MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
Since our last report…
+ Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) has resigned amid sexual harassment and rape allegations from four different women.
+ After dropping his bid for reelection last month, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) has formally announced his resignation from the House of Representatives. Earlier this year, the House opened an inquiry into his sexual relationship with a subordinate, Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide last year. (Texts show Santos-Aviles attempting to deter her boss’ advances.)
+ Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court has struck down the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortions, on the basis that reproductive autonomy is enshrined in the equal protection provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, guaranteed under its Equal Rights Amendment. Gov. Josh Shapiro said, “I’ve long opposed this unconstitutional ban … because a woman’s ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income.”
+ A U.S. district court granted a stay in Louisiana v. FDA, blocking an attempt to ban nationwide access to mifepristone by mail or through pharmacies. The ruling pauses the case for an FDA review, ensuring that access to this safe and life-saving medication remains protected for now.
Let’s not forget what else was sent our way over the last month …
Thursday, March 26:
+ The Digital Underground: Inside the Global Rise of “Sleep Porn”
CNN uncovered an expansive online network where the rape, objectification and commodification of sexual violence against women is thriving. One “sleep porn” site, identified as Motherless.com, tracked 62 million visits in February 2026 alone, with its primary audience based in the United States.
White certain genres of pornography have routinely normalized violence against women as entertainment, aggressive algorithms now reward extreme exploitative content, pushing “sleep porn,” better known as drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) into mainstream online spaces.
Videos and livestreams of men drugging and raping their partners produce massive paid views reaching the tens of thousands, with cryptocurrency the preferred method of payment. Users advertising themselves as drug suppliers on platforms such as Telegram, will sell and mail bottles of “sleeping liquids” for up to $175 globally.
Beyond hosting illegal sexual acts, these sites seem to foster a perverse sense of ‘brotherhood community’ providing a space for shared instruction and validation of these crimes.
U.K.-based survivor Amanda Stanhope discovered her husband had been drugging and raping her for years. Her sense of safety and trust shattered forever, she says:
“I see everyone as a potential predator. … It took my innocence for people away.”
Despite the rise in sleep porn content, cases of DFSA are underreported by survivors who feel embarrassment, guilt, fear or have limited memory of the assault due to being drugged. Low reporting is also due to a lack of specialized training for police and hospital staff to report, recognize and validate DFSA attacks.
+ Ohio House Passes Bill to Ban Public Drag Shows
The Ohio House passed the Indecent Exposure Modernization Act (Bill 249); it now moves to the Senate for debate. This extreme bill seeks to ban any expression or performance of drag where minors are or may be present.
While the bill purports to restrict adult cabaret performances, it indiscriminately expands the definition of “adult cabaret” to target any performer who exhibits a gender identity different from their gender assigned at birth through clothing, makeup or other physical markers. The proposed ban includes even daytime family-oriented events such as drag queen story hours, where performers dress up as storybook characters and read to children at libraries or bookstores.
Although sponsors claim the bill protects children from public nudity, the text is vaguely worded and carries heavy penalties: a first-degree misdemeanor for performances in front of a juvenile, and up to a fourth-degree felony for “obscene” performances in front of children under 12.
Objectors to the law claim the bill singles out transgender and gender non-conforming individuals and amounts to an “attack on human lives.”
“I’m embarrassed that we are spending any time at all on a culture war bill,” said Ohio House Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio (D-Gahanna), “that doesn’t make our communities safer, but does have the potential to cost taxpayer dollars, to threaten economic activity and to frighten into hiding some of our already vulnerable community members.”
Tuesday, March 31: Supreme Court Rules Against Colorado’s Conversion Therapy Ban
The Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on youth “conversion therapy,” pseudoscientific and often religious-based counseling with the goal of changing a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, which has been discredited by every major medical association in the country. The Court’s 8-1 ruling in the case Chiles v. Salazar sided with Christian counselor Kaley Chiles, who argued that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violated her free speech rights.
Chiles says she only offers talk therapy, not medication or physical interventions. However, conversion therapy frequently goes hand in hand with harsh physical, psychological and sexual abuse of minors, including electic shock, starvation and chemically induced nausea, among other methods.
In 2020, the United Nations said conversion therapy can amount to torture and recommended that it be banned. The year before, the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy reported that 700,000 LGBTQ adults in the U.S. had received conversion therapy earlier in their lives. In another national survey of LGBTQ youth, 13 percent reported going through conversion therapy.
The Court’s ruling in Chiles v. Salazar creates a precedent for rejections of other states’ conversion therapy bans.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said, “Today’s reckless decision means more American kids will suffer. The Court has weaponized free-speech in order to prioritize anti-LGBTQ+ bias over the safety, health and well-being of children…[Conversion therapy] is cruel and should never be offered under the guise of legitimate healthcare.”
