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.
In her debut, The Three Mothers, author Anna Maliaka Tubbs tells the stories of Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little—the mothers of James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X respectively. Tubbs emphasizes that although these men are some of the most recognizable names in the Civil Rights Movement, the movement didn’t start with them.
When crises strike, we turn to our friends, families and sometimes even complete strangers to provide an extra set of caring and supporting hands. Care workers have always played an essential role in our communities, from assisting with child care to providing professional support to the elderly.
Our government has a once in a generation opportunity to pass policies that would support fair pay and dignified work conditions for caregivers, investing in the essential caregiving economy.
The catastrophic destruction triggered by the Russian invasion has rapidly escalated the risk of HIV infection and concomitant violence for women in Ukraine.
The Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline (M+A Hotline) was founded in 2019 by two primary care physicians who knew people were self-managing their abortions at home but often had questions and would go to the internet looking for answers. Dr. April Lockley is a family medicine physician in New York City and medical director of the M+A Hotline (1-833-246-2632).
“Since the beginning of time, people and communities have taken care of themselves without going to the doctor because of how the system is set up. It’s inequitable. It’s racist. And so people have always taken care of themselves. We’re a support to say, ‘This process is going as it should.'”
March 18 will be a regular Friday for most. But for the thousands of medical students across the U.S., the stakes could not be higher. For us, the past 20 years of education have culminated in Match Day, when graduating medical students discover where they will continue their medical training in their chosen specialties.
For those of us going into obstetrics and gynecology, the pressure and nerves of Match Day are far greater this year. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges Mississippi’s state law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, threatens the very foundation of reproductive care in the U.S.
Just 16 years ago, Colombia had a total ban on abortions. Last month, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled to decriminalize abortion completely up to 24 weeks and unconditionally under three exceptions.
The case, brought by a collective of feminist movements known as Causa Justa, argued criminalizing abortion violates the human rights of women, girls and other pregnant people.
Since 1998, dozens of local governments across the U.S. have passed measures implementing the U.N. Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)—most recently, Los Angeles County. the most populous local jurisdiction in the country.
CEDAW has been ratified by every country in the world, except for six: Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Palau, Tonga and the U.S. Although President Carter signed CEDAW in 1980, the Senate has never approved the treaty by a two-thirds vote, as the Constitution. In response to the U.S.’s failure to ratify the treaty, grassroots advocates have focused on passing local measures that embody the key principles of CEDAW.
When Babette Rosmond published her book The Invisible Worm 50 years ago, it was a daring act of courage and a call to arms to all women with breast cancer, beseeching them to ask their doctors about treatment options instead of passively accepting a radical mastectomy.
The book was funny, as Rosmond manages to weave her dog’s sex life and her love of the Beatles into the story of her cancer. But it was serious as well. A patient—especially a woman—questioning male surgeons was revolutionary for the time. The Invisible Worm, she stated, was not solely about a lumpectomy but rather personal choice.
The term “microaggressions” has become commonplace. The term is losing its meaning. And when we lose track of the meaning, we also lose track of the purpose: to seek justice and end aggression.
On Tuesday, Lambda Legal and the ACLU filed a suit to block Texas from performing a child abuse investigation on a family seeking healthcare for a transgender child.
On Wednesday, Judge Amy Clark Meachum, a Travis County district court judge, granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the state from this family’s specific child abuse investigation. It will, however, allow other investigations to continue under a controversial directive from Abbott last week instructing the Texas DFPS to investigate gender-affirming care for Texas youth.