Tag: Pregnancy

These stories cover pregnancy in its relation to legislation and sex discrimination, abortion access, parenting and everything in between. Because of U.S. laws that put fetuses’ health above the fundamental human rights of pregnant people, they are often treated as second-class citizens.

I Refused to Let Texas’ Abortion Ban Decide My Life. Other Women Aren’t So Lucky.

The following is Madysyn Anderson’s personal story, as told to Courier Dallas:

“SB 8 became Texas law on Sept. 1, and I found out about my pregnancy just a couple of weeks later. I didn’t want an unwanted pregnancy to prevent me from completing the biggest achievement in my life thus far. I decided that I wanted to share my experience with abortion and be an educational resource.

“Unless our country gets a reality check about who we elect to office and we educate ourselves on their positions, we women have no hope of deciding whether we want to start a family or not—or if we want to carry a rapist’s child. We stand no chance unless we fight for what we believe in.”

Lessons from the DNC: How Abortion Protects Us From the Choices We Can’t Make

I was thrilled to hear DNC speakers say the word “abortion,” speaking up on behalf of reproductive freedom. But I tensed up whenever someone spoke in terms of protecting women’s “decisions” about pregnancy.

There is a lot about pregnancy that happens in the absence of any decision at all, or in spite of the decisions people make—like an ectopic pregnancy, or a spontaneous miscarriage, or pregnancy as a result of sexual abuse. That’s why we must ensure that the law, something we can control, does not cruelly add to families’ experiences of powerlessness, pain and loss.

We Must Fight Back Against the Supreme Court’s Attacks on Women’s Equality

Monday, Aug. 26, marks Women’s Equality Day 2024. This annual celebration commemorates the certification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It’s a reminder that the founding promise of equality in our Constitution was not always available to everyone—and that women have had to fight to be treated as equals to men. That is particularly true for women of color, many of whom could not vote even for decades following passage of the 19th Amendment due to racial restrictions in voting laws. 

Abortions Up Over 20 Percent Since Dobbs, Driven by Telehealth

A new report revealed the number of abortions in the first three months of 2024 was significantly higher than abortions in the first three months of 2023 and 2022. 

Before telehealth abortion became available, patients had to travel hundreds of miles to brick-and-mortar clinics, walk a gauntlet of protesters and pay on average $560 for medication abortion. Now they can obtain abortion pills by telehealth from the privacy of their own homes and have them mailed directly to all 50 states with prompt delivery.

Unregulated Pregnancy Clinics Collect Health Information From Pregnant People—With No Privacy Protection

This summer, the antiabortion movement is mounting an offensive against bipartisan bills to establish federal data privacy protections for Americans and long-overdue online protections for children.

While many unregulated pregnancy clinics, or crisis pregnancy centers, claim HIPAA compliance, they operate under no legal requirement to protect client confidentiality. Thus, they are free to share sensitive information they are collecting from pregnant people as they wish.

“No one should have to worry about their personal health information falling into the hands of anyone who might seek to use that information against them.”

If Conservatives Want Stronger Marriages, They Should Look to Liberal Solutions

Conservative politicians are complaining about childless cat ladies, declining marriage rates, unstable families and single-parent households. Their strategy so far has been to ban abortion, offer families no real support, do nothing to help struggling Americans find greater financial stability, promote a deeply misogynistic worldview to young men, and then yell at young women that they need to get married and have babies. Shockingly, this is not working very well.

On the other side, liberals have de-emphasized marriage and the nuclear family as the primary organizing unit for society, while offering women and men alike more choices about when, how, and if to start families, and more support if they do. And while marriage and childbearing rates are down generally, the prototypical Democratic voter—the college-educated woman working for pay in or near a large city in a blue state—is more likely to find herself in a happy, stable marriage than the prototypical Republican voter.

This isn’t a coincidence.

Title IX: Upholding Justice for Student Survivors in a Historic Election Year

This year marks the 52nd anniversary of Title IX, a landmark civil rights law that has transformed the landscape of U.S. education. The Biden-Harris administration’s new Title IX regulations, set to take effect Aug. 1, represent a significant step toward acknowledging and addressing the unique challenges faced by student who face discrimination and sexual violence, especially female, LGBTQ+ and pregnant or parenting students. But Republicans hope to block these Title IX revisions and revert them back to the restrictive Trump-era Title IX guidelines.

In this historic election year, with President Biden stepping down from the presidential campaign and Vice President Kamala Harris stepping up as the new candidate, the stakes are even higher.

Climate Regulation and Reparations Should Focus on Fair Conditions for Pregnant People and Children

, and

The climate crisis is already quietly killing millions. It, along with other ecological crises, is set to potentially kill a billion humans and countless nonhumans—those least responsible for causing it. But here is a truth you will rarely hear: The death count predictions are premised on the current reproductive rights models, the ones that caused the crisis to begin with.

The GOP Isn’t Getting Less Radical on Abortion—They’re Getting Better at Lying

It’s not that Donald Trump is secretly pro-choice; it’s that he truly does not care at all about abortion rights either way, and anti-abortion groups were useful in getting him elected.

Now, though, those same groups are putting his candidacy at risk. 2024 is not 2016. Trump is adjusting accordingly. And one big adjustment is on abortion, which he wants Republicans to just quit talking about—for now. Once he’s in office, though, the calculus is different.

The Complexities of Choice: An OB-GYN’s Perspective on Abortion and Autonomy

A personal narrative by Dr. Katherine Brown, an OB-GYN physician who provides comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including abortion services. She reflects on the evolution of her understanding of her role as a physician, emphasizing the importance of humility and recognizing the expertise of her patients in making decisions about their own reproductive health. Dr. Brown criticizes political interference in abortion care, arguing that such decisions should be left to the individuals directly affected.

“Abortion can be relief but at the same time despair. Abortion can be the right decision, and at the same time feels like the only decision among a set of horrible decisions. What always remains true is the patient is the one who is the expert of their lives. No one can know what is right for them.”