More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Find stories here about healthcare in all its forms, including abortion and contraceptive care. Healthcare is a human right, and there are feminist providers and activists around the world working to ensure access for everyone across different income levels and identities.
On May 8, abortion providers in Virginia, Montana and Kansas filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA seeking an order to maintain and expand access to mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used for early abortion and miscarriage.
“It is critical that abortion providers and patients obtain certainty in light of the chaos that is currently surrounding mifepristone,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who filed the lawsuit.
In male-dominated fields, women continue to be undervalued in the workplace. A male standard is the default in fields built by men for men.
On April 26, the House passed Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill, the “Limit, Save and Grow Act.” If enacted, the bill would create new work reporting requirements, stripping Medicaid coverage from adults unable to document eighty hours of work or community service per month.
Work reporting requirements are unnecessary, harmful and ultimately counter to the goals of the Medicaid program. Here’s why.
In the case of abortion, which the supreme court decriminalized in September 2021, allowing women access to abortion up until 12 weeks gestation, women are still struggling to gain proper access to legal abortion for free at public hospitals because doctors are unaware of the law or find excuses to delay the procedure.
Human rights defender and lawyer Ariadne Song has defended women’s rights cases for 19 years, including the ‘aborto legal’ campaign first started by the Green Wave, or Marea Verde, in Argentina.
Long-term care workers like myself—an industry that is almost entirely women of color—are some of the most disrespected, unprotected and underpaid workers in the country.
On Tuesday, President Biden signed an executive order to improve care and support care workers—the most comprehensive action yet to address this industry in crisis. This is a great first step, and I hope for the sake of my community and our loved ones that this starts to pave the way for necessary change. We will take this win and use it to motivate our continued fight.
Black women across America face many health crises buoyed by systemic failures ever-present since our country began. The fact that health disparities persist and widen is an indictment on our system and those whose health and well-being it prioritizes—but more is possible.
Closing the Medicaid gap is arguably one of the quickest ways to make our nation’s health system more equitable.
The health of Black women is under constant attack. Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), the nation’s largest independent abortion fund, follows a reproductive justice model and continues to work in marginalized communities across the U.S. to provide abortion funding to providers on behalf of patients.
“We believe equality, equity and autonomy are fundamental rights. We believe every individual should have agency to make decisions about their own life and well-being. We believe governments should not have control over a woman’s body, as it violates their right to bodily autonomy and bodily integrity. We believe women should not be relegated to second-class status.”
What if we thought about maternity care like we thought about extractive, under-regulated, poorly run banks? We have plenty of examples of the federal government quickly mobilizing resources to bail them out. They are indispensable! They are core to the wellbeing of our economy and our communities! They are too big to fail!
But I can’t imagine many things more core to the well-being of our economy and our communities than the health of women, of mothers and the children they bring into this world.
Emergency contraception methods are ones people can use after they’ve had sex and are concerned with becoming pregnant. They work by preventing or delaying the release of an egg from the ovary to prevent pregnancy after the fact.
With young people facing increasing constraints on their reproductive health, they need to be aware of emergency contraceptive methods, where to get them and how to use them. However, the vast majority of providers aren’t counseling young people about emergency contraception. It’s key for healthcare providers to inform their patients about emergency contraception, and to offer a supply in advance to have at home.
A federal district court judge in Texas issued a ruling on Thursday blocking certain Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements that insurers cover preventative care services with no out-of-pocket costs. The ruling applies nationwide.
The judge’s decision means millions of people could lose access to over 60 essential preventive services aimed at early detection of diseases, including breast and cervical cancer screenings, as well as breastfeeding support and pregnancy-related preventative care, including screenings for postpartum depression, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes. Research has shown that the ACA cost-free coverage of preventative services led to more people using them and narrowed care disparities in communities of color.