The New Republic

From the start, both sides of the reproductive-rights debate have equally seen Kermit Gosnell as a prime example of everything that is wrong with abortion in America. READ MORE >>

The anti-abortion movement's defining medium used to be the poster, typically featuring a misleading photo of a stillborn fetus much older than most states' abortion laws allowed. These days, it's probably the undercover video. READ MORE >>

With the South Carolina special election on Tuesday, all eyes are on Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the 58-year-old political novice who has a coin-toss chance of becoming the first Democrat to represent the state's First Congressional District in more than thirty years, and the second woman ever to do so. It's no surprise, then, that some of her opponents would stoop pretty low to keep her out of office. READ MORE >>

In President Obama's first term, when the Department of Health and Human Services overrode consensus in the medical community and made the "morning-after pill" available over-the-counter only to women 17 and over, liberals were angry but also somewhat understanding: It was 2011, and the election cycle was underway. In a second term, it seemed, President Obama would no longer feel the need to play politics with women's reproductive health. No such luck. READ MORE >>

In the debate over reproductive rights in America, there is almost no such thing as a new idea. But new stories and images can refresh shopworn arguments. Hence the pro-life movement’s interest in the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion provider whose name is coming up in legislative battles across the country. READ MORE >>

This morning, Boston residents—and people in the neighboring communities of Cambridge, Newton, Waltham, Belmont, and Watertown—awoke to the command that they “shelter in place.” A manhunt for a suspect in the bombing at Monday’s Boston Marathon was underway. Public transportation was suspended, taxis barred from the streets, businesses shuttered, and classes cancelled. Over 650,000 people were told to stay inside. Boston was on lockdown. READ MORE >>

Spring comes late to Boston. Most years, the day of the Marathon is one of the first when the air feels soft and world is green. After the long New England winter, it's something of a holy day—roads and businesses shut down, and people rediscover their city. It’s not just that Bostonians love their hometown and their sports. They also love their history: The Marathon has a rich tradition as a leveler of class and a vehicle for activism. Its 117 years tell the story of one of America’s oldest cities. READ MORE >>

On Saturday, Harvard University will keep it classy by hiring the rapper “Tyga” to headline its spring music concert, “Yardfest.” The 23-year-old Los Angeles native is best known for lyrics such as “Shut the fuck up and jump on this dick / Nothing but a motherfucking skank / Fuck what you talking ’bout and fuck what you think,” and for filming a porno to accompany his career-making single “Rack City” (dubbed READ MORE >>

Immigrant literature—that rather crass term—has come to mean literature by the immigrant. But the effects of migration are, of course, felt not just by those doing the moving and resettling, but also by those who receive them. And yet, for every Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gish Jen, Edwidge Danticat, or Julia Alvarez—or any of the notables who write, loosely, from a non-native-born perspective—it’s hard to name an American author who speaks for the settled communities where new arrivals land. READ MORE >>

Ever since conservatives began describing plans to privatize public education as a matter of “school choice,” dubious pedagogies have been using the phrase in their own defenses. And while some initiatives, such as the most successful charter schools, deliver much-touted results, many others entrench the disparities between rich and poor, minorities and whites, that education reformers hope to erase. One of the latest brands of education seeking safe passage from the choice movement mandates a different kind of separation: boys from girls.  READ MORE >>