Health

What the ‘Wicked’ Weight-Loss Discourse Gets Wrong

PUBLISHED 12/17/2025 by

We can’t afford to look away from changing beauty norms in our society, and how they are fueling eating disorders. 

Jennifer Rollin, an eating disorder therapist based in Maryland, says, “What I hear from a lot of clients is that when they are trying to recover from their eating disorder in this society, it almost feels wrong, because ‘everyone around me is talking about Ozempic,’ and ‘all the celebrities are talking about their big amount of weight loss.’”

But while it can feel cathartic to criticize or distance ourselves from prominent women who seem to be conforming to dangerous beauty standards, that criticism is harmful and does not bring us any closer to addressing the problem.

No, Abortion Pills Aren’t Polluting U.S. Waterways

PUBLISHED 12/16/2025 by and

Abortion pills are a critical option for people seeking to end a pregnancy, especially those living in U.S. states with abortion bans who cannot travel out of state for care. In 2023, medication abortion accounted for 63 percent of all clinician-provided abortions in states without total bans.

Given the pivotal role of these medications in preserving abortion access, antiabortion policymakers and advocates are resorting to increasingly unscientific, unconventional tactics to spread mis- and disinformation about medication abortion and about mifepristone, one of two drugs used in most medication abortions in the United States.

In a disturbing new strategy, antiabortion policymakers are attempting to weaponize environmental laws and regulations, citing false claims that medication abortion pollutes U.S. waterways and drinking water.

A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack

PUBLISHED 12/14/2025 by

The feminist telehealth provider Women Help Women is redesigning how abortion pills are packaged to reflect what users actually need: a combination pack that includes one mifepristone tablet and eight misoprostol tablets for use up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“It’s a huge revolution of who actually gets to decide when, how and with the support of whom they can have an abortion and until when,” said Women Help Women coexecutive director Kinga Jelinska. “It centers the needs of users rather than institutions or markets. The underlying notion is that abortion can be friendly, and abortion can be easy.” 

Self-managed abortion is disruptive. We were told that abortion is a difficult decision; that it has to be difficult to access, and that only doctors control it. Self-managed abortion subverts that,” said Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, fellow coexecutive founder.

Keeping Score: 137 Women Are Killed by Partners or Family Per Day; Bipartisan Push for Epstein Files; Trans Day of Remembrance and Native Women’s Equal Pay Day

PUBLISHED 12/9/2025 by

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:
—137 women and girls are killed by intimate partners or family members every day.
—Congress votes overhwlemingly to force the Justice Department to release their Epstein files.
—Donald Trump snaps at women journalists: “Quiet, piggy” and “you are an obnoxious—a terrible, actually a terrible reporter.”
—Violence against trans women remains high.
—DACA recipients are being targeted and detained under the Trump administration.
—Higher-income college students often receive more financial support than they need, while low-income students struggle.
—Tierra Walker died from preeclampsia in Texas after being repeatedly denied an abortion.
—Viola Ford Fletcher died at age 111. She was the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 
—North Dakota’s total abortion ban was reinstated after the state’s Supreme Court reversed a temporary injunction from a lower court. There are now 13 states with total bans.

… and more.

Ms. Global: 300 Schoolchildren Kidnapped in Nigeria, Italian Parliament Recognizes Femicide and More

PUBLISHED 12/8/2025 by and

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This week: News from Nigeria, Afghanistan, Japan and more.

International Telehealth Provider ‘Abortion Pills in Private’ Ready to Ramp Up if FDA Restricts Mifepristone

PUBLISHED 12/8/2025 by

As Trump’s FDA threatens to block U.S.-based medical providers from offering telehealth abortion, one international telehealth provider—Abortion Pills in Private—has vowed to continue providing mifepristone and misoprostol to U.S.-based patients, no matter what.

Their commitment is clear: “We will continue to send mifepristone, even if the FDA takes it off the market inside the U.S.. … We want to make this service easy, the best experience that it can be, with dignity. You can just go online, and it’s easy, and there’s no judgment. If you need this, we are here for you. Here are your pills. Here’s the support service that you need. You can do this from home. Whatever the reason is, we want to have that service there for you to be able to do that, no matter where you live.”

