More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas leads the nation in funding for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). The system is meant to help growing families, but it’s riddled with waste and lacks oversight, a ProPublica and CBS News investigation found.
What’s worse: Lawmakers around the country are considering programs modeled on Texas’ CPC system, called Alternatives to Abortion.
In May 2024, following Idaho’s lead, Tennessee became the second state in the country to criminalize the ‘abortion trafficking’ of minors, making it a class A misdemeanor.
Late last month, Nashville Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn and abortion rights attorney and activist Rachel Welty brought a lawsuit in federal district court challenging the trafficking law on constitutional grounds and asking to have it permanently enjoined.
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 Afghanistan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Serbia and more.
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: the Supreme Court ruled on the EMTALA abortion case, presidential immunity and criminalizing homelessness; Louisiana requires public classrooms to display the 10 Commandments; medical residents are avoiding states with abortion bans; Gen Z swing voters care about the cost of living, healthcare and housing; college-educated women now outnumber college-educated men in the workforce, but women’s wages still lag behind; and more.
For 30 years, federal law has disarmed domestic abusers who are subject to domestic violence protection orders. Last month, in United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court rejected the gun lobby’s effort to upend that status quo.
But make no mistake: this Supreme Court, along with lower courts attempting to follow its flawed precedents, remains a grave threat to the health and safety of women and countless others.
A wave of lawsuits—including against major companies—is coming after the PUMP Act gave employees the right to sue over a lack of workplace accommodations.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for the first year of a child’s life, a standard that is difficult to meet in the United States because postpartum workplace protections are very limited.
Women lawmakers are leading efforts across the aisle to expand some childcare and contraception benefits and also limit abortion-related travel expenses.
“It seems as if Republicans are really working to use the National Defense Authorization Act—much like other pieces of legislation—to reverse a lot of the progress women have made across the country,” said Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.
The Supreme Court handed down its decision on EMTALA last week and vacated the case. This conclusion—at least temporarily—protected a small sliver of the safety net that pregnant patients can count on for care. For the time being, this means that patients in need of emergency abortion care will no longer need to be airlifted out of Idaho, which has been happening since the start of 2024. You would think this decision would be comforting.
It is not.
Instead of doing what it should have done, which was affirm that pregnant people have the same protections as anyone else, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts and left the door open for other extremists to bring this argument again.
Women are being incarcerated at record rates in the U.S. With 190,600 women currently incarcerated, incarceration rates are rising twice as fast as men’s. Women now make up a larger portion of the prison population than ever before.
Despite this dramatic increase, the reentry needs of formerly incarcerated women remain largely unaddressed. Over 18 million women in the U.S. now bear the weight of a criminal record. What support exists to help them rebuild their lives?
Asian American and Pacific Islander women have become a formidable force in influencing electoral outcomes in recent years. Although historically underrepresented in politics, the AAPI community is the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, actively shaping the electoral landscape through increased voter turnout and civic engagement. These trends highlight the importance of the AAPI vote in November’s election, which can significantly sway political races in battleground states and uplift diverse voices and concerns.
Ms. spoke with Christine Chen, executive director and founder of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, and Sung Yeon Choimorrow, the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, to discuss the issues that matter most to AAPI women—like the rising cost of living, access to reproductive healthcare and threats to democracy.