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.
Lest We Forget
“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble. We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both. Family comes in many forms and I think that increasingly all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore.”
—Vice President Harris on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, responding to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s comments that without biological children, Harris “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”
“We don’t want to go back; we want to go forward. I hope that people will see [voting] as a duty, as a right, as a privilege, but also [that they will] connect their lives to their ballot. From clean air to clean drinking water and healthcare. All of those things are connected to your right to vote.
“Every year, someone tells you, ‘This is the most important election of our lifetimes.’ Well, in the words of Congressman Jim Clyburn, this one is the most consequential. [We will feel] the consequences [of this election] for decades—if not generations. Our democracy, our freedoms, our rights are on the ballot. And every race, from the top of the ticket to the bottom, counts.”
—Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) on the importance of voting and the stakes of the upcoming election.
“Due to the abortion ban, I was being forced to carry the baby from 23 weeks all the way to 30-something weeks, knowing that my son was going to die. The government had no right to do that to my family. This ban is torture.”
—Deborah Dorbert, sharing her story with her husband Lee in Floridians’ Protecting Freedoms’ Yes on 4 campaign’s new ad. The Florida couple were denied a medically necessary abortion.
“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”
—District Judge Mark E. Walker, preventing Florida’s Department of Health from threatening TV stations that air ads in support of the state’s abortion rights ballot measure. Despite the ruling against their threatening cease and desist letters, Governor DeSantis’s Administration continues to claim that the ad is “dangerous” and “detrimental to public health.”
“When asked about abortion access, JD Vance repeated the same sound bite we’ve heard before—we should leave it to the states. This plan is dangerous. Donald Trump’s state abortion bans have created the chaos and confusion that we experience today. We’ve witnessed the disasters caused when our basic human rights are subject to geography. We’ve seen lives lost when healthcare access is controlled by the personal beliefs of anti-abortion politicians. We now have a tale of two states, with haves and have-nots on basic healthcare access separated by thin state lines. We need federal protections—beyond Roe—that affirm our human rights no matter what state we live in.”
—Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights at SiX Action.
“You’re not pro-life. It’s not pro-life to deny women care so long that they can’t have children anymore. It’s not pro-life to force a victim of rape to carry their rapist’s baby. Understand that when Ted Cruz says he’s pro-life, he doesn’t mean yours.”
—Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred to Senator Ted Cruz. Earlier this month, Sen. Cruz campaigned alongside state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the lawmaker behind Texas’ extreme abortion ban.
“On the one hand, you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences, who’s had to work harder and do more and overcome and achieves the second highest office in the land and is putting forward concrete proposals to directly address the things that are vital in our neighborhoods and our communities.
“And on the other side, you have someone who has consistently shown disregard, not just for the communities, but for you as a person, and you’re thinking about sitting out? And you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses? I’ve got a problem with that because—because part of it makes me think, and I’m speaking to men directly now, part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
—Former President Barack Obama, speaking to Black men who are reluctant to vote for Kamala Harris, during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh.
Milestones
+ A Tennessee court temporarily lifted the state’s total abortion ban for patients with dangerous complications or lethal fetal diagnoses. The three-judge (all women) panel agreed that unclear wording in the law prevents women from getting medically necessary care.
Plaintiff and OB-GYN Dr. Laura Andreson celebrated, “today’s ruling isn’t only about our lawsuit; it’s about upholding patients’ access to crucial healthcare and allowing doctors to practice medicine without fear. By temporarily blocking the state ban on abortion as applied to patients experiencing the same unthinkable diagnoses that my co-plaintiffs were forced to face, the panel has prevented immeasurable suffering.”
+ Conversely, a week after it was struck down by a judge, Georgia’s Supreme Court reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban while they consider the case.
+ Equal pay trailblazer Lilly Ledbetter died at 86. In 1999, Ledbetter sued Goodyear for sex discrimination after discovering she was paid thousands less than her male peers. Her case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled against her in 2007 because she didn’t sue within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck.
In 2009, the first bill President Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, eliminating that statute of limitations. During her long legal battle, Ledbetter became an activist and joined Obama on the campaign trail. She spoke at multiple Democratic National Conventions, and wrote a memoir Grace and Grit. Her story is also told in the 2024 film Lilly, which premiered days before her death.
+ The Supreme Court refused a request from the Biden administration to send an Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) abortion case back to the lower courts. As a result, the current ruling will stand, allowing Texas hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care even in emergencies. The legal principle isn’t yet settled at a national level, as the Biden Administration attempts to argue that EMTALA requires hospitals to provide emergency abortion care even if it’s illegal under state law.
Dallas reproductive justice organization the Afiya Center warned that Black women will be disproportionately affected. “No doubt, Black women will suffer unnecessary injuries, risk criminal prosecution, and worst of all preventable deaths due to this ruling. … When bans and bills and laws are put into place that impact people, Black people will be the ones who are always disenfranchised, and marginalized people will be overly impacted and heavily criminalized by the decision that they make.”
