More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Although the ERA has been ratified by the required three-quarters of the states and all that remains is for Congress to pass a simple resolution directing it be placed in the Constitution, politicians continue to block its placement with political games.
Every woman in America deserves to have her rights enshrined in the Constitution—not left vulnerable to the whims of a changing political landscape.
Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, a panel of experts, including 10 doctors, deemed Amber Nicole Thurman’s death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.
Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light.
Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others. Though Republican lawmakers who voted for state bans on abortion say the laws have exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” medical experts cautioned that the language is not rooted in science and ignores the fast-moving realities of medicine.
Advocacy groups are mobilizing to safeguard access to the ballot as states implement laws that could deter trans people from voting in November.
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.
This week: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose admits anti-abortion groups helped him write abortion rights ballot language; Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spar over abortion, Project 2025 and immigration at the presidential debate; Paralympics athletes and Emmy winners break records; Taylor Swift endorses Harris and Walz; Montana Supreme Court protects minors seeking abortion care; attacks on women journalists and LGBTQ people; new pay gap data is worse than last year; and more.
Voting is more than a civic duty; it is an expression of your voice, your values and your vision for the future. The fight continues to this day.
It’s easy to feel like one vote doesn’t matter, but history has shown us that collective action can lead to transformative change. That is why those who resist change continue to suppress the vote, more than 150 years after the 15th Amendment. When we all show up, the power of our voices combined can create a force that is impossible to ignore.
There’s about seven weeks till Election Day, but voters in most states—except those in Mississippi, Alabama and New Hampshire—will have the opportunity to vote in mere weeks.
For some states, the last day to register to vote is less than a month away. Currently 21 states and D.C. allow voter registration on Election Day, meaning that you can wait until Nov. 5 to register and vote. However, many states require registration as early as the first week in October.
Title X, the federally funded family planning program that provides confidential family planning services to teens has once again come under attack. In separate lawsuits, two Texas parents have alleged that by allowing their daughters to obtain contraceptives in the absence of their consent, the program has effectively divested them of their “God-given right to ensure their daughters remain virgins until marriage.”
This attack is on Title X is nothing new. The rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children has long been a rallying cry of Christian conservatives as they battle against the ostensible indoctrination of their children “with a secular worldview that amount[s] to a godless religion.” As they see it, a particularly pernicious aspect of this “godless religion” is the belief that “’teen promiscuity is … normal and acceptable conduct.”
Over the course of four decades, courts have consistently held that although Title X encourages parental involvement, it does not require it based on the recognition that “confidentiality [is] a crucial factor in attracting teenagers to Title X clinics and reducing incidence of teenage pregnancies.”
Just days after Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic party’s official nomination, Gloria Feldt—former Planned Parenthood president and longtime women’s rights activist—convened the 10th annual Take the Lead Conference in Washington, D.C., on Women’s Equality Day.
Hopes are high and determination steeled that 2025 will see the first woman president and the ratification of the ERA. For the hundreds of women and dozens of presenters and organizers who took part in the Take the Lead conference, promoting women’s power at every level and in every field has always been essential to the formula for that success.
On a long list of issues in the newly released survey, women identified domestic and sexual violence as the third most important one facing U.S. women collectively, behind abortion access and cost of living.
As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act today, it’s worth remembering one lesson that law teaches: Progress is possible.
This November, voters in New York state will have the chance to weigh in on Proposal 1, the first U.S. constitutional amendment of its kind, which will establish comprehensive safeguards against discrimination and explicitly protect reproductive rights, including the right to abortion for state residents. According to New Yorkers for Equal Rights (NYER), a broad coalition of more than 300 diverse groups that support the initiative, the effort is different from other equal rights amendments because it includes protections for reproductive rights.
NYER campaign director Sasha N. Ahuja spoke to Ms. two months before Election Day: “We have to set the path for other states to pursue equality and provide the strongest possible protections in their constitutions.”
