Well, there ain't no time to wonder why
Today…
in 1968, Coretta Scott King (accompanied by Ethel Kennedy and other local and national leaders) led a Mother’s Day march through Washington, DC to bring attention to the experiences of low-income women. The event was one of several organized by the National Welfare Rights Organization to launch the Poor People’s Campaign.
was the birthday of Katherine Hepburn (1907-2003). I dig her. This gives me a good reason to make the kids watch Bringing Up Baby this evening.
But before movie, looks like the kids are going to learn about their mother’s fondness for ‘60/’70s/Vietnam-era protest music. Looking up the Poor People’s Campaign brought me this, and a little Pete Seeger, and it’s 1, 2, 3, what are we fightin’ for…
My apologies to the… two of you, maybe?… who’ll be singing Country Joe & The Fish for the next hour. Fortunately, you can break the spell by passing it along.
Abortion
Abortion could be "profoundly" impacted in 15 states depending on upcoming Supreme Court ruling, study shows
Kate Smith | CBS News
More than 15 states could see abortion access "profoundly" reduced if the Supreme Court allows the regulation at the center of June Medical Services v. Russo to be implemented, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute shared exclusively with CBS News.
Women Must Be Able To Have Abortions At Home During Coronavirus, Says NWHN
Alice Broster | Forbes
The National Women’s Health Network, in coalition with 80 other organizations, has urged the FDA to make the abortion pill available for people to access where they’ll be having the abortion—at home. The global pandemic doesn’t change the fact that people will need access to medical abortions.
Fact check: Convicted 1980s abortion clinic bomber attended anti-lockdown protests in Ohio
Melanie Payne | USA Today
The claim: Convicted abortion clinic bomber was part of Ohio anti-lockdown protests. Our rating: True. John Brockhoeft, who admitted to setting fire to a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Ohio in 1985 and was convicted of planning to bomb a Pensacola clinic in 1988, has been attending protests of stay-at-home orders and posing for photos alongside armed protesters.
How This Trump Administration Policy Is Slowing Down America's Hunt for a Coronavirus Vaccine
Carter Sherman | VICE
While countries around the globe race to develop treatments and a vaccine to fight the coronavirus, a Trump administration policy that’s beloved by opponents of abortion may be slowing down U.S. scientists’ ability to test out those drugs.
LGBTQ
Stephens may not live to hear result of transgender rights case
Melissa Nann Burke | Detroit News
Aimee Stephens, the Michigan woman who last year became the first transgender person to have a civil rights complaint heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, might not live to hear whether she won. Stephens, 58, of Metro Detroit has struggled with kidney disease in recent years.
AP: Transgender woman in hospice while awaiting court ruling
Daily Beast: Trans Woman Aimee Stephens May Die Before Supreme Court Rules on Landmark LGBTQ Rights Case
Lesbian Moms Go To Court To Fight Foster Agency Discrimination
Kim Wong-Shing | GO
A lesbian couple in South Carolina say they were discriminated against by a state-funded foster care agency for being gay. Now, they’re going to court to challenge the federal policy that allows such discrimination to take place.
Alliance Defending Freedom tries to disqualify judge because he won't let them misgender transgender student athletes.
Mark Joseph Stern | Slate
The nation’s most powerful anti-LGBTQ law firm took the extraordinary step on Friday of demanding the recusal of a federal judge—because he insisted that its attorneys respect transgender people’s gender identity in court proceedings.
Reproductive Health & Justice
Period Activist Nadya Okamoto Is Turning Adversity Into Purpose During Quarantine
Lilli Petersen | Elite Daily
22-year-old Harvard junior, co-founder of menstrual activist group Period, and author of Period Power: A Manifesto For The Menstrual Movement Nadya Okamoto has been advocating for menstrual justice since she was 16 years old, and her organization works to counter menstrual stigma and period poverty — inadequate access to menstrual supplies — via donations and raising awareness.
The Policing Of Black Motherhood In A Nation We Were Never Meant To Survive Free
Carmen Green | Essence
The Reproductive Justice movement and framework state that Black women have the right to mother however we choose—by foster and adoption systems, surrogacy, teen pregnancy, or as the auntie in the community—in safe and sustainable communities. And achieving reproductive justice requires that we center the most marginalized Black mothers—the Black mamas most targeted by society.
