Dem
47
GOP
53
It is unbelievable how much worthy-of-our-attention news there is on a daily basis these days. So much so that it's basically impossible to keep up, and we have a massive backlog of stuff we've been trying to get to, without much success so far. As a general rule, we can only produce 5,000-7,000 words' worth of material a day. Anything more than that, and the quality slips from "Brilliant!" and "Life-changing!" to merely "Incisive!" and "Eye-opening!" More importantly, if we blow past that limit too often (like we did today, admittedly), it demands too much of the readers' time.
All of this is entrée to the note that there's been a fair bit of news on the abortion front this week that, despite it being one of the central issues in American politics, we just haven't been able to get to. We're going to rectify that now.
First up, Pope Leo XIV was very clearly elected/hired to be less openly political than his predecessor. Nobody is claiming that Francis was a latter-day Patrick Henry or Bobby Seale, but he certainly made it known where he stood on certain issues, like immigration. Leo appears to understand very well that his job is to dial it back a bit, so he's been pretty quiet in the 4 months or so since he became the Servant of the Servants of God.
This week, however, Leo managed to generate some controversy in a manner that would even make Francis proud. At issue is an award that U.S. Cardinal Blase Cupich plans to give to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), recognizing the Senator's imminent retirement and his extensive work on behalf of immigrants. Like Joe Biden, Durbin is a Catholic who has supported pro-choice legislation. Whether he is himself pro-choice, or he merely believes that he should not impose his religious views on others, is something only he knows.
Given Durbin's voting history, a bunch of prominent Catholics, including a dozen bishops, pitched a fit when they learned about the award. The squabble got loud enough that it reached across the Atlantic Ocean, such that a reporter asked Leo about it. And Leo gave an answer that, to be blunt, called out the hypocrisy that exists in many flavors of American Christianity (e.g., many fundamentalist evangelicals):
I think that it's very important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I'm not mistaken, 40 years of service in the United States Senate... It's important to look at many issues that are related to what is the teaching of the church. Someone who says "I'm against abortion" but says "I'm in favor of the death penalty" is not really pro-life. Someone who says "I'm against abortion, but I'm in favor of the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States"—I don't know if that's pro-life.
The Vicar of Christ was certainly diplomatic in his choice of words. But was he also laying down the law? He's new to the job, so maybe he accidentally said more than he intended. We tend to think, however, that he knew exactly what he was saying. In any event, he very clearly believes that if you are going to call yourself "pro-life," you have to be pro-ALL-lives, not just pro-unborn-fetuses. Naturally, his remarks caused much consternation on the right, particularly among right-wing American Catholics, and also produced some carping from the White House. Because, after all, who really knows more about Catholic doctrine—the Pope, or Donald Trump?
Moving on, California was also at the center of controversy this week (as it so often is). Back in 2023, Dr. Rémy Coeytaux prescribed abortifacient pills to a woman in Louisiana. That is now illegal in the Bayou State, and so the Louisiana AG has issued an arrest warrant demanding that California arrest Coeytaux and turn him over to Louisiana authorities.
Good luck with that, Louisiana. First, California is not bloody likely to help you enforce this particular political program. Second, it took us 30 seconds of googling to figure out that while Coeytaux went to med school in California (Stanford) and is licensed in California, he very clearly lives, practices, and teaches in North Carolina (where Gov. Josh Stein, D-NC, is not likely to be any more cooperative than Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-CA, would be). Golden State officials are already weary of this stuff, and so—and this appears to just be coincidental—the legislature just passed a law that allows physicians to mail abortifacients anonymously. Newsom, who may just be considering a presidential run in 2028, has already signed the measure into law. If he does happen to run, this subject may come up once or twice.
Our third bit of news also involves abortifacients. Literally hours before the shutdown, and all the ensuing attention to that story, the FDA approved a generic version of mifepristone made by Evita Solutions. That's the second generic for that drug; the first, from GenBioPro, was approved in 2019. Anti-choice groups are furious; spokespeople for the FDA explained that the agency has relatively little leeway when it comes to rejecting generic drugs. That's true, and probably part of the explanation. We would guess the other part is that Bobby Kennedy Jr. doesn't care about abortion, as the battles he cares about are elsewhere. So, he tried to slide this in under the radar, in the (apparently unsuccessful) hope that he could spare himself a headache.
And finally, let's talk about the Oura ring. This is a not-cheap ($400) piece of technology that you wear on a finger, and that tracks various health-related metrics. For women, that includes menstrual cycles. This means that if you had a woman's Oura data, you'd have a pretty good idea of whether or not she was pregnant... and whether she ceased to be pregnant, say, a month or two later.
The news this week is twofold: (1) Oura's single-biggest customer is the Department of Defense, and (2) key components of the Oura software are made by the company of ultra-MAGA Silicon Valley tycoon Peter Thiel. These things were not a secret before, but there were a couple of big news stories on the subject this week, and those stories spread widely on social media.
Oura, which is actually not based in the U.S. (it's Finnish), insists that it does not share data with the federal government. Some women just don't believe the company (or just aren't willing to take a chance Oura might be lying, or might be strong-armed into changing that policy). Other women simply don't want to support a company that works with the two MAGA Peters: Thiel and Hegseth. So, a bunch of Oura rings are going in the drawer, or the trash, or up on eBay.
With that, we are caught up, at least on this subject, at least for now. (Z)