More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Women everywhere deserve accessible, affordable and comprehensive healthcare. This includes reproductive healthcare like contraception, abortion, sex and relationship education, STI prevention and treatment, cancer screenings and counseling. However, lawmakers have long attempted to restrict or reduce this care in ways that harm women.
Since the Dobbs decision, antiabortion Republicans are putting their resources not into expanding care for the women they’re forcing into motherhood, but into enforcing abortion bans—including those that make women risk their lives and health in pregnancy, drive up maternal injury and mortality, and push healthcare providers out of the workforce or out of state.
State budgets are limited, and how lawmakers spend the money they have tells us a lot.
The election of Donald Trump to a second term has abortion rights advocates across the country worried about a renewed assault on abortion access. These fears are well-founded, but they must also account for successful ballot measures and other victories that demonstrate sustainable, popular support for abortion rights expansion. This enthusiasm for progress is perhaps best encapsulated by the movement to recognize abortion as a human right.
In October, members of Congress introduced a resolution that commended state and local governments for “championing reproductive rights as human rights.” These efforts represent a growing movement that rejects past compromises on abortion rights and sees human rights recognition as the only path forward for safe and accessible abortion care in the United States. Given the Supreme Court’s recent failure to rule definitively on the right to abortion during life-threatening health emergencies, this movement couldn’t come at a more critical moment.
Barely a week after Trump was reelected to the White House, for many in the U.S., access to birth control is seeming shakier than it did at the start of this month. But is it possible that young women are more dubious about birth control than past generations?
The last few years has seen a rise of social media influencers—many of them Gen Z—putting forth false and misleading claims on TikTok and YouTube about the safety and efficacy of hormonal birth control. In honor of Thanks, Birth Control Day on Nov. 14, Ms. spoke with Dr. Raegan about some of the most common social media misconceptions when it comes to birth control. Here’s what she said about separating the facts from the fiction.
Politicians must articulate their answer out loud and on the record: Does a woman have the authority to abort an unwanted pregnancy? Yes or no.
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.
Since our last report:
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the city of Austin over its abortion travel fund.
—The number of women who have accused Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of sexual assault is now up to 27.
—Louisiana’s law reclassifying the abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol as “controlled dangerous substances” took effect on Oct. 1.
—In Manhattan, a 20-year-old woman is facing criminal charges for miscarrying in a restaurant bathroom.
Just this week, we learned of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. And last month, we learned that at least two women died after they were unable to access legal abortion care in their home state of Georgia.
Even still, legislators across the country are willing to continue denying care to the people who need it, prioritizing political extremism over medical realities.
As Perimenopause Awareness Month (September) and Menopause Awareness Month (October) close out, Ms. has been proud to cover a series of events that brought together experts to expand the conversation. Among these, “Perimenopause ROAR” held last month in New York City marked a powerful moment in women’s health advocacy by Perry and the National Menopause Foundation.
The event brought together a diverse panel of experts, advocates and community members, united in a mission to break the silence surrounding perimenopause.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, more than 20 states have completely banned or severely restricted abortion. In 2023 alone, over 171,000 women were forced to travel out of state—in some cases, several states away—to have an abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights unveiled a national video campaign last week highlighting the distances women have been forced to travel for abortion care after their own states criminalized the procedure.
Women on abortion road trips all listen to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” … in the car, on the bus, on the highway, at the gas station; the song becomes part of a communal soundtrack as the women cross state lines for abortion care. They all end up in the same medical waiting room.
There are three things the U.S. government must do to address immigration. None entails policing the U.S. border, and none are prioritized by U.S. politicians today.
Support of land sovereignty, reproductive autonomy and safe borders would do far more to address the problems accompanying U.S. immigration, than threatening expensive deportation and promising ineffective border walls.
The Biden-Harris administration last week announced a new proposed rule that would significantly expand access to no-cost birth control under the Affordable Care Act. The rule would require private health insurance to cover all forms of contraception without co-pays, including over-the-counter contraceptives.
This expansion of contraception coverage is important in light of steep declines in prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception in states banning abortion.