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“Tell me about your son.” These were the words I heard over the phone three years ago while searching for a doctor who could give psychological help to my 19-year-old son who has Prader Willi syndrome. In all my years of raising him, this was the first time anyone ever asked me... Read More →

There had been a notable uptick in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe. Alone on a lonely street in the heart of Paris, I wondered if just standing where I was could make me a target of either suspicion or of hate. The door to the Holocaust Memorial was locked, as only three or four... Read More →

The message above should appear all over the country, wherever pro-life activists gather. For many years, they have hoped (in a vague sort of way) that more Democrats would be pro-life. Few, though, have done much to make that actually happen, and those who tried often lacked... Read More →

Recently a friend saw Fiddler on the Roof and remarked on how much darker the plot was than he had remembered. It’s a musical, after all, and most musicals (barring West Side Story-style romantic tragedy or Sweeney Todd-style bizarreness) are upbeat. It has a lot of comic scenes... Read More →

  Most people probably have spent at least a little time thinking about how to survive a pandemic or other apocalyptic scenario. We live on a farm, so people regularly tell us they’re heading over to our place should it all hit the fan. I usually smile and change the subjec... Read More →

  Dante Alighieri’s 14-century poetic masterpiece The Divine Comedy is not just a work of literary genius—it’s also a spiritual roadmap. Unlike our age of muddy relativism, Dante’s vision is stark. There is good and there is evil. Men and women make a free choice between the... Read More →

  Your name influences your destiny. So say social scientists and casual observers. In our day, the business of looking to your name to predict your job prospects, or to explain them, or to understand in more general terms who you are or will be in the world, is a subtle and... Read More →

  Call me cynical, but when I see a young man marching with an “I Support a Woman’s Right to Choose” sign, there’s little doubt in my mind that he probably only supports a woman’s right to choose as long as she’s choosing abortion. What if this earnest lad came home from the... Read More →

  When the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the American people will once again have the right to enact substantive legal protection for unborn children. In anticipation, many states have already adopted protective laws, although federal judges have blocked... Read More →

One way to understand adolescence is as a crisis of the value of life. I may take my mother’s love for granted, but it no longer seems to suffice. Father’s love seems remote and conditional on my (unreliable!) performance. My sense of self-worth is displaced by fickle fads among... Read More →