Who Gets Healthcare and Who Gets Handcuffs?

PUBLISHED 8/13/2026 by

A teenage girl and her boyfriend are facing criminal charges in North Carolina after allegedly attempting to self-manage her abortion using pills. She was reportedly 31 weeks pregnant when she took the medication. At that stage of pregnancy, the medication induced labor, and she ultimately delivered a living baby, presumably without medical assistance. The state charged her with “assault with a deadly weapon,” treating the abortion pills as the “deadly weapon.”

I won’t repeat the girl’s name here. It’s already been plastered across headlines and social media, and that exposure is part of her punishment. 

When I first read the details of this case, I felt an immediate rush of empathy—and dread. Our work at Patient Forward focuses on eliminating barriers to abortion care later in pregnancy so no one feels forced into situations like these because they lack clinical options.

I know what it feels like to need an abortion later in pregnancy and fear that time is running out. However when I needed an abortion at 31 weeks, I had the resources and support that made it possible for me to get one safely. Even after learning third trimester abortion care was banned in my state, my obstetrician still referred me to a safe clinic in Colorado. My mother withdrew $10,000 from her retirement savings so I could pay for it. My husband handled flights, hotels and other logistics.

In the end I didn’t just receive safe, supported care. I also received privacy. My story became public only because I decided to tell it.

The teenager in North Carolina received neither. The difference between us wasn’t the complexity of our pregnancies. It was access.

Want to Protect the Vote? Become a Poll Worker

PUBLISHED 8/13/2026 by

For months now, hundreds of active and caring friends and supporters have been writing and calling us with a version of the same question: In addition to sending money, what else can I actually do?

Here’s one suggestion—and it may be the most useful thing you can do between now and Tuesday, Nov. 3: Show up as a poll worker, and get your friends to show up too.

We’ll keep calling out this war on women. But calling it out is not the same as helping to end it. The voter standing in a four-hour line in a shuttered-precinct district does not need our concern. She needs someone at the check-in table who showed up.

Let that someone be you—and your friends.

Keeping Score: Trump Disapproval Hits a New Low; Continued ICE Violence; AOC on Freezing Her Eggs: ‘Don’t Be Weird About This’

PUBLISHED 8/12/2026 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:
—Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is freezing her eggs and documenting the process on social media to normalize this facet of women’s reproductive healthcare.
—The top brands donating to members of Congress trying to expand ICE’s power include SpaceX, Home Depot, UPS and Walmart. 
—Organizations speak out after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero were shot and killed by federal agents, and Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva died in ICE custody.
—Epstein survivors warn the Senate not to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.
—The Trump administration continues its attacks on immigrants, students, disabled people, gun control and more.
—Pete Hesgeth blocked the promotion of women Navy officers.
—Nicole Tung won the IWMF’s Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award.
—Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) has been accused of abusing his ex-wife and their young daughter.
—President Trump finally paid E. Jean Carroll $5.6 million for sexually abusing and defaming her.
—84 percent of women’s organizations working in crisis-affected countries say the need for humanitarian services has increased since January 2025, but almost 90 percent don’t have the funding to meet those needs.
—The United States is unique among similar countries, with single mothers participating in the workforce more often than partnered mothers.

… and more.

Ms. Talks @ Martha’s Vineyard: Michele Goodwin and Dorothy Roberts on America at 250, the Right to Love and Family (Aug. 19)

PUBLISHED 8/12/2026 by

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, Ms. will bring together two of the country’s leading legal scholars and feminist thinkers—Michele Goodwin and Dorothy Roberts—for a special Ms. Talks conversation on Martha’s Vineyard: “America at 250: The Right to Love & Family,” moderated by Nourbese Flint (president of All* Above All) and Mia Herndon (interim executive director of Black Feminist Future). The reception and book talk will take place from 12 to 1:30 p.m. at 9 Craft Kitchen, 9 Main Street in Vineyard Haven, Mass.

Martha’s Vineyard has a documented history in the maritime Underground Railroad, including the 1743 escape of Esther from a ship docked in Edgartown Harbor. Against that historic backdrop, the group will examine what it means to be a citizen, and who is permitted to belong to the American family.

The discussion will also draw on Roberts’ latest book, The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family, which examines race, intimacy and family through both personal history and the broader American story.

