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The baby who would soon die arrived at 34 weeks, eyes shut, squawking. Her father cut the umbilical cord with a pair of silver scissors. A priest in blue scrubs sprinkled Holy Water on her forehead. A photographer circled the delivery room, capturing her last moments. And Cathleen Warner quietly marveled: My baby is crying. ... This is perinatal hospice, a birth plan that revolves around death. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated diagnostics, families today can confront tragedy with advance notice — and a decision: Should they terminate a pregnancy that cannot sustain life? Or deliver a baby who won’t survive long outside the womb? (Paquette, 4/16)

The tightening of restrictions on abortion clinics in many states has emboldened some abortion rights advocates to launch an outreach effort, reminding women they have relatively safe and effective means of ending a pregnancy on their own through use of a miscarriage-inducing drug. Anti-abortion groups are wary of the phenomenon, disavowing any drive to prosecute women who self-abort but favoring crackdowns on illegal distribution of the drug. Even in the abortion rights community, the outreach effort has raised some concerns. (Crary, 4/15)

Mississippi's governor has signed into law a ban on a commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure, setting the state up for a possible legal challenge. Gov. Phil Bryant signed the law Friday that outlaws a procedure called "dilation and evacuation" unless it is necessary to prevent a woman's irreversible physical impairment. (4/15)