More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals with emergency departments to provide a medical screening examination to any individual who comes to the emergency department and requests such an examination, and prohibits hospitals with emergency departments from refusing to examine or treat individuals with an emergency medical condition.
The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the EMTALA case drew the fierce ire of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Warning of the “storm clouds [that] loom ahead,” Jackson condemned the Court’s failure to resolve the case on the merits, in accordance with the long-settled principle that “state laws that conflict with federal laws, are ‘without effect.’”
In an alternate dissent, the Court’s hardcore conservative justices—Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch—paid homage to the unborn child.
The Supreme Court has come down on the major abortion case Moyle v. United States, effectively dismissing the case and leaving pregnant women and healthcare providers in Idaho without answers.
I just had the privilege of experiencing the very best of American modern medicine this week for my knee surgery. We celebrate our American medical system as the best in the world—so why would we voluntarily decide to deny the care that I just received this past week to women in 21 states in our country?
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued the official ruling in its final major abortion case of 2024, dismissing the consolidated cases of Idaho v. United States and Moyle v. United States. The Court’s dismissal temporarily upholds a lower court ruling that sided with the Biden administration in requiring that hospitals perform life and health-saving abortions where needed.
This is good news for obvious reasons—chief among them that “women don’t deserve to die or become disabled because they got pregnant in an anti-abortion state” really should not be up for debate. With this decision, Idaho individuals still won’t have basic abortion rights, but they will at least have the same rights as everyone else to be medically stabilized if they find themselves pregnant and in an emergency medical situation.
But this Court wouldn’t answer a vital question: Do pregnant women deserve the same medical treatment to save their lives and preserve their health as everyone else? It may not be the worst-case scenario, but it’s also not any sort of win.
In an opinion published Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed its final major abortion case of the term. The opinion was a narrow ruling that Idaho cannot prohibit doctors from performing emergency abortions for women with life-threatening pregnancy complications while the case is appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Make no mistake: The ruling in Moyle and Idaho is barely a win for abortion supporters. The Court refused to rule on the underlying issue: Must state abortion bans provide an exemption when a woman’s health is at risk, not only her life?
A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court will be coming any day now on whether states can prohibit doctors from treating women with life-threatening pregnancies until a patient’s condition deteriorates to the point where they are about to die.
This Mother’s Day—like the countless that have come before it—conservative politicians who fancy themselves members of the party that upholds “family values” will send out social media posts praising the moms among us. They’ll wax poetic about the “decision” to become a mother and how it’s the “most selfless, most important job in the world.” Some may even go so far as to task their speech writers with crafting some moving message about how vital mothers are; how we’re raising the next generation of prolific thinkers and world leaders; how we should be revered “not just today, but every day.”
And in the post-Roe world they created with their anti-abortion policies that have forced people into motherhood, attacked IVF and fertility treatments, and left doctors terrified to treat pregnant patients to the point that women are slipping into comas, miscarrying in hospital lobby bathrooms and enduring unnecessary C-sections instead of receiving common abortion care, it will all be one big, giant pile of bullshit.
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: the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on emergency abortion care and criminalizing homelessness; new EEOC and Title IX regulations protect sexual violence survivors, pregnant people and the LGBTQ community; Arizona repealed their 1864 abortion ban, while Florida now has a six-week ban; birth control misinformation goes viral on TikTok; the United Methodist Church repealed their ban on LGBTQ clergy; the chilling effects of the global gag rule; three in five Americans support a national law protecting access to medication abortion; and more.
The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling that reinstated a draconian 1864 near-total abortion ban reveals the disingenuous nature of the “leave-it-to-the-states” positioning of some Republicans.
In response to the state Supreme Court’s decision, Democrats spearheaded legislation to repeal that law, which was recently signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). However, leaving it to the states doesn’t always have such a rosy ending—and, indeed, this is not the end of efforts in Arizona or elsewhere by special interests trying to impose their regressive worldview on us all through law. A closer look into the Arizona abortion case and court that led to the reprise of this antiquated anti-abortion law reveals that some of the same anti-abortion zealots who played a central role in overturning Roe are also playing a role in revoking Arizonians’ access to abortion healthcare.
In the last two months, the Supreme Court heard two case to limit nationwide access to abortion care. The chaotic state of play for abortion rights in the United States illustrates the consequences of failing to integrate efforts to strengthen democracy into strategies for advancing gender equity and vice versa.
For philanthropic leaders, the twin goals of strengthening democracy and advancing gender equity presents a compelling case for simultaneous investment. Divorcing gender justice from democracy is inconsistent ideologically, and it’s also irrational and unnecessarily expensive. To separate them is to delay success and pay for it many times over.
U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
Since our last report: Missouri anti-abortion activists try to trick voters out of supporting a ballot measure to protect abortion rights; 70 percent of school shooters committed violence against women before or during their attacks; Connecticut may join Maine, Texas, California and New York in adopting coerced debt protections; Fox News spent only 12 minutes covering a ruling from the all-Republican Arizona Supreme Court reviving a 160-year-old state law that bans abortion; and more.
