Opinion | Marrying an Identical Twin Helped Me Change My Relationship Mind-Set – The New York Times

By Michal Leibowitz

Ms. Leibowitz is an editorial assistant in Opinion.

Leer en español

“When I was growing up, my family never had much patience for “we liked it” people, those couples who use the royal “we” as though their relationship were its own fief. For instance, the husband who, when asked, “What did you think of the show?” responds, “Oh, we liked it.” The rule was that when one of these couples came to dinner, we had to contain ourselves until they were on the front walk — then my siblings and I would start in.

What goes around comes around, and in recent years that kind of teasing has often been directed at me. Or I guess, us, me and my husband, David, who in the course of our half-decade relationship have found ourselves, on occasion, speaking like the king and queen of Genovia.”

The Father of the Abortion Pill – Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu – The New York Times

By Pam Belluck

Pam Belluck, who has been writing about reproductive health for over a decade, reported this article from Paris.

• • Jan. 17, 2023

12 MIN READ

“When the idea struck him, nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Étienne-Émile Baulieu believed it could be revolutionary. Creating a pill that could abort a pregnancy would transform reproductive health care, he thought, allowing women to avoid surgery, act earlier and carry out their decisions in private.

“When science meets women’s cause, it is irresistible,” Dr. Baulieu, 96, a French endocrinologist and biochemist often called the father of the abortion pill, said on a recent Sunday afternoon in his apartment in a century-old building a short walk from the Eiffel Tower.

He had also hoped, as he wrote in a 1990 book, that by the 21st century, “paradoxically, the ‘abortion pill’ might even help eliminate abortion as an issue.”

That prospect seems as distant as ever, especially in the United States. Not only has abortion remained fiercely contentious since the pill Dr. Baulieu spearheaded, mifepristone, was approved in America in 2000, but last year’s Supreme Court decision ending the federal right to abortion has divided the country over the issue as never before.

Yet over time, some of Dr. Baulieu’s other expectations have materialized. Today, medication abortion, in which mifepristone and a second drug are taken early in pregnancy, is used in over half of pregnancy terminations in the United States. That proportion is expected to increase, even in states that have banned abortion, where growing use has put the pills at the center of legal and political battles.

For Dr. Baulieu, who continues work in his lab on the southern rim of Paris, his office overlooking a former asylum where the Marquis de Sade was held, the volatile developments are just the latest turns in an eventful life. He transported guns as a teenager in the French Resistance during World War II, changing his name and taking refuge high in the Alps. He joined the Communist Party and then quit it in 1956 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. And he socialized with the artists Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns in the 1960s, beginning a pattern of friendships with painters, sculptors, musicians and actors that he said had helped inspire his scientific work.”

Country Radio Still Won’t Play Loretta Lynn’s ‘The Pill’ | Time

BY ANDREW R. CHOW 

OCTOBER 4, 2022 5:28 PM EDT

In 1975, Loretta Lynn was one of the biggest stars in country music when she released a song that was quickly banned by many country radio stations. The song, “The Pill,” was an ode to birth control and sexual freedom that shocked the industry and many of the genre’s more conservative listeners with lyrics like:

“This old maternity dress I’ve got is going in the garbage

The clothes I’m wearing from now on won’t take up so much yardage

It was this kind of sharp-witted and fearless storytelling that made Lynn, who died on Tuesday at the age of 90, a titan of country music and an inspiration to future generations of songwriters, especially female country stars. Despite the controversy surrounding its release, “The Pill,” would become Lynn’s highest-charting pop single, peaking at #70 on the Hot 100.

But as conservative social norms have ossified around the country music establishment, “The Pill” is still forsaken nearly fifty years since it was released. According to Luminate (formerly Nielsen Music), the song was played just once by a country radio station in the U.S. in 2022, even though it’s a classic of the genre. The song—and Lynn’s career as a provocative lyricist—serve as a reminder that the conservative values touted by the country music establishment don’t always match those of their artists or listeners.

1970s Culture Divide . . . . .”

Source: Country Radio Still Won’t Play Loretta Lynn’s ‘The Pill’ | Time

Sarah Smarsh | On Abortion, Kansas Voters Held the Line – The New York Times

TOPEKA, Kan. — Lines of Kansas voters, resolute in the August sun and 100-degree heat, stretched beyond the doors of polling sites and wrapped around buildings on Tuesday to cast ballots in a primary election. A few suffered heat exhaustion. Firefighters passed out bottles of water.

When polls closed at 7 p.m. Central time, many were still in line and legally entitled to get their turn. The Wichita Eagle reported that one Wichita woman cast the final vote at her polling site at 9:45 p.m. after waiting in line for nearly three hours. Poll workers, understaffed amid the likely record turnout, worked brutally long hours for democracy.

This inspired showing responded to a clear threat against reproductive rights. In the first state vote on abortion following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, Kansans unequivocally batted down the state legislature’s proposed amendment to remove the right to an abortion from the state Constitution.

Michele Goodwin | No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution – The New York Times

By Michele Goodwin

Ms. Goodwin is a chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.”

“Black women’s sexual subordination and forced pregnancies were foundational to slavery. If cotton was euphemistically king, Black women’s wealth-maximizing forced reproduction was queen.

Ending the forced sexual and reproductive servitude of Black girls and women was a critical part of the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed all people equal protection under the law. It means the erasure of Black women from the Constitution.

Mandated, forced or compulsory pregnancy contravene enumerated rights in the Constitution, namely the 13th Amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude and protection of bodily autonomy, as well as the 14th Amendment’s defense of privacy and freedom.”

