More Than A Magazine, A Movement
For decades, research has indicated that mifepristone may be a safe and effective contraceptive, but no one has conducted a large clinical trial to produce the evidence required to form the basis for government approval of the drug for this use—until now.
Pioneering reproductive health advocate Dr. Rebecca Gomperts recently announced preliminary results of a large clinical trial in Moldova showing that a 50 mg dose of mifepristone is very effective as a weekly contraceptive pill.
On Friday, Oct. 25, at Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Joseph Biden delivered a formal apology on behalf of the United States to an assembly of Native American leaders for the genocidal impact of 150 years of U.S. Indian boarding schools, which sought to erase Indigenous people, culture and languages.
“I formally apologize as president of the United States of America for what we did,” said President Biden. “It’s long overdue.”
This apology came as a result of years of work by Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo. The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees U.S. relations to American Indians, Native Alaskans and Native Hawaiians.
Amid devastating news in the election, there are some bright spots. Of the 10 states with abortion ballot questions, seven passed constitutional protections for reproductive rights, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York.
Three states defeated abortion rights measures: South Dakota, Florida (which required 60 percent to pass) and Nebraska.
Voters in Amarillo, Texas, defeated a local ballot measure that would have designated Amarillo as a “sanctuary city for the unborn” and enact local regulations and restrictions on abortion.
The number of abortions in the first half of 2024 was significantly higher than the same period for the previous two years—according to the Society of Family Planning’s eighth #WeCount report, released last week, which measures the number of abortions in the U.S. each month from April 2022 through June 2024.
There has been a 20.4 percent increase in just three years, despite abortion bans in 14 states and severe restrictions in many others. (And these numbers only include clinician-provided abortions—there are many more self-managed abortions occurring outside of the formal healthcare system.)
The Biden-Harris administration last week announced a new proposed rule that would significantly expand access to no-cost birth control under the Affordable Care Act. The rule would require private health insurance to cover all forms of contraception without co-pays, including over-the-counter contraceptives.
This expansion of contraception coverage is important in light of steep declines in prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception in states banning abortion.
Mostly without using the term “person,” Project 2025 lays out a plan for the next conservative president to use the federal government’s executive powers to enact nationwide policies that treat fertilized eggs as persons without needing to rely on courts or legislatures to achieve their goal—overriding the majority of Americans who oppose these measures.
Project 2025 would undermine public health, destroy and degrade women’s lives and inevitably lead to their criminalization.
We must understand Project 2025 as the culmination of the radical personhood agenda, launched in the 1970s, significantly advanced in 2022 by the Supreme Court decision overturning of Roe v. Wade and now poised to be fully achieved if Donald Trump is elected.
The infamous 887-page policy manual linked to Donald Trump and JD Vance aims to take Ron DeSantis’ war against liberal arts education nationwide.
Thirty-five years ago, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” to explain how multiple forms of discrimination interact to exacerbate each other, resulting in amplified forms of prejudice and harm. Last week, California became the first state to explicitly recognize intersectionality in discrimination law.
New research reveals at least 210 women faced criminal charges because of their pregnancies or pregnancy outcomes in the year after Dobbs—the highest number of documented prosecutions in a single year. The real number is likely much higher, according to new research released by Pregnancy Justice.
“Our new report shows how the Dobbs decision emboldened prosecutors to develop ever more aggressive strategies to prosecute pregnancy, leading to the most pregnancy-related criminal cases on record,” said Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice. “Being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest.”
Between abortion bans and decreasing access to contraception post-Dobbs, women are facing ever-increasing barriers to maintaining control over their reproductive lives, whether ending unwanted pregnancies—or preventing them.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
