Em-URGE-ing Voices

Maralyn

Hometown- El Paso, TX

Favorite Writer- Mariana Enriquez

Favorite Sex Scene- I don’t have one

Hidden Talent- I can talk really fast.

Maralyn is a graduate student in the Sociology department at the University of Cincinnati. She has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and a M.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso. Maralyn’s research interests include reproductive rights and reproductive justice, long-acting reversible contraceptives, sterilization, and Latinx reproductive health.

Posts By: Maralyn Doering

Criminalizing Miscarriage

Miscarriage is an incredibly common phenomenon that we don’t talk enough about. A miscarriage is defined as the sudden loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. It’s estimated that 10 to 25% of confirmed pregnancies end in a miscarriage.  Miscarriages have a variety of causes, such as chromosome problems with the fetus, drug use, exposure to toxins, and systemic diseases. It’s safe to say that miscarriages are something that most pregnant people will experience at some point in their lives. Yet we are seeing an increase in convictions against people who experience miscarriages. Brittney Poolaw, an indigenous Comanche woman from Oklahoma, was convicted in October 2021 and sentenced to serve four years in an Oklahoma state prison on manslaughter charges due to a miscarriage she had in… Read more »

What About the Families?

One of my professors used to always say “If they start asking ‘What about the children,’ you know they don’t care about the children.” We often see folks in power talk about how they care about families and children. But why not put their money where their mouth is? A recently published study called “Baby’s First Years” says that providing low-income gestational parents with no strings attached money for a year affected the brain activity of their children in ways that could lead to better development of their brains. The study gave random amounts of money to the gestational parents every month after giving birth. Researchers conducting the study found that the children of parents who had received larger amounts of money had better brain development than children whose parents… Read more »

There Was Never A Labor Shortage

There was never a labor shortage. The ongoing pandemic has brought about employee shortages in many fields, but none is more obvious than the consumer service industry. Retail businesses are filled with “Now Hiring” signs and hiring perks have grown to include industry standards, such as employee benefits, with more desperate employers including things like sign-on bonuses and iPhones. While businesses continue to say that they are struggling to hire, repeating the idea of a “labor shortage,” the reality is service industry jobs are exploitative employment that treat their employees as disposable. Service industry jobs center on consumer-driven experiences; a broad spectrum, these jobs include things like retail, finance, food, and dining, and hospitality and travel. Out of these industries, food and retail services jobs have had the highest rates… Read more »

How S.B. 8 Impacts Undocumented Immigrants Seeking Abortions In Texas

View of the U.S./Mexico Border from El Paso, TX.

The passage and eventual enactment of Texas Senate Bill 2 (S.B. 8) has people rightfully concerned over abortion access in Texas. S.B. 8 limits abortion procedures past six weeks, before most people even know they are pregnant. As researchers and reproductive advocates have already pointed out, S.B. 8 creates several barriers for people seeking abortions beyond the six-week limit. For people seeking abortions after six weeks, they must travel to the nearest state that performs abortions. Consequently, the clinics in these states are being overwhelmed with patients traveling from Texas in addition to their usual patient load. Most notably, there is also the ten-thousand-dollar reward that people who report individuals who help someone receive abortion care after six weeks can receive. However, something that is less talked about is how… Read more »

Pharmacists Are An Untapped Contraceptive Provision Source

As a young adult, I began taking contraceptive pills to help control my polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS). I was given the pills in the hopes that they would help me lose weight and slow my facial hair growth. After a quick consultation with a pharmacist, I was on my way home with a birth control prescription. Like many people who live on the U.S./Mexico border, I was receiving and purchasing this prescription in Mexico at a pharmacy. I had struggled to get birth control at a local hospital clinic before because I was uninsured, and I could not see a doctor unless I had insurance or I was covered under the Texas Healthy Women Medicaid program. Unlike the U.S., purchasing medicine in Mexico doesn’t always require a prescription, and most pharmacists… Read more »