More Than A Magazine, A Movement
A pernicious fallacy in Kacsmaryk’s opinion that has not gotten much coverage: that an individual’s decision to abort is saturated with eugenic meaning.
The equation of abortion with genocide or eugenics is a misogynistic claim to shame and blame those who choose abortion.
On May 8, abortion providers in Virginia, Montana and Kansas filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA seeking an order to maintain and expand access to mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used for early abortion and miscarriage.
“It is critical that abortion providers and patients obtain certainty in light of the chaos that is currently surrounding mifepristone,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who filed the lawsuit.
What makes a good physician? Along with communication skills, empathy and integrity, medical schools teach their students science rooted in evidence-based medicine and patient care skills that emphasize patient autonomy. The ongoing legal battle over approval and access to mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, threatens to undermine these basic tenets of medicine.
Relying on the decision of Judge Kacsmaryk or the three-judge panel of the appellate court—all political appointees with no scientific background—to undermine the FDA’s authority constructs a harmful narrative to students that medicine, though tested and validated, can be challenged without scientific rationale.
U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
This month: Anorexia is on the rise for young girls; mifepristone remains on the market, for now; House Republicans bar trans athletes from participating in women’s and girls’ sports; the ERA was blocked in the Senate; North Dakota gets one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country; and more.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 19 in a case that could have a sweeping impact on the ability of victims of stalking, verbal abuse and online harassment to be protected from their abusers.
In the case, Counterman v. Colorado, the Court appeared willing to increase the threshold for identifying speech that rises to the level of a “true threat” and ignore the collateral damage of protecting harassers—which will have devastating consequences for victims of abuse.
There is great reason to look at direct democracy as an opportunity to address the disconnect where the elected leadership does not reflect the needs and the will of the voters—and there is a reason conservative lawmakers want to close that window, as they are attempting to do in Ohio.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2023 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)
In her book, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty, Annelise Orleck not only shares the history of Clark County Welfare Right Organization’s (CCWRO) ascent and activism but also provides an insightful guide to community organizing.
“I loved the CCWRO’s insistence that poor women are experts on poverty and can run their own programs better than so-called professionals. And they did! … They demanded to know why a state that took tax revenue from gambling and prostitution was considered morally acceptable, but mothers trying to feed their kids were called cheaters. They were fearless.”
Dobbs v. Jackson was a clear indication that the Supreme Court will allow states broader latitude to pass laws that discriminate against women. This new reality makes final recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment more important than ever.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2023 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)
Nearly one in three women have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. But in 2000, in the case of U.S. v. Morrison, the Supreme Court decided to leave survivors of gender-based violence to this day without the legal tools necessary to sue their attackers for damages or other relief in federal court.
One hundred years ago, women’s rights activists introduced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to guarantee equal rights for women under the U.S. Constitution. On Thursday, April 27, the Senate will vote on the ERA. Among many other benefits to the law, this vote also represents an opportunity to protect survivors of gender-based violence—which, even in today’s heated political climate, commands bipartisan concern and support.
In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled along political lines that it could not review disputes over partisan gerrymandering. The conservatives in Rucho v. Common Cause insisted that the question of how state legislatures draw their maps is a “political” question and thus “nonjusticiable” by the Court.
The truth is more that the Court silenced the Constitution and set our democracy on a destructive course. As Justice Kagan wrote in the liberals’ dissent, the Court had “encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction.” The resulting “unchecked” gerrymanders, she warned, “may irreparably damage our system of government.”
