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Texas Sues California Doctor Over Abortion Pills in Escalating Interstate Fight

Texas antiabortion politicians have made one thing clear: Their ban was never meant to stop at the Texas border.

On Feb. 1, Dr. Remy Coeytaux of California became the first person to be sued in federal court under Texas’ newly enacted House Bill 7, a bounty-hunter law that invites private citizens to file civil suits against anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or provides abortion medication to women in Texas. The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Jerry Rodriguez, a private citizen who claims that Coeytaux prescribed and mailed abortion pills used by his former girlfriend to end her pregnancy.

The legal pressure on telehealth providers intensified this week: On Tuesday, Feb. 24, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed suit against Aid Access, an Austria-based nonprofit that ships medication abortion internationally (including to all 50 states), along with its founders Rebecca Gomperts and Coeytaux. The complaint alleges the defendants violated Texas law by prescribing and mailing abortion medication to Texas patients and seeks an injunction preventing them from providing services to residents of the state.

Telehealth providers in states like California, New York and Massachusetts have been able to serve patients in banned states because of these shield laws: legal protections that prevent states with bans from prosecuting providers who are acting lawfully in the states where they work. So far, shield laws have withstood attacks from banned states. 

Taliban’s New Penal Code Codifies Violence, Obedience and Gender Apartheid

On Jan. 7, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada signed off on the “Penal Principles of Taliban Courts,” a sweeping new penal code that fundamentally reshapes Afghanistan’s legal system: formalizing violence, criminalizing dissent, legalizing slavery and stripping women of legal personhood under the guise of religious law. It took effect immediately without public announcement or consultation. 

The regulation only became public weeks later after an Afghan human rights organization, Rawadari, published the text, raising alarm over provisions that legalize slavery, authorize private violence and institutionalize repression across nearly every aspect of life.

According to the regulation, absolute obedience to the Taliban’s supreme leader is mandatory. The penal code also codifies a rigid social hierarchy, dividing society into four classes and explicitly recognizing individuals as either “free” or “enslaved,” with harsher punishments imposed on those deemed lower status. Human rights advocates warn this structure institutionalizes discrimination and revives concepts long prohibited under international law.

Women are among the most severely targeted. Under multiple iniquitous provisions, husbands are authorized to punish their wives through discretionary violence, while domestic abuse is only recognized as a crime in limited circumstances and carries a maximum sentence of 15 days imprisonment for the perpetrator. 

In contrast, forcing animals to fight carries a longer prison sentence than severe violence against women—reinforcing a sinister legal hierarchy in which women’s lives are afforded less protection than animal welfare. 

These codes are not merely domestic policies. They will shape the psychological, social and moral landscape of an entire population and a new generation growing up under the Taliban’s brutal regime. Children are being raised under a system where violence is law, obedience is survival and women are denied humanity. The cost of inaction will not be measured only in today’s abuses, but in the long-term destabilization of Afghan society and the normalization of extremist governance beyond its borders.

Keeping Score: Renee Good Fatally Shot by ICE; Women Work Longer and Are Paid Less Worldwide; N.Y. Fights Back Against Federal Childcare Freeze

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:
—”We had whistles. They had guns,” said Becca Good, wife of Renee Good, who was killed in Minneapolis by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
—In central Texas, five months after the Sandy Creek flooding, “many are still homeless, and only 36 percent of FEMA claims in our area have been approved,” said survivor Brandy Gerstner. “FEMA must be independent, fully funded and strengthened—because when it fails to function, real families pay the price.”
—Anti-Muslim and anti-South Asian hate increased around the election of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
—The Department of Veterans Affairs announced new abortion bans.
—Meta has removed the social media accounts of dozens of reproductive health and LGBTQ groups.
—Women worldwide earn just a third of what men do when unpaid domestic labor is taken into account.

… and more.

