More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Transcript: Michele Goodwin: Welcome to 15 Minutes of Feminism, part of our on the issues with Michele Goodwin at Ms. magazine platform. As you know, we’re a show that reports, rebels and we tell it just like it is. And on this show we count the minutes in our own feminist terms, and, as you […]
Despite mounting evidence that Texas’ abortion bans are endangering women’s lives, Republican lawmakers are pushing for even stricter restrictions, including limits on essential abortion medications.
Legal challenges have failed to loosen the state’s near-total ban, leaving doctors fearful of prosecution and women suffering life-threatening complications. Cases like Amanda Zurawski’s near-fatal sepsis and Samantha Casiano’s forced pregnancy highlight the devastating impact of the law, yet the Texas Supreme Court has refused to clarify its vague medical exceptions. With no legal or citizen-led ballot initiatives available, advocates say the only path to restoring abortion rights in Texas is to vote out antiabortion legislators.
Texas OB-GYNs describe practicing in an environment of fear under the state’s extreme abortion bans, which have led to maternal deaths, delayed care and a mass exodus of doctors. Physicians say they are forced to wait until pregnancy complications become life-threatening before providing care, fearing legal repercussions.
With experienced OB-GYNs leaving and fewer medical students planning to stay, the future of reproductive healthcare in Texas is at risk.
The Texas abortion ban’s harsh penalties are “terrifying” doctors, leading to women dying from miscarriages.
“It’s like a knife straight to your stomach,” said Dr. Todd Ivey, a Houston-based OB-GYN at an academic hospital, about a third woman dying in the state during a miscarriage.
Five doctors who provide reproductive healthcare in Texas on why they believe three healthy young women died—and their advice about how other pregnant Texans can do their best to survive a miscarriage in the state.
A fair amount of news coverage this election cycle has focused on the Gen Z vote, and for good reason. Besides being the most diverse generation in American history, Generation Z—born between the mid 1990s and the early 2010s—has grown up in a turbulent time in this country, from the rise of school shootings to the COVID-19 pandemic to the first (and soon to be second) Trump presidency and legislative attacks on reproductive freedom.
In The Z Factor’s third episode, host Anoushka Chander interviewed 21-year-old Olivia Julianna, who has advocated for abortion in her home state of Texas. On the podcast, she and Chander delved into the unique worries of young women in America right now and Julianna’s own advocacy work.
Meet Anoushka Chander Anoushka Chander is a senior at Harvard College from Washington, D.C. studying Social Studies and African American Studies with a focus on women’s rights, racial justice, and the law. She works as an Assistant Producer and intern at Ms. Studios at Ms. Magazine, where she hosts The Z Factor: Gen Z’s Voice […]
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, more than 20 states have completely banned or severely restricted abortion. In 2023 alone, over 171,000 women were forced to travel out of state—in some cases, several states away—to have an abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights unveiled a national video campaign last week highlighting the distances women have been forced to travel for abortion care after their own states criminalized the procedure.
Women on abortion road trips all listen to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” … in the car, on the bus, on the highway, at the gas station; the song becomes part of a communal soundtrack as the women cross state lines for abortion care. They all end up in the same medical waiting room.
“The Texas Supreme Court took our freedoms. And what we need to do about it in November is vote out Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland,” said Gina Ortiz Jones, Texas woman and founder of the Find Out PAC.
Jones said she’s confident that “people are very motivated to hold somebody accountable” for their loss of reproductive rights in Texas, and that flipping three seats on the state Supreme Court may not be as difficult as it seems.
“When people say, ‘Oh, that’s really tough’—well how do we know?” she said. “We’ve never tried.”
As abortion access is increasingly being decided by state and federal courts, two reproductive rights attorneys make sense of past rulings and the ongoing fight for reproductive healthcare.
After the Supreme Court’s unprecedented 2022 decision to revoke a constitutional right, abortion changed the course of elections for two years running. As the nation approaches the first presidential election of the post-Roe era, Democrats—who are fielding a woman presidential candidate who champions abortion rights—are banking on the issue to bolster them again.
Many public polls predict it won’t. But are these polls right? Not so much, say numerous polling experts.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)