Dear John,

As we wait for Supreme Court and state court rulings that will determine whether Texas’s S.B. 8 abortion ban continues to stand, an abortion care crisis is growing in Texas. Between the existing dearth of clinics and the increased restrictions S.B. 8 imposes on providers, demand for abortions is growing at clinics in surrounding states — and this demand is putting a strain on providers. 

New research from the Guttmacher Institute this week found in 11 states and the District of Columbia, clinics had seen an influx of patients from Texas seeking abortions. Some of these states were hundreds or even thousands of miles from Texas — states like Illinois, Washington, Ohio and Maryland all saw increases in numbers of Texas residents seeking abortions. 

Advocates still hope that the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in two challenges to the Texas ban last week, will reinstate the temporary injunction previously granted by a federal District Court. We’re also keeping an eye on challenges to the law from abortion providers and advocates that have been taken up by a state district court in Travis county, Texas. Arguments in that court took place over the course of an 8 hour hearing this past week; we are not certain when to expect a ruling. 

Abortion, as we examined this week in our new collaboration with the Brennan Center for Justice, is crucial for our democracy — and the record-setting number of challenges to the fundamental right of reproductive autonomy we’ve seen in Texas and around the country this year further emphasize that our democracy is in peril. These challenges are intimately linked to attacks on voting rights, as Izabela Tringali and Julia Kirschenbaum explain in one of the essays: “Mandatory waiting periods, physician admitting privileges and hospital proximity requirements function similarly in the reproductive care context as do voter ID laws, polling place consolidations and limitations on vote by mail in the election context,” they write. “The result is not ‘liberty’ or ‘small government’: It is the deliberate outsourcing of the state’s power in order to disenfranchise and marginalize.”

While we fight for women’s full equality and autonomy in this country, on the other side of the world, the Taliban continues to crack down on women’s and girls’ fundamental human rights and punish those who resist. Most recently we’ve heard reports of the murders of four women’s rights activists, their bodies discovered in Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan last week. The four women were reported to have participated in demonstrations against the Taliban regime. 

Widespread hunger – the result of a historic drought – and the collapse of much of the Afghan economy in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops and international aid organizaions has driven families to desperation. CNN reported in an emotional scene, a family’s decision to sell their 10 year old daughter to a 70 year old man to be married. 

As the news this week reminds us, the fight for gender equality in the U.S. is inter-linked with the fight for equality everywhere – and you can count on Ms. to keep you informed no matter where in the world equality is under attack.  

For equality,

Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor

P.S. — Check out our special collaboration with the Brennan Center for Justice: "Abortion is Essential to Democracy," live now!