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I was 14 and pregnant when I first felt the weight of the whispers. Not the ones about me, though I heard those, too. The heavy whispers were about my grandma — Lois Thurman — the woman I would never meet. I caught words and phrases here and there, like “hemorrhaged” and “back alley,” and put the pieces together. By the time I sat down in a free clinic to take a pregnancy test, I knew my momma’s momma had died after having an abortion. An illegal one in Illinois. It was 1965, and she was 23. (Erica Thurma, 6/11)

All of a sudden, abortion opponents have abandoned rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans. Louisiana became the latest state to do so last month, following Ohio, Mississippi and, most notoriously, Alabama. That same month, younger abortion foes in groups like Students for Life of America fired off a letter asking the Republican Party to stop supporting exceptions that before this year had long been standard components of anti-abortion legislation. (Mary Ziegler, 6/11)

“There is no middle ground on abortion,” blared one headline in the wake of Joe Biden’s abrupt abandonment of his decadeslong support for the Hyde Amendment, which prevents the use of federal funds for abortions. “No middle ground” may be true among likely participants in Iowa’s Democratic caucuses. But it is not the case for the electorate as a whole, or even among Democratic voters. There is a nuanced center on this long-contested issue, and Mr. Biden would be ill-advised to abandon it. (William A. Galston, 6/11)

For decades, Catholic Democratic politicians have been justifying their pro-choice position by telling us that they were personally opposed to abortion but could not impose their religious view on others. For most, the argument was a fig leaf to justify their shameful failure to protect innocent unborn life. But it appeared that Joe Biden really believed it. For more than 40 years, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions. In 1994, when a constituent wrote to Biden, urging him, “Please don’t force me to pay for abortions against my conscience,” Biden replied, “I agree with you.” (Marc A. Thiessen, 6/11)