More Than A Magazine, A Movement
All women should have the right to choose if or when to be mothers, and to have the economic and social support to do so. This choice has been restricted across time and place due to discriminatory legislation against mothers and pregnant people, lackluster social safety nets and anti-abortion/anti-birth control movements.
Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups. It’s already August and the heat is on. And while we are working hard to save the world, we must take time to read, rest and renew.
These 27 books are bound to support you, learn you, trouble you and try you. They may even heal you. So take some time and take care.
Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.
“When people say that programs like this will stop people from working, it just makes no sense to me. $1,000 isn’t enough for me to quit my job and is less than what I make, and what I make from working isn’t enough to cover all my bills. People like me need more income.”
Students in majority-Black schools are on average 12 months behind their peers in majority-white schools, due in large part to COVID-19 disruptions. This widening education gap is a devastating sign that many Black children will continue to be marginalized by structural racism and classism throughout their lives.
Guaranteed income is one way to reduce some of the structural barriers low-income children face. Unrestricted payments allow parents to prioritize their specific needs and can open up a wide range of new opportunities.
The landscape of “abortion deserts” in this country now glaringly resembles the map of where we see the highest rates of food insecurity. The people forced to seek abortion care hundreds of miles away from their homes are the same parents skipping meals so their kids can eat, scrambling to fulfill SNAP work requirements and grocery shopping with calculators to stretch their government benefits as much as possible.
I was forced to give my son up for adoption, moments after giving birth. Boom. Gone. Just like that. I had no hope of ever seeing him again.
This shameful secret—my pregnancy and loss of my child—festered inside for more than 50 years. Decades later, my middle-aged son reached out by email and we met, a longed-for experience that soon turned into a nightmare. I had no idea that reunion in adoption is often shattering. The pain and anguish I wasn’t allowed to feel when I gave him away exploded inside me.
Since the overturn of Roe, states now have further jurisdiction to prosecute women in cases of illegal abortions, miscarriages and many other instances of so-called child abuse—something they’ve been doing for years, especially to low-income women and women of color.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) has launched a resource guide for prosecutors, police, healthcare providers and welfare workers alike in protecting pregnant women. “Now is not the time to give up,” said NAPW. “The opportunities for potential allyship, collaboration and solidarity are numerous.”
As a Black queer woman in politics, Erin Maye Quade has faced her share of obstacles, but one of the most demoralizing was when members of her own party refused to suspend balloting between she and her opponent when she went into labor.
Maye Quade spoke to Ms. about her experience at the convention, what it means for women in politics and why she’s not giving up.
Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.
“It was really unbelievable when I got the call a few months ago that I would be part of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust and start receiving $1,000 each month. … I really believe that there should be a program like the Magnolia Mother’s Trust for all the people living in poverty who need it, especially moms.”
It’s been just over a year since we launched Front and Center—our series centering the low-income Black women of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust guaranteed income project in Jackson, Miss.
From the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, to the cruelty of Mississippi state legislators who refuse to expand postpartum Medicaid access, the disregard displayed toward Black women shows us that our work here is not done.
A peek into the first class of medical professionals applying to residency in a post-Roe America.
“My personal take is that it’s really hard to learn in an environment of scarcity and an environment of fear,” said Dr. Lauren Thaxton, an ob-gyn professor at the University of Texas Dell Medical School. “And I think that those are two things that are very realistic in some of these restrictive states.”