Em-URGE-ing Voices

Ivey signs bill to update Alabama sex education, remove anti-gay language

“Ending state-mandated homophobia in sex ed is a hard-won fight by advocates who’ve been working toward this for years,” Courtney Roark, Alabama policy and movement building director for URGE, wrote in a statement Thursday. “This win is just one step in the direction of the sex ed we’d like to see in Alabama, which is sex ed that is comprehensive and LGBTQ+ affirming.”

Arkansas governor’s surprising veto of anti-trans law

“Though I can’t speculate as to Gov. Hutchinson’s true intentions, this decision demonstrates the beginning of a shift among conservative politicians about whether interfering with the health and well-being of transgender young people is a bridge too far,” Preston Mitchum told me Monday. Mitchum is the policy director for Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, a network of community activists founded by Gloria Steinem and focused on sexual health.

‘We Need to Talk About Abortion as Necessary Healthcare and a Social Good’

This week on CounterSpin: The same day’s news can include a story noting anti-abortion anger as an element in the “domestic extremism” the FBI is tracking. And one in which Joe Biden’s press secretary answers a question about the policy that denies US funding for foreign groups that perform abortions (or “counsel, refer or advocate” for abortion) by reminding reporters that Biden “attends church regularly.” And an obituary of anti-choice agitator Joseph Shiedler—a “funny,” “self-deprecating” guy, whose harassment of women at clinics the New York Times describes as “finding women who were considering abortions and persuading them not to follow through.”  Amid all that, a book review tosses off a reference to the post–World War II period as a time when ”surprise pregnancies were an obstacle to a better life,” and abortion was “taboo.” We’ll talk about actual realities of present-day… Read more »

Election a matter of ‘survival’ for LGBTQ Latinos

[Kimberly] McGuire noted state legislatures in recent years have sought to restrict access to abortion, implement anti-LGBTQ sex education curricula and pass religious freedom bills and other measures that discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “We all want justice at home, which means if you are queer, if you are trans, if you are an immigrant, you should not have to feel like your home is a hostile place,” said McGuire.

Democrats Hold Abortion Rights Hostage

A partial answer is that the parties were less polarized on the issue in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton, trying to appeal to the center, said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Democrats have since evolved closer to the absolutist position that Kimberly Inez McGuire of Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity calls “abortion positive.” As she told Vox in 2019: “For us that means, not only do we think abortion should be legal, but we think it’s a really good thing when people can get abortion care who need it.”