Abortion As A Divisive Issue Can End

The American people clearly favor choice and abortion rights, not bans. In every state, including conservative ones, where abortion has been on the ballot, choice has won and bans have lost. Consensus is emerging in state referenda. There may be dozens more in 2024. Should Congress fully restore abortion rights by a simple narrow majority …

Abortion Rights in the US: Where They Stand

Politico has a map, with a status report on each state as of April, 2024 in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade in 2022. The 16 states where abortion is illegal could experience realignments and a resurgence of the Democratic Party. This is already happening in Kansas, which now has …

3 Movies Illuminate Women’s Movement

My Substack e-newsletter offers trailers for three movies about women's rights and solicits reader suggestions for important resources on women's history. Click.

Women’s History: What We Weren’t Taught

March is Women's History Month, first proclaimed by Congress in 1987. Those of us who graduated high school before then, and many who graduated afterwards, were not properly educated in the historical  contributions women have made. I discuss this in my Substack e-newsletter, and efforts to learn in later life what we didn't learn in …

Biden Kicks Off Election Comeback With Strong State of the Union Address

For much of 2023 and 2024, President Biden has polled behind Donald Trump in key-state opinion polls. His supporters hope that his 2024 State of the Union message on March 7 kicked off a comeback. He attracted a large audience watching it live, 34 million Americans. He is unlikely to get a larger audience until …

Dispelling Myths About Human Evolution and Details Female Body’s Role

PBS NewsHour: "Where do we come from and how did we evolve into the beings and bodies we are today? The new book "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution" argues for a better understanding of our origins with critical implications for our present. Jeffrey Brown spoke with author Cat …

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Is Laid to Rest

She empowered generations of women, President Biden said. Chief Justice John Roberts observed that she had no example to follow and still was “so successful that the barriers she broke down are almost unthinkable today.” (Wash Post). Part of a mini-course on Supreme Court history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5doANOrvN1A A 'Daughter of the American West' Is Honored in …

Sandra Day O’Connor, First Female Supreme Court Justice

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-2023), the first woman nominated to the Supreme Court (by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 -- she served until 2006 -- has died at the age of 93. The retrospectives are pouring in. 'American icon' She inspired a generation of women A ranch girl who became 'queen of the court' Pragmatic and …

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter Passes On, Age 96

I had an opportunity to meet her a couple of times when I was doing communications work in the mental health field. She was a longtime advocate for people with mental illness. I remember escorting her to a congressional hearing on behalf of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I can't say we had a …

Dianne Feinstein Is Remembered As A Pioneering Female Legislator, the ‘Lioness of the Senate’

Dianne Feinstein, who served slightly more than 30 years in the U.S. Senate from California, nearly 10 years on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and 10 years as mayor, has passed away at the age of 90. She was an archetype of a pioneering female politician who a biographer said was determined not to …