Friday morning, I was driving with the car radio on, blissfully contemplating my summer weekend when my reverie was interrupted by a news flash that the Supreme Court had declared Roe v. Wade unconstitutional. I screamed in outrage before erupting into tears, crying for college friends who had back-alley abortions when abortions were illegal. [...]
Pat Taub
Abortion Rights Thanks to a leaked report, it’s now almost certain that the Supreme Court will reverse Roe v. Wade this June. Abortion advocates have been demonstrating across the country, but is this enough? In a recent interview with Chris Hedges, V, formerly known as Eve Ensler, the playwright, author, and political activist, called [...]
Pat Taub
Last Friday I attended a memorial service for 96-year-old Joanne Booth, who never failed to brighten my day when we met up. Joanne’s infectious, slightly mischievous smile, was contagious, as was her love of life. As I listened to her four daughters deliver their warm, loving accounts of their mother’s full life, my mind wandered to [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE I hit 65 this year which is a milestone that brought many gifts: Medicare, a family party outdoors with my same-month birthday sisters, and permission to be officially old. I already had arthritic hands, an inflamed sacroiliac joint, and cataracts so bad I gave up night driving years ago. When I wake up in the morning, [...]
Pat Taub
Last week was not a good news week for me. It left me full of despair. I agonized over the Biden’s administration failure to advance their social programs designed to help those in need, while increasing oil drilling in defiance of climate change. To make matters worse the saber rattling over Putin’s troops on the Ukraine border, kept [...]
Pat Taub
Thursday morning I woke up to the news of the new Texas abortion law, which denies abortions to the 7,000,000 women of child-bearing age in Texas. I was stunned and terrified. As I sipped my coffee, I reflected on my own abortion in the late 1970’s. I was married with two young children and had just taken a job as Director of Counseling [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE As the mother of three grown children, I’ve had occasion to reflect on what I taught them that might be especially useful for weathering an ongoing public health crisis and the recession it caused. I became a public school teacher halfway through their childhood but even before that I was an “education mama” [...]
Pat Taub
Storm-Wrecked Texas Looking at photos of Texans, standing in the bitter cold, huddled under blankets, forming long lines for water and food, left me furious and heartsick. Have we become a third world country, where only the privileged are taken care of? The one redeeming factor to the Texas storm tragedy is that Ted Cruz was caught flying [...]
Pat Taub
As I write this, it’s Election Day. I set my alarm for 6:15 in order to be at my polling place when the doors opened at 7 am, anticipating a quick in-and-out. Instead I waited for over an hour in the cold, flanked by young voters. While I’m hugely relieved to see the end of a nerve-wracking campaign season, I’m on pins and needles [...]
Pat Taub
Unsettling News Stories Lately reading the news inserts me into the Beatles song, “I read the news today, oh boy.” One disturbing report after another, the latest is the forced hysterectomies of women in an ICE detention center in Georgia. If it weren’t for brave whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the center, we might never have [...]
Pat Taub