Billboards, Trucks, Gas Pumps, Newspapers and Even a Boat: Mayday Health Advertises How to Access Abortion Pills Across the South and Midwest

Boston-based Mayday Health’s in-your-face defiance of threats from red-state governors has ratcheted up in recent months. Mayday shares information on to access abortion pills in all 50 states, with the goal to “empower people to make their own informed decision about their own bodies.”

Taunting Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans, Mayday is currently sailing a boat in the Gulf of Mexico along the beaches from St. Pete’s to Clearwater for the month of August advertising mifepristone and misoprostol.

Meet Milwaukee’s New Abortion Clinic and Its Determined Medical Director: ‘Everybody Needs Abortions’

A new healthcare center in Milwaukee, Care For All Community Clinic, provides both surgical and medication abortions, as well as miscarriage care, to anyone with a uterus—regardless of their ability to pay, or their immigration status. In coming months, STI testing, emergency contraception, pap smears to test for cervical cancer, contraceptive counseling, and gender-affirming care will also be available.

“It’s easy to think that, oh, someone else can do it, but they actually can’t,” said Dr. A, the medical director the nonprofit clinic. “There are not that many OB-GYNs out there, and there’s going to be even fewer and fewer as the years go by. If I know how to do this safely and well, I want to help.”

“The thing they express to me afterward is relief and gratitude,” she added. “I feel like I’ve never had patients that are so thankful and filled with gratitude as the patients that I do abortions for.”

“There are always going to be forces that don’t want us to do abortions,” Dr. A said, “and their goal is to make us scared. But we can’t let them win.”

War on Women Report: State Department Mass-Burns Contraceptives; GOP Budget Decimates Medicaid; Texas Crisis Pregnancy Center Funds Paid for CEO’s Smoke Shop

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:
—After a highly publicized trial, a jury acquitted music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of the most serious charges—sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
—Texas’ funding pipeline for antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers allowed CPCs to spend millions of taxpayer dollars with little oversight into how the money was used.
—A Texas man is suing a doctor in California who he claims sent abortion pills in the mail to his girlfriend.

… and more.

‘Giving Women a Chance to Choose When the World Didn’t’: Massachusetts Doctors Provide Telehealth Abortion in States with Bans

As abortion bans have swept the country, Massachusetts doctors are stepping up by providing thousands with lifesaving telehealth abortion care, regardless of their ability to pay. 

On July 12, reproductive health advocates and local office holders filled the common room of a Northampton, Mass., co-housing community to celebrate and support the vital work of The Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (The MAP). Based in Cambridge, the MAP is one of a handful of medical practices in the U.S. providing telehealth abortion care to patients in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Each month, MAP provides abortion pills to 2500 patients—nearly a third from Texas—using an asynchronous telemedicine platform built to provide prompt, private and convenient abortion care that is affordable to all.

“I want to thank The MAP from the depths of my soul,” one patient said. “You have saved me.”

Keeping Score: Diddy’s Incomplete Conviction ‘Failed to Protect Survivors’; Inhumane Conditions in Alligator Alcatraz; What’s in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?

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:
—Trump’s reconciliation bill will prevent millions from accessing healthcare and food assistance.
—IWMF announced this year’s Courage in Journalism Awards.
—Many prison systems lack accommodations for pregnant inmates.
—Sean “Diddy” Combs found not guilty of sex trafficking.
—The Supreme Court’s decision on LGBTQ books in public schools lays the foundation for new assault on books of all kinds in schools.
—Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called out the hypocrisy of “pro-choice” members of Congress in a House Rules committee meeting: “They say they’re pro-life because they want the baby to be born, go to school and get shot in the school.”
—A group of actors including Jane Fonda and Rosario Dawson wrote a letter to Amazon, after allegations that the company has frequently refused to accommodate pregnant workers. 
—Mahmoud Khalil is suing the Trump administration for $20 million.
—July 10 was Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, marking when Black women’s earnings catch up to what white men earned in 2024.

… and more.

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. 

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

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.

If Trump Restricts Mifepristone, Clinicians Are Ready to Pivot to Misoprostol-Only Abortions

For decades, clinicians relied on the gold standard of medication abortion care: a two-pill regimen. Mifepristone is taken first, followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later.

However, misoprostol can be used alone for abortion. Recent research on patients in the U.S. confirms that misoprostol-only abortion is not only safe and effective, but that patients respond positively to using it.

In light of the FDA’s recent decision to reopen its safety review of mifepristone—a move advocates warn may lead to new restrictions—abortion providers say they are ready to offer the misoprostol-only regimen to keep telehealth abortion available in all 50 states.

“Despite decades of medical evidence supporting the safety of mifepristone, it is entirely possible that Trump’s FDA could ignore the data and impose further restrictions on mifepristone, including a return to in-person dispensing requirements,” said Elisa Wells, co-founder and access director of Plan C, an abortion pill information and advocacy campaign. “If this happens, we know that many providers would pivot to a misoprostol-only regimen, which is also safe and effective.”

$133 Billion in Economic Loss. Tens of Thousands Forced to Flee. This Is Post-Roe America.

It has been exactly three years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sent abortion rights back to the states. Amid myriad reflective headlines this week—what the ruling has meant for real people’s lives, for the trajectory of the Court and other established liberty rights and for our democracy—are numerous reports detailing in stark numbers the nationwide impact of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

The number of abortion patients who traveled out of state for care is nearly twice the pre-Dobbs baseline. New data released by the Guttmacher Institute shows that in 2024 the number dropped from the prior year—155,000 patients versus 170,000 in 2023—but still reflects a massive jump from 2020, when 81,000 abortion patients traveled out of state.