Their service and determination grew directly out of the post-Roe crisis. People find Abortion Pills in Private through the Plan C website. Since March 2024, they have served almost 3,500 patients in the U.S., most of them living in the hardest-hit states—those with abortion bans and severe restrictions. “They are from all over, but they are very much from banned states. Texas is always number one. Then Florida, Georgia. Even Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are some blue states too.”

Republicans’ ‘National Backdoor Abortion Ban’

PUBLISHED 12/8/2025 by | UPDATED 12/9/2025 at 8:55 A.M. PT

Millions are on the brink of seeing the costs of their health insurance skyrocket if Congress fails to extend the ACA tax credits due to expire Dec. 31.

Now, Republicans are seeking to use the debate over the tax credits to pursue what Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has warned is a “national backdoor abortion ban” by expanding the scope of the Hyde Amendment.

Since 1977, the Hyde Amendment has prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion except under limited exceptions for cases where the life of the woman is in danger, or in cases of rape or incest. But opponents of abortion in Congress want to prohibit ACA marketplace plans from covering abortion even in states where abortion remains legal. This means that even if a state requires insurance plans to cover abortion, and uses its own funds to do so, federal law would block it. Private insurance plans sold through the ACA marketplace would also be impacted.

A vote on the issue is expected in the Senate on Thursday, Dec. 11. 

Where ACA Premiums Could Spike Most in 2026 if Congress Lets Enhanced Tax Credits Expire

PUBLISHED 12/4/2025 by , , , , and

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) offers premium tax credits to help make health insurance more affordable. Under original Affordable Care Act provisions, an income cap for premium tax credits was set at 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Above that threshold, federal financial assistance was not available, creating a “subsidy cliff.”

Enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of this year. Enrollees currently receiving premium tax credits at any level of income will see their federal assistance decrease or disappear if enhanced premium tax credits expire, with an average increase of 114 percent to what enrollees pay in premiums net of tax credits.

The impact will be greatest for those whose unsubsidized premiums are highest: older Marketplace enrollees and those living in higher-premium locales.

Trump’s Silence on World AIDS Day Revives a New Lavender Scare

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

Last month, the State Department warned employees not to commemorate World AIDS Day through official work accounts, including social media, nor should they use government funds to mark Tuesday, Dec. 2, as World AIDS Day. The day came and went in a quiet, cold Washington, D.C., without the president marking what it represented—the more than 700,000 Americans who died from HIV/AIDS-related causes in the United States since 1981. 

If his intentions were unclear, Trump’s budget proposed ending all CDC HIV prevention programs this past June, and Congress continues to negotiate next year’s budget, proposing massive cuts to HIV programs. 

For many young people who never lost friends or family, there may be the misconception that the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s was localized and small, but nearly 300,000 men who have sex with men have died from AIDS-related complications, with over 6,000 deaths in 2019 alone. To put this in perspective, this would be as if over half of Wyoming’s population disappeared, or if everyone in Pittsburgh, Penn., vanished overnight. 

Even Madonna criticized Trump’s move, posting on Instagram, “It’s one thing to order federal agents to refrain from commemorating this day, but to ask the general public to pretend it never happened is ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s unthinkable. I bet he’s never watched his best friend die of AIDS, held their hand, and watched the blood drain from their face as they took their last breath at the age of 23.” 

Shout Your Abortion Short Films Seek to Normalize Keeping Abortion Pills at Home: ‘You Always Have Options’

PUBLISHED 12/2/2025 by

The grassroots abortion-stigma-busting juggernaut Shout Your Abortion has released two new powerful public service announcements urging people across the U.S. to order abortion pills in advance to have on hand, in case they have an unwanted pregnancy.

Made by Detroit-based filmmaker Na Forest Lim, the short films follow two women—a teenager named Dani and a single mother in her 30s named Poppy—who find out they are pregnant and use abortion pills at home, supported by friends and family.

Both of the main characters have easy access to abortion pills: Dani’s friend arrives with pills in her backpack, and Poppy keeps a pack tucked away in her top dresser drawer.

Building on that vision of easy access, the Dani PSA shows what it looks like when abortion pills are already part of teenagers’ lives and a pregnancy never has the chance to become a crisis.