MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report…

+ Some good news out of North Carolina: After a six-month legal battle, Republican Jefferson Griffin has finally conceded the North Carolina Supreme Court race to Democrat Allison Riggs. Riggs won the election in November, but Griffin refused to acknowledge his loss, attempting to challenge the election results by claiming tens of thousands of ballots were invalid.

+ The FDA approved the first at-home alternative for Pap smears. The wand-like device, created by Teal Health, will allow women to screen for cervical cancer and HPV without having to visit a doctor, simplifying the testing process and making it less painful by using a swab rather than a metal speculum.  

+ Maine has made progress toward enacting a law that would allow doctors to withhold their names from abortion medication bottles. The bill would protect providers of mifepristone and misoprostol from harassment and serve as a shield law by permitting doctors to print the names of their medical practices on prescription bottles rather than the names of individual doctors.

+ This month, the world learned of Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old Georgia woman who died in February from brain blood clots. Because she was pregnant, Georgia’s strict abortion laws require the hospital to keep her body on life support. “She’s been breathing through machines for more than 90 days. It’s torture,” said her mother, April Newkirk. The family is now burdened with mounting medical bills. Emory Midtown Hospital plans to keep Smith on life support until the fetus can survive outside the womb—even though doctors say it has severe brain damage and may not survive. “This decision should’ve been left to us,” Newkirk said.

In an emergency episode of On the Issues, host Michele Goodwin pointed to 13th Amendment concerns, likening Georgia’s actions to the historical reproductive servitude of Black women.

Let’s not forget what else was sent our way this month …

Monday, April 28: Ultra-Conservative Think Tank Publishes Faulty Report Claiming the Danger of Abortion Pills

The report, simply titled “The Abortion Pill Harms Women,” features several false claims regarding the safety of these medications. The ‘research’ claims that over 10 percent of women experienced what they call “serious adverse effects” such as sepsis or hemorrhage following a mifepristone-induced abortion. Notably, the ‘study’ defined such an event as including a mere visit to the emergency room within 45 days of taking mifepristone, thus miscategorizing thousands of patients and skewing the data to favor antiabortion policy.

The report, published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), has since prompted concerns regarding the FDA’s approval of medications like mifepristone and misoprostol. Referring to the safety of abortion pills, FDA commissioner Marty Makary stated, “We can’t promise we’re not going to act on that data that we have not yet seen.”

The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000, and as of 2023, medication abortions account for roughly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. More than 100 studies have since proven the safety of abortion pills.

Thursday, May 8: Pope Leo XIV at Odds With U.S. Catholics on Reproductive Rights

Catholic cardinals elected the first American pope, Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Although the pope has posted criticisms of Trump and JD Vance on social media, he has strongly opposed abortion and expressed hesitancy over IVF, upheld the Catholic tradition that women cannot be ordained as priests or deacons, and stated that marriage is between a man and a woman, criticizing the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families” in a speech to bishops in 2012.

Chris Wimbaush, interim president of Catholics for Choice, noted Pope Leo disagrees with the majority of U.S. Catholics on his antiabortion stance, and said, “The future of our church depends on greater inclusion and nuance on reproductive health decisions like abortion, contraception, and IVF.”

Friday, May 9: Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts Student Detained by ICE, Released From Detention on Bail

Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was arrested on March 25 and released May 9 following an order from a federal judge in Vermont, William K. Sessions III. The judge, who had previously expedited her hearing, had to issue a second order calling for her immediate release due to federal officials’ attempts to require her to wear an ankle monitor.

Although she was arrested outside her home in Somerville, Mass., she was held in an immigrant detention center in Louisiana for six weeks before her release. Sessions expressed concern for the state of free speech in the wake of Öztürk’s arrest, stating noncitizens “may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center from their home.”

Monday, May 12: Louisiana Opens Second Case Against New York Dr. Margaret Carpenter Over Alleged Mailing of Abortion Pills

In February, Louisiana issued an extradition warrant for the arrest of Dr. Carpenter for allegedly ordering abortion pills to a woman in Louisiana via telehealth, violating the state’s near-total abortion ban. In response, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation strengthening the state’s 2023 shield law seeking to protect providers like Dr. Carpenter from out-of-state litigation. 

This month, Louisiana is investigating a second case involving Carpenter, who was also fined for sending abortion pills to Texas. Attorney General Liz Murill alleges Dr. Carpenter was involved in prescribing abortion pills to a woman she claims was “20 weeks pregnant.” Murrill alleges, “after she gave birth [she] took the baby, wrapped it in a towel and threw it in a garbage can.”

Gov. Hochul has previously stated she would not sign an extradition request to send Carpenter to Louisiana for arrest. 