How the Trump Administration Used a National Guard Tragedy to Accelerate Its Anti-Immigrant Agenda

Months before the lives of West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Berkstrom and Afghan asylee Rahmanullah Lakanwal collided, the Trump administration planned to bring immigration to a halt from countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, and other nations that supposedly threaten American values. When Lakanwal was charged with first-degree murder in Berkstrom’s Nov. 26 death, the administration seized on this tragedy to redouble its rhetoric against Afghans and others and to usher in the next round of immigration restrictions.

As Spojmie Nasiri, an Afghan American immigration attorney points out, “They are using the tragedy to enact the agenda that they already had.”

Following Tragic D.C. Shooting, Afghan Allies Face a New Wave of Enforcement and Fear

The shooting in Washington, D.C., that left one National Guard member dead and another critically wounded on Nov. 26 quickly became a major focus of U.S. media. In the days since the shooting, the national conversation has focused almost entirely on the suspect’s identity as an Afghan refugee. Yet those who knew him describe a man who appeared to be struggling long before he drove across the country to Washington, D.C. One volunteer who worked closely with his family said he became increasingly withdrawn, isolated and overwhelmed by the challenges of resettlement. They noted that his behavior reflected profound distress, not radicalization or hostility toward the United States.

Despite these documented struggles, the current administration immediately cast the shooting as a failure of vetting by the Biden administration and threatened to punish an entire community for the crime of one individual. That framing ignores the basic fact that the suspect had been vetted repeatedly. It also ignores the testimony of those who interacted with him in the U.S. and saw no signs of ideological motivation.

Internal directives show ICE has begun targeting more than 1,800 Afghans with past deportation orders and is tracking arrests and removals in daily reports. Officials are also reassessing Afghan vetting programs created after the 2021 withdrawal, despite the fact that the suspect himself was granted asylum during the Trump administration after already receiving extensive screening.

The policies signal a retreat from those commitments and send a dangerous message to future partners: Support for the United States may not translate to safety once U.S. needs are met.

The tragedy in Washington stands as a devastating loss. It deserves a full investigation and a clear accounting of what shaped the suspect’s unraveling. But it must not be used to justify policies that abandon allies, ignore humanitarian obligations and dehumanize an entire community.

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

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

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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.

The Resistance Is Everywhere

These past 10 months have been tough. Every day a fresh outrage, more trampling of the Constitution and a new attack on common decency. Taking a page from Hollywood, Trump and his administration seem to have embraced a strategy of “everything, everywhere all at once.” 

But, unfortunately for them: The resistance has also been everywhere all at once, too.

There is no doubt that when historians look back on this sordid moment in history, they will conclude that it was women, and feminists, who led the way out of it.

The War on Women Report: Government Shutdown Continues; Another Woman Denied Emergency Abortion Care; FDA Approves Generic Mifepristone

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MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Turning Point hosted an event at the University of Alabama advocating the death penalty as punishment for abortion patients.
—After being denied care for her ectopic pregnancy by an antiabortion OB-GYN, a 28-year-old woman in Illinois was forced to travel to multiple hospitals and healthcare centers before receiving life-saving care.
—Vocal abortion opponent Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the Prohibiting Abortion and Transgender Procedures on the Exchanges Act, seeking to halt any healthcare plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from funding abortions, even in states that preserve abortion access. 
—The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that judges can decline to marry same-sex couples if doing so goes against their religious beliefs.

… and more.

‘Liberation’ Opens on Broadway—And Ms. Magazine Is at Its Heart

The feminist revolution has taken center stage. Liberation, written by Bess Wohl and directed by Whitney White, officially opened on Broadway on Oct. 28, 2025, at the James Earl Jones Theatre, following a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run earlier this year.

In an interview with Vogue, Wohl said she was inspired by her mother’s work as an editor at Ms.: “The arc of history is so much longer than we realize. Already in 1970 women were feeling frustrated, like, ‘When is this gonna happen?’ … And I think that that urgency really powers so much of the story of the play.”