Pregnancy and Childbirth

Court Lets Some Clinics Reopen, but Getting an Abortion in Dallas Is Still Tough

Right now, as this story is being written, four clinics provide abortions in Dallas: Abortion Advantage, Planned Parenthood, Routh Street Women's Clinic and Southwest Women's Surgery Center. Two, Whole Woman's Health and Planned Parenthood, are open in Fort Worth. But read quickly, because it's poss ... More >>

Planned Parenthood's New HB2-Proofed Clinic Opens in Southern Dallas

It's a nice clinic, it really is. With more space and amenities, it's a credit to the private donors who payed for it and continue to fuel Planned Parenthood's response to the Texas Legislature's crackdown on abortion. It's just unnecessary. The large janitor's closet, the backup generator, the loc ... More >>

Texas Abortion Clinics Await a Decision that Will Decide Whether They Stay Open Sept. 1

On September 1 the most stringent portion of House Bill 2, the anti-abortion legislation passed by the Texas Legislature last year, is scheduled to go into effect. Any healthcare clinic in the state that provides abortions will be required to be an ambulatory surgical center. If the rule takes effe ... More >>

Many New Moms Are Eating Their Placentas. Baylor Wants Them Off the Menu.

She was recovering in a postpartum room at Baylor University Medical Center this spring, exhausted from giving birth, when her husband gave her the good news. "We got the placenta," he told her. "It's in the cooler." Now she just had to get it off the hospital property without being caught. "We wer ... More >>

Careful Coordination Leads to Successful Delivery of Quintuplets at Parkland

For Ofa and Rex Clark of Allen, the typical newbie parent worries were multiplied by five on June 17 with the birth of their three daughters and two sons: The third set to arrive at Parkland Hospital in the hospital's history. The babies -- Vianca, Alessandra, Perrin, Noah and Scarlett -- are still ... More >>

A Texas Inmate's Newborn Died After She Gave Birth in Solitary Confinement, Lawsuit Claims

As Nicole Guerrero lay alone in a cell, moaning and crying in excruciating pain through the birth of her daughter, she heard the detention officers laugh, she says. "What are y'all going to do with her?" they said, according to a lawsuit Guerrero filed recently against Wichita County. Later, she s ... More >>

Obvious Child Director Gillian Robespierre Explains Her Abortion-Themed Romantic Comedy

Texas Law is Keeping a Tarrant County Paramedic From Letting His Pregnant Wife Die

Erick Munoz wasn't trying to set off a debate about abortion or end-of-life care. He just wanted to comply with the wishes of his wife, who is on life support at JPS Hospital in Fort Worth after suffering an apparent pulmonary embolism two days before Thanksgiving. But because his wife, Marlise Muno ... More >>

To Battle Teen Pregnancy Crisis, Texas Builds $1.2 Million Abstinence-Only Website

You're a public health policymaker in Texas. Teenage girls in the state are getting knocked up at an alarming rate, then they're having babies and getting knocked up again. The data, along with the bulk of the scientific literature, suggest that the state's longstanding strategy of telling kids not ... More >>

Denton's Life Dynamics is on a Mission to End Abortion by Suing Clinics over Child Rape

Life Dynamics, the Denton-based pro-life group that long ago earned a permanent spot on Planned Parenthood's anti-choice hall of fame, has always prided itself on being a bit different from its allies in the abortion fight. It's less about standing outside of abortion clinics with photos of bloody f ... More >>

Activists Ask Rick Perry to Reduce Abortions by Adding Sex Ed to Special Session

Per the rules of the Texas legislature's special session, Governor Rick Perry can add any agenda items that he thinks need to be addressed, with abortion taking a pretty comfortable lead over anything else. Otherwise, any bills the legislators file right now are in free-floating purgatory. In a sho ... More >>

Appeals Court Tells Texas Judge that, Actually, Moms Can't Be Fired for Breastfeeding

Congress didn't explicitly reference lactation when it passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. It merely said that employers can't fire or punish women because of "pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions," which would seem to encompass the postpartum activation of the mammary g ... More >>

The Best Placenta Recipes on the Internet!

