Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images The United States continues to have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. A new report presenting the most recent data on maternal mortality found that in 2021, there were on average 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births across […]
Education Denied, Violence Endures: The Troubled Path Ahead for Afghan Girls
Photo from Bulent Kilic AFP/Getty Images On Saturday morning, nearly 90 schoolgirls in Afghanistan’s northern Sari-i-Pul Province were reported falling ill by poisoning. 63 students and staff members at Kabod Aab School, along with 26 more students and staff members at the nearby Faiz Abad Girls’ School, suffered from shortness of breath, nausea, neurological and […]
Oklahoma approves nation’s first religious charter school
Photo from Richard G Smith / Shutterstock.com This week, Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve the country’s first ever religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville. Since charter schools are a type of publicly funded school that are independently managed, this Catholic school will be funded entirely by taxpayer dollars. The establishment […]
Maryland and New York to put abortion on the ballot for 2024
Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash Abortion rights advocates are continuing to pursue the strategy of leaving abortion issues up to the voters. Both Maryland and New York have certified statewide measures related to abortion policies to include on the ballot in their 2024 elections. This has proven to be an effective strategy based on […]
The “Sister Senators” in South Carolina fight back against abortion bans
EDIT: On May 23rd, the South Carolina State Senate passed a 6 week abortion ban. The bill is now headed to the governor who is expected to sign it into law. All five women in South Carolina’s state senate have united to form a fierce pro-choice coalition, successfully blocking a near-total abortion ban. Republicans Katrina […]
North Carolina bans abortion after 12 weeks
North Carolina has become the latest state to pass legislation restricting abortion access. The state’s Republican-controlled house and senate voted along party lines to override Democratic governor Roy Cooper’s veto of SB 20. The bill will replace the current law that allows abortions up to 20 weeks of pregnancy and will narrow this window to […]
FDA unanimously votes in favor of over-the-counter birth control
In an exciting win for reproductive rights, a FDA advisory panel voted unanimously in favor of the use of the “Opill,” Perrigo Co’s oral contraceptive, without a prescription. This will be the first over-the-counter birth control pill available in the United States. Over 100 countries throughout the world have already approved birth control for over-the-counter […]
Minnesota becomes a refuge for abortion access and LGBTQ rights
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has signed three new powerful legislative acts into law to protect individuals fleeing their home states to access abortions and gender-affirming care and to ban conversion therapy for minors. The first act, the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, prohibits the “enforcement in Minnesota of laws, subpoenas, judgements, or extradition requests by other […]
Majority of US Senators vote for historic ERA Resolution
For the first time in history, identical Joint Resolutions have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, removing the time limit and affirming that the Equal Rights Amendment ratification “is valid to all intents and purposes as part of the United States Constitution having been ratified by the legislatures of 3/4ths of the […]
Record breaking audience for women’s NCAA championship
Earlier this week, LSU and Iowa’s women’s basketball teams drew a record number of viewers as they competed for the collegiate championship. With 9.9 million viewers on ABC and ESPN2, the game became the most-viewed NCAA women’s basketball game in history. Even with the 3:30 pm weekday time slot, basketball fans across the country tuned […]