Category: Health

Thinking Big With Haitian Midwives

In Haiti, there are high rates of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.

Founded in 2014, the Foundation for Advancement of Haitian Midwives (FAHM) partners with and supports Haitian midwives through education and outreach. Their work is urgent today while Haiti is in political turmoil, and unrelenting assaults by paramilitary groups have led to severe insecurity in the capital.

“Most people who are drawn to this want to produce safe competent, evidence-based care and to respect people’s voices, preserving the honor and dignity of every human being.”

Overturning Harvey Weinstein’s Conviction Shows Poor Understanding of Violence Against Women

Context is everything when it comes to sexual and physical violence against women. Harvey Weinstein had more than a “propensity” for sexual assault; he demonstrated a serially predatory pattern of behavior of targeting and violating women and learned from the systems that enabled him that he could get away with it. Knowledge of this pattern is not prejudicial; it is necessary for a thorough understanding of the perpetrator.

The overturning of Weinstein’s conviction merely emphasizes the degree to which protection of sexual predators at their victims’ expense and permissibility of male violence against women are entrenched in our institutions. If our legal system cannot appreciate the relevance of historical patterns of behavior, we can never combat violence against women successfully.

An Introduction to Catalonia’s Feminist Administration

For many decades, sexual and reproductive rights have been at the core of the global feminist struggle—but only an unapologetically feminist administration puts them at the center of the political agenda. Such is the progressive turn the government of Catalonia, an autonomous region in northeastern Spain, assumed in May 2021 when it created a Ministry of Equality and Feminisms.

In October 2021, this new ministry drafted the national strategy for sexual and reproductive rights. This was founded on the premise that the personal is political, so it must also be public policy. This strategy sought to guarantee the effective exercise of existing rights—particularly abortion, long-term contraception and sexuality education.

Many women are now asking: What about perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause?

Arizona Women Gear Up to Challenge Near-Total Abortion Ban in Upcoming Election

Tuesday, April 9, 2024, will go down in history. It is the day that far-right extremists got what they wanted in Arizona: a near-total ban on abortion. It is the day the Arizona Supreme Court turned the clock back 160 years—to a time before women could vote and before Arizona was even a state. It is a day that we will look back on with shame and horror. Like so many Arizona moms, my first thought was of my daughter, who was born last July in a post-Roe America.

While we cannot snap our fingers and change the dynamic at the U.S. or Arizona Supreme Court, we can make our voices heard at the ballot box. Come November, Arizona women are going to come out in full force to vote for our right to control our own bodies.

Arizona’s 1864 Abortion Law Was Made in a Women’s Rights Desert. Here’s What Life Was Like Then.

In 1864, Arizona—which was an official territory of the United States—was a vast desert. Women in Arizona could not vote, serve on juries or exercise full control over property in a marriage. They had no direct say in laws governing their bodies. Hispanic and African American women had even fewer rights than white women.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on April 9, 2024, that a 160-year-old abortion ban passed during this territorial period will go into effect. Since that ruling, the Arizona legislature has been grappling with how to handle the near-total ban. Even if the ban is fully repealed, it could still take temporary effect this summer.

As someone who teaches history in Arizona and researches slavery, I think it is useful to understand what life was like in Arizona when this abortion ban was in force.

Can Idaho ‘Force Someone Onto a Helicopter’ as the Standard of Medical Care for Accessing Health-Stabilizing Abortions?

In the wake of Dobbs, while most abortion-restrictive states have maintained an exception to preserve the health of the pregnant woman, a handful of ban states—including Idaho—no longer permit abortions needed to protect a pregnant person’s health. The Biden administration says this is in direct conflict with the federal statute EMTALA.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar encapsulated what Justice Sotomayor referred to as the “big daylight” between the two laws: “In Idaho, doctors have to shut their eyes to everything except death—whereas, under EMTALA, you’re supposed to be thinking about things like: Is she about to lose her fertility? Is her uterus going to become incredibly scarred because of the bleeding? Is she about to undergo the possibility of kidney failure?”

‘Tragedy Upon Tragedy’: What the Justices’ Questions on EMTALA Revealed

The narrowing of options for physicians in Idaho leaves them in a bind: Do you perform an abortion that could save a woman’s life or her organs, as dictated by EMTALA, or will you face penalties under Idaho law? 

Oral arguments can sometimes reveal how the justices of the Supreme Court are approaching the issue at hand. The questions asked by the justices suggest three things: a lack of clarity under Idaho law; abortion as the standard of care; and acknowledgement of fetal personhood.

Will the Supreme Court Dump Women’s Lives and Futures *Again*?

We’ve come to the point in post-Dobbs America where the legal system, and the nation’s highest Court, are now entertaining questions about how long is too long for a woman to have to wait to receive emergency care when her organs—including her reproductive organs—are in danger.

Will women again be failed by this Court? Or will the justices finally be able to look at the devastation they have caused to women and families and not blink?