[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
November 26, 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.
Dobbs Has Triggered Widespread Discrimination in Non-Reproductive Healthcare [[link removed]]
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(Aashish Kiphayet / Middle East Images via AFP and Getty Images)
By Shoshanna Ehrlich | In the wake of the Dobbs decision, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a press release pinpointing with prescient accuracy that it would “trigger nothing short of a public health crisis, exacerbate existing health disparities, and further endanger already marginalized populations most.” The U.S. was now in “clear violation of international law and globally recognized health and human rights standards.”
In the years following Roe‘s overturn, PHR has issued state-specific research briefs on the harms of abortion bans. It has also worked to “empower clinicians and advocates to speak out against the human rights violations occurring under these draconian laws.”
On Sept. 30, PHR issued a groundbreaking research brief, “Cascading Harms: How Abortion Bans Lead to Discriminatory Care Across Medical Specialties.” Based on in-depth interviews with 33 physicians from varying health specialties across the country, the study found that abortion bans “have hindered the ability of providers in diverse medical fields to follow evidence-based practices and standards of care, creating a pervasive chilling effect that results in substandard care and discriminatory treatment for reproductive-age women and pregnant patients.”
Ms. recently had the opportunity to sit down with PHR medical director Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, and director of research, legal and advocacy Payal Shah, JD, to discuss how abortion bans create hindrances in healthcare beyond the reproductive space.
Readers of Ms. are likely familiar with the terrible quandaries faced by abortion providers in ban states, as described by public-health scholars Liza Felix, Asha Sobel and Alina Salganicoff, “who now face the increased possibility of criminal charges in a legally ambiguous and dynamic environment.” The law, they write, “fails to consider the nuances of pregnancy and the ramifications of these restrictions both within and beyond the context of abortion.”
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Read more:
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Caregiving Is Extremely Difficult in America. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. [[link removed]] A Century After the Eugenics Movement, the U.S. Is Again Barring Disabled Immigrants [[link removed]]
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What to Know About the CDC’s Baseless New Guidance on Autism [[link removed]] A Bill Criminalizing Abortion Failed in the South Carolina Senate, But S.C. Prosecutors Have Long Treated Pregnancy as a Crime [[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:
* "This Is How the Child Welfare System Becomes Less Traumatizing” — The Nation [[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]] .
Over the past several months, the Epstein files have been extensively covered by the media. But too often, the voices of actual survivors are missing. In this episode, we’re filling that gap and shifting the focus to where it belongs: to the survivors and what justice means to them. Dr. Michele Goodwin is joined by Jessica Michaels, a sexual assault awareness advocate and Epstein survivor.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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