Healthcare

Find stories here about healthcare in all its forms, including abortion and contraceptive care. Healthcare is a human right, and there are feminist providers and activists around the world working to ensure access for everyone across different income levels and identities.

Police Officer Domestic Violence Is A Crisis. It’s Time for States to Take Action.

PUBLISHED 12/11/2025 by

Domestic violence by police officers is a nationwide scourge. While the actual number of cases that happen every year is unknown, it’s likely in the tens of thousands. Police officers in almost every state have been charged with domestic violence since the start of 2025. Such figures demonstrate that police officer domestic violence is a structural failure, not the isolated misconduct of ‘a few bad apples.’

These numbers become even more sobering in light of police officer-abusers’ training and responsibilities, which makes them uniquely dangerous, and extremely undertrained: Less than 2 percent of police academy training time is spent on domestic violence response, while 17 percent is spent on weapons and defensive training.

Officer-abusers and their victims make clear that something is deeply wrong in our domestic violence support system. For now, we don’t understand the depth of that dysfunction, but we can be certain that more funding, better policy and less criminalization will help drive a better future.

International Telehealth Provider ‘Abortion Pills in Private’ Ready to Ramp Up if FDA Restricts Mifepristone

PUBLISHED 12/8/2025 by

As Trump’s FDA threatens to block U.S.-based medical providers from offering telehealth abortion, one international telehealth provider—Abortion Pills in Private—has vowed to continue providing mifepristone and misoprostol to U.S.-based patients, no matter what.

Their commitment is clear: “We will continue to send mifepristone, even if the FDA takes it off the market inside the U.S.. … We want to make this service easy, the best experience that it can be, with dignity. You can just go online, and it’s easy, and there’s no judgment. If you need this, we are here for you. Here are your pills. Here’s the support service that you need. You can do this from home. Whatever the reason is, we want to have that service there for you to be able to do that, no matter where you live.”

Their service and determination grew directly out of the post-Roe crisis. People find Abortion Pills in Private through the Plan C website. Since March 2024, they have served almost 3,500 patients in the U.S., most of them living in the hardest-hit states—those with abortion bans and severe restrictions. “They are from all over, but they are very much from banned states. Texas is always number one. Then Florida, Georgia. Even Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are some blue states too.”

Where ACA Premiums Could Spike Most in 2026 if Congress Lets Enhanced Tax Credits Expire

PUBLISHED 12/4/2025 by , , , , and

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) offers premium tax credits to help make health insurance more affordable. Under original Affordable Care Act provisions, an income cap for premium tax credits was set at 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Above that threshold, federal financial assistance was not available, creating a “subsidy cliff.”

Enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of this year. Enrollees currently receiving premium tax credits at any level of income will see their federal assistance decrease or disappear if enhanced premium tax credits expire, with an average increase of 114 percent to what enrollees pay in premiums net of tax credits.

The impact will be greatest for those whose unsubsidized premiums are highest: older Marketplace enrollees and those living in higher-premium locales.

Trump’s Silence on World AIDS Day Revives a New Lavender Scare

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

Last month, the State Department warned employees not to commemorate World AIDS Day through official work accounts, including social media, nor should they use government funds to mark Tuesday, Dec. 2, as World AIDS Day. The day came and went in a quiet, cold Washington, D.C., without the president marking what it represented—the more than 700,000 Americans who died from HIV/AIDS-related causes in the United States since 1981. 

If his intentions were unclear, Trump’s budget proposed ending all CDC HIV prevention programs this past June, and Congress continues to negotiate next year’s budget, proposing massive cuts to HIV programs. 

For many young people who never lost friends or family, there may be the misconception that the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s was localized and small, but nearly 300,000 men who have sex with men have died from AIDS-related complications, with over 6,000 deaths in 2019 alone. To put this in perspective, this would be as if over half of Wyoming’s population disappeared, or if everyone in Pittsburgh, Penn., vanished overnight. 

Even Madonna criticized Trump’s move, posting on Instagram, “It’s one thing to order federal agents to refrain from commemorating this day, but to ask the general public to pretend it never happened is ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s unthinkable. I bet he’s never watched his best friend die of AIDS, held their hand, and watched the blood drain from their face as they took their last breath at the age of 23.” 

A Century After the Eugenics Movement, the U.S. Is Again Barring Disabled Immigrants

PUBLISHED 11/20/2025 by

This month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed visa officers to consider obesity and other chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, as justification to deny people visas to the United States.

Many were outraged and shocked, observing the Trump administration’s new expansion of the “public charge” rule—directing visa officers to deny entry to people with disabilities, chronic illnesses or age-related conditions—as a modern revival of eugenic immigration policy designed to exclude, control and institutionalize disabled and marginalized people.

When Trump first took office in 2016, the Trump administration broadened the definition of public charge to include people who receive SNAP benefits, medicaid, housing assistance, childcare subsidies and more. This new rule was published in 2019 and went into effect in 2020 and early 2021; President Biden ended the use of this public charge rule definition in March 2021, returning it to the older but still restrictive version. Following Trump’s new rule, visa denials based on the “public charge” rule exploded during Trump’s first residency, rising from just over 1,000 denials in 2016 to over 20,000 in 2019, and it had disastrous effects.

