Courts and Judges

A Government for Big Tobacco and Bigger Families

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made multiple headlines this week—starting with the on-again-off-again tenure of Dr. Marty Makary in his role as FDA commissioner. The FDA has drawn the ire of antiabortion activists over the agency’s approach to mifepristone regulation, including its approval last year of a generic version of the drug.

A so-called “safety report” on mifepristone, commissioned by HHS, is not due to be issued by the FDA until the fall, keeping the issue out of the public eye in the leadup to the midterms. (The timing, quite frankly, is a boon to Republicans.)

The real concern that appears to have been the final straw for the commissioner? Flavored vapes. Whereas the White House has been waging a campaign to appease tobacco donors by authorizing mint, tea and spice-flavored e-cigarettes, in March, the FDA issued a memo saying that it would draw the line at fruit and candy flavors. (Always looking out for the kids.) Yet somehow last week, blueberry and mango made it over the finish line. Sweet enough to satisfy Big Tobacco? Time will tell.

There’s nothing quite like coining a word like “under-babied” while peddling fruity vapes—all while gas prices are soaring, workplace benefits for parents are being rolled back, health insurance remains out of reach for millions, affordable housing is an oxymoron, and on and on.

Such is the legacy of a single week of news out of our nation’s top federal health agency.

The Fifth Circuit Proves Abortion Is on the Ballot this November

PUBLISHED 5/7/2026 by | UPDATED 5/15/2026 at 10:41 A.M. PT

A highlight of being in Ireland has been following the local news, especially the robust abortion beat: Irish lawmakers have been waging a loud fight to expand abortion rights—in particular, to ensure unnecessary waiting periods don’t impede access to care.

Breaking headlines from the United States were a dark juxtaposition.

The U.S. is one of only four nations worldwide actively rolling back reproductive rights.

And now we’re threatened with yet another fight: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling late last week aiming to create the most significant setback to abortion access since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision four years ago.

The three-member panel, two of whom are Trump appointees, blocked a 2023 FDA policy allowing mifepristone to be prescribed by telehealth providers and delivered by mail—a decision that applies to all states, whether abortion is legal or not, and where voters have mobilized to pass ballot measures and enshrine reproductive rights in their state constitutions.

This Fifth Circuit ruling is not the final word on the case. The two pharmaceutical companies that make mifepristone, Danco and GenBioPro, immediately filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. On Monday, Justice Samuel Alito announced an administrative stay through May 11, meaning the decision is on hold until at least then, while the justices review the appeal and decide whether the medically unnecessary in-person dispensing requirements can be reimposed for the duration of the litigation.

In the spirit of the fighting Irish, readers should take heart that the community of U.S. abortion providers, advocates and support networks “have shown amazing resilience and tenacity since the Dobbs decision,” according to Kelly Baden of Guttmacher. “They will continue to do what they can do to ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, can access the abortion care they need.”

So, for now, our citizen mobilization strategy must be twofold: Support those who directly deliver those services and get ready to get loud. The abortion fight shows that access to healthcare, the integrity of science, the rules of democracy, and the right to bodily autonomy are not only all interconnected, but they are all on the ballot this November.

Tennessee Tries to Silence Women Nearly Killed by Its Abortion Ban: ‘We Will Have Our Day in Court,’ Pledges Lead Plaintiff

PUBLISHED 5/6/2026 by

Tennessee was supposed to face nine women in court on April 27 in a closely watched trial over the state’s abortion ban—women who say they were denied emergency care, forced to flee the state for abortions, or pushed to the brink of death after suffering catastrophic pregnancy complications. After waiting nearly three years to testify publicly about what happened to them, the plaintiffs were prepared to finally take the stand.

Then, less than two business days before the trial was set to begin, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (yes, the same Skrmetti whose name is now attached to the Supreme Court’s landmark anti-trans healthcare ruling) filed an appeal invoking a newly enacted state law which prevents Tennesseans from suing over any state law that harms them. The move stripped the court of jurisdiction over the case, abruptly halting the proceedings and potentially delaying the trial for months or years.

“We should be in court today standing up to Tennessee’s abortion ban,” the Center for Reproductive Rights said in a statement after the cancellation. “These women deserve their day in court. But Tennessee politicians refuse to listen.”

Among the plaintiffs is Allie Phillips, who says she was forced to travel to New York for an abortion after learning her fetus had a fatal diagnosis and that continuing the pregnancy put her own life at risk. By the time she arrived for care, she learned the fetus had already died in utero, placing her at heightened risk of infection and blood clots.

Phillips shares her story and reaction to the canceled trial, in her own words.

“I would have testified about how I would have risked my future fertility and my life if I had stayed pregnant in Tennessee. … I already had a 6-year-old daughter, Adalie, to raise. She needed me to live and be her mom. …

“We’re appealing. We don’t know how it will take but even if it’s five years, we will have our day in court. I’m not going anywhere.”

The Courts Keep Targeting Abortion Pills. Patients and Providers Keep Finding Ways Around Them.

PUBLISHED 5/1/2026 by | UPDATED 5/15/2026 at 10:43 A.M. PT

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily paused the Fifth Circuit’s Friday ruling that would have tightened access to mifepristone, preserving the current status quo while the justices consider the emergency appeal. The order keeps telehealth and mail access in place for now.

