Commentaries from the New York Review of Books
Last week a leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization gave a preview of the Supreme Court’s likely decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is the first part in a series of short responses to the ruling.
Liza Batkin
Deceit in Plain Sight
“Justice Alito’s draft opinion is a power grab, steeped in the language of conservative and religious antiabortion advocates.”
Christine Henneberg
Aspirations
“As an abortion provider, what I give my patients is not just a procedure but the space to make their own decisions about their bodies.”
Clair Wills
A Lesson from Ireland
“Decades of forced birth and coerced adoption convinced the Irish people to lift a state ban on abortion. Will Americans learn the hard way, too?”
“Can you imagine what it is like to put your mark on a paper ballot that asks you to tease out the issue of a raped child’s inconvenient ability to end her own life?”
“For medical practitioners in Texas, even an imagined act can be illegal.”
Charlotte Shane
‘Can You Describe This?’
“Every week that I handle calls on the abortion fund’s hotline is a week spent confronting the mundanity of the struggle for dignity.”
Annette Gordon-Reed
Uprooting Rights
“The draft opinion looks back longingly to a nineteenth-century understanding of who was in control and whose lives mattered.”