Aaron Tang | Maine’s End Run Around the Supreme Court Is an Example for Other States – The New York Times

By Aaron Tang

Mr. Tang is a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and a former law clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“What a week so far for conservatives. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down a Maine law that prohibited religious private schools from receiving taxpayer dollars. And on Thursday, it invalidated a New York State gun safety law limiting the public carry of firearms. The outcome in these cases was not surprising. The court has ruled in favor of religious litigants in an overwhelming number of cases, and the gun case’s outcome was clear from the oral argument before the justices in November.

What is surprising is how little the 6-to-3 decision in the Maine case, Carson v. Makin, will matter practically. And the reason offers a glimpse of hope for those who worry about a future dominated by the court’s conservative supermajority — including the many Americans troubled by the court’s decision in the gun case, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Let’s start with the Carson case. Anticipating this week’s decision, Maine lawmakers enacted a crucial amendment to the state’s anti-discrimination law last year in order to counteract the expected ruling. The revised law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it applies to every private school that chooses to accept public funds, without regard to religious affiliation.”

Paul Krugman | Crime and Political Punishment – The New York Times

By Paul Krugman     Opinion Columnist

“Results from Tuesday’s primaries in California suggest that crime may be a big issue in the midterm elections. In San Francisco, a progressive prosecutor was ousted in a recall vote. In Los Angeles, a businessman and former Republican who has run for mayor on the promise to be a big crime fighter made a strong showing.

It’s not hard to see why crime has moved up on the political agenda. Murders surged nationwide in 2020 and ticked up further in 2021, although we don’t really know why. Right-wingers blame Black Lives Matter, because of course they do. A more likely explanation is the stress caused by the pandemic — stress that, among other things, led to a large increase in domestic violence.

Despite the recent surge, the overall homicide rate is still well below its peak in 1991, and the geography of the political backlash doesn’t seem closely correlated with actual crime rates: San Francisco and Los Angeles both have less violent crime than, say, Houston. But rising crime is real, and voter concern is understandable.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | NYT comment:

It is hard to be consistently excellent. Krugman writes about the precipitous drop in crime, “But my reading is that there’s no consensus on why that decline — which took place all across the nation, in red states and blue — took place.” It appears that my favorite economist has not read “Freakonomics,” by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Levitt dedicates a chapter to this issue, and claims that his studies show that abortion became legal in the 1973, and many states had dramatic down turns in crime 20 years later. Why, he asked, then stated, probably because there was a dramatic decrease in unwanted male babies many of whom would grow to be hardened criminals in about 20 years. He has lots of data, from a large number of states. Paul Krugman should at least address the leading explanation in the minds of lesser men.

David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth Century Vietnam” and blogs at InconvenientNews.Net

Opinion | Gretchen Whitmer: I’ll Fight Anti-Abortion Laws in Michigan if Roe Falls – The New York Times

By Gretchen Whitmer

Ms. Whitmer is the governor of Michigan.

“As I read the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, I was devastated. It was shocking to see, laid out in cold legalese, the blatant ideological reasoning gutting the constitutional right to abortion.

I understand the frustration that many are feeling. I feel it too. Roe has been the law of the land for 49 years, nearly my entire lifetime. But it may not be the law of the land for my daughters. Many of us feared this day would come, which is why last month, I filed a lawsuit and, drawing on authority granted to me as governor, asked the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether our state constitution includes the right to access abortion.”

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT 4m ago

I admire Governor Whitmer and love this essay, and I recommended the comments giving her praise, but I also want the resistance to slow down, and put on the mute, like on a violin. Let this outrage become the new law of the land. Then see how easy it will be to organize. David blogs at InconvenientNews.com

ReplyRecommended

Margaret Renkl | What American Mothers Really Need – The New York Times

By Margaret Renkl

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South.

“NASHVILLE — I’ve been watching anti-abortion bills sweep the red states this season, and it occurs to me that the week of Mother’s Day might be a good time for a red-state mother like me to weigh in. I fervently support a woman’s right to choose, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about how Republican legislators could achieve their real goal without also trying to undo settled legal precedent.

First, a reminder: Women ended unwanted pregnancies long before Roe v. Wade made abortion safe and legal in the United States, and women will continue to do so even if Roe is overturned. During the 1950s and ’60s, before reliable birth control became widely available, between 200,000 and 1.2 million women illegally ended unwanted pregnancies in the United States each year.

To make a real difference in the abortion rate, birth control needs to be affordable and easy to obtain. Instead, our legislators consistently fight to protect employers and insurance companies that want to opt out of paying for birth control in health care plans. Comprehensive sex-education courses significantly reduce adolescent pregnancies, but red-state legislatures favor abstinence-only sex ed, which has no effect on teenage pregnancy rates. Some of these legislators it seems, don’t understand the difference between birth control and abortion in the first place.”

Catalina Martínez Coral | The Key Argument on Abortion That Changed Everything in Colombia – The New York Times

By Catalina Martínez Coral

Ms. Martínez Coral is the senior regional director of the Center for Reproductive Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Colombia had a blanket ban on abortion until 2006, when the country’s constitutional court mandated that abortion be legally accessible when a woman’s health and life were at risk, a fetus had serious health problems or when a pregnancy resulted from rape. But some women faced barriers to accessing these legal abortion services, including onerous medical requirements to prove they qualify. Others who had abortions — or who helped a woman obtain one — could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Last September, a lawsuit asking the Constitutional Court of Colombia to decriminalize abortion was filed by the Causa Justa — or Just Cause — movement, a coalition of which the Center for Reproductive Rights is a part. We argued that abortion is essential health care that should not be regulated in the penal system. The court also asked Congress to create regulations to apply the ruling. In a transformative shift for the majority-Catholic country, we are now the third country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion in the last year, behind Mexico and Argentina.”