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Can you judge a nation by the company it keeps? President Trump’s administration spearheaded a declaration at the United Nations this week calling for the elimination of allegedly “ambiguous” expressions in the body’s documents — primarily, “sexual and reproductive health.” These terms are often used to promote pro-abortion policies, the officials claimed, and “there is no international right to an abortion.” Joining the land of the free? Some of the least-free nations on the planet, from Russia to Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and 12 more. (9/27)

In the U. S., thousands of young women are selling their eggs and serving as gestational surrogates, “renting” their wombs for cash. In India, Nepal, Ukraine and elsewhere, large markets have grown for buying and selling human eggs and renting wombs.Yet media stories about these technologies generally celebrate the creation of new lives – smiling, innocent babies — rather than probing the dilemmas involved. A few years ago, a major national network’s morning news show filmed me, commentating on India’s surrogacy industry. (Robert Klitzman, 9/27)

In 1980, measles caused 2.6 million deaths worldwide. Widespread use of the two-shot measles vaccine over the past four decades changed that. By 2000, routine immunization was preventing 80 million cases of the infection each year. That year, the World Health Organization declared measles “eliminated” in the United States. There was no longer continuous circulation of the virus here. All measles cases could be traced to unvaccinated people catching the disease outside the country or infected people from abroad bringing it in. Now, that is changing. (David Brown, 9/28)

It happened a few weeks ago, when many readers responded angrily to a brief, flippant letter asking why it’s acceptable for dogs but not humans to relieve themselves in public. This week it’s happening again, only the topic is far weightier: In response to a three-sentence letter asking what the difference is between the freedom to choose on abortion and the freedom to choose on childhood vaccination, several readers wrote forceful responses. (Paul Thornton, 9/28)

Most of us rely on vetted experts, brand names, seals of approval, and other signals of trust to help us decide on matters ranging from how to treat a dental abscess to which automobile is most fuel efficient. The resources needed to distinguish trustworthy scientific findings from those that are biased, irreproducible, or even fabricated are more elusive. That’s a problem, because the ability to make such distinctions is essential, given how relevant science is to everyday decisions such as when to vaccinate your child or whether it is safe to consume genetically engineered foods, especially in this age of misinformation. We believe that scientists and the journals that publish their work should do more to clearly and consistently signal to one another — as well as to the public who rely on their findings — which studies have satisfied standards that convey trustworthiness. (Marcia McNutt and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, 9/30)

In 2011, I began a professional and personal journey to understand my profession’s abandonment of our sickest patients. I had been trained as a psychiatrist at an Ivy League medical center on the East Coast. Like most of my colleagues in my generation, I did not end up treating those with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. Also, like many people in my field, I had a personal connection to the disease that I kept to myself. When I was 14, Merle, my beautiful and kind 20-year-old sister, developed schizophrenia. My older sister, Gail, eventually took Merle to the hospital in Philadelphia, our hometown. After two weeks of failed treatment, my parents promptly took her out. (Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, 9/29)

A patient admitted to a Florida mental health facility under the Baker Act is vulnerable, judged to be a threat to himself or others -- or in self-neglect -- and unable to make decisions regarding his own care. In allowing a person’s liberty to be denied for up to 72 hours pending an evaluation, the state carries an immense burden of ensuring proper treatment and that no person is held a minute longer than medically necessary. A troubling Times investigation about North Tampa Behavioral Health calls for more vigorous state oversight to ensure patients’ rights are fully respected. (9/27)

Up to 80 percent of Americans die in hospitals or nursing homes, and a third spend at least 10 days in an intensive care unit before they die, many of them comatose or on a ventilator. A week after his sudden diagnosis of widespread metastatic disease, my father was lucky enough to get a bed in our town’s only hospice, a homey facility staffed with attentive and experienced caregivers. ... But his death was not the peaceful drifting away I’d always imagined, where you floated into a calm, morphine-induced sleep, your breath came slower and slower and then simply stopped. (Harriet Brown, 9/29)

Patients’ stories — what doctors call patient histories — are the bedrock of medicine. “Listen to your patient; they are telling you the diagnosis,” an aphorism attributed to Dr. William Osler, the founder of modern medicine, still holds true today. The disappearance of patients’ stories from electronic health records could be one reason that artificial intelligence and machine learning have so far failed to deliver their promised revolution of health care. (Blake McKinney, 9/30)

Francine’s case demonstrates how, even with all the advances in modern medicine, time remains one of the most important tools in any doctor’s medical kit. That time is precious and limited. That’s why, to prevent further constraints, physicians in the Contra Costa County health system are now poised to go on strike for the first time in our union’s history. (Scott Karpowicz, 9/26)