The South Dakota state Legislature is expected to convene in a special session to reassess abortion laws. Gov. Kristi Noem vowed to call the special session in the wake of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The ruling triggered South Dakota's ban, so abortion is now illegal except to save the woman's life.

Shannon Olivieri Hovis, California director for NARAL Pro-choice America, slammed the ruling.

"We are talking about more than 33 million women who will lose that access to abortion in their own communities in their home states," Olivieri Hovis asserted. "And some may be at risk of criminalization for accessing self-managed abortion in their states. And some will die."

Noem, who is running for reelection, has said she does not support an exception for cases of rape or incest, but instead is promoting a new website called life.SD.gov, which promises to provide "resources for pregnancy, new parents, financial assistance and adoption."

In 2006 and 2008, South Dakota voters rejected ballot measures to ban abortion in the state. Olivieri Hovis thinks the state Legislature is out of touch with public opinion.

"Eight in 10 Americans support the legal right to abortion," Olivieri Hovis pointed out. "That does not mean every one of those eight people would choose abortion for themselves, but they do not believe that anyone else should be making that decision."

The Legislature is expected to consider proposals to tighten abortion restrictions. For now, it remains legal to travel to other states such as Minnesota for abortion care and websites like abortionfinder.org and abortionfunds.org have sprung up to facilitate it.

By Carrie Baker for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration

On Nov. 18, anti-abortion advocates filed a federal lawsuit challenging the FDA approval of the medication mifepristone in 2000-as well as subsequent updates to the approval in 2016, 2019 and most recently in December 2021, when the agency began allowing clinicians to mail abortion pills to their patients.

The lawsuit alleges the FDA did not have proof of the medication's safety, despite extensive evidence showing abortion pills are safe and effective-more so than many other medications, including over the counter drugs such as Tylenol.

"This is yet another attempt by anti-abortion extremists to force their beliefs on all of us," said Kirsten Moore, director of Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project (EMAA Project), which advocates for increased access to mifepristone for abortion and miscarriage care.

The conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the lawsuit on behalf of four antiabortion medical organizations and several doctors against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ADF represented Mississippi in the case that led the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and they have helped draft anti-abortion laws adopted in many states.

The 113-page complaint argues the FDA unlawfully fast-tracked the approval of mifepristone in 2000 and did not have the required research to prove the safety of the drug under the labeled conditions of use.

To the contrary, a 2018 Government Accountability Office report concluded that the FDA "followed its standard review process when it approved the application ... for the drug Mifeprex" and "based its approval on reviews of peer-reviewed published studies, articles, and other information submitted by Mifeprex's sponsor." The FDA subsequently conducted extensive reviews of the mifepristone's safety again in 2016.

The ADF complaint regurgitates many of the objections raised by anti-abortion groups to the 2021 modification of the mifepristone approval. The FDA published a 40-page rebuttal letter to these objections, which ADF fails to address in their complaint.

Moore said the anti-abortion movement is trying to "put the genie back into the bottle" and is "trying to undo progress."

"When they look at the courts, they think, 'Why wouldn't the courts be friendly to us even if we are making new things up?' The Supreme Court just overturned a 50-year precedent that took away half the population's fundamental right to control their bodies, so why wouldn't they try?"

The ADF chose to file the case in the Amarillo Division of the Northern District of Texas, where it was assigned to a 45-year-old Trump appointee Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, who for five years before becoming a federal judge was deputy general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a Christian conservative legal organization that specializes in representing religious groups claiming they have experienced discrimination.

n 2015, Kacsmaryk wrote an op-ed for the National Catholic Register stating his opposition to same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, birth control, abortion and sex outside of marriage-and his support for "complementarianism," a religious belief that assigns primary headship roles to men and support roles to women based on their interpretation of certain biblical passages.

"He is an anti-LGBT activist and culture warrior who does not respect the equal dignity of all people," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) during his Senate confirmation hearing, reading from a letter of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "His record reveals a hostility to LGBT equality and to women's health, and he would not be able to rule fairly and impartially in cases involving those issues."

Just last week Kacsmaryk ruled that the Biden administration wrongly interpreted a provision of the Affordable Care Act as barring healthcare providers from discriminating against LGBTQ+ Americans.

