On the same day the Trump administration revoked guidance ensuring emergency medical care for pregnant women, the Trump administration made moves toward nationwide restrictions on abortion medications.
Rest in Power: Étienne-Émile Baulieu, Abortion Pill Inventor and Women’s Rights Advocate
Millions of women around the world gained safety, dignity and autonomy over their bodies thanks to Étienne-Émile Baulieu. The visionary biochemist, feminist and fearless innovator—best known for developing and championing “RU 486,” now known as mifepristone—died at his Paris home on May 30 at the age of 98.
Mifepristone has saved countless lives and offered millions of women a way to end unwanted pregnancies in the privacy and comfort of their homes. Baulieu and others championed the development of mifepristone for uses beyond abortion—including for treatment of fibroids, endometriosis, postpartum depression and cancer. He supported its use in managing miscarriages and as a way to help to dilate the cervix to reduce the need for Caesarean births. His vision for mifepristone wasn’t just to end pregnancies but to protect women’s health and reduce medical intervention that too often harmed them.
He predicted in 1991: “RU-486 will make its American entrance: science, good sense, and freedom will triumph.”
And here’s his view on why there has been tremendous opposition to abortion pills from the antiabortion movement: “A method that makes the termination of pregnancy less physically traumatic for women and less risky to their health has always been rejected by pro-lifers: What they really seek is to harm and punish women.”
Give Laken Riley Her Name Back
I’m talking both to the man who murdered Laken Riley and the people who use her name to push their own agenda. Laken Riley is not a bill or a law. She was a person.
It’s time for the world to give Laken Riley her name back. Let her family remember her for the life she lived. Let them empower her memory without invoking her name as a political battle cry. And let’s fight for a world where we invoke Riley’s memory to protect more women just like her, and not for another twisted cause.
From Biden’s Cabinet to the Crisis Council: Isabel Guzman on AI, DEI, Elon Musk—and What Real Leadership Looks Like
Isabel Guzman previously served as the 27th administrator of the Small Business Administration under President Biden and was the fifth Latina woman to serve in the Cabinet. She cites serving in Biden’s Cabinet, which was majority-women and the most diverse Cabinet in U.S. history, as ‘humbling’ and an “honor.”
Since leaving the Biden administration, Guzman is now on the frontlines of corporate leadership, helping CEOs confront the reputational dangers of AI, DEI and disinformation. Guzman recently sat down with RepresentWomen’s digital media manager Ria Deshmukh to speak about her transformative journey through the public and private sectors. This is her first in-depth interview since finishing her tenure as the SBA administrator, providing a multifaceted perspective of life as a woman leader in public service and business development.
“The most critical moments in my career have been when I’ve taken myself out of my comfort zone.”
“Women need to continue to be bold about their worth and their value for inclusion.”
‘Remember the Ladies’: Attacks on Gender Equity Remain a Core Feature of Surging Authoritarianism
In the whirling, swirling hellscape of illegality and cruelty that is the current American political scene, it’s hard to keep track of all the individuals and groups demonized, deported and derided by an administration seemingly motivated by a Machiavellian desire for power that might make Machiavelli himself blush with shame. In the midst of an apocalyptic news cycle, one targeted segment of the population seems to be fading from view: women.
But let us not, as Abigail Adams wrote so many years ago, forget the ladies. “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”
A Survivor’s Warning: Reopening Alcatraz Is a Step Backward on Justice
The idea of reopening Alcatraz for what Trump termed as punishment for the country’s “most ruthless and violent” criminals should not be viewed in isolation. It calls for a broader reckoning with why such carceral relics were created in the first place and why their logic persists.
Alcatraz was designed to be the ultimate deterrent, embodying the harshest aspects of the U.S. penal system as a symbol of punitive excess. Yet it was historically ineffective: The prison’s closure in 1963 was due to high operational costs and its failure to rehabilitate inmates, suggesting that its model was unsustainable and ineffective.
Lawsuit Challenges Kansas Law That Voids Living Wills for Pregnant Women
Reproductive freedom advocates filed a lawsuit, Vernon v. Kobach, on May 29 challenging the constitutionality of a Kansas law that automatically invalidates a person’s end-of-life treatment decisions in their living will if they are pregnant. The case argues that this law violates pregnant patient’s constitutional rights to bodily autonomy, privacy and equal treatment under Kansas law. The complaint asks the court to permanently prohibit the state from enforcing the pregnancy exclusion—restoring pregnant women’s’s right to have their end-of-life decisions honored, just like anyone else.
Kansas is one of 28 states that restrict advance directive during pregnancy—16 based on the potential of fetal survival and 12 regardless of fetal survival.
“Across the country, people are shocked and horrified to learn that their end-of-life directives might be invalidated because they are pregnant,” said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How. “Everyone deserves to be able to make decisions about their body and their life; pregnancy is no excuse to deny someone’s fundamental rights.”
June 2025 Reads for the Rest of Us
Each month, Ms. provides readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
Red Hen Press. Alice James Books. Voice of Witness. Nightboat Books. Deep Vellum. Feminist Press. These are just a few of the many indie publishers and nonprofits who recently had their National Endowment for the Arts funding cut by the federal government. An attack on art—specifically literary art—is a deliberate attempt to keep us feeling hopeless, uninspired and compliant.
Many affected publishers have been strategizing ways to lessen the impact, but there is work for us to do, too. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial for us to buy or borrow these publishers’ works, share them with our loved ones and ask our local librarians to get copies.
Reading even just one or two of the 25 books on this list is a first step towards sending the message that we will continue to support the arts and prioritize the stories being told by and about marginalized groups.
Three Years Post-Roe: The Escalating Campaign to Make Abortion Inaccessible Nationwide
Three years after Dobbs, the antiabortion movement is escalating efforts to block access to medication abortion, criminalize interstate travel, and impose a nationwide ban—threatening reproductive freedom across all 50 states.
As antiabortion groups continue to push back against access to reproductive care, empowering state protections on abortion is imperative.
The Feminist Leadership Syllabus: Where History, Politics and Pedagogy Meet
When women assume a position of power, does she represent feminist leadership? Can she govern according to feminist principles? What is the difference between women’s leadership and feminist leadership?
This public syllabus on feminist leadership, assembled by Ms. contributing editor Janell Hobson and students in her graduate research seminar at the University at Albany, is an attempt to respond to these questions by exploring different examples of feminist leaders and feminist movements—both globally and historically.
We hope this syllabus can educate us on the kind of feminist leadership that will move us forward toward an inclusive democracy.
(This is Part 2 of a two-part series on women leaders and feminist leadership. Part 1—out last week—breaks down Angela Bassett’s role as U.S. president in the latest and final installment of Mission: Impossible, and how her representation on screen blurs the line between the impossible fictions and possible realities of women’s power in American politics.)