Friday, April 1: The Social Media Purge of Female-Led Sexual Wellness
Instagram has deleted the account of Bellesa Boutique, a leading sex toy shop and women’s sexual health community, after the platform flagged an original post for using the word “clitoris.”
For over a decade Bellesa has provided stigma-free sexual health education for women and the LGBTQ community. Ten years of education and community resources were erased overnight.
The suspension of the account, which served 700,000 followers, came just four days after Meta was ordered to pay $375 million following a lost court case regarding child safety features. In an email to Bellesa, Meta explained the suspension was due to a violation of community standards regarding “sexually explicit language” in organic content.
Supporters have highlighted the hypocrisy of silencing a prominent women’s health educator while allowing men’s health ads, including those for erectile dysfunction, to run uninhibitedly.
Bellesa co-founder and CEO Michelle Shnaidman addressed the abrupt closure in a statement to Mashable:
“For over a decade, hundreds of thousands of people came to the @bellesaco community to learn about and celebrate their own bodies—a safe, shame-free space to discuss sexual wellness and pleasure. Instagram deleted it for ‘sexually explicit language,’ meaning discussing women’s bodies in a health context is treated as inherently unacceptable.”
Thursday, April 2: Georgia Midwives Sue Over State Restrictions
In Georgia, a group of reproductive healthcare advocates is challenging the state’s restrictions on some forms of maternal healthcare, arguing that Georgia’s current laws give doctors too much control over midwives’ ability to practice.
More than two dozen states currently allow certified nurse-midwives to practice with full independence. In Georgia, however, certified nurse-midwives can only practice in partnership with a physician. According to attorney Hillary Schneller from the Center for Reproductive Rights, physicians often charge midwives hundreds of dollars a month for such a contract, creating a steep financial barrier. Meanwhile, another category of providers who train as midwives without going to nursing school are prohibited from practicing entirely.
“If not for these restrictions, I could be helping to meet the urgent gaps in maternity care. Instead, Georgia is choosing to leave skilled and committed workforce on the sidelines, even as communities struggle to access care,” said Tamara Taitt, the executive director of the Atlanta Birth Center and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, during a press conference.
Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country at 37.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. Of those deaths, 87 percent are deemed preventable. Georgia also bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, early enough that most women don’t even know they’re pregnant, sharply limiting patients’ access to abortion care even when it’s crucial to save a woman’s life.
In 2024, ProPublica published the stories of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who both died after they couldn’t access timely abortion care for dangerous pregnancies in Georgia. In response, Georgia fired its entire 32-member maternal mortality committee for supposedly sharing confidential information about the deaths.
Just this month, Georgia Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Carr claimed Georgia’s six-week abortion ban hasn’t killed any women, and doctors who say otherwise are lying.
A 2023 study from the Yale School of Medicine found that offering pregnant women care from midwives improves birth outcomes for both mothers and babies. According to Schneller, Georgia’s laws restricting midwives’ ability to practice “are a continuation of a legacy of laws that pushed midwives out that were never about safety.” She said, “What we have now is not working, and we know across the world that integrating midwives results in fewer unnecessary interventions and better outcomes.”
Tuesday, April 14: Rep. Eric Swalwell Resigns Amid Sexual Misconduct and Rape Allegations
Four women have come forward to describe sexual misconduct by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a former presidential candidate who was running for California governor before he resigned after the allegations. One former staffer said Swalwell raped her in 2024, after she had stoped working in his office, leaving her bruised and bleeding. She said it was the second time Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk; the first time was in 2019 while she was still working for him. At the time, she was 21 and he was 38.
Three other women also described various kinds of sexual misconduct from Swalwell, including him sending them unsolicited nude photos and explicit messages and engaging in heavy drinking and unwanted physical touch.
Swalwell, who is married with three children, has denied the allegations. However, he resigned from Congress on the same day as Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) amid Gonzales’ own sexual abuse allegations.
Jackson Katz wrote for Ms. earlier this month,
“The Swalwell scandal has prompted renewed attention to sexual misconduct and repeated abuses of power by privileged and influential men.
“It has also revived #MeToo era discussions about the roles and responsibilities of people around Rep. Swalwell—specifically his friends and colleagues. How could they not have known anything about what observers have described as an ‘open secret’?
“One of Swalwell’s friends, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), acknowledged in a press conference on Tuesday that he had long heard rumors that Rep. Eric Swalwell was ‘flirty’ with women, but had allowed his longtime friendship with the California Democrat to cloud his judgment, and never said or did anything about it.”
