Roe's Midlife Crisis

Today, January 22, 2008, marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade. If you're reading my blog, you almost certainly know that's the U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion based on the right to privacy in matters as personal as childbearing.

We've kept Roe alive despite a constant tack backward by courts, state laws, and a federal abortion ban that's been upheld by the Supremes. Meanwhile, in pop culture--movies like Juno and Knocked Up for example--abortion has become increasingly cast, if at all, as some clandestine act that nice people would never engage in.

If this trend continues, then life will imitate art and abortion will become clandestine again. So it's time to radically rethink our whole approach. We have to stake out a human rights framework for reproductive justice and go for it from the ground up. I don't care if we thought the battles were fought and won--they were, but that's democracy, folks. We have to do it again, in terms that resonate with the world we live in today. You get past a midlife crisis by doing something different.

Here are a few pieces I wrote:
For Huffington Post,"I Am Roe and I Have Questions for the Candidates".
For Women's eNews: "Roe Anniversary Brings Decisive Moment to Choose"
For Salon: "Roe 35 Years Later"

Read on!

Hillary: Get over it so you can get on with winning

I was going to call this "The Importance of Being Hillary", but the Iowa caucus results seemed to call for something else. So I did a third "Memo re Hillary", this time to Hillary herself telling her to "Loosen up, Girl" if she wants to win the next round of primaries. But do read the rest of it here and let me know what you think. Better yet, put a comment at the end of my commentary on HuffPo.

Deborah Siegel, posted an interesting analysis of women and men voters in the Iowa Caucuses on her Girl with Pen blog. I want to share it with you here too because dollars to donuts you'll never see this information in the New York Times. It's dated January 4 and the author is sociologist Virginia Rutter; the post title is "Who Votes Their Gender".

Out of the Candidate Closet

Salon's "Let the Voting Begin" has some interesting endorsements. I hadn't been coy or undecided previously, but rather had refrained from lining up with a candidate because I thought that was better for my opinion writing. Seems no one cares and it felt like time to me personally. So there you are.