More Than A Magazine, A Movement
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.
Long before a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion revealed that by summer Roe v. Wade will likely be overturned, only pregnant people bore the burden of pregnancy—not just physically, but also financially. “Impregnators” have always had the choice to walk away. Sure, they could be on the hook for child support after birth—but what if they could be held responsible for their actions before, from the moment of conception, just as the pregnant person is?
That question led two Pennsylvania state representatives to begin drafting a law to hold impregnators accountable.
Women throughout the country reported showing up to their vaccine appointments only to be subjected to off-cuff, discriminatory treatment by professionals providing the vaccine, even as evidence mounted that the COVID-19 vaccine was safe and recommended for pregnant women, while COVID-19 was proving particularly dangerous in pregnancy, increasing the rate of severe complications including stillbirth. Some providers singled pregnant women out, requiring doctor’s notes; others refused to vaccinate them altogether.
As individual rights to deny medical care on religious or moral grounds expand, no one is safe from discrimination in medical care—not even the “unborn.” We should all understand our right to be free from gender-based discrimination in medical settings.
Hostile state or federal laws that ban or restrict abortion and criminalize pregnancy outcomes could have yet another devastating impact: threatening eligibility for legal immigration status and undermining efforts to create more equitable and humane immigration laws.
The politics of immigration and the politics of choice will continue to collide as extreme lawmakers cynically trade the reproductive health of immigrant and non-citizen women for political gain.