Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade (1973) was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case affirming the right to abortion and upholding the right to make personal decisions about their family, relationships and bodily autonomy. In a devastating 2022 decision, the Court reversed Roe v. Wade, abandoning almost 50 years of precedent on the fundamental right to privacy. Overturning Roe v. Wade has had catastrophic consequences for people across America, as over a dozen states issued trigger bans.

Of Course Trump Threatened Ballot Access on the 19th Amendment’s Anniversary

PUBLISHED 8/21/2025 by

The 19th Amendment turned 105 this week. Instead of marking progress, we’re watching Trump officials entertain the idea that women’s right to vote is negotiable. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amplified a pastor calling for repeal of the amendment, and when pressed, his office issued a half-hearted “of course” women should vote. We’ve seen this playbook before: Roe was safe, contraception wasn’t at risk—until both were.

Trump himself piled on this week, vowing to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterms. He can’t legally do it, but the threat is the point. Combined with the SAVE Act, which could disenfranchise married women who changed their names, the message is clear.

The anniversary of women’s suffrage is not just history—it’s a warning flare. The right to vote is under attack, and the fight this time is for all the marbles.

Trump’s Republican Trifecta Sets Up Massive Transfer of Tax Dollars from Reproductive Health Clinics to Unregulated Crisis Pregnancy Clinics

PUBLISHED 8/18/2025 by | UPDATED 8/26/2025 at 11:53 A.M. PT

The Trump administration, 119th Congress and John Roberts-led Supreme Court are redirecting federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood and Title X to bankroll the $2 billion unregulated pregnancy clinic industry—crisis pregnancy centers—positioning it to replace reproductive health clinics nationwide.

The antiabortion industry has long aimed to “replace” Planned Parenthood, and since Roe‘s fall, so-called pro-life operatives claim these clinics fill gaps in prenatal and postpartum care and address maternal and infant mortality. These claims are false. Their mission—to block abortion—directly conflicts with providing actual, lifesaving healthcare.

Project 2025 seeks to disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and end “religious discrimination in grant selections”—code for funneling federal dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.

“Let’s call this what it is: a calculated, coordinated attack on poor women and families,” says Debra Rosen, executive director of Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. Low-income women are being denied care at real health centers and funneled into ideological storefronts. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, and the consequences will be deadly—a manufactured, avoidable public health crisis.

Terrified to Try: The Mental Anguish of Motherhood in South Carolina

PUBLISHED 8/12/2025 by

In a state where abortion bans endanger lives and strip away autonomy, one South Carolina mother shares how fear, grief and rage have made her question whether she can risk motherhood again:

“I had to leave the state, my support system and my young son just to access the healthcare I needed.”

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

Meet Milwaukee’s New Abortion Clinic and Its Determined Medical Director: ‘Everybody Needs Abortions’

PUBLISHED 8/6/2025 by

A new healthcare center in Milwaukee, Care For All Community Clinic, provides both surgical and medication abortions, as well as miscarriage care, to anyone with a uterus—regardless of their ability to pay, or their immigration status. In coming months, STI testing, emergency contraception, pap smears to test for cervical cancer, contraceptive counseling, and gender-affirming care will also be available.

“It’s easy to think that, oh, someone else can do it, but they actually can’t,” said Dr. A, the medical director the nonprofit clinic. “There are not that many OB-GYNs out there, and there’s going to be even fewer and fewer as the years go by. If I know how to do this safely and well, I want to help.”

“The thing they express to me afterward is relief and gratitude,” she added. “I feel like I’ve never had patients that are so thankful and filled with gratitude as the patients that I do abortions for.”

“There are always going to be forces that don’t want us to do abortions,” Dr. A said, “and their goal is to make us scared. But we can’t let them win.”

‘Our Federal Constitution Doesn’t Protect Us’: How the Women’s Law Project Redefined the Fight for Abortion Rights in Pennsylvania

PUBLISHED 7/30/2025 by

“We got here because we have the gender ruling class desperately holding onto their privilege—using any means necessary,” said WLP executive director Susan Frietsche on the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward.

