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.

Who’s Paying the Price for Trump’s Medicaid Cuts? Communities of Color and People Living With HIV.

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

President Trump and his Republican backers have been determined to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and expanded Medicaid coverage ever since his first term in office. This year he is finally getting his way, putting the health of tens of millions of Americans at risk.

It is racial minorities and the chronically ill who will be the most harmed.

A year ago, Congress passed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, putting in place onerous new eligibility requirements for Medicaid coverage, including work requirements. Medicaid enrollees ages 19 to 64 must complete at least 80 hours a month of work, community service, job training or education to maintain coverage, unless they qualify for an exemption. All states must comply with the new rule by Jan. 1, 2027.

The combination of ACA cuts and new barriers to Medicaid enrollment will likely cause historic coverage losses across the United States for years to come, according to new research: Nearly 16 million people stand to lose coverage by 2034.

The Myth of the ‘Perfect Birth’: What America Gets Wrong About Pregnancy, Birth and Maternal Care

PUBLISHED 7/26/2026 by

Project 2026’s pronatalist vision insists that America needs more babies—but largely ignores the conditions that make pregnancy and childbirth unnecessarily dangerous in the first place. In this interview with Ms., The Perfect Birth Myth co-authors Avital Norman Nathman and Deborah Wage argue that improving maternal health requires more than rhetoric about “family values.” It demands investments in midwives, doulas, paid family leave, prenatal and postpartum care, and policies that address the racial and economic inequities driving the nation’s maternal mortality crisis.

Drawing on surveys of nearly 3,000 parents and healthcare providers, Nathman and Wage dismantle persistent myths about birth while exposing the structural failures of the U.S. maternity care system—from hospital closures and Medicaid cuts to the medical establishment’s resistance to alternative models of care. They explain why Black women continue to face disproportionately poor outcomes regardless of income or education, why conservative pronatalist policies fall short, and what it would take to build a maternal healthcare system that truly supports families.

Hegseth’s Testosterone Bit Isn’t About Health

PUBLISHED 7/24/2026 by

The Trump administration has gotten rather … hormonal. As someone who cares deeply about the science and politics of all kinds of bodily matters, including and especially hormonal health and treatments, it is a truly bizarre exercise to unpack the latest news.

Last week, the defense secretary took to the airwaves to announce new mandatory screening of testosterone levels for all military members over 30, arguing the need to “optimize performance,” “combat Operator Syndrome” (a physical and behavioral condition uniquely attributed to soldiers who undergo intense training) and “maximize mission readiness.” Anyone deemed testosterone-deficient will be offered hormone therapy, presumably including the 230,000 women in active-duty service — who presumably may seek access to estrogen, progesterone and/or testosterone (hard to say given that women were not mentioned).

But of course, debate over optimal hormonal health is hardly the point. Only the most jacked-up soldiers fulfill Hegseth’s military fever dream — which he has made clear is devoid of women, whom he wants removed from combat roles altogether (he also has continued to block promotions of active-duty female Naval officers). The Trump administration has already banned transgender soldiers, at least based in part on the theory that their hormone treatments (though, in this case, they’d call it gender-affirming care, with a sneer) would be challenging to sustain.

It is not easy for me to put aside Hegseth’s distorted recasting of testosterone. That said, it happens to be true that federal regulatory guidelines for its usage are in need of an update and upgrade. As a menopause advocate, I fight hard for a world in which accessible, affordable hormonal care and treatment is a priority for all.

Civil Rights Coalition Urges Senate to Reject Trump’s Attorney General Pick: ‘An Instrument of Trump’s Personal Revenge’

PUBLISHED 7/12/2026 by | UPDATED 9/2/2026 at 8:54 A.M. PT

President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, July 15, and Thursday, July 16. 

Ahead of the hearing, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights along with dozens of national organizations (including the Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms.) sent a letter to the committee calling on senators to vote against his confirmation, citing a pattern of political interference and attacks on civil rights protections. 

Blanche “has turned the DOJ into an instrument of Trump’s personal rage and revenge,” the coalition writes. “The role of the Attorney General is not to protect the interests of the President, but to protect the interests of the nation’s people.”

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.

