Pregnancy Loss and Miscarriage

Keeping Score: Trump Disapproval Hits a New Low; Continued ICE Violence; AOC on Freezing Her Eggs: ‘Don’t Be Weird About This’

PUBLISHED 8/12/2026 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:
—Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is freezing her eggs and documenting the process on social media to normalize this facet of women’s reproductive healthcare.
—The top brands donating to members of Congress trying to expand ICE’s power include SpaceX, Home Depot, UPS and Walmart. 
—Organizations speak out after Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero were shot and killed by federal agents, and Jesús Manuel Arenas-Silva died in ICE custody.
—Epstein survivors warn the Senate not to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.
—The Trump administration continues its attacks on immigrants, students, disabled people, gun control and more.
—Pete Hesgeth blocked the promotion of women Navy officers.
—Nicole Tung won the IWMF’s Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award.
—Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) has been accused of abusing his ex-wife and their young daughter.
—President Trump finally paid E. Jean Carroll $5.6 million for sexually abusing and defaming her.
—84 percent of women’s organizations working in crisis-affected countries say the need for humanitarian services has increased since January 2025, but almost 90 percent don’t have the funding to meet those needs.
—The United States is unique among similar countries, with single mothers participating in the workforce more often than partnered mothers.

… and more.

New Kentucky Media Campaign Fights Back Against Abortion Ban After Criminal Prosecutions

PUBLISHED 8/11/2026 by

Across Kentucky, pregnant women are facing growing surveillance and the threat of criminalization for pregnancy outcomes that are often beyond their control. Recent prosecutions have underscored how miscarriage, stillbirth and other complications can be treated not simply as medical events, but as potential crimes. At the same time, proposed legislation could expand that legal risk even further, deepening an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in a state where abortion access is already nearly eliminated.

But people across Kentucky are continuing to organize, speak out and fight back. The Kentucky Reproductive Freedom Fund has launched a statewide and national video campaign amplifying the voices of physicians, medical students, faith leaders and patients living with the consequences of the ban. Their stories show that the harm is not abstract: The ban endangers lives, restricts medical training and undermines providers’ ability to deliver standard care—while making clear that healthcare decisions should be made by patients and their providers, not politicians.

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.

Why Attacks on Immigrant Communities Are Reproductive Justice Issues

PUBLISHED 7/22/2026 by , and

“It’s hell.”

That’s how our colleague, Miri, described her months-long detention in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, last year, separated from her husband and four children. Food was inedible, medications were inaccessible and women were forced to share beds and blankets due to overcrowding. She witnessed guards sexually assault women and conduct invasive strip searches. Pregnant and breastfeeding people were neglected: One new mother suffered from mastitis, while another woman in labor was ignored for hours before being taken to a hospital. 

These horrors, perpetrated by immigration enforcement officers, are exactly what the federal government approved billions to fund this summer. 

Reproductive justice is often reduced to abortion rights. But the movement has always taken a broader view. Created by 12 Black women organizers, the reproductive justice framework is about the right to have—or to not have—children and the right to raise them in safe, healthy communities. Detentions, deportations and disruption of care are part of a broader effort to limit who can fully belong, safely build a family and have rights in the United States. 

So who deserves safety and belonging in the U.S.? 

Antiabortion Extremists Can’t Target Abortion Pill Prescribers If They Don’t Know Their Names

PUBLISHED 7/17/2026 by

Four years after the fall of Roe, telemedicine is not just a convenience. For thousands of women, it is the best or only option.

Telemedicine’s success means that antiabortion threats have grown more sophisticated and intense. Pregnancy is statistically the most dangerous time in a violent relationship. Patients seeking abortion care also risk harassment and violence from hostile partners, as well as abortion opponents, and in the worst cases, life-threatening violence. A pill bottle with your name on it is evidence that can be used with threats to expose you to your employer, your family, immigration authorities or a stranger on social media.

We have developed legislation that would better safeguard the privacy of people seeking abortion care by allowing patients and providers to choose not to have their names appear on pill packaging. Our organization is currently working to pass this legislation in several states.

As Dr. Mary Applegate, a public health physician who testified in favor of such a bill in New York, spelled out: Allowing the use of a pseudonym on prescription labels can be a matter of life and death.

