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A Groundbreaking U.N. Resolution Calls Forced Pregnancy What It Is: Reproductive Violence
It took until July 7, 2026, for the world’s leading human rights body to call forcing someone to be pregnant—or forcing them not to be—what it is: reproductive violence. In a landmark resolution adopted unanimously, the U.N. Human Rights Council formally recognized “reproductive violence” as a specific, systemic form of gender-based violence.
This historic U.N. declaration has implications for the United States, where 41 states ban abortion at some point during pregnancy. These bans block medical providers from offering needed care, and enable police and state attorneys to arrest and criminally prosecute pregnant women whose reproductive decision-making they oppose.
Any law or government action that requires a person to carry a pregnancy to term against their will is a form of bodily assault. The dynamics mirror domestic violence and sexual assault. The core of rape is the violation of consent—taking control of another person’s body and forcing them to submit. Abortion bans likewise hijack a person’s body, stripping them of their bodily integrity and self-determination.
As anti-violence advocate Irene Weiser once asked: “How can we ever begin to end violence against women if the laws of our society will not even guarantee the most fundamental of human right to women—to say at all times, under all circumstances, what we allow to happen to our bodies?”
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Andrew Tate in His Own Words: On Men’s Rights, Anti-Feminism and How He ‘Threatens the System’
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Hegseth’s Testosterone Bit Isn’t About Health
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How Corporate Finance Took the Fun—and the Values—Out of Ben & Jerry’s
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Why Attacks on Immigrant Communities Are Reproductive Justice Issues
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‘I Don’t Want To Die’: Texas Patients Are Afraid to Get Pregnant
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The Antiabortion Movement Has a New Plan for a National Abortion Ban
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Every Mother’s Fear and Every Black Mother’s Nightmare: What Happened to Nolan Xavier Wells?
Michele Goodwin examines the tragic death of 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells through the lens of reproductive justice, arguing that the fight for justice does not end at birth but extends to a child’s right to grow up safely. Drawing connections to the stories of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Ruby Bridges, she explores the enduring fear many Black mothers carry—that their children may not make it home safely because of racism, violence or systemic failures.
The episode also examines the unanswered questions surrounding Wells’ death after a July 4 outing on Mississippi’s Horn Island. Goodwin reviews what is publicly known, the concerns raised by Wells’ family about the investigation, and why they have sought an independent autopsy and retained civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Framed as a public service announcement, the episode calls for a thorough investigation while reflecting on the historical and ongoing struggle for accountability, concluding with Mamie Till-Mobley’s enduring reminder that injustice anywhere demands the attention of us all.
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Saving Seneca Falls: The U.S. Birthplace of ‘All Men and Women Are Created Equal’ Must Be Preserved
A caved-in roof. A crumbling porch. A memorial water wall in need of restoration.
These are just a few areas of the $10 million of deferred maintenance needed at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y., one of 11 sites on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2026 list of “Most Endangered Historic Places.” The Women’s Rights National Historical Park celebrates the first Women’s Rights Convention, held on July 19 and 20, 1848. Of the 433 parks within the National Park System, only 13 are dedicated to women’s history, making the inclusion of the Women’s Rights park on the “most endangered” list even more imperative. Rather than merely lament a need for restoration, the list, according to the trust, aims to increase “visibility, public attention and new resources to save and activate historic places for the public good.”
The story of suffrage, like so many stories in our nation’s history, is neither uncomplicated nor is it a “single story” that’s “preserved in amber,” insists Miranda Johnson-Haddad, president of the Friends of the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, the non-profit philanthropic group that supports the park. Johnson-Haddad emphasizes that the park’s leadership wants to continue to have “brave conversations about difficult subjects,” including that some suffragists, like Stanton, succumbed to white supremacist thinking—despite being active in the abolition movement—championing the right to vote for white women, but not for Black men and women. No Black women were known to be in attendance at the first Seneca Falls Convention, and only one Black man, Frederick Douglass, signed the declaration.
Still, “these are stories that belong to all of us in all their messiness and complexity,” Johnson-Haddad stresses, “and that can guide us through the current messy complexity.” She cites “Bread and Roses,” a protest song dating back to 1912: “As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days / The rising of the women means the rising of the [human] race.”
April Hall
Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Reclaims the Diversity of the Ancient World
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey validates the culture through this quarter-billion-dollar Hollywood production—best seen and appreciated in movie theaters. So, why did some react to this latest retelling of The Odyssey as if the mere presence of a Black woman would delegitimize its place in history? And should we ignore them as out-of-touch fringe extremists?
Before The Odyssey even reached theaters, Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy ignited predictable outrage from white supremacists and anti-“woke” commentators who claimed a Black actor had no place in one of Western civilization’s foundational myths. But as scholars of antiquity make clear, that backlash says far more about modern racial politics than it does about the ancient world itself.
Nolan’s sweeping adaptation arrives at a moment when the fight over history is also a fight over power. By embracing a multiracial cast, The Odyssey challenges centuries of whitewashing and reminds us that the ancient Mediterranean was far more diverse than many have been taught to believe.
The diversity of the ancient world is our collective heritage—not the exclusive property of those seeking to rewrite the past.
