Author: TheConversation

By Amanda Jean Stevenson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder A new Texas law bans nearly all abortions, and other states have indicated that they likely will follow suit. But the research is clear that people who want abortions but are unable to get them can suffer a slew of negative consequences for their health and well-being. As a researcher who measures the effects of contraception and abortion policy on people’s lives, I usually have to wait years for the data to roll in. But sometimes anticipating a policy’s effects before they happen can suggest ways to...

By Terry Shoemaker, Lecturer Religious Studies, Arizona State University A precipitous decline in the number of Americans identifying as white evangelical was revealed in Public Religion Research Institute’s 2020 Census on American Religion. In 2006, almost a quarter of the American population identified as White evangelical, but only 14.5% the population does so today. Evangelical is an umbrella category within Protestant Christianity. The category of evangelical is complicated; unlike Catholics, who have a centralized authority, evangelicals do not maintain a single spokesperson or institution. Instead, evangelicalism in the United States today is composed of several institutions, churches and a...

By Robert A. Pape, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago A recent Washington demonstration supporting those charged with crimes for the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol fizzled, with no more than 200 demonstrators showing up. The organizers had promised 700 people would turn out, or more. But the threat from far-right insurrectionists is not over. For months, my colleagues and I at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats have been tracking insurrectionist sentiments in U.S. adults, most recently in surveys in June. We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1...

By Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation The United States is once again staring down the barrel of a government shutdown. Barring progress on a spending bill to fund government agencies past September 30, and Democrats are busying themselves trying to get such a measure through Congress, federal workers could find themselves being sent home, or asked not to come in. For how long is uncertain. Over the last few decades, the length of government shutdowns has crept up. The most recent one, which started on December 22, 2018, lasted 35 days, marking the longest shutdown to date....

By Jon Hale, Associate Professor of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign As a longtime civil rights activist and education reformer, Howard Fuller has seen his support for school choice spark both controversy and confusion. That is because it aligns him with polarizing Republican figures that include Donald Trump and his former secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. But unlike those figures, Fuller’s support for school choice is not rooted in a conservative agenda to privatize public schools. Rather, it is grounded in his ongoing quest to provide Black students a quality education by any means necessary. I write about...