Military

Stories about the effect of the military on marginalized groups related to military history, domestic and foreign politics, mental health and gendered issues, either in the U.S. or abroad.

War on Women Report: Trump Administration Defines Embryos as ‘Children,’ Eliminates LGBTQ Veteran Healthcare *and* Guts Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs

PUBLISHED 7/1/2026 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—This month marked the fourth anniversary of Dobbs. Today, 41 states have some form of abortion restrictions in place, including 13 states that ban abortion entirely.
—HHS has terminated 53 of its 67 grants for the federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, totaling about $68 million and affecting grantees in two dozen states.
—Two family planning programs sued the Trump administration for curtailing the Title X grant program, which funded clinics providing reproductive healthcare services to low-income patients.

… and more.

Keeping Score: Threats Against Abortion Clinics Doubled in 2025; Sounding the Alarm on ‘Horrible Conditions’ of Delaney Immigration Center; Pride Celebrations Around the U.S.

PUBLISHED 6/10/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—”Trump only seems to have the capability to fire female secretaries,” observes AOC.
—Two-thirds of abortion clinics reported violence or harassment in 2025.
—The TAKE IT DOWN Act (Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act) took effect last month. It requires social media sites to take down non-consensual sexual imagery within 48 hours.
—Members of Congress visited the Delaney Hall Immigration Detention Center after detainees started a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions.
—The Trump administration announced an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who Trump sexually abused and defamed.
—Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape trial resulted in another mistrial.
—A North Carolina bill would allow deadly force against patients seeking abortion care.
—Healthcare premiums have skyrocketed, forcing 21 percent of HealthCare.gov enrollees to lose coverage.
—Women freelancers charge an average of 19 percent less per hour than men.
—Americans are struggling to access disability benefits after cuts to the Social Security Administration.
—Social media platforms are enabling anti-LGBTQ hate and censorship.
—Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act to ban the death penalty at the federal level. Last month, the DOJ announced they would bring back firing squads and potentially electrocution and lethal gas for executions.
—A comprehensive calendar shows all the Pride parades this month, across the country and globe.

… and more.

Remembering War’s Impacts on Women and Girls on Memorial Day

PUBLISHED 5/24/2026 by

As we pause to mark Memorial Day on Monday, I’m thinking about the women affected by war—whether they’re fighting on the front lines, working in the service as nurses, or civilians saddled with the consequences of wars started by men living in far-off lands who barely know they exist.

Research shows that women and girls face unique and acute impacts in armed conflict situations. For women on the ground in Iran, who are already subject to increased policing at the hands of their own government, these impacts are multiplied. Since 165 girls were killed by an American missile in the bombing of an elementary school earlier this year, thousands more women and girls have continued to be displaced and killed in airstrikes. And as the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security points out, women also face increased environmental tolls from the bombing of oil and gas infrastructure—which causes pollution that can lead to health issues and reproductive complications.

The First Mother’s Day Was a Protest

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by

Far from mimosa brunches and hallmark greetings, the first Mother’s Day in the United States occurred against the scourge of war. In 1870, abolitionist and suffragist Julie Ward Howe who still had the horrors of the Civil War on her mind and was disturbed by the plight of war abroad called for an international movement of mothers as a way to call for peace and to protest the devastation of war.

History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Mother’s Day comes this year as our nation and those across the globe are living with the dire consequences of a war with Iran Congress never authorized. The war has cost American lives as well as the lives of innocent children–including nearly 100 schoolgirls—in Iran. Former U.S. military officials have criticized the Pentagon’s strike and the lack of transparency around it. The president continues to threaten many of our global allies, as the rate of autocracies across the globe rise while democracies decline. All the while, costs continue to rise, making it harder and harder for working people to make ends meet. 

The only way this crisis will become a catalyst for change is if we commit not just to rebuilding our nation, but to reimagining it as a nation that can hold all of us and to demand that our leaders drive bold change to achieve true democracy and true change for the next generation. A nation where it is unacceptable for children to go hungry while others enjoy nation-building wealth. A nation where it is unacceptable to detain children and infants based on their skin color or who their parents are or where they are from. A nation where every person finds the courage to call out the cruelty. 

On this Mother’s Day, may we all be the mothers—and the fighters—our children need. If we don’t, who will? 

Ms. Global: Energy Crisis in Cuba, Feminist Activist Assassinated in Iraq, Gay Asylum-Seeker Deported and More

PUBLISHED 4/8/2026 by and

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to healthcare. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This month:
—Seoul holds the 41st Women’s Strike in South Korea for International Women’s Day.
—Hospital patients suffer during Cuba’s three major blackouts.
—The U.S. is at fault for the missile strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28, killing 175 people.
—Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights defender, was killed in an armed attack in Baghdad.
—IOC restricts transgender participation in Olympics.
—Amid widespread displacement, poverty and institutional collapse during the ongoing war in Gaza, families are increasingly turning to child marriage for their daughters.

… and more.

Women in the Military Put Their Lives on the Line. The Trump Administration Is Stripping Their Rights

PUBLISHED 4/3/2026 by

As the war in Iran rages on another week, 13 United States armed service members have been killed, three of them women. Nearly 20 percent of those currently serving across the entire U.S. military are women—who also represent the fastest-growing segment of the veteran population, more than 2 million strong today.

Not surprisingly, women who serve are also a direct target of the misogyny of the Trump administration.

Republicans Want Tougher Mail-In Voting Rules. SCOTUS Could Deliver.

PUBLISHED 3/24/2026 by

On March 24, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Watson v. the RNC, a case challenging whether states can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, if they were postmarked on or before Election Day. Mississippi—along with Washington, D.C., and 13 other states—currently allows this practice, which Republicans are seeking to block.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled like they’re going to agree with the Republican challengers.

In advance of this Supreme Court ruling, states can send out ballots earlier, expand early in-person voting, and remove requirements that you need an excuse to vote early or absentee.

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.”