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row vs wade

Roe Vs Wade Overturned, Experts Warn Maternal Mortality Rate Will Rise In US 

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The Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe vs Wade last week in a 6-3 decision, officially revoking the constitutional right to an abortion in the United States. Experts are now saying that pregnancy-related deaths will almost certainly increase, especially among people of color. 

Rachel Hardeman, a reproductive health equity professor and researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, spoke on the issue: 

“There are going to be more people who are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, which means that there’s going to be a greater number of people who are at risk. More pregnancy means more likelihood of deaths.”

Current state bans could lead to an additional 75,000 births every year for those who won’t be able to access abortion, according to one experts estimate. The bans will also likely impact younger and poorer people of color at a much higher rate.

Currently in America, for every 10,000 births, 23.8 people have died from either pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

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More than half of the US states are likely to ban abortion following the fall of Roe.

“The truth of the matter is, it’s already hitting people [of color] harder than others – that’s been the reality,” said Monica McLemore, an associate professor of family healthcare nursing at University of California, San Francisco.

“Black people in the US were already 3.5 times more likely than white peers to die because of pregnancy and childbirth, according to one study looking at data from 2016-2017, and 2.9 times more likely,” according to a CDC analysis in 2020. 

“Because Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities are going to be disproportionately impacted by lack of access to abortion services, it’s going to exacerbate the maternal mortality racial gap that we’ve already seen in the United States,” Hardeman said.

“It’s translating into not getting the care they need, which can be a matter of life and death. And racism also takes an immense physical toll, so by the time that person becomes pregnant, they are at less optimal health than their white counterparts who haven’t experienced racism across the life course.”

The cumulative and chronic effects of living in America as a person of color increases stress, which can also affect reproductive health. “We know that the stress pathway is what leads to infant mortality, preterm birth, and other outcomes,” Hardeman said.

“We have to be thinking about the Scotus decision and abortion bans generally as a racist policy, because the burden will fall the hardest on Black pregnant people, it’s going to fall hard on Indigenous people and other people of color, people living in rural areas as well and people of lower socioeconomic status,” Hardeman continued.

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“The supreme court decision on Friday and bans on abortion instituted at the state level disproportionately harm people of color and reinforce a system of inequity and, frankly, of white supremacy.”

“If you think about why people get abortions, it’s often because it’s not safe for them to stay pregnant,” Stevenson said. “The people who are currently having abortions are very likely to actually have higher rates of pregnancy-related deaths and maternal mortality than the people who are currently giving birth.”

Having an abortion is “much, much, much safer than staying pregnant”, Stevenson said. 

Current research indicated that childbirth is 14 times more deadly than having an abortion. 

“We have to be thinking about the fact that because we live in a society where access to resources is based on racism and race, there are people who are not going to be able to access the services that are available.”

McLemore emphasized that direct action is what’s needed in order to protect the people in states that will be banning abortions. 

“Congress could act right now and render Scotus’s decision irrelevant by enshrining reproductive rights into national law. If this Congress doesn’t, she said, the six in 10 Americans who support abortion rights should vote for a new Congress that will,” she explained.

“We need an all-hands-on-deck approach here – with brilliance, not fear.”

Womens Accessories

Brands That Are Putting Inclusivity At The Forefront Of Their Skin-Tone Products 

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In the beauty industry, the term “nude” often only refers to a minimal range of light skin tones that would only actually be “nude” for individuals with white skin. Some brands around the world are attempting to combat this inclusivity issue by creating lines of “nude” products that actually range in shades to be accessible for anyone. 

Shades Of Shades is a new sunglasses brand that specializes in making luxury nude eye-wear for all skin tones. They have a wide variety of standard eyeglasses and sunglasses as well. Marsha Douglas-Sydnor is the founder of the brand who also helped create the online shade finder tool on their website that can help people from home match which eye-wear products will match their specific skin tone the best. 

Rebecca Allen founded her own shoe brand, named after herself, after growing frustrated with the “variety” of nude heels that women of color are forced to choose from for their business attire. Her website has a standard 5 nude shades that range in lightness and darkness to be more inclusive. Allen sells heels, flats and sandals. 

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Salone Monet is another new nude shoe brand that runs their business on the motto “nude is not a color.” The brand has a total of six shades that fit a large range of skin tones. The shoes themselves are made in Italy and have grown to be very popular online within the past few months. 

Kahumune also sells nude shoes but is mainly known for their “Find Your Nude” shade matching guide which is said to be extremely accurate. The brand has a total of ten different shades of shoe, and with every purchase the website provides you with a list of different makeup foundation shades from popular brands like Fenty Beauty and Bobbi Brown that match the nude you chose. 

Nubian Skin is one of the most well-known brands on this list, as it’s one of the first women’s undergarment brands to specifically cater to darker skinned consumers. The company was founded on the principle of providing nude lingerie and beyond for women of color who were tired of exclusively buying light nude undergarments. The brand now offers intimates for men as well. 

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Nude Barre is another undergarment company advertised for women of color. The brand was founded 11 years ago and at the time was one of the most inclusive lingerie brands for women of color on the market. Erin Carpenter founded the company back in 2009. Carpenter is a professional dancer so wearing tights and nude undergarments was always a necessity depending on the costume she had to wear. After years of struggling to find a solid brand for her skin tone, she took matters into her own hand and just created one herself. 

Fenty Beauty is one of the biggest beauty brands on the market today and with good reason. Rihanna broke barriers when she launched the brand in 2017 with a foundation line that included 50 different shades to help consumers really find their perfect skin match. The basis of all of Rihanna’s brands has always been inclusivity. As a woman of color herself, Rihanna has discussed multiple times how frustrating it was to always have to have make up on, but never the right shades that actually matched her. 

Now, Fenty Beauty has created a new standard for beauty brands everywhere, especially make up brands. Companies that continue to release “nude” lines with little to no dark tones are receiving major backlash and losing tons of revenue due to the existence of brands like Fenty or Nubian Skin, while brands that have embraced inclusivity as the basis of their products are rising in popularity.