Across the United States, legislators continue to devise new ways to target parents who use drugs through a variety of state systems. In the past twenty years, the number of states penalizing substance use during pregnancy has doubled. Ostensibly a response to rising rates of opioid-related overdose deaths, such state laws almost universally endanger those already at greatest risk. …
Author Archives: Bayla Ostrach
Austerity, Not COVID-19, Strains National Healthcare Systems
This article is part of the series: Dispatches from the pandemic
Spain and Italy, two of the countries most affected early on by COVID-19, were also among the EU member-states that underwent severe and extended austerity measures following the last global economic recession. These measures significantly weakened publicly funded healthcare systems in both countries, and as it is particularly relevant to understanding the trajectories of pandemic, constrained public sector response.
The …