[[link removed]] | DEC 2024-JAN 2025
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From the desk of Ellie Smeal...
Donald Trump is once again the President of the United States. That’s the headline. But it’s not the story. The story is what we’ve done to get here, and what we’ll do now that we’re here.
Fear hangs in the air, sure. But fear isn’t new to us. Neither is doubt. Neither is a fight. And that’s what this is—a fight we’re ready for.
They want you to feel overwhelmed. They are releasing new decisions every day to rollback our rights and strip away at our democracy, and have already rescinded some. Here are just a few of the most recent attacks:
* The pardoning of over 1500 individuals convicted in the Jan 6th riot
* The pardoning of 23 anti-abortion extremists who violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act
* The freezing of trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans that fund programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, Meals on Wheels, and Head Start -- and then the quick recision the next day due to backlash
* The unconstitutional executive order to end birthright citizenship
* Reinstating the global gag rule
* The elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in federal government
* The indefinite suspension of the resettlement of eligible Afghan refugees
And the list goes on. Over my 55 years of feminist activism, I have witnessed moments that seemed insurmountable. Yet here we are, stronger, louder, and more determined than ever.
But progress is not a straight path. If there is one lesson history teaches us, it is this: small voices, united in purpose, can topple the mightiest of structures. Ordinary people with extraordinary hope have proven that change is possible, even against overwhelming odds.
This is our moment.
For equality,
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Ellie Smeal, President
Trump’s Pardons of 23 Anti-abortion Extremists Endanger Providers and Patients
TERESA CISNEROS BURTON AND AVA SLOCUM | JANUARY 29
Twenty-three antiabortion extremists convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act [[link removed]] (FACE Act) were pardoned [[link removed]] by President Donald Trump on Thursday. The pardons place extremists [[link removed]] 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 anti-abortion 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 [[link removed]] of three ongoing FACE Act cases related to attacks on clinics in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2021 where anti-abortion protestors threatened patients and blocked their access to the clinics.
While right-wing extremists [[link removed]] 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 [[link removed]] .
The pardons benefit defendants of dangerous clinic invasions, such as that at the 2020 Washington, D.C., Surgi-Clinic [[link removed]] . 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 [[link removed]] , 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.”
The anticipated move is a symbol of Trump’s genuflecting to the right, and right-wing anti-abortion groups are continuing to beat the drum for Congress to abolish the FACE Act. The federal law, enacted in 1994, ”prohibits violent, threatening, damaging and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services.”
The latest efforts to repeal the law are led by Rep. Chip Roy [[link removed]] (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who reintroduced a bill to repeal the FACE Act on Tuesday, saying it has been used to weaponize the Department of Justice. On Thursday, Trump also put a freeze [[link removed]] on all cases within the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Trump called it “a great honor” to pardon people who “should not have been prosecuted.” Many of the defendants were serving lengthy prison sentences for orchestrating and carrying out clinic invasions that injured a nurse and terrorized both patients and healthcare providers.
Trump made an appearance on video [[link removed]] at Friday’s March for Life, stating “We will again stand proudly for families and for life,” in a prerecorded address. JD Vance attended the march in person and celebrated Thursday’s pardons for FACE Act violators. He also called Trump “the most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.” At the march, members of the extremist groups Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, chanted, “We are clinic invaders and yours is next.”
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Photo by Nitish Meena [[link removed]] on Unsplash [[link removed]]
Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump From Ending Birthright Citizenship
AVA SLOCUM | JANUARY 27
On Thursday, January 23, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s Executive Order ending birthright citizenship [[link removed]] , or automatic American citizenship for all babies born in the United States.
The Executive Order—called Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship [[link removed]] —was part of the flurry of anti-immigrant Executive Orders Trump signed on his first day in office. Ending birthright citizenship would be essentially amending the Constitution. Citizenship for all people born in the U.S. became precedent with Section 1 of the 14th Amendment [[link removed].] , which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
In a hearing held on Thursday, three days after Trump’s Executive Order, Federal District Court judge John C. Coughenour signed a restraining order that temporarily blocks Trump’s EO from going into effect for fourteen days [[link removed]] . “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he said. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?” He continued, “Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”
Coughenour sided with the four states—Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon—who sued the Trump administration in response to the Executive Order. Twenty-two states [[link removed]] as well as organizations like the ACLU, [[link removed]] have since sued to have Trump’s order recalled.
