While the uterus is commonly revered as the miraculous womb of life, it comes with inconvenience, costs, and stigma for many women. Some of the challenges are unavoidably physical—monthly cramps and decades-long exposure to pregnancy risk. But many others result from social and political constructs that stigmatize women’s bodies and create barriers to accessing reproductive health care. No other body part is as highly regulated as the uterus. In 2011, a year after anti-choice candidates…

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Read more stories by Francine Coeytaux, Elisa Wells & Sophia Yen.