With all the rhetoric surrounding Project 2025, it’s been difficult to understand what it actually is. In a nutshell, Project 2025 is a multi-pronged plan that aims to influence the next Republican president (aka, Trump). Per its website, it has four parts: a policy agenda for the new president, a database of people who could serve in his administration, a training for those people called the “Presidential Administration Academy,” and a playbook of recommended actions to be taken within the first 180 days of the administration.

The aspect of Project 2025 that’s received the most attention is the first part—the 920-page policy book that calls for a sweeping overhaul of the federal government. “Essentially, it’s a playbook for bureaucrats and politicians to take over all kinds of aspects of our lives and to manipulate the federal government to serve their political ends,” says Mike Zamore, National Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “It goes through department by department and agency by agency with specific plans to dramatically remake how the federal government works and who it works for.”

Written by veterans of Trump’s first administration, Project 2025 is led by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank whose goal is to “formulate and promote conservative public policies,” according to their website. The group has been devoted to promoting a conservative vision of America—and influencing Republican presidents—since it released its first “Mandate for Leadership” at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1981. (It has since released a new “Mandate for Leadership” every four years.)

But just how influential are their recommendations? According to The Heritage Foundation, during the first year of Trump’s first term, he “embraced” nearly two-thirds of their policy mandates. The website states that “64 percent of the policy prescriptions were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action.” These included leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing off-shore drilling and military spending, and repealing net neutrality.

It remains to be seen just how much of Project 2025 will be enacted once Trump takes office, but there’s no doubt that everything from LGBTQ+ and abortion rights to immigration and climate justice are at risk. Below, what Project 2025 lays out for several top issues.

LGBTQ+ Rights

“The Project 2025 agenda is to deny the existence and take away the identity of LGBTQ+ individuals, and trans individuals in particular,” says Zamore. Indeed, the policy guide laments the “toxic normalization of transgenderism,” and equates “transgender ideology” to pornography. The authors write that families are made up of “a married mother, father, and their children,” and policies that ensure LGBTQ+ equity should be “repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.”

Project 2025 also takes aim at many hard-won LGBTQ+ protections. The plan calls for removing terms like "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" from federal regulations and laws, which would allow legal discrimination against those who identify as LGBTQ+. It also seeks to roll back anti-discrimination protections, such as the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock vs. Clayton County, which provides protection against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also states that transgender people should be banned from serving in the military, a policy that Trump enacted during his first term and that Biden reversed.

Reproductive Rights

Project 2025 aims to severely restrict abortion access nationwide. (It even recommends changing the name of the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Life.) The initiative calls for the reversal of the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug that’s widely used for medication abortion and miscarriage management. It also seeks to reinstate stricter rules for using the drug and require that it be given in person (instead of by mail). And speaking of the mail, Project 2025 also wants the Justice Department to begin enforcing the Comstock Act, a law from 1873 that prohibits “obscene” materials, like pornography, contraceptives, or any drugs or devices used for abortions, from being sent through the mail.

The authors of Project 2025 also want to increase data collection on people who have abortions. They write: “Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

Zamore says the ACLU is worried about the new administration’s data-collecting methods. “We’re concerned about surveillance-based tactics that could be used to see where people’s phones have gone, like if your phone has gone across state lines to an abortion clinic,” he says. “Or if you’ve been providing healthcare via telemedicine, could you be targeted? These are very real concerns in this environment.”

Immigration

Trump largely campaigned on a promise of mass deportation of illegal immigrants—an idea that the Project 2025 agenda fully supports. The authors encourage the next administration to finish the wall along the Mexican border and take a “creative and aggressive approach to tackling dangerous criminal organizations at the border.” (They call Mexico a “failed state run by drug cartels.”) To assist with arrests along the border, the authors recommend using active-duty military personnel and the National Guard—an approach that has never been utilized.

“They envision a huge, militarized dragnet of our communities, one that will target families,” says Zamore. “There are millions of mixed-status families in this country where, for example, the kids are citizens but the parents are not. It could really tear families apart.” There is also a concern that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could stake out schools, playgrounds and churches, as Project 2025 suggests rolling back a mandate that prohibited ICE from enforcement in such “sensitive zones.”

Climate Change

Project 2025 would undo many of the environmental advances made by the Biden administration. “It provides a framework for bolstering fossil fuels, ending any U.S. leadership in climate change issues globally, and repealing many of the advances in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),” says Emily Hammond, a professor of law and director of the Academic Sustainability Programs at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “Plus, it would push for taking away the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

The conservative agenda also calls for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to be broken up and downsized. The NOAA has six offices, including the National Weather Service, the National Ocean Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The authors of Project 2025 write that “these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”

Diversity and Inclusion

In every section of the Project 2025 policy guide, the authors recommend eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government. They also reject critical race theory, writing that “when critical race theory is used as part of school activities such as mandatory affinity groups, teacher training programs in which educators are required to confess their privilege, or school assignments in which students must defend the false idea that America is systemically racist, the theory is actively disrupting the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.”

Zamore says the authors are trying to rewrite history—literally, in some cases—so that history textbooks “don’t tell the full story of our country and don’t make certain people uncomfortable.”

In several instances, the agenda also recommends that federal employees who "engage in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda" be terminated.

Gun Access

Project 2025 doesn’t lay out any specific policies on gun control. Still, given its conservative positioning, it’s safe to assume the authors would embrace the gun lobby’s agenda, including weakening concealed carry laws and overturning state bans on assault weapons.

What followed was a quickly-hatched plan by left-leaning white Democrat and liberal women who voted for Harris to display their allyship through, somewhat curiously, DIY crafts. Specifically, friendship bracelets with blue beads and blue string. The thinking was that, when out in public, you could easily identify who is a Trump supporter and who is not by checking their wrist for a flash of blue jewelry.

The idea took off. On TikTok, content creator @witchywoosel’s video promoting the blue bracelet friendship movement racked up 5.1 million views. She and other supporters saw it as a symbol of solidarity with people of color against the backdrop of an election that sparked an uptick in racist harassment and virtual attacks on women. For white women, the blue bracelets also served another purpose: to separate themselves from those white women; the 53 percent who cast their ballots for Trump, despite accusations of sexual abuse and his previous term in office where he led the charge on rolling back reproductive freedoms.

@witchywoosel

♬ LABOUR - the cacophony - Paris Paloma

But over the weekend, as videos of women stringing together their blue friendship bracelets gained millions of views, things began unraveling. The tenor of the conversation changed. While the bracelets were initially embraced by some online as a symbol of support, a sign that the wearer was a "safe person," others quickly called the method another gimmicky form of performative virtue signaling.

“I see the bracelets, and other physical symbols like it, as a call by white people to be reassured by marginalized communities,” says news and entertainment content creator Kellie Chudzinsk. “It’s no one’s job to validate your morals or character.”

The blue friendship bracelet is hardly the first form of empty allyship to arise in response to a Trump election. In 2017, thousands attended the Women’s March, a protest the day after Trump’s first inauguration, wearing homemade pink caps. The so-called “pink pussy hats” were intended to be a sign of resistance, inspired by Donald Trump's bragging about sexually assaulting women on Hollywood Access. However, they demonstrated a very narrow expression of who faces oppression by only representing genitals that are pink (white women)—inherently excluding women of color, trans women, and those who are nonbinary. It centered on whiteness as the only demographic that faced women’s rights violations, and wearing one didn't necessarily come with tangible action to support all women.

It happened again in June 2020, when in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, many white social media users took to Instagram to post an image of an empty black square—co-opting a movement started by two Black women to raise awareness of the music industry profiting off Black artists. The posts, which used hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter and #BLM, also drowned out crucial information shared by organizers, including where to protest and donate. It ultimately became another example of performative allyship that lacked any meaningful action to truly support the cause.

“In the wake of political unrest, people rush to do the bare minimum—post a black square, wear a bracelet—so they can feel like they’re a part of the solution without actually solving anything,” says content creator Mia Carr.

It's the protest equivalent of patting yourself on the back: Showing you're "one of the good ones," doesn't actually better the world, influencer Simone Umba says. Instead, “Black women [and other marginalized groups] don’t need a bracelet—just treat us with human decency.”

The reality is that craft projects can't truly combat racism. But real action can. That can include dedicating time to learn about power mapping, which reveals who is on your side through geography and who can be swayed on a municipal, state, and federal level; supporting Black and brown mental health spaces rather than co-opting them; and having tough conversations with people in your life who may have voted differently than you did. Candice Fortin, a climate justice campaigner and organizer, also recommends getting involved with an anti-racist group, such as SURJ (Showing Up For Racial Justice), where white people take on the labor of educating others. “We don’t need ‘allies,’ we need accomplices and co-conspirators,” Fortin says.

If anything, “anti-racism isn’t a branding exercise,” she adds. A blue friendship bracelet reads like a self-congratulatory performance if it isn’t coupled with action for social change.

Trump's proposed tariffs on the campaign trail—between 10 and 20 percent for all imports and up to 60 percent for goods from China—first bubbled up without much fanfare. But in the final days before the election and the immediate aftermath, alarm bells started ringing all across the internet, from panicked fashion obsessives and corner office CEOS to everyday, average citizens. Some people misinterpret tariffs as a tax other countries pay, but they're actually billed to the companies pushing the products. And U.S. consumers buy a lot of products from abroad. So, to foot the potential tariff bill, brands are expected to raise the prices we all pay at the online checkout or IRL cash register. The situation has all the makings for a retail reckoning: on where our clothes are made and what we choose to buy. As one viral tweet by the costume designer Emma Scott went, "Genuinely curious what's going to happen when a society that buys everything from Amazon, Walmart, and Temu realizes what a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods looks like."

There's a lot more at stake than sticker shock. As fashion journalist Amy Odell wrote in her newsletter, Back Row, "The price hikes would create a cascade of consequences for consumers who buy clothes, which in turn could adversely affect the fashion industry in many ways."

Before the incoming Trump administration finalized a tariff plan, lobbyists and brands were searching for loopholes, and experts were painting a picture of what 2025 tariffs could mean for all our closets. Then, President-elect Trump confirmed in a Truth Social post on Monday, Nov. 25, that 25 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada would be implemented his first day in office. He also promised a tariff of at least 10 percent on goods from China—with the potential to raise it higher.

Instead of bringing your Economics 101 textbook out of storage, read on for a breakdown of exactly what tariffs during a second Trump presidency could entail—and how they'll affect your shopping habits.

What are tariffs, again?

This is the first question on everyone's mind. Searches for "tariff" and "Trump's tariff plan" spiked a combined 6,150 percent in the days following the U.S. election, while searches for "who pays tariffs" are up 350 percent.

By the most basic definition, tariffs are government-imposed taxes on imported or exported goods paid by the company moving the products around. Import tariffs on clothing, appliances, technology, and other retail categories are the most common in the United States. They're often implemented to encourage domestic manufacturing and job growth. In fashion, that would mean more products with "Made in the USA" tags.

But few products, whether we're talking trendy sneakers or tote bags, are made from materials sourced, assembled, and shipped from a single location, so import tariffs don't always produce the intended results. Companies often cut internal costs or raise the prices you see at the mall (or online) to pay tariffs immediately to avoid the even higher costs of re-configuring their entire business.

What is Trump's tariff plan?

President-elect Trump made several tariff promises on his trail back to the White House. First, that all goods imported to the United States would be subject to a 10–20 percent tariff. Second, that a 60 percent tariff would be applied to all imports from China. And third, all goods imported from Mexico would be hit with a 25 percent (or greater) tariff. He positioned the policy as a way to raise money for the federal government, as well as a tactic for retaliating against other nations. "Other countries are going to, finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world," President Trump said onstage during his September debate against Kamala Harris.

Exactly when and how potential tariffs will be implemented weren't immediately announced. “The vision is there, but the game plan is not,” a source involved in the incoming Trump administration's economic policies told CNN.

As of Nov. 25, there are more than concepts of a tariff plan. Trump posted on his social media app, Truth Social, that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, plus at least a 10 percent tariff on imports from China, on his first day in office next year. The president-elect framed the decision as retribution for streams of illegal drugs reportedly moving into the United States. Trump also added that tariffs on Chinese imports could increase. A representative for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., responded that "No one will win a trade war or a tariff war."

Okay, so how do those tariffs affect my shopping habits?

There are a lot of exciting spring 2025 trends to look forward to next year, but the barrier to participating in them will get even higher if tariffs go into effect. So will shopping for basic necessities across clothing, furniture, appliances, and more.

A study by the National Retail Federation found that proposed tariffs could decrease Americans' spending power by up to $78 billion each year. The study suggested that costs retailers need to absorb will be too high for them to pay alone, so prices we all see at the store will rise.

Brands whose products are made in China are the most likely to raise their prices, since they'll be hit with the highest proposed tariff (up to 60 percent, if President-elect Trump raises them further). "Since tariffs are essentially a tax collected once merchandise crosses another country's borders,' retailers that import any merchandise from China will be impacted more severely," says Shawn Grain Carter, associate professor of business management at FIT.

"Made in China" covers almost every corner of your closet, from cotton dresses and T-shirts to running shoes and even designer bags. "Since China was accepted into the WTO [World Trade Organization] in 2001, they became the dominant player in fashion manufacturing across most fashion categories in the majority of price points," Professor Grain Carter explains. "According to 'Good On You,' 65 percent of fashion in the world is produced in China."

Prepare for even middle-class fashion and affordable brands to feel more out-of-reach. Professor Grain Carter notes that fast fashion is an extremely price-sensitive category, and "consequently, Zara, H&M, and others will have to determine the best ways to absorb these tariffs."

Of course, fashion can make internal cost cuts to avoid price hikes. However, something else might be sacrificed to save, such as the quality of the fabric, the sheen of the finishes, or even the packaging arriving on your doorstep.

In the long term, prices could stabilize as retailers consider rebuilding their supply chains. "Obviously, sourcing goods in other countries could be less expensive as a result," Professor Carter says. "This would also make manufacturing more competitive among multiple players, which in turn could stabilize retail prices for consumers."

Are Trump's tariffs only going to affect new merchandise?

Not even a used Birkin bag or previously loved Goyard tote is safe from the impacts of tariffs. The U.S. pre-owned luxury market also stands to shift from policies targeting brand-new merchandise—starting with more price increases.

"Prices in the secondary market rise and fall in line with prices in the primary market," says Sarah Davis, founder and president of Fashionphile. "So when brands who import to the U.S. then face tariffs on those goods, they often hike the retail price in line, which means resale prices will also increase. Retail and resale prices are indirectly hitched to each other."

Some luxury resellers acquire their collection of used Lady Diors and Louis Vuitton Neverfulls wholesale from Asia's secondary market, Davis notes. If vintage gems are sourced overseas, they'll be suseptible to even higher prices. "Tariffs on the import of these goods would mean higher acquisition expenses for U.S. resellers, who would be forced to pass that increase along to the customer if they want to maintain their margins," she explains.

If you want a bag in 2025 with a price closer to 2024 rates, consider companies that source directly from their customers or peer-to-peer platforms. These might be exempt from the same headwinds facing the rest of the market. "The fact that the luxury brands may have to significantly raise prices in their own stores and department stores, could funnel even more consumer interest in more affordable channels, like resale," Davis says. "The consumer has already been vocal in their frustration in the increasing prices that we've seen in the luxury sector in the last couple years. Even higher prices and limited availability could lead to a breaking point for some consumers who would seek refuge in softer pricing alternatives in resale."

So...should I shop before Trump's tariffs go into effect?

Whether your wish list is filled with the best designer tote bags and luxury gifts or just the nicest T-shirts Amazon has to offer, the time to hit "Order" is now. There's still uncertainty as to how much more the president-elect will follow through on the tariffs he promised—though decreeing "tariff" the "most beautiful word in the dictionary" sure makes it sound likely. Still, expert insights and statements from Donald Trump's camp indicate new economic policies are on the way, plus a strong chance 2025 will arrive with higher prices or lower product quality (or both).

Editor's note: This post was updated on November 26, 2024, with information about Donald Trump's new tariff plans.

“I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president,” now President-elect Trump told supporters at a victory party at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, shortly after he declared victory on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

Trump will be the first president to secure the White House after having been convicted of felony crimes and found liable for sexual assault.

President-elect Trump wasted no time announcing Wiles, 66, as his future chief of staff, calling her "tough, smart, innovative" and someone who is "universally admired and respected" in a statement obtained by CNN.

As the country prepares for a second Trump presidency, here is what people should know about the 47th president's chief of staff.

She's a seasoned political consultant.

According to CNN, Wiles has spent years working in Washington, D.C. as a lobbyist, and as of Thursday is listed as the co-chair of the Florida and Washington, DC, offices of Mercury, a national lobbying firm.

In 2024, Mercury has a total of 66 clients, according to OpenSecrets, bringing in a total amount of $8,925,000 from those firms to lobby policy and lawmakers on their behalf.

Per CNN, it is currently unknown if the 66-year-old will "step away from her position at Mercury" after neither President-elect Trump's transition team or his future chief of staff responded to a request for comment.

Wiles got her start in politics in 1995, when she helped John Delaney become the first Republican mayor of Jacksonville since the Reconstruction era, USA Today reports. Wiles went on to work for New York Rep. Jack Kemp and the former President Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign and administration.

She has a famous father.

Wiles is the daughter of the iconic football broadcaster, Pat Summerall. For the uninitiated, Summerall worked for both CBS and FOX calling NFL games for an astounding 41 years before announcing his retirement following the 2002 season.

For 21 seasons, Summerall called games alongside football legend John Madden—the pair became network television's most prominent broadcasting duo.

In 2013, Summerall passed away at the age of 82 of cardiac arrest.

"Think about this: Her dad sat between John Madden and Howard Cosell, two of the biggest personalities, pains in the a**, right?" a Trump campaign official previously told USA TODAY. "Really hard thing, and he was the calming center. And it’s genetic. She has that."

She was Trump's acting campaign manager.

“Susie Wiles just helped me achieve one of the greatest political victories in American history, and was an integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns,” Trump said in the statement announcing her appointment to White House chief of staff.

“Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected," the statement continued. "Susie will continue to work tirelessly to Make America Great Again.”

Unlike many of the people in Trump's political orbit, Wiles worked behind-the-scenes on the campaign.

“Susie likes to stay sort of in the back,” Trump said Wednesday after he asked Wiles to address the crowd at his victory party. Wiles publicly declined Trump's invitation, and instead passed the mic to co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita.

"She hates the limelight," Delaney said earlier this year to USA TODAY.

She will make history as the first woman to be named White House chief of staff.

Once Trump takes office, Wiles will become the first woman to hold the position in U.S. history.

“She is brilliant, tough, strategic,” Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, posted Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter, after President-elect Trump made his chief of staff announcement.

“She will serve the country well.”

But Trump also made huge gains among men. Young white men without college degrees, yes—but nearly half of Latino men voted for him, too. He even doubled his support among Black men (though Black men, on the whole, supported Kamala Harris).

We’ve known for a long time that gender would be a defining issue of this election, but it would be a grave mistake to think that the story ends now that the ballots are counted. If anything, our work has just begun. We can’t rally our girlfriends to the polls every four years and expect to win—it’s a losing strategy to ignore half the electorate. If we’re serious about defending women’s opportunities in this country, then we’re going to have to do the last thing in the world we ever expected to do: start talking about men’s opportunities.

Men in America feel left behind, and in this election cycle, those grievances have been well-documented. While women have made enormous economic gains over the past several decades, the parallel story has been starkly different for men, and even more so for men of color. Fewer young men are pursuing higher education, while jobs accessible without college degrees are dwindling. At the same time, those men are experiencing the twin epidemics of loneliness and mental illness, exacerbated by toxic masculine standards of stoicism and intense pressure to “man up.” A recent survey from the gender equality organization Equimundo found that two-thirds of 18- to 30-year-old men believed that nobody knew them well. And nearly three in every four “deaths of despair”—those involving suicide, drug overdose, and/or alcoholism—are men.

So, it’s not surprising that men are increasingly drawn to someone like Trump, with his red-blooded, fist-pumping promises to make America—and manhood—great again. The GOP knows it, too. It’s why the Trump campaign courted brawny icons like Hulk Hogan at the RNC and interviews with “manosphere” influencers like Joe Rogan that generate cult-like followings of young men. And it’s precisely because they crave connection and visibility that they’re drawn in by the nostalgia surrounding “traditional” manhood. These parasocial relationships, whether with streamers or politicians, act as powerful bait for young men seeking purpose in a world they think is stacked against them.

The consequences are staggering: a Pew research poll found that 40 percent of young, male Trump supporters believed that women’s gains have come at the expense of men. In short, these men have been convinced that power is a gendered, zero-sum game, and that leaders like Trump might lend them a stronger hand to play.

But if there’s anyone who understands that kind of thinking is BS, it’s women. When women have a fair shot to reach their full potential, we’re all better off for it: Economists estimate that, if women’s labor force participation were fully equal to men’s, it would boost U.S. GDP by almost 20 percent.

I should know: I’ve been fighting for women’s and girls’ opportunities for my entire career. Back when I was building Girls Who Code, I’d have parents ask me: “But Ms. Saujani, what about the boys?” It used to really piss me off. Were they missing the entire point?

But I’m starting to see where they were coming from. We’ve been laser-focused on advancing opportunities for women, and rightfully so. We’re barely hanging on to the gains we’ve already made—whether we’re talking about the pay gap getting bigger for the first time in two decades or the devastating loss of our fundamental reproductive rights.

But the reality is that we can’t build the democracy we need to achieve any of that without men. And right now, we’re shutting them down and pushing them away.

If we simply tell men to suck it up and get over their discomfort with powerful women (as former president Barack Obama did), I fear that we’ll be the ones missing the point. We’ve got to put in the work to truly understand the issues facing men. Yes, it may be hard—or even feel counterintuitive for those of us who have been fighting for gender equality. But to deny that men are struggling will just make the problem worse.

We have to make sure we’re not just the party of opportunity for women, but opportunity for everyone. That starts with shifting the way we talk to men and about men—and, crucially, to and about the boys who will grow up to be men. No one wants to be a part of a movement that ignores or even denigrates them. We need to find a new way forward and expose the con that men have fallen prey to: that our gain means their loss.

That doesn’t mean diluting our message, though. Take Michelle Obama’s recent speech at a Harris rally in Michigan, where she made a powerful, visceral case for men to support abortion access. “Your daughter could be the one too terrified to call the doctor if she’s bleeding during an unexpected pregnancy,” she reminded them. Men’s lives, too, could be “totally upended by an unwanted pregnancy.”

Nor does it mean that women have to do this on our own. Men should be our partners in this work, as it's not our problem to solve alone. We need men reinforcing the idea that masculinity and misogyny are not one in the same. When some guy says something gross and sexist, we need other men to get in there and tell them to knock it off.

We talk a lot about the kind of future we want to build for our girls, but today, I’m thinking about the kind of culture I’d like my sons to grow up in. I want them to be strong and tender. I want them to have positive male friendships based in openness and empathy, not machismo and misogyny. And I want them to challenge the structural inequities girls face without wondering if boys are worse off for it.

Our boys grow up into men, and those men will vote. We should care about who they’re voting for.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was declared the winner. But leading up to that moment, Marie Claire spoke with voters from every state, as well as Washington, D.C.—a news anchor stationed at Trump headquarters in Florida, a writer throwing an election watch party in Montana, a middle school teacher in Minnesota, a poll watcher in Pennsylvania, and so many others—to report on what they were experiencing on the historic day. Here is what they told us.

Alabama

"I feel like I hope my vote matters, and I’d love to see Alabama adopt early voting."

Millie McCarrell, nurse

Alaska

"I got up early and headed to my local polling place as soon as it opened. I've been voting at the same neighborhood church for ten years and there has never been a line before. Today the line was outside the building before the doors opened. Despite the volunteers being a bit overwhelmed, the mood was optimistic and positive."

Erin McCarthy, attorney

Arizona

"I joyfully cast my ballot for Kamala Harris. I know she will be the type of leader that my children can look up to, and I believe she’s the most qualified to protect the freedoms of everyone in our country. I hope I’m part of history in electing the first female president of the United States!"

Lauren Brimley, small business owner

Arkansas

"I just returned from the election party I attended to support the candidate I canvassed for—Kate Schaffer, the Democratic candidate running for Arkansas State House District 10. The votes are extremely close, and I'm hopeful we will finally see some change. Although it can be difficult to envision significant changes in Arkansas, I truly believe that transformation is possible if we start gradually flipping districts. I’m also glad I had the opportunity to participate in this, even though I couldn't vote in this election. But you can bet I'll be voting the day early voting starts for the next elections."

Nivriti Deshpande, high school senior

California

“Today feels monumental and scary. As a Black woman you always hear you’ll work twice as hard to get half as far. And today could finally prove that adage wrong. It also feels like for the last few months I’ve gotten to hear what the country really thinks of 'us' and will continue to hear it regardless of the outcome. I’m cautiously optimistic, and galvanized no matter what.”

MacKenzie Green, vice president of social for a media company

Colorado

“It’s 7:41 p.m., and the numbers are looking great. We are so happy that our community is with us, and we are ecstatic that we will be able to announce to our community that the reproductive healthcare we require is now a right in Colorado’s state constitution. This moment is surreal and none of this would have been possible without the commitment, collaboration, and resilience of our community. The fight for abortion access never ends, and COLOR Action Fund is endlessly committed to the wellbeing of our community.”

Dusti Gurule, president and CEO of COLOR Action Fund

Connecticut

"I voted for Kamala Harris for my students, for myself, for the people in my life that I love and respect (and for those I don’t know!), so that we can all have access to reproductive freedom, climate justice, and the right to disagree without fear. I am a born and raised New Englander who grew up in Massachusetts, voted in Connecticut for the first time today, and voted in person for the first time since 2012. As an educator who is currently teaching a college class on disability justice, I stood by the water in my favorite state park this afternoon and felt proud of my vote. Go Kamala!"

Zoë Burgard, Yale PhD student and educator

Delaware

"It's late in the evening. I'm at home on my couch watching as the results start to roll in. It feels like Donald Trump is going to win. I'm texting friends and family as it all feels unbelievable. I wasn't expecting the news so soon and while the election feels like it's been going on forever, I'm not ready for the finality of the results."

