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

How Abortion Protects Us From the Choices We Can’t Make

PUBLISHED 8/26/2024 by

I was thrilled to hear DNC speakers say the word “abortion,” speaking up on behalf of reproductive freedom. But I tensed up whenever someone spoke in terms of protecting women’s “decisions” about pregnancy.

There is a lot about pregnancy that happens in the absence of any decision at all, or in spite of the decisions people make—like an ectopic pregnancy, or a spontaneous miscarriage, or pregnancy as a result of sexual abuse. That’s why we must ensure that the law, something we can control, does not cruelly add to families’ experiences of powerlessness, pain and loss.

Democratic Party Platform Centers Women’s Rights

PUBLISHED 8/22/2024 by

At the DNC in Chicago, party leaders approved the 2024 Democratic party platform Monday evening, promising to protect and strengthen women’s rights. The 91-page document is a stark contrast to the Republican platform, which promises to continue the dismantling of women’s rights started during Donald Trump’s first term in office.

Here are some of the parts of the Democratic party platform focused on women’s rights—including restoring abortion access, protecting contraception access, and making the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land.

LIVE UPDATES From Ms. @ DNC: Harris Makes a Compelling Case for Her Presidency and for America’s Future

PUBLISHED 8/19/2024 by | UPDATED 6/30/2026 at 11:21 A.M. PT

For those seeking an inside look at the intersection of politics and feminism, Ms. writers and editors are on the ground in Chicago, delivering real-time insights and reflections from the heart of the DNC, capturing the narratives and voices shaping the future of U.S. politics.

Explore: a roundtable with Democratic women governors and Julia Louis-Dreyfus; freedom-themed evening programing includes appearances from reproductive rights leaders, Oprah, Jan. 6 survivors and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; what’s driving women voters; and more.

Support Is Surging for VP Harris. Her Abortion Rights Leadership Is a Major Reason Why.

PUBLISHED 7/31/2024 by

Within hours of President Joe Biden’s announcing he would withdraw from the presidential race, 44,000 Black women met online and raised over $1.5 million for Vice President Kamala Harris in just an hour and a half. On the popular fundraising website Act Blue, Democrats raised over $90 million in the first 24 hours from 888,000 donors, 60 percent giving for the first time, making it the third-largest single day in the website’s history. “This might be the greatest fundraising moment in Democratic Party history,” said Democratic digital strategist Kenneth Pennington.

While there are many factors as to why Harris has received such enthusiastic support, one hugely important reason is her leadership on reproductive rights.

Project 2025’s Holier-Than-Thou Plans for Your Health

PUBLISHED 7/30/2024 by

Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership is the radical vision for America’s future under the next Republican president. If you’re like me, you’re curious about where the $22 million to produce its 900-pages of planning and policy came from. The project claims it’s the product of over 100 organizations, headed by The Heritage Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit. It has a long and influential history with deep monied roots.

I focused on the health-related parts of Project 2025’s chapter on Health and Human Services—our nation’s department for medical and family concerns—as its authors rail against the Center for Disease Control, abortion access and abortion pills, childcare, fertility treatments, what makes a proper family, and more. It’s dystopian, to say the least.

Republican National Platform Invites Nationwide Abortion Ban by Supreme Court Decree

PUBLISHED 7/16/2024 by | UPDATED 7/29/2024 at 3:33 P.M. PT

To give themselves political cover in the fall elections, conservatives have devised a way to sidestep democratic processes and political accountability while still achieving a nationwide abortion ban. They hope to do this by asking the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court to interpret the 14th Amendment to ban abortion nationwide. In other words, they don’t need a new amendment because they assert the Constitution already bans abortion.  

The 22 Scariest Lines We Found in Project 2025’s 900-Page ‘Mandate for Leadership’

PUBLISHED 7/16/2024 by , , , and

Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for the next Republican president, maps out the permanent reversal of more than 50 years of gains for American women and LGBTQ+ people. The authors of Project 2025—80 percent of whom served in the first Trump administration—paint a picture of a nation where women are fundamentally second class citizens.

Project 2025 contains an 887-page policy agenda. We read the whole thing, so you don’t have to. Here are the most terrifying things we found. 

JD Vance, Trump’s VP Pick, Has Opposed Abortion and LGBTQ+ Rights

PUBLISHED 7/15/2024 by

Former President Donald Trump has selected as his running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who has opposed abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights in his time in political office. 

Vance, who ran as staunchly anti-abortion in his Senate campaign and in 2021 compared abortion to slavery, has somewhat shifted his public stance on the issue. Trump has reportedly viewed a hardline stance on abortion as a negative for a running mate. 

On the campaign trail in 2021, Vance defended the lack of exceptions for rape and incest in a Texas abortion ban known as S.B. 8, saying in an interview that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” In a July 2021 interview with Fox News, he criticized “the childless left,” saying, “Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children?” In June, Vance voted against a Democratic-led bill to enshrine access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). 

The GOP Isn’t Getting Less Radical on Abortion—They’re Getting Better at Lying

PUBLISHED 7/12/2024 by

It’s not that Donald Trump is secretly pro-choice; it’s that he truly does not care at all about abortion rights either way, and anti-abortion groups were useful in getting him elected.

Now, though, those same groups are putting his candidacy at risk. 2024 is not 2016. Trump is adjusting accordingly. And one big adjustment is on abortion, which he wants Republicans to just quit talking about—for now. Once he’s in office, though, the calculus is different.