This Dept. of Labor Program Transformed Our Lives. Now It’s on the Chopping Block.

and

U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has given most U.S. Department of Labor employees until April 18 to opt into early retirement or deferred resignation programs, signaling the imminence of mass layoffs. As ironworker tradeswomen, we are particularly concerned about what this could mean for the Women’s Bureau, a critical agency within the department, as well as the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) program it administers. 

It is imperative that Chavez-DeRemer, a former representative of Oregon, preserve and expand support for the Women’s Bureau and WANTO. It is only fair: Oregon has received and benefited greatly from WANTO funding, along with additional federal funding for infrastructure. These investments have driven the state’s thriving economy at a time when employers nationwide face a shortage of skilled workers in key industries like construction, plumbing and electrical work. 

Lawsuit Against Crisis Pregnancy Center Leads to Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Regulating Ultrasounds: ‘A Chink in the Armor’

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)

Antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) across the United States receive state and federal funds but have operated with little or no government oversight. CPCs use unsterilized transvaginal ultrasounds wands inside of patients, delay access to lifesaving care by misdiagnosing serious medical conditions and steal patient data from real medical clinics, according to investigative reporting and lawsuits filed against them. Advocates have been stymied in their efforts to obtain any sort of CPC accountability. But that may be changing.

Secretary of Agriculture’s Anti-Trans Crusade Won’t Save Our Food System

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has long been a sprawling agency with often-conflicting goals. It’s in charge of both promoting healthy diets through the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, school food and nutrition assistance programs and boosting commodity crops, which are dumped into our food system in the form of unhealthy, ultra-processed foods and excessive amounts of meat and dairy.

But since its founding, the USDA’s role has been to recognize the vital importance of agriculture in our country and to protect America’s food supply.

So if you’re wondering how attacking transgender youth helps our food system, you’re not alone.

‘Make Motherhood Great Again’: Pronatalism Finds a Comfortable Home in the Trump Administration

Once dismissed as fringe, pronatalism has moved into the mainstream—finding powerful champions in Trump, Vance and Musk, and gaining policy traction within the administration. Rooted in eugenics, antifeminism, and anti-immigrant sentiment, this ideology casts high birthrates as a patriotic duty and low fertility as a national threat.

Now, federal policies are beginning to reflect this dangerous worldview—one that sees women’s bodies as tools of the state and reproductive freedom as collateral damage.

How Antiabortion Extremists Stopped a Beverly Hills Clinic From Opening … With Help From City Officials

and

Ever since middle school, Jennefer Russo wanted to be a doctor—by the time she entered college she knew she wanted to be one who performed abortions. The reason was simple. As she told Ms., “I grew up watching the impact that abortion had on the women in my life, and I saw that it allowed them to have autonomy and relative control over their lives.”

Early in summer 2022 (right around the time the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision), Russo learned that a suite in a medical building located at 8920 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills was available. She began negotiations with the owner, the real estate investment trust Douglas Emmett, and on June 30, DuPont sent a letter of intent to the company to lease a suite there. It read: “Use: The DuPont Clinic is a private referral center for all-trimester abortion care.”

It would take only two months to stop the DuPont Clinic from opening.

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.)

We Are the Majority

A slew of new studies have found that the vast majority of the human population—80 to 89 percent—want governments to do more about the climate crisis.

We are the majority. So why aren’t we acting like it?

Advocates Beat 91 Percent of Last Year’s Anti-LGBTQ Bills. How?

While the trans community still faces unprecedented legislative attacks, with 49 bills passing into law in 2024, there are key strategies that activists are using to fight back.

On March 6, Montana State Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell stood up to speak against two of the 527 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures this year. One bill would ban drag performances and pride marches as “hypersexualized shows,” and the other would require “the emergency removal of a child who is transitioning gender with the support of a parent” by state Child Protective Services.

One Mom, Two Kids and a Chronically Ill Husband: The Hidden Burden of Multigenerational Caregivers

Lizzie, a 34-year-old mom who cares for her husband with long COVID, is emblematic of how the classic sandwich generation has evolved for our generation into the multigenerational caregiver—caring for multiple family members of, you guessed it, different generations; in Lizzie’s case, her husband and children. Since COVID, in particular, the age of multigenerational caregivers has become younger as more of us take on care of an affected spouse (or sibling).