Lynn Frazier, retail worker

Florida

“Tonight, I’m here in West Palm Beach at the Trump/Vance HQ. It’s 9:40 p.m., and still an early night… But so far, the campaign is encouraged by some battleground state exit polls of certain demographic groups like Latino, Black, and young men leaning their way. But as this intense and historic campaign comes to close, I’m reflecting specifically on women’s role in this election. No matter how the results shake out, women have proven to be a forceful constituency in American politics –one that has shaped the contours of this campaign, and campaigns to come. I’ve covered four presidential campaigns, but this is my first as a mom. That’s changed how I think about politics. Issues of women’s health, the economy, and making life better for our kids are not only front and center in this election, but also personal for me. I’ve tried to be more empathetic in my coverage, aiming to find the humanity in politics.”

Caitlin Huey-Burns, CBS News political correspondent

Georgia

"Election Day is a rollercoaster for everyone, but as someone on a visa and unable to vote, it’s like a rollercoaster without a seatbelt. I’ve been in this country for 16 years and spectated—-but not participated in—four election cycles, with each one having higher and higher stakes. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the hopelessness and lack of control, but I'm trying to trust the people around me to make the right decision I cannot make for myself."

Naisha Roy, student journalist

Hawaii

"I have mixed feelings. I'm glad this day is finally here. Now we just have to wait and see what wins, common sense or bigotry and misogyny. Selfishness, or understanding that we live in a world where we need to stand up for what's right, stand up against the bullies. I am expecting the worst; hoping for the best. At least I know, despite the outcome, I'll continue fighting for the side where all people are treated with respect. I meant to spend my day in complete solitude hiking to keep my bubble of emotions from bursting. However the good old adult distraction—work—pulled me to a local coffee shop where people like myself were glued to their laptops; wearing their USA T-shirts or pins and 'I Voted' stickers. A sense of normalcy, I guess."

Oksana Enriquez, project executive

Idaho

"I voted, of course. But now I'm moving on. I went to work, stopped at the grocery store on the way home. I'm not watching the results but I am getting alerts on my phone and it seems like Trump might win. There were only two choices, so it's not a huge surprise."

Wendy Fast, administrative assistant

Illinois

"I’m excited to be voting in my 17th election. You had to be 21 when I first started voting, and I only missed one—Jimmy Carter in 1976 when I was away in Seattle—and couldn’t mail in the ballot. Everything was very efficient at my polling place. There was a long line, and I could have gone right to the front because I’m so old, but I didn’t want to do that. The whole thing was only about 45 minutes. I’m anxious to find out what happens in Wisconsin since I’m across the border. I can only hope things turn out well. I would hate to have a criminal as my next president."

Elaine Levin

Indiana

“As a childless (not) cat lady, a selfie felt appropriate for the moment. I’ve spent much of the day solo after voting early last week—and saving my sticker, of course. I’ve basically been cycling through every version of a big feeling, sometimes all of them at once, which probably shows on my face. As a woman in her 40s, I find it exhausting that we’re still fighting for the right to decide what happens to our own bodies or, you know, not bleed out in a hospital parking lot because our government has criminalized necessary forms of medical care. But I’ll be on the front lines for as long as it takes so the women and girls behind me get everything they deserve. As a Hoosier who spent a huge chunk of her adult life in NYC and LA before moving back to Indianapolis—a blue dot in a red state—I take great pride in reminding people on the coasts that there are a whole lot of progressive Midwesterners out here fighting for change, sometimes in incredibly hostile environments. As a human, I also have a lot of hope, something I’m almost afraid to say out loud given the 2016 of it all. But it’s true.”

Abby Gardner, writer and creator of We Have Notes

Iowa

"I voted early, the day early voting opened in Iowa. I didn't want to leave anything open to mistake since abortion access is at risk. The Des Moines Register released an article this weekend that Harris is up by three points according to a recent poll, and I hope to God that's true. I have my college classes to distract me today, and I don't want to just sit with my nerves and wait for election results, but I don't think there's any other choice. It's already dangerous for pregnant people to be in Iowa right now, and it's only going to get more dangerous if Trump wins. I can't imagine making a life long-term in a state, let alone a country, that doesn't do everything it can to support me or my decisions, and only values my ability to reproduce."

Caroline Siebels-Lindquist, president of Students for Reproductive Justice at Drake University

Kansas

"I voted in advance last week, as did 650,000 other Kansans, so Election Day is business as usual for me. That’s not to say I’m not anxiously awaiting the results of many races across Kansas and the nation. I’m Irish Catholic so I tend to assume the worst, but deep-down, I believe that Americans will come through and elect thoughtful, competent leaders who will preserve our democracy, secure our fundamental rights and work hard on behalf of the people."

Laura Kelly, governor of Kansas

Kentucky

"After serving three terms in the Kentucky state legislature, this election day I'm on the ballot unopposed, but I'm moving to a seat on Louisville's city council. I want to work more closely with my neighbors and get more done, outside of a toxic supermajority following national trends like banning abortion and trans healthcare. This morning I hosted a free Election Day meet 'n greet breakfast at a local bagel shop. I met dozens of new constituents and heard concerns about speed bumps, the tree canopy, invasive plant species, solar panels, and school bus routes. I came home feeling less anxious about what's happening at the national level and more focused on human-to-human connection in our neighborhoods. Kamala does her job and I do mine and we all have a role to play."

Josie Raymond, Kentucky State Representative

Louisiana

"Just voted at my polling location! After 12 hours of phone banking and canvassing, I went back to the site to finish more phone banking til the polls close at 8 pm here in Louisiana. What I’m feeling, thinking, experiencing: I am overwhelmed with emotions! Feeling anxious but also excited! I really believe America understood the assignment, well aware of what’s at stake, and going to put the right person in office."

Kaitlyn Joshua, activist and co-creator of Abortion in America

Maine

"Election night this year feels like we are all waiting on the results of an STD test. None of us know what to expect, but I’m remaining nauseously optimistic that the little orange man will not prevail. On our little island, there was no line at the voting station (our community center) but there were lots of kind neighbors who provided baked goods to the volunteers, and there were lots of smiles and sighs. It felt especially poignant that the three volunteers at the polls were my elders, and were women.Unfortunately, Trump had at one politically genius realization, which was that appealing to people’s selfishness can be a winning strategy, whereas the democrats largely appeal to people’s altruism. This can be a tough sell. Now, we wait. But no matter what, I strongly believe that real change lies in collective community power and grassroots action. This is where I will always place my faith and my trust and my energy."

Mira Ptacin, writer

Maryland

"I'm running for school board in Carroll County, Maryland. Many have been surprised that Maryland was just named to a list of the top 10 states for book banning, and this is largely in part because of recent efforts in my county. Despite this upsetting news, I've been really pleased today to have many conversations with voters who are deeply concerned about children losing the freedom to read and learn, and folks upset that the professional expertise of teachers and librarians is being questioned. Polls have been busy—both today and during early voting, which I take to be a good sign that more people are paying attention and showing up to exercise their right to vote. I feel optimistic and proud of the campaign I've run, and look forward to advocating for the many families and educators who are not currently represented on our Board."

Amanda Jozkowski, Carroll County Public School Board

Massachusetts

“I spent my day thinking of all the women fighting for their freedoms, of young people with hope in their hearts casting their first ballot, and of every American who voted believing that we can build a country that doesn’t just work for those at the top, but that works for everyone.”

Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator

Michigan

"Woke up feeling anxious and an alphabet soup of emotions. Went for a walk in my neighborhood, ate breakfast, sent a note to my team to make sure we all take care of ourselves today, and then headed out to vote. I wish I was feeling more excited about such a monumental event. But my feelings are heavily overshadowed by the anxiety of having Trump back in office. I hope after this Election Day I can feel both relieved and joyful of having a woman in power who defends our rights and prioritizes equity."

Irene Liu, cofounder and CEO of Chiyo

Minnesota

"My sisters and I are public school teachers in Minnesota, just like Governor Tim Walz was. We’re voting today to protect our rights as women and preserve the Department of Education. Although I teach at a middle school, high school students across the state who are 18 are encouraged to register, find their polling place, and get out and vote."

Lydia Sour, middle school teacher

Mississippi

"Between MSBWR’s Power of the Sister Vote Boot Camp, Black Youth Vote training and Get Out The Vote activities over the course of the past year, my staff, team, and family members 'left it all on the field' as they say in football. I feel good about all the work that my team and partners have done and continue doing, even today, to ensure that our community can exercise their right to vote, because our vote is our power. Fair wages, affordable healthcare, and access to safe and affordable child care is on the ballot today and we all deserve to win."

Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable

Missouri

"My day started with heavy rain and flooded roadways between me and my polling site, but much to my surprise it ended with a beautiful sunset that felt symbolic. I’ve experienced all of the emotions leading up to this day and even though it feels like I’m surrounded by yard signs and social media posts from folks in my area supporting the other side, I still find myself filled with hope for our future."

Jill Milyard, technical product owner

Montana

"Last night, I gathered at the Elks Club in Livingston, Montana, population 8,000, to watch election returns with friends and subscribers of County Highway, a national newspaper about America that my husband co-publishes. More than a hundred people came. We ate bison sliders, elk sloppy joes, and homemade donuts, and we kept the volume turned way down on the bar's two TVs, so the crowd—a mixed group of progressive leftists, disenchanted Democrats, true conservatives, and political agnostics—talked, ate, drank, and talked some more. Montana is famously a purple state, a place where you don't always share your neighbor's views, and when I told friends and invitees that our guests would include people from across the political spectrum, they shrugged, came anyway, enjoyed themselves. 'This is America,' one said, 'We all have to be adults and get along.'"

Amanda Fortini, writer

Nebraska

"As a woman who works in the mental health community and my husband as a police officer, we were both raised to believe in the duty of public service. Being from Nebraska, I don’t have a huge impact on the presidential race, but I can make a difference in local races and issues. Our state government controls so many important issues which will have a far greater impact on our daily lives than that of the federal government."

Julie James, patient care coordinator

Nevada

"Our family team is small, but mighty. We have worked hard and look forward to making history on the school board in District E."

Kamilah Bywaters, Candidate for CCSD School Board Trustee

New Hampshire

"I started this HERstoric Election Day by standing in the longest line I have ever seen in my polling place with my daughters and voting for Kamala Harris and Joyce Craig for governor. My eldest daughter is the same age now as I was when I gave birth to her, and she has fewer rights than I did when she was born. Together we are going to work to get out every single vote TODAY because our rights are on the ballot."

Stefany Shaheen, former city councillor and police commissioner

New Jersey

"On today's historic election day, I am proud and honored that I get to vote for myself, my family, and my country. As a mom to two boys, I want them to know that voting is your choice and your choice alone. Just like in life, people are never going to agree, but you need to do what is right for yourself and your loved ones."

Lori Hong, mom of two

New Mexico

"I'm spending Election Day at work. This election has been nerve wracking. I work at a university and interact daily with students who are first time voters. It’s important to me that they understand how this election will impact their experience in this country and their educational experience."

Dannelle Kirven, senior student success specialist at University of New Mexico's African American Student Services

New York

"I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep and was dreading checking my phone. I’ve honestly been back and forth between the anger of my outer core and the shuddering sadness of my inner core. I’m scared for everyone, friends, family, even strangers that will inevitably be affected by the vitriol of this vile man and his minions. I feel selfish for feeling hopeless, but I think people should be allowed to honor how they’re feeling in this moment."

Anya Tisdale, beauty creator

North Carolina

“I spent the afternoon monitoring the polls and checking in with suburban women organizers and volunteers, ensuring that every one of their friends and family members gets out to vote.”

Janice Robinson, North Carolina Program director for Red Wine & Blue

North Dakota

"It feels a big moment and I'm unsure of how things will go. I don't think I'll feel happy with either result."

Laura Paige, manager

Ohio

"This election means everything. I am torn between being here with the women of the Women's Issues Network and being at home with my daughter. These women have taken me under their wings, fully accepting me. Without them, I would be absolutely panic-stricken. I know that they are helping me make a difference for my daughter."

Crystal Gnau, president of the Women's Issue Network

Oklahoma

"I’m definitely in the nauseously optimistic camp. To keep the butterflies at bay, I am trying to remember how it felt on election night 2008 and conjure a sequel. Reading messages from European friends who are anxiously watching overseas, saying they feel like this is their election, too. The whole world is holding its breath. They know what’s on the line. I, too, am just waiting to exhale. And, in the meantime, chilling with John King."

Amanda Tunnell, freelance writer

Oregon

"I’m glued to the TV. I’m a nervous wreck. But I’m clinging to every ounce of hope. I’ve voted in three presidential elections and twice for a woman nominee, which feels incredibly historic and shows the progress we’ve made as a country. My mom gave me this Kamala Harris T-shirt when she became vice president, and I’m hopeful the message will also hold true for Harris in this election: The first but not the last."

Alexa Phillips, global communications manager

Pennsylvania

"The loses in Pennsylvania are devastating for anyone who cares about women’s health and autonomy. I did voter protection in Philadelphia and visited over 20 polling sites. The turnout was good in Philadelphia so I did not expect the result. I am hoping to see a woman become President in my lifetime, but alas it is not in 2024. But I'm not giving up. Just in for a longer haul."

Kathryn Kolbert, public interest attorney and co-author of Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom

Rhode Island

"I'm feeling excitement. I feel confident in a victory tonight for my race and also optimistic Kamala will win as well. Tonight, so much is on the line but long as we leave it all out on the field we’ll be in good shape."

Corey Jones, candidate for Providence School Board

South Carolina

"Today, I led a Chamber of Mothers national meeting by Zoom. We meet every two weeks. We came together to share our feelings about the election, to be in community, to celebrate one another, and to share gratitude for the unity we have created among American mothers - no matter what happens. Just two years ago, we came together to unite mothers as advocates to create a better America, and we see the fruit of our work in the addition of paid leave, childcare, and maternal health to the conversations leading up to this election."

Erin Erenberg, cofounder and CEO of Chamber of Mothers

South Dakota

“I thought I’d be emotional voting for potentially the first woman president alongside my two sons, but honestly I was kind of angry angry that here, in South Dakota where voters are weighing in on a measure that could restore abortion access to the state, my rights, my worth, my humanity as a pregnant person is on the ballot and being determined by my fellow voters. It shouldn’t be this way, but I’m proud my boys watched their mom—again—vote for herself and for what is right.”

Danielle Campoamor, freelance writer

Tennessee

"Election Day is a reminder of the power every voice holds. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share people’s stories while witnessing many voters participating in shaping the future. As a news reporter, it’s been exciting to see such a big voter turnout. It shows how passionate people are to have their voices heard. Now that Election Day is here, it feels surreal. We’ve been working to inform people on topics appearing on this ballot for months.”

Joylyn Bukovac, news reporter

Texas

"I brought my laptop, notepad, bottles of wine, and phone to watch election night at my brother’s house in Austin with our parents and friends from the neighborhood, along with eight children under the age of five. By 8 p.m. our time, the adults were getting pretty anxious. Someone mentioned feeling like they were going to throw up. As the results rolled in, parents went back and forth with musings like 'oh, that’s promising!' and 'I don’t know—I’m nervous.' The kids kept everyone grounded to earth by toddling, cooing, and getting extremely pumped about Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. Before bedtime hit, a friend started explaining both presidential candidates to a 4-year-old, who was pretty sure that when you become president, you have to hold the office 'until you die.' When she heard the description of Trump’s policies, she responded: 'That sounds like my mom’s old boss.'"

Olivia Messer, a veteran Texas journalist and the editor-in-chief of The Barbed Wire, a digital media outlet covering Texas

Utah

“Feeling so hopeful today. I took my daughter to vote for her first time. And it was historic in so many ways. She had the option to vote for our first female president and someone I believe will make real and lasting change and encourage unity. I believe this next generation is so strong and so brave and I was so happy to be part of helping her vote today for her and all of our futures.”

Bronwyn Newport, reality TV star

Vermont

“What I’ve seen during this campaign is pure joy and excitement. I’ve been all over Vermont and to Pennsylvania, and I have faith that when the vote is counted, Kamala Harris will be our president-elect. Americans are energized to ensure we have a president that puts working people first, respects our democracy and freedoms, and leads with empathy and compassion. I’m feeling hopeful and optimistic, but we all remember 2016, so our volunteers are working hard to turn out every single vote, all the way through the finish line.”

Becca Balint, U.S. Representative

Virginia

“After a day connecting with other suburban women to make sure they voted, I waited for election results with my husband and son.”

Lara Bury, Virginia deputy director for Red Wine & Blue

Washington

"My beliefs are my own but humanity is all of ours. I’ve chosen to vote for our collective humanity today."

Michele Lampach, lead for Bobbie for Change

Washington, D.C.

"Today, I’m filled with so much hope—for the safety of our communities, the progress of our country, and the future of Black women and girls. Getting the chance to knock doors with my daughters to elect candidates who will fight to protect their freedoms is a moment I’ll never forget. All the work we’ve put in has led to this day, and I know it will be a historic one."

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action

West Virginia

"This election is quite possibly the most important election of my lifetime. I'm voting in this election to do my part in making sure that everyone has autonomy over their bodies and their lives. The lives of women and those who seek accessibility to good quality healthcare, abortions, and other reproductive services and screenings are on the line. Our fundamental human rights and our democracy is on the ballot up and down."

Brittni McGuire, president of the Women's Health Center of West Virginia

Wisconsin

"I have cast my ballot. Our local volunteers at the town hall displayed Midwest nice! No wait in the voting cubicles with hand sewn curtains. This brings a culmination of emotions including polarization fatigue. I hope for a return to civility and bipartisan approaches to solve real issues faced in rural Wisconsin communities. Health should not be determined by your zip code. My vote is my voice."

Nicole Schweitzer, health care professional, rural community leader, and girl mom

Wyoming

"As a Wyoming Republican, I feel the sense of anticipation and hope, looking to see conservative values strongly represented. I have high hopes for outcomes to emphasize local priorities like energy, agriculture, and small government."

Karen Linn, kindergarden teacher

And yet, several candidates and initiatives made history Wednesday, from momentous "firsts" to expanded protections for the rights and citizens at risk in Trump's Unites States. Ahead, the historic victories worth celebrating today—with, hopefully, more to come.

Andy Kim is the first Korean American to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Rep. Andy Kim (D) has been elected a Senator, taking over the New Jersey seat formerly held by fellow Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez, as reported by USA Today. Rep. Kim is the first Korean American to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

On X, the Senator-elect wrote, "We just won our Senate race! As a son of immigrants, a public school kid, I never could’ve imagined I’d get to serve as a US Senator. I’m deeply humbled and grateful to NJ and for everyone who got us here. I promise I’ll serve with honor and integrity as a public servant for all."

Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress.

Sarah McBride (D) of Delaware has become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, securing a victory over the Republican John Whalen III, as reported by NBC News. Rep. McBride has served as a state senator for two terms.

On X, the Congresswoman-elect wrote, "Thank you, Delaware! Because of your votes and your values, I am proud to be your next member of Congress.

"Delaware has sent the message loud and clear that we must be a country that protects reproductive freedom, that guarantees paid leave and affordable child care for all our families, that ensures that housing and health care are available to everyone and that this is a democracy that is big enough for all of us."

Two Black women will serve in the Senate for the first time.

The first Black woman Senator was Carol Moseley Braun, who served starting in 1993, but 2024 marks the first time that two Black women have been elected to the U.S. Senate simultaneously.

Lisa Blunt Rochester (D) won a Senate seat for Delaware, and Angela Alsobrooks (D) won a Senate seat for Maryland.

On X, Blunt Rochester wrote, "From the bottom of my heart, Delaware, thank you"

Alsobrooks wrote, "From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every Marylander. To serve this state, my home, is the honor of a lifetime."

New York passed an amendment to expand protections for pregnant people, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and many more groups at risk for discrimination.

New York voters have passed Prop. 1, also known as the "Equal Rights Amendment." This amendment expands the protections established in the state constitution's section 11, according to NBC New York.

Prop. 1 makes discrimination unlawful on the following bases: "race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy."

In a press release, the executive director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, said, "No matter what happens in the rest of the country, New York is moving forward. In New York, equality and inclusion are now the law of the land" (via HuffPost).

Arizona passed an amendment to guarantee abortion access.

Abortion access has been one of the main issues in the run-up to this election, and states are taking action to protect the rights of abortion seekers. As such, Arizona has passed a constitutional amendment which will guarantee access to abortion up to 24 weeks, as reported by NPR.

Missouri passed an amendment to end abortion ban.

Similarly, Missouri voters have opted to end their state's ban on abortions, which allowed the procedure only in case of medical emergency, reports NPR. The new amendment allows abortions to the point of fetal viability, which is approximately 24 weeks.

The Associated Press called the race in Donald Trump's favor in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Trump will assume office in January for the second time. His running mate JD Vance will serve as his vice president.

The race marked Trump's third consecutive run for president as the Republican nominee. He beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and served as president between 2016 and 2020 before losing to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. President Biden stepped down as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential race in July, clearing the way for Vice President Harris to run against Trump.

Harris had described the choice between herself and Trump as being "about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division."

Harris is expected to address supporters later Wednesday.

While Trump's campaign promises have been vague and wide-ranging, his official platform promises to "carry out the largest deportation operation in American history," "restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East," and "rebuild our cities."

The former president has also vowed to roll back protections for transgender people, shutter the Department of Education, and remove all undocumented individuals. He has also suggested he would unleash the Justice Department on his political enemies.

Speaking to supporters early Wednesday morning, Trump said, "I will fight for you and your family and your future, every single day I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body." He added: "This will truly be the golden age of America."

World leaders began to congratulate the president-elect in the early hours of Wednesday, with French president Emmanuel Macron saying, "Ready to work together as we have done for four years," and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy praising Trump's “commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs.”

Though Trump is scheduled to be sentenced for 34 felony counts later this month, political analysts have attested that becoming the president-elect will likely allow Trump to wriggle free of the charges.

Trump will be inaugurated for a second time in January.

Millions of people in the U.S. don’t have the right to vote. More than four million are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction—even if they’ve been out of prison for decades, according to a 2022 study by The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy center focused on decarceration. And there are other people who would like to vote but can’t: permanent legal residents (aka, green card-holders), who have been here most of their lives and pay taxes and recipients of DACA, which allows some immigrants who entered the U.S. as children to be eligible for temporary, renewable protections.

But, as Dagher demonstrated, there are still ways to become politically engaged. “Civic engagement, civic participation, and civic health is not just about voting,” says Nicole D. Porter, Senior Director of Advocacy at The Sentencing Project. “It's also about ongoing engagement with those who govern us and engaging in processes and policy discussions that have real impact on our material lives.”

From volunteering to using your personal expertise and language skills, here are five ways to use your voice to make change, even if you can’t cast a ballot.

Find organizations that align with your values, and fight for the issues you care about.

Figure out where you want to see the most change in your community, says Laura Hernandez, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, a non-profit dedicated to abolishing immigration detention. “Then, plug in with a local organization that is working around that issue.” For example, when Hernandez was first becoming politically engaged, she focused on two issues close to her heart: immigration “because it directly affected me” and incarceration after she served more than 15 years in California youth, county, state, and immigration prisons.

Do some research online, in newspapers, and on social media platforms to find nonprofits and advocacy organizations that do the kind of work that feels most important to you. “I read the news to see who is being quoted on the issue that I am interested in working on and talking about,” Porter says. Then, she reaches out to them to learn more and see how she can help.

Volunteer for a campaign.

You don’t need a voter ID card to phone bank, knock on doors, canvas, or host fundraising events for candidates you support. “It's even something that you can do as a family. You can take your kids canvassing with you,” Hernandez says. “All you have to do is find a candidate that you want to put your weight behind and reach out [to their campaign]. They are always looking for canvassers.”

Plus, your unique capabilities can be invaluable: “It’s important for us to help make campaigns more culturally competent and aware of what's happening in communities around the country,” Dagher says. “Most new Americans speak multiple languages, and when they are participating in campaigns they're able to bring that skillset of language.” Just like she did when she was 13.

Use your experience and expertise to inform your activism.

Sometimes, the reason you can’t vote is also the reason people need to hear your voice: “There are people living with felonies who are leading advocacy campaigns and rights restoration campaigns to expand the vote and to address other areas of criminal legal policy,” Porter says. For example, James Jeter, who was formerly incarcerated, helped lead a campaign that won people on parole in Connecticut the right to vote. That included roughly 3,500 citizens (a group that was disproportionately people of color) and Jeter himself. “James helped write the law, get the law passed, and then benefited from that law,” Porter explains.

Stay informed about what’s going on in your local community.

Go to your local town hall, school board, or city council meetings, suggests Melissa Shumsky, Housing Program Manager and Citizen Coach at Mass Liberation, a nonprofit that provides tools and skills to people returning to society after being incarcerated. Most of these meetings are open to the public and can help you stay informed about the goings-on in your community and how your tax dollars are being used. “Just by being present or listening in on Zoom, you can get involved,” Shumsky says. When you know what’s happening in your community, you’ll be more inspired to take action.

Engage your family and friends

If you’re volunteering for a campaign, heading to a rally, or attending a local town council meeting, ask your loved ones to come with you, Dagher says. “I've taken folks to knock doors and it makes a really big difference [when talking to voters]. It makes a campaign much more approachable when they see people like us [immigrants] on it or engaging around it.”

Trump knows he needs to make up ground with women in order to have a fighting chance this cycle. He lost his re-election bid in 2020 thanks to a 15-point deficit among women voters—particularly Black women, who preferred Joe Biden by a margin of 91 to 8 percent. And the polls this cycle are predicting an even bigger, potentially historic gender gap in the wake of the former president being found civilly liable for rape and the fallout from Dobbs—that is, if white women don’t break for him again this time around.

“The fake news keeps saying women don't like me. I don’t believe it,” Trump said at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, in early October. He added that he would be women’s “protector” as a president and that his second term would be so great for us that we will no longer be “lonely or scared” or even “thinking about abortion.”

