A Walk to Remember | 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.
The S Word
Lisa Miller 5/19/2009 12:00:00 AM
When President Barack Obama talks about finding common ground on abortion, as he did during his commencement address at Notre Dame over the weekend, he's not really talking about abortion at all. The president is pro-choice, which means that he believes that women should have access to legal abortions and that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land. What he's really talking about is sex—specifically, who should have it, under what circumstances, and who should bear responsibility for the (desired or undesired) consequences. Abortions—to state the obvious—result from sex. To reduce the number of women seeking abortion, domestic policy wonks need to find common ground on sex.
FERTILITY
Why I Froze My Eggs
5/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
I had just turned 35 when I started thinking about freezing my eggs. I'd always thought I'd have a husband and a kid or two by 35—that's the ominous year when doctors start stamping women's medical charts with the words "advanced maternal age" if they are pregnant, and some warn that fertility starts to drop off a cliff if they are not. But instead I was single, with an adventurous career, and concerned about my eggs. So in 2005, when I heard about a free seminar offered by a company called Extend Fertility, I thought this was exactly what I needed: a way to safeguard my eggs so I can relax until I meet Mr. Right. Extend had just begun marketing egg freezing as the newest choice among women's options: preserve your fertility and wait to have a child.