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.

Keeping Score: Rep. Jasmine Crockett Questions Trump’s ‘Fitness to Serve’; Women Carry Two-Thirds of Student Debt; Congress Votes to Criminalize Revenge Porn

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: HHS promotes conversion therapy-like policies and opposes gender-affirming care; new executive order could lead to discrimination from credit lenders; Trump guts the Women’s Health Initiative; Wyoming abortion clinic celebrates a TRAP law injunction; Olivia Rodrigo received Planned Parenthood award; and more.

‘This Is About Life or Death’: Leading Feminists Discuss Women’s Rights in Post-Roe America

Clara Bingham, Jamia Wilson and Jessica Valenti on the state of abortion access and the feminist resistance rising up in every state in the U.S.:

“The 14th Amendment is what antiabortion activists are using right now to fight for fetal personhood. Anytime you see the 14th Amendment mentioned, that’s what it’s about.”

“We are no longer first-class citizens in banned states.”

“There are countries in this world where the pro-life movement is the movement that is about choice. … They’re surprised when they hear the framing of pro-life being used to dominate and control women’s bodies.”

“As terrible as things are every single day, in every single community and in every single state, there are rooms full of women, and there are rooms full of activists who are working their asses off, who are using their time, their money, their energy to make sure that if someone needs care, they can get it, whether or not we see it.”

Women’s Health in Women’s Hands: Celebrating the Life of Carol Downer

One of the founders of the women’s health movement, Carol Downer died on Jan. 13, 2025 at 91. Before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, she sparked the feminist self-help movement and helped to develop and popularize menstrual extraction.

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.)

‘Grace Under Pressure’: A Look Back on the Late Cecile Richards

Cecile Richards, who transformed Planned Parenthood as its longtime president, died early in the morning on Jan. 20 at the implausibly young age of 67. America lost one of its most audacious and charismatic defenders of women’s health and rights just when we needed her most— hours before the inauguration of Donald Trump, whose first-term appointees to the Supreme Court gutted the constitutional protection of abortion rights and whose second term imperils the rights of women in additional myriad ways.

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.)

From Montana to Florida—How Past Pro-Abortion Ballot Measures Are Helping Fuel a Movement

During the 2024 elections, 10 statewide abortion ballot measures aimed at expanding abortion rights in their respective states were certified for the general election ballot, marking the most in a single year. The majority of the results solidified what pro-abortion advocates already knew: Abortion is popular. 

In 2024, voters overwhelmingly supported reproductive rights measures in eight states, seven of which passed (Florida fell just 3 percent short of the 60 percent threshold required). Amendments passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York.

War on Women Report: Trump Slashes Sexual Violence Prevention; GOP Targets Teens’ Repro Rights; Nebraska Abortion Funeral Bill Threatens Miscarriage Care

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:
—Republicans in Indiana have gotten rid of a requirement for schools to teach about consent in sex education classes.
—Some good news out of Georgia: Prosecutors have dropped all charges against 24-year-old Selena Chandler-Scott after the national backlash that came when they arrested her after her miscarriage.
—On Saturday, April 5, over 1,200 demonstrations took place nationwide to protest the recent policies and actions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
—Legislators in Nebraska are advancing a bill that would require abortion providers to bury or cremate fetal remains and embryonic tissue after an abortion, leaning into fetal personhood arguments.

… and more.

‘Barrage of Harassment, Intimidation and Violent Attacks’ on Abortion Clinics, Says National Abortion Federation

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) this week released their Violence and Disruption Report for 2023 and 2024, documenting widespread antiabortion terrorism against abortion clinics.

The report revealed that there were 1,199 violent incidents at abortion clinics in 2023 and 2024. The report also documented extensive disruption of services. (The actual number of incidents of harassment and violence targeting abortion providers is likely much higher than NAF’s reported numbers.)

“Let me be clear: There is nothing peaceful about the kind of protesting behavior we see at our clinic,” said Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Casper, Wyo., and co-owner of Hope Clinic in Washington, D.C. “We have seen extremists try to invade our clinic multiple times in 2023 and 2024, intent on harassing our staff and intimidating our patients.”

First They Came for Kilmar

After World War II, German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller famously said, “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.” We are watching this happen in real time with the Trump administration.

Donald Trump has targeted immigrants, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with illegal deportation; then he came after workers’ rights, with cuts to overtime pay and rolling back rights to unionize; then he came for the hungry, with cuts to food programs and Medicaid; then he came for the low-income children, with the elimination of Head Start child care; then he came for the sick, with cuts to funding for medical research; then he came for women, with cuts to reproductive healthcare and funding for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis hotlines; then he came for disabled and elderly people, with cuts to Social Security and Medicare—and so much more.

Trump is boundary testing. If you give him an inch, he will take it all, until he has obliterated all resistance—and our democracy.