[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
June 15, 2022
From the ongoing fight for abortion rights and access, to elections, to the drive for the Equal Rights Amendment, there are a multitude of battles to keep up with. In this weekly roundup, find the absolute need-to-know news for feminists.
Access to Birth Control Is in Danger if Roe is Overturned [[link removed]]
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A demonstrator during a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to demand the Senate take action on gun safety on May 26, 2022, in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
BY ARGHAVAN SALLES and AMY ALSPAUGH | When does life begin? As a midwife and a physician, we know this is more a philosophical question than a medical one—and one even scientists can’t definitively answer. Nonetheless, legislators have made numerous attempts at defining and enshrining fetal personhood into law. Until this point, all such efforts have failed. The legal justification in favor of overturning Roe in the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, however, provides a path for another key goal of the anti-abortion movement: establishing fetal personhood.
A bill recently proposed in Louisiana suggests life begins at the time of fertilization. Others have argued it begins at implantation into the uterine lining. Still others say life begins at some undefined point between fertilization and birth, such as the presence of a heartbeat.
The original decision in Roe v. Wade did not attempt to define the presence or absence of personhood, but rather marked a point in time at which “the state’s interest in preserving the potential life of the unborn child overrides any individual interests of the woman.” This has been widely interpreted to mean the point at which the “unborn child” could survive independently—currently around 24 weeks of gestation, depending on many factors including access to advanced neonatal care.
These philosophical definitions of when life begins are the basis of legislators’ attempts to restrict the bodily autonomy of people who can get pregnant. Consequently, legislators—most of whom have no medical expertise and cannot get pregnant themselves—in one state could assert that life begins at fertilization, while a neighboring state could say life begins at birth.
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Leaked SCOTUS Opinion Relies on Misinformation and Tropes of the Anti-Abortion Movement [[link removed]] Enforcing Criminal Abortion Bans Post-Roe: ‘A Massive Escalation of Surveillance’ [[link removed]]
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Proposed Federal Law Prohibits Nonconsensual Condom Removal: ‘A Dangerous Form of Sexual Assault’ [[link removed]] Losing Roe v. Wade Is a Matter of Global Significance [[link removed]]
What we're reading:
Because it's hard to keep up with everything going on in the world right now. Here's what we're reading this week:
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"Florida
could
be
a
critical
access
point
for
abortion,
but
the
state’s
own
battle
is
just
starting"
—
The
19th
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[link removed] [[link removed]] Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on Apple Podcasts [[link removed]] + Spotify [[link removed]] .
It’s been 50 years since the historic gender equality legislation Title IX was passed. On the latest episode, learn about the legacy of its chief proponent: Patsy Takemoto Mink, who defied all the odds in so many ways as the first woman of color in Congress.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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