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- A confounding abortion case in Texas
- Gaza war collateral damage includes a childhood home and campus peace
Whose life matters?
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRightAre antiabortion laws really about maximizing life? That’s the argument, but, Ruth Marcus writes, a case now in the news suggests otherwise. And a number of Opinions columnists are expressing concerns about a legal environment where their own health and survival would be stack-ranked below those of a fetus that is, tragically, unlikely to make it.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who recently survived an impeachment by his own party for corruption and bribery, has raced to the state Supreme Court to get it to block an abortion for Kate Cox, a young mother of two who is now pregnant with a fetus she has learned will almost certainly not survive. Like too many women navigating the not-for-the-faint-of-heart business of family planning, Cox has learned that she can carry this pregnancy to term only at risk to her own health and fertility, and without almost any chance of a surviving baby.
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Go off, Ruth: “We can disagree, fiercely, about whether women should be able to decide for themselves whether to continue unwanted pregnancies,” she writes. “But can we not agree that women with fetuses that are not viable, or women who are destined to lose the babies they so desperately want, should not be forced to risk their lives and health in service of … what? A disputed theological conviction about when life begins that elevates that theoretical life over the actual life of a woman suffering from sepsis?”
Jen Rubin, agreeing with Ruth, takes a look at the political implications of the GOP embracing such a black-and-white approach: “Seeing the political wreckage in the wake of Dobbs, they are unable to step away from a policy that is wildly out of step with a large majority of Americans.”
And Alexandra Petri provides a blackly satirical approach to the (imagined) perspective of a Ken whose job is, unfortunately, not beach but making the Barbies’ medical decisions for them: “What I don’t know about women’s health could fill a book! A book that I would refuse to read, on principle.”
A home in rubble, a campus in uproar
As the Israel-Gaza conflict rages on, the losses are piling up. Novelist Atef Abu Saif reflects on his humble but beloved family home in the Jabalya refugee camp — a home that Israeli missiles recently reduced to rubble: “The house a writer grows up in is a well from which to draw material. In each of my novels, whenever I wanted to depict a typical house in the camp, I conjured ours,” he writes.
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Americans are fortunate to be following the war from afar, but we still find ourselves trying to figure out how to handle our conflicted allegiances. What does it mean to signal our solidarity with the civilians facing (and succumbing to) horrors on both sides? How can we be true to ourselves while also getting along?
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As campuses melt down over antisemitism on one hand and callousness toward Palestinian civilians on the other, contributing columnist and Harvard political philosopher Danielle Allen offers a somewhat encouraging model that suggests how to balance mutual respect with free speech. It’s what she calls “confident pluralism.”
Chaser: Sally Quinn explains why she has adopted the Jewish tradition of affixing a mezuzah to her doorpost, even though this legendary doyenne of Georgetown is about as goyish as they come — or so she thought until her son dug into the genealogy.
Smartest, fastest
- Lee Hockstader takes a look at how migration is fueling the right-wing political surge in Europe.
- The Editorial Board points out that for all the money the government spends covering AP exam fees for low-income students, what’s really needed is better preparation.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
In wartime, children
All wish for an amulet
At the gate of home
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/complaints. Drew will see you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
Are antiabortion laws really about maximizing life? That’s the argument, but, Ruth Marcus writes, a case now in the news suggests otherwise. And a number of Opinions columnists are expressing concerns about a legal environment where their own health and survival would be stack-ranked below those of a fetus that is, tragically, unlikely to make it.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who recently survived an impeachment by his own party for corruption and bribery, has raced to the state Supreme Court to get it to block an abortion for Kate Cox, a young mother of two who is now pregnant with a fetus she has learned will almost certainly not survive. Like too many women navigating the not-for-the-faint-of-heart business of family planning, Cox has learned that she can carry this pregnancy to term only at risk to her own health and fertility, and without almost any chance of a surviving baby.
Go off, Ruth: “We can disagree, fiercely, about whether women should be able to decide for themselves whether to continue unwanted pregnancies,” she writes. “But can we not agree that women with fetuses that are not viable, or women who are destined to lose the babies they so desperately want, should not be forced to risk their lives and health in service of … what? A disputed theological conviction about when life begins that elevates that theoretical life over the actual life of a woman suffering from sepsis?”
Jen Rubin, agreeing with Ruth, takes a look at the political implications of the GOP embracing such a black-and-white approach: “Seeing the political wreckage in the wake of Dobbs, they are unable to step away from a policy that is wildly out of step with a large majority of Americans.”
And Alexandra Petri provides a blackly satirical approach to the (imagined) perspective of a Ken whose job is, unfortunately, not beach but making the Barbies’ medical decisions for them: “What I don’t know about women’s health could fill a book! A book that I would refuse to read, on principle.”
As the Israel-Gaza conflict rages on, the losses are piling up. Novelist Atef Abu Saif reflects on his humble but beloved family home in the Jabalya refugee camp — a home that Israeli missiles recently reduced to rubble: “The house a writer grows up in is a well from which to draw material. In each of my novels, whenever I wanted to depict a typical house in the camp, I conjured ours,” he writes.
Americans are fortunate to be following the war from afar, but we still find ourselves trying to figure out how to handle our conflicted allegiances. What does it mean to signal our solidarity with the civilians facing (and succumbing to) horrors on both sides? How can we be true to ourselves while also getting along?
As campuses melt down over antisemitism on one hand and callousness toward Palestinian civilians on the other, contributing columnist and Harvard political philosopher Danielle Allen offers a somewhat encouraging model that suggests how to balance mutual respect with free speech. It’s what she calls “confident pluralism.”
Chaser: Sally Quinn explains why she has adopted the Jewish tradition of affixing a mezuzah to her doorpost, even though this legendary doyenne of Georgetown is about as goyish as they come — or so she thought until her son dug into the genealogy.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
In wartime, children
All wish for an amulet
At the gate of home
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/complaints. Drew will see you tomorrow!
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