More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Running for office while pregnant or parenting can be a major challenge.
I discovered I was pregnant the week the Dobbs decision was announced. I briefly considered suspending my campaign because I knew how hard it was going to be for my family and me. But at the end of the day, the reason I ran for public office hadn’t changed or become less significant to me, and so I decided to stand up for what I believe in.
In 2019, I was working as a cashier for a large grocery store chain in Louisiana when I became pregnant with my second child. When the store’s management found out about my restrictions, they pushed me out of my job.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would close a legal loophole in the landmark Pregnancy Discrimination Act by ensuring that all employers provide pregnant and postpartum workers with modest accommodations on the job. The bill has passed in the House twice but it still hasn’t gotten a vote in the Senate, even though it has enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass. It is urgently needed and wildly popular. A recent poll showed 90 percent of Americans support the bill.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in in this biweekly round-up.
This week: Supreme Court cases threaten the future of affirmative action; senators push legislation to protect incarcerated pregnant women and pregnant workers; Social Security Administration will allow transgender people to indicate their correct gender on documents; Hawaii high school discrimination case puts Title IX to the test; Italy swears in its first woman prime minister; 4.6 million Americans are disenfranchised due to felony convictions; and more.
Post-Roe, the anti-abortion movement is funneling more resources to crisis pregnancy centers that use these tactics in order to block access to abortion healthcare, both in states with bans and in states that protect reproductive rights.
Over 2,500 crisis pregnancy centers across the U.S. provide virtually no medical services, spreading fabricated claims about the dangers of abortion. Public officials are taking actions to hold CPCs accountable for their deceptive practices.
The blaming and prosecution of women whose fetuses die, as well as those who seek an abortion, has caused an epidemic of fear, despair and fury among women of childbearing age, one that is rippling out to their families, friends, partners and other loved ones.
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.
Without the protections of Roe, we stand to see gross inequalities in fertility care and reproductive decision-making.
State laws defining ‘life’ as the moment an egg is fertilized will limit or prohibit the freezing or discarding of embryos—a process fundamental to successful fertility treatments. These practices could all but vanish in some places. These restrictions emerge at a moment where fertility technology is becoming ever more precise. Combined with existing anti-poor fertility policies, the reality is that poor women of color will have even less opportunity to determine the time and circumstance in which they decide to have a family.
Almost 2 percent of babies born in the United States are the result of fertility treatments, together referred to as assisted reproductive technologies (ART). The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court threatens the ability to access the treatments people need to build their families, such as ART.
Maternal mortality is one of the most compelling indicators that America runs on racism. Here’s what we need to do to overcome this legacy and current reality.
