BY SKYE WHEELER AND KELLY DAVIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS
05/06/23
In Pittsburgh, people breathe air that is suffused with toxic matter, according to the American Lung Association.
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that in 2019, Pittsburgh was determined to be the worst place for Black women and birthing people to live. Most would think these things are not connected, but nothing could be further from the truth.
After being isolated and lonely when I became pregnant in March 2020, I now help others so they feel less alone.
FEB 15, 2023
LARADA LEE-WALLACE
In March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, I realized I might be pregnant. My uterus felt heavy. My period was only two days late, but something felt off. I was alone and didn’t have a ride, so I called an Uber to the nearest grocery store to buy a pregnancy test. When I got home, I hurried to the bathroom and took the test. It was positive.
All of that was already a costly decision. I had set aside money for my bills and groceries that month, and as a full-time student and Medicaid recipient, I didn’t have the financial resources to pay for an abortion. In fact, the cost of a first-trimester abortion in the state of Ohio, where I live, was more than one month’s rent for my apartment. Luckily, I received financial assistance from the Abortion Fund of Ohio.
Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/02/15/why-i-became-an-abortion-doula-during-the-pandemic/
By Elisha Brown
January 26, 2023
This past Sunday, Jan. 22, marked what would've been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark United States Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. Instead of celebratory marches, though, protesters gathered across the country to raise awareness about new state restrictions on reproductive rights imposed in the seven months since the high court overturned Roe in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling out of Mississippi.
Thirteen states — eight of them in the South — now ban most abortions with few exceptions, and more restrictive laws are expected to be up for debate in Republican-controlled legislatures this year. It remains unclear if anti-abortion lawmakers will also take up bills that make having and caring for children easier in the South, a region beset with high maternal mortality and child poverty rates, and where eight states have still refused to expand Medicaid coverage to more residents under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
"There's a number of things people could be doing, if they cared about children once they are here," observes reproductive justice pioneer Loretta Ross.
Continued: https://www.facingsouth.org/loretta-ross-on-roe-and-reproductive-justice
After Roe v. Wade, Angela Davis wrote about how the reproductive rights movement was failing women of color. As Roe is dismantled, her diagnosis is more crucial than ever.
Sara Matthiesen
January 25, 2022
In 2016 researchers at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a public health project focused on reproductive well-being, made headlines with their “Turnaway Study.” The groundbreaking longitudinal study was comprised of nearly 8,000 interviews with 1,000 women who had either been “turned away” from abortion because they were past a clinic’s gestational limits or had successfully received abortions. Through interviews conducted every six months over a period of five years, the study compared the life circumstances of study participants following these two reproductive outcomes. The study, the first of its kind, sought to quantify the effects of being denied a wanted abortion.
Contrary to anti-abortion claims about the supposed psychological harm of ending a pregnancy, researchers found that obtaining an abortion did not increase women’s risk of developing PTSD, depression, or anxiety. Those denied abortions, on the other hand, did not fare as well.
Continued: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/abortion-is-not-a-choice-without-racial-justice/
It’s all about family values.
Judith Levine
December 12 2022
ON DECEMBER 8, President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies federal protection of same-sex and interracial marriages and requires every state to extend “full faith and credit” to such licenses granted by other states. The bill passed with bipartisan support: 39 Republican representatives and 12 Republican senators joined all the Democrats to vote yea.
A USA Today op-ed by Evan Wolfson, leader of the Freedom to Marry campaign, called the Respect for Marriage Act “a triumph for families [and] freedom.”
Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/12/abortion-same-sex-marriage-rma/
SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 2022
BY CAMILA VALLE, EMILY JANAKIRAM, HOLLY LEWIS, SHERRY WOLF
Spectre Journal (USA) recently hosted an event for donors about global lessons for the struggle for abortion rights and reproductive justice after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The panel included Camila Valle, Sherry Wolf, Emily Janakiram, and Holly Lewis. This is an edited transcript of their speeches and wrap ups after the discussion.
Camila Valle: I know people are probably thinking about what just happened to our right to abortion and reproductive healthcare in the US, which other speakers will go into tonight, but I wanted to start with a historic victory in a different part of the world: that of the Argentinian abortion movement, which won legalization at the end of 2020—and not just legalization, but free abortion as part of their socialized healthcare system.
Continued: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7850
The Supreme Court’s decision to end federal protections for abortion access didn’t just rewind the clock 50 years, it opened a Pandora’s box of confusing, potentially life-threatening legal complications. VF talks with five women on the front lines.
BY ABIGAIL TRACY AND ERIN VANDERHOOF
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIANA MARKOSIAN AND DRU DONOVAN
OCTOBER 12, 2022
Tattooed on Caitlin Bernard’s left foot is the image of a coat hanger and the words “Trust Women.” The 38-year-old Indiana-based ob-gyn got it years ago; it was intended as a reminder of life before Roe v. Wade. Bernard has long paired her medical career with advocacy. She was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful 2019 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit to reverse Indiana’s near-total ban on second-trimester abortions. Post-Roe, Indiana became the first state to pass an abortion ban. Now, Bernard is girding for another legal fight—this time against Republican Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita, who she says maligned her practice as Bernard became a lightning rod in one of the most publicized cases after the Dobbs decision stripped federal abortion protections and turned the country into a patchwork of disparate laws.
Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/the-fight-for-abortion-rights
Review | October 3, 2022
by Maya Campo
Abortion to Abolition: Reproductive Health and Justice in Canada by Martha Paynter (Fernwood, 2022).
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights are coming under increasing attack. However, the mainstream political discourse about reproductive rights and access to abortion too often narrows this discussion in a way that replicates systemic oppression and white supremacy.
Martha Paynter’s new book, Abortion to Abolition, aims to recentre the discussion around a framework of reproductive justice, which Paynter highlights as being developed by women of colour. Paynter takes an intersectional approach to the abortion rights, presenting case studies that highlight systemic issues of colonialism, homophobia and transphobia, racism, and classism that infringe upon reproductive rights in Canada.
Continued: https://springmag.ca/the-fight-for-reproductive-justice-is-an-abolitionist-struggle
The scholar discusses why the movement needs to bring reproductive justice out of the margins and into the center
Marian Jones
Sun 28 Aug 2022
For many women of color, the right to control one’s reproductive destiny has always been about much more than the right to abortion.
With the recent loss of the constitutional right to abortion in the US, some reproductive rights advocates are calling for a renewed focus on reproductive justice, a concept developed in the early 1990s by women of color. Reproductive justice stresses not just the right to abortion, but also economic, racial and environmental justice, along with other facets of social equality, as critical to true reproductive freedom.
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
Fri July 15, 2022
(CNN)Saquaya Ruffin didn't know what an abortion doula was until the clinic staff asked if she wanted one.
Her mother came with her to the appointment at Planned Parenthood in New York, but she wasn't going to be allowed in the procedure room. Ruffin agreed to the doula, figuring it would help to have someone with her.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/health/abortion-doulas-roe-v-wade-wellness-cec/index.html
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