Mental Health

Support for improving mental health is just as vital as with physical health. However, stigma surrounds speaking about mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, especially for parents who struggle with these disorders. For this reason, its effects are criminalized and resources are limited to privileged communities.

Built to Withstand Trump-Era Attacks on Mifepristone: New Telehealth Provider Serves All 50 States for Sliding-Scale Fee

PUBLISHED 8/11/2026 by

Telehealth provider At Home Abortion just opened Aug. 11, but the six doctors and nurses running the service have over 100 years combined experience providing abortion and other reproductive healthcare.

At Home Abortion (AHA) is the latest to join the growing field of telehealth abortion providers. AHA is unique in that the company serves patients in all 50 states, offers comprehensive support to all their patients and is based in Europe so is resistant to Trump administration attacks on telehealth abortion with mifepristone. In other words, AHA will be able to continue to provide gold-standard abortion pill service with mifepristone and misoprostol, no matter what the Trump administration, courts or Republican states do to try to suppress mifepristone access inside the United States.

“We’re here to make it as easy, safe and available as possible for people to get care, and we want to support people all the way through,” said an AHA representative.

The intake form takes about five minutes to complete. Clinicians review intake forms within one to 12 hours. When a patient is eligible for a medication abortion, AHA providers send a prescription to a pharmacy in a shield law state that sends FDA-approved medicines—one mifepristone and 12 misoprostol—to the patient in a plain package to any address in the United States plus military bases and US territories. The pill containers do not have the patient’s or the provider’s names on them, ensuring confidentiality. AHA also sends anti-nausea medication. Patients receive the medications in two to four days.

Then, through a secure messaging portal, AHA sends the patient clear and detailed instructions on how to use the medications and what to expect during and after the abortion. AHA also shares a telephone number for the patient to call or text for questions.

AHA providers are available 24/7 to support their patients by voice or text before, during and after the abortion.

“That is really important to us, especially in the United States where people are so afraid of what is going on and afraid to search out other care,” said an AHA representative. “We want to make sure that we are there for them. We know that anxiety increases people’s pain. It makes the experience more difficult. So they need that support.”

In addition to abortion pills, AHA offers miscarriage care, emergency contraception and birth control, as well as abortion pills in advance of pregnancy.

If the Louisiana lawsuit attempting to restrict mifepristone succeeds, or the FDA reinstates medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone, AHA has several options to continue providing telehealth abortion with mifepristone to patients in all 50 states and territories.

Never Surrender: Empowered Wives Were Never the Problem

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by

Over the past year, several women-focused articles in the New York Times declared feminism has gone too far, and put the onus on women to fix what is broken.

An article asking if liberal feminism “ruined the workplace” broke the internet late last year.

An article last month featured a conversation with influential, right-wing columnist Louise Perry, about how women need to change, in order to close the growing gap between men and women. Perry’s position justifies re‑inscribing patriarchal control over women’s bodies and sexuality in the name of “protecting” us.

I feel a familiar sense of disappointment in the recent feature, “Women Are Too Controlling, She Wrote. Her Message Still Resonates,” about Laura Doyle, author of The Surrendered Wife, a 2001 self‑help book and the basis for a relationship “movement” that teaches women to relinquish control in their marriages, defer to their husbands’ decisions (including finances), and focus on their own “self‑care” and gratitude to restore intimacy and harmony.

Each article asks a version of the same question: How should women change?

Doyle’s message and the broader “surrendered wife” ideology, is troubling.

What struck me even more was that one of the country’s most influential newspapers presented it as a growing cultural trend, without examining the cultural forces and gender expectations that have long reinforced this ideology.

Women and feminism don’t need to surrender. They were never the problem.    

I Put My Career on Hold to Raise Five Children and Care for My Disabled Mother. America Depends on Women Like Me.

PUBLISHED 7/28/2026 by

Front & Center amplifies the voices of Black women navigating poverty—highlighting their struggles, resilience and dreams as they care for their families, build careers and challenge systems not built for their success. Now in its fourth year, Front & Center is a collaboration between Ms. and Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit based in Jackson, Miss., working alongside residents of federally subsidized housing as they pursue their goals.

