Florida

A Single Abortion Clinic Closing Rarely Makes Headlines. What Happens When None Are Left?

PUBLISHED 7/8/2026 by

Picture a map of the United States. It’s 2022, and in southern states like Texas and Tennessee, there are clusters of black dots that represent independent clinic closures. These are abortion care black holes: communities where it’s no longer possible to get an abortion at a nearby clinic.

Fast forward to present. It’s 2026, four years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and black dots have multiplied in states across the country. It no longer matters if the state is red or blue, governed by conservatives or progressives. None are immune to the increasing weight of political pressure, financial strain and operational difficulty that are forcing independent clinics to close or stop providing abortion care.

Each of these black dots is a community suffering a healthcare crisis, and they are proliferating across the United States at a rapid rate.

Independent clinics are often the only places to get clinical abortion care, unbiased information and support for pregnancy options. They are where people go to feel safe and respected, whether they are getting an abortion, continuing a pregnancy or getting gender-affirming care. In small towns and rural spaces, these clinics are often the only safe place for many people, especially those who are LGBTQIA+. If clinics close, there is often nowhere else to go.

And once abortion clinics close, it’s not as simple as reopening when they can, if they can. Even if a specific restriction is lifted, severe financial constraints, continued political hostility, threats of violence and legal uncertainty still stand.

How the Manhattan Institute Turned Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics Into Conservative Policy

PUBLISHED 6/21/2026 by

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, best known as a Reaganomics champion, is using anti-LGBTQ+ politics to advance its broader political goals. But that wasn’t always part of its strategy.

Since its founding nearly 50 years ago, MI has influenced conservative policy by crafting model legislation and publishing reports for lawmakers and lobbyists. Some of its longtime goals have included promoting libertarian economic policies, discrediting teachers unions and deregulating healthcare. Funded primarily by conservatives on Wall Street, MI has over $30 million in net assets as of its most recent tax filings.

Prior to the 2020s, efforts to undermine LGBTQ+ rights were not a focus for MI. But since then, it began parroting many of the talking points of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement.

While the shift may seem random, an assessment of MI’s history and strategy reveals how these attacks fit into its broader political goals.

Carré Otis Has Opened a Door for Survivors of Abuse in the Modeling Industry. Will Others Walk Through It?

PUBLISHED 6/16/2026 by

A new legal door opened earlier this month in the fight for survivor justice. But it’s not in the United States, where survivors and advocates continue to press for transparency and investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s larger network and the modeling industry’s potential role in it. It’s in France.

Carré Otis, a U.S.-based former supermodel and board member of the Model Alliance, filed a criminal complaint in French court alleging rape of a minor and human trafficking by Gérald Marie, a former giant of the modeling industry who led Elite Model Management’s European operations from 1985 to 2010.

The complaint alleges that Otis was 17 when Elite sent her to Paris in 1986 and housed her in Gérald Marie’s apartment, where she “mistakenly believ[ed] that he wanted to support her modeling career.” While living there, Otis alleges that Marie raped her on multiple occasions and later arranged for her to be “provided to other wealthy men across Europe.” The complaint also says Otis was never paid for her modeling work.

Marie has denied Otis’ allegations, and because of France’s statute of limitations, cannot be criminally prosecuted for these particular allegations.

Still, Otis’ recent filing could prove consequential well beyond her own case.

States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies, Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote

PUBLISHED 5/20/2026 by and

Congressional Republicans are once again prioritizing the SAVE Act, legislation that would force Americans to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. The House has already passed yet another version of the bill, but so far it has stalled in the Senate.

If the SAVE Act becomes law, it would block millions of eligible American citizens from voting.

As the Senate considers the SAVE Act, state legislatures are advancing similar “show-your-papers” policies. Florida, South Dakota and Utah have enacted similar laws in recent weeks. Other states that already have similar laws have experienced the difficulties of implementing them.

Including Arizona, which has had a proof-of-citizenship requirement for over 20 years, five states will have a show-your-papers requirement for all voters for the 2026 midterms: Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. A sixth state, Louisiana, has one on the books that it has not yet implemented.

That’s a lot of strain on the election system to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The U.S. Senate would be wise not to inflict those obstacles on every election official nationwide.

From Smith College to Florida’s New College: MAGA’s Campaign Against Universities, Women’s Studies and Liberal Arts

PUBLISHED 5/6/2026 by

As a professor at Smith College and chair of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, I have closely followed the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education—and on my field in particular.

