Dear John,

“The act is a breathtaking act of defiance — of the Constitution, of this court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas.”

—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

“A breathtaking act of defiance.” In her blistering dissent from the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay SB8, Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out what we already knew: the Texas law which bans virtually all abortions after 6 weeks is unconstitutional. Yet the five conservative justices based their decision on what they said was their inability to rule on “complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” presented by the challengers to the law, even while acknowledging the “serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue.” 

In our new Fall issue, Constitutional law scholar Michele Goodwin delves into the Court’s decision, concluding, “[t]he result of the Court’s shadow docket opinion is to … set in motion a workable blueprint for all other conservative state legislatures bent on stripping away abortion rights.” And we take Ms. readers inside the Jackson, Mississippi clinic challenging the state’s law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks. The Mississippi law, unquestionably a violation of the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling, will be heard by the Supreme Court in its coming term. 

Here’s a glimpse at what else you’ll find inside the upcoming Fall issue:

Georgetown University Law School professor, Victoria Nourse, who played a leading role in drafting the Violence Against Women Act, looks back at a devastating, decades-old Supreme Court decision on sexual assault to show just why we need the Equal Rights Amendment now. And Jessica Lenahan, a survivor-activist speaks out for the ERA in a conversation with Ms. contributing editor, Carrie Baker. 

Twenty years ago when America went to Afghanistan to defeat the forces that attacked the U.S. on September 11th, we also made commitments to the women and girls of Afghanistan. From the first time the Taliban seized power in the mid-1990s, and throughout the 20 years of progress that followed the fall of the Taliban, Ms. has brought you reports on the women and girls of Afghanistan. In our special feature, Afghan women discuss their fears now that the Taliban has regained control, and the former deputy president and minister of women’s affairs and 17-year chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission warns that “[s]ustainable peace will not be possible without full and meaningful participation of women as half of the population. Without peace in Afghanistan, the problem will reach other countries as well, the history has shown.”

An economic justice group in Mississippi proves how life-changing it can be to just give mothers money – with no strings attached – to finally compensate women for their household labor. We hear directly from one of the mothers about how the cash enabled her to “invest in herself” and her 10-year-old son. 

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For equality,

Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor