Last weekend, when one of our adult sons returned from doing his family’s weekly grocery shopping, he unpacked the usual items: fruits and vegetables, milk, cereal, yogurt, bagels, bread, cheese, snacks for the first grader, chicken and fish for dinners, and pasta. One regular item, however, was missing: eggs. Not because prices were so low as a result of President Trump making good on his campaign promise. And not because the prices were so high they were unaffordable.

Does anyone else remember standing in line in elementary school in the ’50s to receive the first polio vaccine shot? Those were the ones developed by Jonas Salk before a liquid drop form came into use a few years later. My parents were particularly excited after having watched with fear as my brother was hospitalized with polio a decade earlier.

We think the issue described below raises some ethical and philosophical questions worth chewing on. We hope you will share your ideas with us.

Visiting a friend in a rehabilitation hospital last week, shortly after reading Matthew Desmond’s Poverty by America, it was impossible to ignore the varying levels of health care available to people in our country. 

Imagine you have a chronic disease that can be easily managed by a medication you cannot afford. If you don’t take the medicine every day, you risk going blind, having your legs amputated, or dying. But you just don’t have the money, so you ration your doses, hoping that some medication is better than none. You are playing a game of roulette you didn’t choose.

A dear friend is moving her husband to a memory care residence because he can no longer function at home with only her loving care and part-time help. Another dear friend just lost her husband after negotiating his treatment through an acute care hospital, then a rehab, and finally a hospice facility..

We are not living in a democracy,” reproductive rights activist and women’s study professor Carrie Baker declared at the end of the Leading Ladies “Life After Roe v. Wade” Zoom event last Wednesday. “If you were ever going to get out and vote, this is the time,” she emphasized. Her strong statements capped an hour-and-a-half of some terrifying but elucidating information shared by Baker and the other panelists.

Who can forget Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist? That endearing little boy who lived in a workhouse in London where there was never enough to eat and he plaintively asked, "Please, sir, I want some more" when he finished his bowl of watery gruel. Oliver and his mates hoped for something better in life when they became petty thieves for Fagin, but even Nancy’s kindness did little to change their lot.

Two memories came to mind immediately when the leaked Supreme Court decision about Roe v. Wade hit the news. One was of a story a friend told of an abortion she had in college in the late 1960s in Boston. She was picked up in a car, blindfolded, and taken to a basement where she could hear rats scurrying about. When the procedure was over, she was returned to her dormitory. She was frightened beyond words and thought she might die, either in that dank, cold basement or from some infection afterwards. Nonetheless, she felt this was her best option. She and her boyfriend were not yet ready to marry – they would a year or so later – and they had plans to enter the Peace Corps for two years once they did.

The aisles in the supermarkets and CVS are full of seemingly endless brands of tampons and sanitary napkins. Our televisions blare ads with “tests” comparing the absorbency of the different products. For most of us, the biggest challenge has always been deciding which menstrual product to choose.

As the question looms about whether or not women in this country will continue to have the right to decide when and if they have children, we thought it important to look at the unequal care and consideration that pregnant women in this country receive. Perhaps no other problem is more emblematic of intersectionality – what the Oxford Dictionary defines as “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage” – than maternal health care in the richest country in the world. So here goes.

The opioid epidemic in our country, and around the globe, continues. Despite recognition of the addictive properties of Oxycontin; despite the lawsuits against its manufacturer, Purdue Pharma; despite the uncovering of the unscrupulous and dishonest methods employed by sales reps to encourage doctors to write unnecessary prescriptions; despite the closing of endless “pill mills” operated by shady doctors; the epidemic rages on.

Last week, when the Nor’easter knocked out the power in many homes on the North Shore, a trip to Starbucks to take advantage of their free Wi-Fi and do some work seemed like a reasonable idea. What a surprise to find the local, usually busy, Starbucks closed with a sign that read something like, “Sorry for the inconvenience...

Pew Research conducted a survey of more than 10,000 US adults last month to get their thoughts about COVID. Here are 10 facts that Pew discovered from this survey:

“As long as you have your health!” is a common refrain among friends, especially as we age and winnow our priorities down to the essentials. Yet, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have become woefully aware of the unequal access to the means to stay healthy in this country.

The Olympics usually provide great entertainment, inspiration, and the kind of wow factor we all need these days. And while the appearance of Simone Biles and other luminaries may raise our spirits, we are confronted daily with the spectre of more and more athletes dropping out because of positive COVID tests. Instead of providing inspiration, the Olympics are bringing us face to face, yet again, with the dire reality that the pandemic is far from over.

As we look around us and plan a holiday season like none ever, we remember how lucky we are to have roofs over our heads and food in our refrigerators. We hope that is true for all of you as well. It is truly heartbreaking and astonishing that so many of our neighbors and fellow Americans are struggling with hunger, joblessness, and having a place to call home in our land of plenty…

The last week has left us gobsmacked with a new startling development almost every day. First, we had to digest the unusual presidential debate unlike any in our nation’s history, with President Trump interrupting former Vice President Biden with what most viewers and analysts agree were below the belt accusations and falsehoods while moderator Chris Wallace was unable to control the proceedings…