Fellow White Women: We Must Support the Fight for Reproductive Justice—Especially in the Time of COVID-19
Gretchen Goldman | Scary Mommy
Women of color and the LGBTQ community have to fight for the privileges cishet white women get by default. This is why white women need to show up for reproductive justice. We must follow the lead of black women, Latina women, Native women and others who have fought for decades to define and demand that reproductive freedom is more than just the right to choose an abortion.
Massachusetts Planned Parenthood chief sees ongoing need for services
Anne-Gerard Flynn | MassLive.com
Dr. Jennifer Childs-Roshak, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said her organization has taken steps to both protect staff and patients during the pandemic as well as insure access to services.
Supreme Court
The Supreme Court seems likely to give religious employers a broad ability to discriminate
Ian Millhiser | Vox
The Supreme Court appeared divided along ideological lines on Monday in a pair of cases asking when religious employers can defy state or federal laws banning discrimination. Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel, are difficult cases asking whether two Catholic school teachers qualify as “ministers,” a designation that effectively strips them of many of their civil rights in the workplace.
AP: Supreme Court tackles clash of Catholic schools, ex-teachers
Bloomberg: Justices Seem Divided on Legal Shield for Religious Schools
CNN: Supreme Court examines discrimination lawsuits against religious schools
NPR: Case On Religious Schools, Employment Discrimination At Court
Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court conservatives lean toward shielding religious schools from suits
SCOTUSblog: Argument analysis: Argument analysis: Justices divided in debate over “ministerial exception”
Slate: The Supreme Court Considers Exempting Religious Employers From All Discrimination Laws
Work & Money
Women Hurt More Than Men In The Recession, But It’s More Complicated Than That
Christian E. Weller | Forbes
Women feel the economic downturn more acutely than men. Even among women, there are disproportionate effects by race, ethnicity age and marital status. Those groups of women, who have experienced the sharpest labor market downturn, also tend to be the ones most financially vulnerable.
A 5-step plan to reset the unfair division of labor at home during COVID-19
Brigid Schulte, Haley Swenson | NBC News
The pandemic has made a reset not only possible, but urgent, say Bridgid Schulte and Haley Swenson of Better Life Lab, the work-life, gender equity, and social policy program at the non-partisan think tank New America.
Women already do most domestic work. The coronavirus makes that gap worse.
Pilar Gonalons-Pons | Philadelphia Inquirer
Despite what you might see on Instagram, there is no evidence that gender disparity in household labor is narrowing. Research shows that if anything, the gap is likely widening, even when both parents are at home. With schools and much of the service economy closing down, households now have even more work to do at home. It disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders.
We Need to Talk About Why Businesses Are Opening Up Before Child Care
Kate Schweitzer | POPSUGAR
For the past few months, workers across the nation have been tasked with operating as close to business as usual amid the coronavirus pandemic. The fact that this was thrust upon working parents — who make up 41% of employees between the ages of 20 – 54 in the US — without any meaningful consideration for the well-being of their children felt, frankly, unsurprising. For decades, working parents have long had to prioritize their jobs over their families.
More, More, More
What Mutual Aid Can Do During a Pandemic
Jia Tolentino | The New Yorker
Mutual aid is not a new term, or a new idea, but it has generally existed outside the mainstream. Informal child-care collectives, transgender support groups, and other ad-hoc organizations operate without the top-down leadership or philanthropic funding that most charities depend on. There is no comprehensive directory of such groups, most of which do not seek or receive much attention. But, suddenly, they seem to be everywhere.
It's Totally Legal to Follow Women and Make Creepy Videos Without Their Consent, 3 Male Judges Rule
Carter Sherman | VICE
Legally speaking, it’s fine to secretly record women as they shop, even if the footage includes their back sides or breasts, three male Tennessee judges have concluded. The judges wrote separate opinions that all came to the same conclusion in the case of David Eric Lambert, a Tennessee man who had been convicted for multiple charges of attempted unlawful photography involving three different victims.
Covid-19’s collateral damage, from hunger pandemic to poverty tsunami
Sigal Samuel | Vox
The secondary impacts of Covid-19 — including a possible “hunger pandemic” and “poverty tsunami” — are worth taking seriously. The number of deaths they cause, experts caution, could easily outstrip the number of deaths from Covid-19 itself.