Zurawski v. Texas

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed Zurawski v. Texas, a groundbreaking lawsuit asking the state of Texas to clarify the scope of the “medical emergency” exceptions under its abortion bans.

The case, filed in state court in Austin, is the first lawsuit brought on behalf of women denied abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022.

Amid Support from Doctors Group, Bill to Clarify Texas’ Abortion Ban Does Little to Save Lives, Critics Say

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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.

Forced to Carry a Dying Baby, This Texas Mother of Four Says She Didn’t Think It Could Happen to Her

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.”

Despite Pleas From Women and Doctors, Texas May Implement Even More Abortion Restrictions

Despite mounting evidence that Texas’ abortion bans are endangering women’s lives, Republican lawmakers are pushing for even stricter restrictions, including limits on essential abortion medications.

Legal challenges have failed to loosen the state’s near-total ban, leaving doctors fearful of prosecution and women suffering life-threatening complications. Cases like Amanda Zurawski’s near-fatal sepsis and Samantha Casiano’s forced pregnancy highlight the devastating impact of the law, yet the Texas Supreme Court has refused to clarify its vague medical exceptions. With no legal or citizen-led ballot initiatives available, advocates say the only path to restoring abortion rights in Texas is to vote out antiabortion legislators.

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.

Ms. Magazine’s Top Feminists of 2024

From top athletes, to community activists, to badass lawmakers, here are our 25 picks for the top U.S. feminists of 2024, and two of the best things they did or said.

Featuring: Kamala Harris, the 27 women who sued the state of Texas for its abortion ban in Zurawski v. Texas, Sarah McBride, abortion providers and funders, Black women voters, Jasmine Crockett, South Carolina’s “Sister Senators” and more.

The Most-Read Stories of 2024

Every day of 2024, Ms. writers and editors set out to create content that empowered, informed and infuriated readers. We sought out the truth, sounded alarms, asked tough questions, mourned feminist losses (and feminists we lost), looked to gender justice advocates abroad, and handed the microphone over to experts. Dear reader: As we enter a new year and a new era of the movement, we promise you more of this.

Explore the 30 most popular articles published this year on MsMagazine.com—the articles feminists most clicked, shared, studied, bookmarked and passed out at marches.

Activist Olivia Julianna Talks Repro Rights and Young Women’s Futures on Ms. Magazine’s New Gen Z Podcast

A fair amount of news coverage this election cycle has focused on the Gen Z vote, and for good reason. Besides being the most diverse generation in American history, Generation Z—born between the mid 1990s and the early 2010s—has grown up in a turbulent time in this country, from the rise of school shootings to the COVID-19 pandemic to the first (and soon to be second) Trump presidency and legislative attacks on reproductive freedom.

In The Z Factor’s third episode, host Anoushka Chander interviewed 21-year-old Olivia Julianna, who has advocated for abortion in her home state of Texas. On the podcast, she and Chander delved into the unique worries of young women in America right now and Julianna’s own advocacy work.

Documentary ‘Zurawski v. Texas’ Shows the Horror of Abortion Bans—and the Bravery of Those Who Fight Them

As voters head to the ballot box to vote for the very leaders who will directly decide their reproductive healthcare access, the documentary Zurawski v. Texas is on national tour, screening in movie theaters across the country.

Executive produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and directed by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, the film achieves the remarkable, bringing audiences directly into the lives of three plaintiffs and their lawyer in the groundbreaking lawsuit from the Center for Reproductive Rights challenging Texas’ abject failure to honor medical exceptions under its abortion ban. The documentary gets up close and personal, shedding light on the devastating consequences experienced by each of the women—their doctor’s appointments, family interactions, surrogacy attempts, courtroom testimonies and a heart-wrenching funeral—at the hands of the state.

The Crusade to Elect Three Democrats to the Texas Supreme Court

“The Texas Supreme Court took our freedoms. And what we need to do about it in November is vote out Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland,” said Gina Ortiz Jones, Texas woman and founder of the Find Out PAC.

Jones said she’s confident that “people are very motivated to hold somebody accountable” for their loss of reproductive rights in Texas, and that flipping three seats on the state Supreme Court may not be as difficult as it seems.

“When people say, ‘Oh, that’s really tough’—well how do we know?” she said. “We’ve never tried.”