Texas May Eliminate a Critical Tool for Preventing Maternal Deaths

PUBLISHED 6/11/2026 by and

Texas is considering whether to continue one of its most important tools for preventing maternal deaths.

The state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), which investigates pregnancy-related deaths and identifies ways to prevent them, is currently undergoing Sunset review—a routine process that determines whether state programs will continue operating. If lawmakers fail to reauthorize the committee, Texas will lose a critical source of information about why mothers are dying and what can be done to save lives.

The stakes are especially high for Black women. In Texas, Black women are nearly four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related causes. Texas’ maternal mortality rate also exceeds the national average, and approximately 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths are considered preventable.

As public health researchers who have studied women’s health and health disparities in Texas for decades, we know that meaningful progress depends on understanding what is driving these deaths and holding systems accountable for addressing them.

Maternal mortality review committees are one of the most effective tools states have for doing exactly that.

After Years of Silence, Texas Medical Board Issues Training for Doctors on How to Legally Provide Abortions

PUBLISHED 4/23/2026 by , and

For the first time since Texas criminalized abortion, the state’s medical regulator has instructed doctors on when they can legally terminate a pregnancy to protect the life of the patient—guidance physicians long sought as women died and doctors feared imprisonment for intervening.

The new training from the Texas Medical Board was released nearly five years after the state passed its strict abortion ban in 2021, threatening doctors with severe penalties. Pregnancy became far more dangerous in the state after the law took effect: Sepsis rates spiked for women suffering a pregnancy loss, as did emergency room visits in which miscarrying patients needed a blood transfusion; at least four women in the state died after they didn’t receive timely reproductive care. More than a hundred OB-GYNs said the state’s abortion ban was to blame.

The new medical training, which ProPublica obtained under a public records request, assures doctors they can now legally provide abortions, even when a patient’s life isn’t imminently in danger, and goes over nine example scenarios, including a patient’s water breaking before term and complications from an incomplete abortion. 

But medical and legal experts who reviewed the training said the case studies represent only the most straightforward situations doctors encounter. The complications that women face in pregnancy are varied, complex and impossible to capture in a brief presentation, many cautioned. One attorney called the training “the bare minimum.”

Say Their Names: The Women Who Died After Being Denied Emergency Abortion Care

PUBLISHED 4/4/2026 by

We know the names of nine women who have died after doctors denied them life-saving care because of fears they would be criminally prosecuted under abortion bans: Josseli Barnica, Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, Amber Nicole Thurman, Candi Miller, Porsha Ngumezi, Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, Nevaeh Crain, Tierra Walker and Ciji Graham.

At least three least three more women—all unnamed at this time—died between October 2022 and July 2024 as a result of denied or delayed emergency abortion care, according to a March 2025 study released in academic journal CHEST.

In all, public health experts estimate that abortion bans have led to the deaths of at least 59 women—but we may never know their names.

In a lawsuit involving denial of emergency care to pregnant women, the National Women’s Law Center filed a brief documenting more than 100 cases of women almost dying when hospitals denied emergency medical care because of abortion bans—though “the true number [of cases] is likely significantly higher,” according to the brief.

Congress should move to pass two critical protections: The Women’s Health Protection Act, which would establish a statutory right for healthcare providers to offer abortion services and for patients to receive them; and the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, which would ensure that every person who receives healthcare or insurance through the federal government will have coverage for abortion services.

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.” 

A State of the State for Women: Taking Stock of the Fight for Democracy at Home and Abroad

PUBLISHED 3/5/2026 by

March’s Women’s History Month arrives at a moment when our rights, and democracy itself, feel newly precarious.

From feminist perspectives on the war in Iran, where women and girls remain at the forefront of resistance, to the troubling parallels between authoritarian crackdowns abroad and the rollback of reproductive rights here in the United States, the throughline is hard to ignore: Democracy rises and falls with women’s movements and mobilization.

Taking stock of the moment, I’m highlighting reporting and analysis that help make sense of where we are now—from the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes in places like El Salvador, to new data revealing stark disparities in women’s well-being across U.S. states.

At the same time, as the country approaches its 250th anniversary, initiatives like Ms.’ FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists remind us that women’s ideas, resistance and organizing have always been central to the project of democracy—and remain essential to its future.