The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Will Strip Healthcare From Millions—Especially Women and Disabled People

PUBLISHED 7/7/2026 by and

Over 70 million people depend on Medicaid. The Trump administration and members of Congress who constantly turn to the program to make cuts, want you to think that’s a problem. It isn’t—it’s the point.

Every talking point repeated by politicians, amplified by the media and embedded in the rhetoric of those who just voted to gut $1 trillion from the program, is not a policy argument. It’s a cover story. The administration’s story of a typical Medicaid beneficiary is rooted in falsehoods about who is currently supported by the program.

The reality of Medicaid looks like:

… a 59-year-old woman in North Carolina who closed her small business because her eyesight failed, who sorts recyclables at a concert venue when the season allows, who survives on less than $10,000 a year and who relies on Medicaid for arthritis medication and blood pressure care.

Or a 63-year-old woman in Arkansas who spent her career working and now serves as the sole caregiver for her husband with advanced cancer, who is unable to leave him to log the 80 hours a month the federal government will soon demand of her on top of the role she already plays, filling gaps in a system that was already threadbare before it was slashed.

Or a young mom who has been trying for years to find an answer for the rare disease that makes her periodically unable to walk, while struggling to hold down her retail job and care for her kids while waiting months to see specialists.

These are the faces of Medicaid, and this is who HR 1—the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act—and the cuts within it, will harm.

And now, with a new interim final rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the situation has gotten measurably worse by an administration going further than Congress intended, leaving states scrambling.

The public comment period on the interim final rule closes July 31, 2026. Make your voice heard today.

Looking to Black and Indigenous Foremothers to Resist Erasure

PUBLISHED 7/2/2026 by

Free Black women and Indigenous women are the foremothers of generations of African Americans. Yet they remain largely absent from the official story of American freedom. Their lives, contributions and descendants have been systematically erased—from colonial records and legal classifications to public memory itself.

That erasure began in the earliest colonial records. The 1620 Virginia census recorded “four Indians in the service of several planters,” alongside 15 Negro men and 17 Negro women, reducing people to categories that obscured their identities, families and histories. Over the centuries, laws, court decisions and public institutions repeatedly reinforced that disappearance.

The best celebration of 250 years of American freedom—after the fireworks and celebrations by a newly blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are over—could be a visit to a cool, air-conditioned archive. In the quiet, anyone can search the records for the full story, of the enslaved and freeborn, Indian and African. Anyone can defy censorship and erasure with an open mind and a pencil, no fees required. 

Public Health Under Fire: Military Flu Outbreak Illustrates the Danger of Politicizing Vaccine Policy

PUBLISHED 6/25/2026 by

Few medical advances have saved more lives than vaccines. Yet the Trump administration continues to undermine that success by politicizing public health and discrediting decades of scientific evidence. The recent flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base—which sickened nearly 300 service members after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended the military’s longstanding flu vaccine requirement—offers a stark reminder of what happens when ideology replaces evidence.

This is not an isolated incident. From weakening federal vaccine recommendations under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to fueling distrust in routine immunizations, the administration’s anti-science agenda is already contributing to preventable outbreaks and declining vaccination rates.

Public health should never be a partisan project, and the costs of treating it as one are measured in illness, lost readiness and lives put at unnecessary risk.

Four Years After Dobbs, Women’s Healthcare Is a Scarce Resource

PUBLISHED 6/24/2026 by and

This week marks four years since the Supreme Court revoked the federal right to abortion, catapulting the nation into an era of state-sanctioned deprivation of bodily autonomy for American women.

On this anniversary, we write to take stock of one of the underreported outcomes of Dobbs: the growing number of individuals and families for whom access to healthcare is diminishing because of a rise in medical deserts.

It’s common sense—there is no reason for highly mobile professionals to remain in places where they find themselves increasingly facing the prospect of personal risk for practicing medicine.

Not surprisingly, medical deserts are prevalent in conservative and rural states; the downstream pressure suggests it soon will become an issue for blue states, too.

The impact on America’s unconscionable maternal and infant mortality rates cannot be overstated. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy country; as rates continue to drop worldwide, they climb higher here, with Black women more than three times more likely than white women to die in childbirth. Infant mortality has risen specifically in states that enacted abortion restrictions since 2022, again with impacts worse among Black infants.