More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case that could determine whether Medicaid patients have the right to sue when states deny them access to qualified healthcare providers like Planned Parenthood.
While the legal question is narrow, a ruling in favor of South Carolina could embolden other states to cut off Medicaid funding for reproductive healthcare, disproportionately impacting low-income patients and people of color.
On March 31, the Trump administration sent letters to Planned Parenthood affiliates and other reproductive health clinics in 20 states announcing a freeze of close to $35 million in federal Title X funding as of April 1. Title X is a federal program that provides affordable birth control, cancer screenings and other sexual and reproductive healthcare to low-income women.
“President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
Antiabortion group invasions and disruptions are surging dramatically since the pardon of 21 convicted extremists, and California is becoming ground zero for aggressive tactics by extremist groups. “Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust” (Survivors) is at the forefront of these actions, coordinating intimidation campaigns against pharmacies, clinics and local city councils.
On Thursday, March 27th in Milwaukee, anti-abortion extremists blocked access to Affiliated Medical Services, refusing to leave until police physically removed them. This calculated act in defiance of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act occurred just days before Wisconsin voters decide a critical State Supreme Court race that will determine the future of abortion rights in the state.
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:
—At a town hall in Idaho, men from a private security firm grabbed Teresa Borrenpohl and forcibly dragged her from the room.
—Georgia relaunched a new maternal mortality committee, but will not reveal who the new members are.
—In a win for Montana, a district court permanently blocked multiple restrictions that would have effectively eliminated abortion access for most patients on Medicaid.
… and more.
A bipartisan bill to clarify exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban garnered widespread support Thursday from healthcare professionals and abortion opponents who said the bill would remove any hesitation doctors might have to save a pregnant woman’s life.
Critics, meanwhile, told lawmakers that Senate Bill 31 doesn’t go far enough to protect women facing pregnancy-related medical emergencies and even quietly resurrects 160-year-old laws that could be used to criminalize those who have undergone an abortion or have helped those who receive an out-of-state abortion.
The possible return to a near total abortion ban in Wisconsin—which depends on the outcome of the April 1 state Supreme Court election—would gravely interfere with Dr. Anna Igler’s work as an OB-GYN near Green Bay.
“Terrible things happen in pregnancy,” said Anna Igler, an OB-GYN near Green Bay. “All babies aren’t healthy and all pregnancies are not healthy for the baby or the mother. That’s just biology.”
She knows that firsthand.
Samantha Casiano, an east Texas mother of four, tells her story of life and loss:
“I found out that my baby daughter had no chance of being able to live outside my womb at my 20-week ultrasound. … I felt that what happened to us should be everybody’s business. The people in power in Texas forced me to give birth with their abortion ban. I wanted everyone to know who Halo was and how she suffered.
“We all try to visit Halo’s grave every Sunday, and we’ll have a party for her second birthday on March 29 with a cake. We call her birthday her ‘Freedom Day.’ The day she was born is the day she was finally free to go to heaven. She shouldn’t have been on this earth, but the state of Texas forced her to be here, and she fought a fight we all knew she would lose.”
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 pulled university funding and arrested student leaders over pro-Palestine protests; a Texas midwife faces felony charges for providing abortion care; Congress members avoid town halls after Department of Education and other federal agencies were decimated; abortion bans threaten the lives of Black mothers; and more.
Over the course of a week in early March, five antiabortion pregnancy clinics in Arkansas had an eye-catching visitor: a huge mobile billboard, in Handmaid’s Tale-red, reading:
CAUTION!
Pregnancy Help Clinics in Arkansas DO NOT OFFER ABORTION.
HIPAA PRIVACY PROTECTIONS MAY NOT APPLY.
The first-of-its-kind digital billboard tour was the brainchild of Mayday Health—which the Arkansas Times dubbed “a zero-fucks-given nonprofit”—whose mission is to share information on how to access safe abortion pills and gender-affirming care, and empower people to make their own informed decision about their own bodies.