Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Longer Looks: The Abortion Debate; Rejecting Gender Binaries; And The Origin Of 'Medicare For All'
The New Yorker: How Fetal Personhood Emerged As The Next Stage Of The Abortion Wars
Concurring in an abortion case in May, Justice Clarence Thomas penned a lengthy and lurid polemic, warning that abortion rights are a form of racist eugenics revivalism. The statute at issue, passed in Indiana and signed into law, in 2016, by Mike Pence, the governor at the time, prohibited providers from performing an abortion if they know that it is sought solely because of the fetus’s race, sex, or disability. (Jeannie Suk Gersen, 6/5)
The New York Times: The Struggles Of Rejecting The Gender Binary
Just in the last few years, nonbinary identity has been slowly seeping into societal consciousness. A nonbinary actor, Asia Kate Dillon, has starred since 2017 as a nonbinary character on the Showtime series “Billions.” A raft of new nonbinary models are featured in fashion spreads, and a Coke ad, aired during the 2018 Super Bowl, paired an androgynous face with a pointed gender-neutral pronoun. “There’s a Coke,” the voice-over said, “for he and she and her and me and them.” Nonbinary as a category has even slipped into state laws. In 2016, an Oregon court granted a plaintiff the right to label themself nonbinary on their driver’s license, and by now, though the Trump administration proclaims that gender is a simple matter of biology, some dozen states, from New York to Utah, offer some form of Oregon’s flexibility. Yet the nation’s glimmers of tolerance don’t necessarily mean much — even in New York, let alone in rural North Carolina — when you’re living in opposition to our most basic way of seeing and sorting and comprehending one another. (Daniel Bergner, 6/4)
Time: Medicare For All's Surprising Origins In Health Care
When Medicare was created in 1965, few Americans were talking about universal health care. Even fewer realized that the bureaucrats behind the program hoped that it would eventually become that. (Abigail Abrams, 5/30)
Wired: Telemedicine Makes It Safe To Get Abortion Drugs In The Mail
Abortion over the internet can be an effective, practical alternative for women in areas where clinics are scarce. (Adam Rogers, 6/5)