Trump’s latest attempts to gaslight women into supporting him feels pretty delusional, given the barrage of horror stories we’ve been reading for the past two years about women suffering and even dying as a result of the abortion bans he enabled. But he is right about one thing: White women, the largest voting bloc in the country, have favored Trump in the past two elections, over Hillary Clinton in 2016 (47 percent to 45 percent) and notably more strongly for Joe Biden (55 percent to 43 percent) in 2020. In fact, white women have voted majority Republican for the past 70 years in all but two presidential elections—Lyndon Johnson’s in ‘64 and Bill Clinton’s in ‘96. Democratic candidates have only managed to win in recent years, frankly, on the backs of women of color. And Black women are tired of having to carry the burden, and frankly, as they should be.

“We marched. We organized. We mobilized. We cried. We screamed. We wrote anti-racism book lists (that none of y’all read). We went above and beyond, and what did we get in return?” Taylor Crumpton, a Black journalist, wrote in a searing Washington Post column in 2020. “Numerous reminders that 94 percent of Black women voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and that we’d better replicate our previous voting behaviors if we wanted to head off another disaster.”

Four years later, it’s looking quite possible that Kamala Harris may be the first candidate in nearly three decades to actually peel white women off from the Republican Party. While polls are certainly imperfect predictors of voting outcomes, a new Suffolk University/USA Today poll taken six weeks out from election day shows Harris leading Trump by a whopping 21 points among women, and a separate 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll finds that white women prefer Harris by six points. (White men favor Trump by 14 points in the latter survey, while Black women and men favor Harris by margins of 59 and 30 points, respectively.)

The tides may be turning this year in part because activists are specifically targeting and galvanizing their white women peers, trying to course correct a voting trend that’s become especially baffling in the era of Trump. In July, just after Biden dropped out of the race and made way for the Democratic Party’s first-ever Black woman nominee, activists Shannon Watts and Erin Gallagher organized a “White Women for Harris” Zoom call that grew so massive, it crashed Zoom several times and even broke the Democratic Party’s website. 164,000 white women joined the call, and together they raised $8.5 million for Harris. (It's important to note that call was preceded by the historically-attended Win With Black Women Zoom event.) “We were just, like, ‘We have to own this,’” Gallagher told 19th News after the event. “We need to own the fact that white women have deeply fucked this up every fucking time.’”

Beyond even considering the historic nature of Harris’ presidency, the stakes this election cycle for women are higher than ever. Since Trump was able to appoint three Supreme Court justices in his first term, solidifying a conservative supermajority that scrapped half a century of reproductive rights, red states are tripping over themselves to pass the most restrictive, draconian abortion bans possible. The six-week ban in Georgia has already killed two Black women whose deaths the state deemed “preventable,” leaving their four children without mothers, and emergency rooms across the country are refusing to treat women having miscarriages for fear of running afoul of the new laws.

Republicans are also openly coming for IVF, birth control, and no-fault divorce, in an effort to redefine the American family and women’s role in it. Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has mocked women without children as “miserable cat ladies," said working mothers aren’t “normal people,” and suggested that women must stay in violent marriages for the sake of their kids. And Trump, of course, has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by over a dozen women and spewed so much sexism over the years that it’s impossible to fully catalog.

And yes, women of color are notably worse off than white women in this country under Trump’s policies. Abortion restrictions enabled by Trump’s Supreme Court have disproportionately hurt Black women, whose maternal mortality rate was already nearly three times that of any other race. Children of color have to be escorted to school right now, amid bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio, because JD Vance made up (and Trump amplified) a fake story about Haitian migrants there eating people’s pets. It’s also communities of color who are hit the hardest by the climate crisis, which Trump continues to deny, and by the worsening income inequality thanks to his tax cuts to the ultrawealthy.

But if white women think that their whiteness somehow insulates them from the patriarchy—or from the corporate greed fueling climate change, income inequality, the housing crisis, the unaffordability of childcare—they are sorely mistaken. White women, too, are being left to bleed out with ectopic pregnancies and losing their ability to conceive due to state abortion bans. White women are also dying and losing friends and family in extreme weather crises shaped by human negligence. And while the Harris/Walz ticket is hardly a cure-all to all these ills, the contrast between Harris and Trump—especially on our collective right to bodily autonomy—is abundantly clear. It’s long past time for white women to join Black women in the fight to protect us all.

Though youth voter turnout is traditionally weaker than other voting blocs, members of Gen Z voted at a higher rate in 2022 than millennials and Gen X-ers did at their age. “This is a very politicized and engaged generation,” says Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, the country’s largest youth voter organization. They are a generation that has dealt with the ramifications of climate change, prolific gun violence, a global pandemic, multiple international wars, and fluctuating economies. They care about the world around them—but they still may need some encouragement to go out and vote.

“We’ve been raised in an environment that makes it really hard to have faith in government and elections, which makes voting challenging,” says Sonja Aibel, 17, a college freshman from Brooklyn, NY and Youth Civic Engagement Lead for YVote, which offers civic programming for teens.

That’s why, as election season kicks into high gear, it’s important to encourage the Zoomers in your life to head to their polling place on November 5. Even small conversations can have a big impact: A 2023 study showed that parents can transmit political apathy to their children, and that not talking to your children about politics may contribute to low youth voter turnout. In a Marie Claire survey of women, conducted in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion this year, young people between the ages of 18 and 29 responded that 52 percent of the time they almost always or often vote for the same political candidate as their mother.

Of course, having those discussions may not be easy: Engaging in conversations about politics takes empathy, understanding, and a reminder to check your ego (and views) at the door. Ramirez’s advice: “Listen, connect to their power, to their pain, and make sure you don't talk down to them, which a lot of older people unintentionally do.” Ahead, Ramirez and Gen Z-ers explain how to talk about politics with the young people in your life.

I never talked about politics with my parents. Should I even bring it up with my kids?

Older generations may be inclined to leave politics out of dinner table conversation for fear of being rude or divisive, but regularly having low-stakes conversations about everyday news can help make it easier to talk about the national election.

“Sit down and chat about how there's some rally that we just saw today and how interesting it was to see Kamala Harris or Donald Trump talk about this or that,” says Nivriti Deshpande, 17, a high school senior from Bentonville, Arkansas, who is a member of Senator John Boozeman’s (R-AR) Congressional Youth Cabinet and the chief financial officer of LOUDWomen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering and educating young women and rural students. Even though she doesn’t always agree with her parents’ perspectives on politics, Deshpande says discussing daily news, differing viewpoints, and policies routinely can empower teens to want to use their voices beyond their home—at the polls or otherwise.

How do I have conversations with a generation whose views differ from mine?

“The parent’s role is not to sway their kid,” Aibel says. Instead, “hold up a mirror to their own power to make change on the things they care about,” Ramirez says. Ask the Zoomer in your life what issues are most pressing to them. “Really listen to what's important to them,” Ramirez continues. “Empowering people is not telling them why you think they should care. It's about empowering them so that they have the tools to act on what they care about.”

How can I get them excited about voting?

“I really wish my parents had conversations with me about the power of my vote instead of having to learn it on my own,” Deshpande says. Having those conversations can be as simple as connecting the issues that matter to them to the potential results of this election, Aibel notes. For example, explain that by voting, they could impact who gets to appoint Supreme Court Justices and how the Court’s votes have impacted rulings in the past (like the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade).

Identify specific people in your lives who have been impacted by these rulings. “Communicate the stories and the people that are on the line rather than politics and laws,” says Christine Li, 17, a high school senior from Brooklyn, New York, who is a student leader at YVote. Personalizing the policies and the outcomes of recent elections makes it easier for people to see how voting can impact someone’s daily life.

If there’s a local issue a young person you know cares about (like universal free breakfast and lunch at their school), encourage them to learn about how local candidates think about those issues and how they would change local policy if they were elected. For example, “in New York City, people care about trash pickup and bike lanes. Things like that are often much less polarizing [than national political issues],” Aibel says.

What can I do to make sure they actually vote?

“Modeling election day etiquette is so impactful,” Li says. This is especially true for folks who are voting for the first time. Many newbies are casting ballots in college or in new cities where they may not know how to register or find their polling place. “It's not just like, ‘Oh, I'm going to head to the polls now,’” Aibel says. “It's like, ‘I'm going to figure out how to get an absentee ballot to my dorm or figure out the registration deadline in the new state I live in.’ It's a huge logistical challenge.” Offer to help your Zoomer figure out the details and walk them through your own voting plan, including the where, when, and with whom. Set Google Cal reminders for both of you, so you can keep each other accountable and remember deadlines together.

How do I get them off social media and onto other news sources?

“There's a lot of condescension from older generations about Gen Z's use of social media to obtain information about politics,” Aibel says. “I find that really upsetting because whether or not older people like it, it is a huge source of information for me and my peers.” Try to understand how the young people in your life uses social media to engage with the news. Ask them to show you who they follow for political info and how they know what’s real and what’s fake. Come at the discussion from a place of wanting to learn, not wanting to convince them that they’re doing it wrong. And if you feel that they need a little help identifying misinformation, fact-check and research sources together.

What if they think I’m an old dork who they can’t relate to?

Suggest that they discuss their voting plans with their friends since they might feel like they’re able to be more honest, open, and engaged when they don’t have to deal with an adult trying to be all “how do you do, fellow kids” with them (even if you don’t mean to be). “When it's possible for students to give resources to each other, that's even better than adults having these conversations with kids,” Aibel says. “Everything is better when it's peer to peer.”

Marie Claire has selected six campaigns to highlight, including influential political races and significant ballot measures centered around reproductive healthcare, climate, the economy, immigration, and education. After speaking with representatives from the organizations Run for Something and Emerge, who are focused on supporting down-ballot candidates, we’ve also recommended six ways you can get involved in campaigns, even if they are outside of your state.

A campaign’s biggest needs are race dependent, so if you’d like to support a specific candidate or ballot initiative, call the campaign and ask what their needs are. Contact information for a campaign can be found on their website or through social media.

Below, six campaigns you should know about this election season.

Florida's Amendment 4

Ten states have abortion rights initiatives on their ballots, and activists have their eyes on what’s happening in Florida. Abortion is currently banned in the state after six weeks of pregnancy, which is before most people know they are pregnant. There are few exceptions for rape, incest, and when the pregnant person’s life is at risk, but activists and doctors in the state have pointed out these exceptions are challenging. For example, a rape survivor needs evidence from police before getting permission to have an abortion.

If the majority of people vote “yes” on the amendment it would enshrine abortion rights in the red-leaning state up until 24 weeks, adding the following to Florida’s constitution: "No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider." Given how abortion rights have been decimated in the South, having abortion legalized in Florida would provide resources for those traveling from neighboring states with strict bans.

How to get involved: Make calls to prospective voters and educate them on the issues while also reminding them that their vote counts. When contacting the campaign you want to support, ask them for either a call script or talking points. They should also be able to provide you with data for a list of voters to reach out to.

Washington’s 3rd Congressional District

Republicans are seeking to expand their majority in the House, while Democrats hope to regain control, but in order to do so Dems need to maintain their numbers plus flip four additional seats. That’s why all eyes are on one of the Democrats' most vulnerable House seats in the state of Washington where Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is running against Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Joe Kent.

Two years ago Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto-repair shop owner, defeated Kent in an extremely narrow victory—she won by less than 3,000 votes in a shocking upset. This time around, Kent, who supports ending birthright citizenship and mass deportations, went after Gluesenkamp Perez for not being strict enough on border security and immigration. She has attacked him for his stance on abortion rights; two years ago Kent said he supported a national abortion ban but he has now backtracked.

How to get involved: If calling someone on the phone seems too intimidating, there are plenty of campaigns that reach out to voters via text message. Ask a campaign manager how you can help send and respond to these messages.

Colorado’s Amendment 80

The debate about using public funding for private school education is one being played out across the nation as different states vote on issues like school vouchers. Private school vouchers are a way some states, like Arizona and Iowa, are redirecting public education funds to pay for private school tuition. Colorado’s Amendment 80 does not speak to the controversial issue of vouchers, but opponents of the measure say it's setting the stage to reduce funding to public education. The amendment would add language stating “Each K-12 child has the right to school choice” in the state constitution, including private schools, homeschooling, charter and neighborhood schools.

Those who support the measure say they fear the rights of children to attend charter schools are endangered and need to be protected. Educators and organizers who are against the amendment’s passing have expressed concern that creating a right to private school in the state constitution will lead to private school vouchers that will divert money away from public schools, especially in rural areas.

How to get involved: If you’re skilled on TikTok, Instagram, or X, get to posting! Word of mouth is helpful and you can connect with a campaign’s social media team to see if they need assistance with creative posts or if they have recommendations for what you can post to your account.

Delaware’s At-Large Congressional District

State Senator Sarah McBride, a Democrat, is favored to win Delaware’s congressional seat as she runs against former state police officer, John Whalen III, a Republican. While serving as state senator, McBride sponsored a landmark paid leave bill, which provided people with up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for life events like a new baby, serious illnesses, or adjusting to military deployment.

If McBride wins, it will be historic—she will be the first transgender member of Congress. McBride hopes to fight for paid family and medical leave on a national level, as well as universal childcare and a federal minimum wage of $15 that will rise with inflation. Whalen, her opponent, says he wants to secure the southern border and is concerned about the federal debt and Americans support of foreign wars.

How to get involved: Increase voter turnout by sending handwritten notes to communities, particularly those in areas that are historically underrepresented. If you have friends who are also interested in civic engagement, host a postcard-writing party to amplify your outreach. Center for Common Ground is an organization that you can look to for tips on how to learn the basics of postcard writing.

California’s Proposition 4

This measure would enact the Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024. If voters say “yes,” that would authorize the issuance of $10 billion in bonds to finance a variety of climate projects, including ones focused on: safe drinking water, drought, flood and wildfire resilience, extreme heat mitigation, and clean air programs.

Supporters of the measure say this is an important step toward helping climate equity and building climate resilience for communities of color, who often are disproportionately impacted by climate disasters. Opponents say the measure is too costly for a state that already has an enormous budget deficit.

How to get involved: Donate. That may seem obvious, but don’t underestimate the power of financial assistance. Even a small amount can help in a close race that’s not receiving a ton of national attention.

Michigan Supreme Court Special Election

Two state Supreme Court seats are opening up in the battleground state of Michigan, which means the political majority could shift. Governor Gretchen Whitmer appointed Kyra Harris Bolden to the position when the former chief justice retired in 2022. Bolden is up against a circuit court judge named Patrick W. O’Grady. Prior to Bolden’s appointment, which gave Democrat-nominated judges a slim majority, the court had been controlled by Republican-nominated judges for several years.

Bolden, who has served for two years, made headlines as Michigan’s youngest and first Black woman Supreme Court justice. Bolden says she was inspired to pursue a legal career after learning that her great-grandfather was lynched in Tennessee after asking a store owner for a receipt. The special election means whoever wins would serve on the court for four years.

How to get involved: Try in-person canvassing. This type of volunteering requires a bigger time commitment, but if you’re near the state you’d like to help, look into canvas day trips where political organizations bus volunteers into neighboring swing states for the day.

"There has been a very big fixation on biological children, stepchildren, women that have children versus women that don't have children...it's like a huge point somehow of this entire election," Cooper noted, pointing out that Arkansas's governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, “my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”

When the podcaster asked how that made Vice President Harris feel, she replied, "I don't think she understands there are a whole lot of women out here who one, are not aspiring to be humble. Two, a whole lot of women out here, who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life, and I think it’s very important for women to lift each other up.”

The politician is married to Doug Emhoff and has a close relationship with his two children from a previous marriage, Cole Emhoff, 30 and Ella Emhoff, 25. She told Cooper that while she might not be a biological mother, she has "two beautiful children" who call her "Momala."

"We have a very modern family. My husband's ex-wife is a friend of mine," she shared. Harris also emphasized that in 2024, family "comes in many forms."

"We have our family by blood, and then we have our family by love, and I have both. And I consider it to be a real blessing," the Democratic presidential nominee told Call Her Daddy.

Harris, who explained she was "a child of divorced parents," also told Cooper that when she started dating her now-husband she was "thoughtful and sensitive" about bonding with the kids until she knew that they would be in a long-term relationship.

"I waited to meet the kids. And they are my children, and I love those kids to death," she shared, adding, "increasingly, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms and they're family nonetheless."

Her remarks come after former president Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance's, remarks about "childless cat ladies" have brought kids to the forefront of this year's political conversation. The queen of cat ladies, Taylor Swift, officially endorsed Harris in a lengthy Instagram post on Sept. 10 (while sharing a photo of herself with her own cat in the process).

Harris called Vance's comments "mean-spirited" on Call Her Daddy, adding, "Most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not based on who you beat down."

Along with being "Momala," Harris also touched on young women choosing not to have children "because it's too expensive," as Cooper noted.

The vice president agreed that it was "a real issue," sharing that "housing is too expensive" and shared ideas including tax cuts for young parents such as a "$6,000 tax cut for the first year of their child's life."

What their answers revealed: While both men are fathers, only one of them believes that childcare is a father’s issue, too. The other seems to think taking care of children is women’s work, and childcare a problem for women to sort out.

Walz has called childcare and paid family leave a day-one priority. At the debate he said childcare “is the biggest issue” for Americans. And he spoke about his own experience, saying he had to go back to work just five days after his child was born—a travesty that encouraged him to make things different for other new parents by implementing a more robust paid family leave program in his state of Minnesota.

Vance also claimed to “speak from this personally.” But he didn’t speak personally at all; he immediately segued into talking about his wife, Usha, noting that “being a working mom…is extraordinarily difficult” and lamenting the “cultural pressure on young families and especially young women” to choose between work and family.

This moment was particularly telling. Vance, after all, is the working father to those same children whose care was apparently extraordinarily difficult for his wife. He, too, had to make decisions about work, family, and childcare. And it seems like the choice he made was to put all of it on his Usha, because there was no anecdote about the “difficulties” he has faced as a working dad.

Vance is right that childcare is an issue that makes life harder for women in particular. But that’s in part because men like Vance don’t see caring for their own children as equally their responsibility, and because too many (mostly male) politicians view childcare as both women’s work and a personal problem for women to sort out.

At the debate, Vance talked about supporting a childcare model that gives families as much “choice” as possible. But when Vance has talked about childcare in the past, he’s been clear that he doesn’t think fathers factor in, and that the “choice” he’s talking about is incentivizing women to stay home, or relying on other (largely female) family members to provide childcare for free. “I think one of the things that we can do is make it easier for families to choose whatever model they want, right?” he said at a conservative event this year. “So one of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for day care is…maybe grandma and grandpa [want] to help out a little bit more, or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that we’re spending on day care.”

In a previous podcast interview, he put a finer point on it: After telling a story about how his mother-in-law took a leave of absence from her job to help raise Vance’s children, the podcast host opines that raising grandchildren is “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.” Vance agrees.

Debate moderator Margaret Brennan noted that “the Federal Reserve says parents will spend nearly as much on childcare as they do on housing each month.” Indeed, many more of these families are headed by single mothers than single fathers; even many two-parent families calculate childcare costs only against the mother’s income (how many times have you heard a woman say she quit her job because childcare costs as much or more than her pay?); and in many homes, it’s still mom who is responsible for most of the care-giving and most of the care-wrangling.

And that’s precisely because there are too many men like Vance and too few like Walz, both in American homes and in the halls of power.

If you’re wondering how you can help, the best thing you can do is donate to disaster relief organizations. According to FEMA, giving money is better than donating things like clothing because organizations on the ground know what’s needed most and can direct funds where necessary. Here are some trusted aid groups that are supporting both national and local efforts.

National Support

The American Red Cross, Salvation Army, and Americares are all working to provide relief to people who were impacted by Hurricane Helene. Though the Southeast was hit hardest, the storm also affected cities as far north as Cincinnati, per The New York Times.

North Carolina

Western Carolina was badly hit by Hurricane Helene. The storm caused record flooding and killed nearly 50 people, the highest toll so far. The governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, has said the best way to help is to donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund. According to the governor’s office, “Donations made to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund will go to nonprofits working to meet the immediate needs of storm victims such as food and water, cleaning supplies and other emergency supplies.”

Georgia

The state of Georgia also faces significant damage from Helene, with 159 counties affected, Governor Brian Kemp told Fox 5 News in Atlanta. Donations can be made to Send Relief, a nonprofit that has already set up six feeding sites and four recovery sites in the state.

Florida

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane, before making its way north. Entire communities were completely obliterated. To help, donate to the Florida Disaster Fund, which provides aid to people across the state who were affected by the hurricane.

With the facts of climate change—an ever-warming world, climate-destroyed communities, rapidly-dwindling natural resources—it can be hard to imagine. Or it feels just that, imaginary. And it’s enough to make taking any meaningful action to “save the planet” so lofty and vast,
it can feel pointless.

Talk to Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Ph.D., a marine biologist and climate activist, and a different story emerges. She is the founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, an organization that works to help plan for the future of coastal cities, and has worked with everyone from Patagonia to the U.S. government to develop clean ocean policies. While Dr. Johnson doesn’t belittle the big problems climate change presents, she also believes them to be solvable.

It’s a topic Dr. Johnson explores in her recently published book, What If We Get It Right? Here, she shares that while a utopian world may not be the future, the apocalyptic visions we're all prophesying aren’t either.

Leah Thomas: What drew you to the world of marine biology and environmentalism?

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: From a very young age, what drew me to it is love. I fell in love with nature—sea urchins, worms, butterflies, reef fish, stars, sunshowers, forests, moss. Once I learned that the species and ecosystems I loved were threatened, I became determined to do what I could to protect and restore nature.

Marine biologist was my first dream job, then park ranger, and later I wanted to be an environmental lawyer. Now I do ocean climate policy work for coastal cities through my think tank, Urban Ocean Lab, and also do what I can to welcome others into pro-nature actions and furthering climate solutions.

LT: Are there some positive ways you've seen the environmental movement shift over the decades?

AEJ: It’s great how multigenerational the environmental movement has become. Although I’d love to see more cross-generation collaboration, the fact that we are three (maybe four) generations deep holds heaps of potential.

I’m also starting to finally see the environmental movement become more prominent in mainstream pop culture. Better late than never, the status quo has shifted toward sustainability and climate action being a no-brainer. Like, of course we should all be helping to safeguard life on this rad, unique planet.

LT: Speaking of generations, an increasing number of young people are experiencing anxiety around the future of the planet. What would you say to someone who feels apathy towards action?

AEJ: I would say, don’t worry about staying hopeful. Instead, focus on being useful, and advancing solutions. Hope is actually not a prerequisite for action.

And while young people may feel generally misunderstood by older generations, I'd encourage them to seek out those older people who do want to understand them, and more importantly, who are open to mentorship. This can work both ways— each generation has a lot to learn from the others.

Find your people. Join something. Getting involved in climate solutions is not about quitting your job or starting your own nonprofit. It’s about finding your role, putting your skills, resources and magic to its best use— at home, at work, and as a citizen. One simple way I like to envision that is through what I call my climate action Venn diagram. It's where we each find our way to the intersection of three questions: What are you good at? What work needs doing? What brings you joy?

LT: You’ve done a lot to spark conversations around climate change, including with your recent book What If We Get It Right? What inspired you to tell this story?

AEJ: Nature, biophilia, my love of and reverence for wonders of biodiversity and ecosystems; they're all an endless source of inspiration. I wanted to offer something toward the next shift I’d like to see in the environmental movement, which is toward a relentless focus on solutions, on imagining and building the future we want to see, instead of focusing on apocalyptic visions of the future we want to avoid.

I think having more and more answers to this “what if we get it right?” question is a critical component in inspiring all of us to charge ahead with the transformation that is needed, from an extractive economy and society to a regenerative one.

LT: The book has dozens of contributors from different walks of life—from activists to scientists to corporate sustainability leaders. Why was it important for you to include such a broad range of voices?

AEJ: As I put it in the book’s introduction, “If ever there were a moment for collective wisdom, this is it. All hands (and minds and hearts) on deck.” Climate change is the gnarliest, most gargantuan problem humanity has ever faced. We need hundreds of solutions. Through interviewing a wide variety of experts making major moves, people who have helped me see the ways forward, I want to highlight the breadth of the solutions needed.

I also want to be very clear that we already have most of the solutions we need—from restoring ecosystems, to green buildings, to public transit, to reducing food waste, to renewable energy. We just need to implement them...quickly!

LT: You've helpfully included a playlist for the readers.

AEJ: The very last page in the book is my Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape. I probably spent 80-plus hours crafting it over the last six months, and listened to it on repeat while making my final edits. These aren’t songs written about climate, but ones I have repurposed because of the lyrics or energy they offer—anthems for victory, love songs to Earth, tunes for tenacity, and sexy implementation vibes.

LT: One argument against “climate optimism” is that it ignores the "reality" of the state of the world. Can you be a realist and a climate optimist at the same time, and if so, how do you balance the two?

AEJ: Personally, I’m not an optimist. I’m a scientist, a realist. The reality is that while the situation is dire, and the stakes are sky high, we also know that there are innumerable possible futures. So, while I don’t embody the optimistic expectation that our story on this planet has a happy ending, every day I wake up, as I think more and more of us wake up, and make increasingly devoted contributions to shaping the best possible climate future. And you know what? Even regardless of the outcome (which we can’t control), it will feel so incredibly good to have been part of the effort (which we can). Truly, every tenth of a degree of warming we can prevent, every centimeter of sea level rise we avoid, every bit of nature we protect and restore, really matters.

This story appears in the 2024 Changemakers Issue of Marie Claire.

Moderator Linsey Davis was quick to correct him, bringing up the first fact check of the night. “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill the baby after it’s born,” Davis said.

Vice President Kamala Harris then stepped in firmly. “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion,” said Harris. “That is not happening and it's insulting to the women of America.”

The abortion question was brought up early in the night, and marked a shift in the debate’s energy as Trump and Harris sparred on an issue that has become a crucial point in the election cycle. While Trump focused on erroneous claims about women executing babies after birth, Harris pointed out how three of Trump’s selected Supreme Court Justices helped overturn the federal protection for abortion under Roe v. Wade. She detailed all of the egregious treatment of women occurring in states with abortion bans, like women being denied miscarriage care at emergency rooms or 12-year-old survivors of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government—and Donald Trump certainly—should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said. She was forceful while speaking, looking directly at Trump who refused to look back at her. “What you are putting [these women] through is unconscionable.”

