[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
March 5, 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 Executive Order on IVF Is Full of Red Flags [[link removed]]
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(Science Photo Library / Getty Images)
By Jennifer Weiss-Wolf | As last week’s inaugural gender and democracy round up went to press at The Contrarian , the White House issued an executive order entitled “Expanding Access To In Vitro Fertilization.” The language it employs, and the sheer folly of what it promises, mark it as a double affront to democracy.
Starting with why Trump purports to care about IVF at all. Not long after the Supreme Court’s newly-installed supermajority overturned Roe v. Wade—for which Trump (rightly) claims and deserves all credit—attacks on IVF began to garner media attention. In 2024, Alabama’s highest court ruled that IVF embryos are considered children for purposes of wrongful death lawsuits. The stakes went beyond the impact on IVF (despite ensuing legislative attempts to course correct); the Alabama Supreme Court’s overt embrace of “fetal personhood” also implicates a central legal strategy that could eventually support a federal abortion ban.
Even as the White House has taken predictable swipes at abortion access at home and abroad, and Trump has filled his Cabinet with those who will toe the antiabortion line, especially in top health and law enforcement positions, he has not (yet) gone full “shock and awe” given popular support for IVF and abortion. He has also leaned into a creepy self-designated savior role—”the father of IVF,” as he dubbed himself on the campaign trail, pledging to ensure that fertility treatments are affordable and available.
So what to make of this executive order—a promise fulfilled? From the National Review to MSNBC, few are convinced. I turned to Rutgers Law Professor Kimberly Mutcherson, expert in bioethics and reproductive health, law and technology, to unpack exactly what is at stake for both reproductive health and democracy. Here are four red flags she raised.
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GenBioPro Enters Texas Battle to Preserve Mifepristone Access [[link removed]] Trump’s War on Education: A Week-by-Week Timeline of Cuts, Bans and Rollbacks [[link removed]]
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Montana Lawmakers Vote Down Bill That Would Have Treated Cross-Border Abortion Seekers as Traffickers of Their ‘Unborn Children’ [[link removed]] Montana’s Latest Anti-Trans Bill Has Disturbing Parallels With 19th-Century Eugenics Laws [[link removed]]
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Could Shape the State’s Future on Abortion, Voting and Workers’ Rights [[link removed]] War on Women Report: ‘Fetal Personhood’ Bill Introduced in Congress; Trump’s Antiabortion and Pro-Project 2025 Cabinet [[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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* "Undaunted: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” — The Contrarian [[link removed]]
* "A one-month status update on Trump’s executive orders” — The 19th [[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]] .
As part of our Black History Month Rewind at Ms. Studios, we’re revisiting some of our favorite past episodes. In our final Rewind, we’re revisiting an episode we recorded in 2021, celebrating Juneteenth with the late Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters, and her brother Fritz.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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