The Monday morning emergency action from the Court—which orders the Trump administration to answer by May 7—follows an urgent intervention from the manufacturers of mifepristone, GenBioPro and Danco.

Regardless of what the courts decide, international telehealth providers, community networks and websites selling pills are ready to ramp up services to fill the needs of Americans.

The Supreme Court Is Showing Us Why the ERA Can’t Wait

PUBLISHED 5/1/2026 by

Listening to two recent Supreme Court arguments on immigration, I heard something more than a debate over statutory language or constitutional text. I heard a stark illustration of how precarious rights can be when they depend on interpretation rather than being firmly embedded in the Constitution.

In one case, justices parsed the meaning of a single word—“arrives”—in ways that risked erasing access to asylum altogether. In the other, they confronted a direct challenge to the 14th Amendment and, in doing so, were forced to reckon with the real lives at stake.

That contrast is the point. When a right lives in statute, it can be narrowed, redefined or even functionally denied through legal gymnastics that separate words from their purpose. But when a right is written into the Constitution, it becomes harder—though not impossible—for courts to ignore its human consequences.

The difference isn’t abstract; it shapes whether people can seek refuge, claim citizenship or be recognized as equal under the law.

Taken together, these cases offer a warning—and a roadmap. If we want rights to endure, they must be grounded where they are hardest to dismantle. The Equal Rights Amendment was meant to do exactly that. And in this moment, as courts and lawmakers test the limits of existing protections, the case for finally enshrining it in the Constitution has never been clearer.

Why Trump Can’t Just Decree Changes to Voting by Mail: Former Federal Judge Explains How the President’s EO Is ‘a Solution Looking for a Problem’

PUBLISHED 4/30/2026 by and

John Jones knows about voter suppression. Currently the president of Dickinson College, Jones—nominated in 2002 by President George W. Bush and confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate—served for almost two decades as a federal court judge.

In that role, Jones presided over a case, filed just prior to the November 2020 presidential election, in which a conservative legal foundation sued Pennsylvania’s top election official, alleging that she had allowed 21,000 dead people to remain on the voter rolls. The group asked Jones to stop those people from voting.

Jones denied the request.

“… At the now infamous Four Seasons landscaping press conference, Rudy Giuliani was waving my decision in the air and decrying the fact that dead people voted in Pennsylvania. That was simply not true.”

In this interview with The Conversation‘s politics and legal affairs editor Naomi Schalit, Jones discusses President Donald Trump’s March 31, 2026, executive order to wrest control of mail-in voting from states and give it to the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security; how the constitutional design of U.S. voting bars such federal control; and how Trump’s order would disenfranchise voters and is now the subject of lawsuits by voting rights groups and 23 states.

The FACE Act Is Settled Law, Despite Efforts to Reframe It

PUBLISHED 4/28/2026 by

At a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act on Tuesday, members of the House GOP—including Texas Reps. Chip Roy and Brandon Gill and Ohio’s Jim Jordan—attempted to rewrite or minimize the history of violence against providers and patients, recasting antiabortion clinic blockades as peaceful protest.

Jessica L. Waters, J.D., senior scholar in residence at American University, gave a forceful defense of the FACE Act and pushed back on efforts to recast clinic blockades as protected speech.

“People should be able to seek medical care, and medical professionals should be able to provide it, without fear of violence or intimidation. This is an issue that warrants a federal remedy.”

Keeping Score: Pennsylvania ERA Secures Abortion Rights Win; Civil Rights Groups Investigate Trump Admin Delays in Childcare Payments; Senate Upholds Near-Total VA Abortion Ban

PUBLISHED 4/23/2026 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:
—In a landmark ruling shaped by Pennsylvania’s ERA, a state court struck down a decades-old ban on using Medicaid funds for abortion.
—Trump continued to attack voting rights, threatening mail-in ballots and moving towards a nationalized registration database full of errors.
—An estimated 8 million people attended the latest “No Kings” protests.
—A Michigan court ruled that the state’s Pregnancy Exclusion law, which prevents providers from honoring pregnant women’s documented end-of-life decisions, violates a voter-approved 2022 constitutional amendment.
—A federal judge blocked RFK Jr.’s changes to routine vaccination schedules.
—The Supreme Court ruled against Colorado’s ban on dangerous “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ youth.
—Housing markets are declining in states with abortion bans as young people leave or avoid those areas.
—Senators demand the Trump Administration release lifesaving Title X funding.
—Twenty-five states received a failing grade on access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
—High levels of contamination were found in braiding hair.
—Women are driven away from coaching college sports by pay inequities and other systemic barriers.

… and more.

The Immigration Crackdown Is Coming for Public Education

PUBLISHED 4/11/2026 by

There is something especially ugly about going after children, denying them a basic education, which cuts off their path to life in a way that can’t be restored later on in their lives. But that’s what Republicans want to do.

An estimated 600,000 to 850,000 undocumented children are enrolled in K-12 education in the United States. They are not abstractions. They are kids sitting in classrooms next to American citizens, learning the lessons that will permit them to contribute to whatever society they are a part of as adults. Forcibly removing their access to education doesn’t just harm them individually, it leaves entire communities worse off.