Don't you worry none, Mama's got The Pill
Today…
is National Women’s Health Week.
the Supreme Court will hear a case about what kind of leeway religiously-affiliated employers have to sidestep federal employment law.
is Hostess Cupcake Day, marking the anniversary of the first day they were sold, May 11, 1919. I can taste it - dry cake, and the filling that left so much greasy on your tongue. Really, you were fine just peeling off the chocolate and pitching the rest.
Abortion
The Mother of the Largest National Independent Abortion Fund
Sylvia Ghazarian | Ms. Magazine
This Mother’s Day, when we talk about bold, intelligent, tough and proactive women leaders, we must talk about Joyce Schorr, founder and president of the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP). For many of us, life events impact and even change the trajectory of what is important to us and where are true passion lies. Schorr is no different.
Abortion Bans Are Bad Medicine-Especially During a Pandemic
Aliza Norwood, Anu Kapadia | Ms. Magazine
As doctors on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are putting our lives on the line to to care for our patients. Yet while our patients and colleagues suffer, governors across the nation are using the pandemic as a political tool to ban abortions.
LGBTQ
Aimee Stephens brought the first major trans rights case to the Supreme Court. She may not live to see the decision.
Katelyn Burns | Vox
Stephens has long had kidney disease, which has required frequent dialysis. But her condition has worsened recently, making dialysis impossible, and she’s been moved into hospice care in her home state of Michigan, according to a GoFundMe set up by her wife Donna Stephens’s family.
Advocates were mobilizing LGBTQ people everywhere for the 2020 census. Then the coronavirus pandemic erupted.
Susan Miller | USA Today
For decades, LGBTQ people have battled for a seat at the census table. Then in 2020, there came a beacon of hope when same-sex couples living together were included in the 10-year survey for the first time, even though sexual orientation and gender identity questions were absent. Advocates rallied the LGBTQ community, urging full participation. Then in the midst of rollout this spring, a global health crisis erupted – upending lives and tangling census outreach efforts.
Idaho governor asks SCOTUS to block transgender inmate's surgery
John Riley | Metro Weekly
Gov. Brad Little has filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a circuit court ruling finding that the state was required to pay for a transgender inmate’s gender confirmation surgery.
Judge allows South Carolina lesbian couple's foster care lawsuit against HHS to move forward
John Riley | Metro Weekly
A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a South Carolina lesbian couple seeking to challenge a federal waiver that allows child welfare agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ couples, and other prospective parents, on the basis of an agency’s stated religious beliefs.
Pregnancy & Parenting
How single mothers are coping during the pandemic
Kristen Rogers | CNN
Many single moms are the only people who can ensure their children are fed, educated, comforted, disciplined and safe, without the in-person support of friends or family members. These responsibilities are in addition to the mothers' own work and other struggles.
Making this quote my email auto-reply: "Single parents are probably the most overwhelmed and time-starved people out there. It's tough, and this pandemic has just made it tougher.”
Are Pregnant Women Safe If They Catch the Coronavirus?
Emily Shugerman | The Daily Beast
Early studies of pregnant COVID-19 patients found surprisingly few negative outcomes. But two new case reports documenting stillbirths and maternal deaths have sparked discussion about what the medical community still has to learn.
The Race to Get Life Insurance While Pregnant
Ruthie Ackerman | Glamour
Appraising a pregnant body is fraught during the best of times. In the midst of a pandemic, it’s even more complicated.
Creator Of Yelp-Like App That Will Screen For Bias And Racism In Maternal Healthcare Is Giving Mothers Of Color Back Their Power
Victoria Uwumarogie | MadameNoire.com
Irth will be a Yelp-like review system for hospitals and physicians. With half a million already in funding through grants, the app will filter reviews by the racial, ethnic background and sexual orientation of the women giving ratings. It will be the first of its kind though to screen for bias and racism in healthcare, and to help users to find providers they may feel more comfortable with in their socioeconomic and demographic bracket.
Black Moms Are in More Danger Than Ever This Mother's Day
Joia Crear-Perry & Lienna Feleke-Eshete | Newsweek
This Mother's Day, many of us are celebrating virtually or abstaining from festivities to adhere to COVID-19 quarantine guidelines and keep our families safe and healthy. For the African American community in the United States, this feeling of powerlessness to protect the health of our mothers, daughters, ourselves and the other black women in our lives is not new—the coronavirus is just the newest threat to our lives.
Consider the moms
Elizabeth Ralph | POLITICO
According to a new poll, 80% of moms say they are bearing the brunt of homeschooling during the coronavirus lockdown. And then there’s housework and other childcare: Parents overall are spending more time on household duties during Covid, but women say they are still doing a larger share.
