‘Beyond Limits’ by M.D. Shelley Sella is a book informed by her experience as the first woman doctor in the U.S. openly providing third-trimester abortions. It includes testimonies of her patients and addresses frequently asked questions revealing the necessity of legalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
Takes up: Paula Doress-Worters, a founder of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, writing Our Bodies, Ourselves; far Right president José Antonio Kast taking office in Chile; and International Women’s Day demonstrations in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
Takes up: the first woman-led campaign by Workers Defense Project protesting the working conditions of housekeepers; Canada cancelling the caregiver permanent residency program; and women filing a lawsuit regarding unnecessary medical procedures by gynecologist Javaid Perwaiz.
A physician who performed abortions for over 50 years describes his patients’ experiences and the evolving political situation. It reminds activists to be unapologetic about fighting for abortion rights: “Opposition to and psychological warfare against abortion is the principal organizing tool in America for imposing a totalitarian state.”
Takes up: Mary “May” McGee, who won a 1973 Irish Supreme Court case legalizing contraceptives; Despite a Nov. 6 protest of over 10,000, the Latvian parliament voted to exit the Istanbul Convention against violence against women; Women for Change in South Africa organized a protest against a femicide rate five times higher than the global average.
Takes up: a demonstration in Lippstadt, Germany, against Evangelical Lippstadt Hospital’s decision to stop providing abortions; a Superior Court Justice in Ontario, Canada, finding five men not guilty of sexual assault; and police removing migrants, mostly women and children, from a makeshift encampment outside the City Hall in Paris, France.
Revoking the right to abortion relegated women as less than full human beings. All human rights are up for grabs, and women’s hard-won rights were deemed easy to destroy. Trump has acted accordingly but is running into “the resistance,” with women leading the way.
Takes up: Three Thai women rescued from a human egg farm in the country of Georgia; the third African Women in Dialogue conference; and the UN Human Rights Committee ruling Ecuador and Nicaragua responsible for violating the human rights of three girls denied abortions.
Farsi translation of the lead article “The U.S. election as manifestation of counterrevolution.”
Counterrevolution is the guiding principle of the Trump campaign and the dominant characteristic of politics worldwide. Although revolution does not appear to be on the horizon in the U.S. or in most other countries, capitalism is stumbling through a global crisis, both economic and ecological, psychological and communal.
Poem read by the author, Sunshine Lombré, at an abortion rights demonstration in Evanston, Illinois.
The fundamentalist, sexist, anti-gay convictions of J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley and Harrison Butker reveal that their movement not only wants to end abortion but control what women think, what we feel, in fact who we are.
After Roe v Wade was overturned after nearly fifty years, what will it mean to be a woman in America and what kind of country is it becoming? This is what the book ‘The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America’ explores, reviewed by Adele.
If Republicans are able to institute their white Christian Nationalist dream of forced pregnancy and no birth control, the kinds of fascist practices women in Romania suffered under Nicolae Ceausescu will be imposed on women in the U.S. Not only women, but children too will suffer and die.
Vice President Harris and President Biden should stop talking about their “great trust” in women because anti-abortionists too know that women will fight to do what’s right for themselves. This is a fight against forced pregnancy, to keep birth control legal and accessible, for our health and lives to be valued, to be seen as whole human beings.
Takes up: Amazonian Initiative Movement, a Sierra Leone group fighting genital mutilation (FGM); a two-year, 7,400-mile caravan journey through 20 African countries by #FrontlineEndingFGM; Asian Women for Equality struggling to stop massage parlors and other venues of prostitution in Canada; and France becoming the first country to explicitly guarantee women’s legal right to abortion in its constitution.
Adele reviews a fascinating history of three interconnected projects of the radical feminist community in the Oakland, Calif., area over the past 40 years: an underground self-help abortion network, clinics run on feminist principles, and clinic defense organizations.
Ohio citizens voted in a landslide to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. Fanatics in power tried and failed to derail the vote and are now maneuvering to nullify it, destroying democracy in the process.
Takes up: The right of disabled people to be part of the reproductive justice discussion; Indigenous Disability Awareness Month in Canada; and European Union countries requiring people to prove their percentage of disability in order to have free access to culture.
Adele reviews ‘Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920 to 2020’ by Elizabeth Griffith, a history of the U.S. feminist movement from the years leading up to the achievement of women’s right to vote to 2020.
In person report of the Oct. 15 Pro-Choice Rally and March in Evanston, Illinois.
Takes up: Canadian Dawn Dumont Walker’s struggle to keep her son and escape her abusive ex-partner; the Spanish parliament passing legislation for paid leave for debilitating menstrual pain and decriminalizing abortion, including for minors; and the life-altering and horrendous suffering of women in Bangladesh due to climate chaos.
