Tag: Anti-Abortion Laws

Harnessing the Power of Women Voters

In 2017, a year into the presidency of Donald Trump, three notable women—Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo—looked to harness the sudden rage and confusion felt by women across the U.S. Garza, Poo and Richards announced the start of a women’s equality organization called Supermajority, a multiracial coalition of women organizing around issues like paid leave and affordable healthcare. The group’s name hearkens to the fact that women make up more than half of the U.S. population. 

These days, Amanda Brown Lierman is the executive director of both Supermajority and the Supermajority Education Fund, a sister nonprofit organization for research, education and development programs that prepare women civic leaders. And Lierman and her team have their eye on the prize: the 2022 midterms.

U.S. Senate Republicans Introduce Nationwide Abortion Ban: ‘This Once-Hypothetical Nightmare Is Here’

Just weeks before the midterm elections, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S. C.) and Chris Smith (N.J.) introduced a nationwide ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. The move was a reversal for Graham, who recently said abortion regulation should be left to the individual states. Democratic members of Congress and abortion advocates condemned the proposed legislation.

Michigan Judge Rules Abortion Ban Violates Women’s Equal Rights, Bodily Integrity and Dignity

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher ruled last week that the state’s 1931 abortion ban violates the Michigan Constitution.

In a forceful, 39-page order permanently blocking the law, Gleicher ruled that the abortion ban violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the state Constitution. She rejected Republicans’ argument that pregnancy is not an intrusion on women’s bodies: “Bodily autonomy is inherent to human dignity” and “eliminating abortion access will force pregnant women to forgo control of the integrity of their own bodies.”

Dark Money Anti-Abortion Groups Peddle the Absurd Idea That a Post-Roe World Empowers Women

Right-wing dark money groups are peddling the notion that abortion access “harms” women and, even more outlandish, that the Dobbs decision overturning Roe “empowers” them. This position essentializes women by suggesting their value is centered around motherhood. It also uses pseudo-feminist claims to detract from the very real dangers a post-Roe landscape presents for people and the myriad ways abortion access has helped advance gender equality in the U.S. in the last five decades. 

As San Antonio Abortion Clinic Closes, Its Director Worries About Who Is Left Behind

Abortion clinics are closing across Texas after the state banned the procedure, with few exceptions, at any point in a pregnancy.

At Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services, executive administrator Andrea Gallegos turned the lights on in empty patient rooms and worried about whom the clinic was leaving behind. The clinic is one of two owned by her father, abortion rights advocate Dr. Alan Braid. His clinics, one in Texas and one in Oklahoma, will relocate to Illinois and New Mexico.

Unionized Starbucks Employees Fight for Abortion Care Benefits

As anti-abortion laws spread across the nation as a result of the Dobbs decision, the Starbucks corporation said it could not guarantee benefits to unionized employees that they previously said would cover travel to access abortions.

Starbucks workers and labor organizers say this is a deliberate anti-union strategy which weaponizes the fragile state of abortion care access to discourage unionization.

Overturning Roe Will Exacerbate the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis. It’s Time for Our Leaders To Act

Black women’s health and bodily autonomy have been under consistent, unrelenting attack for centuries, a reality that holds true today. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and deny millions of people the constitutional right to abortion is expected to disproportionately hurt Black women. Policies that seek to improve Black maternal health must necessarily include policies that expand access to abortion care.

Doctors Say: Early Pregnancies Harm Girls. Abortion Bans Will Make Them Worse.

, , and

Each year, over 4,000 girls age 14 and under become pregnant in the U.S. These adolescent pregnancies are inherently higher risk for a multitude of reasons both social and physiological that can potentially impact youth for their entire lives.

Without access to abortion many of these girls will be forced to carry their pregnancies to term—a tragic scenario for a child and for our society.