Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett is a justice to the United States Supreme Court. Nominated by President Donald Trump in 2020, she is known for her conservative voting record on cases touching abortion, LGBTQ rights, gun rights and immigration. Forty-eight years old at the time of her lifetime appointment, she will help move the Court firmly to the right for decades to come.

SCOTUS Rejects Biden’s Bid for Emergency Abortion Care, Risking Lives of Women in Texas and Other Abortion Ban States

PUBLISHED 6/26/2024 by , , , and | UPDATED 10/8/2024 at 8:11 A.M. PT

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request from the Biden administration to send a dispute over emergency abortions in Texas back to the lower courts. The Court dealt with a set of similar cases out of Idaho in June without reaching a conclusive decision on the federal law in question, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“Recently, the world has heard the story of Amber Thurman, a young woman who died because of Georgia’s extreme abortion ban,” said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates. “Today’s punt by the Supreme Court will lead to more cases like Amber’s. … The Court is telling women in states with bans that need abortion care to save their life: ‘We don’t care.'”

In U.S. v. Rahimi, Domestic Violence Victims Live to Die Another Day

PUBLISHED 6/21/2024 by

Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that a law restricting firearms access for a narrow class of individuals subject to a specific kind of domestic violence restraining order does not violate the Second Amendment. The ruling is a “win” in much the same way the Court’s ruling in the mifepristone case FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine earlier this month is a win: The Court did the “bare minimum” necessary to cling to the last vestiges of its legitimacy.

The threat posed by violent abusers like Zackey Rahimi might be temporarily disarmed today, but the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s patriarchal agenda remains a loaded weapon.

Meet the Anti-Feminist Women’s Group Leveraging Their ‘Independence’ to Convince Americans to Vote Republican

PUBLISHED 5/15/2024 by

The anti-feminist Independent Women’s Voice/Forum (IWF/V), backed by billionaires and anti-abortion zealots, is poised to use its leaders’ identities as women to convince voters that the GOP will protect Americans’ rights and freedoms, like access to birth control and the ability to choose if and when to have children. IWF/V’s past positions, the known agendas of their funders and their membership to Project 2025 belie their true intentions. 

‘Tragedy Upon Tragedy’: What the Justices’ Questions on EMTALA Revealed

PUBLISHED 4/24/2024 by

The narrowing of options for physicians in Idaho leaves them in a bind: Do you perform an abortion that could save a woman’s life or her organs, as dictated by EMTALA, or will you face penalties under Idaho law? 

Oral arguments can sometimes reveal how the justices of the Supreme Court are approaching the issue at hand. The questions asked by the justices suggest three things: a lack of clarity under Idaho law; abortion as the standard of care; and acknowledgement of fetal personhood.

Trump’s Abortion Position, Explained

PUBLISHED 4/8/2024 by and

Donald Trump on Monday said he believes abortion should be left to the states. Sidestepping formally endorsing a nationwide ban, the former president’s announcement is already being perceived by some as an attempt to strike a compromise position on a top issue for women voters.

Here’s what Trump’s leave-it-to-the-states abortion position would look like in practice—according to anti-abortion leaders, reproductive rights experts, and Trump himself. In short, it leaves people in abortion states suffering consequences of extreme bans imposed in the wake of the Dobbs decision, and would leave his presidency multiple avenues to highly restrict abortion access nationwide.

Far-Right Players Behind Latest Attacks on Abortion in Emergencies

PUBLISHED 1/24/2024 by and

In April, the nation’s highest Court will hear a pair of cases that will determine whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts state laws that impede emergency abortions needed to protect the health of pregnant people even if they are not on the brink of death. 

Both of these cases have ties to the main anti-abortion zealots that helped overturn Roe: Leonard Leo and Alliance Defending Freedom. 

Inside an Abortion Clinic Invasion

PUBLISHED 1/18/2024 by | UPDATED 1/24/2025 at 7:26 A.M. PT

At 9:05 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, a group of anti-abortion extremists from at least six states forced their way into the Washington Surgi-Clinic, a facility that provides abortion care in Washington, D.C.

This article reveals, for the first time, how a violent clinic invasion was planned and executed. It is based on testimony by Davis, forensic analysis by FBI agents of the defendants’ social media and cell phone records, footage obtained from the clinic’s security cameras and responding police officers’ body cameras, as well as the extremists’ own Facebook livestream of what they interchangeably called a “lock-and-block” and a “rescue” (a term coined by anti-abortion extremists to mean physically preventing women from obtaining abortion care). (This article originally appears in the Winter 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)