As the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) found, broadening this public charge rule led many people to reduce or stop using benefits or services for themselves.

Dobbs Has Triggered Widespread Discrimination in Non-Reproductive Healthcare

PUBLISHED 11/18/2025 by

In the years since Roe was overturned, physicians across a wide range of medical specialties have described how abortion bans are undermining their ability to follow evidence-based standards of care. Dermatologists, oncologists, neurologists, cardiologists and others told Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that they are regularly forced to alter treatment plans, delay urgent care or avoid prescribing the most effective medications simply because those treatments could harm a pregnancy. These constraints are creating a chilling effect that reaches far beyond reproductive health and into the everyday practice of medicine.

As PHR’s Michele Heisler and Payal Shah explained, abortion bans are also fueling discriminatory care. Reproductive-age women are routinely denied the best available treatments, while men with the same conditions face no such barriers. Even within the group of reproductive-age women, clinicians are making decisions based on subjective judgments about a patient’s “contraceptive reliability”—a practice that opens the door to bias and disproportionately harms marginalized patients.

This two-tiered system of care is not hypothetical: It is already shaping medical decision-making in ban states, with dangerous consequences for patients’ health and lives.

Her Pregnancy Wasn’t Viable. Wisconsin’s Laws Still Made Her Fight for an Abortion.

PUBLISHED 11/18/2025 by

Abortion may be legal in Wisconsin, but the hurdles still involved forced mom Gracie Ladd, 33, to flee the state anyway.

“He recommended terminating the pregnancy because I was so low on amniotic fluid that Connor would most likely pass away before birth, which would put me at serious risk for infection. … I was aware Wisconsin had an abortion ban, but I was shocked to learn only two hospitals would do D&Es for someone 20 weeks pregnant.

“There was so much nonsense just for a woman to get essential care. …

“I received a huge amount of support from many people, even those I didn’t expect. That opened a door for me to use this experience to help other moms. … When Roe v. Wade fell, I wondered, ‘How do I help?’ But I felt insignificant, like my voice wouldn’t matter. But after this happened with Connor, it gave me a way to get involved and a reason to speak out about how abortion is healthcare.”

International Telehealth Provider ‘Women on Web’ Vows to Keep Abortion Pills Flowing to the U.S., No Matter What

PUBLISHED 11/17/2025 by

As Republicans push the FDA to restrict mifepristone, the international online abortion service Women on Web is reassuring Americans that they will continue to support access to abortion pills in all 50 states, no matter what. Women on Web has served over 130,000 people worldwide since 2005 and began serving the U.S. in July 2024.

Venny Ala-Siurua, executive director of Women on Web, was recently named to the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network Academe. Ms. spoke with Ala-Siurua about how their service connects people with pills, how they’re removing medical gatekeeping, and how they’re defending abortion access against digital censorship.

“We’ve always focused on countries where there are high restrictions on abortion. Unfortunately, the situation in some of the states in the U.S. qualifies now. … Many pharmacies and providers have stepped up internationally to support the U.S. and found ways of dispensing and shipping medicines really, really fast. …

“We are receiving around 30 requests per day from people in the U.S., though that number can rise during major political moments—for example, when Trump was elected or took office. Our U.S. care seekers live primarily in states with abortion bans. Globally, we currently handle approximately 4,000 requests each month.”

This FDA Decision Could Transform Menopause Care

PUBLISHED 11/12/2025 by and

On Monday, Nov. 10, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Food and Drug Administration would eliminate the “boxed labeling” requirement for estrogen products.

The “black box warning,” as it’s commonly called, is part of the fallout from a press conference that occurred more than 20 years ago, announcing the findings of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). It’s also been the subject of a half-century-long push and pull with the federal government.

Make no mistake, this has been a longstanding demand—it’s neither new nor MAHA-driven. Doctors and scientists have made the case for its removal since the start to no avail, arguing the data from the WHI—the largest, most expensive, and only randomized placebo-controlled study of post-menopausal women—never supported putting it there in the first place.

The FDA’s reversal of the labeling requirement is a major win for evidence-based medicine. Now it’s up to us to responsibly inform women of their choices.

‘The Rent Eats First’: Rationing Expired Food in the Wealthiest Country in the World

PUBLISHED 11/10/2025 by

Throughout the United States, the millions of families that rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—which make up 12.3 percent of Americans—have spent at least 10 days without them. The uncertainties about whether they will return, and when, has left families desperate. For many, the crisis has reinforced what they’ve long felt: The nation’s social safety programs are failing to meet real, everyday needs—and across Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Americans are growing disillusioned with politicians who can’t protect their most basic ones.

For many disabled Americans, losing SNAP also means losing the nutritional needs that help keep them out of the floundering U.S. healthcare system. They shared with Ms. a glimpse into what the past 10 days without SNAP have looked like, and what millions of Americans who rely on these programs actually need.

“If I lose benefits, am I going to be able to remain going to school?”

“They’re thinking about next week. Will they have food? Will they be hungry?”

“The problem is, the rent always eats first, or the house payment is going to eat first. After that? Are you going to [get your] medicine? No, we [have to pay] our utilities…. then you [think], ‘Okay, I’ve only got enough for either food or my medicine.’”