America’s Healthcare Crisis Is Coming for All Women

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Less access to healthcare—either by cutting Medicaid benefits or discouraging doctors from practicing in restrictive states—will affect antiabortion and pro-abortion women equally.

This is about far more than abortion. There will be more maternal deaths. There will be more deaths from cervical and breast cancer. More women will die from complications of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. There will be more suffering from infertility, endometriosis and fibroids.

Does anyone in power care? We certainly do. And we better make sure our voices are heard. All of our lives depend on it.

‘The Feminist Agenda Is Wildly Popular’: Celinda Lake on the Political Power of Feminist Voters

Pollster and leading Democratic strategist Celinda Lake has been examining the data on women and feminist voters for decades. I talked to her about what Americans really want. (Spoiler alert: It’s not Project 2025.)

“People think that feminism is a dirty word. In fact, it’s a very strong word. Particularly for progressives and Democrats—feminism is highly correlated with voting for Democrats. Half of Independents consider themselves feminists; when you describe it, a third of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats do. Our voters consider themselves feminists. It is a very quiet movement out there that is really underestimated. …

“Feminist issues, however we define them, are doing quite well. What we don’t have is we don’t have enough of them out front. We don’t have enough leaders taking them on.”

An Open Letter to Rep. Kat Cammack From a Medical Doctor: It’s Abortion Bans That Make Doctors Afraid to Act, Not ‘the Radical Left’

No woman may escape the cruelty of the nebulous and varying restrictions on reproductive healthcare in the post-Roe world—as Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) discovered in May 2024 when faced with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy shortly after Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect. Concerned by the lack of clarity in the wording of the law on the limits of intervention in pregnant patients, doctors reportedly delayed administering intramuscular methotrexate to terminate the pregnancy, out of fear of prosecution.

I’m a doctor. In this chaotic landscape, where reproductive healthcare policy and medical reality appear woefully divorced, my colleagues and I don’t know what misstep could land us in senseless litigation or with felony charges.

Rep. Cammack, your voice and your story have power. I hope you use them to reintroduce nuance and common sense to the discussion on women’s lives. There are many of us who will extend a hand across the aisle and work together with you to right some of the senseless wrongs. 

Men Are Impersonating ICE to Attack Immigrant Women. MAGA Emboldened Them.

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Multiple men have been arrested in at least three states since President Donald Trump’s inauguration for allegedly posing as immigration enforcement officers to perpetrate sexual violence against immigrant women.

The Trump administration is emboldening and reinvigorating such violence by providing more tools to harm women of color, including both systemic tools (mass detention and deportation) and a cover for any man looking to kidnap immigrant women in broad daylight.

Inside Liberty University’s Secret Maternity Home

Imagine you’re a pregnant teenager in 1972. Abortion isn’t an option, and you’re not ready to get married… so you might turn to a maternity home for unwed mothers. You’ll live there until the baby is born, then give it up for adoption to redeem yourself from the so-called sin of premarital sex.

On June 23, podcast studio Wondery released the new series Liberty Lost, which investigates the well-kept secret of Liberty University’s Godparent Home, which opened in the 1980s and is still operating today. In the podcast, reproductive rights journalist T. J. Raphael explores the history of the maternity home on the campus of Liberty University, a private evangelical college in Lynchburg, Va. There, staff members coerce young girls into surrendering their babies for adoption by affluent Christian parents in exchange for a full-ride scholarship at Liberty. 

“Maternity homes are on the rise,” Raphael told me. “There might be one near where you live, and maternity homes play a larger role within the wider antiabortion movement.”

Biotech CEOs to FDA: Don’t Let Politics Override Science on Abortion Pill

Fifty-three biotechnology industry leaders and investors representing dozens of companies and organizations issued a letter late last month advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Follow the science on mifepristone, not political ideology.

The Biotech CEO Sisterhood initiated the letter, with Grace Colón as lead author and dozens of senior biotechnology leaders signed on in support. “We are urging the agency and the department to continue to follow the science,” said Colón, who warned that political interference in drug regulation undermines both public trust and the FDA’s authority.

‘We Need to Shift Who Has Power in This Country’: Cynthia Richie Terrell Knows How We Can Cultivate Gender Balance in Politics

In the first episode of the Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, Richie Terrell talked to Ms. consulting editor Carmen Rios about the vision of democracy she’s inspired by, practical strategies for advancing gender balance in politics, and what she considers the “gold standard” for equitable voting. 

“It’s no coincidence that the 50 top countries for women’s representation all have either a form of gender quotas, legislative or party-based, or constitutional, or they have a proportional voting system.”

The U.N. Should Condemn the U.S.’ Human Rights Record on Abortion

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The periodic United Nations review of the United States’ human rights record is coming up in November. With the Trump administration’s far-reaching, intensifying attacks, the timing could not be more opportune. Never have U.S. institutions, funding and initiatives that promote the rule of law, faced such an abject threat. This is a moment to shine a light on U.S. abuses on the global stage.

The Supreme Court Decision Undermining Lower Courts Is Worse Than You Think

In Trump v. CASA, this is the legal framework the Supreme Court has set up: When Trump—or any future president—takes flagrantly unlawful actions against us, the only way to stop it is for each and every person affected to file their lawsuit.

This will create a nation in which only people who can afford legal representation, who live in certain states, or who happen to hold the same political views as the sitting president enjoy the full protection of the Constitution.

Alongside the 2024 Supreme Court ruling granting broad presidential immunity, this new limitation to the power of the judiciary is a devastating blow to the core checks and balances of our 250-year-old democracy. 

The Minnesota Shooting Wasn’t Random—It Was a Predictable Resurgence of Violence

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Minnesota experienced an act of devastating political violence last month: Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, were killed in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette are recovering from life-saving surgeries after shielding their adult daughter from the gunman.

In recent years, we’ve seen attacks escalate against elected officials across the political spectrum. However, we must recognize that Hortman, Hoffman and the other targets on the gunman’s list are uniquely vulnerable because of the way that we treat abortion: We isolate abortion from mainstream care, in law and practice; and we exclude it from insurance coverage, hospital systems and routine medical training.

By treating abortion as unsafe and morally suspect, rather than as legitimate medicine, we further normalize hostility towards it, its providers, and the policymakers who uphold access to it.