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Abortion rights activists protest after the overturning of Roe v. Wade in downtown Nashville on June 24, 2022. (Seth Herald / AFP via Getty Images)

BY SHOSHANNA EHRLICH | In May 2024, following Idaho’s lead, Tennessee became the second state in the country to criminalize the ‘abortion trafficking’ of minors, making it a class A misdemeanor.

Late last month, Nashville Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn and abortion rights attorney and activist Rachel Welty brought a lawsuit in federal district court challenging the trafficking law on constitutional grounds and asking to have it permanently enjoined. 

(Click here to read more) 

Activists pass out emergency contraception while campaigning with Vote for Abortion outside on June 8, 2024, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (Rebecca Noble / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

BY NINA MARTIN | In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision, as dozens of abortion clinics shut down in states with total or near-total abortion bans, reproductive justice advocates warned that the closures wouldn’t just affect patients seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

Now, in the first research to look at national trends in the use of birth control pills and emergency contraceptives in the post-Roe era, a USC study has found states with the most draconian abortion policies saw significant declines in the number of birth control prescriptions filled, especially for emergency contraception. 

(Click here to read more) 

The fossilized remains of “Lucy,” the most complete example of the hominid Australopithecus afarensis, at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Aug. 28, 2007, in Houston, Texas. (Dave Einsel / Getty Images)

BY STACY KELTNER | Fifty years ago, scientists discovered “Lucy,” a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of pieces of bone of a 3.2-million-year-old female specimen of the genus Australopithecus afarensis, often described as “the mother of us all.”

Though Lucy has solved some evolutionary riddles, her appearance remains an ancestral secret.

Popular renderings dress her in thick, reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet and breasts peeking out of denser thickets.This hairy picture of Lucy, it turns out, might be wrong.

(Click here to read more)

Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on

Apple Podcasts + Spotify.

In this episode, we’re joined by two co-hosts of the Webby Award-winning #SistersInLaw podcast to discuss where our nation stands as we approach the 2024 elections—from the ongoing trials faced by former president Donald Trump, to Nikki Haley, to the Supreme Court’s recent opinions and so much more.

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