Christy is a Jackson, Miss.-based mother of five, family caregiver and entrepreneur. She is caring for her disabled mother while pursuing her dream of one day growing her catering business into a food truck.

“Taking care of my children and my mom at the same time is rewarding, but it is also hard. I really don’t get much help with my kids from their dad, so most of the time I’m here with them.

“What would make caregiving for two generations of family easier, is a break. If my mom had places to go, or if somebody could take her every other weekend or even every weekend sometimes, that would give me time to myself to breathe and live a little bit. My siblings are far away, my car situation makes it hard to get around and I’m always here, so having a little peace would help me and my kids too.

“Childcare vouchers … helped a lot with after-school care and transportation, but when I recently had to recertify, I was cut off because I missed getting a copy of my ID in by the deadline and ended up on a waiting list.”

Domestic Violence Is a Men’s Issue

PUBLISHED 7/28/2026 by

Nearly one in two women has experienced domestic violence (DV) in their lifetime, yet accountability remains limited, as nearly half of survivors never report their abuse to law enforcement. Out of fear of retribution, survivors often minimize harm and shield their perpetrator’s behavior, shifting responsibility away from them: “That’s just how men are,” or “He didn’t mean it.” DV affects almost everyone—directly or indirectly. Nearly half of people know someone who has experienced it, through personal experience, witnessing it in childhood, seeing loved ones endure it or encountering it in public spaces. 

DV has taught me about silence. The silence of victims who feared retaliation or shame. The silence of witnesses like me who did not know how to intervene. And the silence of communities that preferred to avoid conflict and not to disrupt the image of a functional family. Silence does not protect anyone; it allows the harm to continue. 

In America, toxic masculinity thrives in that silence. It discourages men from seeking help, discourages women from speaking out and discourages bystanders from stepping in. Over time, domestic violence becomes predictable as patterns emerge—slammed doors, raised voices, a tension that fills rooms before anyone speaks.

Over time, beneath their rage, I’ve come to understand that many male abusers are suffering too or have suffered. The problem is, intimate partner violence will not end by ignoring men. This raises essential questions beyond how did we get here, in a nation that champions violence and spends more on its military than on education and social services. For example, who is intervening to address husbands and boyfriends who batter? What tools are needed to support men in building lives free from violence? Let’s be clear, addressing these challenging concerns will not only benefit men, but also their families and society more broadly. Families deserve to heal from domestic violence, and men should be part of that equation.   

What Happens When a Dancer Is Forced to Become a Refugee? ‘Born to Dance, Forced to Run’ Captures Life Under the Shadow of Deportation

PUBLISHED 7/22/2026 by

Born to Dance, Forced to Run is a powerful new documentary that follows Steeven Labady, a queer Haitian dancer whose relentless pursuit of his artistic dreams is continually upended by displacement, asylum battles and the constant threat of deportation. Through his extraordinary journey, filmmaker and Haitian feminist activist Pascale Solages reveals the human cost of migration policies, transforming an abstract political debate into an intimate story of resilience, survival and hope.

At a moment when the Trump administration is dismantling Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and escalating immigration enforcement, the film’s message could not be more urgent. It’s a deeply human portrait of what it means to live undocumented under the shadow of deportation.

Born to Dance, Forced to Run premieres in New York on Saturday, July 25, at 6 p.m. at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, where audiences will have an opportunity to experience this moving documentary on the big screen, followed by a Q&A.

You Will Hear These 10 False Narratives About Abortion. Here’s All You’ll Need to Fight Back

PUBLISHED 7/15/2026 by

Misinformation about abortion care is rampant and being weaponized at state and federal levels to justify wide-ranging restrictions across the United States.

Ensuring awareness of these narratives, and combatting them with rigorous data and evidence, is critical both for preventing them from becoming entrenched in law and for rolling back harmful policies rooted in misinformation.

This fact sheet offers evidence-based statements to counter 10 common but false narratives about abortion, and offers readers additional ways to dive deeper.

