More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Across the U.S., indie clinics are often the last line of defense. In 2022 alone, at least 42 independent abortion clinics have been forced to close or stop providing abortion care.
Despite ongoing challenges, we’ve seen the resilience of independent clinics and providers and heard the voices of voters and the public like never before. We need everyone in this fight to keep our clinics open.
If it’s been years—or decades—since you started a new school year, you may be surprised to learn that some areas of high school curriculum haven’t evolved for the better since you roamed the halls of your alma mater. This is especially true when it comes to sex education.
Young people today are less likely to receive instruction on key sex-education topics than they were 25 years ago. To get a sense of what the future of sex ed might look like, I interviewed several professionals and students about their own sex ed experiences and their visions on how sex ed can be improved.
Martha Kempner spoke to Ms. about her weekly newsletter ‘Sex on Wednesday’ and the current political climate in the U.S. Sex, sexuality and sexual health are her subjects—and lately, she has no shortage of material to draw from.
“We are in a really critical period right now. This is a really scary moment for sexuality and sexual agency.”
“We felt it our responsibility to depict the war on Black women’s bodies raging in this conservative state,” said Katori Hall, creator of Starz’s P-Valley.
A troop of Girl Scouts visited the Capitol to see the promise of America and instead watched their fundamental constitutional right to abortion healthcare get stripped away from them.
Ninety-two percent of high school students reported needing a new pad or tampon during school. Yet, period poverty, a lack of access to menstrual products due to economic circumstances, impacts students’ ability to safely address menstruation.
“Some girls find out about their periods when they actually get them. It’s just never talked about in schooling.”
The recently released investigative report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) mishandling of clergy sex abuse allegations is damning. Research suggests a strong correlation between perpetrator beliefs about gender, social context and sexual abuse.
“Why should it be up to the men to decide what constitutes justice for the women and children, while the women are expected to abide by the decisions made for them?”
I read the draft decision by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and wondered what my ancestors would think of us—the U.S.—at this moment.
I knew immediately what one might think. Her name is Lillie and her story motivates my work as an obstetrician-gynecologist and as an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights globally. She would say that history is repeating itself after learning little from its past.
When it comes to preparing youth to lead healthy, sex-positive lives, we know that the state of sex education in our middle and high schools is dire. And although teaching sex ed is often considered the responsibility of middle and high schools, colleges often end up dealing with the fallout related to this lack of education.
Many first-year U.S. college students enroll in a college in the state where they live, so it’s especially important for states with lackluster high school sex ed to address it at the college level.
“Don’t Say Gay” bills don’t protect children—they play into the hands of child abusers, while also putting school districts in violation of Title IX. Denying a school district’s right to define a curriculum based on evidence-based research plays directly into the hands of predators who want, very much, naïve and disempowered children to prey upon.