The event is part of Ms. Talks and is presented in collaboration with All* Above All, Black Feminist Future, the Black Reproductive Justice Summit and Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

Detaining Families, Policing Pregnancy: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown on Women and Children

PUBLISHED 8/12/2026 by

Trump’s latest attacks on birthright citizenship are part of a much broader effort to police American identity, punish migrant women for entering the U.S. and ultimately regulate their reproduction. Immigrant women and children remain particular targets of a hostile immigration system that seeks to control them through detention, family separation and deportation. The administration’s reinstatement of family detention has made it possible to incarcerate whole families while avoiding the political backlash generated by the “zero tolerance” separations of Trump’s first term.

But detaining families together does not make detention humane. Family residential facilities expose mothers and children to interrupted medical care, inadequate health screenings, poor living conditions and lasting physical and psychological harm. Women—particularly those who are pregnant, postpartum or caring for young children—also face heightened vulnerability to neglect and abuse inside a system where government officers and private contractors wield enormous power over their daily lives.

These policies are not simply about immigration enforcement. They are a means of penalizing pregnancy, motherhood and family formation in immigrant communities. From attacks on birthright citizenship to the detention of pregnant women and U.S.-citizen children, the administration is using the immigration system to make migration more painful and precarious—and to enact that punishment on the bodies and families of migrant women.

A Midterm Liability for Republicans: Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Is Deeply Unpopular

PUBLISHED 8/11/2026 by

It’s been over a year since President Donald Trump signed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill (HR 1) into law—a sweeping 2025 budget-reconciliation package that extends and expands tax cuts, funds defense and immigration enforcement, cuts or restructures major safety-net programs, rolls back some clean-energy spending, and raises the federal debt limit.

Trump and congressional Republicans promised the bill would provide economic relief for American families. New polling suggests the legislation has failed to win over the public, with many voters saying the law has done little to improve their financial situations, while others remain unsure what the bill does at all. 

According to a recent poll, the legislation remains broadly unpopular, despite months of Republican messaging promoting its economic benefits.

New Kentucky Media Campaign Fights Back Against Abortion Ban After Criminal Prosecutions

PUBLISHED 8/11/2026 by

Across Kentucky, pregnant women are facing growing surveillance and the threat of criminalization for pregnancy outcomes that are often beyond their control. Recent prosecutions have underscored how miscarriage, stillbirth and other complications can be treated not simply as medical events, but as potential crimes. At the same time, proposed legislation could expand that legal risk even further, deepening an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in a state where abortion access is already nearly eliminated.

But people across Kentucky are continuing to organize, speak out and fight back. The Kentucky Reproductive Freedom Fund has launched a statewide and national video campaign amplifying the voices of physicians, medical students, faith leaders and patients living with the consequences of the ban. Their stories show that the harm is not abstract: The ban endangers lives, restricts medical training and undermines providers’ ability to deliver standard care—while making clear that healthcare decisions should be made by patients and their providers, not politicians.

Built to Withstand Trump-Era Attacks on Mifepristone: New Telehealth Provider Serves All 50 States for Sliding-Scale Fee

PUBLISHED 8/11/2026 by

Telehealth provider At Home Abortion just opened Aug. 11, but the six doctors and nurses running the service have over 100 years combined experience providing abortion and other reproductive healthcare.

At Home Abortion (AHA) is the latest to join the growing field of telehealth abortion providers. AHA is unique in that the company serves patients in all 50 states, offers comprehensive support to all their patients and is based in Europe so is resistant to Trump administration attacks on telehealth abortion with mifepristone. In other words, AHA will be able to continue to provide gold-standard abortion pill service with mifepristone and misoprostol, no matter what the Trump administration, courts or Republican states do to try to suppress mifepristone access inside the United States.

“We’re here to make it as easy, safe and available as possible for people to get care, and we want to support people all the way through,” said an AHA representative.

The intake form takes about five minutes to complete. Clinicians review intake forms within one to 12 hours. When a patient is eligible for a medication abortion, AHA providers send a prescription to a pharmacy in a shield law state that sends FDA-approved medicines—one mifepristone and 12 misoprostol—to the patient in a plain package to any address in the United States plus military bases and US territories. The pill containers do not have the patient’s or the provider’s names on them, ensuring confidentiality. AHA also sends anti-nausea medication. Patients receive the medications in two to four days.

