Dear John,
This week saw two new lawsuits challenging unnecessary and burdensome state-imposed restrictions on abortion pills in West Virginia and North Carolina. In both cases, physicians argue that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s regulations around the medications should preempt state laws.
State legislators and employers should take note of restrictive laws like these—because, as Linda Burstyn points out in the most recent issue of Ms., young women are starting to plan their lives and careers around abortion bans. A recent survey found that among employees ages 18 to 34, 47 percent of women and 44 percent of men believed they wouldn’t have the career they’d planned for, because politicians are now in control of their personal reproductive decisions. A Ms. poll taken in advance of the 2022 midterm elections last year found that among young women voters, 44 percent have either considered moving or are making plans to move to a state where abortion is protected, and 10 percent already have declined a job in a state where abortions are banned.
Meanwhile on Capitol hill, over 100 prominent women’s rights organizations sent an open letter to members of Congress urging them to focus on gender equality in the upcoming session. Advocates point to five areas in which action is urgently needed: health, reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy; economic security for women and families; policies to reduce gender-based violence; democracy reform and voting rights, including enshrining the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution; and immigration reform.
“The outcome of the 2022 midterms was history-defying for a reason: It was driven by a broad demand to protect the rights of women and childbearing people,” the letter reads. “Given the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that women and all people of marginalized genders face, in particular Black women and other women and gender-expansive people of color, the 118th Congress has a responsibility and a duty to make gender equity and justice a top priority in its upcoming session.”
You can count on Ms. to be watching!
Finally, this week I want to remember the victims of the latest mass shooting—here in my home state of California. Over two-thirds of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) adults say violence against Asian Americans is on the rise, according to Pew Research, and these latest tragedies are proof. And with nearly three-quarters of AAPI women reporting experiences of racism or discrimination within the past year, we must never forget that lives are on the line.
Onward,
