Senate Defends Marriage Equality in Historic Bipartisan Vote

On Tuesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages. In a statement, President Biden said the vote reaffirmed “a fundamental truth: Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.”

RMA needed just 60 votes—including 10 Republican votes—to break a filibuster and pass. In the end, RMA, which was led by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), passed by a vote of 61 to 36, with 12 Republicans voting with their Democratic colleagues.

Thirty-six Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, voted against the bill—standing in stark contrast to the rest of the United States: 71 percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriage.

Our Abortion Stories: ‘Please, God. Please Make Me Not Pregnant.’

‘Our Abortion Stories’ chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people, for many different reasons. There is no single story. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)

“It’s a choice every girl and woman deserves to have. Having that choice saved my life.”

“I no longer feel shame. What I feel now is anger, anger at a system that hates and punishes those who choose what to do with their bodies. No one should ever have to have an illegal abortion. No man, or woman who parrots men, should decide that for us.”

Centering Menopause: Dr. Sharon Malone and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf on the Menopause Research Act of 2022

Ms.‘s Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and Dr. Sharon Malone’s Washington Post op-ed became the catalyst for a new bipartisan bill, The Menopause Research Act of 2022, introduced in the House by Rep. David McKinley (R-W.V.) and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa). If passed, the bill would require the National Institutes of Health to conduct an evaluation of menopause-related research, coordinate a plan of action to resolve apparent gaps in the research and identify further research needed.

I spoke with Weiss-Wolf and Malone about the House bill, the ways in which menopause has been pushed to the margins of federal health research and what new investments could mean for women experiencing menopause.