Reproductive Rights

The Sound of Silence: Where Is the Anti-Choice Outcry Over North Carolina’s Forced Sterilization of Women of Color?

by Pamela Merritt · January 27, 2012 · 1 comment

A task force in North Carolina recently ruled that survivors of that state’s eugenics program should be paid $50,000 each in financial compensation. Eugenics is often defined as the science of “improving” a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of “desirable” heritable characteristics. The practice of eugenics was not limited to Nazi Germany nor is it a well kept secret that’s been waiting to be discovered by organizations opposed to reproductive justice. In America, state ...Read More

Global

Do Restrictive Abortion Laws Actually Reduce Abortion Rates?

by Gwen Sharp · January 26, 2012 · 1 comment

Andrew S. let us know that The Lancet has just released a study on global trends in abortion, focusing on overall rates, access to safe vs. unsafe abortions, and how the legal status of abortion impacts abortion rates. The results shed some interesting light on the effects of efforts to reduce abortion by outlawing or restricting access to it. Looking at data from 1995 to 2008, the authors found that abortion rates were actually lower in areas of the world with less restrictive abortion laws: [Via ThinkProgress.] The ...Read More

Reproductive Health

Ask an Abortion Provider: Roe v. Wade Edition

by Lola McClure · January 25, 2012 · 3 comments

It’s Trust Women Week! Nearly 40 years ago, abortion was legalized in the United States. To mark the occasion, Lola McClure, a registered nurse, interviewed Dr. Nancy Stanwood, an obstetrician/gynecologist, abortion provider, mother, and board member with the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. Here is an excerpt of that interview: Hello Dr. Stanwood, it’s wonderful to meet you today! I knew I would like you instantly when I saw that you were wearing a zebra print shirt under your lab coat; I thought, ...Read More

Military

The Invisible War of Military Women

by Holly Kearl · January 25, 2012 · 2 comments

On Sunday I attended the Sundance premiere of The Invisible War, Kirby Dick’s heartbreaking documentary about sexual assault in the military. The 90-minute documentary opens with vintage military recruitment ads aimed at women from as early as the 1940s. They’re followed by clips of women military members talking about what drew them to a career in the military. Quickly, the interviews turn serious, and we learn that each woman is a survivor of rape at the hands of another military member. Even though all ...Read More

Activism

Ai-jen Poo: Organizing Labor—with Love

by Mark Engler · January 19, 2012 · no comments

Talk to Ai-jen Poo about her work and it won’t be long before you hear language you don’t often hear in the midst of intense social movement campaigning. For one, she does not shy away from talking about “organizing with love.” A 37-year-old organizer based in New York City, Poo is founder of Domestic Workers United (DWU), a group that waged a successful campaign for landmark legislation in New York state recognizing the labor rights of nannies and housekeepers. Now, as director of the National Domestic Workers ...Read More

Print

What We Left Behind: Girdles, Silence and Illegal Abortion

by Suzanne Braun Levine · January 18, 2012 · 7 comments

When I went to work at Ms. in 1972, I wore a matching pink skirt and blouse—and a girdle. I had just gotten married and was, therefore, not able to get a bank loan without my husband’s approval. I had given up playing basketball (half-court for girls) in college because no coach or court could be found. And I had had an illegal abortion. Actually it was having had that abortion that was my first tie to Ms. and the women’s movement. The Preview Issue of the magazine, which was excerpted in New York magazine, ...Read More

Ms.cellany

Victory! Obama Stands Up to Bishops and Protects Birth Control Coverage

by Annie Shields · January 20, 2012 · 18 comments

Great news! Despite months of fierce lobbying by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Obama administration announced today that it would not exempt Catholic hospitals from the Affordable Care Act requirement for insurance plans to cover employees’ birth control. ...Read More

It’s Trust Women Week—Join the Online March

by Annie Shields · January 20, 2012 · 6 comments

2011 brought an unprecedented assault by anti-abortion and anti-contraception state legislatures on women’s reproductive health—135 reproductive rights laws were enacted in 36 states, 68 percent of which restrict access to abortion. Reproductive-rights groups are ...Read More

Roe at 39: Where Women Stand

by Martha Burk · January 14, 2012 · 3 comments

Sarah Weddington was a 27-year-old, inexperienced lawyer when she argued one of the most important cases of the 20th century before the Supreme Court. She ended up having to argue it twice, because the first time the court had two vacancies, and the justices wanted to rehear ...Read More

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