“Abortion bans don’t stop people from needing and pursuing essential abortion care,” said Alison Norris, M.D., Ph.D., professor at The Ohio State University’s College of Public Health and #WeCount co-chair.

Despite these increases, Ushma Upadhyay, professor and fellow #WeCount co-chair, warned that unwarranted attacks on telehealth abortion may restrict access in the future. “This care is under assault by abortion opponents’ relentless attacks on mifepristone and telehealth—even though medication abortion is backed by a 25-year track record of safety and gold-standard science, and research shows that telehealth abortion is just as safe and effective as in-person care.”  

The post Abortion Continues to Increase in 2025 as Telehealth Expands, Especially in States with Bans and Restrictions appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

“It’s a huge revolution of who actually gets to decide when, how and with the support of whom they can have an abortion and until when," said Women Help Women coexecutive director Kinga Jelinska. "It centers the needs of users rather than institutions or markets. The underlying notion is that abortion can be friendly, and abortion can be easy.” 

Self-managed abortion is disruptive. We were told that abortion is a difficult decision; that it has to be difficult to access, and that only doctors control it. Self-managed abortion subverts that," said Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, fellow coexecutive founder.

The post A Global Telehealth First: Women Help Women Begins Producing Abortion Pill Combipack appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Their commitment is clear: “We will continue to send mifepristone, even if the FDA takes it off the market inside the U.S.. ... We want to make this service easy, the best experience that it can be, with dignity. You can just go online, and it’s easy, and there’s no judgment. If you need this, we are here for you. Here are your pills. Here’s the support service that you need. You can do this from home. Whatever the reason is, we want to have that service there for you to be able to do that, no matter where you live."

Their service and determination grew directly out of the post-Roe crisis. People find Abortion Pills in Private through the Plan C website. Since March 2024, they have served almost 3,500 patients in the U.S., most of them living in the hardest-hit states—those with abortion bans and severe restrictions. “They are from all over, but they are very much from banned states. Texas is always number one. Then Florida, Georgia. Even Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are some blue states too.”

The post International Telehealth Provider ‘Abortion Pills in Private’ Ready to Ramp Up if FDA Restricts Mifepristone appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Made by Detroit-based filmmaker Na Forest Lim, the short films follow two women—a teenager named Dani and a single mother in her 30s named Poppy—who find out they are pregnant and use abortion pills at home, supported by friends and family.

Both of the main characters have easy access to abortion pills: Dani’s friend arrives with pills in her backpack, and Poppy keeps a pack tucked away in her top dresser drawer.

Building on that vision of easy access, the Dani PSA shows what it looks like when abortion pills are already part of teenagers’ lives and a pregnancy never has the chance to become a crisis.

The post Shout Your Abortion Short Films Seek to Normalize Keeping Abortion Pills at Home: ‘You Always Have Options’ appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

To support self-managed abortion, feminists are creating a global network of online abortion doulas—trained companions who offer one-on-one support by phone, email and text to people using abortion pills. A leader in this effort is the organization Rouge Doulas, which runs the Rouge Abortion Doula School.

The post Inside the Global Network of Abortion Doulas Supporting Self-Managed Care appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Venny Ala-Siurua, executive director of Women on Web, was recently named to the Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network Academe. Ms. spoke with Ala-Siurua about how their service connects people with pills, how they’re removing medical gatekeeping, and how they’re defending abortion access against digital censorship.

"We’ve always focused on countries where there are high restrictions on abortion. Unfortunately, the situation in some of the states in the U.S. qualifies now. ... Many pharmacies and providers have stepped up internationally to support the U.S. and found ways of dispensing and shipping medicines really, really fast. ...

"We are receiving around 30 requests per day from people in the U.S., though that number can rise during major political moments—for example, when Trump was elected or took office. Our U.S. care seekers live primarily in states with abortion bans. Globally, we currently handle approximately 4,000 requests each month."

The post International Telehealth Provider ‘Women on Web’ Vows to Keep Abortion Pills Flowing to the U.S., No Matter What appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

On Oct. 23, a coalition of Michigan women, physicians and patient advocates filed a lawsuit, Koskenojo v. Whitner, challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s pregnancy-exclusion law that forces life support on pregnant women by denying incapacitated pregnant patients the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment. The case relies on a voter-approved 2022 constitutional amendment that explicitly protects “the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy.”

One plaintiff—Nikki Sapiro Vinckier of Birmingham, Mich.—explained her objections to Michigan’s pregnancy exclusion law. “As a woman and a mother, it’s infuriating to know that my body can still be regulated more than it’s respected. As a trained OB-GYN physician assistant, I know this law protects no one—it only punishes those who can get pregnant. The pregnancy exclusion clause isn’t about safety or care. It’s about control. There is no place for a law that discriminates against pregnant people in a state that claims to trust women."

The post Repro Groups Sue Michigan Over Law Denying Pregnant Women Control of Their Bodies in End-of-Life Decisions appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

“The New York judge’s dismissal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s frivolous lawsuit is welcomed but expected,” said the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.

"Our shield law exists to protect New Yorkers from out-of-state extremists, and New York will always stand strong as a safe haven for healthcare and freedom of choice," said Attorney General Letitia James.

The post Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Foiled in Scheme to Extend Texas Abortion Ban to New York appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The administration’s disinformation campaign extends far beyond Tylenol. Officials are questioning the safety of mifepristone despite decades of evidence to the contrary and spreading the falsehood that birth control causes abortion—all while defunding Planned Parenthood and funneling taxpayer dollars to crisis pregnancy centers that mislead and manipulate patients. Together, these actions threaten to upend decades of progress in reproductive health and put millions of women at risk.

It’s time for a coordinated response. Just as states have joined forces to counter anti-vaccine propaganda, public health leaders must now unite to defend reproductive healthcare. State and local governments can share strategies, strengthen protections for evidence-based medicine, and push back—loudly and collectively—against the Trump administration’s dangerous campaign of medical disinformation.

The post Fighting MAGA Medical Disinformation: States Must Confront Trump’s War on Science and Reproductive Health appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The court’s ruling requires the agency to consider the peer-reviewed evidence proving mifepristone’s safety, including its use via telemedicine, and to assess how the agency’s restrictions burden patient access. The ruling does not immediately change access to the medication, but it puts pressure on the FDA to follow the science rather than be swayed by political pressure.

“The FDA’s needless restrictions on mifepristone make our jobs harder without any safety benefit,” said Dr. Lisa Folberg, chief executive officer of the California Academy of Family Physicians. “We appreciate that the court recognized how FDA failed to consider the toll its restrictions take on physicians trying to provide a safe and effective medication to their patients.”

The post Judge Rules FDA Abortion Pill Restrictions Unlawful, Citing Political Interference appeared first on Ms. Magazine.