Women’s Health

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.

Weaponizing Aid: How U.S. Policies Undermine Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Crises

U.S. policies like the global gag rule (GGR) have long restricted access to reproductive healthcare worldwide, but their impact on refugee women and girls in humanitarian crises is often overlooked. By cutting funding to NGOs that provide or even discuss abortion care, the GGR limits essential services such as contraception, post-abortion care, and maternal health support for millions of displaced women. In conflict zones and refugee camps, where healthcare is already scarce, these restrictions leave women without options, increasing the risks of unsafe abortions, maternal mortality and gender-based violence.

As the U.S. continues to wield foreign aid as a political tool, the lives of the world’s most vulnerable women hang in the balance.

‘Silence Is an Enemy’: Rep. Frankel Leads the Fight for Global Reproductive Rights

The Global HER Act, led by Rep. Lois Frankel, aims to permanently repeal the global gag rule, which restricts funding for international healthcare providers that offer or even discuss abortion services—jeopardizing reproductive care for millions worldwide.

“They’re gagging you, they’re putting something over your mouth to prevent you from giving information. … Silence is an enemy,” Frankel told Ms. “And so, we cannot be silent. … One of the ways that we talk is with a bill.”

The Fight for Midlife and Menopausal Health Is Essential to Reproductive Rights—and Democracy

Less than one into the Trump presidency, attacks on reproductive health and rights have begun. Against this backdrop, it may sound surprising to hold out hope for the immediate future of any women’s health issue. But I think menopause may be an outlier.

Perhaps you’ve seen the headlines: Menopause is having a moment, from new tell-all books by Brooke Shields and Naomi Watts, to viral clips of Halle Berry shouting from the steps of the U.S. Capitol, “I’m in menopause, OK?!” Commitment goes well beyond celebrity moments and includes notable support from public policy leaders across the spectrum—Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and in blue and red states. These prominent voices are part of a new wave of recognition that menopausal women deserve to make informed choices about our bodies.

Just as the fight for reproductive rights is an essential tenet of any free and fair democracy, so too is autonomy and health at this life stage.

Wombs for Hire: Inside Europe’s Underground Surrogacy Networks

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The legal landscape of surrogacy remains a complex patchwork across nations, with some countries embracing it while others maintain strict prohibitions. This inconsistency in regulations has created gray areas.

Scientific research highlights the possibility of abuse arising from gaps in legal frameworks and disputes, whether surrogacy is legal or not. It points to unethical practices such as trafficking of women, coercion of both surrogates and prospective parents by agencies, lack of respect for bodily autonomy or informed consent, ‘sham’ procedures and multiple embryo exchanges.

Amid this contentious landscape, the European Parliament Council took decisive action on Jan. 23, 2024, reaching a provisional agreement to classify exploitative surrogacy practices as human trafficking. The measure was formally adopted on May 27, 2024. The new framework imposes strict penalties on those who exploit women through forced surrogacy or deceptive practices, while establishing comprehensive support systems for victims. E.U. member states must implement these protections into their national legislation within two years.

Don’t Freeze Federal Funds—Invest in Place-Based Programs Instead

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The Trump administration’s recent attempt to freeze federal funding has sparked renewed debate about government efficiency and program effectiveness. While the freeze was quickly reversed following public outcry, it highlights a fundamental tension: how to balance fiscal responsibility with essential support for vulnerable populations. There’s a proven approach that could satisfy both imperatives: place-based programming.

Antiabortion Forces Have a Blueprint to Ban Abortion Pills Nationwide (And You Thought Project 2025 Was Bad?)

Not satisfied with the overthrow of Roe v. Wade and Trump’s compliance with nearly all things Project 2025, right-wing conservatives are pushing the president to go further. In a chilling blueprint, “Stopping Pills that Kill,” antiabortion groups urge President Trump to stop the movement of domestic and international abortion pills using the Comstock Act of 1873 and a dragnet of new regulations. 

The new scheme calls for every U.S. law enforcement entity to play a role—federal, state and city/county agencies. Starting at home, extremists urge Trump to compel federal prosecutors to charge providers of abortion pills weaponizing both the Comstock Act and racketeering statutes (RICO) for using the postal system. They would then add regulations governing the U.S. postmaster general and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to list abortion pills as “nonmailable … hazardous materials or devices that may present an immediate threat to persons,” which would make shipping them a federal offense carrying civil and possibly criminal penalties.

‘We’ve Got to Stop This’: Doctors Sound Alarm as Miscarrying Women Die Under Texas Abortion Ban

The Texas abortion ban’s harsh penalties are “terrifying” doctors, leading to women dying from miscarriages.

“It’s like a knife straight to your stomach,” said Dr. Todd Ivey, a Houston-based OB-GYN at an academic hospital, about a third woman dying in the state during a miscarriage.

Five doctors who provide reproductive healthcare in Texas on why they believe three healthy young women died—and their advice about how other pregnant Texans can do their best to survive a miscarriage in the state.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Says Legislature Should Clarify Abortion Law to Protect Mothers at Risk

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Sunday said the legislature should amend the language of the state’s near-total abortion ban to address confusion over when doctors may terminate pregnancies. Patrick is the first major state elected official to offer support for changing the state’s abortion law in this legislative session.

“I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk,” Patrick said on the WFAA program Inside Texas Politics.