Texas is within the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has a majority of conservative judges-six of whom were appointed by Trump. This same court repeatedly upheld the Texas bounty hunter law last year.

Most shockingly, the ADF lawsuit asks Judge Kacsmaryk to revive the 1873 Comstock Law, which banned sending obscene literature, contraceptives, abortifacients or any sexual information through U.S. mails. After the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 that people have a fundamental right to access and use contraception, Congress removed the language concerning contraception in 1971, but left the part of the law criminalizing mailing abortifacients and information about abortion.

Before Roe v. Wade, federal courts ruled this part of the law applied only to "unlawful" abortions. After the Roe decision, the Comstock law remained on the books but was not enforced. Now that the Supreme Court has reversed Roe, ADF hopes to bring the law back into effect.

"The law that conservatives used to shut down contraceptive pills at the turn of the century-this is where they want to take us back to," said Moore.

The lawsuit seeks to reverse the increasing availability of medication abortion and telemedicine abortion. In 2020, medication abortion accounted for 54 percent of all pregnancy terminations in the U.S. After a federal court lifted the FDA requirement that clinicians distribute the medication in person in July of 2020, telemedicine abortion services surged across the United States, becoming available in 20 states, expanding further after the FDA permanently lifted the in-person distribution requirement in December of 2021.

Carrie Baker wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.

2022 was a banner year for women elected as governor. Nearly one-third of America's governors will be women next year, which is a record.

Iowa reelected a woman to the state's highest office for the first time in the state's history. And Republican Kim Reynolds is in good company, as there are now more female governors in the U.S. than ever before.

Karen Kedrowski, political science professor at Iowa State University, said electing a woman is not just symbolic. It also has a direct effect on getting things accomplished.

"Women are really motivated by wanting to fix something," Kedrowski explained. "We hear over and over again, 'I never envisioned that I would run for ...' fill in the blank. And then, they relate a story about something that happened that motivated them to run for office."

Despite the fact Iowa's highest political offices have been dominated by men, Kedrowski argued the results of the election prove Iowans do not discriminate against women in politics.

Kedrowski noted more women have spent the last three decades building their political resumes, entering such career fields as law, business and journalism. She added those professions considered most friendly to public service better prepare them for office than has been the case in the past.

"For a long time, there was this perception that women were 'weak' candidates and that voters would not vote for women," Kedrowski pointed out. "We know that is absolutely, positively not true. So, the challenge then becomes getting women who are qualified to build the political resume, so that they can be competitive."

Both people who were their party's nominees for governor of Iowa are women, but overall, Kedrowski said women remain underrepresented in executive positions.

The debate surrounding abortion often turns on emotional and moral issues, but a Michigan-based policy institute says the economic impact of overturning Roe v. Wade affects the largest number of women.

Ahead of this week's vote on Proposal 3 to restore access to abortion, a Michigan League for Public Policy study reports that losing access to reproductive rights would profoundly affect the economic security of individual women, their families, and their communities.

Anne Kuhnen, a policy analyst with the League and author of the report, said abortion rights affect more than just a few women.

"In Michigan, one in six pregnancies ends in an abortion," said Kuhnen, "which really highlights why this issue is so important because this is clearly health care that pregnant people need and are relying on."

Proposal 3 would block the implementation of a 1931 Michigan law - still on the books - that makes most abortions a felony. Opponents claim the referendum would repeal current parental consent laws and allow minors to go through gender-reaffirming treatments without their parent's consent.

Kuhnen said her research shows that a loss of access to abortion care would have an outsized effect on marginalized communities.

"Black and Latino women especially are over-represented in some of the lowest-paying fields, like child care, low-wage health care jobs," said Kuhnen. "So, the negative effects of being unable to access these essential health-care services are really amplified for women of color."

Kuhnen said the social and economic well-being of children is directly linked to a mother's economic status.

Research shows children of women denied abortions are more likely to grow up in poverty and more likely to experience poor maternal bonding, which can affect social and cognitive development.

"The vast majority of Michiganders are paying out of pocket for their abortion," said Kuhnen. "And for someone who's earning minimum wage in Michigan, that's basically your entire paycheck for two weeks."