The question was brought up because Trump has recently been flip-flopping on abortion. He’s gone back and forth on whether he supports a Florida ballot measure adding abortion protections to the state’s constitutions. At the debate, although pressed, he refused to answer whether he would veto a national abortion ban. When Davis pointed out that his VP nominee J.D. Vance had commented on Trump vetoing a ban, Trump simply sidestepped the response and said he hadn’t discussed it with Vance yet.

Back in June, when Trump made his false claim about after-birth abortions, Biden had sputtered, saying Trump was lying but going off on a tangent about immigration. Abortion activists were infuriated that Biden didn’t give a stronger answer, although it was not totally out of character for a man who struggles with even saying the word.

In contrast, Harris’s answer on abortion was a highlight of the debate. David Plouffe, a senior advisor for her campaign, tweeted, “Forty point difference with undecided voters on their abortion answers. Widest gap I’ve ever seen in debate dials.” A deputy campaign manager for Harris said that in the first hour of the debate, which is when the abortion exchange happened, 71 percent of the campaign’s grassroots donors were women.

Sixty-three percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research. Democrats have made their support for abortion access an important part of their platform. Meanwhile, Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade. But he wants to make Harris and the Democrats look radical on an issue the majority of the public supports, so Trump’s recourse is inventing situations that don’t happen.

“Execute the baby” and “abortion in 9th” started trending on X, formerly known as Twitter. NAACP got more than 2.5 million views for their tweet that read, “For the record: You cannot have an abortion in the 9th month. You cannot have an abortion after birth. If we didn’t keep banning books, maybe we wouldn’t have to clear that up.”

“Donald Trump was totally incoherent. He was angry and rattled, and it all began when Vice President Harris held him accountable for his record overturning Roe v. Wade and harming women nationwide,” Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. “Trump refused to say he would veto a national abortion ban.”

Nourbese Flint, president of All* In Action Fund, said that Harris displayed “fierce leadership” at the debate. “She was clear and firm in her stance on access to abortion care and unflinching in her defense of our freedoms in the face of Donald Trump's lies and dangerous rhetoric,” Flint said in a statement. “It's clear that she understands the widespread harm of the abortion care crisis we face and will fight for us every single day, making her the leader that we need in this critical moment in our history.”

When Harris replaced Biden as the Democrat’s presidential candidate, abortion activists expressed their hope that this would amplify the importance of reproductive healthcare. Now, they seem to have had that wish fulfilled. Harris has long been a strong supporter of abortion rights, and in March, became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic. (Ironically, the clinic was in Minnesota and Tim Walz joined her.)

The contrast to Biden’s debate answer on abortion, and Harris’s answer was night and day—and it only served to underscore how extreme Trump sounds when he makes up lies about executing babies after birth.

On Thursday, Aug. 22, Harris stepped onto the Chicago stage at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) once more to secure her role in the upcoming election. Of course, she did it stylishly; the potential President was dressed in a deep, dark blue Chloé power suit with a slew of coded meanings.

Harris's look, custom-designed by Chloé's creative director, Chemena Kamali, featured a navy wool two-piece suit and a matching pussybow blouse. Her color choice may very well speak to what the Vice President—and now official Democratic nominee for President—wanted to convey as she made arguably the most important speech of her political career.

In what is referred to as "color psychology," dark blue represents and can evoke feelings of "tranquility and deep reflection." It can also bring about emotions of trust and reliability—what Vice President Harris would certainly want people to feel as she re-introduced herself to the nation's electorate.

Dark blue can also symbolize elegance, authority, and intelligence, which is why the color is often preferred by those in positions of power.

The Democratic nominee's matching pussy-bow blouse also carries historic and feminist meaning after becoming an alternative to the suit and tie in the '60s and '70s, when women stepped out of the kitchen and into the corporate world. In the '80s, it became a symbol of female power when Margaret Thatcher became the first female U.K. Prime Minister and adopted the pussy-bow as a staple of her political image.

Harris's political career has been a fashionable one, to be sure. But following President Joe Biden dropping out and Harris stepping into the 2024 race earlier this summer, she's been noticeably leveling up her fashion game.

Like many before her (and even the DNC crowd on the night she accepted her party's nomination—a sea of white in honor of women's suffrage movement) Harris has been utilizing her clothes to further communicate her message.

For example, on the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Harris wore a tan Chloé suit designed by creative director Chemena Kamali—technically, her suit was a "coconut brown" color, likely a reference to her mega-viral "you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?" meme.

In addition to pantsuits symbolizing women's empowerment throughout politics, her tan suit seemingly was also a nod to former President Barack Obama, who Republicans infamously criticized for wearing the khaki color to press conferences.

Harris's pearls were another powerful fashion moment at the 2024 DNC. Worn for major milestone moments—from her first appearance at the 2024 DNC to her 2021 inauguration as Vice President—the gemstone is an homage to her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, from her years as an underground at Howard University.

Harris's presidential run has officially only just begun, and it's already one that fashion historians and style code-breakers will want to keep a close eye on.

The DNC has so far featured memorable remarks by President Joe Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and, most recently, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama—with more to come from the nominees in its final days. The 2024 DNC has also seen its fair share of meaningful fashion moments, helping to elevate powerful speeches of voter advocacy and discussions about the Democratic Party campaign. After all, fashion has always played a strategic yet significant role in politics, down to the silhouette, color, and choice of designer.

Vice President Harris kicked off the first day of the DNC wearing a tan two-piece suit by Chloé. Though simple at first glance, Harris's choice was an intentional one. Her Chloé ensemble, technically coming in the shade "coconut brown," paid homage to her viral and meme-able words from May 2023 (“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”) It was also a nod to Barack Obama's controversial 2014 look. The then-president wore a similarly-colored suit. At the time, the colorway was considered too controversial for office.

The fashion carried on well into the second day. Former First Lady Michelle Obama took to the stage in a modern version of the traditional First Lady attire. With cues inspired by Hillary Clinton, she conveyed her message of hope with a sleeveless, criss-cross set by Monse. Obama has a long-standing connection with the label's creative directors, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, who were previously at Oscar de La Renta—a label she often wore during her time as First Lady.

Sartorial statements at the DNC continued off the stage, down to the First and Second Daughters in the crowd. Ashley Biden attended the event wearing a suffragette-inspired white Gabriela Hearst suit, while Kamala Harris's step-daughter Ella Emhoff channeled an all-white look featuring a Helmut Lang top and the buzzy Harris-Walz camouflage baseball cap.

Other noteworthy looks at the DNC included First Lady Dr. Jill Biden's shimmery Ralph Lauren dress, Hillary Clinton's white number, Patti Labelle's lace-embellished coat, and many more. With the Democratic National Convention running until Thursday, check out a roundup of the best (and most meaningful) fashion moments from the event, with more to come.

Mindy Kaling in Monique Lhuillier

Mindy Kaling's DNC appearance included a navy lace sheath dress by Monique Lhuillier and crystal-embellished heels.

Oprah Winfrey in custom Christian Siriano

Oprah Winfrey wore a violet blazer with coordinating wide-leg trousers custom-made by Christian Siriano. In addition to a call out of support to "childless cat ladies," Winfrey's DNC speech revealed she's a “registered Independent,” adding another level of symbolism to her purple look when you blend Republican-red with Democrat-blue.

Michelle Obama's Monse Pantsuit

Former First Lady Michelle Obama attended Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention in a black, criss-cross top and cropped pants from Monse. She also wore black Jimmy Choo pumps.

Patti Labelle's Black Lace Coat

On Day 2, Patti LaBelle performed during the "In Memorium" segment. The singer wore a thigh-hitting white coat embellished with black lace, paired with black pants.

Ella Emhoff's Thom Browne Suit

Kamala Harris's stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, wore a Thom Browne suit on Day 2. Her sleeves were adorned with red, white, and blue stripes, symbolizing the American flag.

Ella Emhoff in Helmut Lang

On the first day of the DNC, Ella Emhoff wore an all-white look, featuring a Helmut Lang top and straight trousers. She also wore a camo Harris-Walz baseball cap (not pictured here).

Kamala Harris in Chloé

Vice President Kamala Harris took to the stage on Day 1 in a tan two-piece suit by Chloé. The "coconut brown" look paid homage to her viral words in 2023 and then-President Barack Obama's 2014 suit of a similar color.

Jill Biden in Ralph Lauren

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden wore a blue Ralph Lauren dress on Day 2, showcasing her evergreen support of American designers.

Jill Biden in a Lilac Blazer

While arriving at the DNC on Day 1, Jill Biden wore a lavender and white suit by Ralph Lauren.

Peggy Flanagan in a Look By Indigenous Designer Jamie Okuma

On Day 1, Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan wore a black-and-white geometric dress by the Indigenous designer Jamie Okuma, a tribute to Flanagan's Native American roots.

Hillary Clinton in a White Suit

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton stepped out on Day 1 in a white suit, the colorway subtly nodding to the 19th-century women's suffrage movement.

Gwen Walz in Carolina Herrera

Gwen Walz, right of Tim Walz, wore a floral Carolina Herrera dress on Day 1.

Ashley Biden in a Crisp White Suit

First Daughter Ashley Biden wore a white Gabriela Hearst suit on Day 1.

Mickey Guyton in Rebecca Vallance

Singer Mickey Guyton performed on the first day of the DNC, wearing a floral white gown by Rebecca Vallance.

Marcia Fudge in Black and White Florals

On Day 1, former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge wore a black leather jacket covered in white flowers, known as a symbol of joy and hope.

Obama took the stage in a futuristic navy pantsuit by the brand Monse for a modern take on the traditional First Lady attire, as seen historically on Hillary Clinton. “Our fate is in our hands,” Obama said, looking energized and eager for what's to come. “In 77 days, we have the power to turn our country away from the fear, division, and smallness of the past. We have the power to marry our hope with our action.”

Staying true to theme, the Monse design felt utterly futuristic due to the sleeveless cut and criss-cross neckline, which was made of notched lapels. The former First Lady has a long-standing connection to the label, or at least it's founders. Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia are both creative directors at Oscar de La Renta, an American brand Obama has been wearing for years.

“You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!” Obama continued. “The exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day… America, hope is making a comeback.”

Obama merchandised the look with David Yurman hoop earrings, a silver-accented belt, and a pair of vintage-inspired Jimmy Choo heels topped with a dainty bow.

Thus far, the DNC has been quite the fashion event. For day one, VP Harris wore a tan Chloé suit that may or may not have been a dig at the Republican party. First Lady Jill Biden, meanwhile, took the stage in a Democrat-blue sequin dress and silver pumps. Politicians have used fashion to spread their message for years, but never before has it looked this good.

The coconut color aside, there's more relevant "context" to Harris's DNC outfit. The pantsuit itself has become a symbol of women's empowerment throughout the years—this style, specifically, was even created by a female designer, Chloé Creative Director Chemena Kamali.

Harris took that sentiment one step further, styling her co-ord with a pussy bow blouse. As the name implies, the hyper-feminine style is closely associated with girlhood, something rarely embraced by the political set. As an outspoken advocate for women's rights and bodily autonomy, it's a choice that speaks to her convictions.

Her jewelry, too, is significant. Harris typically wears pearls at campaign rallies as a tribute to her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA). The Vice President attended Howard University as an undergrad and has continually shown her support for the historically Black university.

In addition to the powerful sentiments behind the look, the fashion choice is also something of a political callback and jab at her opponents across the aisle. Back in 2015, President Barack Obama was famously criticized by Republicans for wearing khaki suits to press conferences, most notably during a 2014 press conference on Middle Eastern affairs. The choice turned an entire political party into armchair fashion experts and set a precedence of absurdity for so-called political scandals.

For the faux outrage crowd, Harris's tan Chloé suit will likely provide at least a week of political fodder because if we've learned anything from Barack Obama's presidency, it's that there's no political molehill that can't be made into a mountain.

But theatrics and mud-slinging aside, the Vice President's pantsuit begins her 2024 presidential campaign on a powerful and historic note.

Shop More "Coconut Brown" Suits Inspired by Kamala Harris

The fact that Kamala Harris is where she is now says everything. I have no doubt that, growing up, she was required to be twice as good for half the credit. Time and time again, she has broken barriers, made history, and led with strength and humanity. She is uniquely and exceptionally qualified to be the next President of the United States of America.

Picturing her on the dais, accepting the Democratic nomination, poised to become the first woman, first Black woman, and first Indian American President of the United States—it’s emotional for me.

It’s emotional because it's personal. Her story is the story of millions in America. We see ourselves reflected in her.

Like Kamala, I was raised by a strong woman who taught me the words of Shirley Chisholm and Toni Morrison.

Like Kamala, I went to my first protests and community meetings in a stroller.

She and I have faced many of the same challenges and roadblocks. As women making our way in politics, we've been met with biases and misogynoir. We know what it's like for your victories to be qualified as circumstance and your stumbles to be credited to your character.

Like Kamala, I was blessed to meet the love of my life and become a bonus mom (“Momala” in her case), building a beautiful, blended family.

She made history as the first woman of color to serve as Attorney General of California and the second Black woman in the U.S. Senate. I made history as the first Black woman to serve Massachusetts in Congress.

Like Kamala, my life and career have been defined by a fierce commitment to public service and an abiding belief in government as a force for good.

And like Kamala, I have been many “firsts,” writing the blueprint for someone else’s survival—but I vow to never be the last.

It’s no surprise that Republicans have already sought to weaponize her identity against her, to dub her as “the DEI candidate.” It’s an easy attack—and a predictable one. Bigotry and dog whistles like these are the tired playbook of a party whose policies have become dangerous and deeply unpopular.

Make no mistake: Identity matters and representation is powerful. Kamala is a woman of color. A loving Momala. Maya’s sister and Doug’s wife. She is also a former Attorney General. A scholar. A history-making U.S. Senator. And the sitting Vice President. She is the first one in the room and the last one at the table when important decisions are made. So let’s be clear: “Representation” is just one of many reasons Vice President Harris is the most qualified person for this job and this moment.

In a time when reproductive rights are diminishing daily, Kamala has been a powerful champion and effective messenger for abortion justice, IVF, and birth control. As a leading voice on student debt cancellation, I say sincerely that Kamala has been an engaged and responsive partner. We’ve worked together on efforts to address the maternal health crisis, advance housing justice, demand paid family leave, and protect voting rights.

There has been a seismic shift in the presidential election. Kamala is officially the Democratic nominee. And in picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate—an educator, champion for workers, and defender of reproductive freedom—Kamala once again demonstrated her leadership, her judgment, and her commitment to making progress for our communities.

Candidates are human, and they must learn in public. As an elected official, I know our strength lies in being responsive and accountable. Kamala is committed to earning the trust of voters who have felt unseen and unheard by status quo politics.

The stakes in this election couldn’t be clearer. And Vice President Harris has given us reason to hope—a deep and abiding hope that is less about wishing and more about working.

Despite their empty, morally bankrupt promises of unity, Donald Trump and Republicans have made their agenda clear: to attack our most basic rights and freedoms.

In Donald Trump’s America, women reading this article today, from Massachusetts to Mississippi, could be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term—even one caused by rape or incest. Kamala is a champion for abortion justice.

In Donald Trump’s America, housing prices would continue to skyrocket while people are thrown in jail for being unhoused. Kamala will continue working to end homelessness.

In Donald Trump’s America, fossil fuel companies would thrive while our babies suffer in cities that are too hot and ill-equipped to protect our most vulnerable from climate change. Kamala is a champion for the Green New Deal and would be the most strident environmental justice President in history.

We have the opportunity to embrace a politics rooted in community, equity, and dignity. To leave our children and grandchildren a better world than we inherited.

There are less than three months until Election Day. With Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket—as a tribute to my departed mother, for the future of my teenage daughter, and on behalf of everyone who has ever been left out and left behind—I will fight like hell for a better future.

Let’s go.

Walz shared his gratitude on X, writing, "It is the honor of a lifetime to join @kamalaharris in this campaign." He continued, "I’m all in." Expressing excitement for the future of the election campaign, Harris also wrote, "Vice President Harris is showing us the politics of what’s possible. It reminds me a bit of the first day of school."

But who is Tim Walz? Here's what you need to know about Kamala Harris' pick for VP.

He gained attention for calling the Republicans "weird people."

Walz perhaps gained an edge over the other VP contenders when he gave an interview on MSNBC, which subsequently went viral. "These are weird people on the other side," he told MSNBC (via the BBC). "They want to ban books. They want to be in your [doctor's] exam room."

Further elaborating on the Trump-Vance campaign ticket, Walz said, "You know there's something wrong with people when they talk about freedom: freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird."

He's the governor of Minnesota.

Walz is currently serving his second term as the governor of Minnesota, after taking office in 2018. Since becoming the 41st governor of Minnesota, Walz has helped provide universal free school meals, fought for reproductive freedom and voting rights, and increased paid leave for workers.

In his role as governor, Walz also declared July 20, 2023 as Beyoncé Day in Minnesota, to commemorate the singer's Renaissance World Tour stop at Huntington Bank Stadium, via WCCO News. While Walz wasn't the first Minnesota governor to celebrate Beyoncé's indisputable talent, his recognition of the superstar is certainly welcome.

He's a former football coach, a teacher, and a veteran.

Walz grew up in Nebraska, where he enlisted in the Army National Guard after graduating from high school, his official bio notes. After receiving a social science degree from Chadron State College in 1989, he went on to work for the National Guard, serving for a total of 24 years.

He also became employed as a high school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, where he "coached the school’s football team to a state championship," The New York Times reported.

His wife, Gwen, can "get anything done."

Walz met his wife, fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, while working at the same school, and they tied the knot in 1994. Since he became governor, Gwen has served as first lady of Minnesota, a role she doesn't take lightly. "Tim is the governor and makes the governor decisions," Gwen told the Star Tribune. "We have a lot to do and everyone has a role and part in it. It is my responsibility to find my way forward in this new role, with respect and awareness."

Walz has also made it clear that Gwen is an important part of his life and work, something that will likely continue in his role as Harris' vice president pick. "My wife can plan and get anything done," Walz said of Gwen's abilities while speaking to the Star Tribune.

Tim Walz is a passionate advocate for reproductive rights.

Tim and Gwen Walz have two children—daughter Hope, who was born in January 2001, and son Gus, born in October 2006, People reported.

The couple welcomed their children after undergoing fertility treatments at the Rochester Mayo Clinic for a period of seven years. Tim discussed his family's fertility journey in an interview with the Star Tribune in March 2024, following the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling regarding embryos created during IVF. Most importantly, the governor wanted to ensure people continued to have control over their reproductive rights, ranging from IVF to abortion.

In January 2023, Walz enshrined the right to reproductive health care, including abortion, into Minnesota statutes, AP reported. Since then, he's made it clear he hopes to protect Minnesota residents when it comes to their reproductive rights. "I’m going to build up the battlements around protection as much as I can," he told Star Tribune.

And I have a message for Kamala Harris: Don’t fall for it.

After the far-right started up their chorus of sexist and racist attacks on Harris—calling her, among other insults, a “DEI vice president”—party leaders rushed to shut it down. At a closed-door meeting with lawmakers this week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson warned his membership to steer clear of comments about the vice president’s identity.

That’s because the GOP knows that, if this becomes a campaign about identity, they’re going to lose.

Like it or not, they’ve made this race a referendum on female power. Not only have Republicans gleefully stripped away women’s reproductive freedoms, but they’ve made toxic masculinity a centerpiece of their political strategy. (Just think about Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt at the Republican National Convention.) Now they’re desperate to avoid talking about the policy issues, the women’s issues, that Harris is strongest on—with the biggest potential to galvanize Democratic voters.

And that’s why Kamala Harris absolutely should be talking about her gender and her race—loudly and proudly.

Women voters know what’s really at stake here. The Dobbs decision left young people with fewer reproductive freedoms than their mothers and grandmothers had at their age. It set off a ripple effect, too, putting access to birth control and IVF in danger. And it emboldened the far-right to reach for even more ambitious goals, like outlawing no-fault divorce—which could prevent women from fleeing domestic violence.

That’s not to mention how hard life already is for women and moms in America: the only industrialized nation without paid leave, where child care costs more than housing in every state. It wasn’t that long ago that women were struggling to re-enter the workforce after the pandemic. Now they’re struggling to make ends meet for their families, with inflation hitting parents especially hard.

Yet these very real issues are often cast as second-tier, relegated to the end of the to-do list behind jobs and health care and public safety. (Though you may notice that these “women’s issues” are, in fact, about jobs and health care and public safety.) Women are tired of seeing them brushed to the side.

And that’s why we’re seeing such a surge of excitement for the Harris campaign—44,000 people joined a Win With Black Women organizing call for her this past weekend and raised $1 million in three hours. In Harris, they see someone who is not qualified for our nation’s highest office in spite of her identity, but because of her identity.

If you look back at Harris’s long, impressive career, women’s issues have always been at the center. In high school, when Harris learned her best friend was being sexually abused by her stepfather, the Harris family took her in—an experience that later inspired her to become a prosecutor. As a senator, she fearlessly took on Brett Kavanaugh —questioning him about the allegations of sexual assault and his stance on abortion. During her 2020 campaign for president, she proposed one of the strongest paid family leave policies of all the candidates in the primary.

And as Vice President, she has been one of the most important advocates for reducing Black maternal mortality in our nation’s history. She has been an ardent champion of abortion rights and outspoken about the need to cap child care costs for American families.

For Harris, fighting for women’s rights has been her greatest strength—and positioned her to lead the country today. She should run on those women’s issues now, putting her identity as a Black, South Asian woman front and center in her campaign.

I understand why that could feel like a risky move. Women candidates have been taught, explicitly and implicitly, that leaning into their identity can be a liability.

But the alternative is risky, too—because playing it safe could mean losing this election. Donald Trump’s Vice Presidential pick is just another proof point that the next four years will be hellish for women. JD Vance has intimated support for a nationwide abortion ban, and said that the Democrats—citing Harris specifically—are “miserable” and “childless cat ladies.” With the two of them in power, you can all but guarantee that women’s rights—along with LGBTQ rights, the safety of Black Americans, and more—will be in danger.

Yes, we need to be sounding the alarm on abortion, IVF, and child care. But we need to do something bigger than that, too: challenge the entrenched systems of male power at the heart of Donald Trump’s campaign.

It’s a tall order—but Harris can lead us there. This week, we saw just a taste of what it looks like for women to step into their own power. Now let’s fully unleash it.

Following weeks of Democratic agitation after Biden's notably weak debate performance on June 27, the president announced the news via a letter addressed to "My Fellow Americans." In the letter, he outlined what he considered the biggest successes of his presidency before announcing that he would be stepping aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," he wrote.

In a follow-up post, Biden threw his support behind Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee. Harris would run against former president Donald Trump, who formally accepted his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention last week.

"My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year."

In an allusion to the past weeks, in which Democratic pundits and politicians alike had called for Biden to step aside, the president finished the letter by noting, "Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this."

Her concerns were valid. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation—a rate that has more than doubled in the last 20 years. In the U.S., Black women are at least three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy- or birth-related complication and are twice as likely as white women to give birth with little to no prenatal care.

Afraid for her health and the health of her pregnancy, Welteroth desperately searched for an alternative. In her search she found Kim Durdin, a licensed midwife and founder of Kindred Space LA, a Black woman-led birthing center. “When I met Kimberly it was like going from darkness to light,” Welteroth says. “She nursed me back to life and helped me find my confidence again.”

In April 2022, Welteroth safely gave birth to her son. “As soon as my baby popped out, I told Kim: ‘This is not the end. You’re with me for life, I’m with you for life.' We just felt there was a calling for us to work together.”

Together, along with Janelle Green, president of The Victoria Project—a nonprofit providing resources and funds to pregnant people in need of midwifery and holistic care—the women created the birthFund, a new initiative focused on expanding access to life-saving, affirming midwifery services nationwide. Already, the fund has gained the support of Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian, Kelly Rowland, Ayesha and Steph Curry, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Ashley Graham and more.

In the U.S., nearly 45 percent of new moms describe their births as “traumatic,” and while midwives have the potential to prevent more than 80 percent of childbirth-related deaths, more women than ever live in areas without access to maternity or midwifery care.

Durdin, Welteroth and Green spoke to Marie Claire to discuss their efforts to change that stark reality by expanding access to midwifery services nationwide.

Marie Claire: What are some of the most common barriers to midwifery care that you see people face and that you are actively working to overcome?

Janelle Green: I would say the number one barrier that we have found is financial costs. Most midwives are already discounting their care or giving it pro bono because they want people to have access to the type of care they give and they don’t want to turn anybody away.

What ends up happening is that not only can families not afford the care, but then the midwives are already going without the financial investment that they need in order to continue to provide care and expand their services.

Kim Durdin: The other thing I would say is just that sometimes people don't know about midwifery care, and it’s not often covered by insurance or insurance reimbursement for midwifery care is very low, or there’s just not any midwives available for folks in communities or in hospitals.

Elaine Welteroth: I think there’s also a cultural component here, which is why birthFund is not just a fundraiser, but a movement for cultural change and a narrative program to reintroduce and reframe midwifery for a new generation of parents. And unfortunately there just aren’t enough midwives in this country. We want to help create sustainable pipelines of business for midwifery care, specifically BIPOC-led birthing centers and midwifery practices—that’s a very real piece of this systemic problem that cannot be ignored. We can’t just put it all on midwives to save us from this maternal health crisis—they need investment from us in order to do this life-saving work, and unfortunately most of the midwives and Black midwives that are working today are overworked and under-resourced.

MC: How has your work become even more important in a post-Roe world?

KD: That’s such a great and powerful question, and honestly the attacks on bodily autonomy and human rights in general—on our culture and diversity—are overwhelming and I think they’re meant to overwhelm us. We can’t fight every battle there is out there to fight, but as caring compassionate women we do want to heal the world. Midwifery is my contribution to reproductive justice, to humanity, and to support folks birthing with dignity within broken systems while also working with organizations that are seeking to transform those systems.

One of my mentor midwives, Robin Lim, has a motto: “Healing the earth begins with birth.” That might sound kind of “woohoo,” but if you think about it, isn’t it true? If we could heal the violence that occurs to people bringing life into this world—if we could create safer spaces for people—I don’t see how we couldn’t create a better world.

