Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 349

much about Dobbs, Roe, and the implications thereof

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

I wish this issue was less rushed (and therefore better edited and more compact), but I’ve been dealing with a family emergency and have had less time to read and write than normal. 

This is volume 349, a prime number.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The big news this week is the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion portending a reversal of Roe v Wade.
    • It’s not often that I interject my own views into one of these weekly roundups, but given the contentiousness of this issue I think it is only fair you know where I am coming from. I am pro-life. In solidarity with the Christmas story (wherein God became incarnate in the womb) and with Christians throughout the ages, I believe abortion is a bad thing and the rare cases where it is medically necessary to save the life of the mother are tragic. I am grateful that the Supreme Court appears to be on the verge of righting a great injustice for which they are responsible in the first place. Furthermore, I do not view this as a partisan issue even though it is commonly perceived that way: there are pro-life Democrats as well as pro-life Republicans. In fact, there would be many more pro-life Democrats in office were it not for a concerted effort to marginalize them within the party.
    • If you have not read this classic article in the Atlantic I suggest you read it before anything else: The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate (Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic): “The truth is that the best argument on each side is a damn good one, and until you acknowledge that fact, you aren’t speaking or even thinking honestly about the issue. You certainly aren’t going to convince anybody. Only the truth has the power to move.”
    • If Roe Is Dead (Colin Hansen, Gospel Coalition): “If Roe is dead, more children will live.… this is the day so many of us have labored and prayed to see. We can rejoice that God has heard our pleas that he would rectify this injustice. And we can move forward in every way possible to protect as many children as we can: by banning abortion where possible, by bolstering crisis pregnancy centers, by building stronger foster care systems, and much more.”
    • Receiving Justice with Gratitude (Samuel D. James, Substack): “It has commonly been suggested that opposing Roe v Wade is morally illegitimate unless it is accompanied with a kind of maximalist support for a social safety net. In other words, it has been suggested that you’re not really pro-life if you oppose abortion but support capitalism; you’re not really pro-life if you hate Roe v. Wade but don’t vote for candidates who vow to redistribute wealth; you’re not really pro-life if all you want is to stop abortion rather than providing extensive care and support for baby and mother.… Receive justice with gratitude.” This gets to close to something I’ve been trying to articulate to myself, but it’s not quite what I want to say. But it’s close.
    • Statement on the leaked Alito draft opinion in Dobbs (Robert George, Mirror of Justice): “If, as the leaked draft opinion seems to suggest, the Supreme Court has decided to reverse Roe and return the question of abortion entirely to the legislative domain, then the pro-life movement faces a new set of challenges—challenges even more daunting than overturning Roe. In the face of profound opposition from the wealthiest, most powerful, and most influential forces and institutions in the country, the movement needs to extend the protections of law on terms of fairness and equality to mothers and children alike. Going still further, it needs to work in both the public and private spheres to provide necessary support for mothers and children, never allowing their interests or well-being to be pitted against each other. To its great credit, the pro-life movement has been doing this since before Roe v. Wade—again, in the face of hostility from the most powerful forces. We will need now to do more and better. We can and we will.” Robert George is a law professor at Princeton.
    • If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned, What’s Next? (Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker): “It may also be only a matter of time, if Mississippi prevails, before pro-life legal efforts turn toward getting the Supreme Court to recognize the constitutional rights of the fetus. These efforts would focus on the same part of the Constitution that was previously held to provide the right to abortion, the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from depriving ‘any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.’” The author is a Harvard Law prof.
    • About post-Roe politics and Biden’s evolving doctrines on choosing to ‘abort a child’ (Terry Mattingly, GetReligion): “Once upon a time, Sen. Joe Biden was almost a pro-life Catholic Democrat. This may be the reason — as journalists frequently note — that he seems uncomfortable saying ‘abortion’ in public remarks.”
    • An article by someone outraged: Of Course the Constitution Has Nothing to Say About Abortion (Jill Lepore, The New Yorker): “This will be, in large part, because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is surprised that there is so little written about abortion in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. As it happens, there is also nothing at all in that document, which sets out fundamental law, about pregnancy, uteruses, vaginas, fetuses, placentas, menstrual blood, breasts, or breast milk. There is nothing in that document about women at all.”
      • Overall a good article (although I think it demonstrates the opposite of what it intends to demonstrate). Also, although the rhetoric in the excerpt is powerful, it’s unfair — there’s also nothing in the Constitution about testes, sperm or penises. I find this is often the case in the abortion debate: powerful rhetoric that covers over weaknesses in the the substance of the argument.
    • Another not-thrilled perspective: God Damn America (Jack Mirkinson, Substack): “The final opinion could differ, but what we have in front of us is an extremist, illegitimate opinion from an extremist, illegitimate court, one that sees women as serfs and breeders, that sees queer people as subhuman, that sees minorities of every kind as dirt under its collective shoe. It is happily dragging us into the dark ages. Alito and everyone who joins him are evil people. No hell is too hot for them.”
