Reproductive Justice

Reproductive justice is a framework created by Black women and women of color in the 1990s. It refers to the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy and have children, not have children, and/or parent children in safe and sustainable environments.

Detaining Families, Policing Pregnancy: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown on Women and Children

PUBLISHED 8/12/2026 by

Trump’s latest attacks on birthright citizenship are part of a much broader effort to police American identity, punish migrant women for entering the U.S. and ultimately regulate their reproduction. Immigrant women and children remain particular targets of a hostile immigration system that seeks to control them through detention, family separation and deportation. The administration’s reinstatement of family detention has made it possible to incarcerate whole families while avoiding the political backlash generated by the “zero tolerance” separations of Trump’s first term.

But detaining families together does not make detention humane. Family residential facilities expose mothers and children to interrupted medical care, inadequate health screenings, poor living conditions and lasting physical and psychological harm. Women—particularly those who are pregnant, postpartum or caring for young children—also face heightened vulnerability to neglect and abuse inside a system where government officers and private contractors wield enormous power over their daily lives.

These policies are not simply about immigration enforcement. They are a means of penalizing pregnancy, motherhood and family formation in immigrant communities. From attacks on birthright citizenship to the detention of pregnant women and U.S.-citizen children, the administration is using the immigration system to make migration more painful and precarious—and to enact that punishment on the bodies and families of migrant women.

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.

‘To Be Forgotten Is to Die Twice’: The Fight to Protect the Graves at Ireland’s Bessborough Mother and Baby Home

PUBLISHED 8/6/2026 by

Survivors and advocates in Ireland are fighting to stop the construction of luxury apartments on the grounds of the former Bessborough Mother and Baby Institute, where hundreds of infants who died in state- and church-run custody are believed to remain buried in unmarked graves. 

At a national rally on July 18 outside the Cork City Library—the site of the former Bessborough Mother and Baby Institute—survivors and their families warned building over the site would erase one of Ireland’s darkest chapters. There, survivors and their families spoke about their experiences. Advocates held a banner with the names of infants who died at Bessborough and others marched with signs reading “to be forgotten is to die twice.”

Bessborough is part of a system of containment institutes first founded back in the 1760s as places to help sex workers pursue more “moral” forms of employment. 

By the 1800s, these institutions—called the Magdalene laundries, or mother and baby homes—effectively became prisons for “fallen” or “immoral” women who deviated from strict social norms. Run by Christian religious orders and institutions, mother and baby institutes kept unmarried pregnant women hidden from public view in a Catholic country where unmarried pregnant women and girls were and are deeply stigmatized.

Inside mother and baby institutes—which received public funding and were run by religious orders—unmarried pregnant women and girls were hidden away and faced intense violence. According to the Irish Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, 11.4 percent of the people incarcerated in these institutions were minors. After their children were born and babies at least partially weaned, these women were forcibly separated from their children who would be taken for adoption. But many children died in these institutes because of systemic neglect and abuse.

Feminists and Democracy Advocates Sound the Alarm on Todd Blanche: ‘He Is Trump’s Lawyer, Not America’s’

PUBLISHED 8/4/2026 by and | UPDATED 8/7/2026 at 8:03 A.M. PT

In a party line vote of 12-10, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general on Wednesday; a full Senate vote is expected in the coming days. The vote prompted a wave of criticism from feminist leaders, democracy advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who warned President Donald Trump’s former personal defense attorney has repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty to the president over the Constitution, and could further erode the Justice Department’s independence at a pivotal moment for U.S. democracy, while also threatening access to reproductive healthcare.

“He is not America’s lawyer,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said on the Senate floor. “He is about to become Trump’s sword against his adversaries and shield against any scrutiny.”

“Our Republican colleagues see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said during debate.

As the Senate prepared to vote on Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general, another major development emerged, adding fresh urgency to warnings from reproductive rights advocates: A new Politico report reveals Blanche privately pledged antiabortion leaders the DOJ would pursue a crackdown on medication abortion if confirmed with the goal of “the Dobbs decision [becoming] permanent in every single state.”

Who Will Train the Next Generation of Abortion Providers?

PUBLISHED 8/3/2026 by

Reproductive health clinics have been closing at alarming rates since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections in 2022. Every time a clinic closes, patients lose access to care, but that’s not all: Whole communities lose their comprehensive care providers for future generations.

As a nurse, doula and the executive director of the reproductive health clinical training and advocacy group Repro TLC, I’ve seen firsthand how abortion restrictions and clinic closures are shrinking the pipeline of trained providers. This is happening even in the states where access to abortion care remains fairly robust. 

The result is a workforce crisis in the medical field that extends far beyond abortion access and threatens the future of reproductive health in communities nationwide. 

Community-based reproductive health centers—clinics that operate independently of hospitals, major medical centers or Planned Parenthood affiliates—serve as a safety net for patients. They provide 58 percent of abortion care nationwide. 

