Pregnancy

Led by Republican state attorneys general in Tennessee and Arkansas, the 17 states - including Florida - sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April challenging its rules on how to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a 2022 bipartisan law requiring employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant or postpartum employees. The rules say that workers can ask for time off to obtain an abortion and recover from the procedure.

The CDC report on the 2023 deaths was drawn from death certificates. The CDC counts women who died while pregnant, during childbirth and up to 42 days after birth.

A legislative effort to expand access to prenatal care in rural Oregon with mobile clinics was scuttled because those clinics would have provided abortions in rural areas.

Pregnant patients are being asked to make large payments months before they deliver, a change from decades of standard practice. Advocates worry that it allows providers to hold "treatment hostage."

Anti-abortion advocates want to open more of these transitional housing facilities to meet a growing need. But they also must overcome a traumatic legacy of coerced adoptions in the decades before Roe.

Relatively few respondents fully endorse the idea that a fertilized egg should have the same rights as a pregnant woman, but a significant share (46%) say it describes their views at least somewhat well.

Couples like Sam and Tori Earle of Lakeland, who believe life begins at or around conception, wrestle with weighty questions when faced with infertility. Is IVF an ethical option? The conflict reflects age-old friction at the heart of a recent Alabama case.

A new law makes Florida the first state to permit cesarean sections in "advanced birth centers." Some health experts are leery even though many hospitals have closed maternity wards.

Black babies are at higher risk of infant mortality than white babies. There are also several factors behind the barriers to prenatal care in Florida.

Sexually transmitted disease rates in the state are on the rise, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. In particular, Florida ranks 14th on the CDC's national list when it comes to congenital syphilis.

The new rules cover documentation and clarify that it will not "constitute an abortion” to induce live births and babies die because of prematurely ruptured membranes, or for treating ectopic pregnancies and trophoblastic tumors.

The cases are detailed in federal documents obtained by The Associated Press and raise serious questions about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S.