Tag: Women’s Health

Women everywhere deserve accessible, affordable and comprehensive healthcare. This includes reproductive healthcare like contraception, abortion, sex and relationship education, STI prevention and treatment, cancer screenings and counseling. However, lawmakers have long attempted to restrict or reduce this care in ways that harm women.

Red Stain on a Yellow Dress

“Serena’s going back to Maggie’s Farm but not for long. Where, after that, she doesn’t know, but it does not seem to matter. Because she knows now that it is over. Soon she will stop bleeding. She can go on with her life.”

In 2021, writer Julia MacDonnell published a collection, The Topography of Hidden Stories, which included a story particularly relevant at this historical moment. Recently, she described this story, “Red Stain on Yellow Dress,” as a “fictional meditation on what young women may have experienced in the epoch before the passage of Roe v. Wade” and added a warning that the story is “gritty and bloody, the way things used to be. Maybe you’ll weep when you read it, the way I did when I wrote it.”

Our Abortion Stories: “The Word ‘Freedom’ Is Hypocrisy When Women Lose the Right To Control Their Own Bodies”

On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. Ms.’s Our Abortion Stories series chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe.

*Share your abortion story by emailing [email protected], and sign the petition.*

‘A Whole Generation of People Who Don’t Know How To Take Care of People’: Training Ob-Gyn Medical Residents In a Post-Roe World

A peek into the first class of medical professionals applying to residency in a post-Roe America.

“My personal take is that it’s really hard to learn in an environment of scarcity and an environment of fear,” said Dr. Lauren Thaxton, an ob-gyn professor at the University of Texas Dell Medical School. “And I think that those are two things that are very realistic in some of these restrictive states.”

In Absence of Roe, Healthcare Providers Have a Professional and Ethical Duty to Step Up

As the human rights crisis in the U.S. intensifies, every healthcare worker has a role in protecting people who need abortion care. We must empower ourselves, patients, and the public with accurate, actionable information to access the resources they need. Not acting in this crisis goes immediately against one of the first oaths we made joining the health professions: Do no harm.

Democrats in Congress Introduce Bill to Crack Down on Fake Clinics and Anti-Abortion Disinformation

On June 23, members of Congress introduced the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation (SAD) Act to crack down on false advertising related to abortion services by “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs). CPCs are anti-abortion organizations that masquerade as abortion clinics in order to interfere with access to reproductive healthcare by disseminating inaccurate, misleading and stigmatizing information about abortion and contraception. Despite appearances, most CPCs do not employ licensed medical personnel or provide referrals for birth control or abortion care.

In the House, the lead sponsors of the SAD Act are Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), In the Senate, the bill is led by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “No one should have to question that the person they are seeking medical advice from is actually a doctor or that information is accurate, objective and complete,” said Maloney.

The Supreme Court Clearly Doesn’t Care About Women’s Lives

If we pay attention to those whose lives have already been destroyed by an inability to access abortion, we can see our collective future and the depths the challenges to come. Centering the voices of those who have struggled to get care—even as we recognize the implications of Dobbs on everyone—allows us to predict at least three immediate consequences of last week’s decision.   

The Importance of Talking About Women in the Fight Against Abortion Bans

The most powerful argument for abortion rights is to highlight the sex-based nature of these restrictions and argue that they violate equal rights. To succeed in arguing that sex equality requires the right to abortion, we need to be able to talk about how sex shapes access to abortion and how anti-abortion legislators target women with devastating consequences. The elimination of sex-based language in abortion politics makes this argument impossible, and reinforces the long-term right-wing strategy of suppressing information about sex-based disparities.

Thousands of Medical Professionals Urge Supreme Court To Uphold Roe: ‘Provide Patients With the Treatment They Need’

Over 2,500 healthcare professionals from all 50 states have signed a letter urging the Supreme Court to scrap their leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft opinion and uphold Roe.  

“As medical professionals, we have a duty to provide our patients with the treatment they need to be safe and healthy. Patients should be able to make their own decisions about their health, using science and medical guidance from their physicians, without interference or influence from politics or the courts.”

Number of U.S. Abortions Increased 8 Percent During Trump Administration, Reversing 30-Year Trend: ‘The Need for Abortion Care Is Growing’

The number of abortions in the U.S. increased by 8 percent during the Trump-Pence administration. Overall, fewer people became pregnant, but among those who did, a larger proportion chose to have an abortion. About one in five pregnancies in 2020 ended in abortion.

This research reveals a dramatic reversal of a 30-year trend of declining numbers of abortion, “underscoring that the need for abortion care in the United States is growing just as the U.S. Supreme Court appears likely to overturn or gut Roe v. Wade.”