Will abortion be the wedge issue in the...

restrictions or bans,” Hsu said.

Hsu noted that cultural, economic, and logistical barriers for AAPI community members, especially those working in frontline service jobs, makes traveling and getting an abortion often difficult, if not impossible.

“These impacts on the AAPI community have fueled NAPAWF’s work galvanizing Asian American women voters in critical states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas,” she said.

The abortion pill

Currently, battles continue in a number of states about access to medication abortions.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol accounted for more than half of all facilitybased abortions in 2020.

A Texas lawsuit could stop access to abortion pills nationwide if it succeeds in reversing the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. In North Carolina and West Virginia abortion rights advocates have filed lawsuits challenging restrictions on access to abortion pills.

“Our partners across the country are faced with ensuring their communities have access to reproductive healthcare including, safe and affordable abortion care, while also responding to other community needs,” said Ebony Baylor, Vice President of Government Affairs, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. Baylor said Black women do not live single-issue lives and when thinking about who best represents them, they consider many factors.

by Alexis RomeRo Philstar.com

MANILA — President Marcos called on Filipino Christians to be “better agents of change” and “conveyors of truth” as they began observing Holy Week on Sunday, April 2.

As Christians are given the chance to contemplate on the impact of Jesus Christ’s passion and death this year, Marcos said it is inevitable that their thoughts would gravitate to events and challenges they encountered in recent years.

“Lest we end up defeated by the troubles of this world, it is imperative that we direct our thoughts and our actions more to the resurrection of the

Lord and the victory that this gives us to this very day,” the President said in his message for Holy Week.

“Indeed, while it may be difficult to comprehend, the message of salvation and eternal life remains as timely as ever. I urge all of us now to make this promise personal: let it stir in each of us the desire to know Jesus Christ more so that we may become better agents of change and conveyors of truth wherever we go,” he added.

Marcos said God’s love for humanity emerges during the Holy Week, which he described as a blessed occasion commemorated in varying degrees and traditions.

“Ultimately, no matter how constant or diverse this occasion is in the Filipino psyche, one thing emerges true each time: that God, in His divine and everlasting wisdom, manifested His immeasurable and incomparable love to us all through the very human person of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Holy Week, which starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Black Saturday, commemorates the passion and death of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to save humanity from sin. More than 80 percent of Filipinos identify as Christians, a huge majority of them Roman Catholics. g