About That 20-Week Abortion Bill

Today is the 42nd anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade. I never need reminding of which anniversary it is — it’s always the same as my age. I was one of those who entered the world through a pregnancy of the sort we call “unplanned,” though as a Hayekian type I do not object to being the “result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.” I was born about three months — call it a “trimester” — before Roe.

In my case, the result was an adoption. Mine wasn’t, as it turns out, the sort of success story you’d put in a brochure; my adoptive parents were divorced only a few years later, and there was subsequently a great deal of unpleasantness in my home upon which I do not intend to dwell. Some had happier families, some far worse. Eventually, I discovered that I had certain talents, which friends encouraged and teachers helped me to develop. I had the uniquely American experience of playing high-school football in West Texas (for what was the losingest team in our district’s history; we were everybody’s homecoming game, and I still expect to experience pain every time I see a mum), learned a trade at the (mighty, mighty)Daily Texan at the University of Texas, and then moved to India to apply it. I was editor-in-chief of a small newspaper before I was 30, and started a daily newspaper in Philadelphia a few years later. I failed at that, but it was tremendously fun, and on our better days we put out a more interesting broadsheet than the Inquirer. I’ve published a few books, had a few rejected, walked in the foothills of the Himalayas and driven a convertible through the Alps, gotten into bar fights, played Bach’s Prelude II Cm as part of a classical-guitar duet. I work at the only magazine I’ve ever really wanted to work at, and Bill Buckley once asked me for a word he was unable to call up in the moment (“lapidary”). There have been a few rough stretches and some that have been nearly perfect.

None of it was optional.

More