ER Doctor Blasts Trump-Vance ‘Leave It to the States’ Abortion Stance: “Should Be ‘Leave It to the Individuals'”

Trump’s abortion laws would “leave” the choice of whether to ban abortion “to the states.” An ER doctor and father chimed in on a now-viral thread on Twitter (X) on the need for individual choice.

“[Vance] claimed that the US is a diverse country,” Davidson wrote after sharing that his wife experienced four miscarriages over the course of raising their three children. “I couldn’t agree more—we ARE diverse—but that diversity does not end at state lines.”

The Ableist Nature of Creating Families

Mainstream conversations about becoming pregnant, giving birth and creating a family are full of ableist ideals about what everything should look like.

What if, instead of shaming mothers for needing support, we embraced the ups and downs of each birth and fertility story for what it is: a unique and personal story?   

Kamala Harris and the Political Power of Black Women: The Ms. Q&A with Kimberly Peeler-Allen

As we stand poised to potentially elect our first female president who is also a woman of color, we know this moment builds on a long history of other women and Black women trailblazers who have helped to pave the way.

Kimberly Peeler-Allen is the co-founder of Higher Heights, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to building Black women’s collective political power from the voting booth to elected office. Higher Heights has helped drive the national narrative about the power of Black women voters and has inspired countless Black women to step into their power whether as voters, activists or elected leaders. We discussed what it would mean to elect our first woman president who is multi-racial, why it is important to elevate Black women’s leadership, what issues are mobilizing Black women in this election, what biases and barriers women candidates face, the significance of the ERA on the ballot in New York and more.

Republican AGs Want Access to Health Records of Out-of-State Abortion Seekers. Texas’ Ken Paxton Is Leading the Charge.

Since the fall of Roe, cross-border abortion travel has doubled. To guard against the threat of having—as President Biden put it—the medical records of abortion patients “used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive healthcare,” a new HIPAA rule issued last year enhances the privacy protections for reproductive healthcare.

Attorneys general from 19 abortion-hostile states submitted a formal letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in opposition to the proposed enhanced privacy rule, based on its disregard for fetal personhood. The AGs failed in their mission to prevent the proposed 2024 rule from becoming final—so Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took matters into his own hands. The Texas challenge will be heard by Republican appointee Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock, Texas. It is anticipated that he will be sympathetic to the state’s position.

How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework, by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.

Half a Century After Title IX, Universities Are Still Failing Survivors: The Ms. Q&A With Nicole Bedera

Ms. spoke with Bedera about her research for her newly released book, On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence, and how Title IX has fared in the 52 years since its passage.

Her findings are appalling.

“The average college expels just one perpetrator of sexual assault every three years.

“One of the administrators … told me that he hesitated to consider something as rape unless it involved ‘a stranger jumping out of the bushes.’ Survivors’ experiences were consistently misunderstood and minimized.”

Why We Need to Prioritize Pleasure-Centric Approaches in Sex Education

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With a new school year in full swing and elections around the corner, it’s only normal that we’re feeling anxious about what could happen this fall. This is especially true for young people, whose sexual and reproductive freedom hangs in the balance as we face abortion bans, attacks on trans care, birth control and more. But what’s a better antidote for anxiety, than empowering youth with pleasure-centric tools and resources that allow them to reclaim control of their bodily autonomy?

By centering peer-to-peer conversations on what makes us feel good—physically, mentally and emotionally—we establish a culture where joy, freedom and autonomy are prioritized and healthier schools, communities and relationships are created.