What to Know About Later Abortions: Myths, Barriers and Patient Stories

PUBLISHED 7/7/2026 by

Later abortion is one of the most stigmatized and least understood aspects of reproductive health, and yet some of the voices perpetuating that stigma come from inside the reproductive rights movement itself. Meanwhile, while most abortions happen in the first trimester, later abortions are increasing as restrictions and bans are delaying care and creating the very conditions that make them necessary.

To address these misconceptions, Erika Christensen and Garin Marschall created Patient Forward after Christensen experienced a later abortion in 2016. The organization is dedicated to eliminating later abortion stigma and barriers.

“We have a lot of folks in the media, including repro[ductive rights] advocates, saying, ‘Nobody wants to do this,’ or, ‘It’s not even available,’ or, ‘Nobody’s getting abortions that late.’ Yes, they are. They’re getting them in safe, modern, incredibly compassionate abortion clinics,” said Christensen. “We do a lot of destigmatizing work.”

Patient Forward emphasizes that most people who obtain a later abortion would have preferred to access an abortion earlier: “Contrary to popular rhetoric, patients do not wait. Rather, they are delayed.”

“We have found that young people are much later to recognize they’re pregnant because their periods are irregular anyway, because they may not be familiar with all the symptoms of pregnancy,” says Dr. Diana Foster Greene of University of California San Francisco. “People with chronic health conditions are also later to discover they’re pregnant because often chronic health conditions have the same symptoms of pregnancy.”

A Rape-Survivor-Turned-Prosecutor Is Teaching Women How to Heal

PUBLISHED 7/5/2026 by

One of us is a doctor, the other a lawyer. We’re also members of a club that no woman ever asks to join, but too many are forced into, often by men they loved and trusted.

JoDee Neil, a Texas attorney and former prosecutor, has spent her career seeking justice for survivors of sexual violence. Now, in her new book Outcry Witness, she tells her own story—one shaped by rape, trauma and the long, uneven path toward healing. As survivors ourselves, we recognized something familiar in each other: the understanding that comes without explanation, and the belief that when institutions fail us, women often become each other’s lifeline.

An “outcry witness” is the first person a survivor tells about their abuse, and that response can shape the course of healing. Neil argues that being believed is not a small act of compassion—it is the foundation on which survivors rebuild their lives.

In an era when powerful men continue to evade accountability, Outcry Witness offers something the legal system too often cannot: validation, community and hope.

Our conversation became more than an interview. It became a reminder that storytelling is itself an act of resistance—that women speaking honestly to one another can challenge shame, expose violence and create the conditions for healing.

“We are at the precipice of the dam breaking,” Neil told me. “We’ve never been able to communicate in real time with each other, to really put the pieces together. … I am so full of excitement to be a part of this movement for humanity.”

Her book is an invitation for survivors to do exactly that.

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. 

What We Learned When We Stayed: What 50 Years of Care in the South Taught Us About Abortion and Trans Rights

PUBLISHED 6/24/2026 by and

We’ve been here before.

When Dobbs v. Jackson came for abortion care in our states, we did two things: We opened clinics across state lines so our patients would still have a legal option. And we stayed. We kept our original clinics open, expanding the care we’d always offered or always wanted to offer.

When U.S. v. Skrmetti came for gender-affirming care, we kept providing that too, because abortion care patients and transgender patients are not separate communities.

The calculation patients make before they walk through the door is identical for both communities: Will I be seen? Will I be safe? Will the person across from me treat my body with humanity, or like a problem to be managed?

June marks anniversaries of both Dobbs and Skrmetti, and that conviction has never felt more urgent. Long before these two cases, the intersection of abortion rights and trans rights was already living in our waiting rooms; in the patients who received reproductive care and gender-affirming hormone therapy under the same roof; in the person who drove hours across the state because we were the only provider they trusted; and in those who trust us with their whole-person care because their grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts and friends have relied on our clinics for care for 50 years.

Between our two organizations, we’ve earned a century’s worth of experience at the practice of staying and enduring. CHOICES has kept their doors open for 52 years, and the Women’s Health Centers of West Virginia and Maryland will celebrate 50 years of care on June 24—the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned four years ago.

Support independent clinics in hard places keeping the doors open. And when the next fight comes, show up for the communities under pressure. Remember that those targeted first won’t be the last, but they will be the ones to lead the way.