Abortion Access

Abortion is an essential healthcare service. Abortion access is varied across the world and throughout the United States due to anti-abortion legislation. Access is often dependent on social factors such as income, race, geographic region and citizenship status.

The Midterms Changed Who Holds Power. What Comes Next? Congress Must Act Urgently to Address Harms Inflicted on Women and Girls

PUBLISHED 11/10/2026 by

The votes of women gave Democrats control of Congress. Now, the new leadership must act quickly and decisively to reverse the Trump administration’s devastating rollbacks of women’s rights over the last two years and address the harm caused by cuts to programs essential to women and their families.

With strong majorities in the House and Senate, congressional Democrats now have the power to pass critical legislation and demand accountability from federal agencies that have flouted the law to inflict harm on women and girls. Even with Donald Trump in the White House, Congress can still secure major wins for feminist priorities over the next two years.

A Double Blow to Abortion Rights in Idaho: Prop 1 Fails at the Ballot Box, and a Federal Court Sides With the State

PUBLISHED 11/6/2026 by

The elation that so many have been feeling in the wake of the midterms, has been tamped down in Idaho, as the result of two powerful and closely related reminders that the unremitting attacks on abortion rights are not going to let up any time soon.

First, on Oct. 30, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an interim decision in the case of Seyb v. Idaho Board of Medical Examiners privileging Idaho’s “profound interest” in protecting fetal life over a pregnant woman’s right to self-preservation when faced with a health-threatening condition or the risk of death due to self-harm.

Then on Nov. 3,  in sharp contrast to the outcomes in the other three states where abortion was on the ballot, Proposition 1 failed to pass in Idaho, which would have legalized abortion until viability (with an extremely narrow emergency exception), which leaves one of the nation’s strictest criminal abortion bans in place.

Abortion Rights Win Again: Voters Reject Missouri Ban, Protect Reproductive Freedom in Three States

PUBLISHED 11/2/2026 by , and | UPDATED 11/5/2026 at 1:54 P.M. PT

Two years ago, Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, overturning one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. Now, they’re being asked to undo it.

Feminists and reproductive healthcare advocates urge Missourians to vote no on Amendment 3.

Meanwhile, voters in Idaho, Nevada and Virginia are considering measures to protect or expand abortion rights.

Ms. spoke to Hannah Ledford, executive director of the nonprofit Fairness Project, about what these midterms mean for abortion rights. The Fairness Project works on ballot measures around the country on issues including minimum wage, paid sick days and Medicaid expansion.

War on Women Report: Antiabortion Extremism Makes Its Way to the White House; 28th Woman Accuses Donald Trump of Rape; Arizona Man Wins $68K Settlement After Ex-Wife’s Abortion

PUBLISHED 10/30/2026 by and

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:
—Dolores Huerta, the labor organizer at the helm of United Farm Workers and one of the most powerful women in the movement, passed away on Oct. 28. She was 96. Huerta was also a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation, the publisher of Ms. In March of this year, at the age of 95, she revealed that in the 1960s, Cesar Chavez sexually assaulted her.
—Abortion bans may be linked to approximately 135 excess homicides among women of reproductive age between 2023 and 2024, a new study suggests.
—Federal agents searched the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in the last few weeks of her reelection bid. Omar called the search an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
—Bernadette Greene-Placentia, the Democratic candidate challenging Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, says she was raped while repairing a campaign sign in Sun City on Aug. 14. According to her account, Greene-Placentia was struck in the head and lost consciousness, later waking to discover evidence of a sexual assault.
—A University of Arizona sorority member has reported being sexually assaulted by two men at a Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house on Aug. 26.
—During Trump’s second term, the U.S. Department of Education has drastically reduced its investigations of sexual assault and other civil rights violations at schools and colleges, even though the number of complaints has not slowed.
—A new report from House Judiciary Democrats includes an allegation from Beatrice Keul, former Miss Switzerland. Keul says that in 1983, Trump offered to help her secure a U.S. visa and admission to New York University, and invited her to a meeting at the Plaza hotel.

When she arrived at his hotel room, Trump allegedly raped her in an attack she describes as “brutal.” According to Keul, the assault tore her clothing and caused bleeding and bruising across her body, and Trump told her not to tell anyone about the rape.

… and more.

‘Fake Clinics Are Spooky!’ and ‘Haunted by Hidden Agendas’: Feminist Halloween Campaign Unmasks CPCs’ Antiabortion Deception

PUBLISHED 10/29/2026 by

The real Halloween horror villains are antiabortion organizations masquerading as legitimate healthcare clinics while working to prevent women from accessing abortion care.

Throughout October, Reproductive Transparency Now and the Southwest Women’s Law Center have joined forces for a Halloween-themed campaign exposing the deceptive practices of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs): antiabortion organizations that seek to reach vulnerable women and girls facing unintended pregnancies to prevent them from accessing abortion and prenatal care.

“Challenging CPCs is about more than identifying deceptive practices. It is about protecting people’s ability to make informed decisions about their bodies, pregnancies and families without coercion or manipulation and ensuring that people can access both comprehensive reproductive healthcare and the support they need,” said Hailey Zock of the Southwest Women’s Law Center.