I'm currently building a baby, and I realize that in addition to the gift of life, I've got this awesome placenta that's brewing in me, too. I'm told I have some choices to make about what I want to do with it when it, uh, comes out of the smoker. I'm all about the locavore movement, and it doesn't ... More >>

Texas is Last in High School Graduation, First in Hazardous Waste, and Other Depressing Tidbits from a New Legislative Report

The Texas Legislative Study Group is a caucus of around 50 Democratic representatives from the Texas House, and they're real buzzkills. The LSG keeps a full-time staff of policy analysts around, who almost every year since 2003 have released a report called "Texas on the Brink," detailing all the mo ... More >>

Here Are All The Reasons Why Texas Teenagers Can't Seem to Stop Getting Pregnant

Congratulations, Texas! After a lot of hard work and many long nights, we're number one in the nation for repeat teen births. According to the Centers for Disease Control, which released a new report on April 2, in 2010, 22 percent of Texas teenagers aged 15-19 who gave birth were delivering their ... More >>

State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg Files Pro-Life Favorite "Pre-Born Pain" Bill

Back in December, Governor Rick Perry announced with much pomp and circumstance that he would support the passage of a "fetal pain" bill this session in the Legislature. "Fetal pain" is one of the pet legislative projects of pro-life group Texas Right to Life this year; it's a total ban on abortions ... More >>

Texas Moms Kept From Breastfeeding in Public Could Soon Have the Right to Sue

Michelle Hickman, a Houston-area mother, became Internet famous in late 2011 when she was harassed by Target employees for publicly breastfeeding her infant. That happened despite Target's breastfeeding-friendly corporate policy and a 18-year-old state law that gives women the right to nurse "in any ... More >>

Texas Reps. Say Planned Parenthood Recruits Schoolkids, Aim to End Its Sex Ed Effort

Texas parents beware: your children are being "imperiled" by "abortion peddlers" who want to teach them "sex education." No. No, they're not. Although at some point someone might want to teach them to put a condom on a banana, and conservative lawmakers, predictably, want to make damn sure that per ... More >>

Texas AG Announces "Choose Life Advisory Committee" to Distribute Money Raised by Those Anti-Abortion License Plates

In May of 2011, in the midst of various other anti-abortion measures, Texas lawmakers approved SB 257, authored by Representative Larry Phillips, a Republican from Sherman, and Senator John Carona, a Republican from Dallas. The bill allowed for the sale of state-issued specialty "Choose Life" licens ... More >>

Texas Conservatives Observe 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade With Ridiculous Press Releases

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case that originated in Texas with Norma McCorvey and ultimately led to the Supreme Court sweeping away a number of state and federal abortion restrictions. Because of Roe, terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester is between a wo ... More >>

Texas House Rep Allen Fletcher Files Bill To Tackle Non-Existent Problem of Sex-Selective Abortion

With the shiny new session of the Texas Legislature a mere six days away, your lawmakers are gearing up to debate some important issues, like handsy TSA agents and whether we should drug-test people who have the audacity to file for emergency welfare relief. But, as ever, some legislators are most ... More >>

Texas Wants a Detailed Report on All Abortions and Will Discipline Doctors Who Don't Comply

Last legislative session, Representative Bill Zedler, a Republican from Arlington, wanted to hear about abortions in Texas. All of them. In great detail. Zedler filed a piece of legislation that would have required a woman having an abortion to fill out and submit to the state a detailed question ... More >>

Holy Crap That's a Lot of Kids: Woman Delivers Quintuplets at UT Southwestern

It happens, on average, 12 times per year in the United States: some lucky woman gives birth to five children, not spacing them comfortably over the course of several years but getting them out all at once. It happened in the span of five minutes in Dallas on Thursday, when a team of 50 doctors, nu ... More >>

My, How This Crisis is Growing

The End of Family Planning in Texas

They say they defunded Planned Parenthood. But lawmakers' attack on family planning will cost Texas money, reduce access to healthcare and result in even more abortions.

