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Abortion Politics 2008

For reasons quite plausible, even to people on the pro-life side, Rudolph Giuliani persists in standing well ahead of the pack of the Republican candidates for president. He has sounded the traditional Republican themes: preserving the Bush tax cuts, seeking free-market solutions to problems such as . . . . Continue Reading »

What Else to Expect When You’re Expecting

Last Christmas our parish hall displayed a Nativity painting by a local artist, showing a dark-haired woman in a wheelchair holding an infant, with a man in hospital scrubs standing solicitously behind them. The scene was instantly recognizable to anyone who has had a baby in this country in the . . . . Continue Reading »

Attacking the Tabernacle

For more than two decades, Psalm 139:13 has served as a slogan for the anti-abortion movement, adorning banners and picket signs from Boston to the Bay and everywhere in between. And the text is entirely appropriate to the sermon. One can hardly imagine a clearer affirmation of God’s care for the . . . . Continue Reading »

Winning Hearts and Minds

Speaking of Abortion: Television and Authority in the Lives of Women.By Andrea L Press and Elizabeth R. Cole.University of Chicago Press. 223 pp. $25. It was flattering to be asked to write a book review for First Things. Then I opened the assigned book. Immediately I suspected that this was instead . . . . Continue Reading »

The Future of the End of Democracy

If you want to know why the United States is in a constitutional crisis, a good place to begin thinking about it is the series of outrages perpetrated by the 1992 Supreme Court decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld the outcome, though not the reasoning, of the infamous abortion . . . . Continue Reading »

The Pro-Life Movement Then and Now

Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars. By Cynthia Gorney. Simon & Shuster. 575 pages, $27.50. Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War. By James Risen and Judy Thomas. Basic Books. 402 pages, $25.Cynthia Gorney’s prodigiously researched Articles of Faith: A Frontline . . . . Continue Reading »

Abortion: A Failure to Communicate

For twenty-five years the pro-life movement has stood up to defend perhaps the most crucial principle in any civilized society, namely, the sanctity and value of every human life. However, neither the profundity and scale of the cause, nor the integrity of those who work to support it, necessarily . . . . Continue Reading »

Infanticide for Beginners

It was the issue of abortion that taught me to be suspicious of the word “reform.” It was the early 1960s and all right-minded people were in favor of “abortion reform.” I assumed I should be too until it gradually dawned on me, slow learner that I was, that people speaking of abortion . . . . Continue Reading »

Roe: Twenty-Five Years Later

Twenty-five years ago, on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States, in what numerous constitutional scholars have called an act of raw judicial power, abolished the abortion laws of all fifty states. The news went out that the Court had settled the controversy over abortion. A . . . . Continue Reading »

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