MC: How much of this project and the work that you all are doing really is dependent on the three of you?

EW: I'm already choking up. I could not—there's no way I could do this without them. I would not be doing this work without them. I would not, could not. I need them to be able to do this and the way that they have shown up and poured into this and made it possible, it’s not only going to have ripple effects for countless families in this country but it’s been such a healing journey on an individual level. You can’t talk about birth without getting personal—it’s emotional; it’s life or death; it brings up trauma; it’s the most human act. It has been restorative to my soul to be able to work with people who are like-minded, aligned in values that you can trust to build something that is bigger than all of us. It’s just been the most divine, healing, beautiful and creative process.

KD: It is a reflection of midwifery—Elaine is midwifing a movement right now. I always say that midwifing is a verb and you can set it in other scenarios. It’s about nurturing something. It’s about a vision. It’s about preparing for the future. It’s about health.

I’ve had so many people share their horror stories with me. I was dismissed. I wasn’t listened to. My child almost died. I almost died. My child did die. My wife did die. My inbox is full of these messages, so if we wake up and think this isn’t relevant anymore you just look at your inboxes and see people saying: “Please, we need help.” These are people’s real-life stories, and they’re just the wind beneath our wings. I hope that we can begin to hear more stories of joyous births and things that have been healed because of this work that Elaine and Janelle and I've chosen to do.

JG: She’s being extremely humble in that share. But to your question, I think that much like the experience of parenting in our modern world and in this country in particular, this work can be very isolating and it can be very lonely. These women showed up in my life right at the moment that I needed. Right when I was getting to the point where I didn't know where to turn next, or how to find the resources that I knew so many families needed, I got an email from Elaine and I literally started to cry. I knew that if someone with her platform was willing to take this on, that other people would start to participate. I knew that people would start to share their stories and that all these things that have been happening to women in the shadows would come out into the public eye and we wouldn’t be able to turn away anymore.

MC: As you all have mentioned, this work can be both rewarding and isolating. Can you recall a time that rejuvenated you and reminded you that this worth is absolutely worth it?

EW: Oh, my baby has just joined.

KD: Hi (redacted)!

EW: I’ll let somebody else answer, just give me a second!

(NOTE: Elaine did not return, because baby trumps interviews, always!)

KD: I feel like every time I get to work with my clients I'm rejuvenated and renewed and I know why I need to keep going, but also why I need to help create more access to this care. The truth of the matter is that our work at Kindred Space LA and partnering with like-minded midwives at MLK Hospital has transformed the hospital. At one point they were trying to get rid of the midwifery program because they felt that it didn’t make money for the hospital.

We were able to help keep those doors open by rallying the community and really speaking truth to power and saying that this hospital cannot close this program in the face of this maternal health care crisis. I'll say that and there's so much work to be done, but all these amazing collaborations really feed our soul, our humanity and our beloved community.

JG: We get countless testimonials and responses and thank yous from the families that receive funding to access midwifery care, but early on when this was all just gestating and blossoming I had one client in particular whose personal letter I still keep with me in my desk. She sent me a note, just very briefly stating that her family had recently moved here from Iran. She’d had a very difficult pregnancy with no support, and explained that the women in her family had rarely been given a choice about who to marry or whether or not they were going to have children, let alone able to decide who was going to attend a birth, where to give birth or how to give birth. She told us we ended up changing the trajectory of her family.

She ended up having a little girl, and she shared how we were affecting generations. Her mother sent a hand-painted scarf as a thank you, and so that is a family I will never forget.

MC: Ten years from now, despite the significant steps backwards this country has taken in terms of reproductive justice, what do you hope you can say about pregnancy, birth, postpartum and midwifery care in this country?

JG: For me, it would be that everybody knows what a midwife is.

KD: I would say, I want to use Birth Center Equity’s focus, which is safety, abundance, and liberation for all birthing people.

The decision—which is expected in June—could put access to the "abortion pill" in jeopardy. A method that many people rely on for reproductive healthcare: A recent study published in JAMA found that nearly 28,000 additional medication abortion pills intended for self-managed abortion use were issued in the six months following the end of Roe v Wade.

But as the Justices listened to arguments, workers and volunteers for Aid Access, a non-profit organization that provides access to medication abortion by mail, deployed so-called "roe-bots" to dispense mifepristone outside the Supreme Court. The robots were operated remotely by Aid Access providers residing in "shield law states," where they are legally protected from anti-abortion laws.

"The main point of the robots, in addition to calling attention to the shield laws and legal loopholes we can leverage, is that it literally does not matter what happens at the Supreme Court or in the future: We will get people the care they need," says Mira Michels, researcher and volunteer at Aid Access. "We don't ever want people to feel alone. It is extremely scary to realize you have an unwanted pregnancy. We just want people to know that by robot, in-person, mail—it doesn't matter—we will be there."

Based on Tuesday's arguments, the Court appeared "skeptical" of the case levied against the FDA (largely that mifepristone is unsafe and has not been properly studied), according to observers.

As Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst, wrote on X: "the Mifepristone case looks like it will be dismissed on legal grounds, no standing, as it should be." Adds Nancy Cárdenas Peña, director of the Abortion On Our Own Terms campaign: "This case should never have made it this far—mifepristone has been on the market for over 20 years and has been used by millions of Americans. My sincere hope is that the Supreme Court will follow the science and decades of evidence, instead of advancing a political agenda that aims to ban abortion nationwide."

But if the Supreme Court does decide to ban mifepristone or adds barriers to access it—while it will "certainly make it more challenging" and "increase the legal risks" for those who need the abortion pill, according to Cárdenas Peña—those in the movement are ready to step in and help.

"What will be important is that anyone considering self-managing with pills has the information and resources they need," Cárdenas Peña adds. People can call or visit If/When/How’s free Repro Legal Helpline for legal advice, get medical support from the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, and logistical support from Reprocare.

"There is an incredible legacy of women and people who've made this work happen and will continue to make this work happen," Michels says, adding that Aid Access has lowered the cost of medication abortion, provides additional aid to those in need, queer- and trans-inclusive care and even offers what is known as "advanced provision of abortion care," meaning people can obtain the pills whether or not they're currently pregnant. "I guarantee you, me and other volunteers and so many people I've met today are going to work tirelessly to make sure that, no matter what, abortion care will always be there."

Britt was likely chosen not only to assure the nation that there is room in the Republican Party for women, but also as an antidote to the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump. A tall order, given that Trump is a twice-impeached, four-times indicted ex-president who has been found liable (twice) for defaming a woman he sexually assaulted.

Her remarks were met with widespread criticism—particularly regarding a story she told about a woman that Britt insinuated had been sex trafficked as a result of President Biden's immigration policies—but her rebuttal also contained a quieter, sinister message: If you want to be a woman of value in our version of America, be a trad wife.

A "trad wife" is a type of emerging social media influencer that performs a more "traditional" role of wife and mom. With their hair perfectly coiffed and their homes immaculately maintained, "trad wife" influencers espouse the joys of making organic baby food for their children and washing their husband's clothes with homemade detergent.

"Trad wives" are almost always white, cis, thin, able-bodied, and devout Evangelical Christians, who, with a full face of makeup and '50s housewife-inspired ensembles, maintain their homes, care for their children, and feed their husbands.

While the trend is still considered niche, Noam Shpancer, a professor of psychology at Otterbein University in Ohio, told TODAY.com in a 2023 interview that it likely gained popularity in part because it serves as a response to cultural and social progress. He claimed that "trad wives" and those who champion them are "seeking to return society to what some people see as a simpler time with fewer individual freedoms."

By all accounts, Britt is profoundly accomplished. At 40, she became the youngest Republican woman elected to the US Senate. During her rebuttal, she spoke passionately about her own "American dream" that took her from small-town rural Alabama to the Senate floor.

Yet, unlike her male counterparts, Britt did not leave her immaculate kitchen in order to speak to the nation. "This is where our family has tough conversations," Britt claimed. "It's where we hold each other's hands and pray for God's guidance."

As Scarlett Johannson said during her SNL spoof of Britt's speech: “Republicans want me to appeal to women voters, and women love kitchens.”

Britt appeared on camera perfectly poised and soft-spoken—and wearing a carefully placed cross necklace—to make an “appeal to the parents out there—and in particular, to my fellow moms." After introducing herself, she noted, "It's not the job that matters most ... I am a proud wife and mom of two school-aged kids."

The message: You can work outside the home—as more women do than ever before—and even become a member of the U.S. Senate, but that should not supersede your innate desire to be a wife and a mom.

Even the state of the kitchen itself—which seemed devoid of actual cooking equipment—spoke to the Republican version of femininity and motherhood that hides and denies the inherent demands of motherhood while refusing to offer any structural, sustainable support.

As Lyz Lenz writes in her book This American Ex-Wife, so-called "trad wives" are often able to create and share their content because they have help—a housekeeper, a nanny, a family member other than their husband—and rarely are audiences shown the difficult parts of motherhood in the United States. Like, say, the inequitable distribution of labor inside the home, the rising maternal mental health crisis and the forever-present fear of gun violence at schools.

"The videos she makes take time. Promotion takes effort," Lynz writes of "trad wife" influencer Brooke Raybould, who has 325,000 Instagram followers. "Her performance of home and family takes an investment. She's not just 'mama'; she's a business woman selling you an image, a lifestyle that doesn't exist."

The GOP has a white-knuckled grasp on that fictional lifestyle, Britt's rebuttal shows, and they're not going to let it go as the nation careens towards another presidential election.

Despite its apparent support for mothers, the party has historically called for repeated cuts to programs that have supported women and their families, including food stamps and affordable housing. Today's Republican party rallies against free lunch, workplace protections for minors, and universal child care.

Simultaneously, the party will clutch its proverbial pearls over declining birth rates and the so-called "destruction" of heterosexual marriage—not because both are threats to democracy (like, say, a candidate who promises to be a "dictator on day one" and release insurrectionists from prison) or because foregoing having children or getting a divorce is bad for the country (they're not) but because both run afoul to the type of woman the GOP wants us all to be.

That type of woman is happy to live in a country that has stripped her of the constitutional right to abortion care, threatens to deny her access to IVF or birth control, yet simultaneously refuses to offer her social programs or safety nets to help her care for her children.

She's a woman that dares to dream, yes, but not too much—who can even become the youngest GOP woman senator, but must always lead with "wife" and "mom."

But not all of us are or want to be that woman, and perhaps the near-universal backlash Britt has received is indicative of that. That criticism is not limited to the erroneous things she said, or even for the awkward and at times comical way she spoke: Britt received backlash because she symbolized the GOP's vision of life in America for women.

Yet, while the party's version of "ideal femininity" is not sustainable or even exists, a fear Britt shared in her rebuttal—that the "next generation will have fewer opportunities and freedoms than we did"—is very real.

In fact, for half of the population, it has already come true.

Okay, he texted. I'll go.

The plan was the meet the woman at a small regional airfield the next day at 5 a.m. Clyde would fly the woman from her home state, where abortion was illegal, to a state where it wasn't.

Except she didn't show. Clyde texted, asking where she was. Clyde texted, confirming the directions. Clyde texted, a selfie so she could find him even though there was no one else around. The image showed a white man, thin, the age of someone with investment accounts and a paid-off mortgage.

Eventually, after some back and forth, two headlights appeared in the thicket of darkness. From the corner of a parking lot, a car slowly drove forward, an older woman behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. Another woman in her early 20s got out, tucking a small cloth bag under her arm. She was nervous. Clyde could see it in the way she looked at the ground while approaching him; the way she held her shoulders tight and tense.

It dawned on him that she probably wavered about getting out of the car because she was fearful it was all a trap. He got emotional thinking about it. How the woman had to meet a stranger, alone in the dark, in the desperate hope that he was there to help, not hurt her. It upset him, and got him thinking about how society had turned against so many people and made them feel unworthy. Clyde thought, Why do people want to treat women like this?

As they flew off into the sky, purpling like a bruise with early-morning light, the woman fell asleep in the back of the plane. By that afternoon, she wasn't pregnant anymore.

Post-Roe, roughly 27 million people, or one out of every three women of reproductive age, live in a state with an abortion ban, according to a January 2024 White House briefing. Fourteen states criminalized abortion. And just last year, over 300 pieces of legislation were proposed that would restrict access even further.

But as anti-abortion legislation continues to grow, so too do the methods and services being created to help people obtain access to reproductive healthcare, from start-ups aimed at distributing mifepristone by mail, often referred to as "the abortion pill," or "medical abortion," to funds working to connect people to resources, medical and financial. Among them is Elevated Access (the organization Clyde flies for), a network of volunteer pilots created to help people travel for the healthcare they need. In addition to those flying to get an abortion, they also provide flights for those in need of gender-affirming care.

"When we talk about people leaving their home or people leaving their state to access healthcare, we are talking about a large percentage of the U.S. population, geographically nearly one quarter of the country," says Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "And we're also talking about people who don't just have to travel one state over, but they may have to travel as far as 1,000 miles. They have to leave the South or they have to leave the Midwest. They have far to go." Sometimes the distance so vast, it becomes impossible.

In May of 2022, three days before the Dobbs decision was leaked—the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade—Mike was at his home in Illinois launching Elevated Access's website.

Mike was new to the abortion movement. In 2021, he was working in technology when his wife suggested that Mike—a white, cisgender man—take a workshop in systemic racism and bias.

By the end of the workshop, Mike was changed. He wanted to get more involved in social justice work, which eventually led him to the Midwest Access Coalition, an organization that offers travel support and financial resources to those in need of reproductive healthcare. He began volunteering; mostly using his tech background to help maintain the website. While there, he saw the struggles women faced in order to get an abortion, even before the fall of Roe. In many states in the South and Midwest, abortion access was already meager. To get to a clinic, women often had to travel long distances, sometimes having to make multiple trips, which meant lost income and the challenges of reliable transportation and childcare.

Women were supposed to have agency over their bodies. Women were supposed to have choices. They were supposed to have equal rights. But for the women Mike learned about through his volunteering—mostly low-income and from marginalized communities—those basic tenets did not seem to prevail.

But maybe he could help. Mike had grown up flying planes with his dad, and about a decade before had gotten his pilot's license. What if, he thought, people in need of abortion didn't have to sit in cars or buses or trains for hundreds of miles? What if it didn't take days to get to where they had to go? What if they could get in a private plane and fly to get the care they needed?

While the idea of private plane travel sounds like the ultimate luxury, there are also practicalities: The majority of the country lives within 30 minutes of an airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. At most small airports, there's no security, no one asking to see your ID. You walk up to a plane, get in, and go. It's discreet. And "air care" is not a new concept. There are already services that fly people long distances for specialized treatments, like chemotherapy; others fly pets that aren't allowed to go commercial or deliver supplies after natural disasters.

Knowing he was only one guy with one plane, Mike pitched his idea to one such organization since they already had the infrastructure in place. But he kept being told the same thing: Pilots are too conservative. They don't want to help people get abortions. Committed to the cause, Mike decided to get things off the ground himself, with the help of two pilot friends and the Midwest Access Coalition who referred people in need of abortion to Elevated Access. Just a few weeks before the Dobbs decision, Elevated Access made its first flight, taking a woman from Oklahoma to Kansas.

Now, 18 months later, Elevated Access has helped many, including one woman, a domestic violence victim from the South, whose abuser destroyed all of her identifying documents so she could never escape his grip. They've done over 700 flights, have over 1,300 volunteer pilots who can fly to any of the 50 states, and have partnerships with dozens of abortion funds and clinics who utilize their services. "Elevated Access was born out of rage," says Fiona, a volunteer who handles media relations for the organization and prefers we use her Elevated Access pseudonym. "People were so angry about Dobbs, we got hundreds of pilots volunteering to fly within the first few months, which blew us away. And I think our pilot roster is diverse. We have a number of veterans, doctors, lawyers, clergy; several married couples."

Pilots are put through a careful screening process that involves combing through their social media, talking to references, and making sure they have the proper requirements to fly. While not often, a few pilots have been rejected, for a variety of reasons.

The way it works: A referral comes in from one of Elevated Access's partners. The organization then puts out a call to their pilots in the area, asking if anyone is available to take the flight. The details—the person's first name or pseudonym, dates needed for travel, pickup and destination locations—are all that's provided. Unless information is offered by the person themself, pilots aren't told anything about why the person is traveling, to protect the passenger's and pilot's safety and privacy. The day of the flight, one of Elevated Access's flight coordinators monitors the trip using online tracking, and is available to make sure that once on the ground the person makes it to their final destination.

"In a perfect world, an organization like Elevated Access shouldn't exist," says Sophie Drew, a consultant for the New River Abortion Access Fund in Virginia who has referred dozens of people to Elevated Access. "It's absurd that people need to fly to get basic healthcare. In a perfect world, people could just walk down to their primary care doctor, but because we are in a world where that is not the case and people need to travel wild distances to get to the closest clinic, we are super grateful to have Elevated Access. It's definitely been a game changer for us."

Livi Bivens, a communication and development coordinator at the Fund, adds, "Elevated Access really shows that justice has no heights."

On a Saturday in November, I meet Clyde at a small regional airport in the deep South for the final leg of a multi-flight journey. His third "mission" for Elevated Access, as they're commonly referred within the organization. On the tarmac sit rows of small aircraft, empty and parked. It's quiet and remote. There's fog as thick as cotton, but not enough to prevent us from taking off.

After a final inspection of the plane—fuel levels checked, wings and propeller inspected—we are cleared for takeoff from runway eight. We climb to an altitude of 8,000 feet, high enough to sit above the winds blowing out of the west. High enough that the sky turns blue and the landscape turns metaphorical; stretches of brown desert blend and blur and become borderless. An illusion that we are all in this together.

We're flying to the Southwest, where Clyde is returning home after the latest flight. This time, a woman with two children accompanying her, a teenager and a toddler. Star-shaped crackers litter the floor. Empty granola bar and Rice Krispies Treats wrappers are stuffed in a Ziploc bag. The night before the flight, she had texted Clyde and asked if there was room on the plane for a Pack 'n Play. Clyde, who is married but has no kids, didn't know what a Pack 'n Play was, but he had hauled plenty of bikes and rafts in the back of his single-engine Cessna. (An outdoorsman, he had gotten his pilot's license decades before, so he could pirouette into remote areas to camp and spend time out on the river.) Surely there would be room. He texted her back, It's no problem.

Our flight is four hours. We stop to refuel at a single-runway airport along the way that warns of rattlesnakes and there's not a soul in sight. There, Clyde tells me about how he considers this work a higher calling. In many ways, he's always been committed to the arc of justice. He protested the Vietnam War. He tried to unionize while working as a river guide decades ago and got fired. His friends and family know about his work with Elevated Access and describe it as heroic. He would describe it as necessary and not enough.

With just under an hour left in our trip, we hit turbulence, our plane flapping in the breeze like a kite. It blows the door closest to Clyde open, just a crack. Something he needs to get fixed, he tells me, as he pulls it shut. It's fine.

It is fine. But it also puts into focus how tenuous this all is; the reality of the seemingly Sisyphean task that so many people are forced to face to get the healthcare they need. While easier than other options, it's still laborious and comes with a lot of uncertainty.

Most pilots I talk to, including Clyde, tell me that the passengers do just fine. They mostly aren't bothered by the bumps. It strikes me that the alternative for these women is far scarier.

There is a story of a woman who, after her Elevated Access flight was done, got out of the plane and declared, "I feel like Beyoncé." Likely because the pilots go out of their way to treat the people they're flying with dignity and humanity.

"Before a flight, I contact the passenger ahead of time by text or call," says Robin, a pilot for Elevated Access in her early 40s. "I say, 'Hey listen, I am so proud to fly you...I'm a great pilot. I've done tens of thousands of miles in the air. I care about you. You are my number one priority for the day. Nothing else matters. We're going to get you there and we're going to get you home.' And you hear this big sigh of relief that they don't have to explain themselves."

Usually the person has never been on a commercial flight, let alone a private one, so Robin is intentional about centering the flight as an experience. "I tell them they can come sit with me and be my co-pilot or I tell them they can hang out in the back, look at their phone, sleep, listen to music," Robin says. "This is their flight. And every single time their eyes light up and they want to be in the cockpit. So this is how we turn what could be a difficult, scary, embarrassing thing into something cool and remarkable."

With no previous background in aviation, and certainly no plane, Robin decided to get her pilot's license so she could fly for Elevated Access. "I've been in the arts my whole life, on stage and off," Robin says. "I had my own business in New York City."

But during the pandemic, Robin was listless. Her livelihood depended on Broadway shows, in-person entertainment, which had halted. She was feeling low.

And then worse after she heard about Dobbs. "When the court ruling came down ending Roe v. Wade, something in me just broke," she says. While researching ways to help, Robin learned about Elevated Access. It felt like an "aha moment," she says. "Access to women's healthcare is going to require an overground railroad and that's what general aviation affords us. No one can touch us up there," she says. "I dropped everything, closed up shop and moved to the Southeast. I called a flight school in Atlanta and said, 'Put me in the air.' I've been flying three to four, sometimes five days a week since, towards this achievement." Since becoming certified as a pilot, she's done around 10 flights for Elevated Access.

"When you're flying, you look out and you're like, What's everyone fighting about?" Robin says. "There's no signpost in the air that says you're now leaving Kansas. You just go. You're going where you're going and you've collapsed all of the spaces in between."

As of now, Elevated Access has been able to operate without any issues. "We've not had any government interference, knock on wood," Fiona says. "One reason, we're careful. We're not out there trying to pick a fight. We try hard to stay off the radar."

But that might not matter. Recent abortion "trafficking" laws—a term that many in the abortion movement find to be offensive—have been proposed, and their goal is not just to go after the people who are getting abortions, but the people helping them.

"Before the Dobbs opinion was issued, we knew states like Texas would not be satisfied with criminalizing abortion within their borders, but would want to make abortion inaccessible or illegal for people in other states," Smith says. "When the Dobbs opinion was issued, we were also on alert about states trying to prevent people from traveling."

Recently, Idaho enacted an abortion "trafficking" law, and states like Tennessee and Oklahoma are following suit. The bills would make it a felony to "help" a minor access reproductive healthcare, and would come with a prison sentence of a decade or more. "If enacted, it would create this new crime and the crime would apply to adults who helped a young person access abortion care, regardless of where that care occurs," Smith says. "The bill is really expansive. It's expansive enough that a prosecuting attorney could make the argument: Well you gave them money. You gave them the name of a clinic out of state. You provided a website address." You flew them in your plane.

"While these bills are focused on young people, that is not to say that adults will not become the focus at a later date," Smith says. "If you can normalize not helping young people, then later you can normalize not helping adults."

At the local level, some cities and counties are introducing ordinances that would make abortion illegal within their borders, including in states where abortion is legal. The goal is to prevent people from coming across the border to seek care or to leave to seek care. In Amarillo, Texas, a proposed ordinance would make it a criminal act to use roads to leave the county to get an abortion elsewhere. "There is a real question about whether these are enforceable if they were to be passed," Smith says. "But the goal, really, is to scare people; to stop people from helping."

This all comes at a time when the need to travel to get an abortion may become more necessary than ever. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case involving the use of mifepristone, the most commonly used drug to end pregnancy in the U.S. The lawsuit wants to block mail-order access to the pill and impose restrictions on its use, even in states where abortion is legal.

Clyde is unfazed. He's done two more flights since I've last seen him, and is eager to do more. Just days before, he got a text about another woman in need of a ride. He wanted to help, but he couldn't. He got the message as he was traveling out of town, on a cycling trip with friends. Normally he would rework his plans, but this time the logistics weren't in his favor. "Whenever I say, 'I can't,' I really question myself," he says, wistfully and with a hint of disappointment in his voice. Because he knows as long as abortion access is up in the air, he needs to be, too.

*First names used to protect privacy

This story appears in the 2024 Makers issue of Marie Claire.

The consequences of the decision have rippled throughout the state, devastating people and couples who were counting on IVF to have biological children or have frozen embryos but are no longer allowed to do with them what they wish. “This ruling is extremely alarming,” says Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Granting legal personhood to embryos could have disastrous consequences for the use of IVF—a science many people rely on to build their families. Providers of IVF may stop offering IVF altogether or leave Alabama now that they could face penalties. This is part of the chaos we knew would ensue if Roe v. Wade was overturned. With politicians at the helm instead of doctors, reproductive health care is in crisis.”

In the wake of the ruling, three women share their stories with Marie Claire.

I had my first IVF consultation in October 2022. I was single at the time but I knew I wanted to freeze my eggs. I was told it was better to freeze embryos. Especially being in the LGBTQ+ community, I knew it was something I needed to do. My first round [of egg retrievals] was in January 2023 at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). I did a second round in July at Alabama Center for Reproductive Medicine. It went very well and I now have six frozen embryos of top grade waiting for me. 

I met Kandis, my fiancée, in February of 2023 when I was already on my IVF journey. It was somewhat humorous. Like four months into our relationship as a lesbian couple, we were going through IVF together. We got engaged at the end of November. We’re definitely a team on this. She’s been my rock.

Obviously, the biggest fear is IVF treatment being banned altogether or having something happen where I won’t be allowed to transfer my embryos out of state. This week has been hell on earth. The past couple of days, I’ve been glued to my computer and making phone calls. We called my clinic in Birmingham to ask what we needed to do for them to release my six embryos, but they don’t know when the paperwork will be ready. So even if we were to find somewhere to ship them, we can’t do anything yet.

All of the rules are changing so fast here in Alabama. I’m afraid Alabama will say you can’t transfer your embryos out of state. We had a company who was ready to transfer our embryos to Connecticut when the clinic had the paperwork ready, but we just got an email saying they are pausing shipments out of Alabama [for fear of being prosecuted if something happens to the embryos].

I broke down yesterday, a full-blown meltdown. I am so tired. These are my children, according to Alabama, and I have zero access to my six embryos. They’re my children but I can’t touch them. I can’t see them. I can’t say let’s get in the car and go for a ride. I have seen a couple of companies and clinics offering free services for shipment, but honestly, I worry that they're going to keep shutting down.

It’s not just about gay and lesbian couples. This affects every couple who has fertility treatment or needs assisted reproductive technology. Other states could follow suit, which is a scary thing.

