+
upworthy

abortion

Democracy

I did a roundtable with the Vice President about abortion. Here are 4 things that surprised me.

The conversation was important, but in some ways the experience was nothing like I expected it to be.

Upworthy associate editor Annie Reneau chatting with Joy Reid and Kamala Harris in an MSNBC roundtable

It's been a very weird week.

I'm a writer and editor—not a medical professional, legal expert or political activist in any way—so imagine my surprise when I got a message from Vice President Kamala Harris's senior advisor inviting me to join a roundtable discussion on MSNBC for the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. I thought someone might be pranking me, but nope. The invite was real.

Apparently, someone had read an op-ed I'd written years ago about how it's possible to be morally pro-life but politically pro-choice and felt that my voice would add something to the discussion. The panelists included the lead plaintiffs in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the Texas Abortion Ban lawsuits, two activists involved in the fight for reproductive rights, a Texas OB-GYN who has seen the implications of the Dobbs decision in his own practice…and me.

I felt remarkably average among these experts on the issue, but I think that was the point. My view represents millions of average American voters who may feel conflicted about where they stand on abortion morally and legally and are trying to reconcile their personal or religious beliefs with what they think our laws should be. Additionally, as someone with no political affiliation or loyalty to any party, I could speak about grappling with this issue without any partisan pressure or influence.

Keep ReadingShow less

Archbishop Riordan High School, San Francisco, California.

Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, California held an assembly for all students on Friday that was presented by Life Training Institute and featured speaker Megan Almon.

The institute's goal is to equip "Christians to make a persuasive case for life" through "pro-life apologetics presentations in Catholic and Protestant high schools, universities, and worldview conferences."

But the idea of sitting through a pro-life presentation didn't appeal to the vast majority of students and a few minutes into the presentation, they began to walk out. A few were prompted by Almon comparing the number of abortions in the United States to deaths in the Holocaust. Almon also discussed how embryos should be considered people who are just as valuable as those sitting in the auditorium.

Some female students were upset because it was the first year that the school was co-ed. It was previously an all-boys school and was integrated by girls who attended the recently closed Mercy High School. "It's just so frustrating," Clare, a transfer from Mercy, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's been so hard to go from an environment of female empowerment to someone telling me what I can and can't do with my body."

Only a few dozen of the 800 students who attended the assembly remained to hear the entire presentation. Video from the walkout went viral on TikTok.

Keep ReadingShow less

Demonstrators hold up signs at the Rally for Abortion Justice in Columbus, Ohio

The U.S. Supreme Court's swing to the right under the Trump presidency puts abortion rights in peril throughout the United States. The Court's decision not to act on a Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks has opened the floodgates for other states to restrict freedoms.

The Texas law deputizes its citizens to report those who've had an abortion after the fetus has a heartbeat or anyone who assisted in the process. Reporters whose information leads to a successful conviction can be awarded up to $10,000 by the state.

The law is astonishing in a state that claims to value freedom. What's more authoritarian than paying your citizens to snitch on each other for their personal health decisions?

Keep ReadingShow less

You're six weeks pregnant. That means six weeks ago an egg and a sperm met, did the happy dance together, and got the baby ball rolling in your uterus, right?

Wrong.

Pregnancy weeks are measured in a strange way, but it appears to be the most consistent method of measurement considering the varied reality of menstruation. (A 28-day cycle between periods is common, but many women have longer or shorter cycles, and some have totally irregular ones.)

A Twitter thread from NBC News's Ginger Gibson explains that pregnancy is measured from the first day of a woman's last period, which is generally approximately two weeks before an egg would ever get a chance to meet a sperm.

So technically speaking, in the first couple of weeks of pregnancy, there is no actual pregnancy. Weird, right? But that's how the "XX weeks pregnant" calculation works.

Keep ReadingShow less