More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Abortion bans force pregnant women to endure the dangerous work of pregnancy, labor and childbirth against their will. Abortion bans place pregnant women seeking abortion under state control and require them to perform involuntary labor. This is a violation of the 13th Amendment.
One of the visionaries behind Title IX—the federal legislation passed in 1972 that mandates gender equality in education—was a fierce and fearless congresswoman from Hawaii, Patsy Takemoto Mink. As Congress’s first woman of color and a 1972 presidential aspirant, Mink served 24 years in Congress, from 1965–1977 and then again from 1990–2002. Mink broke traditional gender boundaries, championed peace, the environment, equality and social justice, and never wavered as an advocate and ally for social change.
This Mother’s Day, we must recognize how politics has excluded mothers and work to create an inclusive politics where mothers’ voices can be heard.
Last week, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed a decision from the state’s Department of Child Safety (DCS) to place Lindsay R.—an Arizona woman whom the state branded a child abuser because she used medical marijuana while she was pregnant—on its child abuse and neglect registry for 25 years.
The criminalization of pregnant women using marijuana is part of a broader trend, according to National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which has documented more than 1,000 arrests for drug use during pregnancy.
In an opinion issued on Wednesday, Jan. 26, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) helped clear the way for the Equal Rights Amendment. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), responded to the newly issued OLC memo by saying that the ERA has already been ratified and should be recognized as the 28th Amendment.
“Abortion migration” is when pregnant people travel long distances and cross internal and national borders to access abortion care. While the news out of Texas is extraordinarily alarming, both Texas women and pregnant people across the globe have long been traveling to places like Albuquerque to legally terminate pregnancies. Various forms of state and state-sanctioned power combine to coerce our movement in ways that threaten our dignity and equal standing.
I refuse to feel hopeless about the fact that Texas has, for now, successfully banned abortion in that state. Already, the Department of Justice has sued Texas over its restrictive new abortion law, saying the state legislature enacted the statute “in open defiance of the Constitution.”
I do not predict another civil war, but I do know there will be a reckoning. Sometimes a loss opens the door to something better in the future. Before then, though, there will be enormous suffering. But, as we have seen before, no prohibition and no amount of pain or fear will ever stop a movement for fundamental human rights.
Minnesota’s Healthy Start Act gives incarcerated people who are pregnant or who give birth during their sentences the option to receive pre- and post-natal care in community-based prison alternatives.
The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act will alleviate the disparities that currently exist between breastfeeding employees and their coworkers, sending a clear message that the workforce will protect and support women who opt to balance a career and motherhood.
On Friday, the House passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a crucial piece of legislation designed to guarantee workplace protections for pregnant people.
While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA) provides some protections, pregnancy discrimination is still far too commonplace. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act would change that.