Chelsea Conaboy

For two years, before she headed off to her full-time job as a web developer, or after she put her daughter to bed at night, Ursula Wing ran a business selling abortion pills from the bedroom of her New York City apartment. The 40-year-old single mother would fill orders that had been submitted through her website, dropping a piece of inexpensive jewelry into a mailer with a return address for “Fatima’s Bead Basket.” Hidden behind a panel taped inside were one tablet of mifepristone and four tablets of misoprostol.

As the Senate prepares to consider President Trump’s latest nomination to the Supreme Court, and as legal scholars evaluate the various ways that a Justice Brett Kavanaugh could alter abortion access, science has changed the backdrop against which the political and legal drama is playing out.

The Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness program shares many of the basic functions of traditional drug courts, providing intensive case management and counseling for a year or more, frequent drug testing, and a balance of sanctions and incentives. In other ways, the tribe’s court is markedly different.

So why does prenatal care ignore the topic altogether?

Arbour Health System, which operates seven inpatient psychiatric facilities and a chain of mental health clinics in Massachusetts, has been repeatedly cited for violating patient-care standards before and since the three deaths, including citations for staffing too few nurses or relying too much on lesser-trained or temporary workers.

Parents often are left to figure out for themselves what to buy — and where.

Harnessing willpower. Focusing on poor neighborhoods. Launching Obamacare. And still the racial and ethnic disparities in health care persist.

Adria Horn was breastfeeding her infant daughter at Togus VA Medical Center several years ago when someone approached to ask whether she was waiting for a patient. The implication was clear: Horn, a West Point graduate who deployed five times in 10 years, didn’t fit the image of a veteran.

Medical professionals can vaccinate children against pathogens like polio or pertussis, but they have few tools to prevent the chronic illnesses that wreak havoc with so many adult lives and that cost the health care system so much to treat. What would it look like if we could somehow protect small children against those illnesses the way we vaccinate for tetanus or chicken pox?

Should I eat fish? What kind and how much? What about coffee? Or sushi? What if I forget to take my prenatal vitamin? Will I hurt my baby if I sleep on my back? If I go swimming? If I have sex? If I fly?

Online sale of abortion pills mean women don't necessarily need access to a clinic to end an early pregnancy. But they do need to know where to start.

Guns or glitter? Ties or tutus? A specialist asks whether gender reveal parties, though well-meaning, might be seen as a symptom of society’s overemphasis on gender.

Bernard Lown believes less medical treatment can sometimes be more. Convincing you and your doctor has become a mission for the 91-year-old cardiologist.

Inducing labor, it was thought, increases a woman’s chances of requiring a Cesarean section, major surgery that could result in complications for mother and baby, and a longer recovery time. Now, a major study suggests that’s not true.

There may be real differences in how men and women respond to infection.

Muji Karim lost his legs in a fiery crash. Now he finds his way by showing others that there is life after injury.

In rural America, social isolation isn't just a private woe. It's increasingly seen as a public health crisis, with new ideas for tackling it.

A program at Newton’s Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology looks to train military men and women to become therapists who can help other vets.