This week, those attacks landed squarely on my own campus: The Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into Smith’s policy of admitting transgender women, arguing the college may be violating Title IX by recognizing gender identity rather than “biological sex.” The probe—prompted by a complaint from a conservative advocacy group—questions whether a women’s college can remain legally “single sex” while including trans women, and raises the possibility of federal penalties or loss of status.

This move is not an isolated action. It is part of a broader campaign to redefine civil rights protections in ways that exclude transgender people, and to pressure colleges and universities into compliance with that vision.

It is also one of many recent attacks on higher education—especially liberal arts institutions—by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration, aimed at universities they view as out of step with a conservative, anti-feminist agenda. In a 2021 speech titled “Universities Are the Enemy,” JD Vance declared, “We must aggressively attack the universities in this country. … Maybe it’s time to seize the endowments, penalize them for being on the wrong side of some of these culture war issues.”

Women’s, gender and sexuality studies teaches students to think critically, to question the status quo and to understand how power shapes our lives across gender, race, class, sexuality and more. These are precisely the kinds of questions that have made the field a target. Rather than engage with this work, critics have increasingly sought to discredit or dismantle it altogether. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 provides a roadmap for doing just that—but many of these strategies have already been tested at the state level.

The Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act. Women Will Pay the Price.

PUBLISHED 5/2/2026 by and

The Court didn’t strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—but it didn’t need to. By requiring proof of intentional discrimination, the majority has made it dramatically harder to challenge maps that dilute the voting power of communities of color. As Justice Elena Kagan warned, the provision is now “all but a dead letter.”

For the women elected from majority-minority districts, that shift is not abstract. These are the very districts that made their representation possible—and now, those districts are among the most vulnerable to being redrawn or erased.

The consequences were immediate. Within hours of the ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Florida lawmakers advanced a new congressional map targeting majority-minority districts, including seats held by women.

In the 11 states most likely to face redistricting pressure, up to 36 such districts could be redrawn—12 of them currently represented by women.

As voting rights litigator Yael Bromberg explained, the Court is now effectively looking for a “smoking gun” of discrimination. Short of that, legislatures can redraw maps along partisan lines, even when the racial impact is clear.

The statute remains on the books, but its practical force does not. And what replaces it is not neutrality—it is discretion. State legislatures can choose which incumbents to protect and which to leave exposed, creating new opportunities to sideline women and weaken the political power of the communities that elected them.

What happens next will not hinge on another sweeping ruling, but on a series of decisions that are easier to overlook and harder to challenge—and that will determine, district by district, who gets to remain represented at all.

‘Who Will Revere the Black Woman?’ Remembering Nancy, Cerina and So Many More

PUBLISHED 4/22/2026 by

Even though I did not know Nancy Metayer, my heart is utterly broken by the loss of her life and the violence of her death. The night before her funeral, I joined a virtual vèyè in her honor—a space to keep watch, to remember her impact and to hold one another in communal care.

That same day, news broke about Dr. Cerina Fairfax, also killed in her home. I did not know her either, and still, I was gutted.

Nor did I know Pastor Tammy McCollum, Ashly Robinson, Qualeisha Barnes, Davonta Curtis or Barbara Deer—Black women killed in just a matter of weeks. And to think these are only the names we know.

In moments like this, I find myself returning to a question first posed by Abbey Lincoln decades ago: “Who will revere the Black woman?” The reality of this violence—and the way it is so often explained away or softened—makes that question feel as urgent as ever.

Black feminists have long named the patterns, the structures and the stakes. And still, we are left mourning, naming and insisting: We will not let their lives be forgotten. We will continue the work in their honor—because we revere them.

From Dolores Huerta to Cynthia Richie Terrell, Celebrating the Birthdays of the Women Keeping Movements Alive

PUBLISHED 4/10/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Chris Taylor wins her race for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
—Emily Gregory flips a Florida House seat in Trump’s backyard.
—New data says that women could definitely win the 2028 presidential election.

… and more.

‘First They Came for My College’: The Takeover of a Florida College and the Students Who Refused to Disappear

PUBLISHED 4/9/2026 by

When I told coworkers and friends I was going to see a documentary about the right-wing takeover of a small public Florida college, the reaction was immediate and unanimous: Why would you do that to yourself? Too depressing. I’d be too angry.

They weren’t wrong. Premiering at SXSW last month and directed by Patrick Bresnan, First They Came for My College is, at times, almost unbearable to watch—a slow, procedural dismantling of a public institution, carried out in meeting rooms and press conferences and budget lines.

But what stayed with me wasn’t only the anger—it was the stubborn, surprising insistence on community, joy and showing up anyway.