    • A pretty extreme outraged perspective: As the US supreme court moves to end abortion, is America still a free country? (Moira Donegan, The Guardian): “Some have raised doubts about whether America can call itself a democracy, now that policymaking power has been largely taken over by the unelected courts – whose decisions, like this one, are so radically out of step with, and indifferent to, public opinion. But it is also worth wondering whether any country can call itself a democracy that does not protect abortion rights.”
      • It is odd to claim now as the point when courts have taken over electoral power when it was the Supreme Court itself that imposed abortion upon every state outside of their democratic processes. If this draft is illegitimate because it’s not a byproduct of an electoral process, then that’s one more reason that Roe v Wade was itself illegitimate. 
    • You can see other abortion-related content from previous weekly roundups at https://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/archives/tag/abortion
  2. Not related but related: Is Support for Single Motherhood and Cohabitation Falling in the U.S.? (Alysse ElHage, Institute for Family Studies): “…as more Americans have experienced cohabitation, either personally or through watching friends or family cohabit, more people are realizing that living together just does not compare to marriage in terms of relationship quality or stability. That could explain why Pew found a difference based on age. A Pew spokeswoman told me via email, ‘adults ages 30 to 49, 50 to 64, and ages 65+ were more likely than in 2018 to say [cohabitation] is a bad thing for society.’ However, there was no similar shift among 18 to 29-year-olds.”
  3. About the leak itself:
    • Why the Dobbs Leak Is Dangerous (Mark Movsesian, First Things): “In disclosing the draft opinion now, rather than in February when it circulated, the leaker presumably means to do one of two things. First, the leaker might hope that public pressure will intimidate one or more of the justices and affect the outcome of the case. Possibly, the leaker is a conservative clerk trying to keep Alito’s majority intact, on the theory that it would be too embarrassing for a justice to change his or her mind in these circumstances. More likely, though, the leaker is a progressive who hopes an angry public reaction will make a member of Alito’s majority reconsider.  Alternatively, the leaker might know that Justice Alito’s majority is solid and that trying to change anyone’s mind is useless. In that case, the leaker’s goal likely would be, quite simply, to wreck the Court as an institution—because that is what a leak like this accomplishes.” The author is a former Supreme Court clerk and currently a law professor at St. John’s University.
    • How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare (Josh Gerstein, Politico): “[Law prof and Supreme Court biographer] Wermiel said the justices typically argue that confidentiality is critical to the high court’s operation and collegiality. ‘They think it will chill their deliberation with one another and their candor and willingness to be open in exchange of views,’ Wermiel said. Some also contend that such reports distract from the court’s most enduring work: its opinions.”
    • Whodunnit? (Josh Blackman, The Volokh Conspiracy): “And a Justice must know that authorizing this leak would probably lead to impeachment proceedings. I do not think this leak came from a chambers.There is [another] option: the leak did not come from a chambers.… Rather, the leak may have come from someone with access to the Supreme Court’s draft opinions. And history suggest that this sort of leak is possible.” The author is a law prof at South Texas College of Law.
    • What If The SCOTUS Leak Came From A Foreign Hack? (Josh Blackman, The Volokh Conspiracy): “But there is another entity that may want to burn down the Supreme Court, and tear apart the American people: a foreign government. If that was the intent, the plan was successful. Look no further than the groups publishing the addresses of Supreme Court justices. Plus, as a benefit to foreign states, the torrent of news has taken Ukraine out of the headlines. Through this lens, the hack becomes much more plausible.”
  4. 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known (Kevin Kelly, personal blog): this is something he does every year. My two favorites were: “There is no such thing as being ‘on time.’ You are either late or you are early. Your choice.” and “Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.
  5. What if You Didn’t Have to File a Tax Return? (Jeremy Horpedahl, blog): “In ‘Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040,’ the authors use a large sample of tax returns to estimate how many taxpayers a pre-filled return would work for. The results are almost split down the middle: it would work well for maybe half of US taxpayers (41–48% of taxpayers, depending on how we are defining successful). For the other half, it wouldn’t give you an accurate estimate of how much tax you owed. And the errors can be large.“The author is an econ prof at the University of Central Arkansas (home of a great Chi Alpha, incidentally). I had assumed this was simply a byproduct of lobbying, not that there were actual technical reasons not to do it.
  6. The UFO briefings on Capitol Hill have begun. Lawmakers aren’t impressed. (Bryan Bender, Politico): “Lawmakers receiving the latest secret briefings on UFOs say national security agencies still aren’t taking seriously the reports of highly advanced aircraft of unknown origin violating protected airspace.”
  7. America flexes its maritime muscles! U.S. Air Force successfully tests 2,000-pound air-launched ‘quicksink’ bomb and blasts cargo ship out of the sea in one strike (Tom Brown, Daily Mail): “Quicksink risks relatively low-cost aircraft when compared with the danger of losing a submarine to enemy retaliation after a torpedo strike.… A single F‑15EX costs $87.7 million per aircraft, whereas a US submarine can cost up to $2.8 billion per unit, according to Aero Corner.” The accompanying video is impressive.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have How Pornography Makes Us Less Human and Less Humane (Matthew Lee Anderson, The Gospel Coalition): “Beneath pornography is the supposition that the mere fact of our desire for a woman makes us worthy of her. And so, not being bound by any kind of norm, desire must proceed endlessly. It is no surprise that the industrialized, cheap‐and‐easy sex of pornography has answered and evoked an almost unrestrained sexual greed, which allows us to be gods and goddesses within the safety of our own fantasies. It is for deep and important reasons that the Ten Commandments use the economic language of ‘coveting’ to describe the badness of errant sexual desires.” First shared in volume 216.

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Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

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