Molly’s been busy being a grown up college graduate with a grown up job or something. I hope you’ll cut us some slack for the lack of weekly news round ups. Nobody running or writing this blog gets paid to do it. The amount of time our contributors dedicate to the blog despite having work, school, family, significant others, and/or Twitter accounts to update amazes me. To that end, if you wanna be an unpaid contributor too, email me at mallory@ok4rj.org, and we’ll talk.
News happened the past few weeks even though Molly wasn’t here to snark on it. Can you believe that? Attorney General Scott Pruitt is appealing a judge’s rulling on the unconstitutionality of a law restricting the off-label use of abortion medications. The Michigan House passed a huge anti-abortion bill. House leaders banned Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the Michigan House floor after she said ‘vagina.’ Then some awesome Michiganders performed the Vagina Monologues on the statehouse steps.
This Land Press covered an Atlantic Cities article on state-by-state abortion rates. Noting that Oklahoma has one of the lowest rates of abortion, the article concluded that “Abortion and reproductive health services are more readily available in more affluent, more educated, more knowledge-based states, while women in poorer states with more traditional blue-collar economies face fewer, if any, choices for reproductive health services and must contend with far greater restrictions on their reproductive rights.” Seeing an abortion article in This Land was jarring for me. Though abortion is one of the most common medical procedures, Oklahoma-specific discussions on the accessibility of abortion don’t happen often here. So kudos This Land.
Miriam Perez has an RH Reality Check article this week about challenging the seemingly obvious connection between pregnancy and femaleness. In “Preparing for the Trans Baby Boom” Miriam writes about the challenges pregnant trans people face. Maternity clothes and language associated with pregnancy are gendered with the assumption that all pregnant people are female-identified. Much more research on the impact of hormones and gender reassignment surgeries on pregnancy is also needed. It’s worth checking out.
Looking for other meaningful volunteer opportunities? OK4RJ’s amazing director and hotline coordinators have been working hard to get the OK4RJ Care hotline running. There will be a training this Sunday June 24 for volunteers who want to take calls. Read more about the hotline here.
Don't worry. This is not how we do it at OK4RJ.
I’ll leave you with this NSFW video (unless your work is totally ok with curse words), and we can all spend the weekend thinking about how we’ll never be as cool as Azealia Banks.
Mallory is working in the 212 this summer. She’s still not as cool as Azealia Banks.
Share with your friends!
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Molly
