Worth Your Time: 'A Christmas Tale' | Newsweek Scope

French for Birth
Eric Pape 9/9/2009 12:00:00 AM
On a placid Parisian night last March, my wife, Chrystèle, who is French, and I were in a public hospital delivery room waiting for our baby boy to settle into the right position for birth. He was in no hurry. Hours passed languidly, counted off by the periodic beeps of machines monitoring the expectant mother and our unborn infant.
The Abortion Evangelist
Sarah Kliff 8/15/2009 12:00:00 AM
Carhart was scheduled to work in Tiller's clinic the next day; he was one of three abortion doctors who took turns assisting there. His car was already packed for the five-hour drive from Omaha to Wichita he'd made every third Sunday for the past five years. Carhart decided he would still go, to see Tiller's family and help figure out what would happen to the clinic. But first he would see the patients at hand. His waiting room, after all, was full of women who'd crossed state lines and waited hours to see him. "I didn't have any time to sit here and feel sorry for myself," says Carhart. He hung up the phone, went back into the operating room, performed another abortion. By day's end, he had seen a dozen women.
The Last Abortion Doctor?
Sarah Kliff 8/15/2009 12:00:00 AM
Those sentences, from this month’s issue of Esquire, introduce the magazine's profile of late-term abortion provider Warren Hern. They're surprising and intriguing, the beginning of a story I definitely want to read. But unfortunately, they're not true. Warren Hern is not the country's last late-term abortion doctor.
The Case for Paid Family Leave
8/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
Only two countries in the advanced world provide no guarantee for paid leave from work to care for a newborn child. Last spring one of the two, Australia, gave up that dubious distinction by establishing paid family leave starting in 2011. I wasn't surprised when this didn't make the news here in the United States—we're now the only wealthy country without such a policy.
What? You Don’t Love Your Mother-In-Law?
Pat Wingert 7/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
This is how it begins: Your guy pops the question and tells you that his family is just going to love you, especially his mom. You're the daughter she never had. You assume that means she's going to be supersupportive of all your choices, will offer help when you ask for it, but otherwise, stay out of your life and marriage. How perfect.
Smart Mama, Scary Book
Raina Kelley 7/8/2009 12:00:00 AM
I have a very active fantasy life. Before you start snickering, let me just tell you that my imaginings are more along the lines of Mary in In Plain Sight or Madonna in "Express Yourself" rather than Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat. Anyway, over the last few months, my daydreams have become extremely mundane. I fantasize about what sports my son will play when he's older (Gabe is just a year old) or how he'll make me laugh when he's in the second grade and thinks Martin Luther King Jr. was a real king like I once did, or even how I'll foil his attempts to sneak out of the house when he's a teenager. I tell you this not to make you gag, but to communicate how much I love my son. He's the absolute center of my world—my past, present, and future. And I also tell you this because I know that's how most people love their children—WITH every fiber of their being.