[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
January 29, 2025
From the ongoing fight for abortion rights and access, to elections, to the drive for the Equal Rights Amendment, there are a multitude of battles to keep up with. In this weekly roundup, find the absolute need-to-know news for feminists.
Trump’s Pardons of 23 Antiabortion Extremists Endanger Providers and Patients [[link removed]]
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(Kent Nishimura / Getty Images)
By Teresa Cisneros Burton and Ava Slocum | Twenty-three antiabortion extremists convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) were pardoned by President Donald Trump on Thursday. The pardons place extremists responsible for invading and blockading reproductive healthcare clinics in dozens of states back on the street, inviting more violence and chaos against patients and abortion providers.
On Friday, the day of the antiabortion March for Life rally in D.C., Trump’s new Justice Department also issued an order stopping prosecutions of people blocking access to reproductive healthcare facilities. According to Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle, prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or FACE Act will now be allowed only in “extraordinary circumstances.” Mizelle also ordered the dismissal of three ongoing FACE Act cases related to attacks on clinics in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2021 where antiabortion protestors threatened patients and blocked their access to the clinics.
While right-wing extremists refer to these criminal defendants as “peaceful pro-life Americans … deserving of full and unconditional pardons,” abortion advocates know them for their history as leaders of campaigns of terror and for orchestrating dangerous invasions of healthcare clinics in dozens of states. The 23 individuals whom Trump pardoned on Thursday had previously been convicted in historic federal prosecutions.
The pardons benefit defendants of dangerous clinic invasions, such as that at the 2020 Washington, D.C., Surgi-Clinic. Unlike the propaganda delivered by right-wing media outlets of the defendants as “peaceful protestors,” duVergne Gaines, director of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project, says that footage of the 2020 clinic invasion “depicted women desperate for care and in medically fragile situations, including fainting in the hallway, being terrorized and traumatized by extremists.”
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Read more:
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The Dangers of Weaponizing Health and Science: The Ms. Q&A with Dr. Michele Goodwin [[link removed]] Restoring ‘Truth’ or Restricting Freedom? The Real Impact of Enforcing Gender Binaries [[link removed]]
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Doctors, Lawyers, Activists and Justices: The Coalition That Built Roe v. Wade [[link removed]] DEI in the Age of Trump: A Roadmap on How to Build More Just Communities in the Next Four Years [[link removed]]
What we're reading:
Because it's hard to keep up with everything going on in the world right now. Here's what we're reading this week:
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* "Four days into second Trump administration, the Global Gag Rule is back” — Ibis Reproductive Health [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on
Apple Podcasts [[link removed]] + Spotify [[link removed]] .
We begin 2025 on ‘On the Issues’ with special guest Dr. Anthony Fauci. In this episode we discuss some of the most important issues currently confronting the health of our nation and the world—from vaccine skepticism, COVID denialism, and health misinformation and disinformation to the rising tide of violence aimed at medical providers. Dr. Fauci joins us to express his hope for the future, offer insights on the pushback against vaccines, and speak candidly about how his life changed after being in the public spotlight at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the toll it took on him and his family.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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