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After my double mastectomy two years ago, I had to read two terrifying things: my pathology report and my hospital bill. The pathology report made me sink to the floor with despair; it noted multiple large tumors that had invaded my skin, and 15 underarm lymph nodes bursting with rapidly dividing cancer cells. I would require months of aggressive treatment. (Sascha Cohen, 10/1)

In my small class of just 100 students at Stanford School of Medicine, many of my peers dream of becoming neurosurgeons. The ability to save lives from the most devastating of diseases drives them to enter the most competitive and demanding of fields. I, too, want to save lives from the devastating circumstances that unfairly befall all of us. But it is not neurosurgery that interests me. Instead, I dream of becoming something else entirely: a gynecologist providing the full spectrum of reproductive services – including abortion. (Isabel Beshar, 10/3)

Over 100 years ago, a woman was detained by a police officer for smoking a cigarette. After being stopped by an officer on a bicycle on Fifth Avenue in New York City, Mrs. William P. Orr blew smoke in his face and flicked cigarette ash toward him. Her rationale: “Yes, I was smoking a cigarette and I don’t see that I was doing any harm. I have done it in many other places… I think the policeman overstepped his authority.” This incident marked the start of a century-long battle over women’s health, identity and behavior by raising the questions of who could and should smoke. (Connie Hassett-Walker, 10/3)