In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART)

After Her Near-Fatal Pregnancy Crisis, Amanda Zurawski Is Finally a Mom

PUBLISHED 10/1/2026 by

In 2022, Amanda Zurawski became a national figure after she nearly died from pregnancy complications in Texas. Zurawski had conceived that pregnancy through intrauterine insemination (IUI), but when her water broke at 18 weeks, doctors delayed abortion care until she developed life-threatening sepsis. The infection left severe scarring in her reproductive organs, leading her and her husband, Josh, to pursue IVF and a surrogate, who gave birth to their son, August, on Sept. 13.

“August Mikel James Zurawski was born on Sep. 13, and he is happy and healthy. We are the happiest. … For the present, we hope to stay in Texas and fight. But now we have someone else to think about.”

The Same People Policing AOC’s Fertility Want to Police Abortion, Too

PUBLISHED 8/17/2026 by

If you’ve seen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s posts about freezing her eggs on Instagram, you’ve likely heard about the backlash she’s facing from folks who have called her, at turns, hypocritical, insincere, selfish and, at 36, too old to be a mother.

Funny how we didn’t hear such outcry about age when Jon Hamm announced around the same time that he’s becoming a father at 55. Or when Alec Baldwin, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino—and believe me, I could go on—welcomed new children at 64, 79 and 83. Or when Second Lady Usha Vance, at 40, announced earlier this year that she was expecting.

None of us deserve an explanation from AOC about why she is making the choice she is making. That’s the whole point: It’s her choice, and we have the right to make the choices we want about our bodies and our reproductive lives. Full stop.

And there’s power in talking about it, on our terms. That’s why so many women are feeling seen and reflected in AOC’s posts, and why it’s so empowering to have her make this decision out loud.

They Blame Feminism for Falling Birth Rates—but Data Says It’s Saving Families

PUBLISHED 5/6/2026 by

Last month, the newest fertility data dropped—and the U.S. fertility rate has fallen again, hitting another record low.

Almost immediately, conservative influencers, media figures and elected officials pointed fingers at feminism, blaming women’s independence, career ambitions and access to contraception for the decline in births.

It’s a convenient narrative to push along their anti-birth control agenda. But it’s also wrong.

If you actually listen to women—and look at the data—the story becomes much clearer. The number one reason women are delaying or forgoing having children isn’t ideology, it’s affordability. Childcare costs, housing prices and healthcare access have made starting a family financially daunting for millions of Americans. Mix in student loan debt and political turmoil, and having a baby in 2026 is a scary venture. 

And yet, instead of addressing these barriers, policymakers—and organizations leading the way like the Heritage Foundation—are moving in the opposite direction. They are cutting or rolling back the very programs that make family life possible.

Fewer Teen Births Is Good, Unless You’re the Patriarchy

PUBLISHED 4/17/2026 by

How on-brand for the federal government to announce that U.S. birth rates are falling—just as The Testaments, the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, dropped on Hulu.

In the fictional nation of Gilead, first envisioned by Margaret Atwood in her 1985 dystopian novel and expanded on screen for nearly a decade now, declining fertility catalyzed a Christian nationalist revolution in modern-day America, spawning a society rooted in patriarchal dominance and state-sanctioned violence. The Testaments, now three episodes in, is making a deliberate appeal to Gen Z and young viewers, featuring the spectacularly savvy Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday among Gilead’s tradwife-in-training rebels.

Doubly fascinating then, that it is the real-life status of teen birth rates in particular now driving the news. In a drop considered “extraordinary” by statisticians, the number of babies born to mothers between the ages of 15 and 19 fell by 7 percent in 2025.

Nevertheless, many on the right jumped directly into the fray to publicly lament that teens are having fewer babies.

Three Women Veterans on the Devastating Reality of the VA Abortion Ban

PUBLISHED 3/15/2026 by | UPDATED 3/16/2026 at 7:54 A.M. PT

The Trump administration is no longer providing abortion care for veterans relying on VA healthcare, even in instances of rape and incest.

Through firsthand accounts, veterans describe the fear, medical risk and loss of autonomy created by the policy.

“Abortion is my right, if that was what I deemed I needed.”

“No patient in America should have to go back and forth with their providers … and for damn sure not with no politicians about what medical care they are allowed to have.”

“We are all people who volunteered. We raised our hands and said, ‘yes send me.’ Healthcare is our right as veterans.”

Senate Blocks Effort to Restore Abortion Access for Veterans

PUBLISHED 3/13/2026 by | UPDATED 3/30/2026 at 10:21 A.M. PT

In the final days of 2025, under the cover of the holidays, Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) instated a total ban on abortion and abortion counseling.

The new policy applies to all VA healthcare facilities across the U.S., including in states where abortion remains legal. As a result, the VA now has “one of the strictest abortion bans in the country,” according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In late January, Sens. Patty Murray, Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer and Democratic members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee introduced a joint Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution—an oversight tool through which Congress can overturn rules issued by federal agencies, by a simple majority—to nullify the administration’s abortion and abortion counseling exclusion.

Garnering a same-day endorsement by an array of veterans’, medical, women’s, and reproductive health and rights organizations, they urged “both chambers to act swiftly to overturn this extreme policy that puts veterans’ health and safety at risk.” 

Dissecting Trump’s (Short) Women’s History Month Statement, Line by Line

PUBLISHED 3/12/2026 by

When the White House issued a presidential message to kick off Women’s History Month, my first reaction was genuine surprise. Honestly, I did not think WHM was still recognized by the federal government.

President Donald Trump’s brief (four paragraphs) public statement doubled down on the administration’s regressive societal vision, casting women primarily as caretakers and pillars of the “American family,” while pointing to a slate of policies he claims empower them.

But a closer look at the statement reveals a familiar mix of culture-war signaling, selective policy claims, and omissions that obscure the real impacts of the administration’s agenda on women and families.

I think often about the role of the media at this moment—an obligation intrinsically greater than reporting the verbiage that comes out of the White House. It is on all of us to explicitly counter double-speak and lies and to leave a paper trail of truth for posterity. This week’s column does just that: It dissects Trump’s WHM proclamation line by line and tests each claimed reform against the record.

The Heritage Foundation’s Plan to Keep Women Uneducated, Pregnant and Subservient

PUBLISHED 2/20/2026 by

Since Trump’s re-ascendance to the White House, the reactionary conservative movement has become the most aggressive and unfettered it has been in my lifetime. And they are getting very, very clear on what they think an acceptable life looks like for women:

—Settle for any man who decides he wants you.
—Don’t go to college.
—Marry early.
—Have as many babies as possible.
—Quit your job (or don’t pursue one in the first place) to stay home full time and depend financially on your husband.
—Shoulder the blame if you wind up married to a jerk.
—Wind up impoverished if you divorce.
—Face social condemnation if you fail to follow the tradwife script.
—Contraception should be illegal or at least hard to get; same for IVF and other fertility treatments.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s a plan they wrote down and published: Last month, the Heritage Foundation published “Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years.” Think of it as Project 2275, a detailed plan that is mostly about how America can spend the next two and a half centuries undoing the feminist progress we’ve made.

The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients

PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by

The first year of Trump’s second term marked major blows for reproductive healthcare. Medicaid funding cuts forced about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics to close throughout the U.S. and blocked 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid from using their insurance to pay for reproductive healthcare. Twenty-three independent abortion clinics throughout the country also shut down in 2025.

Now, at the start of 2026, there are only nine states where it is possible to get a legal abortion with no restrictions.

Four years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe, here are some of the key ways states are pushing harder than ever to end any access to abortion.