Today….
at 10am ET, the Supreme Court will hear a huge case on health insurance coverage of birth control. You can listen live on C-SPAN. The 10yo and I have a date to live-tweet.
is National Nurses Day. Thank a nurse today by staying home. (An easy ask this chilly, rainy DC weather.)
is National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day. The answer is yes.
is National Beverage Day. I love this. Any particular beverage? Nope. Any and all. Yay, drinks!
And yay, you, for sharing this with your friends and colleagues! Since you’re at your desk and not down rallying at the Supreme Court today…
Abortion
I had an abortion during the pandemic. Reproductive healthcare is crucial.
Fae Ehsan | Philadelphia Inquirer
This is not the time for politicians to pick and choose what is essential health care — instead, we should listen to doctors and public health experts. And the experts agree: Abortion is an essential, time-sensitive procedure for which a delay of several days or weeks can increase the risks considerably, or make the procedure completely inaccessible. Adding further barriers makes it harder to access safe, legal abortion.
LGBTQ
Leader of Bisexual Org to Step Down as Flag Controversy Continues
Trudy Ring | The Advocate Magazine
Juba Kalamka will succeed Faith Cheltenham as president of the group, which recently drew criticism for asserting its right to the Bi Pride flag.
“It’s Time For Samaritan’s Purse To Leave New York City”
Randy Slovacek | Instinct Magazine
Virulently anti-LGBTQ evangelist Franklin Graham and his Samaritan’s Purse organization have been asked to shut down their Central Park tent hospital after attempting to spread their homophobic agenda. New York City officials asked Graham’s group to pack up and leave after it was revealed volunteers were forced to sign “statements of faith” denouncing same-sex relationships, comparing LGBTQ people to drug addicts and more.
Department of Justice files legal support for church challenging coronavirus prevention measures
Bil Browning | LGBTQ Nation
The Trump administration’s obeisance to the religious right continued over the weekend as the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in a Virginia case brought by a church that doesn’t want to abide by coronavirus prevention measures.
Survey: Nonbelievers, especially LGBTQ nonbelievers, face significant discrimination and stigma
John Riley | Metro Weekly
A newly published survey of Americans who identify as nonreligious finds that more than half say they’ve experienced negativity — including, at times, a lack of support — from family members, and, as a result, are more likely to experience depression or feelings of loneliness.
Pregnancy & Parenting
When Your Zip Code Determines Whether You Live Or Die
Irin Carmon | New York Magazine
What neighborhood you live in and what hospital you go to, she argued in an interview, is “a representation of structural racism, to look at the association between geography and these severe complications.” Past researchers have looked at how residential segregation affects health, but “it hasn’t been associated with maternal health before,” Janevic said.
When Maternity Wards in Black Neighborhoods Disappear
Kelly Glass | New York Times
Experts fear closures will trend nationwide post-coronavirus, devastating an already vulnerable population.
She Made Every Effort to Avoid COVID-19 While Pregnant. Not a Single Thing Went According to Plan.
Annie Waldman | ProPublica
As coronavirus spread through the nursing home where Molly Baldwin is a social worker, management wouldn’t let her work remotely. That forced her to choose between staying safe while in her third trimester and getting her paycheck.
Keeping Pregnant Women Safe during the Pandemic
Mary-Ann Etiebet | Scientific American
Even in the best of times, the U.S. health system has not always been delivering for all women. Maternal mortality rates have increased over the last decade and racial disparities in maternal health outcomes have persisted.
New York
8 pregnant women freed from prison over coronavirus after legal group complains
Priscilla DeGregory & Bernadette Hogan | New York Post
The Department of Correction and Community Supervision confirmed that eight pregnant women who are within two months of their due dates and who are serving sentences for non-violent or non-sexual offenses, will be released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.
Reproductive Health & Justice
North Carolina officials are ignoring a crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women
Antoinette Kerr | Scalawag
On the sunny spring day of April 18th, 2017, with a gentle breeze hardly blowing more than a whisper, neighborhood residents found the naked body of 36-year-old Rhonda Jones, a Lumbee woman, stuffed in a trash can in East Lumberton, North Carolina. The "People of the Dark Water," also known as the Lumbee Nation, are still demanding answers.
Supreme Court
Round 3: Legal Challenges to Contraceptive Coverage at SCOTUS
Laurie Sobel & Alina Salganicoff | Kaiser Family Foundation
For the third time, legal challenges to the regulations that implement the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive coverage requirement have been brought before the Supreme Court. This requirement, which took effect in August 2012, provides a guarantee of no-cost contraceptive services and supplies to most women with private insurance (with the exception of those who work for a house of worship or are in a grandfathered plan).
AP: Supreme Court set to hear Obamacare case argued by phone
CBS: Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in employer birth control case Wednesday
CNBC: Supreme Court to hear arguments over whether companies can limit contraceptive coverage
CNN: Supreme Court to hear Obamacare contraceptive mandate challenge via telephone
Ms. Yet Again, Supreme Court is Deciding If Employers May Deny Birth Control Coverage
NBC: Supreme Court to hear arguments on Trump administration-Obamacare dispute over birth control
NPR: Religious Objectors V. Birth Control Back At Supreme Court
Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania’s war over birth control returns to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, but this time they’re phoning it in
Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court hears Obamacare contraception mandate dispute
Roll Call: Supreme Court to hear significant birth control coverage case
A battle over birth control Trump administration should lose
Los Angeles Times
The fight over whether employer-provided health insurance has to cover birth control for women returns to a familiar battleground Wednesday: the U.S. Supreme Court. How did something as simple and straightforward and profoundly important to a woman’s life as contraception, and insurance for it, become the focus of years of legal wrangling?