They also provide crucial training infrastructure for future healthcare providers. Most medical and nursing education programs do not teach abortion care; providers who want to provide abortions to patients often have to find, coordinate and fund their own training opportunities at independent clinics—like a self-organized medical rotation. And as more of these independent clinics close, these training opportunities dwindle.

War on Women Report: Hegseth Blocks Promotions of Women in Navy; Trump Finally Pays E. Jean Carroll; Colorado Police Pray With Abortion Clinic Harassers

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 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:
—Celebrity women are 3.5 times more likely than men to be deepfaked.
—The Department of Health and Human Services abruptly canceled $68 million in federal grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
—Planned Parenthood clinics regained access to millions of dollars in essential federal funding. The temporary ban was originally approved in July 2025 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The denial of federal funding over the past year forced Planned Parenthood to close nearly 30 health centers nationwide, impacting roughly 40,000 patients. Despite regaining an estimated $800 million in annual federal funding, ongoing financial uncertainty at both the state and federal levels means the shuttered clinics will not reopen.
—Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has suspended his campaign after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her nearly five years ago.
—For the first time in a decade, no active-duty women naval officers will be promoted to admiral this year.
—Police officers in Boulder, Colo., were photographed pausing to pray with antiabortion protestors harassing the RISE Collective, an all-trimester abortion clinic, after concerned RISE Collective staff alerted the police of the protestors’ presence.
—Abortion-rights organizers in Idaho have been working to collect signatures for a proposed ballot measure that would restore abortion rights in the state, revoking Idaho’s total ban. On July 2, volunteers gathered in Boise to turn in over 110,000 signatures they collected for the initiative (called the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act). About one-quarter are from registered Republicans, demonstrating support for abortion rights is widespread even in deep red states.

… and more.

Who’s Paying the Price for Trump’s Medicaid Cuts? Communities of Color and People Living With HIV.

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

President Trump and his Republican backers have been determined to gut the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and expanded Medicaid coverage ever since his first term in office. This year he is finally getting his way, putting the health of tens of millions of Americans at risk.

It is racial minorities and the chronically ill who will be the most harmed.

A year ago, Congress passed the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, putting in place onerous new eligibility requirements for Medicaid coverage, including work requirements. Medicaid enrollees ages 19 to 64 must complete at least 80 hours a month of work, community service, job training or education to maintain coverage, unless they qualify for an exemption. All states must comply with the new rule by Jan. 1, 2027.

The combination of ACA cuts and new barriers to Medicaid enrollment will likely cause historic coverage losses across the United States for years to come, according to new research: Nearly 16 million people stand to lose coverage by 2034.

The Myth of the ‘Perfect Birth’: What America Gets Wrong About Pregnancy, Birth and Maternal Care

PUBLISHED 7/26/2026 by

Project 2026’s pronatalist vision insists that America needs more babies—but largely ignores the conditions that make pregnancy and childbirth unnecessarily dangerous in the first place. In this interview with Ms., The Perfect Birth Myth co-authors Avital Norman Nathman and Deborah Wage argue that improving maternal health requires more than rhetoric about “family values.” It demands investments in midwives, doulas, paid family leave, prenatal and postpartum care, and policies that address the racial and economic inequities driving the nation’s maternal mortality crisis.

Drawing on surveys of nearly 3,000 parents and healthcare providers, Nathman and Wage dismantle persistent myths about birth while exposing the structural failures of the U.S. maternity care system—from hospital closures and Medicaid cuts to the medical establishment’s resistance to alternative models of care. They explain why Black women continue to face disproportionately poor outcomes regardless of income or education, why conservative pronatalist policies fall short, and what it would take to build a maternal healthcare system that truly supports families.

A Groundbreaking U.N. Resolution Calls Forced Pregnancy What It Is: Reproductive Violence

PUBLISHED 7/25/2026 by

It took until July 7, 2026, for the world’s leading human rights body to call forcing someone to be pregnant—or forcing them not to be—what it is: reproductive violence. In a landmark resolution adopted unanimously, the U.N. Human Rights Council formally recognized “reproductive violence” as a specific, systemic form of gender-based violence. 

This historic U.N. declaration has implications for the United States, where 41 states ban abortion at some point during pregnancy. These bans block medical providers from offering needed care, and enable police and state attorneys to arrest and criminally prosecute pregnant women whose reproductive decision-making they oppose.

Any law or government action that requires a person to carry a pregnancy to term against their will is a form of bodily assault. The dynamics mirror domestic violence and sexual assault. The core of rape is the violation of consent—taking control of another person’s body and forcing them to submit. Abortion bans likewise hijack a person’s body, stripping them of their bodily integrity and self-determination.

As anti-violence advocate Irene Weiser once asked: “How can we ever begin to end violence against women if the laws of our society will not even guarantee the most fundamental of human right to women—to say at all times, under all circumstances, what we allow to happen to our bodies?”

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.?