49 years ago today, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to abortion in America.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, abortion won’t immediately become illegal. Anyone who can take time off of work and fly to California will have no problem getting reproductive healthcare. But Black and poor women will be first and worst impacted by the decision. Studies have found that Black women already have more vulnerable access to abortion, and that injustice leads to worse birth outcomes as well [1].  

Black women are the most educated women in America, and yet they remain the most likely to die during childbirth and the least likely to access appropriate reproductive care. Our sisters at Black Women’s Health Imperative and Power to Decide are working to change that. Can you make a donation directly to them to recognize Roe’s anniversary?

According to B’Telsem, for Palestinians, this was the deadliest year since 2014.

There are no statistics that can measure the pain and sorrow of their family members and friends of these victims of violence on both sides of this conflict.  What follows is just a snapshot of the human rights violations in 2021, and suggestions for actions that we can take to help bring an end to the violence for the benefit of all people in the region. 

Statistics from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs for 2021 (OCHA oPt)

Palestinian deaths - West Bank 82 (including 15 children); Gaza 264 (including 67 children)

Palestinian injuries - 17,895

Israeli deaths - 16 (including 2 children)

Israeli injuries - 158

Source:  https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties.

The John Lewis and Freedom to Vote Acts have been officially stonewalled. Joe Biden must now enact them by Executive Order.

The key historic precedent is the Emancipation Proclamation, approved by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

Today’s voting rights bills are essential to beat the uncivil war against democracy being waged by Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and their Jim Crow cult of autocracy.

Bannon says he’ll “take over the election process” and rob voting rights from millions of Americans of youth and color.

He leads an angry, aging cohort that’s lost its grip on the American electorate. By 2045, the US will be half non-white. Half is already born after 1981. In 2016 and again in 2020, Millennial/Zoomers under 30 rejected Donald Trump by more than 60%.

Thanks to America’s grassroots Election Protection movement, 2020 was our fairest, most reliably counted presidential contest. In the time of COVID, vote by mail, paper ballots, scanned ballot images and reliable audit/recount procedures---won by pro-democracy activism—made all the difference.

Readers viewing this essay online may no longer recognize or appreciate how important a city’s daily newspaper is. It contributes to a city’s identity. It unites its readership in shared information, which is the potential for building a community of discourse and exchange. The best newspapers provide both a constructive critical voice and a forum for responsible airing of differences among members of the local population. This is not, and has never been, the function of the Columbus Dispatch.

Since childhood, I have avidly read my city’s daily newspaper(s) and the Sunday New York Times. From college, I subscribed in every city where I lived. In retirement, I read three dailies including two national editions. I have read the Columbus Dispatch since I moved to Columbus in 2004. I have witnessed a roller-coaster of journalistic and commercial ups and downs and published opinion essays and letters to the editor.