How Abortion Bans Could Make Your IUD Insertion More Painful (And Other Far-Reaching Consequences)

PUBLISHED 10/29/2026 by

In the fall of 2024, Louisiana implemented the nation’s first-ever law designating mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances. That put the pills in the same category as opioids and anxiety medi­cations that have a high risk of­ dependency and abuse, even though mifepristone and misoprostol have no recreational use, ­aren’t stimulants or sedatives, and are not addictive.

“They do not meet the definition or intent of what a controlled substance is, and categorizing them as such can lead to harm,” warned the American College of Medical Toxicology. “Additionally, it sets a dangerous ­precedent of politicizing phar­maceu­ti­cal regulation.”

The state targeted the two drugs ­because they are used in combination in most abortions. But mifepristone and misoprostol have a broad range of other medical uses beyond abortion—from inducing­ labor, to assisting in the removal of uterine polyps.

Dr. Emily Holt, a family medicine physician in New Orleans, had regularly prescribed both drugs to help patients manage miscarriages, and had offered just misoprostol to those with a stenotic cervix, in which the entrance to the uterus closes up. But she most frequently used misoprostol for IUD insertions.

Keeping Score: Early Voting Signals Strong Midterm Turnout; Hundreds of Women Charged With Pregnancy-Related ‘Crimes’; Dems Seek Special Counsel on Trump-Epstein Ties

PUBLISHED 10/29/2026 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:
—As early voting begins, several Texas counties report record-breaking turnout.
—Vivek Ramaswamy sinks to new lows by weaponizing his opponent’s esranged mother and childhood sexual abuse.
—Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro.
—Protests continue on the Cornell campus after allegations of gang rape by fraternity members.
—Women are much more likely to have their autoimmune conditions dismissed as psychological.
—Over 900 women have been charged with pregnancy-related “crimes” since Roe was overturned.
—More than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE under Trump.
—ICE also collected over 48 million voter records and investigated hundreds of nonprofits that help people register to vote. ICE may have shared this state voter data with a Palantir surveillance tool used to identify and locate immigration enforcement targets.
—New Mexico’s universal childcare policy led to an increase in labor force participation by lower-income moms.
—The National Women’s History Museum is honoring teachers Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams, who created the first AP U.S. Women’s History class, with the 2026 Meryl Streep Educator Award.
—Four members of antiabortion group Students for Life have been sued under a Texas law they supported.
—House Judiciary Democrats released a 53-page report compiling allegations of sexual misconduct involving President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and calling for an independent special counsel to investigate.
—UltraViolet and the Trump-Epstein Reading Room held an event highlighting MoMA trustee Leon Black’s references in the Epstein files and his multiple rape accusations.
—Almost 70 percent of voters in the Deep South do not believe the government should ban abortion.
—”The Trump administration’s announcement to pursue a military execution by a manner not used in the military since 1945 demonstrates the federal government’s zeal for brutality at any cost,” says the Legal Defense Fund.
—The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have unionized.

… and more.

The Rise of Pronatalist Horror in an Age of Reproductive Control

PUBLISHED 10/28/2026 by

Alex Goyette’s new psychological horror film Breeder, opening in U.S. theaters Wednesday, Oct. 28, explores the terrifying ambitions of Patti (Dot-Marie Jones), a poodle breeder who lures young men to her remote ranch with promises of research funding. Russell (Daniel Doheny), a cash-strapped researcher working to save endangered bees, however, finds that Patti is keeping men trapped as breeding stock as part of her own eugenics-style program.

“I’m actually moving on from dog breeding,” Patti says in the trailer, “Now, I’m doing something more important: I’m breeding people.” Patti will force Russell to breed with her daughter, and warns that if he fails, he will face a fate like all of the other studs who failed: He will be put down.

Contemporary filmmakers and artists who grew up under the Reagan, Bush and Trump administrations are confronting Americans’ reproductive anxieties through stories about reproductive coercion, bodily autonomy and the consequences of treating human beings as instruments of reproduction.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, P.D. James’ Children of Men and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby represent the earliest examples of the subgenre.

Breeder (2026) will likely be another powerful example.

The Ripple Effect: How Abortion Bans Threaten the Entire Healthcare Ecosystem

PUBLISHED 10/24/2026 by

In her new book Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health, journalist Alice Miranda Ollstein shows that abortion bans aren’t just restricting reproductive care—they’re disrupting cancer treatments, chronic disease medications, fertility services and lifesaving medical research.

“… Legal restrictions on reproductive healthcare ripple outwards, compromising the health and safety of all patients.”

“… We are seeing a broader access crisis: Doctors are leaving restrictive states because they feel they can no longer practice medicine ethically or legally …”

“In emergency care, misoprostol is vital for stopping postpartum hemorrhage. … Now, strict controlled-substance storage rules force providers to retrieve it from locked rooms down the hall or in another building.”

Abortion Rights Are on the Ballot in Four States in 2026

PUBLISHED 10/23/2026 by and

In the ongoing November 2026 election, voters in three states (Idaho, Nevada and Virginia) will consider ballot measures designed to protect abortion rights by affirming a statutory or constitutional right to abortion and in some cases other reproductive rights.

Additionally, voters in one state (Missouri) will vote on an antiabortion measure that would undo the right to reproductive freedom previously established by a state ballot measure. The antiabortion measure Missouri voters will face this fall threatens to undo the progress that has allowed hundreds of Missourians to access care in their state earlier this year.