Whole Woman’s Health (Abortion Provider)

Four States Urge FDA to Follow Science and Remove Abortion Pill Restrictions

Attorneys general of four states—Massachusetts, California, New Jersey and New York—asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday, June 5, to lift long-standing restrictions on the medication mifepristone. The drug is used in approximately two-thirds of abortions in the United States.

The petition came just three days after the FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced his decision to “review” the agency’s regulation of mifepristone after previously stating he had no plans to restrict the medication.

“Given mifepristone’s 25-year safety record, there is simply no scientific or medical reason to subject it to such extraordinary restrictions,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “New Yorkers, and all Americans, deserve access to this safe, effective and essential medication without burdensome, unjustified restrictions. The FDA must follow the science and lift these unnecessary barriers that put patients at risk and push providers out of care.”

Mifepristone Access, and What Comes Next for the Medication Abortion Drug

The future of mifepristone access is up in the air on multiple fronts right now—just five months after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s treatment of the medication abortion drug.

Now, though, Donald Trump has won election to the presidency—and questions about what his new administration will do to federal policy surrounding the drug are front and center.

From The Vault: We Have Had Abortions (Spring 1972)

In what The Washington Post says “changed the course of the abortion rights movement,” Ms. published “We Have Had Abortions” in its first issue, featuring the signatures of 53 prominent American women. Women who have had abortions have spoken out many times during the past 50 years, and millions of women and men have marched in countless rallies and demonstrations for abortion rights.

For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 
50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION (Alfred A. Knopf)—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.

The Same Groups That Helped Overturn Roe and Attack Abortion Pills Are Also Lobbying Against the ERA

From supporting the Supreme Court’s right-wing faction responsible for overturning Roe, to spreading misinformation around medication abortion, anti-abortion groups are fighting to eliminate abortion access on multiple fronts.

Their anti-reproductive justice efforts also include lobbying against the Equal Rights Amendment. Lobbying disclosures reveal that far-right, anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA, formerly Susan B. Anthony List), National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), Concerned Women for America (CWA) and Students For Life America (SFLA) have spent unknown sums lobbying against the ERA in 2021 and 2022.

Telemedicine Abortion Provider Alison Case: “Helping People in Texas Access Abortion Care”

As we await the fate of Roe v. Wade, Ms.’s “Online Abortion Provider” series will spotlight the wide range of new telemedicine abortion providers springing up across the country in response to the recent removal of longstanding FDA restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone. One such provider is Dr. Alison Case, a family medicine doctor in Indiana. After Texas banned most abortions last year and Texans began flooding into New Mexico for abortion health care, Whole Woman’s Health offered Case the opportunity to provide telemedicine abortion to patients in New Mexico.

“We should make sure people have their own autonomy in making decisions for themselves about when to have a family and when not to have a family. These are really basic things. If we can’t get those services to people in person, then it’s great that we can offer them virtually. Particularly in the case of Texas, where we know there’s a whole state where people are not able to access care.”

The Ms. Top Feminists of 2021

Ms. top feminists

From COVID vaccines to abortion rights, infrastructure bills to Olympic athletes, 2021 has been a monunmental year for feminists around the globe. With so many of our rights in jeopardy, and with so many women struggling to recover from the pandemic, activists have had to work even harder to stand up for the causes we believe in.

Tackling voting rights, public health, reproductive justice and much more, here are our top feminists of 2021.

Supreme Court Refuses to Block Texas Abortion Ban—Leaving Only Slow, Arduous and Uncertain Pathways to Ending the Ban

Supreme Court Refuses to Block Texas Abortion Ban—Leaving Only Slow, Arduous and Uncertain Pathways to Ending the Ban

On Friday, the Supreme Court refused to block a clearly-unconstitutional abortion ban in Texas, leaving in place S.B. 8, which bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy—before many women even know they are pregnant.

“It’s stunning that the Supreme Court has essentially said that federal courts cannot stop this bounty-hunter scheme enacted to blatantly deny Texans their constitutional right to abortion,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “For 100 days now, this six-week ban has been in effect, and today’s ruling means there is no end in sight. Pregnant people will continue to live in a state of panic and uncertainty.”

Danger in the Shadows: Supreme Court Uses Shadow Docket to Threaten Abortion Rights

'Danger in the Shadows': Supreme Court Uses Shadow Docket to Threaten Abortion Rights

Reproductive rights—once perceived to be a hallmark of late 20th-century American democracy—may soon give way to conservative states enacting unconstitutional anti-abortion provisions with procedural barriers so thickly and cleverly intertwined that the ability to challenge them may be unattainable, including at the Supreme Court.

The result of the Court’s shadow docket opinion is not just an end, essentially, to the legal right to an abortion in Texas—it sets in motion a workable blueprint for all other conservative state legislatures bent on stripping away abortion rights.

Supreme Court Allows Texas’ ‘Radical’ Six-Week Ban to Stand, Leaving Abortion Advocates Stunned

Supreme Court Allows Texas' Radical Six Week Abortion Ban to Stand, Leaving Abortion Advocates Stunned

Reproductive rights advocates, health care providers and lawmakers blasted the Court’s decision to allow Texas’ extreme six week abortion ban to go into effect, and not intervene.

“This should send chills down the spine of everyone in this country who cares about the constitution,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.