The order (which Trump has told reporters that he would appeal the judge's decision to reinstate) would declare that children born to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. after Feb. 19, 2025 would not be considered citizens. The change would also affect visa holders [[link removed]] who are in the country legally but temporarily, meaning that the children of tourists and students with visas, for example, could not be considered citizens if born in the U.S. if their parents are not citizens.
Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship is one of several blatantly anti-immigrant executive orders that Trump signed on Day One, and advocates worry that EOs like the one ending birthright citizenship would allow for very fast deportations [[link removed]] with very minimal due process.
Joseph W. Mead, an attorney at Georgetown Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, who represents four pregnant mothers, said, “Mothers today now have to fear that their children will not be given the U.S. citizenship that they’re entitled to.”
ICC Seeks Arrest Warrants for Taliban Leaders Over Gender Persecution
MAKHFI AZIZI | JANUARY 24
In a historic decision [[link removed]] , the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders for widespread violations of the Rome Statute, the treaty that underpins the court’s jurisdiction. The move underscores growing international outrage over the Taliban’s gender apartheid, or systemic abuses against women and other vulnerable groups in Afghanistan since their return to power in August 2021.
The ICC states that the two men, the Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the Chief Justice of the Taliban, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds, under article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute [[link removed]] .” It also states that the Taliban leaders are “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women.”
The ICC’s charges focus on the Taliban’s persistent actions that violate international laws. Specifically, the court cites the Taliban’s oppressive policies that severely curtail the rights of women and girls, “including the right to physical integrity and autonomy, to free movement and free expression, to education, and to free assembly.
The statement adds that more arrest warrants for “other senior members of the Taliban” will follow too.
Since regaining control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have issued more than 100 edicts systematically erasing women from all aspects of public life. These policies, the ICC argues, amount to gender persecution under the Rome Statute, making the Taliban leadership criminally liable for these human rights abuses.
Reactions and Accountability at Last
Human rights advocates and organizations have welcomed the news, viewing it as a long-overdue step toward accountability for the Taliban’s crimes. For Afghan women and the Afghan people in general, the news has sparked some hope of accountability in a justice-starved country while others question whether these warrants will result in tangible change. The Taliban, predictably, dismissed the arrest warrants as “baseless propaganda” and reiterated their claim to legitimacy as Afghanistan’s rulers.
Enforcing these arrest warrants may present significant challenges. While Afghanistan is a party to the Rome Statute since 2003, the two men rarely travel outside Afghanistan and there is no effective mechanism to arrest them within Afghanistan. Despite the challenges, the ICC’s arrest warrants mark a pivotal moment in the international response to the Taliban’s abuses.
The move sends a powerful message: accountability and justice must be served and the international community will not stand by in the face of systematic oppression and crimes against humanity. The decision also sets a precedent for addressing similar violations around the world. For the Afghan people, particularly women, the warrants symbolize a long-overdue reckoning for the Taliban’s brutal rule and real action to stop these crimes.
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January 2025 Women's March (Marisa Conners)
Trump Sets a Chaotic Tone for Second Term
MARISA CONNERS | JANUARY 22
On January 20th, in front of his family, billionaire tech CEOs [[link removed]] , and nominated Cabinet members, Donald Trump was once again sworn in as President of the United States. His inaugural speech laid out his extreme policy priorities, ranging from immigration to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and more. He moved quickly to sign a sweeping set of 26 Executive Orders, 12 memorandums, and four proclamations [[link removed]] addressing these priorities, many of which closely resemble Project 2025’s policy agenda, all while taking questions from reporters [[link removed]] in an unprecedented move.
One Executive Order, entitled “Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” reversed 78 such orders [[link removed]] from the Biden Administration. In a controversial move, Trump issued a proclamation [[link removed]] pardoning over 1,500 individuals [[link removed]] convicted in the Jan. 6th Capitol riot, including Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman, and Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers group. This action implies that he will permit future political violence, as a recent Time article [[link removed]] illustrates, striking fear in some of his political enemies.
Continue reading about the devastating mass deportations, oil drilling plans, elimination of DEI, and more here [[link removed]] .
