More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris had their first and only debate on Tuesday night in Philadelphia. According to CNN, Trump spoke for about 42 minutes and 52 seconds, while Harris spoke for 37 minutes and 36 seconds. Trump spoke 39 times to Harris’ 23 times.
Here’s what each candidate said on some of the issues feminists care about—including access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare, the Affordable Care Act, childcare, immigration, racial unity and the economy.
As abortion access is increasingly being decided by state and federal courts, two reproductive rights attorneys make sense of past rulings and the ongoing fight for reproductive healthcare.
At the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, on Monday, Biden made an emotional pitch for his new plan for Supreme Court reform, which would implement three changes to “strengthen the guardrails of democracy”: a constitutional amendment stripping the president of immunity for crimes committed while in office; an 18-year term limit for justices; and a binding code of conduct for the Court.
“The courts determine the scale and scope of our laws. … In recent years, extreme opinions the Supreme Court has handed down have undermined long established civil rights principles and protections,” said Biden. “In two years, we will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Imagine that moment and ask yourself: What do we want to be?”
Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for the next Republican president, maps out the permanent reversal of more than 50 years of gains for American women and LGBTQ+ people. The authors of Project 2025—80 percent of whom served in the first Trump administration—paint a picture of a nation where women are fundamentally second class citizens.
Project 2025 contains an 887-page policy agenda. We read the whole thing, so you don’t have to. Here are the most terrifying things we found.
Monday, July 1, marked the end of a historic and ominous Supreme Court term—with bombshell rulings on presidential immunity, the right to abortion care in emergencies, gun control, the criminalization of homelessness, the availability of medication abortion and more.
A panel at the 14th annual Supreme Court Review at Georgetown Law School discussed the high Court’s monumental decisions from the last several months, which will have ripple effects for years and decades to come.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that former President Donald Trump has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for all “official acts” he took while in office. The case, which began last year, is related to charges against the former president for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor concluded in a scathing dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Read more of our favorite takes from her dissent.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request from the Biden administration to send a dispute over emergency abortions in Texas back to the lower courts. The Court dealt with a set of similar cases out of Idaho in June without reaching a conclusive decision on the federal law in question, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).
“Recently, the world has heard the story of Amber Thurman, a young woman who died because of Georgia’s extreme abortion ban,” said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates. “Today’s punt by the Supreme Court will lead to more cases like Amber’s. … The Court is telling women in states with bans that need abortion care to save their life: ‘We don’t care.'”
The start of this week marked a feminist milestone for our southern neighbors: the election of the first-ever woman president in Mexico—a culmination of decades of political interventions like gender quotas and parity mandates aimed expressly at elevating more women to higher office.
Just days before, in Texas—home to 10 percent of U.S. women of reproductive age—the state Supreme Court issued a huge loss to women, in the form of a callous ruling that forces pregnancy on women until (and even past) the brink of death and mandates them to continue pregnancies even when their fetus has no chance of survival after birth. To wish such suffering on pregnant Texans and their children goes beyond heartless indifference. It is violent and inhumane.
Felicidades a mis hermanas en México. And buena suerte—good luck—to my sisters in Texas. You are not alone.
On May 30, 2024, Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts by a New York jury. On the latest episode of On the Issues With Michele Goodwin: Fifteen Minutes of Feminism, Goodwin is joined by Moira Donegan, feminist writer and opinion columnist with the Guardian U.S., to discuss why the New York trial was about more than just “hush money”—it’s about a coverup, election interference and mistreatment of women.
Here are some of our favorite takes from the episode.
The 16th annual Global Women’s Rights Awards, hosted by the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.), convened Tuesday evening in Los Angeles. This year’s awards celebrated the activism to secure final ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the bravery of both U.S. and Afghan women in the face of misogynistic laws and leadership.
The evening recognized three honorees in particular who have contributed greatly to advancing the rights of women and girls: Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Dr. Austin Dennard, and the Bread and Roses documentary team, including director Sahra Mani.