Bodily autonomy is key to consent. “My body, my rules” is a common catchphrase of the feminist movement — and rightfully so! When we think about bodily autonomy, we often think of the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion or have sex (both of which are incredibly important rights!). But other bodily autonomy issues often get overlooked, minimized, or even scoffed at.

Banning abortion means forced birth. Forced birth is abuse. It is at odds with the basic human rights of bodily autonomy and self-determination. In many cases, it is even life threatening.

If you, like us, are feeling outraged, powerless, horrified, and/or brokenhearted by the news of last week’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe Vs. Wade, here are some things you can do to work to make things better. No one of us can fix this alone, but if many of us do something, we can collectively dig ourselves out of the very bleak place that we are finding our country in right now.

The Bible Belt in the southern United States is known for its conservative values, which are largely influenced by the popularity of evangelical Christianity in the region. When looking at sex education, policymakers in the area tend to prefer abstinence-only-until-marriage education, if anything, to be implemented in schools.

The Bible Belt is generally considered to be the cluster of states in the southern United States where conservative evangelical Protestantism is, by far, the prevalent belief system of residents. This area includes (but is not necessarily limited to) Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

In this article, we'll look at data on the sexual health outcomes in the Bible Belt, as compared to relatively liberal New England, to understand how the lack of comprehensive sex education — and the popularity of abstinence only education — contributes to inequality in our country.

While I was living in Jerusalem and trying to find sexuality-related initiatives in the area (for this zine), I came across the website of an organization called the International Youth Alliance For Family Planning (IYAFP for short). They’re a youth-run (ages 15 to 30) nonprofit that advocates for sex ed and sexual rights around the world.