At the Last Minute, Texas Spikes Federal Sex Education Funding ... Again

Condoms, birth control -- who needs 'em? Just don't have sex, Texas says to its horny teens. Just hobble that unbridled desire coupled with a limited understanding of consequences and say 'No, I'm saving myself for marriage.' That's pretty much the message, maybe paired with an infographic demonstr ... More >>

Report: Dallas County Jail Still Shackling Those Oh-So-Dangerous Women in Labor

When the contractions start, the restrictions end. In theory, anyway.​Chief Uterus Correspondent Anna Merlan is on assignment. I know Anna usually handles the lady stuff, but if it's OK with you guys, I'm going to dispense some quick advice to the Female Friends of Unfair Park: If you gals ha ... More >>

Truluck's Goes Fishing for Moms-to-Be

​A recent Truluck's promotion intended to celebrate customers' joyous events could send anxious mothers-to-be into a nutritional tizzy. Through tomorrow, the Uptown seafood restaurant is offering free stone claw crab appetizers to women who show their servers a sonogram performed that day. Bu ... More >>

Hear Me Roar

Mother and Child

Like a Virgin: How One So-Called "Bad Girl" Became a "Beautiful Young Lady"

The central question posed in this week's cover story is this: Can teaching rebellious young girls how to become old-school "ladies" save them from a cycle of teen pregnancy and poverty?Teen pregnancy is a riddle in Texas, a state that has the second-highest teen birthrate in the country behind Cali ... More >>

McCain Chooses Sarah Paulson For VP. No, Michael Palin. No, Wait ...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Took a while to find a Dallas connection to John McCain's freshly announced running mate, first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but, bless The Wall Street Journal, there it is at the very bottom of a lengthy, just-posted profile: Gov. Palin's judgment was called into question b ... More >>

Teaching Teens How to Parent and Stop Having Children

Battling the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, Texas counselors have their work cut out

Smokin' Baptists

The Gold Standard

Uptown Players offer up the "perfect" family

In the Inner City, An Alternative to Abortion

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that while African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, they also account for 37 percent of all abortions performed in the United States, and that while the abortion rate has declined slightly in recent years, rates are "declining more ... More >>

Dallas Takes a Pregnant Pause

Gurinder Chada's expecting twins, which means she's not expecting to direct Dallas any time soon. Looks like the big-screen version of Dallas is being pushed further off the starting line, thanks to the just-announced pregnancy of director Gurinder Chadha. She tells the Associated Press in a story t ... More >>

Poor People Make Excellent Guinea Pigs

Like having herpes wasn't bad enough, now this: A Washington, D.C.- and Austin-based watchdog group is alleging that Parkland Hospital and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas endangered the health of low-income pregnant women -- and the lives of their newborns -- when they ... More >>

Prepare Your Protesting Accordingly

You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, I'm telling you why: A statue of a crucified pregnant teenager is coming to town. Not any time soon mind you, but that is the plan of Danish artist Jens Galschit, who debuted the statute outside Copenhagen's Lutheran cathedral to commemorate ... More >>

Dead Baby Jokes

With Ted Tally's Little Footsteps, Rover Dramawerks falls flat on its farce

One Love

Religions unite in prayer

Los Straitjackets

Thursday, September 23

Return of the Black Widow

Death and rumors have followed Sandra Bridewell for decades. But no one could predict the strange turn her life has taken today.

Cocktail Hours

The latest AIDS medications give life to the dying--but what kind of life?

Reel Thing

Feel to laugh at these antiquated filmstrips

The Why? Files

Try to care about the X-Files for one more week as Mulder returns.

Day in, day out

Motherhood and career get a modest, low-key look in The 24-Hour Woman

Thank you, ma'am

Medical City still practicing drive-through deliveries

Compulsive childbirth

Why my third time still wasn't the charm

Aborted cause

Ivan Reitman's Junior ruins many stellar comic opportunities