My husband and I started trying for kids two years ago, and we tried for a year without any success. We went to see a reproductive endocrinologist at UAB, one of the clinics that’s shut down now, and were diagnosed with unexplained infertility in August 2023. We did three rounds of Letrozole, which is an oral medication to help increase the odds of pregnancy. We were very lucky because it worked the first time. But then we miscarried in November. It was absolutely one of the hardest things we have gone through. 

We did a second round of Letrozole, then a third round, and then we started doing IUI [aka intrauterine insemination, which is a procedure that places specially prepared sperm directly in the uterus] in January. Our first round didn’t work. We did our second round in February, and we found out that didn’t work the same day we found out UAB was pausing their IVF program. That was a hard day.

We had planned on doing a third IUI in March and then probably going straight to IVF in April. But that’s all on hold now. Technically we can still do our third IUI, but the statistics of successful IUIs go down significantly after three rounds.

We had never planned on telling everybody about our whole story. But like everyone in Alabama…we’re overwhelmed, we’re tired, we’re sad. We are absolutely terrified. What happens next? We’ve talked about transferring our care to other states like Tennessee or Georgia, but it’s very scary to even think about going out of state because what if the same thing happens there? We even thought about moving but it’s so scary to even think about uprooting your whole life for something that is no longer a guarantee where you go. Also, we really love our physician here. You build such a rapport and I don’t want to give that up. 

This ruling is having a much bigger effect than people realized. I am also so worried—not just about the one in six couples who are struggling with infertility—but also that we are going to lose some of our incredibly gifted physicians. Not just our reproductive endocrinologists, but our neonatologists who take care of our tiny, tiny preterm babies, and OB-GYNs. Those physicians are so valuable to all of the women in Alabama because they provide all of the referrals from mammograms, they provide pap smears for cervical cancer screenings. They provide so many of those preventative health things. They might not want to practice here anymore because of the liability.

It could do things to our economy, too, because we may not recruit people to move to Birmingham or Huntsville because it’s going to be a lot harder to make a family here. I wish we could go back and have those discussions before the Supreme Court ruled without thinking about the ramifications.

I have a condition called endometriosis. I struggled with fertility, even in my 20s, and was told that due to my condition I would need fertility help. But I conceived my first child naturally at 21. My daughter is now 12. Then I was put on birth control to suppress my endometriosis. Ten years later, my doctor told me my endometriosis was not suppressed. They said, “Your insides look like a complete mess and the only way, if you want to conceive, is through IVF.” 

I started the process with CRM here in Mobile. I consider the clinic family. It was a very hard journey. I had four miscarriages. We transferred one frozen embryo each time and I lost four embryos the first four times. For the second egg retrieval, I got four more embryos. We transferred two on the fifth transfer to get one baby, and I got twin boys. The doctors say I got double for my trouble. But without science, those doctors, and God, I wouldn’t have my babies.

I can’t do another transfer because the hormones for the egg retrieval overstimulate my body. When my boys turned a year old, we donated my embryos to science so I don’t have any frozen embryos anymore. A lot of women have hormone issues with endometriosis, so it’s hard for them to get good embryos. Because I was able to get good embryos, I wanted them to be able to research that and help another mom.

In my opinion, if the people who made the [ruling] truly understood the science behind all this, they would understand that the embryos, even once implanted, still have to grow. They don’t have a heartbeat. They don’t have anything. Just because they’re frozen does not mean they can survive. Like I said, I had two implantation failures, and two that did implant but didn’t make it past the first six weeks.

If I still had frozen embryos or was going through IVF, I would be devastated. It’s so hard to get to that step of freezing your embryos and hope that this is it. For that to be snatched away is heartbreaking. You’re telling these moms who want children, who have spent a shit ton of money, who went through all of these procedures, took all this medicine, did a lot of work mentally, emotionally, and financially that they can’t have children. It’s heartbreaking. It removes all hope for them to possibly have their own biological child.

“The last six months have been wild—but thanks to incredible health care providers and the support of family and friends, I’m doing really well. I’ve felt lucky all my life, and I feel lucky now: to be here, doing this work, alongside all of you,” Richards, 66, wrote on X.

Six months ago, after finding she had trouble writing, Richards checked into the emergency room at New York University, where doctors discovered a brain tumor. Her discharge from the hospital closely coincided with the birth of her first grandchild. 

Other women’s advocates rushed to express their sympathies and thank Richards for all she's done for women’s rights. Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, formerly the Marshall Plan for Moms, posted on Instagram, “She’s supported and pushed our leadership and shared her wisdom generously. She’s fought for women’s rights and changed history. Even as she is staring death in the eyes, she is brave and inspiring and focused on how she can make an impact.” 

Saujani pointed specifically to Charley, a secure abortion chatbot Richards cofounded with Tom Subak. Charley was developed with medical experts and policy advocates shortly after the reversal of Roe, and is designed to tackle the misinformation crisis and restrictions that have emerged since the Dobbs decision in 2022. The chatbot went live last September and has gained more than 17,000 visits since launch. 

But Richards was fighting misinformation long before the rise of mainstream artificial intelligence. During her tenure as president at Planned Parenthood between 2006 and 2018, Richards navigated a contentious media and political landscape. In 2012, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure nonprofit announced it would cease donations to Planned Parenthood. The decision spurred Richards to launch a campaign that, two years later, led to the Komen foundation reinstating its grants. 

In 2015, Richards testified before Congress, where she had to fight for ongoing federal subsidies. During the hearing she had to defend the organization after false videos of Planned Parenthood employees illegally selling fetal tissue circulated—content that was later discredited. “The outrageous accusations leveled against Planned Parenthood based on heavily doctored videos are offensive and categorically untrue. I realize, though, that the facts have never gotten in the way of these campaigns to block women from health care they need and deserve,” Richards told the committee.

In 2018 Richards stepped down as president of Planned Parenthood. That year, she released the memoir Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead. In 2019 Richards cofounded Supermajority, a women’s organization that encourages political activism and supports women running for office; it continues to operate. 

In 2021, Richards joined the board advisers of American Bridge 21st Century, an organization that deploys research, video tracking, and fact-checking to hold conservative lawmakers accountable. The organization is the creator of Repro-files, a research hub that reports on Republican candidates and their stances on abortion, especially in key states. Richards currently serves as co-chair. 

Despite her prestigious titles, Richards is very much a grassroots advocate. “She wants to document what’s happening on the ground in abortion-ban states. She still talks to politicians and activists and organizers and organization presidents,” The Cut writes.  

In between twice-weekly treatments for cancer, The Cut also reports that Richards is still talking to movement leaders about strategy for the 2024 elections. As Richards said, “Why should your life only be about you?”

It was one of two defamation suits Carroll filed (just last year, Carroll also won a civil suit against Trump, in which that jury found Trump liable for the sexual abuse of Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defamation against her) citing comments that Trump made between 2019 and 2022 which she says negatively impacted her reputation and opened her up to a slew of verbal abuse, including threats to her safety. Trump’s statements included comments that she was a “whack job” and that her claims were “absolutely ridiculous.” Carroll argues that, in addition to putting her life at risk, the statements destroyed her prolific career as a writer for outlets such ELLE, Esquire, and Outsider. 

The New York Times reports that after the verdict was delivered, several of Carroll’s friends and family members, who were in attendance, could be seen wiping away tears. This trial brings to an end the lengthy, highly publicized legal battle that Carroll has been fighting over the last two years. The trial has thrust Carroll into the spotlight as Trump has battled numerous other legal battles and attempted a second run at the presidency, but Carroll and her lawyers say that they’d like the suit to simply “make him stop” his public remarks about her. 

"This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down," Carroll said after the trial.

Trump, meanwhile, was informed about the verdict while on his way to LaGuardia airport in New York ahead of a Las Vegas campaign rally when he was informed about the result. On his social media site, Truth Social, he called the jury's decision "absolutely ridiculous."

It's important to note that chatbots are far from perfect; it's an evolving field where many bots have been found to reflect biases and inaccuracies due to the data on which they are trained. And creating a chatbot in the complicated landscape of reproductive rights in America, where restrictions continue, calls for users to still exercise caution. The creators of Charley state that "while users should feel safe using Charley to do research and get more information, users should practice private browsing habits by removing the page from their browser history or using incognito mode."

On the 51st anniversary of Roe, Tipton outlines the realities of reproductive rights in the country, and how intentional tech will still play a pivotal role in equitable and safe access to abortions, especially for women living in states where abortion bans continue to escalate.  

I was 20 the first time I helped a friend get an abortion. We were in college in Texas, and after separating myth from fact online, navigating legal restrictions that felt deliberately difficult and confusing, figuring out where she could go for care, and scraping together the money to pay for that care, the process of getting an abortion seemed much harder than it should have been. 

That was before Texas’ draconian abortion ban went into effect, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended 50 years of a national right to legal abortion. This week marks what should have been the 51st anniversary of Roe, with 25 million women of reproductive age living in states that raced to ban or severely restrict abortion since the Court’s ruling, I’m haunted by one thought: If my friend and I were in the same situation today, what would we do?

Since Roe was overturned, online searches for information about abortion have surged. Abortion seekers are desperately looking for answers to urgent questions: How do abortion pills work? Where can I get an abortion? What’s legal where I live? How much will it cost? Between the constantly changing legal landscape of new abortion bans and restrictions, justified fears of digital surveillance, and disinformation running rampant, trying to find even the most basic information can be overwhelming.

Charley, a private, secure online chatbot, was built in the post-Roe era to meet critical reproductive healthcare needs and provide personalized, accurate, up-to-date information about abortion options (whether it be abortion pills by mail, a procedure, or care in another state). 

So how did it start? After Roe was overturned, Charley cofounders Cecile Richards (former president of Planned Parenthood) and Tom Subak (a social impact leader) set out to learn more about the needs of abortion seekers, especially in banned and restricted states. After six months of field research and expert interviews, they created the rapid response tool post-Roe. For the design phase, they teamed up with reproductive health experts and abortion advocates including INeedAnA.com, Plan C, and the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline.

The resulting chatbot, Charley, offers users (who remain completely anonymous) expert advice that fights misinformation. The bot has reached 17,000 users since its launch last September. And the number one location for Charley users? It’s Texas, followed by Florida. 

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, I saw how a system, built without equity in mind, presented numerous barriers to access. Sadly, my experience with my friend wasn’t unique: Abortion bans disproportionately hurt underrepresented groups: people of color, people with low incomes, young people, and immigrants—many of the same groups that already have the hardest time accessing health care. While driving or flying hundreds of miles to the closest state where abortion is still legal may be the best option for some, others face enormous hurdles: the challenges of finding childcare and taking time off from work or school, the cost of gas or a plane ticket on top of the cost of a procedure, the risk associated with travel if you’re undocumented.

Over the last year and a half, people all over this country have been confronted with the heartbreaking impact of losing Roe. The stories are straight out of a dystopian nightmare; I can’t stop thinking about Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a young woman in Texas who would almost certainly be alive today had she been offered abortion care. Like so many other Black women, I was heartbroken but not surprised to witness the pain and grief of Brittany Watts, prosecuted for having a miscarriage in Ohio. That we’re celebrating the fact that she won’t be charged with a felony is a sad commentary on where we are as a country. These stories are increasingly the norm, not the exception.

At the same time, I’ve been blown away by the resilience and creativity of young people who are taking the lead in the movement for tech's role in reproductive freedom. They've harnessed the power of innovation to build community with like-minded peers; share their stories, hopes, and ideas; and call their communities to action. Spend a few hours scrolling on TikTok or Instagram and you’ll see brave storytelling, networks of activists working hard to connect people to care, and grassroots efforts to shatter abortion stigma and reinforce the truth: Abortion is safe, normal—and no matter what the Supreme Court says—it is your fundamental right. 

As is the case for so many social causes throughout history, young people are leading today’s abortion rights movement, and unapologetically empowering people with the knowledge they need (including guidance on how to get pills in the mail) to make the choices that are best for them. We believe abortion seekers seek resources and facts, not because they’re downtrodden and helpless, but because they’re defiant and determined to get the information they know they deserve.

As an infant, my son attended more than a few pro-choice rallies with me, usually while strapped to my chest and drooling as he slept. The news is on near-constantly inside our home—the background noise of our lives—and he's heard his mother and father talk politics at the dinner table.

But as he continued to grow I knew we would need to have a more formal discussion about abortion. He was familiar with the anatomically correct names for his body parts. We had already discussed consent multiple times over. He knew where babies come from, so I wanted him—at a young age—to understand what happens when a pregnancy doesn't result in a baby, too.

Our conversation was simple enough: I told my son that sometimes people get pregnant when they don't want to be. When that happens, oftentimes people will choose not to stay pregnant and, with the help of a doctor or medicine, they end their pregnancies on purpose.

I then told him about my abortion, and why abortion access made it possible for me to one day be his mom.

"Not every pregnancy will end with a baby," I told him. "And that's OK."

After a slight beat, he replied: "Makes sense. OK thanks mom, I'm going to go play!"

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to access abortion care, entire generations are growing up without the right to full and complete bodily autonomy.

It's up to us, then, as the grownups in the room, to talk about abortion with young children, especially when the majority of people who have abortions are parents with at least one child at home. Studies have shown that media depictions of abortion are egregiously inaccurate, and even politicians who support abortion rights are often afraid to say the word out loud—it took Biden 468 days into his presidency to say "abortion."

And while some people may assume that a topic as "controversial" as abortion (the majority of Americans support access to abortion care) would be difficult for a child to understand, Dr. Jessica Zucker, a psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health, says the opposite is true.

"When something like abortion, or a miscarriage, or any other reproductive outcome is discussed with young kids in age-appropriate ways, they’re more than capable of comprehending the reality of reproduction," Zucker says. "And that reality is that it is unpredictable."

According to Zucker, every abortion conversation an adult has with a child "will be different based on their own family."

"But when an adult discusses the topic appropriately and is patient, empathic, and straightforward," she adds, "those conversations can be incredibly beneficial."

Steph Herold, 36, told her oldest child about abortion when the now 5-year-old was 4. Herold, who lives in New York and works in abortion-related research, had just given birth a year prior and says her son was "on a strong campaign to have another sibling."

"When I explained that the mama gets to decide if the baby keeps growing or not, he thought about that and seemed unfazed," she says. "He was, and still is, very much into being the one who decides what he does, when he does it, how he does it, so I think the idea of being in control of your body and deciding what happens with it made sense to him."

Herold says that after that first discussion she doesn't think "he totally got what abortion is or means," but adds that it's OK because her son is still little and she plans on having this conversation "over and over."

"Abortion encompasses so many of life's big issues and questions—love, sex, death, religion, power, family," she says. "All of those are complicated topics to talk about with adults, much less children, so I'm just hoping that it was the start of lifelong conversations about these issues, and an open door to discuss it all together."

Zucker says that discussing abortion with a young child can help to "eradicate the silence, stigma, shame and fear that surrounds this reproductive outcome." While the majority of people who've had an abortion say they felt relieved after terminating their pregnancy, and 95 percent say they do not regret their abortion even five years later, nearly two-thirds of abortion patients believe people will "look down on them" for ending their pregnancies.

"The child will know that they can come to you should they ever need to—a dialogue can be established and can be revisited at any time," Zucker explains. "These are all profound gifts to give a child, especially when they grow old enough to navigate and receive reproductive health care themselves."

Opening up an ongoing dialogue and fostering an environment of empathy and inclusivity was top of mind for Mallory McMaster, 37, when she talked to her now 6-year-old son about abortion.

"I'm an abortion activist, so abortion has always been part of our lives," McMaster, who lives in Ohio, says. "It's just something that he's used to hearing us talk about all the time. I take him to public events with me. He's marched in the Women's March with me. He's heard me speak publicly about my abortion."

McMaster says she had an abortion 10 years ago, before her son was born, and says terminating her pregnancy is why she is the healthy, present mom and business owner she is today.

"That shapes the way I talk to him about it," she adds. "I don't talk to him about it like it's a medical procedure or a political thing. I just tell him an abortion means a woman can decide if she does or does not want a baby and what she can do with her life. That's pretty much the extent of what he knows about it."

My son, now 9, will periodically ask about abortion, usually when he hears it being discussed on the news. We have had so many powerful conversations as a result of that initial "abortion talk"—from talks about consent and bodily autonomy to sex, periods, and menopause. And when I recently miscarried a wanted pregnancy, it was my son's understanding of abortion that made it much easier for him to comprehend pregnancy loss, too.

So while a post-Roe world, where nearly 21 million girls and women of reproductive age no longer have access to abortion care, is terrifying at best, I find solace in the fact that my son will grow up knowing abortion isn't a bad word. My son knows, without question, that the people who have abortions are people like his mom, and that for many of us it's because we had access to abortion care that we were able to start and expand our families.

"It's our job as parents to shape the worldview of our children, and if we want them to live in a world that is inclusive and welcoming then we need to build that world for them," McMaster tells me. "And it's such an honor to be able to share this sacred knowledge and pass it down to the next generation."

There was the woman who spent nearly a week in the ICU after she was denied an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy that left her septic and, as she described it, “on the brink of death.” The woman who was turned away from doctors in Oklahoma, despite learning her pregnancy was cancerous and likely to kill her. The 31-year-old mother of two living in Texas, who sued her own state to obtain an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy that threatened not only her health but her future fertility. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the mom, who after multiple trips to the ER was forced to travel elsewhere for an abortion. 

The abortions in these cases are often described as “emergency abortions.” Somehow, the language suggests, these procedures are different—perhaps even more “moral" or "ethical”—than an abortion obtained by a pregnant person who is not suffering from a medical emergency but who simply does not want to remain pregnant. 

But now that the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a major medication abortion case that could eliminate access to what is often referred to as the “abortion pill”—the most commonly used type of abortion care in the U.S.—it bears repeating that every abortion is an “emergency” abortion. 

And while there are certainly instances in which an abortion needs to be obtained with more urgency—specifically because the circumstances are a matter of life or death—every time someone is denied abortion care the life they were living or had planned to live is put in jeopardy.

In a country that claims to uphold and protect the universal right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” any situation that leaves a pregnant person in need of abortion care is urgent—the inability to access that care, catastrophic. 

According to the United Nations and International Human Rights Law, every minute that a government forces someone to stay pregnant when they do not want to be is a human rights violation. And that violation causes both real and long-lasting harm. 

When I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant, my boyfriend and I were drinking way too much and attempting to navigate a slew of bonafide relationship problems—infidelity, an egregious inability to communicate, trust issues, fits of anger, you name it. Our decision to end the pregnancy was almost immediate, as if that positive pregnancy test shined a light on the myriad of reasons why we could not—should not— be together.

Every second that I was pregnant when I didn’t want to be felt like an affront on my person and a legitimate threat to my future. I had plans that did not include parenting in an unhealthy, toxic environment. I knew I could not be tethered to this man for the rest of my life via a child neither one of us were ready, able, or willing to care for.

But what if I didn’t have enough money for the procedure? What if I was turned away for some unforeseen issue I had not yet considered? I was anxious, depressed, and desperate to end the pregnancy as soon as humanly possible. An abortion was, to me, an emergency.

Thankfully, I was able to access the care I not only wanted but needed. And due to the dumb luck of simply living in a state that protects abortion access, I was no longer pregnant just a few weeks later. 

I am part of a privileged group that can obtain an abortion without facing unnecessary, cruel barriers to care—a dwindling group in a post-Roe world, where 24 states have banned abortion care or are likely to do so. More than 25 million women ages 15 to 44 live in a state where there are more restrictions on abortion than there were prior to the fall of Roe—about two in five women nationally. Now, nearly one out of every five women living in the U.S. are forced to travel out of state for an abortion.

And yet, according to the landmark Turnaway Study conducted by researchers at UC San Francisco, when a person is unable to access an abortion they’re more likely to experience pregnancy complications, more likely to stay in contact with a violent partner, and more likely to not have enough money to cover basic living expenses, like food and housing. 

The psychological harm of being denied an abortion is also undeniable. As the American Psychological Association (APA) asserts, decades of research shows that when abortion is outlawed or made more difficult to obtain pregnant people’s mental health suffers. 

“Rigorous, long-term psychological research demonstrates clearly that people who are denied abortions are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, lower life satisfaction, and lower self-esteem compared with those who are able to obtain abortions,” APA President Frank C. Worrell wrote in a statement after a draft of the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade ruling was leaked to the press in early 2022. 

Denying a pregnant person abortion care also harms their family members. The majority of abortion seekers have at least one child at home—they’re already parents—and according to the same Turnaway Study, when they’re denied abortions the children they already have show worse child development than their peers and are more likely to live below the federal poverty line.

For the children abortion seekers are already parenting, an abortion is an emergency. For the woman whose life is in jeopardy, an abortion is an emergency. For the overwhelmed mom of two juggling work and parenthood, an abortion is an emergency. For the couple who just wants to enjoy newlywed life before expanding their family, an abortion is an emergency. 

And for a young woman in an unhealthy relationship, an abortion was an emergency. 

Medication abortion is the most commonly used type of abortion care in the United States, accounting for 53 percent of all facility-based abortions in the country, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research and policy organization.

Earlier this year, a Texas U.S. District Court invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decades-long approval of mifepristone—a drug that blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone, which is needed for a pregnancy to continue. When used with misoprostol—which softens the cervix and induces contractions—it is used to end a pregnancy up to 10 weeks gestation, or 70 days after the first day of a pregnant person’s last menstrual period. 

The ruling ordered the FDA to remove mifepristone from markets nationwide, demolishing access to medication abortion not just in Texas but states that protect abortion rights. 

In April, following the ruling, the 5th U.S. The Circuit Court of Appeals intervened, refusing to suspend the FDA’s approval of the medication but maintaining restrictions on accessing the pill, including preventing it from being sent to patients via mail. 

Shortly after, the Department of Justice and the Biden Administration asked the Supreme Court to step in. In April, the Supreme Court blocked the Texas U.S. District’s judge ruling in full, allowing the abortion pill to be widely available but also kicking the proverbial can down the road… because of course they did.

So now, here we are.

The Court’s decision to hear the case marks the first major high court legal dispute involving abortion care since the overtly anti-abortion, conservative members of the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v Wade, ending 50 years of legal precedent and rescinding a constitutional right afforded to Americans for the first time in U.S. history.

The justices will hear oral arguments early next year and are expected to issue a ruling by the end of June, 2024. If you’re a fan of debilitating anxiety and an impending sense of dread, mark your calendars. 

The current Supreme Court has been openly hostile to abortion access, despite pinky-swear promises from the conservative members to honor 50 years of legal precedent.

Justice Samuel Alito—who wrote in his decision to dismantle Roe that the ruling was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “its reasoning was exceptionally weak”—said during his 2006 confirmation hearing that Roe v Wade was an “important precedent of the Supreme Court.” 

Whoops. 

Justice Clarence Thomas claimed that “those of us who have become judges understand that we have to begin to shed the personal opinions we have,” in regards to Roe during his confirmation hearing. He also voted to overturn Roe, before turning his sites on Supreme Court rulings that established the right to same-sex marriage and access to birth control. 

I’ll give you two guesses as to what Donald Trump appointed-Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrtt said during their hearings versus their Roe v Wade decisions, but you’re only going to need one. (Hint: Trump promised to only appoint Justices that would overturn Roe v Wade. It’s one of the very few promises the man has ever made good on.)

At a time when story after story of women being denied abortion care after being diagnosed with a catastrophic pregnancy complication or fatal fetal abnormality—most recently in Texas, where a woman was forced to flee the state to obtain an abortion after being diagnosed with a non-viable pregnancy that threatened her life and future fertility—the horror show that is abortion access in the United States is not likely to end in 2024. Happy New Year, indeed. 

A release from the Supreme Court says she died in Phoenix on Friday due to complications from dementia and a respiratory illness. She retired from public life in 2018 when she announced her diagnosis. 

President Ronald Reagan appointed her to the Supreme Court in 1981 and served until 2006. During her 25 years as a Supreme Court Justice, she was considered the most powerful woman in the country. She was a beacon of moderate conservatism during a crucial era in U.S. politics, when issues like abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination, and voting rights were on the docket. 

According to CNN, during her tenure, the Supreme Court was informally nicknamed as the “O’Connor Court” because she served as the swing vote in so many controversial cases.

Abortion was inarguably the most divisive issue that she and her fellow justices faced. Justice O’Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions. In 1989 she refused to join four justices in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that granted women the constitutional right to get an abortion. 

O'Connor defended Roe v. Wade again in 1992 by leading a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the fundamentals of that ruling. O’Connor famously delivered the decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which changed how and when an individual can exercise the right to terminate a pregnancy. She said: “Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality. But that can’t control our decision…Our obligation is to defend the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” 

As we know, 30 years later, in June 2022, a conservative court overturned both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The man who took O'Connor's seat on the court, Justice Samuel Alito, was the author of that abortion ruling.

O’Connor also supported affirmative action when she wrote a majority opinion for Grutter v. Bollinger, upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s ability to use “race-conscious admissions policies” in the interest of diversity. This ruling was also overturned last term when the current Supreme Court struck down affirmative action at Harvard University and University of North Carolina. 

O’Connor grew up in Arizona, and enjoyed sharing stories about her youth spent raising cattle, and riding horses and tractors. “I didn’t do all the things the boys did,” she said in a Time magazine interview, “but I fixed windmills and repaired fences.” 

A true fixer and repairer, yet pathbreaker at heart—O'Connor went on to represent her home state as the majority leader in the Arizona state Senate, also the first woman to hold that title. 

When she joined the Supreme Court she remained the only woman until 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Today, the Supreme Court seats a record of four women justices. 

Now, history is repeating itself. The Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Dagalo, have been engaging in all-out warfare across the country. Burhan-ordered air strikes have devastated cities and villages, while RSF forces have burnt down entire villages, robbed Sudanese people attempting to leave, raped women en masse, killed tribal leaders, and kidnapped civilians, in addition to war crimes including torture and denying people access to food, water, and essential supplies. Those who are at the greatest risk are non-Arab, non-Muslim minorities, who have been targets of bigotry for decades, particularly as a result of British-backed colonialism and the conquer-by-dividing strategy of Omar al-Bashir.

