A recent statement by a Roman Catholic bishop that abortion and Roe v. Wade were the ultimate concern in this year’s presidential elect ion is beyond foolish—it is a fetishizing of the issue to the exclusion of all other moral concerns. By viewing abortion in its historical and theological contexts, it is my hope that an obstruction in discourse that, for many, has become both a political obsession and red herring, can be removed to allow for a broader space where discussion on a variety of pressing issues can occur. Placing abor ..read more

JULIANNA S. GONEN, PHD, JD, is the policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), where she works to advance legislative and regulatory policy at the federal level that ensures the well-being of LGBTQ people. Prior to joining NCLR, she was director of federal policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Before pivoting to federal policy and advocacy work, Dr. Gonen practiced health law and worked at several national healthcare associations, including America’s Health Insurance Plans, the National Business Group on Health and the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Hea ..read more

AS POLAND’S PARLIAMENT pursued a controversial proposal to tighten what are already among the strictest abortion laws in Europe, dozens of women in cars and on bicycles protested in central Warsaw, honking horns and displaying posters against the law. Although public gatherings are banned, videos show people in the streets of Warsaw and Poznan following recom- mended social distancing and holding placards. Activists feared that conservative politicians could take advantage of the coronavirus lockdown to prevent opponents from organizing large street protests as they did in 2016, when hu ..read more

A MERICANS WILL MARK THE 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with celebration dinners, candlelight vigils and major protests. Despite the deep cultural divide Roe exposes, these events will have one thing in common: They will be almost exclusively about abortion. That’s because Americans have learned to see Roe only through a narrow lens, missing that the decision, and the right to privacy it conveyed, once stood for something much more expansive.   The real story of Roe‘s legacy is only partly about abortion. The decision also belongs to a longer history of what we mean when we talk ab ..read more

Stephanie Toti is an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights within her own community, in society and the judicial system. She is a member of the board of directors of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and is senior counsel and project director for the Lawyering Project, an organization she founded in 2017 aimed at improving access to reproductive healthcare in the US through litigation that advances an intersectional framework. Over the course of her career, Stephanie has litigated cases in federal and state courts throughout the country to improve access to reproductive healthcare and streng ..read more

Amid the anti-abortion measures being pushed through state legislatures, consider the mazy history of abortion in the United States. Women, capable of determining and managing their reproductive rights, have been undermined by men in power before. Prior to the 1840s, abortion was widespread and not illegal in our country. In the time of the Puritans, America’s deeply religious founding fathers, abortion was allowed until the fetus was “quick”—when the woman could feel the fetus move. Before modern diagnostic ultrasound, abortion was permissible beyond the first trimester—up to four or fiv ..read more

During a campaign stop in Florence, South Carolina, in October, Rev. Robert Morey publicly refused to serve Communion to former vice president and 2020 Democratic frontrunner, Joe Biden, citing Biden’s prochoice position as the reason. The incident briefly revived the national debate over the purpose of the sacrament and the consequences of politicizing it. In 2004, presidential candidate John Kerry was denied Communion in St. Louis due to his prochoice stance, sparking what observers called “Wafer Watch.” At that time, a vast majority of US bishops opposed the practice of using the Eucha ..read more

Martha Brown (left, grey t-shirt) with her partner Louise McCullough (right, black t-shirt) and equal marriage supporters at Maverick Bar, Belfast, celebrate the change to abortion and same sex marriage laws in Northern Ireland at 00:01. The law passed by Westminster MPs will decriminalise abortion and pave the way for the introduction of same sex marriage in Northern Ireland. Picture date: Tuesday October 22, 2019. See PA story ULSTER Politics. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire URN:47774402 (Press Association via AP Images) British members of Parliament voted in July to p ..read more

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Medical, moral and metaphysical conclusions about the biology of reproduction have historically been informed by observations of the processes involved, along with fantasies about the unobserved aspects of the course of reproduction. The resulting mix of pragmatic observation and theories related to morality has an illustrious history and a large impact on debates today. Before there was any capacity to “see” inside a pregnant uterus, both physicians and moralists grappled with the question of when a pregnant woman could be considered to have another life within her. The concept of “ensoulment ..read more