BETWEEN IRRESPONSIBILITY AND EUGENICS HE’S THE FACE OF ABORTION:

Trump Becomes a Pro-Choice Champion… for Florida’s Abortion Rights Movement (Marc A. Caputo, Oct 11, 2024, The Bulwark)


MOVE OVER, MARGARET SANGER. The new face of abortion rights in Florida is . . . Donald Trump?

One of the groups backing Florida’s abortion-rights initiative is trying to attract Trump voters with mailers and a soon-to-be-released digital ad that highlights the former president’s opposition to the state’s existing six-week abortion ban.

NO ONE MISSES ROE:

The Puzzle of Roe v. Wade (Mary Zeigler, June 14, 2024, Yale University Press)

This interest in Roe is even more puzzling given the scholarly criticism the decision has received. Almost from the start, commentators across the ideological spectrum have questioned the opinion’s reasoning, which did not draw on constitutional text, history, or other conventional sources of interpretation. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would become the Supreme Court’s most vocal defender of abortion rights, often argued that Roe went too far too fast and undermined the prochoice movement’s earlier progress. Feminists like Catharine MacKinnon described it as paternalistic and unconvincing. Originalists, starting with Robert Bork, have found it little short of horrifying. It is surprising that we care so much about a decision that is criticized by so many.

The interest is a function of the fact that it was an exercise in power politics, not jurisprudence.

THE LESSON FROM aRRIVAL:

Human Dignity and the Politics of Dune : Dune: Part Two contains conservative truths about human nature the fate of political faiths. (Kody W. Cooper, 3/22/24, Law & Liberty)

As the story progresses so does Jessica’s pregnancy, and the audience sees Paul’s fully human sister develop with striking visuals inside the womb, portraying Alia from her embryonic to later stages. At one point on the threat of death, Lady Jessica is forced to ingest a poisonous substance that the Fremen call the “Water of Life,” which sends her into life-threatening convulsions. But the Fremen did not know she was pregnant. When they realize they unwittingly endangered the baby girl, they lament: What have we done!?

Rarely has the silver screen featured such a powerful, if subtle, moral condemnation of chemically-induced abortion. Dune sends a clear message that human life has dignity from the moment of conception.