Author: Carrie N. Baker

Carrie N. Baker, J.D., Ph.D., is the Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman professor of American Studies and the chair of the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. She is a contributing editor at Ms. magazine. Read her latest book at Abortion Pills: U.S. History and Politics (Amherst College Press, December 2024). You can contact Dr. Baker at cbaker@msmagazine.com or follow her on Bluesky @carrienbaker.bsky.social.

From Smith College to Florida’s New College: MAGA’s Campaign Against Universities, Women’s Studies and Liberal Arts

As a professor at Smith College and chair of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, I have closely followed the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education—and on my field in particular.

This week, those attacks landed squarely on my own campus: The Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into Smith’s policy of admitting transgender women, arguing the college may be violating Title IX by recognizing gender identity rather than “biological sex.” The probe—prompted by a complaint from a conservative advocacy group—questions whether a women’s college can remain legally “single sex” while including trans women, and raises the possibility of federal penalties or loss of status.

This move is not an isolated action. It is part of a broader campaign to redefine civil rights protections in ways that exclude transgender people, and to pressure colleges and universities into compliance with that vision.

It is also one of many recent attacks on higher education—especially liberal arts institutions—by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration, aimed at universities they view as out of step with a conservative, anti-feminist agenda. In a 2021 speech titled “Universities Are the Enemy,” JD Vance declared, “We must aggressively attack the universities in this country. … Maybe it’s time to seize the endowments, penalize them for being on the wrong side of some of these culture war issues.”

Women’s, gender and sexuality studies teaches students to think critically, to question the status quo and to understand how power shapes our lives across gender, race, class, sexuality and more. These are precisely the kinds of questions that have made the field a target. Rather than engage with this work, critics have increasingly sought to discredit or dismantle it altogether. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 provides a roadmap for doing just that—but many of these strategies have already been tested at the state level.

The Courts Keep Targeting Abortion Pills. Patients and Providers Keep Finding Ways Around Them.

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily paused the Fifth Circuit’s Friday ruling that would have tightened access to mifepristone, preserving the current status quo while the justices consider the emergency appeal. The order keeps telehealth and mail access in place for now.

The Monday morning emergency action from the Court—which orders the Trump administration to answer by May 7—follows an urgent intervention from the manufacturers of mifepristone, GenBioPro and Danco.

Regardless of what the courts decide, international telehealth providers, community networks and websites selling pills are ready to ramp up services to fill the needs of Americans.

Community Providers Play a Critical Role in Supporting Sexual and Domestic Violence Survivors Self-Managing Abortions

Decentralized community networks have mushroomed across the country. Existing outside of the formal medical system, community providers mail free abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) to tens of thousands of pregnant women and people each year and support them to self-manage their abortions.

Staffed by volunteers, many of these community networks offer highly-trained abortion doulas to provide emotional and informational support to all those with whom the groups share abortion pills, and offer specially trained doulas for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

“Pregnancy is one of the most dangerous times for someone experiencing domestic violence,” one doula told Ms., and “one of the top three reasons that people seek abortion is due to abuse in their relationship.”

Say Their Names: The Women Who Died After Being Denied Emergency Abortion Care

We know the names of nine women who have died after doctors denied them life-saving care because of fears they would be criminally prosecuted under abortion bans: Josseli Barnica, Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, Amber Nicole Thurman, Candi Miller, Porsha Ngumezi, Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, Nevaeh Crain, Tierra Walker and Ciji Graham.

At least three least three more women—all unnamed at this time—died between October 2022 and July 2024 as a result of denied or delayed emergency abortion care, according to a March 2025 study released in academic journal CHEST.

In all, public health experts estimate that abortion bans have led to the deaths of at least 59 women—but we may never know their names.

In a lawsuit involving denial of emergency care to pregnant women, the National Women’s Law Center filed a brief documenting more than 100 cases of women almost dying when hospitals denied emergency medical care because of abortion bans—though “the true number [of cases] is likely significantly higher,” according to the brief.

Congress should move to pass two critical protections: The Women’s Health Protection Act, which would establish a statutory right for healthcare providers to offer abortion services and for patients to receive them; and the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, which would ensure that every person who receives healthcare or insurance through the federal government will have coverage for abortion services.

Abortion Provider Challenges Colorado Parental Notification Law Under 1972 ERA and 2024 Right to Abortion Amendment

As Republicans ever more relentlessly attack abortion rights in states across the country, women’s rights advocates are rediscovering underutilized state equal rights amendments (ERAs) and using newly passed abortion rights amendments to state constitutions to challenge longstanding barriers to abortion in blue states.

Colorado is now ground zero for that fight, where Dr. Rebecca Cohen is challenging a state law requiring young women under the age of 18 to notify a parent 48 hours before accessing an abortion or navigate the courts to obtain permission to access this basic care.

