Dear friends,
Anniversaries are odd occasions, connoting remembrance and romance and a sense of occasion. I recently celebrated my 33rd wedding anniversary with my very wonderful partner in our customary, low-key way. We got out of bed late in the morning, and in the evening, we cooked supper together and went to hear some music.
Our celebrations are a natural extension of a relationship built on everyday love and good will; they are a lot like the other days of the year.
The anniversary of Roe v. Wade has often been fraught. This year, it seems like a broken-hearted, throes-of-a-bitter-divorce occasion. How we long for warmth and good will.
Sign the petition to Congress to demand guarantees for reproductive health care, including abortion. This quick action is from Moms Rising.
I so appreciated reading this essay by three doctors who discuss the nature of early abortion. They describe a simple procedure, made less so by the fact that the young woman involved had to travel to New York from Texas, where doctors were unwilling to discuss the option of abortion with her, under penalty of law.
The photographs that accompany the essay highlight one of the misunderstandings at the core of the national abortion smackdown. They show the
pregnancy tissue (gestational sacs) from five weeks through nine weeks of pregnancy.
At nine weeks, the tissue looked like about 2 - 3 square inches of insubstantial fluff in a petri dish. This is not what the anti-choice disinformation campaign has taught us to expect.
The authors routinely share such images with the people they treat, and were not surprised by the disbelieving and vitriolic responses to the images. People questioned the authenticity of the images.
[W]hen our patients look at the tissue, it often makes them realize how much guilt or even shame they have internalized from society’s judgment in making this deeply personal decision.
The doctors themselves were concerned that the images might unintentionally cast shade on people who have later stage abortions, when there is a visible embryo or fetus. I did not feel disparaged, and I terminated a pregnancy at 20 weeks.
An irony of the post-Dobbs environment, in which patient needs have been subverted by politics, is that people seeking abortions for any reason are more likely to face needless delays in obtaining care. This is an ugly divorce of need from care.
Sign the petition from the National Domestic Workers Alliance to fight for care, including reproductive justice and access.
It directs Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, in consultation with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, to consider new guidance to support patients, providers, and pharmacies nationwide who wish to have access to mifepristone, the abortion pill.
A recent FDA rule change allows patients to get pills through the US mail on the basis of a telehealth consultation.
About half of all abortions in the US today are medication abortions. That means, however, that about half are not. The post-Dobbs environment has shifted the legal playing field to the states, where it is . . .complicated.
Since June, the state of play has been in near constant flux; earlier this month, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution contained no right to abortion, just hours after the South Carolina Supreme Court found the opposite true of its constitution. In a fiery opinion, Justice Kaye Hearn (only the second woman to serve on the South Carolina court) struck down a six-week abortion ban on the grounds that it violated the constitution’s explicit right to privacy.
Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, 12 states have passed or resurrected abortion bans; four states have pending court challenges to their bans. The only clinic in North Dakota moved to Minnesota, and Wisconsin clinics have stopped providing abortion care while the legal fate of their pre-Roe ban is undecided.
"With the court’s ideological balance up for grabs, the candidate elected in April will play a decisive role in upcoming cases that may include the legality of Wisconsin’s near-complete 1849 abortion ban, fights over legislative redistricting and the power of the executive branch in administering laws."
Join the Civics Center to urge young people to vote for a new WI Supreme Court Justice.
One of the ironies of the so-called pro-life movement, which seeks to eliminate abortion access, is that its supporters are frequently unconcerned with the lives of already-born children.
School lunch debt is back. Pandemic waivers, which guaranteed free lunches to almost 30 million children in the US, have expired.
Parents who relied on the free meals for their children are now receiving bills for what they owe this year. The problem lies with the criteria for participation in the free lunch program:
From the 2019-20 school year to this school year, the income eligibility for free and reduced-price meals has increased by about 7.8 percent. Average hourly wage growth in that same period grew by 15.1 percent. Consumer prices, though, have risen by 15.4 percent, and food prices by 20.2 percent, surpassing wage growth.
From September to November 2022, the School Nutrition Association found that more than 95 percent of school districts are seeing increased meal debt, with median debt for that two-month period exceeding the median debt for a full school year reported in the 2019 survey.
Universal free school meals added $10 billion to the cost of school nutrition plans AND it was a broadly popular plan: 90 percent of parents and 74 percent of voters support it.
In addition to being the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, yesterday marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year celebration. In Chinese culture, it is taboo to demand debt repayment during the lunar new year.
This custom is a show of understanding.
Tell your Congressional representative that you support a Universal School Meals program and an end to lunch debt. I made it easy.
It is also customary during the new year celebration to avoid fighting and crying. There is, unfortunately, a lot to cry about. The mass shooting in California was one of four over the weekend.
Another irony of the so-called pro-life movement is the tremendous overlap with the folks who continue to stand in the way of gun legislation.
Call the members of your Congressional delegation and tell them we need an assault weapons ban. Now.
I want to make a strong case for living everyday life in the same spirit that we celebrate occasions. Less fighting, more understanding, and more care. That would give me hope.
with love,
L