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The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients
The first year of Trump’s second term marked major blows for reproductive healthcare. Medicaid funding cuts forced about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics to close throughout the U.S. and blocked 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid from using their insurance to pay for reproductive healthcare. Twenty-three independent abortion clinics throughout the country also shut down in 2025.
Now, at the start of 2026, there are only nine states where it is possible to get a legal abortion with no restrictions.
Four years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe, here are some of the key ways states are pushing harder than ever to end any access to abortion.
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The Pathetic Price of Entry to Epstein’s World
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Mifepristone Manufacturers Move to Block GOP Lawsuit Seeking Nationwide Telehealth Abortion Ban
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Who’s American? Whose America? Bad Bunny’s Radical Halftime Message
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Doctors Say Texas’ Abortion Laws Cost a 37-Year-Old Mother Her Life, After 90 Doctors and Months of Crisis
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Why Menopause Belongs in Democracy Conversations (with Omisade Burney-Scott)
Menopause will affect most women during their lifetime—but until fairly recently, it was a topic largely relegated to the shadows. More and more, advocates are calling for the spotlight to be put on menopause—highlighting not just the important health issues at play, but the ways in which they affect diverse populations, from Black and brown women to queer and trans people to incarcerated people and more.
Omisade Burney-Scott, creator of The Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause, is one of those advocates. She joins Dr. Michele Goodwin to discuss why intersectional conversations around menopause are so important, and why these discussions are important for the preservation of democracy.
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- Taliban’s New Penal Code Institutionalizes Exclusion and Threatens Afghanistan’s Vulnerable Communities
- Illinois Faces Federal Defunding Over The State Law Requiring Abortion Referrals
- With LA Maternity Wards Closing at Alarming Rates, Patients Are Giving Birth in ERs
- Removal of “Option 3” on the 988 Suicide Hotline Poses Extreme Mental Health Risk for LGBTQ+ Youth
- Investors’ Undervaluation of Women’s Health Mirrors America’s Devaluation of Women’s Bodies
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Trump-Era Federal Layoffs Hit Black Women Hardest
There is a shift happening in the labor force that favors men in general, and white men in particular. And Black women—who historically have found more job security and upward mobility in federal employment—are now seeing those federal jobs slip away in record numbers.
“What we are seeing happening is a federal government that is intent on creating a DEI boogeyman to radically change how workplaces operate in ways that disadvantage women, people of color and LGBTQ workers,” says Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.
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A Letter to My Future Self in a Time of Undoing
This essay is one of three “Letters to My Future Self” included in Flipping the Menopause Script Is Essential to Democracy. Through personal reflection, political memory and spiritual inquiry, these letters consider menopause and midlife as thresholds—moments of undoing, reckoning and renewal. They invite readers to see aging not as decline, but as a site of transformation, agency and hard-won power.
“Since we were born in 1967 … we were told, implicitly and explicitly, that we were the first generation of Black children born into the fullness of freedom promised by law. The first generation of Black women was meant to be fully protected by the government. Free to vote without obstruction. Free to be educated without limits. Free to open a bank account, hold a credit card and own property. Free to marry who we loved. Free to live without our rights being constantly renegotiated.
“That was the promise we inherited. …
“Menopause sharpened my understanding that rights, like bodies, require attending to and care. That neglect is a political choice. That erosion is not accidental. That what happens to aging bodies mirrors what happens to democracies that refuse to honor those most impacted by time, labor and sacrifice. So I am writing to you, Future Me, because I want us to meet each other awake.
“Who are we when I finally arrive?
“Are we softer without being smaller? Stronger without armor? Have we learned how to rest without apology? Have we let go of the belief that our worth must be proven through exhaustion? …
“If you are an ancestor now, please remind me of what mattered most. Not the accolades. Not the fear. Not the scarcity. Remind me that I belonged to myself. That I belonged to my people. That I trusted the wisdom of my changing body.”
(This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, published in the middle of Black History Month, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity.)
