In September 2003, Robert L. Goldenberg and Cortney Thompson published the article “The Infectious Origins of Stillbirth” in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the article, the authors conducted a literature review of articles from the US National Library of Medicine database to review the relationship between perinatal infections, which are infections around the time of birth, and the occurrence of stillbirth. Stillbirth is the death of a fetus in the uterus after at least twenty weeks of pregnancy. Infectious disease can cause or increase the risk of stillbirth in several ways, by causing illness in the pregnant person, damaging the placenta, or directly infecting the fetus. Infectious agents can be viruses, bacteria, or protozoa. Rates of infectious disease and stillbirth are both higher in developing than in developed countries, and the authors state that stillbirth due to infectious disease is also higher. “The Infectious Origins of Stillbirth” provides a comprehensive review of the information available on how infections can lead to stillbirth, providing a foundation for further research.

In 2017, Julie Carré, Nicolas Gatimel, Jessika Moreau, Jean Parinaud, and Roger Léandri published “Does Air Pollution Play a Role in Infertility?: a Systematic Review,” hereafter “Does Air Pollution Play a Role,” in the journal Environmental Health. The authors completed a systematic literature review to investigate the effects of air pollutants on fertility in exposed populations. Since air quality has an impact on overall health as well as on reproductive function, the authors sought to increase the awareness of the importance of environmental protection issues among the general public and the authorities. The article “Does Air Pollution Play a Role” provided the foundation for further research on how air pollution can contribute to low reproductive capacity in areas with high exposure.

The North Carolina state legislature passed The Woman’s Right to Know Act in 2011, which places several restrictions on abortion care in the state. The Woman’s Right to Know Act, or the Act, imposes informed consent requirements that physicians must fulfill before performing an abortion as well as a twenty-four hour waiting period between counseling and the procedure for people seeking abortion, with exceptions for cases of medical emergency. Then-governor of North Carolina Beverly Perdue initially vetoed House Bill 854, which contained the Act, but the state legislature overrode her veto to pass the bill. In response to a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, and other organizations filed in 2011, a US district court judge blocked the law’s ultrasound mandate from going into effect and a later court case determined that the mandate was illegal. With the passage of the Act in North Carolina, the state passed several abortion regulations and mandated that abortion providers must inform women of specific details about their pregnancy before performing the abortion procedure.

In 1996, Michael R. Harrison published “Fetal Surgery” in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the article, Harrison describes the importance of fetal surgery and the techniques used to correct defects in fetuses. As a fetus develops in the uterus, it can develop abnormalities that may become debilitating or fatal. Harrison discusses cases that show how physicians can use fetal surgery to repair such abnormalities, including obstructions in the heart or urinary tract, or organs or muscles whose malformations impair function. Harrison states where knowledge is lacking within the field or where surgery would be inappropriate, such as in the modification of a cleft lip, which can be fixed after birth and as such does not merit the risks of surgery. In the article, Harrison provides a summary of what information existed about fetal surgeries in 1996, which helped physicians explore fetal surgery and make further advancements.

Scientist Franz Max Albert Kramer worked as a psychiatrist in Poland and the Netherlands in the early twentieth century and is known for his contributions to research on psychological conditions that experts call hyperkinetic syndromes. Children with hyperkinetic syndromes display inattention, overactivity, and impulsivity. Along with scientist Hans Pollnow, Kramer defined a specific kind of hyperkinetic syndrome based on an initial case study of seventeen children, initially known as Kramer-Pollnow Syndrome. In 1980, the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-III, renamed Kramer-Pollnow syndrome to be attention deficit disorder, or ADD. A later revision, in 1987, renamed it attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Kramer advanced child psychiatry research by laying the groundwork for further research on and understanding of what experts call, as of 2021, ADHD.

In 2006, bioethicist Jason Scott Robert published “The Science and Ethics of Making Part-Human Animals in Stem Cell Biology” in The FASEB Journal. There, he reviews the scientific and ethical justifications and restrictions on creating part-human animals. Robert describes part-human animals, otherwise known as chimeras, as those resulting from the intentional combination of human and nonhuman cells, tissues, or organs at any stage of development. He specifically criticizes restrictions against creating part-human animals made by the National Academy of Sciences, or NAS, in 2005, arguing that while they ensure that such research is morally justifiable, they might limit scientists from conducting useful science using part-human animals or entities. Robert challenges the moral rationales behind prohibiting chimera research, arguing that they may impede scientists from conducting research that could have important benefits to biology and medicine, and suggests how to balance the conflicting moral and scientific needs of such science.

In April 1994, Elizabeth Raymond, Sven Cnattingius, and John Kiely published “Effects of Maternal Age, Parity, and Smoking on the Risk of Stillbirth” in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, now known as BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The article examines how advanced maternal age, defined as delivery at thirty-five years old or older, cigarette smoking, and nulliparity, or the state of never having given birth, can negatively impact pregnancy. At the time of publication, according to Raymond and colleagues, stillbirths comprised over half of all perinatal, or close to birth, deaths and more than one-third of total fetal and infant deaths in Europe and North America. In the article, Raymond and her coauthors demonstrate how certain risk factors may increase the risk of stillbirth at different stages of pregnancy, which helped set a foundation for future research in interventions to prevent stillbirth.

In 2007, Françoise Baylis and Jason Scott Robert published “Part-Human Chimeras: Worrying the Facts, Probing the Ethics” in The American Journal of Bioethics. Within their article, hereafter “Part-Human Chimeras,” the authors offer corrections on “Thinking About the Human Neuron Mouse,” a report published in The American Journal of Bioethics in 2007 by Henry Greely, Mildred K. Cho, Linda F. Hogle, and Debra M. Satz, which discussed the debate on the ethics of creating part-human chimeras. Chimeras are organisms that contain two or more genetically distinct cell lines. Both publications discuss chimeras with DNA from different species, specifically in response to studies in which scientists injected human brain cells into mice. “Part-Human Chimeras,” contributes to a chain of ethical and scientific discussion that occurred in the mid-2000s on whether people should be able to conduct research on chimeras, especially in embryos.