More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The worldwide population passing 8 billion is an opportunity to finish the work of upholding rights and reproductive autonomy for women and girls, and reduce the stresses higher growth would place on our climate, environment, health, food, water and security.
Denizer Carter penned this piece in 2022, a month before the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act’s passage, sharing her story of being forced off her job at a grocery store because she needed an accommodation while pregnant, and urging the Senate to prioritize the PWFA. The voices of women like her were instrumental in the law ultimately being passed in December 2022.
“In 2019, I was working as a cashier for a large grocery store chain in Louisiana when I became pregnant with my second child. When the store’s management found out about my restrictions, they pushed me out of my job.”
(This essay is a part of Ms. and A Better Balance’s Women & Democracy installment, all about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act—a groundbreaking civil rights law ensuring pregnant and postpartum workers have the right to reasonable workplace accommodations. Bipartisan, pro-family and boldly feminist, the PWFA is both a lesson in democracy and a battleground for its defense against antidemocratic attacks.)
The estimated U.S. maternal mortality rate in 2018 was 17.4 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, putting the United States dead last compared to similarly wealthy countries.
Protecting and expanding access to abortion care and taking steps to support pregnant women and families such as through child tax credits will help reduce the maternal mortality rate and catch the U.S. up to the standards of other countries.
This election season saw six ballot measures on abortion across the U.S.—and in all of them, the pro-abortion rights position passed decisively.
The high margin of passage or failure, respectively, for each ballot measure—even in conservative states—shows how central the issue of abortion access is to women voters, especially young women.
Seats are up for grabs in Congress and in state houses that may determine the future of reproductive freedom in the United States. Local candidates have their sights on banning contraception and rolling back LGBTQ protections.
Much is at stake in our state courts, with the election of judges who will determine the fate of state abortion bans.
Despite the claims of Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s majority, abortion has a deeply rooted legacy in American law and tradition.
Reported abortions have drop sharply post-Dobbs, while self-managed abortion numbers soar. Many Americans, especially those living in the most restrictive states, have turned to telemedicine abortion which can be shipped to all 50 states from abroad.
Over the next year, at least 7,000 U.S. teenagers will likely be forced into parenthood because they were not able to obtain a desired legal abortion
Anti-abortion rhetoric and images saturating the internet and political discussions portray embryos in early pregnancy as fully formed miniature human beings. Recently enacted abortion bans refer to embryos as “babies” and claim there’s a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy. But what does an early pregnancy actually look like?
Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This week: Top stories from Mexico, Brazil, Iran, Afghanistan, Italy and more.