Since April, over 5,000 people have been killed in Sudan and over 12,000 have been injured, while 2.32 million have fled to neighboring countries and 2.2 million have been internally displaced. Those who have fled to neighboring Chad, South Sudan, Eritrea, and Egypt are often met with a lack of shelter, devastating poverty, and, in many cases, further violence. At this time, it's essential to uplift Sudanese voices and to lend support to those who are in dire need of the basic means for survival. Below, a list of organizations that are on the ground in the region providing essentials for those in need.

Islamic Relief Worldwide

Islamic Relief Worldwide is a well-established, robust organization that has provided substantial relief in emergencies all over the world, having been active in Palestine, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and elsewhere. They've been active in Sudan since the 1984 Western Sudanese famine, and have provided emergency healthcare, food, water, and sanitation, in addition to supporting long-term initiatives like peace-building, education, and women's rights. Now, they are active in Blue Nile, Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan, Kassala, and Gedarif. They support 26 health centers across the country, are working to decrease the rate of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) across the region, and are even supporting refugees who have fled to South Sudan. Consider donating to them.

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders is currently active in 11 out of 18 states in Sudan, providing emergency care—essential during this outbreak of unspeakable violence—along with long-term medical support. Their ongoing efforts include reproductive care, water and sanitation support, mental health care, nutrition, and vaccination. Consider supporting them.

UNHCR

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is active in Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad, and is committed to helping refugees who have been displaced by the conflict. They are especially active in providing shelter for refugees and in preventing gender-based and sexual violence. Consider donating to them.

UNICEF

UNICEF has long advocated for human rights worldwide, with a particular focus on the rights and safety of children. This is particularly important in the case of Sudan, where vulnerable areas of the country like Darfur have seen their hospitals, water supplies, and schools razed to the ground. You can donate to their efforts, which focus on education, policy advocacy, health, and child protection.

Refugees International

Refugees International is a non-governmental organization originally founded in 1979 to advocate for the rights of refugees in Southeast Asia. Now, they're active all over the world, including in Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad. They raise awareness of international refugee crises, advocate for the rights of refugees, and run field missions to investigate and meet the needs of those impacted by displacement, climate change, and violence. You can donate to them.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps has been active in Sudan and what is now South Sudan since 2004, and focuses on providing those who are displaced with clean water, hygienic products, and medical support. For the last twenty years, they've both responded to emergency situations like the one occurring now and have providing the countries with long-term support in the form of agriculture, peacebuilding, and climate adaptation programming. You can donate to support them.

Operation Broken Silence

Operation Broken Silence is devoted entirely to the Sudanese people. It partners with carefully selected local partners to promote childhood education and accessible healthcare. The organization is active in the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains, and Darfur regions, which are most vulnerable to violence because they are populated largely but ethnic and religious minorities. Per its name, Operation Broken Silence also empowers Sudanese people and promotes peace in the region by facilitating Sudanese storytelling. You can contribute to their cause.

International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been active in Sudan since before this year's civil war, but it's recently increased its efforts in the area dramatically. They've reported that in the country, especially in the Hantoub and Banet regions, Severe Acute Malnutrition rates have risen by 300 percent and 163 percent, respectively. Thus, the IRC has established a Khartoum office to respond to immediate needs; created health, water, and sanitation services in Khartoum and in Tunaydbah; opened a field office to support refugees; and is supporting medical campaigns to prevent Covid-19 and polio. You can donate to them.

Oxfam International

Oxfam International has been working in South Sudan for several years, and is now focusing on what it is calling "one of the world's worst food crises," which it says puts over 7.1 million people at high risk for extreme hunger and starvation. Currently, they're working to provide refugees and civilians with access to safe and clean food and water (including livestock, agricultural tools, and fishing gear for sustained food access). They're also providing cash support, food vouchers, canoes for people who are sheltering from conflict on small islands, and hygienic supplies. You can donate via Oxfam America.

Operation Broken Silence

Sudan Relief Fund specializes in supplying the people of South Sudan with food, clean drinking water, hygienic products, clothing, and shelter. They have ongoing partnerships and projects in hospitals, leper colonies, orphanages, schools, midwife training programs, refugee camps, and more. You can donate to them.

Save the Children

Save the Children, per its name, focuses its efforts on aiding children impacted by crisis. In Sudan, they are working to fight food and water insecurity among refugee populations and to mitigate the risk of sexual violence that women and girls face—particularly as they are fleeing south. You can donate.

The war has caused chaos in the region. The Biden administration, which has continued the United States’ historic support of Israel, warned Netanyahu that the Palestinian humanitarian crisis, which existed in Gaza and the West Bank before the war, has only worsened since its onset. Israel has blocked attempted fuel aid, and the humanitarian aid that's been able to finally enter Gaza has been extremely limited. Overflowing Palestinian hospitals remain in need of power and supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel's medical system is tending to more than 4,500 injured Israeli citizens. Hamas has also released some hostages, who are in need of medical and psychological care.

Help is needed. Which means it's important to support the Arab, Muslim, and Jewish diasporas in our immediate communities—especially considering the alarming rise of anti-Semitism (which has been intensifying over the last few years alongside the rise of white supremacy) and anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate here in the U.S.—as well as those suffering abroad.

Below, organizations that are currently working to address the humanitarian crisis brought on by this war. These non-government entities are focused solely on saving lives and reducing suffering for all afflicted, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation.

Oxfam

Oxfam was founded in 1942 in response to the widespread humanitarian crises ignited by the Second World War. They've been present in Gaza since the 1950s, addressing the needs of the two million people who live there and have limited access to basic resources because of Israel's decade-long blockade. Now, they work with over 60 Israeli and Palestinian partner organizations to improve the livelihoods of Palestinians and deploy emergency aid. You can donate to them.

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Medical Aid for Palestinians is devoted to developing long-term, sustainable healthcare solutions for Palestinians. Their programs are based in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Lebanon, and they are focused on emergency services, the health of women and children, mental health, and disability support. Right now, you can donate to their efforts to stock up on medication, triage equipment, and other urgently needed medical supplies.

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders has been active in Gaza and the West Bank for around 20 years, providing both medical and psychosocial support to Palestinians who have been impacted by the conflict. Currently, they're providing emergency support to those injured by the bombings as well as systemic support to Palestinian hospitals. Because Israel's normally robust medical system has also been overwhelmed, the organization has also extended their support there. You can support them today.

Save the Children

Save the Children, per its name, is focused on the health and well-being of children impacted by climate change, natural disasters, and war. They've had a presence in Palestine for years now, working to minimize children's exposure to violence and to provide medical, mental health, and educational services to Palestinian children. You can donate to support their efforts, including the emergency measures they've taken in the midst of the recent violence.

World Central Kitchen

When people are displaced, they often don't have access to food—especially healthy, nourishing food. World Central Kitchen (WCK) looks to ameliorate this issue. In Gaza, they’ve partnered with Anera, which distributes food kits and warm meals to families in need. In donating to the organization, you’ll be directly supporting these efforts.

International Medical Corps

International Medical Corps has a strong presence in Gaza and a direct partnership with the JDC in Israel. Throughout the region, they are committed to providing critical supplies to families in Gaza and to supporting the JDC’s efforts in Israel. Donations made to them will be used to supply medical stations and hospitals, transport necessary resources, and address shortages of medicine.

The International Committee of the Red Cross

International Committee of the Red Cross works with Red Cross and Red Crescent chapters all over the world to supply basic necessities like food, water, supplies, and medical equipment to those impacted by conflict and natural disasters. You can donate to them to support their work all over the world, or you can donate directly to the Israel and Palestine chapter of the Red Crescent, which is working on both sides of the border to address life-threatening injuries and to supplement the overwhelmed medical infrastructure.

Islamic Relief USA

Islamic Relief USA works in over 40 countries worldwide to help those of all religions recover from trauma induced by natural disasters, economic and political instability, violence, and more. In Palestine, they support health programs and long-term educational and vocational initiatives. Now, they're focused on supporting Gaza's dire emergency medical situation. When you donate to them, you're supporting their ability to provide emergency aid, food, medical supplies, and more. 

• Voters approved a constitutional amendment that codifies the legal status of abortion in Ohio’s state constitution.
• Virginia voters chose to elect officials who advocated for access to abortion. Democrats gained control of the state legislature, a loss for Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who had advocated for a 15-week abortion ban if the GOP won.
• Kentucky reelected Andy Besheaer as governor, who ran a campaign focused on opposing the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
• Pennsylvania Democrat Dan McCaffery won an open seat on a court that will likely make crucial decisions on abortion access by 2025. 
• Organizers maintained support for a gun-sense majority in states including Virginia, and more women were elected to office, namely Cherelle Parker, the 100th mayor of Philadelphia and the very first woman to win the post.

These results in key states sounded an alarm that women and mothers are listening and voting according to interest, says Erin Erenberg, CEO and cofounder of Chamber of Mothers, a grassroots nonprofit focusing on mothers’ and women’s rights since its inception in 2021. “Lawmakers aren’t afraid of mothers as voters, but they will be,” says Erenberg. “As we say at the Chamber of Mothers: Moms brought every lawmaker into this world, and we can vote them out.” 

But the results from Tuesday might not be enough to secure the same momentum into next year’s presidential election. As Andrew Prokop, senior political correspondent at Vox writes, “If you’re looking for tea leaves about how 2024 will go, don’t get carried away. Many of these outcomes were driven by local personalities, issues, and circumstances.” Also, the latest polls show President Joe Biden trailing former President Donald Trump, including in key battleground states.

As we head into 2024, it’s critical to amplify the voices of mothers, who represent a crucial population of voters with the power to sway results nationwide. Marie Claire caught up with Erenberg to discuss.

Marie Claire: This week, we saw major wins for women's reproductive rights. Talk to us about the election results and why they matter.

Erin Erenberg: I’m most interested in the victory in my home state of Ohio, enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. When Dobbs v. Jackson overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 women lost their fundamental constitutional right to reproductive freedom. Justice Alito returned the matter to each voter and each state. Alito wrote that it was up to the states to decide–it seemed innocuous but in actuality, American women lost the right to make their own decisions about their bodies. That right was a part of our cultural fabric for 50 years. 

Abortion is reproductive healthcare. Language matters. We can all agree that the U.S. needs to be a safe place to be a woman. This means access to reproductive healthcare. 

MC: How does victory in Ohio relate to the ongoing childcare crisis and the unusually high maternal mortality rate in the U.S.?

EE: There is finally some bipartisan acknowledgment that being truly pro-life means equipping mothers with paid time to care for their children; accessible, affordable childcare; and improved chances of surviving childbirth and the postpartum period. 

Mothers are dying when they can’t access safe abortions. 

According to a report from the Commonwealth Fund, death rates from any cause among women ages 15 to 44 were 24 percent higher in states that restrict abortion access. Since women lost the right to make their own decisions about their reproductive healthcare, the number of maternal deaths has climbed significantly, from 21 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020 to 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births in just one year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

We know maternal mortality is intricately linked to infant mortality, too, and the U.S. infant mortality rate—the number of American babies who don’t make it to their first birthday — is up for the first time in two decades, per new data from the CDC. Infant mortality rates due to maternal complications were a leading cause of death — and increased last year, per that data.

It’s absolutely critical—lifesaving even—that voters turned out this week and took a stand for reproductive healthcare in Ohio. We hope to see more of this, and through Chamber of Mothers’ network that reaches millions of mothers, we’re activating moms to ensure it.

MC: Tell us about Chamber of Mothers. How are you mobilizing mothers to make the changes they hope to see?

EE: Chamber of Mothers is a national, nonpartisan nonprofit that mobilizes Americans around public policy solutions for moms, bringing local-chapter advocacy to Capitol Hill. Our three pillar issues are paid leave, affordable childcare, and improved maternal health—all things we know are intricately tied to maternal, infant, human, economic, and global well-being. Our mission is uniting mothers as advocates to create a better America. No one is more effective and capable than a mother. We’re reminding mothers of their power and summoning them to create the change they desire in this country. 

We started Chamber of Mothers in November of 2021 when a group of us—who are mothers and leaders in the fields of law, medicine, media, business, and more—realized that if we were to pool the votes of the roughly 85 million American mothers, with our 15 trillion in annual spending power and over 80% of household spending discretion, we could finally insist upon the change that we need in America. 

MC: What key issue sparked the formation of Chamber of Mothers?

EE: The U.S. is the only “industrialized” nation that doesn’t provide paid family and medical leave. We came together to fight for that issue after being tapped by advocacy groups in D.C. that needed help reaching everyday mothers in order to push paid leave over the finish line in the Build Back Better Bill. We gained over 10,000 followers in a number of hours, with the rallying cry, “We won’t ‘build back bleeding” (at the time, all that was left of paid leave in the bill was four weeks—a time when a postpartum mother is still bleeding from giving birth). We came to the fight late, and paid leave, as we all know, was cut from that bill. But it became apparent that this moment needed to be a movement. It became apparent that mothers are ready to create change. They just need someone they trust to point them in the right direction. That’s us.

Our moms self-proclaim being “fed up and fired up.” With our guidance, they will vote according to their interests in upcoming elections. We saw the impact of that last night.

MC: Where will you focus in 2024 and the upcoming elections and how do you work with lawmakers to make sure they’re working for families?

EE: We have a content campaign coming up called “Vote Accordingly,” where we’re equipping mothers to quickly determine where candidates stand on our key pillars and on issues that matter to them. Due to the lack of social support in this country, moms are tired, overwhelmed, and time-poor. Some come to our local chapter meetings with a lot of shame about their knowledge of politics and how to go into an election feeling equipped and informed. 

We don’t support any candidate in particular, but we stand for laws and policies that will make mothers’ lives easier and more supported. And we help moms quickly get up to speed on how to determine which candidates really have their backs.

We can also take policy language that’s obfuscating and confusing and distill it down to the key pieces everyone needs to know. We do that on our social media accounts and in our chapter meetings. 

When it comes to new candidates, we encourage them to include paid leave, childcare, and maternal health on their platforms, so that moms’ needs are on center stage from the beginning. If they win an election, they’ll need to report success related to the platform issues on which they ran. We need more elected officials who fight to bring home wins for the moms. 

I'm the employer of a nanny, and it feels weird to say it. I can still hear my aunts gossiping about a neighbor. "I can't believe she'd pay someone to raise her children for her," they'd say. I've heard other parents give lavish credit to grandparents for watching the kids, praise helpful older siblings, and thank friends for pitching in, but the vital daily work nannies do never seems to come up. I worry what everyone else will think of me if I speak up alone, while my silence makes Lupe invisible.

There are more than 2.2 million workers employed in private homes nationwide. Nearly all are women, and half are women of color. If we as working parents continue to prioritize our feelings over the truth, we're part of a system that perpetuates racism and sexism, with real consequences. In the 1930s, Southern lawmakers cut domestic workers out of federal labor laws because a majority of them were African-American, leaving the rights and workplace standards of domestic workers unprotected.

Fast forward to the present—headlines are buzzing about the “child care cliff,” where billions in emergency funding allocated for childcare providers during the pandemic will expire. This is expected to shut down more than 70,000 daycares and preschool centers and leave 3.3 million young kids without care. Last week, Congress voted not to extend this funding, and I’m not surprised given who is in power. What will it take for our country to prioritize caregivers (at care centers and at home)?

I'm a member of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network, a national organization of employers who advocate alongside domestic workers for policy change. Thanks to its relentless work with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, ten states, two major cities, and the District of Columbia have passed legislation providing basic rights to domestic workers. Now we're working to win a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights nationally.

By "basic rights," I mean basic: You and your nanny must have a written agreement that covers wages, sick leave, and benefits. You can't discriminate against them. Your nanny can request (and be granted) changes to their schedule due to personal events. You have to provide some paid sick leave. You have to actually notify them that they have those rights.

Before I joined Hand in Hand, I didn't realize how common it was for them to work alone in the house of an employer who thought nothing of denying them all of those rights. This is an industry that was shaped by slavery; exploitation has always been part of its history. The nature of the work–in the home, often alone–makes abuses like wage theft, discrimination, and harassment easy to hide. There has to be a legal incentive and real consequences.

The truth is that providing basic rights and protections also benefits the employers–it gives us clear guidelines, instead of relying on word of mouth or arbitrary rules. It takes a lot of the guessing game out of hiring. It leads to better working relationships (not to mention better quality of care and less turnover).

Case in point: me.

I'm a software engineer and a consultant. It's a male-dominated field, and I was terrified that while on maternity leave I'd lose my most interesting clients and return to nothing but grunt work. I needed a nanny before returning to work but didn't know where to start. I called my friend, Tam, who's a nanny, who explained what kinds of tasks were normal and what kinds of hourly rates were fair. And she said, "Offer the kind of job you'd be willing to take because caring for your kids should be a good job."

I found a blank sample contract online, and I sat down with my own employee handbook and copied over the same holidays, sick leave policy, and vacation days. I couldn't afford to provide a healthcare plan, and I got lost trying to figure out taxes, so I signed up with Care.com’s HomePay, which does all the "on the books" work for you. Through them, I learned that I'd need insurance policies for disability and worker's compensation. That doesn't just guarantee a better job for my nanny, it also protects me–I'm not going to get a surprise tax bill, and the insurance pays for longer term leave so I can still afford alternate child care.

This foundation helped me build a great relationship with Michelle, the nanny who supported me through the transition back to work and the rest of my son's first year; with Lital, who did the same for my daughter a few years later—and now with Lupe, who cares for both of them after school. These women have been my partners in navigating the hardest parts of parenting, whether that's sleep transitions, or figuring out how to help my neurodivergent kids handle distance learning.

The work of raising children is physically demanding and exhilarating. It requires tremendous patience and creativity, intelligence, and intuition. It's a bit like programming, although admittedly I've never had a misbehaving algorithm vomit on my shirt. In any job I might take as a developer, I can take for granted that I'll have a written employment contract, that it will include sick leave, and that I'll be legally protected from discrimination and harassment. That should come standard for nannies, too.

Domestic workers—along with farm workers—were written out of our country’s foundational labor laws as a concession to white Southern lawmakers who wanted to continue to exploit an overwhelmingly Black workforce. And because domestic work has for centuries been framed as the "natural" responsibility of women, our society has failed to recognize it as the difficult and vital work it is.

In a congressional hearing last year, some Republican lawmakers tried to argued that giving nannies, house cleaners, and home attendants basic rights would be too burdensome for employers. I'm insulted–it's not a burden for me to treat my nannies with the same respect I expect for myself.

Lack of standards has real ramifications. According to the Economic Policy Institute, domestic workers are three times as likely to live in poverty than other workers–typical wages for a domestic worker were $12.02/hour; for a non-domestic worker, $19.97. And 39 percent of nannies live twice below the poverty level; for non-domestic workers, the twice-poverty rate is 17 percent.

Nevermind holidays and paid-time off. In 2011, a survey of NDWA members found that 82 percent of domestic workers were not entitled to a single paid sick day. By 2021, eighteen states had some form of paid sick leave policy, but not all covered domestic workers.

If your village includes a nanny, stand with them by making your own home a fairer workplace, speaking up to your friends and neighbors, and calling your legislators. Tell them to stop allowing the lazy acceptance of historical exploitation to decide what protections apply to domestic workers. Tell them that you don't want the freedom to exploit the person you trust with your children and that by expecting you to be a fair employer, they're showing you respect. And tell them to listen to nannies, too.

Feinstein was the oldest member of the Senate at the time of her death. A California Democrat, she was a staunch advocate of banning assault weapons, fighting for environmental causes, and defending abortion rights.

California Governor Gavin Newsom will appoint a successor to serve the rest of Feinstein’s term, keeping a Democratic majority through early January 2025. While they have yet to be named, in 2021 Newsom vowed to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein were to retire. 

Feinstein suffered a series of health episodes over the past couple of years—including a case of shingles that resulted in a three-month absence from the Senate and a fall in August that sent her to the hospital—which raised questions about her ability to serve. In February, she announced that she would not seek reelection in 2024. “The time has come,” she said. 

“Senator Dianne Feinstein was a pioneering American,” President Joe Biden said in a White House statement after her death. “A true trailblazer. And for Jill and me, a cherished friend.”

“Serving in the Senate together for more than 15 years, I had a front row seat to what Dianne was able to accomplish,” he continued. 

Over the course of her career, Feinstein made a habit of breaking glass ceilings. She was the first female chair of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors before becoming the first female mayor of San Francisco after the 1978 assassination of Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. 

In 1992, she became one of the first women elected to the Senate from California. Now known as the “Year of the Woman,” that election added 24 new women to the House of Representatives and brought the total number of female senators to six. 

In Washington, Feinstein kept her streak of firsts going: She was the first woman to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the first chairwoman on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the first female chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

And in November 2022, Feinstein became the longest serving female senator in American history. “We went from two women senators when I ran for office in 1992 to 24 today—and I know that number will keep climbing,” she said.  “It has been a great pleasure to watch more and more women walk the halls of the Senate.” 

Among her other accomplishments, Feinstein led the assault weapons ban that then-President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994 and continued to push for gun control laws after it expired in 2004. She also challenged the CIA while reviewing its interrogation practices following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which she called “torture,” bringing about legislation that barred those interrogation methods. 

Most recently in March she joined other lawmakers in introducing the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023, to restore the right to reproductive health care after the Supreme Court’s Decision in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organizaiton that repealed Roe v Wade in 2022.   

Colleagues from both sides of the aisle have praised Feinstein in the wake of her death.  “Senator Feinstein was a political pioneer,” Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on X (formerly known as Twitter). Former House Speaker—and fellow Californian—Nancy Pelosi called her a “pillar of public service in California,” and in an emotional speech, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called her “one of the most amazing people who ever graced the Senate.”

After building her case and calling on a number of high-profile witnesses to a special grand jury, Willis officially indicted Trump and 18 others on August 14 for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Per CNN, the 41-count indictment states Trump and others “joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome” of the election and “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise” after Trump lost the election in Georgia.

Willis' indictment marks the fourth criminal case to be brought against Trump this year, which includes cases regarding hush money, classified documents, and election interference. But it's Willis' historic indictment that may be the most sprawling case against Trump, and it isn't the first time she's served as prosecutor in a high-profile case. Here's what you need to know about the DA taking on Trump. 

Willis has an extensive background in law.

Long before she became Fulton County's first female elected district attorney, Willis' background in law went way back. According to The Washington Post, Willis grew up in Washington and often went to D.C. Superior Court with her father, John Floyd, a defense lawyer. After graduating from Howard University and Emory University School of Law, Willis went on to spend a few years at a private practice before becoming assistant district attorney for Fulton County in 2001. 

She made a name for herself during the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal.

While serving as the Fulton County assistant district attorney at the time, Willis was one of three lead prosecutors in the 2014 to 2015 case of 12 educators accused of correcting students' answers to inflate scores on standardized tests. Dubbed the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal and referred to as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, Willis was able to win 11 out of 12 convictions on racketeering and a variety of other charges. 

She keeps a tough defense on Atlanta's RICO laws.

Willis has built up her reputation as a staunch defender of Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a.k.a. RICO. Originally intended to prosecute mobsters and gang members, it was this law Willis used to prosecute the educators in the Atlanta Cheating Scandal. It was also the same law she used to probe Trump and his associates' attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

She's currently involved in another high-profile RICO case surrounding rappers Young Thug and Gunna, who are accused of helping found a violent street gang, known as Young Slime Life, or YSL, per NPR. 

Willis unseated her former boss when she became Fulton County's District Attorney

When people began asking Willis to run for the Fulton County DA in 2020, she originally didn't want to run. At the time, she was the Chief Municipal Court Judge for the City of South Fulton and ran a private practice focused on criminal defense and family law. Her former longtime boss, Paul Howard, had been serving as DA for six terms but was undergoing allegations of misconduct. 

In the end, Willis told South Atlanta Magazine via CNN that she had felt called to run, saying, “But in my mind, I would never run against the sitting DA… but the cries got louder and louder and louder… and I just took the leap of faith and did what God called me to do.”

Once she took office in 2021, Willis inherited a backlog of thousands of cases likely stemming from the coronavirus pandemic and her predecessor. Willis had said her office worked "around the clock" to indict violent offenders within 90 days of their arrest before a judge is mandated to grant them a bond. Additionally, Willis created a pre-indictment program that allows defendants to participate in community service and take life-skills courses instead of being charged. 

Willis' priority on the Trump case comes from her belief in the state. 

After Trump's call to Georgia's Secretary of State was made public in January of 2021, Willis was just days into her term as Fulton County's DA, but that didn't stop her from getting to work right away. In February 2021, Willis officially launched an investigation, then requested a grand jury be formed in January 2022, meaning she has been investigating the case for over two years now. 

According to the Post, her tenacity in prosecuting Trump comes in part from her belief in the role of the state. “The government has only two responsibilities if you live in a democracy,” she previously told the Post. “The number one thing that needs to happen in a free society is that you’ve got to keep people safe. The second thing in a free country is the importance of the right to vote.”

Cut off geographically from the rest of the United States, the island is grappling for resources including food, shelter, clean water, and medical attention for survivors. Furthermore, the state's infrastructure is overwhelmed by the sudden, meteoric rise in demand for services, and they need all the help they can get to take care of victims' immediate needs. 

Below, organizations that are accepting donations so that you can help Hawaiian residents fight the fires, survive, and rebuild. 

Hawai'i Healthcare Emergency Management

Hawai'i Healthcare Emergency Management (HHEM) is a non-profit devoted to addressing the health needs of Hawaiians and increasing the resiliency of the state’s healthcare system. They are entirely dependent on federal funding, which has been cut by over 60 percent, and are therefore in dire need of support—particularly since the healthcare system is currently overwhelmed with a rising death toll and increasing reports of smoke inhalation and burns. You can donate to HHEM so that they can replace expired equipment, maintain their resources, and purchase more in order to meet victims' needs. 

Aloha United Way

Originally known as the United Welfare Fund, the Aloha United Way was founded in 1919 as a means of uplifting the Hawaiian community, supporting local businesses, and leveling financial and educational playing fields so that all Hawaiians can have a more equal opportunity to succeed. The organization also responds to emergencies such as natural disasters, and at the moment is funneling all its efforts into helping those impacted by the wildfires in Maui. You can support their efforts.