Then, through a secure messaging portal, AHA sends the patient clear and detailed instructions on how to use the medications and what to expect during and after the abortion. AHA also shares a telephone number for the patient to call or text for questions.

AHA providers are available 24/7 to support their patients by voice or text before, during and after the abortion.

“That is really important to us, especially in the United States where people are so afraid of what is going on and afraid to search out other care,” said an AHA representative. “We want to make sure that we are there for them. We know that anxiety increases people’s pain. It makes the experience more difficult. So they need that support.”

In addition to abortion pills, AHA offers miscarriage care, emergency contraception and birth control, as well as abortion pills in advance of pregnancy.

If the Louisiana lawsuit attempting to restrict mifepristone succeeds, or the FDA reinstates medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, AHA has several options to continue providing telehealth abortion with mifepristone to patients in all 50 states and territories.

How Can We Get More Young People to Vote? Start Registering Them in High School

PUBLISHED 8/9/2026 by

This year, about 4 million Americans will turn 18, just in time to vote in November’s midterms. However, fewer than 30 percent of newly eligible young voters are currently registered to vote—half the number of students who go to college—and that percentage is only going down. In 2024, by comparison, 44 percent of U.S. 18-year-olds were registered, compared to approximately 75 percent over voters aged 45 and up.

For midterm elections in particular, not much more than a quarter of eligible 18-year-olds vote—meaning about 2 million young people are missing the chance to let their voices be heard.

A common refrain from some is that the younger half of Gen Z isn’t interested in voting or politics, but the data doesn’t back this up. According to research from The Civics Center, among 18-year-olds who are registered, voter turnout is high. More than 75 percent of registered young voters 18 through 24 have turned out to vote in every presidential election going back to 2004—suggesting the issue isn’t with young voters themselves but how they’re (not) being registered.

“Young people are told so frequently, ‘Your vote doesn’t matter, what you say doesn’t matter,’” Laura Brill, The Civics Center’s founder and CEO, told Ms. “And these things have a negative impact, because actually young people probably do know that they matter, and we don’t want to have a future where people are just feeling cynical and as if they’re intentionally being left out of the process.”

From Selma to Todd Blanche, U.S. Democracy Is Being Tested

PUBLISHED 8/8/2026 by

Sixty-one years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law—one of the most consequential victories of the Civil Rights Movement and a landmark affirmation of the principle that democracy belongs to all of us.

But the Voting Rights Act was not simply handed down from Washington. It was won through years of organizing, resistance and extraordinary courage—by people who marched, registered voters and risked their lives demanding that the federal government enforce a right already promised by the Constitution.

The lesson of Selma is not that the fight was won. It is that our rights survive only when people are willing to defend them.

We are seeing another test of that principle right now in the Senate.

Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche—his former personal defense attorney and now acting attorney general—has spent weeks struggling to secure enough Republican support for confirmation. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced his nomination this week on a party-line 12-10 vote, only after Blanche made (non-binding) concessions to Republican senators concerned about a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund connected to a settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS.

At Ms., we have been following Blanche’s record closely—from his role in the Justice Department’s horrific mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, to his threats involving medication abortion and the Comstock Act, to larger concerns about whether as the nation’s top law enforcement officer he will ensure the independence of the Justice Department and defend the Constitution or the political interests of the president who appointed him.

Blanche’s confirmation is all but assured, with Senate GOP leadership planning to take up his nomination before leaving Washington for its August recess. His confirmation does not resolve the serious questions surrounding his independence—it makes vigilance and accountability all the more important.

Accountability is also at the center of another troubling story unfolding in Washington. Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) is facing allegations of domestic violence and child abuse from his former wife. His former father-in-law, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, has gone so far as to say Miller should not serve in Congress, while lawmakers and advocates have called for investigation and accountability. The standards we demand from our leaders—and whether institutions are willing to enforce them—tell us something fundamental about whose safety and dignity we value.

These stories may appear very different: the Voting Rights Act, the nomination of a corrupt attorney general, allegations involving a member of Congress. But they are connected by a basic question: What does democracy require? And what does it require of us?