Life After Roe

JULIANNA S. GONEN, PHD, JD, is the policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), where she works to advance legislative and regulatory policy at the federal level that ensures the well-being of LGBTQ people.

Margaret Atwood famously refuses to include anything that hasn’t happened in our world in her works of fiction. Her stories challenge the standard labels of “science fiction,” “fantasy” and “dystopian novel.” The Handmaid’s Tale (THT) and The Testaments contain common literary themes—family, hypocrisy and forgiveness—but also leave us with racing hearts and twisted stomachs as we hold a mirror up to our own nation and our own lives.

These days of more time spent at home as a result of the COVID-19 public health crisis and virulent public debates about personal liberties may provide the perfect time and backdrop to watch Hulu’s buzzworthy The Handmaid’s Tale. While season one of Bruce Miller’s reimagining of Margaret Atwood’s eerily prescient 1985 book of the same name follows the novel’s familiar storyline most closely, there are plot changes and twists that make the series compelling for 21st-century viewers.

As a lifelong student of and advocate of sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice, I anticipated AKA Jane Roe (FX-produced movie, premiered May 22 on FX and May 23 on Hulu) would elucidate the complexity that was Norma McCorvey's life and activism. My admiration for McCorvey’s courage in sharing her story and appreciation for the reality of her life brought a hope that filmmaker Nick Sweeney would give an overdue portrayal of this mercurial figure not just as a trophy to be won or as a symbol to be used.

Roe v. Wade is arguably the most well-known US Supreme Court decision in modern America. Ask anyone on an American street if they’ve heard of it, and almost all will say, “Yes.” Only slightly fewer will correctly identify it as having to do with abortion, and fewer still, though still a fairly high number, will say it stands for a woman’s right to choose an abortion. But which is it?

Glenn Northern's probing reflections on “Why Faith Matters” is a great example of a religious perspective so often overlooked. When it comes to the media and public conversation, the bulk of the attention goes to religious groups that not only think they have all the answers, but also want to impose those answers into the private lives of others. It is refreshing and uplifting to turn to Mr. Northern’s writing as an example of what the conscience of a religious individual looks and sounds like, and why it should be respected.

I was moved by the testimonials of the faithful abortion providers. It is obvious that each of these individuals has done much soul searching. Abortion is not an easy decision. Every woman must decide what she is able to do in good conscience. This is indeed one of the most important decisions she will ever make.

James Carroll makes a valid point in championing the imminent collapse of the male supremacist clerical establishment of the Catholic church and its replacement with a more inclusive and democratic model.

I had the pleasure of hearing Marie Collins speak twice on her fall 2019 tour and spent a delightful afternoon with her in Chicago.

If the institutional Catholic church is going to make real strides towards ending cases of clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups in the future, it will be because of advocates like Marie Collins.

I was moved by the testimonials of the faithful abortion providers. It is obvious that each of these individuals has done much soul searching. Abortion is not an easy decision. Every woman must decide what she is able to do in good conscience. This is indeed one of the most important decisions she will ever make.

Senior Catholic leaders in the United States and Canada, as well as anti- abortion groups, are raising ethical objections against promising COVID-19 vaccines manufactured using fetal cells derived from voluntary donations of post-abortion material.

IN A SERIES OF PRIVATE memoranda this spring, US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh urged his colleagues to consider avoiding decisions in major disputes over abortion and subpoenas for President Donald Trump’s financial records, CNN reported exclusively.

THE US ROMAN CATHOLIC Church used a special and unprecedented exemption from federal rules to amass at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Millions of dollars went to about 40 dioceses that have paid hundreds of millions in settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups.

ONCE A RELIABLE DEMOCRATIC constituency, Catholic voters are seen as a key swing bloc by many political observers. The campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are making efforts to attract and energize their kind of Catholic voters: those motivated primarily by abortion, and those who see in the last four years a turning away from caring for society’s most vulnerable and marginalized.

Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Roman Catholic cleric to ever face trial over child sexual abuse, walked out of prison a free man after Australia’s highest court reversed his 2018 conviction for molesting two boys decades earlier.

As debates intensify in the public policy arena over the broader issues of religious liberty and reproductivefreedom, nowhere do the issues more personally collide than in Catholic healthcare facilities.

RIGHT TO LIFE OF MICHIGAN dropped a petition drive to prohibit a second-trimester procedure after state election officials said the campaign didn’t produce enough valid signatures.

ABORTION RIGHTS HISTORY turned another page as the US Supreme Court neared the end of its recent term. The Court announced several important decisions, including June Medical v Russo, in which it upheld its own 2016 landmark decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

As debates intensify in the public policy arena over the broader issues of religious liberty and reproductivefreedom, nowhere do the issues more personally collide than in Catholic healthcare facilities.

Stephanie Toti is an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights within her own community, in society and the judicial system. She is a member of the board of directors of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and is senior counsel and project director for the Lawyering Project, an organization she founded in 2017 aimed at improving access to reproductive healthcare in the US through litigation that advances an intersectional framework.

AMERICANS WILL MARK THE 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with celebration dinners, candlelight vigils and major protests. Despite the deep cultural divide Roe exposes, these events will have one thing in common: They will be almost exclusively about abortion. That’s because Americans have learned to see Roe only through a narrow lens, missing that the decision, and the right to privacy it conveyed, once stood for something much more expansive.

SUCCUMBING TO MOUNTING legal pressure, Northern Ireland’s Department of Health authorized abortion services in the region, putting into force legislation that overturns one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws.

AS POLAND’S PARLIAMENT pursued a controversial proposal to tighten what are already among the strictest abortion laws in Europe, dozens of women in cars and on bicycles protested in central Warsaw, honking horns and displaying posters against the law. Although public gatherings are banned, videos show people in the streets of Warsaw and Poznan following recom- mended social distancing and holding placards.