OpEds

Actress Michelle Williams got some traction when she used her Golden Globe acceptance speech to champion abortion rights, saying she was “grateful to have lived at a moment in our society where choice exists.” But the moment she spoke of may be fleeting. Read More »

The COP25 climate change summit that just wrapped up in Madrid, Spain, was not the decisive plunge into climate action the world needed. In the lead up to the conference, 11,000 scientists declared “clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” and half a million protesters in Madrid demanded we act accordingly. In the end, however, UN Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted the world “lost an important opportunity.” Read More »

Australia? It’s not the end of the world as we know it, but you might be able to see it from there, if it were not for all the smoke. Last week scattered bushfires burning close to Sydney converged and formed a “mega-fire,” casting a dense pall of smoke over the city, which is Australia’s largest and one of the world’s most beautiful. This week Sydney’s air quality plummeted, measuring 11 times the level deemed hazardous to human health. The smoke is so bad that fire alarms are being triggered in many parts of the city. Read More »

Every November 13th, we observe Thanks, Birth Control Day. As 99 percent of women in the US will use a contraceptive method at one point or another, birth control should be celebrated. But the Trump administration is doing its best to limit access to contraception at home and abroad. It defies both logic and public opinion. Read More »

The U.S. Supreme Court has not overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but lower courts and statehouses are threatening to turn the clock back nearly 50 years on abortion rights. The fate of Missouri’s only remaining abortion provider, a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, hangs by a thread, awaiting the outcome of a recent arbitration hearing. If it is forced stop performing abortions, Missouri will become the first state without an abortion provider since Roe recognized the right to abortion in America. Read More »

The world is burning. Record or near-record temperatures, combined with drought in many areas, are contributing to yet another record-setting summer for wildfires. California has been largely spared so far this year, but wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and in or near the Arctic Circle are ringing alarm bells, as is a sharp increase in wildfires in Southern Europe. Read More »

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls for “ambitious and effective adaption for sustainable development” in its new report on the inevitable changes to the oceans and terrestrial water systems and the risks of delayed action. In celebrating World Contraception Day on September 26, it’s important to understand how the two issues are profoundly related. For those living in places severely affected by climate change, family planning is an indispensable climate adaptation tool. Read More »

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are together carving out a lasting judicial legacy, one with ominous implications for reproductive health and rights. Thirteen right-wing judicial nominees were hastily confirmed before the Senate’s August recess, and Trump nominated 12 more last week to be confirmed when Congress returns on Monday. Thanks to McConnell, the self-proclaimed “grim reaper,” the Senate has become a graveyard for House-passed legislation. Yet simultaneously, it has been quietly approving an alarming number of federal judgeships. Read More »

For a responsible reproductive health care provider, it’s an unthinkable choice: provide patients with the highest standard of medical care and risk losing federal funding, or accept the funding and limit the care. It’s a dilemma a provider should not have to consider, but that was the decision Title X family planning clinics faced this … Read More »

More than the three and half years after negotiators ironed out the Paris Climate Agreement, the temperature in Paris this week soared to an all-time high, 108.7 degrees Fahrenheit, smashing the old record by 4 degrees. At the same time, all-time national highs were set in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. As most businesses and residences in these countries are not equipped with air conditioning, government authorities in Paris and elsewhere issued red alerts. Read More »