Moms Deserve More From Their Partners––Viral Meme Highlights This
Amber Leventry | Scary Mommy
Sure, on the surface this is a lighthearted joke about the inability of men to be thoughtful, forward-thinking humans showing evidence of emotional intelligence. Stereotypes are so funny! Except they’re not when it means a large portion of the population (women) bear the brunt of the joke.
It’s Okay to Grieve What You Thought Pregnancy and New Parenthood Would Look Like
Anika Nayak | SELF Magazine
In our series What It’s Like, we speak with people from a wide range of backgrounds about how their lives have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. For this installment, we spoke to Pooja Lakshmin, M.D., a board-certified perinatal psychiatrist specializing in women’s mental health.
"I feel incredibly exhausted all the time": 6 families on juggling child care during the pandemic
Nicole Narea, Anna North | Vox
The experience of parenting during the pandemic can be isolating, and it’s easy to wonder whether everyone else is somehow managing better than you are. To break through the isolation a bit, Vox spoke to six parents about how they structure their days, what their challenges are, what makes things a little easier, and what they need right now.
Alabama to spend nearly half a million to investigate maternal deaths
Anna Claire Vollers | Al.com
When Alabama legislators approved a stripped-down state budget last week, they included nearly half a million dollars to investigate why Alabama women die from childbirth and pregnancy complications.
Reproductive Health & Justice
60 Years Since The FDA’s Approval Of The Birth Control Pill
Alice Broster | Forbes
May 9 marks 60 years since the FDA’s approval of the birth control pill and as National Women’s Health Week starts focus has turned to how accessible the pill is to those who need it and whether a male version of the pill will be developed anytime soon.
Newsweek: I Was A Feminist Activist In The '70s When The Pill Was Legalized For All Women
NPR: How The Approval Of The Birth Control Pill 60 Years Ago Helped Change Lives
Fun fact: a million years ago, I wrote a weekly newsletter for NARAL, and “Don’t you worry none, Mama’s got The Pill” was nixed as a sub-head. We were… surprisingly?… skittish about sex.
Sick of religious limits on care, a hospital seeks to end partnership with Catholic system
Michael Hiltzik | Los Angeles Times
There may not be many reasons for optimism in American healthcare just now, but one glimmer of hope has emerged in Orange County, Calif., where a prestigious hospital says it’s fed up with the Catholic Church’s restrictions on healthcare. Hoag Memorial Hospital, which was founded as a Presbyterian institution in 1952, is suing to extricate itself from a partnership it entered with a Catholic hospital system in 2012.
Grantmakers for Girls of Color Gives One Million for COVID-19
Tim Lehnert | Philanthropy Women
The Love Is Healing COVID-19 Response Fund is providing one million dollars in grants to resource organizations and efforts addressing the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls, fem(mes), and nonbinary/gender expansive youth of color. The grant-making initiative represents Grantmakers for Girls of Color’s first grantmaking effort as an independent entity.
Planned Parenthood’s Alexis McGill Johnson on Why the Fight to #FreeThePill 'Feels So Retro'
Galina Espinoza | Rewire.News
The acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood spoke with Rewire.News about the past, present, and future of birth control.
Health workers and U.N. agency raise alarm that women and girls are losing access to crucial care as pandemic drags on
Siobhan O'Grady | Washington Post
Marie Stopes warned last month that disruptions in service in 37 countries could prevent 9.5 million women from accessing contraceptives and safe abortion. The organization projected that such disruptions could lead to up to 3 million unplanned pregnancies, 2.7 million unsafe abortions and thousands of pregnancy-related deaths. A recent UN study suggested that if the pandemic continues to disrupt care in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries over the next six months, 47 million women could lose access to contraceptives, leading to 7 million unplanned pregnancies.
Supreme Court
Catholic schools, ex-teachers clash in Supreme Court case
Jessica Gresko | AP
First, Kristen Biel learned she had breast cancer. Then, after she told the Catholic school where she taught that she’d need time off for treatment, she learned her teaching contract wouldn’t be renewed. Biel died last year at age 54 after a five-year battle with breast cancer. On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a disability discrimination lawsuit she filed against her former employer.
Los Angeles Times: Does L.A. Catholic school have a religious-liberty right to fire a teacher who gets cancer?
Clarence Thomas has found his moment
Joan Biskupic | CNN
Justice Clarence Thomas has drawn notice for asking more questions during the Supreme Court's new pandemic-prompted system during oral arguments than he has asked for more than a decade in the courtroom, as the justices broadcast hearings for the first time in their history.