Listen to the second episode —”Inside the Feminist Fight to Reclaim Our Reproductive Freedom (with Renee Bracey Sherman, Michele Goodwin, Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Susan Frietsche, and Gov. Maura Healey)”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m a Texas-Born OB-GYN—But Abortion Bans Are Forcing Me Out

PUBLISHED 7/26/2025 by

Vi Burgess is a resident physician in Colorado, in training to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. The Texas resident went to medical school in the Lone Star State, but says she’d be terrified to return home to practice medicine.

“I’d be terrified to go back to Texas to practice as an OB-GYN after I finish my residency. I’d be absolutely terrified. It’s not so much that I’d be terrified of getting thrown in jail, but terrified that I won’t be able to provide care to a woman—and that would lead to serious harm or death.

“I think that’s every doctor’s biggest fear—not being able to help and ultimately ending up hurting someone. But that’s the situation that OB-GYNs and other doctors are now in, in Texas.”

‘Giving Women a Chance to Choose When the World Didn’t’: Massachusetts Doctors Provide Telehealth Abortion in States with Bans

PUBLISHED 7/25/2025 by

As abortion bans have swept the country, Massachusetts doctors are stepping up by providing thousands with lifesaving telehealth abortion care, regardless of their ability to pay. 

On July 12, reproductive health advocates and local office holders filled the common room of a Northampton, Mass., co-housing community to celebrate and support the vital work of The Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (The MAP). Based in Cambridge, the MAP is one of a handful of medical practices in the U.S. providing telehealth abortion care to patients in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Each month, MAP provides abortion pills to 2500 patients—nearly a third from Texas—using an asynchronous telemedicine platform built to provide prompt, private and convenient abortion care that is affordable to all.

“I want to thank The MAP from the depths of my soul,” one patient said. “You have saved me.”

Pregnant and Unmarried? In Tennessee, That’s Now Grounds for Denial of Care.

PUBLISHED 7/24/2025 by

This week marked the first reported case of a woman being denied prenatal care for being unmarried in the state of Tennessee and the country. And it is the direct result of the state’s 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act, which went into effect in April. The law enables physicians, nurses, hospitals and insurers to invoke religious, moral or ethical objections to the provision of care and treatment, with no legal requirement to provide patients with a referral or alternative.

Where There’s Fire, There Are Women Carrying Water

PUBLISHED 7/19/2025 by

The girl I was in Kolkata would not recognize the woman I am today.

I was a girl who noticed everything: the way women’s voices dropped around men, too hot to argue; the way dupattas were carefully wrapped to conceal bare shoulders; the way hair was yanked into tight buns to spare the neck from sweat.

There was heat in the body too, a restlessness, an impatience, a dawning awareness of what it meant to grow into a girl in a world already lined with expectations. Summers were when I first learned to shrink myself.

Decades later, I find myself in a different kind of heat. Not from the sun, but from the headlines: the rage, the lies, the erasure. This is the heat of 2025: Trumpism returned, democracy under siege, rights dismantled. Roe is gone. Truth is a moving target. Rage simmers, thick enough to choke on.

In these moments, I return to those childhood summers. Not just for the discomfort, but for the clarity. Because in heat, everything sharpens. You see what survives. You see what wilts. And you learn how to move through the world without losing your shape.

Attacks on Abortion Access Are as Old as White Supremacist Patriarchy Itself. Here’s How We Fight Back.

PUBLISHED 7/18/2025 by

What really underlies attacks on our bodily autonomy isn’t a devotion to “life,” but a desire for dominance. “In the history of abortion, every single time there is a wave of criminalization of abortion, it’s at the same time that the people in power, the forces that be, are concerned about losing power,” says Renee Bracey Sherman.

In the second episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, advocates, lawmakers and experts explore the real roots of abortion criminalization throughout U.S. history — and lay out visions for where the fight for reproductive freedom must go next.

Listen to the second episode Ms. podcast, Looking Back, Moving Forward—”Inside the Feminist Fight to Reclaim Our Reproductive Freedom (with Renee Bracey Sherman, Michele Goodwin, Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Susan Frietsche, and Gov. Maura Healey)”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.