Hawai'i Community Foundation

Founded in 1916, the Hawai'i Community Foundation focuses on empowering the Hawaiian community through initiatives such as scholarships, investment in health and medicine, emergency response, preservation of local arts and culture, and more. In the wake of the fires, they've launched the Maui Strong Fund, which is focused on rapid response efforts so that those impacted by the disaster can obtain food, clean water, shelter, financial assistance, and more as soon as possible. The foundation is working closely with the Maui community and with government leaders in the area to keep up with the quickly evolving needs of those affected. You can support them by donating.

The American Red Cross

The American Red Cross is one of the most well-known emergency response organizations in the United States, with more than 600 chapters throughout the country dedicated to disaster relief, blood donations, first aid training, and support for vulnerable populations around the world. Right now, they are taking calls from Hawaiians in need and are working with local partners to provide immediate assistance. As part of their Hawai'i Wildfire Response plan, they are also in the process of deploying over 150 additional trained responders to help victims survive, thrive, and rebuild. You can donate to them. 

Mercy Chefs

Over 271 buildings in Maui have burned down over the course of the fires, which means that countless people have been stripped of their access to shelter, food, and clean water. Mercy Chefs is devoted to providing meals to those impacted by disasters around the world, and is currently on the ground in Maui, feeding both victims and emergency workers in the area. You can contribute to their efforts online, bearing in mind that any donation goes a long way—a $50 donation provides 14 meals to those in need, a $70 donation promises to feed 20 people, and a $1,000 donation provides a whopping 350 meals.  

Maui Mutual Aid Fund

The Maui Mutual Aid Fund has cropped up in response to the wildfires, and is currently focused on helping the most vulnerable residents of the area, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and people who are underinsured or who lack insurance. You can donate to their verified PayPal. 

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement

Like all indigenous peoples in the United States, native Hawaiians are often marginalized on their own land. Because of structural and historical inequalities on the island, they face higher levels of poverty and less access to safe housing and robust education. For instance, in Oahu, native Hawaiians make up over half of the homeless population despite comprising only 10 percent of the general population. To counter these alarming trends, The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement is devoted to the professional, financial, and educational advancement of native Hawaiians, providing scholarships, loans, financial assistance (particularly when it comes to housing), and professional and vocational training programs. They also provide emergency relief during natural disasters. Now, they're partnering with local organizations to match up to $1,000,000 in donations made to assist those impacted by the devastating fires in Maui. You can donate to that goal right now. 

Global Empowerment Mission

Global Empowerment Mission was formed after the devastating impact of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and is devoted to delivering "the most amount of aid, to the most amount of people in need, in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of costs to [their] donors." Committed to financial transparency, they vow that 97 percent of every dollar that you donate goes to their missions, so you don't need to worry that your charitable donations are funding a CEO's sky-high salary. Active in 52 countries and all 50 states, they've gone on over 350 missions to provide emergency relief, and are on the ground now in Maui to provide cash assistance, relocation services, temporary accommodations, and even pet relief services. You can donate now. 

The Salvation Army

Another well-known organization that provides international aid, The Salvation Army balances a variety of priorities, including combatting homelessness, supporting the LGBTQ+ community, fighting human trafficking, supporting victims of domestic abuse, and more. Their disaster relief efforts have also spanned the globe, aiding everyone from refugees to those rendered homeless after natural disasters. Now, they're in Maui, providing food, water, shelter, and psychological support. You can donate to them. 

Maui Humane Society

The Maui Humane Society is always devoted to rescuing animals from unsafe situations and finding them loving homes, and they're currently all-hands-on-deck to help those impacted by the wildfires. In addition to sustenance and shelter for animals, they're also providing resources for people, and are prioritizing keeping pets and their owners together as they recover from this tragedy. You can donate.

But on July 4, the Taliban announced that they were outlawing all beauty salons, forcing them to close their doors by the end of the month. Dozens of women protested against the closures, but their resistance was short-lived; Taliban security forces fired weapons into the air and used fire hoses and tasers to break up the demonstrations. 

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has severely restricted girls’ and women’s rights to education and work, banning them from most public workplaces, parks, universities, and schools above sixth grade. Beauty salons were one of the last places where Afghan women could work in the Taliban-controlled country, one of the last places where they could exist freely. Now, they’re gone, too.

Just before the Islamic holiday Eid, Yalda received a call from the country’s Association for Beauty Salon Owners during her commute home from work. She was told that salons needed to be closed within a month. “It was the most tragic moment of my life,” she says. “They took the pen from Afghan girls’ hands. Then they took the office jobs from women. This was one of the last occupations where we could earn a living.” This is not the first time Yalda’s life has been affected by Taliban rules: She was in fourth grade when the movement came into power in the mid-1990s. As a result, her education was disrupted for five years while the Taliban leadership banned girls’ schools. But this time, Yalda, a single mother of four children—her husband died 15 years ago—doesn’t see a future without the salon. “If I can’t continue doing this, I have to leave the country,” she says. “If they have such a problem with women, they should just collect us all in one place and bomb us so that we perish.”

It’s Saturday in mid-July and Yalda’s salon is not busy. The Taliban announcement scared away many potential customers. Maryam, a young mother in a long black abaya, is one of the few who decided to come anyway. She needs to get her botched hair dye fixed—she accidentally burned herself trying to bleach her hair at home. “See, salons are needed,” says Yalda, as she examines Maryam’s scalp.

Sitting in a chair close by is Tayyeba, a mother of four who has come to the salon with her two young daughters to get ready for her brother-in-law’s wedding. Afghan women have few opportunities to get dolled up. Weddings are one of them. The parties are gender-segregated, so women can wear Western-style evening gowns and even show some skin. Tayyeba is getting her makeup done, “a simple look,” she says, as a makeup artist colors her lips with a sparkly-red tint and glues on fluttery fake lashes. On a table near her, a palette of eyeshadow sits next to the Taliban’s notice that the salon must shutdown. As Tayyeba looks at herself in the mirror, she smiles, pleased with her transformation. 

But for Tayyeba, the salon is more than just beauty care. “This is a place where women get together to relieve their stress and relax,” she says. It’s a place free from the prying eyes of men.

Weddings have been the main source of income for these salons. The most expensive service is the bride’s makeup—as much as 20,000 AFN, or about $230. It’s also one of the reasons given by the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue as to why the salons must close: The Ministry says the price puts an undue burden on the grooms who have to cover the costs. There are other reasons for closing, according to the Taliban, including that some of the services provided by the salons are forbidden in Islam. A Taliban spokesperson told the Associated Press that wearing makeup interferes with ceremonial washing required before prayer. In an emailed statement to Marie Claire, a spokesperson for the Taliban Ministry of Vice and Virtue wrote, “We sent them a letter to follow the rules, but they didn’t.”

Afghan women see the closures differently: as another opportunity to oppress them. Many salon owners are single mothers, meaning they have few other ways to earn a living and support their families.

Rukhsar (we’re using her nickname to protect her safety) owns a small salon outside the city center, away from the glitz and glamour of the bigger, more popular places. The 39-year-old’s husband died about a decade ago, as the family of six attempted the perilous journey to Europe on a boat from Turkey. “Over a hundred people were in a terrible situation,” she says, recalling the tragic incident. Other boats full of migrants around them had already sunk. Rukhsar made it to shore but had no idea where her husband was. In a hospital in Greece, she was told her husband hadn’t made it. She asked to be deported to Afghanistan. “I was left traumatized,” she says.

Since then, she has been solely responsible for providing for her four children. Beauty salons offered her a good income. At the time the Taliban took over the country in 2021, Rukhsar owned four salons in the city; now she only has one, with her daughter and daughter-in-law as employees. The day before our interview, only one customer came.

Just a week before the Taliban announcement, Rukhsar had accepted a job as an instructor at an institute where women study to become hairdressers. Suddenly, continuing the course doesn’t make sense. “When the salons were banned, the students’ families no longer allowed them to go,” she says. “The Taliban didn't have any problem with us before and we were happy that they didn't stop our work. But now I don't know why they banned it. They definitely want women to stay at home.”

Some of Latifa’s most frequent customers are Taliban wives. They walk in requesting Western- and Indian-influenced looks: winged eyeliner, false lashes, bold colors. “I never thought that one day a Talib would stand outside my salon, waiting for his wife,” says Latifa, who runs a salon on the western side of Kabul, an area home to the country’s more liberal Shia Hazara minority. Up until then, the only Taliban fighters she had seen were in violent videos on social media. 

Latifa, 35, has been in the business for 12 years, but only recently moved her salon to a smaller and cheaper location. During better times, she earned around 10,000 AFN ($117) per day, but now she barely makes the equivalent of $12 U.S. dollars. Only one family walks in during our interview; the women were there to book an appointment and inquire about the prices for wedding makeup.

Like many others, Latifa is planning to continue her work secretly from home. Her husband died of COVID-19 in 2020. Since then, she has been alone. “I have to work because I pay rent. I can’t sit idle at home because I am a woman without a man and I have two children,” she says. 

Giving up isn't an option. Instead, she's fighting for change. Latifa is active as the deputy of an association for beauty salon owners who are negotiating with the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue following the announcement of the ban. As part of their efforts, the association wrote a formal letter to the Taliban. “We told them how much women will suffer because of this decision; a large number will be unemployed,” she says. Ministry officials promised to look into the matter. So far, there has been no response. (The Taliban spokesperson told Marie Claire they never received any correspondence from the Association.) 

“We don’t have much hope because they haven’t reopened schools or universities yet,” says Latifa. “We are waiting for a miracle.”

Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris revealed new actions to lower childcare costs for American families (check out video of the announcement shared exclusively with Marie Claire, below). Here’s what you need to know about the announcement:

What changes did the Vice President announce?

The announcement focused on the Child Care & Development Block Grant (CCDBG), which currently provides childcare assistance to 1.5 million children and their families. A new federal rule would cap childcare copayments for working families and encourage states to waive copayments for families who are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line. These changes would help reduce childcare costs for nearly 80,000 families.

Additionally, Vice President Harris shared two changes that would benefit childcare workers, some of the most important, yet most undervalued, workers in our economy. Thanks to the first, nearly 200,000 providers would be paid on-time, enabling them to cover their expenses. This is a welcome change for childcare providers, who are currently paid retroactively, which disincentivizes their participation in the program. Secondly, more than 100,000 providers would be paid based on the total enrollment in their programs, rather than on attendance—a move that guarantees stability for providers even if children are absent.

Finally, the one-third of states that still require families to complete paper applications to access assistance would be mandated to accept applications online, modernizing the program.

What else has the Biden administration done to lower childcare costs?

Earlier this year, President Biden signed an executive order to improve access to affordable childcare and improve working standards for caregivers. The order specifically targeted families of federal workers and military families. It also sought to increase salaries for teachers and staff of Head Start, a program that serves more than 1 million children.

Read more about what the Biden administration has done to improve childcare in this interview with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Valerie’s Jarrett’s op-ed about caregiving.

I have recounted this story many times in the last 20 years, partly because it’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser that plays into people’s (often accurate) image of Harvard as a place full of the super rich. But thanks to affirmative action, in the fall of 2000, I was there, too. A Latina, daughter of a Cuban immigrant, product of the Miami-Dade County public school system.

As I’ve been reflecting on the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-based admissions at colleges (including at my alma mater, a defendant in the case), I have been thinking about my friend with the chandelier. She was very smart; she was also a legacy student, and matriculated from a private school that sends dozens of graduates to the Ivies every year. While a lot of people have questioned my admission to Harvard, I’m not sure anyone ever questioned her right to be there. I’ve also been thinking about what access to an education at Harvard really means. It’s not just about the big, bold H atop your résumé or the chance to be taught by a Nobel prize–winning astrophysicist (although it's those things, too). It’s about the people you meet and the doors that open. It's about proximity to power, and with that, the chance to change the system. 

Even in my first year, I knew I was getting a first-class education; only it wasn’t from professors and textbooks. I quickly realized that who you knew mattered. I watched from the sidelines as kids of bankers and lawyers and senators got internships at banks and law firms and Congress. Once I stopped being mad about it, I started paying attention. I got my first two jobs at a consulting firm thanks to introductions from Harvard classmates, both of them were women, one a woman of color. That magic network created opportunities for me, and still does today.

My fellow classmates—the people I waited in line for parties with, the ones whose hair I held back in the bathroom after those parties finished—are now CEOs, governors, presidential candidates, hospital chiefs, Hollywood producers, and tech gurus. For better or worse, they are the people who are shaping the world. Diversity in the dining hall was a stepping stone to diversity in boardrooms and the White House and the Supreme Court. Think of what it means that CEOs and billionaires and doctors are not entirely homogenous. My closest friends from college were diverse ethnically, socioeconomically, geographically, and racially. And now, some of us are in charge; even me in my own small way. (I co-founded an award-winning impact intelligence agency that works with some of the world’s biggest foundations and companies on philanthropy and creating social change). Thanks to affirmative action, we were able to walk the same hallowed halls that were designed more than 400 years before for white, mostly slave-owning men. 

I’m not condoning the system of structural inequality that gives elite colleges such an outsized sway over American life. Although I have benefited from it, I would rather live in a world where an Ivy League degree doesn’t automatically confer extreme privilege on its graduates. But until then, I’d prefer that access, power, and privilege be more equitably distributed and widely spread. Systemic change requires levers on both the outside and the inside. 

Affirmative action is not a perfect program, but it’s one that enabled me—and others like me—to succeed and thrive in a world not designed for us. It’s how my kids—the great-grandchildren of a Cuban pig farmer—will be legacy applicants at Harvard, just like my friend with the chandelier, if they ever chose to apply. Affirmative action, for all its imperfections, created generational impact.

This March, I was back in Harvard Square to promote my book. I sat in an overpriced coffee shop trying to remember what used to be there 20 years ago, and balking at the price of a latte while I waited for the Crimson reporter who was coming to interview me. When she arrived, I remarked about how cool it was that a current student was sitting with an alumni of almost 20 years and both of us were Latina. I asked her about her summer internship prospects—not much I could do to help, she was studying neurobiology—but I told her to reach out anyway if she ever needed anything. 

That precious, tenuous, valuable connection that’s worth far more than the hefty cost of tuition—it’s what an entire generation just lost. And America is poorer for it.

Well, so far: Abortion is banned or severely restricted in 16 states (as of June 20, 2023), and according to new research by the Guttmacher Institute, nearly 700 abortion bills have been introduced in 2023 so far. (Half of the legislation has been to restrict access, while the other half is aimed at expanding it.) #WeCount data showed that an increase in abortion numbers in states friendly to the procedure did not make up for the decline in abortion-hostile states, meaning there are people who have not been able to get the care they seek. 

But the dismal reproductive health landscape has taken a human toll that cannot be captured by numbers. Many women have been denied care despite being diagnosed with an exact exception listed in abortion bans. Miscarriages are getting more dangerous, with pregnant women* being sent home from hospitals to wait to deliver nonviable fetuses. These problems compound for women of color, who already suffer the worst maternal mortality rates in the country. 

To get a deeper understanding of life in a post-Roe world, Marie Claire spoke to five women who were deeply impacted this year. From near-death experiences to the emotional whiplash of trying to provide women with the healthcare they need, these are their stories. 

Exceptions in Abortion Bans Don't Work

Nancy Davis, Louisiana

On August 2, 2022, I was ten weeks and five days pregnant when I received a devastating diagnosis no parent ever wants to hear about their wanted pregnancy. I have three children, so this wasn’t my first rodeo and during my anatomy scan, I noticed the fetus looked a little different. The ultrasound technician stepped out to get the doctor, who walked into the room and said, “Oh my God” when she saw the image. It looked like the top of the fetus’s skull was missing. As I bawled, she gave me a big hug and said, “This is one of the diagnoses where you can get an abortion.” It was a horrible, out-of-body experience.

Being an optimistic mother, I thought there was maybe some type of way we could beat this. But the following week I met with a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who confirmed my fetus had acrania, a rare and fatal condition where the skull does not form inside the womb. He told me and my fiancé that this is the worst case scenario and we should terminate. He said if the baby survived through birth, he or she would die within minutes.

He told me he could do the procedure, but it would be expensive so he sent us to a nearby abortion clinic, not knowing it had closed for good. [Editor's note: At this time the state’s trigger ban was being challenged in court.] Then, when we went back to schedule the procedure with the specialist, they told us the director of the hospital decided she wouldn’t allow the procedure because the fetus still had a heartbeat. The process was confusing and heartbreaking. Yeah, abortions were outlawed in Louisiana but there were exceptions in place for nonviable fetuses, so what does the heartbeat have to do with anything?

They told us the nearest places to get an abortion were Florida or North Carolina. We didn’t have the means to pay for travel, to get the procedure, to cover the cost of childcare. With the help of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, The Brigid Alliance, and a GoFundMe, I was able to travel to New York to get care. It was all mentally, physically, and emotionally draining. 

The Dobbs decision has truly impacted my life, forcing me to become an activist and advocate for reproductive justice. People around the world reached out to share their stories, and they still are reaching out. We started the Nancy Davis Foundation to assist individuals who have experienced trauma as a result of a developmental defect during pregnancy and we are inspired to evoke change.

[Editor's Note: After Nancy Davis went public with her challenges regarding abortion care, acrania was specifically added as an exception to the state’s abortion ban—one of the strictest in the nation. However, women who should technically qualify for exceptions are still finding it impossible to receive care in Louisiana.]

Safe Haven States May Not Always Stay Safe

Jenna Beckham, M.D., North Carolina

I’m a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and I provide a full spectrum of reproductive healthcare, which includes abortion care. A year ago, I was reading on an airplane when I glanced at the TV screen of the person sitting next to me. They were watching Fox News and the Dobbs decision was flashing on the screen. I started crying, paid for Wi-Fi so I could access all of the messages blowing up my phone, and rang the overhead button for the flight attendant to bring me a drink. 

Being in the south, a lot of our surrounding states quickly enacted restrictions or complete bans. That summer, North Carolina instantly became a haven state for abortion care and we started seeing a really massive increase in our volume overall of people traveling from other states to seek care. I remember a patient who had worked a 12-hour nursing shift in Louisiana, left the hospital at 7 p.m. and drove overnight straight to North Carolina, had her medication abortion and was driving back that same day all by herself. I asked if she felt safe to drive and she responded, “I have to go back to work and get back to my children.”

Not only did the volume of people increase, but the coordination of care and complexity of it really changed. We used to have a rule that patients couldn’t have sedation unless they had a support person available to drive them home. After Dobbs, we had so many people coming alone—their driver was Uber—it became necessary to change the rule.

In my non-abortion work, I’ve seen a tremendous shift in people anxiously rushing to get IUDs or sterilization. One patient’s partner had a vasectomy and she had her own surgical sterilization because she doesn’t want to risk getting pregnant.

We felt so special and lucky to be in our state, which still had barriers but was pretty good compared to our neighbors. But then [in May] they implemented a 12-week ban in North Carolina. 

I spoke at the state congressional hearings and it’s tough to sit silently listening to people—who are not healthcare providers—say things that are absolutely false, not based in science and completely wild exaggerations of what really happens in a procedure room.

The patients are the most negatively impacted, but the people doing abortion work—not just the physicians but the nursing and clinic staff—are all tired and frustrated. People have chosen this job because they obviously feel very passionate about providing this care and it’s hard to do it feeling all these restrictions and seeing the grief and stress and burdens on our patients. The staff and the providers really carry a lot of it.

I want to do what is medically right for our patients, but I have to remind myself that if I lose my medical license or go to jail over one patient, then that means there are thousands of others down the line that I won’t be able to care for. It takes a toll.

Life-Saving Medical Care Is Denied Out of Fear

Anya Cook, Florida

Last July, my husband and I started IVF after multiple miscarriages. It was successful and we were completely elated; this was a pregnancy I’d worked extremely hard for. For the first trimester, I didn’t do anything—not even go to the grocery store—because I was nervous about losing my baby. In December, at 16 weeks, I finally decided to look for baby cribs. I wore rhinestone sandals and pink bike shorts to show off my bump and went to different baby outlets with my husband. I saw all the pregnant women and was like, I belong here. I held my belly and laughed and felt like I could finally talk about a child that would be here.

That following Wednesday when leaving a restaurant, I felt like somebody had thrown water on me. I felt down in my underwear and said, "It feels like my water broke, but that’s impossible—I’m only 16 weeks." We went to the emergency room and waited for almost an hour. When I finally got an ultrasound we could clearly see my daughter was moving and had a heartbeat, so I had hope.

Then the doctor told me I had preterm premature rupture of my membranes and that I would end up delivering my daughter, but that because I was nowhere near viability she would not survive. [Editor's note: PPROM is a rare condition that can cause severe complications threatening the life of the mother.]

He said he couldn’t induce labor because he might get in trouble—due to the then-15-week ban in Florida—since, technically, my health was not at risk and my daughter still had a heartbeat. I had to go home and wait. I came to the hospital for help, not for them to tell me I’m on my own. But that’s exactly what happened.

The next morning I went to the hair salon. I have very long locs. Years ago, my best friend was killed, and at her wake her mom commented that she was grateful Kim always kept her hair styled, so she hadn’t needed to have her locs done after she died. That always stuck with me. So that morning I told my mom, "If I deliver her, I don’t think I’m going to make it through that. Please take care of Derick [my husband] and, don’t worry, you won’t have to get my hair done." She knew what I meant and got very upset. I didn’t see her again until the next day when I woke up in the hospital.

At the hair salon, I went into the bathroom and heard my grandmother’s voice in my head telling me to push. I delivered the baby in the toilet and asked Derick to come into the bathroom to help me deliver the placenta. I started hemorrhaging, the paramedics came and rushed me to the hospital. I almost died; I lost half the blood in my body. In the months since then, I had to have multiple surgeries to finish removing the placenta and, now, if I get pregnant again, it will be extremely high-risk. 

If they had just operated on me at the hospital when I first went, I would not be in this situation. Just before Florida passed a six-week ban, Senator Lauren Book spoke about my case. They still voted for that ban after hearing my story. But I don’t care about their six-week ban. I just got a new IVF transfer and I’m going to continue to fight to have a baby, because that is my right.

Medication Abortion Became a Target Nationwide 

Farah Diaz-Tello, New York

A lesson that I’ve learned this past year, as a reproductive justice attorney and senior counsel at If/When/How, is that there is a lot of ground still to fight on when it comes to the criminalization of people who end their pregnancies. And I want us to hold that ground. When abortion groups try to pass these truly wild, overreaching laws criminalizing people for having miscarriages, for example, those generally haven’t gained traction. I want to urge people to resist the political nihilism of saying all abortion opponents want to throw everybody in jail, because that normalizes it. 

It’s important for us to continue to say, "That’s a radical fringe," and just because prosecutors are always doing the most doesn’t mean that they are allowed to. I want us to be able to recognize the protections that still exist and fight like hell for them and not rhetorically give them up, because that is dangerous. It feeds the prosecutorial imagination. Judicial interpretation of laws becomes the law. They have enough bad ideas as it is, we don’t need to add any more to the pot.

We always knew that if Roe fell, one of the primary targets was going to be medication abortion. Through the pandemic, we had a highly successful living experiment for how safe, effective, and convenient it could be for people to get abortion care using pills received by the mail. I can see how that would be terrifying for those who want to control people’s abilities to make those decisions.

What I naively did not anticipate post-Dobbs was that a case like the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, in which a Texas judge ruled to halt the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, could make its way through the courts. That’s a case that does not pass the smell test for the most part, but [anti-choice activists] did such an effective job of finding a judge who is so ends-oriented, he’d essentially disregard the law and science. That’s staggering: The idea that you could undo more than 20 years of medicine and law like that? Medications that have been designated life-saving medications by the World Health Organization? 

Additionally, I do think that lawmakers have a certain group of people in mind who they think they’re controlling when they’re passing these anti-abortion laws, and they’re not realizing the grave harm that can come to people. There has been more than one occasion where I have been extremely worried that somebody was going to die on our watch. Like, if somebody's calling from an abortion-hostile state and they need care and can’t leave the state. The fear that somebody you’re trying to help is going to die and there's nothing you can do about it, I can’t tell you how heavy it is. 

I wish that the people who thought these laws were a good idea had to speak to the crying loved ones of people afraid they’re going to lose somebody that can’t get the healthcare they need. To tell somebody they must risk their life or go through the life-changing experience of a pregnancy whether they like it or not. They haven’t had to confront what that really means and I wish they did.

Abortion Is Just the Beginning—All Reproductive Healthcare Is On the Line

Diane Derzis, Alabama

Having been in this business for so many years, and as the owner of the clinic at the center of Dobbs, we knew the fall of Roe was coming. When Trump was elected, that was the end. The leak of the Dobbs decision draft just confirmed it. When the decision came down, I had been waiting for it every day. What this meant was it was time for women to rise up in this country and demand their rights.

Seeing the women and what they’ve had to go through this past year... thinking about what would happen after Roe fell and watching it actually happen are two completely different things. Physicians leaving states with abortion bans and stopping the practice of obstetrics and gynecology because they’re scared to death—that’s frightening. People don’t understand that, I guess. And the worst things happen when you are afraid.

And people should be afraid of the direction things are going in. Anyone who thinks that they’re not after your birth control, you’re crazy. That’s next. How do we get women and men to understand that it’s time that we take to the streets and demand our rights? How much are we willing to take before it’s too much?

I’m mostly angry, but I’m taking out my anger by building more clinics. We moved Jackson Women’s Health Organization from Mississippi to Las Cruces, New Mexico. We started a clinic in Bristol, Virginia, and are opening one in Chicago, Illinois, soon.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to buy a clinic in North Carolina and I thought, no that’ll be gone soon. Then this past year I thought, I was clearly wrong [when N.C. became a haven]. And now look where we are [N.C. has a new 12-week ban]. But Shannon, our executive director, says she thinks every day could be the last day anywhere, and that’s so true. Once again, we’re relying upon other people to take care of us—the government, the Democratic party. As women, most of us were brought up to depend on men to take care of us. I think it’s time that we realize there’s no one that’s going to take care of us but ourselves.

Go to the polls and vote.

*Editors’ note: We use the terms “woman” and "women" in this article to refer to people with internal reproductive organs; however we understand that not everyone with internal reproductive organs identifies as a woman.