrics.

This is one of the many reasons I’m supporting Dr. Nirav Shah for governor and why his commitment to a strategic state mifepristone stockpile isn’t a political statement to me. It’s a lifeline.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, millions of American women have lost the legal right to make their own reproductive health decisions. Donald Trump and his allies made that possible and they aren’t stopping there.

The current administration has taken aim at mifepristone’s FDA approval, at clinic funding, at the very infrastructure women rely on for cancer screenings, birth control and pregnancy care. Maine has chosen a different path, but that path requires a governor willing to defend it.

Dr. Shah’s plan does exactly that. He would keep Maine a safe haven for reproductive care, protect funding for providers like Maine Family Planning and Planned Parenthood and direct state agencies to safeguard reproductive health data from out-of-state investigations. These are not radical ideas, but common-sense protections for Maine women.

If the FDA were to rescind approval of mifepristone, Maine would already have a multi-year supply within its borders, legal for distribution under state law. It’s important to note that mifepristone can expire, but Maine has a robust public health system fully capable of managing medication inventory and knowing when a drug remains safe for use. 

And, as we all saw during COVID, Dr. Shah has already proven that he can navigate this kind of challenge. As Maine’s CDC director during the pandemic, he managed one of the most complex public health logistics operations this state has ever seen with transparency, competence and calm. He has a proven track record. 

The reasons women make reproductive health decisions are deeply personal. Financial circumstances. Genetic diagnoses. Health risks. Timing. Relationships. And sometimes, circumstances no woman should ever have had to experience in the first place. None of those decisions are easy and no politician, federal agency or ideology should have the final word. That word belongs to women, their families and their doctors.

Maine has always understood this. Dr. Shah is committed to keeping it that way, both in principle and in practice, with the funding, the policy and the medicine to back it up.

Because the difference between safe and unsafe shouldn’t come down to which state you live in, which administration holds power or whether care is available when you need it most.