Trump and the Nuns Are Coming for Your Birth Control: A GIFsplanation
Imani Gandy | Rewire.News
Rather than prattle on using a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo that will prompt you to lapse into a coma, I thought I’d break down these cases through the use of GIFs. So strap in and let’s do this.
The Fight Over the Affordable Care Act and Birth Control Is Back at the Supreme Court
David Gans | Slate
Our Constitution and laws place the highest of values on religious liberty, recognizing the right to practice’s one’s religion as critical to freedom, dignity, and self-definition. But the ACA has already accommodated the beliefs of those who have a religious objection to contraception. What the Little Sisters wants—to prevent insurance companies from assuming their legal duty—would pervert our cherished constitutional values of religious liberty.
Work & Money
On working parents/mothers
The Challenges of Being a Work-at-Home Mom
Sydney Blalock Ritchie | Dallas Child
The conspicuous absence of work-at-home moms in modern research studies means there are minimal data-backed sources for parenting advice geared toward WAHMs and the challenges they face—for example, conflict with spouses. The experts I interviewed for this article didn’t even have enough evidence or examples to feel comfortable saying their clients’ relationship woes stemmed from the mom working at home.
Mothers Don’t Have to Be Martyrs
Pooja Lakshmin | New York Times
I see mothers twist themselves into knots to scale the professional ladder and to keep up with the unrelenting demands of mothering. All the while feeling like they’re not doing anything quite right, and resentful that this is their burden to bear.
This. effing. New York Times piece has had me fuming all morning. If there’s one thing that sets me off - and there is - it’s this friendly advice just to stop doing all the things and for the love of God, stop feeling so bad about it. You know, I really should. I’ll add it to my to-do list. Thanks.
All I Want for Mother’s Day Is Equitable Division of Labor
Christine Carter | Psychology Today
I have been flooded with requests from working moms for strategies to sustain their own well-being while trying to keep their children from slipping into depression and their careers afloat. “I’m grateful to be working from home, but I’ve taken on way more of the housework and homeschooling than my husband has,” a client recently complained to me. “And I’m the one my kids come to have their meltdowns. I’ve never been so exhausted. Or angry with my husband.” I know she is not alone; I imagine the resentment is reaching record highs this year.
The "Simultaneous Shift" is Running Working Parents Ragged
Sarah Greenberg | Psychology Today
In the midst of the pandemic working parents have moved from the second shift to what I’ve been referring to as the simultaneous shift. Those of us fortunate enough to be employed and working from home are trying to accomplish two or three jobs at the same time. Between the hours of 9-5, scratch that, in whatever new schedule we have, we are simultaneously employees, contractors, parents, homeschool teachers, chefs, cleaners, referees, etc, all at the same time. This is multi-tasking on steroids.
Workplace fairness/discrimination
Women wanted: Why now could be a good time for women to pursue a career in AI
Karen Gilchrist | CNBC
The coronavirus pandemic has upended countless jobs and even entire industries, leaving many wondering which will emerge out of the other side. One industry likely to endure — or even thrive — under the virus, is artificial intelligence (AI), which could offer a glimpse into one of the rising careers of the future.
Why the Crisis Is Putting Companies at Risk of Losing Female Talent
Colleen Ammerman & Boris Groysberg | Harvard Business Review
A recent paper by a group of economic experts argues yes, that the current situation will normalize remote and flexible work and will therefore make these arrangements available to a broader segment of working women. While we share the authors’ hope, we aren’t convinced that the sudden expansion of remote work will end up benefiting women.
Women’s National Team Misses Goal in Equal Pay Act Claims
Patrick Egan | National Law Review
A federal judge has dismissed the Equal Pay Act claims filed by 28 members of the U.S. Senior Women’s National Soccer Team against the United States Soccer Federation , finding the WNT players were actually paid more than their male counterparts, and the pay differences of which they complained were a result of the application of the collective bargaining agreement between the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Players Association and the USSF.
This is why a gender-sensitive approach will be essential to the future of work after COVID-19
Katica Roy | Fast Company
What are the economic consequences of not taking a gender-sensitive approach to this crisis? What would such an approach even entail? How can we integrate advanced technologies and the future of work into our response efforts?
Why the Covid-19 economy is devastating to millennials, in 14 charts
Sean Collins | Vox
Millennials, often categorized as people born between 1980 and 1997, are economically vulnerable in part because they are an incredibly diverse generation, with about 55 percent being people of color. This diversity suggests that their economic situation is more broadly affected by financial inequalities than older generations.
As workplaces reopen, coronavirus could unleash an ‘avalanche’ of lawsuits over family leave, discrimination
Jena McGregor | Washington Post
For now, many workers may be focusing on health concerns and fear retribution if they complain in an environment of record unemployment claims. Other employers, particularly those with workforces that have more easily translated to working from home, may have been more flexible as employees cope with shuttered schools and the pandemic. But as things go on, some anticipate parents — especially women — will confront biases connected with family caregiving responsibilities that could result in more legal action.
More, More, More
Socialist Feminism: What Is It and How Can It Replace Corporate ‘Girl Boss’ Feminism?
Sarah Leonard | Teen Vogue
For Millennials and Gen Z'ers, [older] versions of feminism are dead women walking. Corporate feminism doesn’t mean much when your generation is more likely to have freelance work and haphazard gigs than an office. … In response, socialist feminism is on the rise, mirroring the popularity of socialism in general.