Dear Dan and Andrew and Rob and Aneesa and Jake, Hello, it's me again. The woman who calls the congressman's office nearly every weekday to complain or comment on whatever political issue made yesterday's headlines. As an intern, you have the unfortunate job of picking up the phone.  From my pile of non-responses I know you're tired of my daily calls. I can hear it in your voices when you assure me that you'll pass my concerns to the congressman - even before I tell you my opinion on the issue I've called about that particular day.  I know you're bored with my calls. I can tell by the way the ice clinks in your plastic tumbler as you sip your drink while I'm ranting, then coolly tell me you're just an office worker. When your response is flat and monotone, when I can hear your exhale echo in the handset speaker, when you say you've written down all my concerns, I doubt your truthfulness. I bet when the phones ring around 9:15 every week day, you ...

Once upon a time, I was the proud parent of 17 fertilized eggs. Notice I did not say children. I have two beautiful, healthy, very-much-wanted children who once numbered among those embryos, but already-born people are not the same as fertilized eggs, zygotes, or embryos. I know from experience. Several years ago, in the thick of my own infertility procedures, a specialist who was trying to console me said, "human reproduction is a wasteful and inexact process." It's true whether reproduction  occurs naturally  or with assistance. (This was no consolation, by the way.) This may look fun, but it isn't. Multiple grueling rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) proved over and over that he was devastatingly correct. I know without a doubt that fertilization does not always equal life. And it concerns me that the Supreme Court doesn't agree.  Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose confirmation process was abbreviated to only five weeks, is a devoutly religious ...