There is a chasm that separates right-leaning voters (a group that is larger than the conservative “base”) and the Republican Party's establishment. A grotesque figure who had supported single-payer health care and a recent supporter of Planned Parenthood is leading the polls for the Republican nomination. A famed surgeon who has no experience of elective office is running second, while the Republican senator most hated by the Republican senatorial conference is running third. These polls are a terrible predictor of the next Republican presidential nominee, but they still tell us something important. Continue Reading »
Nearly thirty years ago, I published a book, Abortion and the Private Practice of Medicine, in which I sought to understand what then was already emerging as the settled pattern of access to abortion services around the country. By the 1980s, the present pattern in which abortions are performed in specialized clinics rather than in hospitals or doctors’ offices had been established. Several writers in that decade, the sociologist Kristin Luker and the anthropologist Faye Ginsburg among them, described the politics of abortion clearly dependent on how physicians were delivering those services. Continue Reading »
Killing has dominated the news for the last few weeks. An angry debate has raged juxtaposing the harvesting of fetal body parts by Planned Parenthood abortionists with the trophy hunting of “Cecil” the Zimbabwean lion. Both stories provide fascinating insights into our society’s moral state. Continue Reading »
The Planned Parenthood videos are a far more important story than the Donald Trump nonsense. Whether by Columbus Day, or Thanksgiving, or Valentine's Day, the Trump campaign will be over due to declining poll ratings or defeat in delegate selection contests. The Planned Parenthood videos and, just as important, the reaction of liberal elites to the Planned Parenthood videos demonstrate the enormous obstacles and the equally enormous opportunities that conservatives face in reaching a large fraction of the American public. How we overcome those obstacles—or fail to—will determine the course of American politics and society. Continue Reading »
It’s amazing the difference a name makes. On one day this past week, nearly a hundred endangered elephants were killed and around 3,000 abortions were performed in the United States alone, and we were unfazed, but the killing of Cecil the lion broke our hearts. He wasn’t just any random lion. He was Cecil. Mere lions (along with chickens, cows, lambs, and pigs) are killed, but Cecil was murdered. We love the lion that was named Cecil. We feel as if we knew him. Continue Reading »
An old slogan has made a comeback. While speaking about the newly-released Planned Parenthood videos, a presidential candidate has walked back from a recent defense of their practices to say something you don’t hear much anymore from the pro-choice crowd: “I have said for more than 22 years that . . . . Continue Reading »
Recent revelations that Planned Parenthood is trafficking in human organs—obtained from unborn children killed in the organization’s abortion clinics—have prompted a righteous outrage from many commentators. Anyone with a shred of decency is appalled at the barbarity for which Planned . . . . Continue Reading »
We live in an increasingly secular society. One consequence of this cultural shift is the rejection of the once uncontroversial belief that humans reside uniquely at the pinnacle of moral worth.Activist academics, purveyors of popular culture, and issue ideologues across a wide swath of movements—from bioethics, to animal rights, to environmentalism—seek to knock us off the pedestal. Public intellectuals like Princeton University’s Peter Singer even argue that being human is morally irrelevant; what matters is possessing sufficient cognitive capacities to qualify as a “person.” Continue Reading »
Imagine you are part of that growing majority of Americans who do not watch Fox News, do not listen to conservative talk radio, and do not frequent conservative websites. You have heard about the Confederate flag controversy. You have heard all about Donald Trump's various idiocies. What have you heard about the horrors emanating from Planned Parenthood? There is a chance you have heard nothing. Perhaps you read a story that was a barely comprehensible jumble of competing allegations. Perhaps you heard about how some extremists are viciously attacking a respected provider of women's health services. If we can't reach such people, we cannot win lasting victories. Continue Reading »
