National

Colorado One of Eight States Voting to Expand Abortion Access in November: ‘We’re Going to Be a Model for the Rest of the Country’

PUBLISHED 8/15/2024 by

Come November, Colorado voters will have the opportunity to prove their support for abortion rights in the Centennial State. In May, Coloradans for Reproductive Freedom gathered more than the 125,000 valid petition signatures needed to place Initiative 89 on the 2024 general election ballot. 

The measure reads as follows:

“The right to abortion is hereby recognized. Government shall not deny, impede, or discriminate against the exercise of that right, including prohibiting health insurance coverage for abortion.”

JD Vance Puts an Extremist Marriage Agenda on the Ballot

PUBLISHED 8/15/2024 by

Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, has faced backlash for his controversial comments about Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats, as well as his extremist pro-natalist beliefs. Vance’s ideology is part of a broader conservative movement concerned with declining marriage rates and changing family patterns. This movement seeks to incentivize marriage, punish single parenthood, and weaken policies that enhance women’s economic autonomy. Vance and his allies oppose public investments in child care and family leave, fearing these would empower women to make independent family decisions. Their efforts echo a broader conservative agenda to reinforce traditional family structures and gender roles.

Gun Violence—A Black Feminist Issue: An Excerpt From Roxane Gay’s New Essay, ‘Stand Your Ground’

PUBLISHED 8/14/2024 by

Bold and personal, Roxane Gay unpacks gun culture and gun ownership in America from a Black feminist perspective in her latest work, “Sand Your Ground.”

“It is appalling that women and people with uteruses have lost such a fundamental right to bodily autonomy. And it is not lost on me that women in many states have more rights as gun owners than they do as women. The power to take a life is more constitutionally and culturally valuable than a woman’s right to live freely. I do not know how to reconcile this reality with my feminism.”

Kentuckians Sound the Alarm: Abortion Bans Are Driving Doctors Out of State

PUBLISHED 8/14/2024 by

Advocates, medical students, faith leaders and physicians came together in Bowling Greens, Ky., to mark the two-year anniversary of the Kentucky Court of Appeals decision that allowed one of the nation’s most draconian state abortion bans to take effect. The near-total ban in Kentucky has no exception for abortion care in cases of incest or rape.

With a mobile billboard truck reading “Kentucky’s Abortion Ban Is Driving Away Doctors” as a backdrop, the press conference highlighted the devastating implications of Kentucky’s abortion ban—chief among them its power to drive doctors away.

How Single Moms in Mississippi Make It Work: ‘There Are Times I Don’t Eat to Make Sure My Kids Do’

PUBLISHED 8/14/2024 by

Front & Center is a groundbreaking Ms. series that began as first-person accounts of Black mothers living in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. Moving into the fourth year and next phase of this series, the aim is to expand our focus beyond a single policy intervention to include a broader examination of systemic issues impacting Black women experiencing poverty. This means diving deeper into the interconnected challenges they face—including navigating the existing safety net; healthcare, childcare and elder care; and the importance of mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

Dive into this first-person account from a mother struggling to feed her kids when they’re home from school during the summer, after Mississippi was one of 15 states to decline federal food aid for poor families: “There are times I don’t eat to make sure that they do. When you’re a parent, sometimes you have to make those decisions.”

Sarah Jones’ New Podcast ‘America, Who Hurt You?’ Puts America on the Therapist’s Couch

PUBLISHED 8/14/2024 by

Sarah Jones—the face of Ms. magazine’s October 2000 issue—is using storytelling to teach us how to heal. Tony Award-winning performer, activist and comedian, Jones brings her multicultural characters to life to examine our country’s myth of resilience in her debut podcast America, Who Hurt You?

The first season of the podcast, released last month, combines storytelling and interviews with guests such as Laverne Cox, Jane Fonda, Ai-jen Poo and Krista Tippett. She explores the personal and the political, both critiquing the systems in power while revealing our universal connections that are often overlooked. In doing so, America, Who Hurt You? provides renewed hope and optimism for our future. 

How an Antiabortion Doctor Joined Texas’ Maternal Mortality Committee

PUBLISHED 8/13/2024 by

Texas’ maternal mortality and morbidity review committee was created in 2013 to track and study maternal deaths and near-misses. Dr. Ingrid Skop, a San Antonio OB-GYN, was chosen to represent rural areas on the committee, over an obstetrics nurse from the Rio Grande Valley.

Skop is not just any antiabortion doctor. She is the face of a small but powerful medical lobby that has helped restrict abortion access across the country. Skop has testified to state legislatures and before Congress, and been called as an expert witness in court cases. She is one of the doctors who sued to have mifepristone, a common abortion-inducing drug, moved off the market, a case that ultimately failed at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Right-Wing Criticism of Tim Walz’s Military Record Is Really an Attack on His Manhood

PUBLISHED 8/13/2024 by

When right wing activists and media personalities (falsely) accuse Tim Walz of deliberately misrepresenting his military record, they’re not just attacking his honor and integrity, and therefore his character. The actual—although unspoken—target of the attacks on Walz’s career in the Army National Guard is his masculinity.

The reason is straightforward: Military service confers a certain kind of masculine street cred on men who wear the uniform. As a result, when a male candidate has a record of service—especially if he’s a Democrat—right-wing operatives make it a point to plant seeds of doubt about whether they were truly worthy of that respect. It’s a battle tactic in the political war. The ultimate goal is to punch holes in the “real man” credentials of someone like Walz, and thereby undermine his popularity with men.

A New Tennessee Law Claims to Protect Parental Rights, Leaving Teens Without Routine Healthcare

PUBLISHED 8/13/2024 by

In addition to enacting a strict abortion ban and trafficking law to punish those who assist minors with abortion access, Tennessee has also taken Justice Thomas’ injunction to heart that the time has come to reassess constitutional protections for birth control. Towards this end, on July 1, the state’s newly enacted Family Rights and Responsibilities Act aimed at bolstering parental authority went into effect with minmal fanfare.

Public healthcare providers may no longer provide teens with routine sexual and reproductive healthcare, including birth control, pregnancy testing and treatment of STIs, in the absence of parental consent.

Front & Center’s Next Phase: How We Fix Systems Designed to Fail Black Women

PUBLISHED 8/13/2024 by and | UPDATED 8/14/2024 at 1:33 P.M. PT

Front & Center is a groundbreaking Ms. series that offers first-person accounts of Black mothers living in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. Moving into the fourth year and next phase of this series, the aim is to expand our focus beyond individual stories to include a broader examination of systemic issues impacting Black women in poverty. This means diving deeper into the interconnected challenges they face, including healthcare, childcare and elder care, and the importance of mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

“When we started our Front & Center series three years ago, our goal was to give Black women living in extreme poverty—too often ignored in our politics and press—a platform to share their lived experience. … Instead of the narrow spotlight we’ve held to the singular program of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust guaranteed income pilot, we recognize that we must illuminate the full range of systems that harm our most vulnerable communities.”