Last month, “Lisa” went into labor while 42 weeks pregnant. She spent “six excruciating days in a remote desert home, laboring alone—aside from her husband and the virtual company of more than 6,000 members of a private Facebook group,” according to a harrowing report by the Daily Beast. That group, Free Birth…

One of the quieter devastations taking place under the Trump presidency is the harm being done by his administrative state, from anti-abortion activists who are now in positions overseeing gender equity to anti-science and climate change deniers installed at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of…

On Wednesday, more than seven months after it was first reported that Cecile Richards would be stepping down from her position as president of Planned Parenthood, the organization announced her successor: Dr. Leana Wen, who has been serving as Baltimore’s health commissioner. Wen is expected to begin her new job in…

As if women’s reproductive health services weren’t under threat enough in this country, a social network for physicians called Doximity reported this week that the current Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) workforce is nearing the age of retirement, and its numbers are expected to decline sharply in the coming years.

In a season three episode of Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer comments on the over-politicizing of reproductive rights, remarking aptly that “if men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM.” But men CANNOT get pregnant, so instead women’s health advocates must spend their time fighting for affordable…

Among North America’s coastal elites, midwifery has become associated with finicky preferences, rigid orthodoxy, and a commitment to doing things right. Regular folks have hospital births. Folks who want to “win” at childbirth by forgoing the epidural, or who turn up their noses at chemicals that course through one’s…

According to a report from Politico, President Donald Trump is set to appoint Teresa Manning as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services. In that position, Manning will oversee the federal funding for family planning programs.

Rigidly anti-abortion Kentucky governor Matt Bevin, a real stand-up guy who recently made Kentucky a “Right to Work” state and, like someone else we know, refuses to release his tax returns, is currently doing his absolute best to close Kentucky’s last abortion clinic.

On December 19, 2016, Texas will put into effect regulations requiring that all fetal remains be cremated or buried. This legislation is carried out in spite of vehement protest by both the medical community and reproductive rights activists.

Employees of Norwegian Cruise Lines were recently notified without warning or explanation that they would no longer have access to emergency contraceptives—for free or for purchase—unless they had been raped or sexually assaulted. The change went into effect on November 1.

The first time Crystal Wang had a gynecological exam was at a large medical center in the central business district of Beijing. When she arrived at the examination area, she was taken aback by a bold red sign that said 处女不能检查, or “virgins may not be examined.”

Just one month ago, six Planned Parenthood clinics allowed women receiving abortions to opt to donate that fetal tissue for medical research; today, just two clinics continue to do so.

Each day, around 800 women across the globe die because of complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Doctors Without Borders, the international medical organization that sends physicians to impoverished areas, recently launched a multimedia project to illuminate the reality of these unnecessary deaths. Because…

Chlamydia is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, infecting around 1.4 million people in the United States in 2012. The infection is gnarly: it can lead to ectopic pregnancies, pneumonia, and infertility in women, and can also cause blindness if you get the infection in your eyes (which you should…

Disturbing news out of Nigeria: of the 234 women recently rescued by the Nigerian army after being abducted by Boko Haram last year, a staggering number of them—214—are pregnant.