My twentieth high school reunion is this summer, and I can’t decide if I want to go or not. Enmeshed […]
Hanne Blank’s FAT
Dr. Hanne Blank Boyd is a writer, editor, and consultant whose published work lies at the intersection of bodies, selves, […]
Trans Pregnancy and TikTok Activism: A Shifting Conversation
“Is society ready for this pregnant husband?” was the subheading of Thomas Beatie’s 2008 essay about his pregnancy. Mr. Beatie […]
The Season of NICU
We spent all of winter in the NICU. When I was 25 weeks pregnant, I went into preterm labor and […]
Disability (and) Politics: The Fetterman Fiasco of Fall 2022
In Fall 2022, conservative pundits condemned Senator-elect John Fetterman (D-PA), who had survived a stroke the previous spring, using discriminatory […]
“Help, I’m Living in My Research!”: Writing on Abortion in a Post-Roe World
In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, my friend and I were in the midst of writing our honors […]
Menstrual Advocacy Is Flowing and Flowering
When I was researching my first book, The Modern Period: Menstruation in Twentieth-Century America (2009), one of the most frequent […]
A Return to the Abortion Handbook?
During one of my last visits with abortion activist Patricia Maginnis in 2015, she handed me The Abortion Handbook for […]
Modern Medicine Has Improved Our Lives, But What About Our Deaths?
In 1929, a young woman entered Koch Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Her symptoms may have included coughing, difficulty breathing, […]
Can every baby be a Gerber Baby? A century of American baby contests and eugenics
In 2018, Gerber made headlines for selecting baby Lucas as the winner of its Spokesbaby Contest, making Lucas the first […]
