Dobbs v. Jackson

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court in which the Court held that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.

Trump’s Republican Trifecta Sets Up Massive Transfer of Tax Dollars from Reproductive Health Clinics to Unregulated Crisis Pregnancy Clinics

PUBLISHED 8/18/2025 by | UPDATED 8/26/2025 at 11:53 A.M. PT

The Trump administration, 119th Congress and John Roberts-led Supreme Court are redirecting federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood and Title X to bankroll the $2 billion unregulated pregnancy clinic industry—crisis pregnancy centers—positioning it to replace reproductive health clinics nationwide.

The antiabortion industry has long aimed to “replace” Planned Parenthood, and since Roe‘s fall, so-called pro-life operatives claim these clinics fill gaps in prenatal and postpartum care and address maternal and infant mortality. These claims are false. Their mission—to block abortion—directly conflicts with providing actual, lifesaving healthcare.

Project 2025 seeks to disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and end “religious discrimination in grant selections”—code for funneling federal dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.

“Let’s call this what it is: a calculated, coordinated attack on poor women and families,” says Debra Rosen, executive director of Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. Low-income women are being denied care at real health centers and funneled into ideological storefronts. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, and the consequences will be deadly—a manufactured, avoidable public health crisis.

Terrified to Try: The Mental Anguish of Motherhood in South Carolina

PUBLISHED 8/12/2025 by

In a state where abortion bans endanger lives and strip away autonomy, one South Carolina mother shares how fear, grief and rage have made her question whether she can risk motherhood again:

“I had to leave the state, my support system and my young son just to access the healthcare I needed.”

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

‘It Was Never Mine’: August, Autonomy and the America We’re Losing

PUBLISHED 8/7/2025 by

Welcome, August! When my kids were young, I used to refer to it as the juiciest month of the year, loving its bloated days, all sunshine and sweat.

In 2025, I have to admit this month is yet another joy I am doing my best not to let the relentless news-and-doom cycle ruin. Curating a round-up of breaking headlines about gender and democracy is surely not for the faint of heart or spirit.

I’ll be doing all I can to channel Taylor Swift (Trump only wishes he could) and trying to salvage August so that it is “sipped away like a bottle of wine.”

‘Our Federal Constitution Doesn’t Protect Us’: How the Women’s Law Project Redefined the Fight for Abortion Rights in Pennsylvania

PUBLISHED 7/30/2025 by

“We got here because we have the gender ruling class desperately holding onto their privilege—using any means necessary,” said WLP executive director Susan Frietsche on the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward.

Listen to the second episode —”Inside the Feminist Fight to Reclaim Our Reproductive Freedom (with Renee Bracey Sherman, Michele Goodwin, Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Susan Frietsche, and Gov. Maura Healey)”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m a Texas-Born OB-GYN—But Abortion Bans Are Forcing Me Out

PUBLISHED 7/26/2025 by

Vi Burgess is a resident physician in Colorado, in training to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. The Texas resident went to medical school in the Lone Star State, but says she’d be terrified to return home to practice medicine.

“I’d be terrified to go back to Texas to practice as an OB-GYN after I finish my residency. I’d be absolutely terrified. It’s not so much that I’d be terrified of getting thrown in jail, but terrified that I won’t be able to provide care to a woman—and that would lead to serious harm or death.

“I think that’s every doctor’s biggest fear—not being able to help and ultimately ending up hurting someone. But that’s the situation that OB-GYNs and other doctors are now in, in Texas.”

Pregnant and Unmarried? In Tennessee, That’s Now Grounds for Denial of Care.

PUBLISHED 7/24/2025 by

This week marked the first reported case of a woman being denied prenatal care for being unmarried in the state of Tennessee and the country. And it is the direct result of the state’s 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act, which went into effect in April. The law enables physicians, nurses, hospitals and insurers to invoke religious, moral or ethical objections to the provision of care and treatment, with no legal requirement to provide patients with a referral or alternative.

‘They’re Not Following the Law—They’re Imposing Conservative Values’: Key Takeaways From the Ms. 2025 Supreme Court Term in Review

PUBLISHED 7/17/2025 by , and | UPDATED 7/18/2025 at 10:22 A.M. PT

Friday, June 27, marked the final day of the ’24-’25 Supreme Court term. This year brought a series of stunning, high-stakes decisions that delivered major setbacks for reproductive rights and civil liberties—from a landmark case threatening judiciary checks and birthright citizenship and a ruling that expands parental opt-outs in public schools, to the Court’s decision to uphold both South Carolina’s ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans teens.

On July 2, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University hosted its annual Supreme Court Term in Review, co-hosted by Ms. magazine, Ms. Studios, the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Constitution Society. The event brought together legal scholars, litigators, journalists and activists to reflect on the most consequential rulings of the 2024-’25 term.

“We should not have to have seances with slave owners to know what our rights are today.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera

“The president can, with the stroke of a pen, revoke your constitutional right to citizenship.”
—Jamelle Bouie

“The Supreme Court and Congress are basically enabling this. Not just being feckless, but enabling it.”
—Lourdes A. Rivera

“I thought Justice Barrett was extraordinarily disrespectful toward Justice Jackson in that opinion.”
—Mark Joseph Stern

“We get hope from our clients and the communities that are stepping up when many elite institutions are not.”
—Skye Perryman

America’s Healthcare Crisis Is Coming for All Women

PUBLISHED 7/11/2025 by and | UPDATED 8/21/2025 at 9:09 A.M. PT

Less access to healthcare—either by cutting Medicaid benefits or discouraging doctors from practicing in restrictive states—will affect antiabortion and pro-abortion women equally.

This is about far more than abortion. There will be more maternal deaths. There will be more deaths from cervical and breast cancer. More women will die from complications of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. There will be more suffering from infertility, endometriosis and fibroids.

Does anyone in power care? We certainly do. And we better make sure our voices are heard. All of our lives depend on it.

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’

PUBLISHED 7/10/2025 by | UPDATED 8/5/2025 at 11:19 A.M. PT

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.