Happy Lunar New Year for those celebrating today. I have a few longer posts in the works but didn’t want to start a new week without somethings for our readers to reflect on.

Latin@ Reproductive Health, Access, y Justice

This weekend marked the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. But (re)defining access for Latin@s goes beyond a court decision. It involves internalized oppression, stereotypes, and access to not just birth control and terminations, but also to births the way we want them.

The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health recently released polling looking at the attitudes of Latin@s towards abortion. This polling, which also comes at a time when the GOP is courting the Latino votes on the basis of alleged shared values, reveals that the majority of registered Latino voters believe in keeping abortion legal and accessible.

Following last week’s liveblog of a conversation on cervical cancer and Latin@s, Bianca Laureano shares her ideas for Cervical Cancer Awareness Month 2012 on what really needs to happen to end the disease.

We are celebrating along with Mamas of Color Rising in Texas the decision of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to make a rules change that adds Licensed Midwives as health care providers under Texas Medicaid. All mam@s deserve the birth experience they want regardless of income.

And finally, yesterday I sat down with some of the mamis of Latina Mami for a wonderful conversation about the mami’hood. You can watch/listen to the interview here (please note the link autoplays the interview)