+ Attorney Generals in Kansas, Missouri and Idaho are attempting to make abortion medication illegal for minors, and prevent abortion providers from mailing medication to states with abortion bans. If successful, their complaint against the FDA could diminish access to mifepristone across the country.
+ Palmetto State Abortion Fund in South Carolina funded care for 171 callers in September, skyrocketing past their normal “high month” count of 50-60 callers.
+ Floridians Protecting Freedom’s Yes on 4 campaign raised a record $17,216,884 between Oct. 5 and 11, bringing their total to almost $90,000,000 from over 40,000 donors. The abortion rights campaign has knocked on over 500,000 doors and made calls to over 450,000 Floridians so far.
+ Long-time Florida meteorologist John Morales teared up on air ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall, shocked by the climate change-driven strength of the “horrific” storm. “Today as a result of so many compounding climate-driven factors, the warming world has forcibly shifted my manner from calm concern to agitated dismay. … No one can hide from the truth. Extreme weather events, including hurricanes, are becoming more extreme. I must communicate the growing threats from the climate crisis come hell or high water—pun intended.”
+ California became the first state to legally recognize intersectionality. The state’s new amendment to anti-discrimination protections explicitly includes discrimination against the intersection of two or more protected characteristics, like gender, race, age or sexuality.
+ A record number of early ballots were cast in Georgia on their first day of voting. Over 300,000 early in-person votes were recorded, demolishing the previous first day record of 136,000 in 2020.
Former President Jimmy Carter was among those voting for Kamala Harris in Georgia, fulfilling his goal to live long enough to cast his vote for her. Carter turned 100 on Oct. 1, becoming the oldest former U.S. president ever.
+ In an ode to her dad’s “We All Have AIDS” campaign designed to reduce stigma, Emily Cole launched a “We All Need Abortion” campaign to give abortion storytellers and reproductive justice activists a platform to destigmatize abortion care.
+ A New York woman may face felony charges after experiencing a miscarriage in a restaurant bathroom. The fetus wouldn’t have been able to survive, a medical examiner found, but police are still considering criminal charges for “concealing a human corpse”—despite New York not classifying a fetus as “human remains” until later in pregnancy.
+ Marcus Silva has dropped his suit against friends of his ex-wife who allegedly helped her obtain an abortion in Texas. He was attempting to sue for $1 million in damages, represented by one of the architects of the state’s abortion ban, and then allegedly tried to use the case to blackmail his ex-wife into sex.
One of the women, Jackie Noyola, spoke out: “While we are grateful that this fraudulent case is finally over, we are angry for ourselves and others who have been terrorized for the simple act of supporting a friend who is facing abuse. No one should ever have to fear punishment, criminalization, or a lengthy court battle for helping someone they care about.”
How We’re Doing
+ Abortion is now the number one issue for women under 30 this election. Almost 40 percent of young women said it was the most important issue for their vote—double the number before Vice President Harris became the Democratic nominee.
Harris is also gaining on Trump in economic issues. About 46 percent of women voters trust Harris over Trump to address household costs, compared to 39 percent that prefer Trump. Harris also has a lead on healthcare costs, and Black women strongly prefer Harris on inflation.
+ Just weeks before the election, women are motivated and energized. Since June, there was a 24 percentage point increase in the number of women who are satisfied with their choice of candidates, and a 19 point increase in the number who are more motivated to vote than in previous presidential elections.
+ Despite claiming to oppose non-consensual nudity, X (formerly Twitter) is slow to respond to reports of revenge porn. When researchers tested X’s internal reporting procedure, none of the 25 fake harmful images they posted were removed. But when they flagged similar images through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), all 25 were removed within a day.
Unfortunately, many victims can’t use the DMCA, because they didn’t create the images or own the copyright. Non-consensual intimate imagery causes the most harm in the first 48 hours it’s online, so effective review and removal procedures are critical. Researchers concluded that a new law may be needed to ensure accountability and quick action from online platforms.
+ In the last 10 years, the number of abortions performed after 21 weeks has decreased. In 2021, those abortions were less than 1 percent of all abortions in the U.S.
+ According to CDC abortion data, in 2021 over 80 percdent of abortions were performed at or before nine weeks of pregnancy, and almost 94 percent were at or before 13 weeks. Around 56 percent of all abortions were medication abortions, the vast majority of those taking place at or before 9 weeks.
+ As a result of Texas abortion laws, over 75 percent of the state’s OB-GYNs now believe they can’t practice medicine according to best practices, and 60 percent fear legal consequences for practicing evidence-based medicine. Over 20 percent have thought about or are planning to leave Texas, and 57 percent of OB-GYN residents say that abortion laws are relevant to their decision to stay or leave the state after residency.
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