I am an apartment dweller in New York City. My building endured a long and strange chapter during which the landlord sent up so much heat that even with the radiator turned off tenants had to keep the windows open in a blizzard. Some of us ran air conditioners all winter. Still others had their radiators removed, the riser pipe in the bathroom more than sufficient to heat these studio apartments. The nonstop A.C. didn’t break the bank because basic electricity was included in the rent. Those with A.C. paid an additional thirty-five dollars a month, not just in the summer but all year round. Since they were paying for the A.C. anyway, they figured, may as well use it to stave off suffocation.

So, year after year we coped, thinking eventually the landlord’s heating bill would catch up with him and effect change. It didn’t. Tenant action? Most of us were young nine-to-fivers, out of the apartment during the day and on to Happy Hour after work; once home, strip to your underwear and live with the discomfort rather than get on the landlord’s radar (we were all rent-stabilized). Then a new tenant moved in on the fifth floor, one floor below me. One day I heard him arguing with the super about the excessive heat. He was at the end of his rope. The super said: “If you don’t like it move out.” And he did, having been in the apartment only two weeks.

And there it is. It wasn’t a stupid super or a wasteful landlord—it was a scheme to force rent-stabilized tenants out so the place could be re-let for more money. A new lease for the unit would include a 25 percent vacancy rent hike, and they wouldn’t even have to paint it! But wait, didn’t the guy check out the place before signing the lease and paying a month’s rent, a month’s security deposit, and the broker fee? Or did he inspect it, but before he arrived, they opened the windows and front door and used a fan to get the heat out? And for every one of us who would rather live in our underwear than give up our rent-stabilized lease, how many more threw in the (perspiration soaked) towel? All this swirled in my head as I stood on the landing eavesdropping on the super and the hapless tenant on the floor below.

The next day I called the regulatory body for housing in New York. It’s a very busy place, and by the sound of the gal’s voice on the phone mine was probably one of a gazillion calls she had already handled that day. So, I’m telling her my story, and she’s distractedly going uh huh, uh huh, when suddenly she realizes what I was saying and exclaims in disbelief: “Wait a minute, you want to make a complaint about a landlord giving too much heat?” I said yes. She replied: “We don’t have a form for that.” Eventually the landlord abandoned the tactic. Perhaps the fuel bill began to outpace those first month’s rent and security deposits, or perhaps someone who bailed after two weeks sued when the security deposit wasn’t returned for “breaking the lease” and the extortion was laid bare.

It was counterintuitive. To think that in a city where people sometimes resort to using their ovens to heat their apartments there are landlords harassing tenants by overheating the building? You just don’t see it coming.

Over the counter. Now that’s a phrase for our times. Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to the customer. If you google “Can Abortion Pills Be Bought Over the Counter,” Planned Parenthood gives a flat No, they can only be obtained with a prescription from a PP clinic—or another abortion provider. Which, for now anyway, is still true. I can see that their tone implies a discriminating approach. I suspect they’re just protecting their share of the market. However, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) doesn’t mince words! In an article titled “Over-the-Counter Medication Abortion as a Strategy to Expand Access to Care” they found growing national support, especially in states with strict abortion restrictions, for over-the counter access to mifepristone and misoprostol, the pills used in chemical abortions. Pharmacists (not surprisingly) are on board too. Polly Robinson, PharmD, commented on the piece, writing: Thank you for this article. As a pharmacist and a woman, I support over-the-counter access to abortion. It is one way to make access to reproductive care more equitable. Relatively, these two medications are safer than many available over the counter. I’d feel very comfortable recommending and counseling patients to receive these medications. And an organization out of San Francisco called Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) tells us “. . . mifepristone and misoprostol meet many of the FDA’s criteria for being available over the counter.” So . . . there will be a form for that?

Conjure up an image of yourself standing at the pharmacy counter. You’re on one side, a professional in a crisp white coat is on the other; the barrier that separates you bespeaks serious drugs being sold across it—a serious matter to be taken seriously. But now pills that kill life in the womb can be sold over the counter as if they were just aspirin: The barrier that separates you having no more gravitas than a lunch counter? It’s counterintuitive. Or should be. Apparently counterintuitive countermeasures are not just for predatory landlords getting one over on massive housing agencies whose lifeblood is having “a form for that,” it’s also an abortion lobby tactic for convincing folks that empty catchphrases like “over the counter” can replace common sense conscience. And if you’re not watching, you don’t see it coming.