More Than A Magazine, A Movement
In 2019, I became one of about 40 women subjected to invasive non-consensual gynecological surgery while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. What happened to me is not a one-off aberration—it’s a legacy of American white-supremacist pseudo-science going back decades.
For justice to be served, the government, ICE and all culpable individuals must be held accountable for what happened to me.
It’s the day of the ultrasound. Maybe everything will be okay now. Scrutinizing the screen, the technician shows me the baby, but then mumbles, “Where’s the heartbeat?” before rushing out the door. We sit there confused. Someone finally ushers us into another room. A nurse comes in and says, “I’m sorry.”
In the waiting room, we’re bonded together in a sisterhood few can understand. Whether it’s from loss or relief, we’re a mass of emotions, the air is thick with it. I’m sure others are as weathered and battered as I am.
The choice that is being taken away from millions of Texans makes me think of my mom, Poonam Ahluwalia. She had an abortion and it allowed her to change the world.
My mom is just one of millions of people whose lives were better because they had an abortion. Not because she was able to reach great heights of success, but because she had control over her future—something all of us want.
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.
“A lawyer advised me to file bankruptcy, so I did. And now that’s going to complicate getting a home, which is really frustrating because I had gotten everything else in order. … Now it just feels like I’m at a standstill.”
Child sexual abuse has deep and haunting effects, reverberating through family and generations.
That was the case in my family.
My lack of identity adjustment upon realizing that I was gay was not a personal confliction, but a social phenomenon existent across the expanse of all othered peoples. When you are queer your whole life, queerness based on sexual orientation is merely a predictable byproduct—a foreseeable outcome which places you only slightly further outside the circle you were already discluded from.
On Father’s Day, Joshua Ziesel, a clinical psychologist, wrote an essay about how women traditionally take on more mental labor than men. I welcome Ziesel to the next step of being the intellectually engaged and equally involved parent he strives to be.
Here are 30 questions that the average American mother will either immediately know the answer or know where the answer is.
On Monday, the Department of Education began public hearings to determine improvements to Title IX enforcement.
“They say they fear a witch-hunt, yet have never been the witches; even as we step forward to accuse them, that burden still falls upon us. … It seems their cries were heard when the Trump administration revised Title IX last year.”
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is prioritizing a bill that would ban all abortions if Roe v. Wade was to be overturned. But the reality is that we already know what happens when Texas bans abortion—the difficulty I faced trying to get an abortion during the pandemic shows how precarious our access already is.
I’m committed to sharing my story and holding our elected officials accountable so that Texans like me can get the care we need without politicians using our health care and lives to push their anti-abortion agenda.
“As a Hazara and a woman from Afghanistan, I am losing hope for the future of my country. I fear the U.S. withdrawal could contribute to the loss of 20 years of progress, the collapse of the current Afghan government and the start of another civil war in Afghanistan.”