More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Running for office while pregnant or parenting can be a major challenge.
I discovered I was pregnant the week the Dobbs decision was announced. I briefly considered suspending my campaign because I knew how hard it was going to be for my family and me. But at the end of the day, the reason I ran for public office hadn’t changed or become less significant to me, and so I decided to stand up for what I believe in.
Across the board, Democratic candidates and progressive ballot measures far outperformed expectations set by the pundits, who had all but declared that abortion no longer was the driving factor in voters’ decisions.
“It was abortion that made a huge difference in race after race,” said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners. “In well over half the races, it was the issue of abortion that increased turnout of Democrats and younger voters.”
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.)
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: a roundup of promising midterm results for ranked-choice voting and women candidates in local and national races
Apparently, women aren’t likely to forget their loss of control over their own fertility; not during the midterms and not anytime soon. In fact, voter turnout and voter rage around abortion could pave the way forward in the effort to hold onto democracy itself in the future.
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.
The president’s party typically loses seats in the midterms, and Demings and Beasley each lost in Republican-leaning battleground states, Decision Desk HQ projects.
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.