Reducing Abortion Stigma: Global Achievements since 2014

Abortion stigma affects everyone: individuals, communities and service providers. Young women and adolescent girls bear the brunt of abortion stigma. It causes delays in people seeking abortion and stops others from accessing it, leading to unintended pregnancies. Stigma drives abortion underground, where it is more likely to be unsafe.Since 2014, the support of the David & Lucile Packard Foundation has enabled IPPF to reduce abortion stigma affecting young people around the world, working directly with Member Associations in six countries (Bénin, Burkina Faso, India, Pakistan, Ghana and Nepal). Meaningful youth participation has ensured that young people's lived experiences were central in every aspect of this work. This project has also supported smaller ground-breaking youth-led projects in 14 different countries: Albania, Colombia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Macedonia, Nepal, Nigeria, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Sierra Leone, Spain, Tanzania and Venezuela.This document highlights the achievements and learnings from the Abortion Stigma Project between 2014 and 2020, including case studies, research and evidence generated around abortion stigma, and popular resources and tools developed throughout the project, and more

New Mexicans Are Worth More: Raising the State's Minimum Wage

New Mexico's children will determine the future of the state, so ensuring that they have all the opportunities they need to succeed is crucial for our state's prosperity. Children living in poverty are less likely to have enriching opportunities that help them reach their full potential, which is one of the reasons poverty is so difficult to escape. In New Mexico, nearly one in three – or 145,000 – children are living in poverty. Our high rate of child poverty is the main reason the state is ranked worst in the country for overall child well-being. That does not bode well for the future of New Mexico.High rates of child poverty are not surprising when we consider that one in five New Mexicans lives in poverty, and the median income in New Mexico is 17 percent lower than the national average. When looking at our hourly workforce, 31 percent are earning low wages, meaning their wage is at or near the state's minimum wage of $7.50 an hour. This represents 245,894 hard-working New Mexicans. Add to that 100,596 children who have at least one parent earning low wages

Teach us incessantly : lessons and learning in the antebellum Gulf South

Before 1860 people in the Gulf South valued education and sought to extend schooling to residents across the region. Southerners learned in a variety of different settings – within their own homes taught by a family member or hired tutor, at private or parochial schools as well as in public free schools. Regardless of the venue, the ubiquity of learning in the region reveals the importance of education in Southern culture. In the 1820s and 1830s, legislators in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama sought to increase access to education by offering financial assistance to private schools in order to offset tuition costs and thereby extend learning to less wealthy residents. The Panic of 1837 made it difficult for legislators to appropriate money for education, but the economic recovery of the 1840s ushered in a new era of educational progress. The return of prosperity in the Gulf South coincided with the maturation of Jacksonian democracy – a political philosophy that led Southerners to demand access to privileges formerly reserved for the elite, including schooling. While Jacksonian ideology led voters to lobby for schools, the value that Southerners placed on learning stemmed from other sources. The political philosophy of republicanism rested on the premise that a representative democracy needed an educated populace to survive. In addition, Southerners embraced learning as a means of social mobility. Most parents exhibited an innate desire to have their children educated in hopes that it would contribute to later success in life. The urban governments of the South were the first to acquiesce to voters’ demands, so that New Orleans, Natchez, and Mobile all established public schools during the 1840s and 1850s. The success of these schools led residents in rural areas to lobby their legislatures for similar schools in their neighborhoods; by 1860 Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had all established statewide public school systems. The story of these developments not only catalogues educational developments largely overlooked in the larger historical narrative of the antebellum South, but offers insight into the worldview and aspirations of the people inhabiting the region

Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America

Johann Neem’s Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America, from the excellent How Things Worked series, edited by Robin Einhorn and Richard R. John, is a love letter to America’s public education system. Neem begins with a personal recounting of his own experience as an immigrant attending California public schools. He credits the public school system for preparing him for success and Americanizing his family. The author writes “the schools were for all Americans, and the schools helped make us Americans.” (ix) It is a powerful preface and Neem continues the theme throughout the book, explaining the importance of the American public school system in creating citizens prepared for the challenges of democracy

Encounters with the military : toward an ethics of feminist critique?

This conversation developed from a panel titled “Interrogating the Militarized Masculine: Reflections on Research, Ethics and Access” held at the May 2013 International Feminist Journal of Politics conference at the University of Sussex, UK

European Novel Foods Policy at a critical juncture: drawing lessons for future Novel Food Governance through a retrospective examination of Regulation 258/97

This paper presents a timely analysis of the European Union (EU) Novel Foods Regulation EC 258/97, identifying trends in the policy process and the applications that have been made under the regulation. The ways that the Novel Foods Regulation has functioned to govern new foods placed on the European market is considered, and a number of important trends are described. A historical account of EU policy regarding novel foods is presented, including an analysis of the changes to Novel Foods Regulation and an analysis of data drawn from the European Commission’s own records of novel foods applications is conducted. The ways Novel Foods Regulation has functioned to govern new foods placed on the European market is revealed. A number of important trends in full applications are explored, along with substantial equivalence applications and unapproved foods that are placed on the market. This data is used to analyze the empirical legitimacy of the recent amendments to EU novel foods governance which will come into force in 2018, suggesting that change was needed, and supports the centralizing approach taken by the Commission. However, the analysis identifies potential risks and uncertainties in recent amendments to EU novel foods governance and considers the challenges of Brexit to the novel foods regime