>> Abortion opponents will soon enjoy broader legal protections than ever. A “new midnight regulation crammed through by the Bush Department of Health and Human Services and poised to become law any day now … allows your access to birth control, emergency contraception, and even artificial insemination to turn on the moral preferences of your pharmacist, nurse, or ambulance driver.” Writes Dahlia Lithwick in Slate:
Like it or not, the right to birth control, emergency contraception, and—under most circumstances—abortion is still constitutionally protected. But these are not services a woman can provide for herself, which leaves her with few rights at all when her physicians, nurses, and pharmacists are empowered by law to misinform her, withhold advice, or to deny services altogether.
Obama can overturn this law, but it’ll take a few months at least.
>> Serendipitously, Obama’s transition team announced a nationwide campaign “to solicit public input on improving the nation’s healthcare system” by “asking Americans to host meetings to talk about reform. Those willing to host will get discussion packets sent to them in the last two weeks of December. I went to Change.gov to sign up, but the meeting / packet info doesn’t seem to be up yet.
>> Do amnesiacs realize they have amnesia? The answer is sometimes, but the case studies are totally fascinating.
Clive Wearing, a British musician who suffers from herpes encephalitis (an infection that attacks the brain) is in a constant state of thinking he just woke up. Nearly every entry of his journal says, in one way or another, “I am awake.” When shown past entries, he denies he wrote them. He gets upset when confronted with his condition.
Image via now.org
H.M., the most famous amnesiac, just died :(.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html?_r=1&em
He sort of knew there was something wrong with him. I once met someone who had met him, and the 2 saddest things were 1) he had to get the news of his mother dying hundreds of times, 2) even as an old man, he had the same personality/enthusiasm of his 20′s. It must have been awful to look in the mirror.
Comment by yoel — December 6, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
I think H.M.’s death was the impetus for the Slate article. The personality / enthusiasm of the 20s seems like both a blessing and a curse…. I’d like to be enthusiastic when old, but it’d be shocking to look down and see v. old hands….
Comment by Siel — December 7, 2008 @ 1:17 pm