Social Issues

The abortion coverage gap

I know this is not a news story, but this column by former Washington Post journalist Patricia E. Bauer is deeply moving and will hopefully — I say hopefully — encourage America’s mainstream media to explore the damage legal abortions have done to our society. The column by Bauer deals with how abortion has started to weed out children with disabilities. Reading it this morning nearly moved me to tears, and in conversations with friends of mine in the medical profession and parents (I am neither) I have learned even more that makes me think this is a huge story that has gone completely uncovered.


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Covering those dummies on the right

As I said a week ago, I really think the MSM are stuggling to cover the HHGR division within the camps of cultural, religious and political conservatism. What does it mean when journalists find themselves cheering for Bush, in opposition to Rush Limbaugh? What does it mean when you are an elite blue-zone scribe and you are tempted to line up on the same team as Dr. James Dobson?


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Old ghost in the Iraqi vote

I don’t know about you, but every now and then I get two emails and, because I read them back to back, they become connected. This happened today, when I reached Jackson, Tenn., to visit Union University. I thinned out the deluge of email from the previous day or so and then started reading.


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Katha Pollitt to the rescue

Katha Pollitt shows an occasional capacity for self-mocking humor — I remember her offer, several years ago, to rename her Subject to Debate column to Subject to Everett if two philanthropists by that name would send some jack over to The Nation. (Ideological bonus: Mother Jones reported in 1996 that Edith Everett is “staunchly anti-school prayer.” Blessed be!)


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Return of the HHGR weblog at CT

Go ahead. I dare you. Click here and see how deep the HHGR rabbit hole goes. I just love the “Miers goes to church” section. Then click here and you’ll discover that the hole goes even deeper. Just consider this a footnote for Doug’s post. (By the way, feel free to correct me on the Matrix quote.)


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Just a coupla white guys sitting around talking (about anything but abortion)

Few reporters have picked up on James Dobson’s broadcast today regarding his chat with Karl Rove about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. What with Senators saying they may summons Dobson to address the Judiciary Committee, and Dobson explaining himself today, the Miers nomination story has taken one more step into the Truth Is Stranger Than Parody category.


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Gay priest purge? Next trial balloon

Like I said, we are still in the trial balloons stage on the whole issue of the rumored Vatican statement that was supposed to “purge” the priesthood of gay men. This is why I believe that it is much more important, at this point, to talk about the sure thing, which is “Instrumentum Laboris” [PDF] and the wave of examiners who will be visiting Catholic seminaries across the United States in the near future looking for doctrinal train wrecks.


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