Misadventures in Teleworking Are the Least of the Supreme Court’s Problems
Irin Carmon | New York Magazine
At the birth-control case, which has dragged on for years, Roberts still sounded like he hoped everyone could just get along. “Well, the problem is that neither side in this debate wants the accommodation to work,” he said, adding wanly, “Is it really the case that there is no way to resolve those differences?” He sounded like a man of the past.
Top 5 Moments From The Supreme Court's 1st Week Of Livestreaming Arguments
Christina Peck, Nina Totenberg | NPR
Here are the top five can't-miss moments from this week's history-making oral arguments.
Work & Money
Women's soccer players ask for equal pay appeal, trial delay
Ronald Blum | AP
American women’s soccer players want to delay a trial until after an appellate court reviews last week’s decision to throw out their claim of unequal pay while allowing allegations of discriminatory work conditions to move forward.
ESPN: USWNT players file appeal against ruling that quashed equal pay claims
NBC Sports: USWNT hopeful appeal leads to faster judgment in equal pay fight
Sports Illustrated: USWNT Asks Judge to Delay Trial, Which May Lead to Settlement
Pandemic shows contrasts between US, European safety nets
David McHugh | AP
The coronavirus pandemic is straining social safety nets across the globe — and underlining sharp differences in approach between wealthy societies such as the United States and Europe.
Women Are Bearing the Brunt of the Covid-19 Economic Pain
Elaine He, Nicole Torres | Bloomberg News
The devastation being wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic is not evenly distributed. The disease seems to be deadlier in men, but the economic fallout has hit women harder. Unlike the last recession, which led to greater job losses for men in the U.S., the current downturn is disproportionately hurting women’s employment — with ramifications that could be long-lasting if we don’t pay attention to them now.
I’m a Hospital-Worker Mom, and I Need Daycare on the Job
Rija Siddiqui | CityLab
With daycares closed, health-care workers have been scrambling to find new care at a time when they should be focused on caring for surges of patients.
The Terrible Jobs Report Gets Worse The More You Read It
Amelia Thomson- DeVeaux, Julia Wolfe | FiveThirtyEight
Women (15.5%) also had a higher unemployment rate than men (13%) — which is atypical, since women usually have a lower unemployment rate than men. And in recessions, men are usually the first to feel the impact. But women are more likely to hold jobs in the industries that have been pummeled since the pandemic began, like health care and child care services, which may explain why they’re experiencing more of the job losses this time around.
What Would It Look Like If We Treated Mothers Better At Work?
Tami M. Forman | Forbes
It is now the norm and not the exception to be a working mom, yet we still too often treat the two roles as if they are diametrically opposed to each other. But what if we didn’t require them to check their motherhood at the office door?
We Are Failing Working Mothers. Here’s What Leaders Can Do
Jason Wingard | Forbes
With schools and daycares closed, and our nation’s families spending more time at home, this gender inequality is already having detrimental effects on women’s work lives. Several articles describe how women have been forced to prioritize their male partners’ careers at the expense of their own. One Democratic congressional candidate put it succinctly: “The way we’ve been able to MacGyver a career as a woman is completely under attack by a global pandemic.”
Moms, Here's What All Your Pandemic-Related Invisible Labor Is Actually Worth
Amy Westervelt | HuffPost
Homeschool teacher? Chef? Psychologist? This calculator can tell you the monetary value of all that “free” work.
Women Account For 55% Of The Rise In Job Losses
Danielle Kurtzleben | NPR
Before the coronavirus crisis, there were briefly more women on U.S. payrolls than men. That's no longer true. Women accounted for 55% of the rise in job losses last month.
Women have been hit hardest by job losses in the pandemic. And it may only get worse.
Samantha Schmidt | Washington Post
Waitresses, day-care workers, hairstylists, hotel maids and dental hygienists are among the 20.5 million people who watched their jobs vanish in April — the most devastating spike in unemployment since the Great Depression.
Teens, women, Hispanics and the less educated are among the hardest hit by the economic shutdown
Tracy Jan | Washington Post
As the unemployment rate soared in April to 14.7%, the shutdown fell unequally on Americans according to age, gender, educational attainment as well as race. Women became unemployed at higher rates than men. Hispanics and blacks were hit harder than whites and Asians. Those without high school diplomas fared the worst. As did teenagers, of whom nearly a third are now out of work.
More, More, More
Trump administration asks court to dismiss lawsuit to add ERA to US Constitution
Veronica Stracqualursi | CNN
The Trump administration is asking a federal court to throw out a lawsuit from three attorneys general that seeks to add the ERA to the US Constitution.
Montana sees most female statewide candidates in decades
Matthew Brown, Amy Beth Hanson | AP
Female candidates are positioned to make significant gains in Montana this election year with the highest number seeking statewide political office in at least three decades, including races for governor, U.S. House and other high-profile posts.