Hawaii

Judge Rules FDA Abortion Pill Restrictions Unlawful, Citing Political Interference

PUBLISHED 11/4/2025 by

Following eight years of litigation, a federal trial court in Hawaii ruled the FDA violated federal law by imposing medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, which is used for early abortion. Ruling in Purcell v. Kennedy, the court held that the FDA has a legal obligation to fairly evaluate and weigh the decades of extensive research affirming mifepristone’s safety, noting the agency had failed to justify its restrictions on access to mifepristone.

The court’s ruling requires the agency to consider the peer-reviewed evidence proving mifepristone’s safety, including its use via telemedicine, and to assess how the agency’s restrictions burden patient access. The ruling does not immediately change access to the medication, but it puts pressure on the FDA to follow the science rather than be swayed by political pressure.

“The FDA’s needless restrictions on mifepristone make our jobs harder without any safety benefit,” said Dr. Lisa Folberg, chief executive officer of the California Academy of Family Physicians. “We appreciate that the court recognized how FDA failed to consider the toll its restrictions take on physicians trying to provide a safe and effective medication to their patients.”

Twenty-Five Years of Mifepristone: How Activists Brought the Abortion Pill to America and Changed Reproductive Health Forever

PUBLISHED 9/25/2025 by

At the urging of antiabortion advocates and politicians, and based on a flawed and biased report put out by an antiabortion group, the Trump administration announced the launch of a new review of mifepristone—despite 100 peer-reviewed scientific studies proving the safety and efficacy of these medications and safe use by over 7.5 million U.S. women.

On the 25th anniversary of FDA approval of mifepristone, reproductive rights supporters are celebrating the creative, determined and courageous advocates who brought this medication to market.

One organization that played a critical role in bringing mifepristone, known as RU-486, to the United States was the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF)—today the publisher of Ms.

The 19th Amendment, Explained

PUBLISHED 8/22/2025 by

It took more than a century of fighting by generations of activists to achieve suffrage for all American women.

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The amendment granting women the right to vote was enacted at the start of the Roaring Twenties, decades after a prolonged and meandering fight for enfranchisement. 

The 19th Amendment codified women’s suffrage nationwide, but long before its ratification, unmarried women who owned property in New Jersey could and did cast ballots between 1776 and 1807. Beginning in 1869, women in Western territories won the right to vote. And in the decade leading up to the 19th Amendment’s passage, 23 states granted women full or partial voting rights through a series of successful campaigns.

Over a Million Women Are at Risk of a Pay Cut Under a New Trump Rule

PUBLISHED 8/20/2025 by

The Trump administration’s Department of Labor recently proposed a new rule that would directly take earnings away from the more than 1.5 million home care workers in the United States, more than 80 percent women, and their families.

Between 2019 and 2040, the population of adults ages 65 and older is expected to balloon from 54 million people to nearly 81 million people, comprising an estimated 22 percent of the U.S. population. That means that the direct care workforce is projected to grow at a faster rate than any other occupation over the next decade.

Keeping Score: Diddy’s Incomplete Conviction ‘Failed to Protect Survivors’; Inhumane Conditions in Alligator Alcatraz; What’s in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?

PUBLISHED 7/14/2025 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:
—Trump’s reconciliation bill will prevent millions from accessing healthcare and food assistance.
—IWMF announced this year’s Courage in Journalism Awards.
—Many prison systems lack accommodations for pregnant inmates.
—Sean “Diddy” Combs found not guilty of sex trafficking.
—The Supreme Court’s decision on LGBTQ books in public schools lays the foundation for new assault on books of all kinds in schools.
—Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called out the hypocrisy of “pro-choice” members of Congress in a House Rules committee meeting: “They say they’re pro-life because they want the baby to be born, go to school and get shot in the school.”
—A group of actors including Jane Fonda and Rosario Dawson wrote a letter to Amazon, after allegations that the company has frequently refused to accommodate pregnant workers. 
—Mahmoud Khalil is suing the Trump administration for $20 million.
—July 10 was Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, marking when Black women’s earnings catch up to what white men earned in 2024.

… and more.

In Hawai‘i, Where Traditional Midwives Can’t Practice

PUBLISHED 3/21/2024 by | UPDATED 11/4/2025 at 11:39 A.M. PT

Two days after Alia Louise Stenback survived the Aug. 8 wildfire in Lāhainā, Maui—the deadliest wildfire the United States has seen in over 100 years—she parked herself at a medical tent. One month later, with no ambulances around to provide transport to a hospital, her grandson was born. With a donated birthing kit and the support of traditional midwives, Stenback “caught [her] grandson.”

Stenback grants herself “outlaw” status because she provided care during labor without a midwifery license in assumed violation of Hawaii’s HRS §457J, otherwise known as the Midwifery Restriction Law. Originally passed in the name of maternal and infant safety, the law is the subject of impassioned protests, new legislative proposals and a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation.

A New Frontier in Domestic Violence Prevention: Coercive Control Bans

PUBLISHED 11/11/2020 by
A New Frontier in Domestic Violence Prevention: Coercive Control Bans

COVID-19 has fueled a global surge in intimate partner violence. In response, two states—Hawaii and California—have recently taken the groundbreaking step of passing the nation’s first laws against coercive control.

“Coercive control is the first step in domestic violence. If we can identify it and stop it there, we can save lives,” said the bill’s sponsor, Hawaii Rep. David A. Tarnas.