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Brittany Hudson was pregnant, addicted to painkillers and afraid of a Tennessee law that calls for the arrest of mothers of drug-dependent babies. She eventually gave birth without medical help, on the side of a road in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Hudson's dilemma, doctors say, was one of many unintended consequences of the Tennessee Legislature's decision in 2014 to become the first and only state with an explicit criminal offense for these addicted mothers. (4/1)

Twenty weeks. It’s a seemingly arbitrary measure that recently shattered the lives of Daniel and Taylor Mahaffey as the Austin couple was happily preparing for the birth of a son. Late on a Wednesday, Taylor Mahaffey, 23 — who had been previously diagnosed with a condition known as incompetent cervix — felt something was off. Having suffered through a miscarriage during a previous pregnancy, the couple rushed to St. David’s North Austin Medical Center only to discover that Taylor’s cervix had prematurely dilated and their son’s legs were already emerging. (Ura, 4/3)

Thousands protested on Sunday against the Polish government after the ruling party’s powerful leader and the country’s prime minister said they backed a complete ban on abortion advocated by the Catholic Church. ... The proposed move would end a status quo reached in the 1990s under which abortion is allowed in three cases -- when the pregnancy is the result of a crime like rape or incest, when it puts the health of the mother at risk, and when the fetus is terminally ill or has a severe disability. (Sobczyk, 4/3)