Thursday, April 16: Michigan Strikes Down Law Denying Pregnant Patients End-of-Life Decisions
A Michigan court has ruled that the state’s law denying pregnant patients the opportunity to make important end-of-life care decisions is unconstitutional under Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom Amendment. Specifically, the law overrode incapacitated pregnant patients’ right to refuse life-sustaining treatment in a loophole commonly known as a “pregnancy exclusion.”
A group of patients, physicians and patient advocates challenged Michigan’s pregnancy exclusion in the lawsuit Koskenoja v. Whitmer, arguing that the law unfairly discriminates against pregnant patients and violates their right to make reproductive and end-of-life healthcare decisions.
The case of Adriana Smith last year in Georgia is a stark example of what can happen when end-of-life decisions for a pregnant woman are left not to the patient or her family but the state. In February 2025, 30-year-old Smith was declared brain-dead after suffering from blood clots in her brain.
However, because Smith was pregnant at the time of her death, doctors elected to keep her body on life-support machines for several weeks so the fetus could continue to gestate. Hospital staff did not consult Smith’s mother and boyfriend in the decision, but cited Georgia’s strict abortion ban and said they could not consider other options while Smith’s body was still technically pregnant.
Smith’s story also echoed that of Marlise Muñoz, a woman in Texas who died in 2014. Like Smith, because she was pregnant, the state of Texas forcibly kept her on a ventilator for weeks while her body decomposed, despite the wishes of her parents and husband.
In 2022, voters in Michigan amended the state constitution to include explicit protections for “the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy”—thereby making the pregnancy exclusion for end-of-life care decisions unconstitutional. In its ruling against the law, the court highlighted its inherent discrimination and described the pregnancy exclusion as “a blanket exception to an individual’s authority to make autonomous medical decisions on a single criterion: pregnancy.”
Besides Michigan, more than 30 states still have pregnancy inclusion laws in place, but other states including Colorado and Washington have also removed them in recent years.
Monday, April 20: Louisiana Father Kills Eight Children, Wounds Two Mothers
In a devastating shooting spree spanning three locations, a 31-year-old man shot and killed eight children, seven of whom were his own, and severely wounded two women: his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh, and Christina Snow. Both women are mothers to the deceased victims.
Following the final shooting, the shooter fled the scene in a vehicle. A high-speed police pursuit ended with his death; authorities are still investigating whether he was killed by police fire or a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A former Lousiana National Guardsman and UPS employee, Elkins had exhibited signs of serious mental distress in the days leading to the shootings. Relatives of Elkins reported that he had vocalized thoughts of suicide ideation and was stressed about his relationship with his wife, who had recently expressed her intent to seek a divorce.
Shaneiqua Pugh and Christina Snow remain hospitalized, fighting for their lives while grappling with the unfathomable loss of their children. This tragedy highlights a recurring national crisis: the intersection of gendered violence, limited access to mental health resources, and a lack of robust gun control measures that continue to fuel domestic massacres in the United States. It also reflects a well-documented pattern in which domestic violence, misogyny and access to firearms converge—particularly in moments of separation or perceived loss of control—turning intimate partner violence into mass-casualty events that devastate entire families and communities.
Friday, April 24: Tennessee Indefinitely Delays Lawsuit from Women Suing Over State Abortion Ban
Nine women in Tennessee are suing the state over its abortion ban after nearly denying due to being denied abortion care. The lawsuit (Phillips, et al., v. State of Tennessee, et al.), filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights in September 2023, challenges Tennessee’s abortion restrictions for pregnant patients with emergency medical conditions. Tennessee currently bans abortion with only very narrow exceptions, meaning even patients in critical condition can be denied care.
The case was set to go to court on Monday, April 27. However, just days before the jury trial was supposed to start, the court put the trial on hold indefinitely. Now, it could be months before the lawsuit can proceed. In order to halt the trial, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti introduced a last-minute appeal invoking the new state law HB 1971, which is only a few weeks old. Passed by Tennessee’s Republican-led legislature, HB 1971 prevents Tennesseans from suing over any state law that harms them.
The case’s plaintiffs say the delay feels like the state is trying to silence them.
“It’s shocking to me that there’s anyone in this world that would have such opposing views to think that our voices don’t matter. How are they taking away our voice right now?” said Katy Dulong, who three years ago, suffered a miscarriage that caused a severe, nearly septic infection after a Tennessee hospital denied her a life-saving abortion.
Another plaintiff, Allie Phillips, is currently running for Tennessee’s state General Assembly after her own harrowing experience being denied an abortion and having to flee the state and travel to New York City for care.
According to Nicolas Kabat from the Center for Reproductive Rights, “They want to silence the women in our case and to deny them their day in court. These women could have died without abortions. The state wants to avoid accountability.”
The plaintiffs plan to fight Skrmetti’s appeal, but there is currently no indication of when the case might go to trial.
