More Than A Magazine, A Movement
In an era where crisis pregnancy centers outnumber real abortion clinics three to one, raising the alarm about these fake clinics is crucial. A new TikTok video recently went viral for doing just that: spreading the word about the dangers of antiabortion “clinics.”
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week: Trump enacts harmful executive actions on immigration, global abortion care, DEI and foreign assistance; Trump’s new treasury secretary said expanding tax cuts for the wealthy is “the single most important economic issue of the day”; Trump pardoned anti-abortion extremists; ICE raids spread fear; 1.4 percent of trans teens participate in sports, but 40 percent are bullied at school; Whole Woman’s Health has expanded its 24/7 abortion care services; states hostile to abortion rights see challenges attracting and retaining workers; female firefighters will now receive federal compensation for treatment for reproductive cancers; remembering Cecile Richards, and more.
Women’s rights and maternal health are under relentless attack. Just one week into Donald Trump’s presidency, the rollback of reproductive rights, threats to healthcare access and emboldened restrictions on bodily autonomy have left women more vulnerable than ever. With abortion bans expanding and maternal health protections at risk, the fear is no longer hypothetical—it is urgent.
But amid this crisis, there are leaders refusing to stand by. One of them is Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), a public health nurse turned member of congress, who remains steadfast in her belief that real progress is still possible.
“Every mother deserves access to quality care, and every child deserves a healthy start,” Underwood told Ms. “No one can argue with that.”
During Donald Trump’s first stint at the White House, women journalists faced unprecedented threats and challenges. From online violence and smear campaigns to physical and verbal assaults, they remained at immense risk. As Trump returns to the presidency, his legacy indicates the threat of increased risks towards women journalists.
To understand these women’s experiences, as well as their reporting on gender, join us for a powerful discussion featuring: Women Press Freedom senior editor Inge Snip; Ms. managing digital editor Roxanne Szal; California-based journalist Cerise Castle; and longtime CFWIJ community member Megan Clement. Watch the discussion live on CFWIJ’s YouTube channel at 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 PT / 9:30 CT) Monday, Feb. 3, 2025.
A fierce feminist resistance is ready to defend women’s rights at the federal level—and creatively expand equality protections in the states. This is the second in a four-part series on the steps activists are taking to fight for our rights amid Trump’s attacks on democracy.
Part 1 covered the organization Democracy Forward and its new initiative Democracy 2025, which is working to counter the Trump administration’s antidemocratic acts with swift legal challenges and other strategic responses. This follow-up discusses the Democratic governors and attorney generals who are working to “Trump-proof” their state’s existing laws and fight for legal protections for their residents. Next Wednesday and Thursday, Part 3 will tackle more specifics of state law and advocacy, while Part 4 will get into the issue of federal funding under Trump.
Last month Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the state against New York doctor Maggie Carpenter, co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telehealth, for prescribing abortion pills through telehealth to a Texas woman.
Paxton’s lawsuit is a direct attack on telehealth abortion shield laws— a move that has been anticipated since Massachusetts enacted the country’s first such law in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs.
The losing candidate for a seat on the high court is trying to have more than 60,000 valid votes thrown out.
In a dispute that is attracting national attention, Judge Jefferson Griffin, a Republican candidate for the North Carolina Supreme Court and judge on the state intermediate court, is seeking to invalidate more than 60,000 votes and overturn the electoral win of his opponent, Justice Allison Riggs.
The dispute stems from November’s state supreme court election, which Griffin lost by just 734 votes. The crux of Griffin’s argument is a claim that the state board of elections has been breaking state election law for decades by following an incorrect process for registering voters, including failing to require voters to provide a driver’s license or social security information and wrongfully allowing certain overseas and absentee ballots to be submitted without photo identification.
The recent major wildfires in Los Angeles and its surrounding communities are now ranked the seventh-costliest American natural disaster of the last 45 years, coming in at $80 billion so far.
In California, 35 percent of women experience domestic violenc
Just like wildfire, the domestic violence crisis cannot be extinguished without the proper systems, resources and accessible workforce. In the case of domestic violence, the efforts to address, intervene and prevent Intimate partner violence with complicated Infrastructures and human resources are seriously lacking.
After a narrow political victory in November, a second Trump administration is now threatening to reverse decades of hard-fought gains for women and girls. Luckily, a fierce feminist resistance is ready to defend women’s rights at the federal level—and creatively expand equality protections in the states.
This is the first in a four-part series on the steps activists are taking to fight for our rights amid Trump’s attacks on democracy.
Trump is not a small-government conservative because he read Ayn Rand in college. He’s a government-of-one conservative: an authoritarian.
What Trump has done here is not just a funding pause. It is a test: Will members of Congress comply with increasingly extreme acts—acts that strip their power, publicly humiliate them and anger their constituents? Will Congress and the public agree that in order to receive federal funding that Congress has already allocated, every single agency and organization that receives such funding has to demonstrate their loyalty to far-right Trumpian ideology? Will the people who make up the federal government decide that the foundation of American democracy—the separation of powers, put into place in part to ensure that the nation would be governed by representatives of people and not a singular king—is worth preserving?