This essay is part one of a two-part series on fetal remains and cultural politics. “Abuse of a corpse.” “Abandonment of a dead body.” “Concealment of the death of another.” These are charges that prosecutors have recently used to criminalize women who miscarry at home. On their face, they seem to indicate that prosecutors think the essential problem – the reason they are threatening women with jail time – is that they have not handled fetal remains as deceased persons. Feminist legal...

A friend of mine, a Catholic priest, says that everyone cries at weddings, but each for their own reason. Some are thinking of their own happy marriage and feeling nostalgic for their own wedding day; some are remembering their beloved departed spouse with a mix of joy and grief; some feel regret, or hope, or longing for partnership. All these feelings, he says, are honored when we gather to bless and celebrate the new couple. The Museum of Art and Design’s exhibition “ Designing Motherhood :...

“ The Spike ” – that is what demographer-economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso call the dramatic rise in the world population in the...