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Photo by Thiago Rocha [[link removed]] on Unsplash [[link removed]]
The Continued Attack on Transgender Student Athletes
MARISA CONNERS | JANUARY 15
Over 400 human rights organizations, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, has signed on to a letter [[link removed]] written by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to oppose H.R. 28 [[link removed]] , the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. This House bill would alter Title IX to block transgender women and girls from participating in federally funded women and girls' sports programs. In the aftermath of the recent Tennessee v. Cardona case, where a federal district judge ruled [[link removed]] that Title IX protections cannot be expanded to include gender identity, the letter from the Leadership Conference represents an important coalition of support for transgender students.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 was introduced [[link removed]] on January 3, 2025 by Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL-17), and passed [[link removed]] on January 14, 2025. It mirrors the 2023 bill by the same name, which passed the House but not the Senate [[link removed]] . The 2023 version would have resolved [[link removed]] that federally funded education programs and activities cannot “operate, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs” that allow individuals “of the male sex” to participate in programs for women or girls. In this bill, “sex” is based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The coalition letter outlines multiple issues [[link removed]] with H.B. 28, including its discriminatory impact on transgender youth, the lack of attention to athletics barriers that women and girls face, and the danger it poses to the civil rights of all students. This bill invalidates trans identities by referring to trans women and girls as “of the male sex. [[link removed]] " Furthermore, it is exclusive, invasive, and single-sided. In a recent press release [[link removed]] , President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Fatima Goss Graves stated that “it only makes it more likely that women and girls will be targeted and punished based on someone else’s idea of what a woman or girl should look or act like.”
The bill’s provisions [[link removed]] focus on banning individuals “of the male sex” from participating in programs for women or girls, and states that it will determine sex based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” However, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) pointed out [[link removed]] , there is no enforcement mechanism, meaning that it is unclear who will investigate athletes’ genetics and what measures they will use to do so. A notable gray area regards intersex people, who may have chromosomes that vary from the commonly regarded [[link removed].] , stereotypical XX (female) and XY (male), while also possessing combinations of reproductive organs that differ from the stereotypical sets.
Finally, H.B. 28 directs the Government Accountability Office to compile one-sided data on the harms [[link removed]] that transgender women and girls’ participation in sports causes to their cisgender counterparts, including the benefits that they will lose and any psychological, developmental, participatory, and sociological negative impacts. Creating this body of data is dangerous, as it intentionally omits and ignores the neutral or positive of trans participation in sports.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals found [[link removed]] that an inclusive athletics policy in Connecticut did not detract from cisgender girls’ participation, while the Center for Disease Control’s program, “What Works in Schools,” implied [[link removed]] that including transgender people in sports may be beneficial because it reduces experiences of violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts among high school students regardless of sexual identity.
H.B. 28 will now move to the Senate, where it would require seven Democrats to vote with Republicans in order to move past a filibuster [[link removed]] .
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President Joe Biden awarded FMF President Eleanor Smeal the Presidential Citizens Medal. (Jenny Warburg)
President Biden Awards Ellie Smeal with the Presidential Citizens Medal
MADELYN AMOS | DECEMBER 7
On January 2nd, Eleanor Smeal, president and co-founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, received the prestigious Presidential Citizens Medal [[link removed]] , an honor given to individuals who have performed “ exemplary deeds [[link removed]] of service to their country and fellow citizens.”
In a moving ceremony at the White House, President Joe Biden praised the recipients, stating, “I have the privilege of bestowing the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of our nation’s highest honors, to an extraordinary, and I mean extraordinary, group of Americans.” The Presidential Citizens Medal, created in 1969, is the second-highest civilian award in the United States, highlighting individuals who exemplify the best of American values through their service and leadership.
Smeal has been a trailblazer in the fight for women’s rights for decades. From her pivotal leadership in the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment to her tireless advocacy for reproductive rights, pay equity, Title IX, and ending gender-based violence, Smeal has redefined the feminist movement. As a former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she has championed policies that promote equality, justice, and fairness for all genders.
Biden commended the recipients’ contributions, stating, “you are activists who turned pain into purpose and forced open the doors of equality and justice.” Smeal has done just that. She continues to inspire generations of feminists and is unwavering in her fight for equality.
Congratulations Ellie!
Interested in reading more?
Check out these articles on our website:
* Study Shows Potential in a New Drug That Could Increase Accessibility to Medication Abortion [[link removed]]
* Trump Terminates First Woman to Lead a Branch of the Military [[link removed]]
* Senate Hearing Revisits the Misleading and Dangerous ‘Born-Alive’ Bill [[link removed]]
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