Adele reviews “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” by Michele Goodwin, Goodwin describes the increasing wave of legislation regulating pregnancy and criminalizing miscarriages, stillbirths and supposed “endangerment” of the fetus.
So much is happening regarding abortion—since the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, trashing women’s right to abortion, a human right we’ve had for 50 years—that it is almost impossible to keep track of. For help, you can turn to the splendid blog of Jessica Valenti, “Abortion Every Day.”
The election of 2020 gave a giant push for the Right to turn elections into weapons for abrogating rights and freedoms, especially those of women and minorities. It is a primrose path to outright fascism.
The Women’s March and other groups held A Women’s Wave Day of Action on Oct. 8, 2022, demanding a nationwide right to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted that right. Women, youth, and allies are aware of the importance of reproductive justice to our lives and democracy and are motivated to organize and creatively fight back.
Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned women’s right to abortion, the profound ramifications of that unprecedented decision are becoming known. Women are fighting back, from the Women’s March, to Black women, to Teens for Reproductive Rights, women will reclaim the right to control our own bodies.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions reveal its aim to aid in the destruction of democracy and ride the winds of racism, sexism and neo-fascism. It has assigned itself to the dustbin of history.
March participants report on the thousands of women, men and gender diverse people who demonstrated across the U.S., including Chicago and the Bay Area. They were protesting the Supreme Court decision that decimated women’s right to an abortion and thus to control over their own bodies.
In San Francisco on May 14 over 10,000 people marched for the right to abortion and against the U.S. Supreme Court which has now lost all legitimacy. A million people marched in over 450 events across the U.S. to show their anger at the Supreme Court’s impending reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized women’s right to abortion.
‘The 1619 Project’ tackles U.S. history since the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia—from multiple perspectives. Each essay is grounded in original sources, scholarly works, interviews and oral histories. Historical events, photographs of ordinary African-Americans and poetry surround each essay, adding a human touch.
‘The 1619 Project’ tackles U.S. history since the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia—from multiple perspectives. Each essay is grounded in original sources, scholarly works, interviews and oral histories. Historical events, photographs of ordinary African-Americans and poetry surround each essay, adding a human touch.
Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
In ‘Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice,’ Zakiya Luna discusses how SisterSong, the reproductive justice organization, was based and operates on the concept of human rights.
In Chicago, four to five thousand rallied and marched downtown to make it clear that women in the U.S. are continuing to fight back against the inhuman anti-abortion legislation that has been surging across Republican-dominated statehouses for years.
In Chicago, four to five thousand rallied and marched downtown to make it clear that women in the U.S. are continuing to fight back against the inhuman anti-abortion legislation that has been surging across Republican-dominated statehouses for years—this, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author Emily Joy Allison created the hashtag #ChurchToo to share her story of an adult youth group leader’s attempt to groom her into being raped when she was a teenager. By the next morning, thousands had used #ChurchToo to tell their stories of abuse within the Church.
While what is happening in Poland may not be a revolution, it is revolutionary. Women are leading a movement protesting the Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom, and mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Adele’s critical review of the book “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family” by Sophie Lewis as “a disappointing attempt to find a radical path to a just society of new human relationships by way of commercial surrogacy.”
Review of ‘Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now’, on the history of the women’s liberation movement’s struggle for full reproductive justice.
Editorial on the struggle women have in the U.S. to keep abortion legal and accessible, how the Left has mostly given lip service to the struggle, and how today when socialism is again on the agenda, it also has to mean women have control of their own bodies.
“Woman as Reason” columnist Terry Moon writes about the state of abortion rights in the U.S. in light of the draconian attacks against it and relates women’s struggle to control their bodies to the thingification of women, the poor response of the U.S. left, Karl Marx’s devastating critique of capitalism, and what revolution must come to mean.
Adele reviews “Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work,” by Jenny Brown.
30,000 in Italy protested World Congress of Families; Sudan’s first female-run radio show; survivors of prostitution marched from France, arriving to Germany for Survivor’s Day; Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center in Nigeria provides pro bono legal services and research to fight civil rights violations and violence against women.
In a year marked by the contradiction between deepening women’s revolt and activism and neo-fascism rising across the globe, women have been fighting back in unprecedented numbers and ways.
Readers’ Views takes up: attacks on immigrants; Syria and the Left’s failure; Democratic Party’s selling out women; Women’s Liberation; Serena Williams; ending money bail the right way; Trump-Kim “peace”; genocide and war heroes; and a discussion on sex crimes and their fallout.
Report of Planned Parenthood’s “Power of Pink” volunteer training conference, which drew over 2,000 young women to Detroit July 27-29, 2018.
Adele reviews “How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosures to Trump,” by Laura Briggs, which discusses “reproductive labor,” “the work necessary to the reproduction of human life.”
Review of the book “Reproductive Justice: An Introduction” by Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger.
A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
