RACHEL SWEET CAN'T pinpoint a specific moment or life experience that inspired her to pursue a career fighting for reproductive rights. As a 31-year-old woman, she had always had the right to choose. She grew up in a Kansas City, Missouri, suburb, as part of a politically engaged family that often talked about liberal values. In college, she interned at Planned Parenthood. After graduating, she joined the policy team for Kansas City's mayor, and part of her work focused on public health issues.
"I don't have a good story," Sweet says. "I have never been pregnant. I've never had an abortion. I just know lots of people who have had abortions, and I love and care about them."
She also knows how to win. In 2022, she defeated two anti-abortion ballot measures in traditionally red states first as the campaign manager of the group credited with successfully toppling an August referendum in Kansas, and second in Kentucky, where she similarly defeated another ballot measure in November.
These victories not only served as an emotional salve to widespread anguish among pro-choice Americans after the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, but now stand as a guide for abortion rights organizers fighting right-wing politicians and conservative courts in red states.
The Kansas measure had been put on the ballot long before Dobbs gutted Roe v. Wade and shifted the power of regulating the medical procedure to individual states, making it the earliest test of how the issue would play with voters newly charged with such decisions.
Denne historien er fra March/April 2023-utgaven av Mother Jones.
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Denne historien er fra March/April 2023-utgaven av Mother Jones.
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In the Name of the Mother - How Shyamala Gopalan Harris raised a presidential contender
Shyamala Gopalan Harris did not believe in coddling. Pay her daughters, Kamala and Maya, an allowance for doing chores? “If you do the dishes, you should get two dollars,” scoffed the woman who this past summer, almost two decades after we spoke, would launch a million coconut memes. “You ate from the damn dishes!” Reward the future vice president of the United States—and possible future president—for good grades? Ridiculous. “What does that tell you?” her mother chided. “It says, ‘You know, I really thought you were stupid. Oh, you surprised Mommy!’ No.”
Kill the Messenger - The anti-disinformation field is retreating under attack.
A few months ago, a man crawling along a rooftop in Pennsylvania tried to murder Donald Trump at a campaign rally. Hours later, press releases started to circulate, from analysts, think tanks, politicians, and pundits, all offering to cut through the swell of confusion and misinformation.
Food + Health / Global Warning - Why Project 2025 is an environmental catastrophe in the making
When President Joe Biden took office, Democrats held a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a single-vote edge in the Senate. Despite the monumental odds, he has presided over the most productive presidential term for climate action in American history. Under Biden’s direction, the federal government took up the arduous task of incorporating climate considerations into scores of administrative operations and procedures. The epa cracked down on superpollutants and issued stricter emissions regulations for passenger vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending bill Congress has ever passed, brings the nation closer to its goal of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2030.
Trumpnesia - To get a second chance, Trump needs voters to forget his disastrous presidency.
One of the most oft-quoted sentences ever penned by a philosopher is George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 2024, this aphorism is practically a campaign slogan. Donald Trump, seeking to become the first former president since Grover Cleveland to return to the White House after being voted out of the job, has waged war on remembrance. In fact, he’s depending on tens of millions of voters forgetting the recent past. This election is an experiment in how powerful a memory hole can be.
WHEN IN DROUGHT
This obscure yet adaptable grain could be a healthy staple for a warming planet.
BAD HABITS
A spate of recent horror movies recycle tired tropes about nuns-and reveal society's ongoing discomfort with independent women.
Taking the Fifth For a glimpse of the Supreme Court after a second Trump term, look at the radical circuit court that's already driving America to the right.
Imagine obamacare is dead and millions of Americans have lost health coverage.
THE ARCHITECT
TRUMP WANTS TO BE KING. RUSS VOUGHT HAS A PLAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Losing Faith
As an evangelical leader, I enticed lawmakers and federal judges to adopt a conservative Christian agenda. Donald Trump’s rise proved how wrong I was.
GOD'S COUNTRY
These Christian nationalists have a plan to take over Americafrom small towns to the highest court in the land.
