More Than A Magazine, A Movement
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case concerning a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, federal abortion rights enter a precarious state. States around the country have also set up “trigger laws”—abortion bans—that are ready to go into effect the moment Roe gets overturned. As attacks on abortion rights escalate, federal legislation guaranteeing reproductive rights is needed more than ever.
Rosalie Maggio, recently of Los Angeles, Calif., died Sept. 18, 2021, after a short, heroic battle with pancreatic cancer. An award-winning author of 24 books and hundreds of articles, Maggio was on the forefront of popularizing inclusive language and women’s quotations.
In Bangladesh, the first time my mother heard about sexual intercourse was on her wedding night. When I attended high school in New York City, my sex education teacher referred to sex as the “s-word”.
Though they happened over 24 years and 7,000 miles apart, my mom’s and my experiences with inadequate sexuality education are not unique.
Reproductive rights—once perceived to be a hallmark of late 20th-century American democracy—may soon give way to conservative states enacting unconstitutional anti-abortion provisions with procedural barriers so thickly and cleverly intertwined that the ability to challenge them may be unattainable, including at the Supreme Court.
The result of the Court’s shadow docket opinion is not just an end, essentially, to the legal right to an abortion in Texas—it sets in motion a workable blueprint for all other conservative state legislatures bent on stripping away abortion rights.
On Sept. 1, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed an unconstitutional Texas abortion ban to go into effect. While the Supreme Court did not rule on the law’s merits, the decision is a chilling harbinger of how they may rule in an upcoming case—Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—on whether previability abortion bans are unconstitutional.
Many are fighting back.
On the 21st anniversary of FDA approval of the abortion pill, now is a good time to remember the courageous and tenacious people who fought for decades to make this life-saving medication possible.
For centuries, women have faced the devastation of pandemics and the roadblocks of patriarchy. Yet, one of them, the audacious and determined Barbe-Nicole Clicquot, found a way to build a champagne empire despite the hardships.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Melinda French Gates on the imperative of passing paid leave; the powerful effect of gender balance rules for public boards in Massachusetts; in Albania, women now make up the majority of the cabinet; Canada’s election leaves women’s representation at a standstill; the impact of gender quotas on women’s political representation in Ukraine; the Ranked Choice Voting Coalition launched in California; and more.
As leaders from around the world gather in New York for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss urgent problems, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has a message for the United States: New abortion restrictions in Texas violate women’s fundamental rights.