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

‘Barrage of Harassment, Intimidation and Violent Attacks’ on Abortion Clinics, Says National Abortion Federation

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) this week released their Violence and Disruption Report for 2023 and 2024, documenting widespread antiabortion terrorism against abortion clinics.

The report revealed that there were 1,199 violent incidents at abortion clinics in 2023 and 2024. The report also documented extensive disruption of services. (The actual number of incidents of harassment and violence targeting abortion providers is likely much higher than NAF’s reported numbers.)

“Let me be clear: There is nothing peaceful about the kind of protesting behavior we see at our clinic,” said Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Casper, Wyo., and co-owner of Hope Clinic in Washington, D.C. “We have seen extremists try to invade our clinic multiple times in 2023 and 2024, intent on harassing our staff and intimidating our patients.”

First They Came for Kilmar

After World War II, German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller famously said, “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.” We are watching this happen in real time with the Trump administration.

Donald Trump has targeted immigrants, such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with illegal deportation; then he came after workers’ rights, with cuts to overtime pay and rolling back rights to unionize; then he came for the hungry, with cuts to food programs and Medicaid; then he came for the low-income children, with the elimination of Head Start child care; then he came for the sick, with cuts to funding for medical research; then he came for women, with cuts to reproductive healthcare and funding for domestic violence shelters and rape crisis hotlines; then he came for disabled and elderly people, with cuts to Social Security and Medicare—and so much more.

Trump is boundary testing. If you give him an inch, he will take it all, until he has obliterated all resistance—and our democracy.

The Casualties of Title X Cuts: Cancer Screenings, Fertility Treatments and Sex Ed

The Trump administration earlier this month cut more than $65 million in federal funding for family planning under Title X, the program signed into law by President Richard Nixon that has supported comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services—including contraception, cancer screenings, infertility treatments, pregnancy care and STI testing—for low-income Americans since 1970. The cuts will impact dozens of clinics nationwide, including nine Planned Parenthood affiliates, and leave seven states without any Title X funding—to say nothing of other funding cuts and freezes to social services like Social Security and Medicaid.

In March, Nourbese Flint, president of the national abortion justice organization All* Above All, wrote a piece for Ms. about Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid, which would strip healthcare from millions of Americans, including 40 percent of all pregnant women in the United States. Last week, I spoke with her about the Title X freeze on reproductive healthcare and the long-term effects of these funding cuts, which will put infant and maternal healthcare even more in jeopardy.

The Data We Don’t Collect Is Killing Women

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, at least 10 women have died as a direct result of their inability to access healthcare. But this number is only a guess, because there’s no single place that records and tracks these tragedies. And that’s not just an oversight—it’s a choice. At the same time, women seeking reproductive care are more digitally surveilled than ever before.

Without a national system to track the consequences of abortion bans, preventable deaths are disappearing into the void—by design.

Yes, America Should Make It Easier to Have Kids—But Trump Wants to Punish Childless and Single Women

The Trump administration wants to juice the birthrate. This isn’t surprising: Vice President JD Vance is an ardent pronatalist. So is shadow president Elon Musk, who seems to be working on populating Mars with his own progeny.

Abortion opponents, who make up a solid chunk of Trump’s base, want to see women have more babies whether we like it or not. Republicans and the Christian conservatives who elect them have generally been on the “be fruitful and multiply” side of things.

What’s different this time around, though, is that the Trump team is looking at carrots, not just sticks, in their baby-boom strategy. While the old way was to restrict abortion and make contraception harder to get, some of the proposals now include things like cash for kids, mommy medals, reserving scholarship program spots for young people who are married with children and (somewhat bizarrely) menstrual cycle education so women can figure out when they’re fertile and a national medal for motherhood for women with six or more children.

The administration is also considering policies that would effectively punish people for being single.

‘I Thought Only First Pregnancies Could Go Bad’: When Allie Phillips’ Lawmaker Dismissed Her, She Decided to Run for His Seat

“I decided to meet with my district representative in the state legislature,” said Allie Phillips. Her idea was a bill she’d called “Miley’s Law”—named after the child she’d lost—which would create an exception in Tennessee’s abortion ban allowing for the termination of pregnancies when the fetus has a fatal diagnosis. 

She said the meeting with her lawmaker, Republican Rep. Jeff Burkhart, was disturbing. “I quickly learned that these [Republican] lawmakers don’t know anything about reproductive care. He was confused because I had had a healthy first pregnancy, and then lost my second one. He told me, ‘I thought only first pregnancies could go bad.’”

Burkhart, a 63-year-old father, told Allie he’d set up a meeting for her with the state’s attorney general—but never followed through. 

“After that, my mom said, ‘Maybe you should run against him,’” Allie said. “And then my TikTok followers started to say the same thing.”

She Was Tracking Post-Roe Abortions. The Trump Administration Just Pulled Her Funding.

Diana Greene Foster is responsible for landmark research on the effects of abortion access—a massive 10-year study that tracked thousands of people who had an abortion or were denied one. But funding for a follow-up to her seminal Turnaway Study has just been cut as part of a wave of canceled health policy research. 

Foster received a MacArthur “genius grant” for the Turnaway Study. That piece of research, which examined the impact of restrictions even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, helped shape public understanding of how abortion access can affect people’s health and economic well-being by finding that people who were denied abortions were more likely to experience years of poverty compared to those who could terminate their unplanned pregnancies.

How Antiabortion Extremists Stopped a Beverly Hills Clinic From Opening … With Help From City Officials

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Ever since middle school, Jennefer Russo wanted to be a doctor—by the time she entered college she knew she wanted to be one who performed abortions. The reason was simple. As she told Ms., “I grew up watching the impact that abortion had on the women in my life, and I saw that it allowed them to have autonomy and relative control over their lives.”

Early in summer 2022 (right around the time the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision), Russo learned that a suite in a medical building located at 8920 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills was available. She began negotiations with the owner, the real estate investment trust Douglas Emmett, and on June 30, DuPont sent a letter of intent to the company to lease a suite there. It read: “Use: The DuPont Clinic is a private referral center for all-trimester abortion care.”

It would take only two months to stop the DuPont Clinic from opening.

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.)

A Post-Dobbs Alternative for Reproductive Autonomy? Menstrual Regulation.

Menstrual regulation, or bringing back a missed or late period, is a common cultural practice across the globe, including the United States. It typically involves “period pills” to induce a period, such as mifepristone and misoprostol, and can be practiced legally in countries where abortion is illegal, like Bangladesh and Cuba. Offering a method to manage menstrual cycles openly grants reproductive autonomy, without shame or taboo. Critically, menstrual regulation is not viewed as an abortion, even though mifepristone and misoprostol are involved.