Like Mother, Like Daughter Talking Reproductive Rights with Cecile Richards

By Margaret Michniewicz

Cecile Richards, daughter of the illustrious former Texas Governor Ann Richards, became the new President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) on February 15. Exactly one week later, South Dakota passed legislation banning nearly all abortions, with several other states subsequently queuing up to follow suit; and on March 8, Ann Richards announced she had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Cecile spoke with Vermont Woman about her career and the challenges she is now poised to tackle.

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OpEd Failure to Progress: What's Wrong with Hospital Obstetrics?

By Katharine M. Hikel, MD

Vermont Woman respected the wishes of the practitioners interviewed for this OpEd column to preserve their confidentiality by withholding their names. The main problem with giving birth today is the specialty of OB as now practiced. From its origins in the manly realms of medieval Europe, obstetrics has increasingly promoted a culture of childbirth that interferes with women’s natural processes rather than working with them.

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I Gave Birth By Myself

By Michelle Singer

Photo: Margaret Michniewicz Here’s what I mean by alone: no one else was present when I birthed my son into the world in my own living room. My mother, the only other person in the entire house, was downstairs. After I lifted my child from the water and calmly called out “Mom?” she came up for the shock of her life. The thing about birth is that you never know where you are in it. Twenty minutes earlier, I was essentially not in labor. I was standing at the door getting ready to go out for a cup of coffee.

 

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Death in the Fast Lane Police Nab Perps. But at What Price?

By Cindy Ellen Hill

On Father’s Day, 2003, 39-year-old Vermont State Trooper Mike Johnson kissed his wife Kerri, daughter Reilly, 12, and sons Grady, 7, and McKendrick, 5, and left for work. It would be their last goodbye. While deploying a tire-deflating device across Interstate I-91 in Norwich, Johnson was killed by the speeding vehicle he was attempting to stop: Eric Daley, 24, who was being pursued by police at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. It was the first time in Vermont history that a state trooper was killed in the line of duty by another person.

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