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PREGNANCY
Choosing Surrogacy to Protect Mental Health
What: A mom who suffered from severe postpartum depression and anxiety tells her story of choosing a surrogate to have her second child in an effort to protect her mental health. When a therapist suggests surrogacy is an option in a group therapy session, she remembers thinking: “That would allow me to have a sibling for my kid, if I so choose when it feels right, without having to literally risk my life.”
Why it matters: “Once her second child was born, Miller understood that her decision for surrogacy was the right one for her. ‘It was like night and day,’ she says in comparison to her first child’s birth. ‘And she was even a colicky baby; she cried a lot the first several months, but it never felt bad or hard or sad or depressing or anxious.’”
Source: Parents
ABORTION ACCESS
A Loss at the Supreme Court Won’t Stop Antiabortionists from Restricting Healthcare
What: The Supreme Court looks likely to rule against doctors who want to ban the abortion pill for everyone, but that doesn’t mean the antiabortion crowd is done. Politico reports that they have several other avenues of attack against women’s healthcare, among them a petition that the EPA “investigate the impact of people taking the pills at home and flushing their abortions down the toilet.”
Why it matters: That effort may seem absurd, but it captures how the antiabortion crowd will not stop until they pursue every route possible to keep women from getting the health care they need.
Source: Politico
Kate Cox: Vote Like Your Life Depends on It
What: A profile of Kate Cox and her family after the attention has died down. Cox had to go out of state to get an abortion after the Texas state supreme court denied the procedure, even though her fetus had severe genetic problems that were “incompatible with life.”
Why it matters: ”And whether or not they choose to be in the public eye, both Coxes say they now plan to become regular voters, a political evolution that reflects the way in which abortion access has transformed from a question of feminist choice into a question of medical necessity. ‘What I’ve learned from this experience is that if you are pregnant, if you love someone that is pregnant, if you may become pregnant, you have to vote like your life depends on it,’ Cox says.”
Source: Time Magazine
MENOPAUSE
Menopause As a Moment of Growth
What: An essay from Angela Garbes that acknowledges the lack of information and challenges that come with menopause, but also chronicles her own silver linings. (“But alongside these hormonal, nocturnal and vaginal changes, I’ve experienced a softening, an openness. In the last three years, I’ve made changes I could barely think about a decade ago. I grew out my gray hair. I started taking antidepressants. I got sober.”)
Why it matters: “Menopause can take up fully a third or even half of someone’s life. For all the time we spend in this zone, we know frustratingly little about it. Many enter this era entirely unequipped. Roughly half of all humans will go through this, yet it’s rarely talked about openly.”
Source: The Guardian
ONCOLOGY
Why is Colorectal Cancer Increasing Among the Young?
What: Colorectal cancer is on the rise among young adults, becoming the second most deadly cancer for women under 50 in the United States. The medical community is trying to understand why. One clue that has emerged is that more cancers are showing up in the rectum, or in the part of the colon closer to the rectum. There are also lifestyle factors of millennials, who eat more red meat and processed foods or binge drink more that previous generations.
Why it matters: But “none of them fully account for the increase in early-onset colorectal cancer,” reports the New York Times. There may not be one main cause, but a variety of factors, including not just food and drink but also environmental elements.
Source: New York Times
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