Saturday, May 17: Southern California Fertility Clinic Bombed in Attack on Repro Healthcare

Four people were injured and one was killed in a bombing attack on the American Reproductive Centers (ARC) Fertility Clinic in Palm Springs, Calif. Police believe the man killed—25-year-old California resident Guy Edward Bartkus—was also the perpetrator of the bombing. Bartkus posted alarming content online before the attack, including videos of him testing the explosives and expressions of his “misandrist” beliefs.

“Basically, I’m anti-life,” he said in one recording that LAist cited, “and IVF is like kind of the epitome of pro-life ideology.”

Although staged on a fertility clinic, this attack is reminiscent of the last few years’ surge in violent attacks on abortion clinics and other reproductive healthcare facilities. IVF—which Bartkus cited in his attack on the Palm Springs clinic—is a target for many antiabortion extremists. Although IVF facilities have not faced as many attacks as other kinds of reproductive health clinics, they have seen a rise in protestors by so-called abortion and IVF “abolitionists.”

Monday, May 19: Texas Woman Kept in Jail for Five Months for a Miscarriage

Texas has finally dropped charges against Mallori Patrice Strait, a 34-year-old woman arrested on Dec. 19, 2024, for “abuse of a corpse” after she miscarried in a public restroom. Although prosecutors dropped the case for insufficient evidence, she was in prison for five months after a judge set her bail at $100,000. While she was in prison, a local crisis pregnancy center (CPC) took custody of the fetal remains, named the fetus and held a public funeral.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner determined that Strait had miscarried and her fetus died naturally, while the district attorney’s office stated there was no evidence that Strait tried to flush the fetus down the toilet despite sensationalist headlines claiming that she tried to flush her “baby girl” down the toilet and news websites publishing her mugshot.

Strait’s case is eerily similar to that of Brittany Watts, the woman in Ohio who sued the state in January after she lost her pregnancy at home and was arrested for “abuse of a corpse” despite suffering from a natural miscarriage. As with Strait, the media exaggerated and sensationalized Watts’ case with melodramatic headlines.

“Texas arrested [Strait] for a miscarriage, jailed her for nearly half a year, let an anti-abortion group name and bury her fetus—and then quietly dropped the charges once they realized they never had a case to begin with,” Jessica Valenti wrote. Regarding Strait’s and Watts’ cases, she also explained, “The people criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes tend to be marginalized—they’re often women of color, low income, immigrants, unhoused, or have substance abuse issues. Black women, in particular, are targeted by law enforcement and hospital staff.”

Wednesday, May 21: Judge Blocks Abortion Leave for Workers

A judge struck down federal regulations that required U.S. employers to give workers paid time off for abortions. The ruling from U.S. District Judge David Joseph comes despite existing guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which includes abortion among the pregnancy-related medical conditions covered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of December 2022.

Thursday, May 22: Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” Passed in the House

The budget reconciliation bill passed in a 215-214 vote by House Republicans, threatening severe funding cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, along with implementing $5 trillion in tax reductions while removing aid for farmers. 

The bill would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by roughly $300 billion, which is bound to impact over 42 million Americans who depend on the nation’s largest food assistance program if it passes in the Senate.

MAZON, a Jewish nonprofit organization fighting hunger, along with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is suing the Department of Agriculture following its demands that states submit SNAP recipients’ personal information to the USDA in order to receive aid. In the complaint, attorney Daniel Zibel stated that the suit intends “to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections.”

Tuesday, May 27: Extreme Texas Abortion Pill Bill Fails to Advance

To the relief of reproductive rights advocates across the country, Texas’ bill SB 2880 has died in the state legislature. The sweeping antiabortion bill would have targeted anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails or otherwise provides abortion medication in the state of Texas.

It would have also allowed private citizens to sue anyone helping someone obtain an abortion—even out of state—for a minimum of $100,000. This meant that a mother paying for a plane ticket for her daughter to fly to another state for an abortion, or a friend offering childcare while a mother in need of an abortion travels out of state, could have faced lawsuits and prison sentences.

In April, the bill passed Texas’ Republican-led Senate, and received approval from a House committee last week; however, the bill did not make it to the governor’s desk before the legislative session ended this week.

Back in April, before the senate passed SB 2880, Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes, the bill’s sponsor, insisted that the bill wouldn’t amount to a travel restriction on pregnant women. But Houston Democrat Sen. Molly Cook said, “We don’t believe you that this isn’t a travel ban and there is nothing in this bill that says you won’t be prosecuted for leaving the state.”

Meanwhile, Drexel law professor David S. Cohen, co-author of After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion, highlighted how SB 2880 centered around trying to stop the spread of abortion pills and telehealth abortion medication. (About one in five abortions in the U.S. are now done through telehealth.) “The antiabortion movement knows if they want to stop abortion in the future, they have to stop pills, but historically, that’s a hard thing to do,” he said. “It’s a hard thing to do to stop a drug. That’s partly why the antiabortion movement is flailing.”