Some legislators who voted for the Colorado parental notification law explicitly said they hoped it would be a deterrent to young women engaging in sexual activity—“but nobody seems very invested in their partners paying a price for it,” said Rupali Sharma, litigation co-director of The Lawyering Project, which represents Cohen.

 “Not only is the state trying to coerce you to carry your pregnancy to term, but it’s treating you fundamentally differently than your male partner, who has also participated in bringing this pregnancy along,” said Sharma. 

Teens Avoid Coercive Parental Involvement Laws by Using Telehealth Abortion Services 

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The majority of U.S. teenagers live in states that require parental involvement in abortion healthcare decision-making. If parents are unavailable or teens under 18 do not want to involve their parents, they must go to court and convince a judge that they are mature enough to decide on their own or that the abortion is in their best interest.

To avoid this invasive and burdensome process, resourceful teens are now turning to abortion care from telehealth providers located outside their restrictive states.

Under the Reagan administration, parental involvement laws proliferated as an attempt to restrict minors’ access to reproductive healthcare.

One of the most well-known, devastating consequences of these laws was the 1988 death of Becky Bell in Indiana. When Bell became pregnant as a teenager, Indiana had a parental consent law. Bell was afraid to tell her parents about the pregnancy for fear of disappointing them, but she was also afraid to go before a local judge she heard was reluctant to grant waivers. Believing she had no other option, she turned to an unsafe, likely self-induced abortion. Several days later, Bell was rushed to the hospital with a massive infection and died. Her death became a poignant symbol of the lethal effects of restricting young people’s access to safe abortion.

Community Groups Sharing Free Abortion Pills Expand to States Where Abortion Is Legal But Out of Reach

In response to abortion bans and restrictions, feminists across the country have created networks of community groups that share abortion pills by mail, free of charge, with people who need them. Mostly run by volunteers, these mutual aid networks have served over 100,000 people since 2022. 

“Everybody deserves bodily autonomy,” said one volunteer, who got involved out of rage after the Supreme Court revoked women’s constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

Increasingly decentralized and moving closer to the people they serve, these community providers are expanding their reach. While originally focused on states with bans and severe restrictions, they are now increasingly serving people in states where abortion is legal, but may not be affordable or accessible.

Louisiana Court Pauses Lawsuit Demanding Nationwide Telehealth Abortion Ban

On April 7, Judge David Joseph of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted the Department of Justice’s motion to stay Louisiana’s case attempting to restrict access to the medication mifepristone while the Food and Drug Administration conducts its own review of the medication based on discredited antiabortion propaganda.

The court denied Louisiana’s motion for a preliminary injunction to bar patients nationwide from obtaining mifepristone by mail via telehealth or at pharmacies, instead requiring them to pick up the medication in person from a medical provider.

As a result of Joseph’s ruling, mifepristone access will not change across the country.

“Putting this baseless case on hold is certainly a better outcome than what Louisiana asked for: severe and immediate restrictions on mifepristone that would upend abortion and miscarriage care across the country,” said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the Reproductive Freedom Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “But it is small comfort that the Trump administration now holds the baton in this ongoing attack on medication abortion when we can see the administration teeing up the same harmful restrictions that abortion opponents are trying to win in court. 

Many observers believe that the Trump administration wants to delay restrictions on mifepristone until after the November elections because early abortion with pills is broadly popular across the political spectrum.  

Raped, Recorded, Shared—Then Abandoned by the System: ‘Once It’s on the Internet, It’s Out There’

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Survivors of online sexual exploitation and abuse are not just confronting individual perpetrators—they are up against systems that were never designed to protect them.

A new report by Equality Now and the Sexual Violence Prevention Association documents how survivors who report tech-facilitated sexual abuse routinely encounter jurisdictional dead ends, outdated laws and opaque platform policies that leave harmful material circulating indefinitely. For many, the abuse does not end with the assault itself, but continues through repeated viewing, sharing and threats—often with devastating financial, professional and psychological consequences.

The report also makes clear that this harm is not inevitable. Survivors point to concrete policy solutions that could meaningfully change outcomes: consent-based laws governing the online distribution of sexual material, clear and enforceable takedown obligations for tech companies, survivor-centered reporting systems and access to free legal and mental health support.

Accountability is possible, but only if lawmakers and platforms choose to act.

Who Controls Mifepristone? The Politics Blocking a New Era of Contraception

Mifepristone “works against endometriosis. It works against myoma [fibroids]. We are now involved in a study group that looks at whether it can prevent breast cancer,” says pioneering reproductive-health advocate Dr. Rebecca Gomperts. “It has so many potential uses, and it hasn’t been [developed].

“If we as women don’t make sure that it becomes available to meet our needs … then it won’t happen.”

This is the final installment of a new series, “The Moral Property of Women: How Antiabortion Politics Are Withholding Medical Care,” a serialized version of the Winter 2026 print feature article.