Emily Bazelon
Encyclopedia
Emily Bazelon is an American
journalist, senior editor for online magazine Slate
, and a senior research fellow at Yale Law School
. Her work as a writer focuses on law, abortion, and family issues.
. She has written articles about controversial subjects, such as the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
trial and post-abortion syndrome
. Bazelon edits Slates legal columns, "Jurisprudence", and is co-editor of its blog on women's issues, XX Factor (also known as DoubleX), and regularly appears on The Political Gabfest, a weekly Slate podcast with David Plotz
and John Dickerson.
She is also a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine
. Before joining Slate, Bazelon was a senior editor of Legal Affairs
. Her writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, Mother Jones
, The Washington Post
, The Boston Globe
, The New Republic
, as well as other publications. She has worked as a reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 1993 and 1994, as a freelance journalist in Israel
.
Bazelon is also a Senior Research Scholar in Law and Truman Capote
Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. Bazelon and former New York Times legal correspondent Linda Greenhouse
are affiliated with the Law and Media Program of Yale Law School.
Bazelon is working on a book about bullying and school climate for Random House, titled Sticks and Stones.
movement and opponents of legal abortion, including pro-life feminists and proponents of the concept of post-abortion syndrome, while supportive of abortion providers and pro-choice
federal judges
. She has accused crisis pregnancy center
s of being "all about bait-and-switch" and "falsely maligning" the abortion procedure. Bazelon has been described by some commentators as "strongly pro-choice
" and a "prominent pro-choicer." She has acknowledged her support for legal abortion on her Double X blog, commenting, "of course there's still an argument that access to legal abortion is also crucial to opportunity for women. Think how much some women's lives would constrict if they really had to carry every pregnancy to term."
Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
. Discussing her view of Roe v. Wade
in 1973, Ginsburg commented,
Bazelon did not ask any follow-up question to Ginsburg's suggestion that she subscribes to a eugenics
-based rationale for legalized abortion, i.e., as a remedy for "populations that we don't want to have too many of". Bazelon was criticized by some conservative commentators for not doing so. Michael Gerson
in the Washington Post asked, "Who, in Ginsburg's statement, is the 'we'? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?" Gerson suggested that Ginsburg was expressing an attitude of some in her "social class
" -- that abortion is useful in reducing the number of social undesirables—and noted, "Neither judge nor journalist apparently found this attitude exceptional; there was no follow-up question." Jonah Goldberg
, writing in the Jewish World Review
, called Bazelon's failure to ask a follow-up question "bizarre." The on-line magazine Politics Daily
attributed the lack of a follow-up question to Bazelon's "strongly pro-choice" views, noting that "when an interviewer assumes that he or she shares the subject's sympathies and world view, even the most shocking statements can fly right by, or be assigned the most benign possible meaning."
In response to the criticism, Bazelon said that she did not ask a follow-up question because she believed that Ginsburg's use of "we" had referred to "some people at the time, not [Ginsburg] herself or a group that she feels a part of." Bazelon added that she (Bazelon) is "imperfect". Carl M. Cannon, writing in Politics Daily, dismissed Bazelon's explanation, remarking that it was "hardly the first time prominent pro-choicers have had to engage in semantic gymnastics to obscure a longtime underlying rationale for their position that is neither politically nor morally correct."
. She graduated from Yale College
in 1993 and from Yale Law School
in 2000 and was an editor of the Yale Law Journal
. After law school she worked as a law clerk
for Judge Kermit Lipez
of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
.
Bazelon is the granddaughter of David L. Bazelon
, formerly a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
, and second cousin twice removed
of feminist Betty Friedan
. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut
with her husband, Paul Sabin, an assistant professor of history at Yale, and their sons, Eli and Simon.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist, senior editor for online magazine Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, and a senior research fellow at Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
. Her work as a writer focuses on law, abortion, and family issues.
Journalism career
Bazelon is a writer and senior editor of SlateSlate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
. She has written articles about controversial subjects, such as the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lack "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military...
trial and post-abortion syndrome
Abortion and mental health
The relationship between induced abortion and mental health is an area of political controversy. The issue has been part of the political debate over abortion, dating to 1988 when U.S. President Ronald Reagan directed Surgeon General C...
. Bazelon edits Slates legal columns, "Jurisprudence", and is co-editor of its blog on women's issues, XX Factor (also known as DoubleX), and regularly appears on The Political Gabfest, a weekly Slate podcast with David Plotz
David Plotz
David Plotz is an American journalist. A writer with Slate since its inception in 1996, Plotz was designated as the online magazine's editor in June 2008, succeeding Jacob Weisberg.-Early life and career:...
and John Dickerson.
She is also a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
. Before joining Slate, Bazelon was a senior editor of Legal Affairs
Legal Affairs
Legal Affairs was an American magazine that was launched under the auspices of Yale Law School, and which later became an independent non-profit venture with an educational mission. As the first general interest legal magazine, Legal Affairs featured stories that centered on the intersection of law...
. Her writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, as well as other publications. She has worked as a reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 1993 and 1994, as a freelance journalist in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Bazelon is also a Senior Research Scholar in Law and Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. Bazelon and former New York Times legal correspondent Linda Greenhouse
Linda Greenhouse
Linda Greenhouse is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Senior Fellow at Yale Law School...
are affiliated with the Law and Media Program of Yale Law School.
Writing on Bullying
Bazelon has written a series on bullying and cyberbullying for Slate, called Bull-E. She has been nominated for the 2011 Michael Kelly Award for her story "What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?" The three-part article is about the death of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide in South Hadley, MA in January 2010, and the decision by the local prosecutor to bring criminal charges against six teenagers in connection with this death. The Michael Kelly Award, sponsored by the Atlantic Media Co., "honors a writer or editor whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly's own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth." Bazelon's series also sparked heated reaction and a response from D.A. Elizabeth Scheibel , who brought the charges against the six teenagers.Bazelon is working on a book about bullying and school climate for Random House, titled Sticks and Stones.
Abortion views
Much of Bazelon's writing has been strongly critical of the pro-lifePro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
movement and opponents of legal abortion, including pro-life feminists and proponents of the concept of post-abortion syndrome, while supportive of abortion providers and pro-choice
Pro-choice
Support for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
federal judges
United States federal judge
In the United States, the title of federal judge usually means a judge appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate in accordance with Article II of the United States Constitution....
. She has accused crisis pregnancy center
Crisis pregnancy center
A crisis pregnancy center , sometimes called a pregnancy resource center , is a non-profit organization established to counsel pregnant women against having an abortion....
s of being "all about bait-and-switch" and "falsely maligning" the abortion procedure. Bazelon has been described by some commentators as "strongly pro-choice
Pro-choice
Support for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
" and a "prominent pro-choicer." She has acknowledged her support for legal abortion on her Double X blog, commenting, "of course there's still an argument that access to legal abortion is also crucial to opportunity for women. Think how much some women's lives would constrict if they really had to carry every pregnancy to term."
Criticism of Justice Ginsburg interview
In July 2009, the New York Times Magazine published Bazelon's interview with U.S. Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
. Discussing her view of Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade, , was a controversial landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion,...
in 1973, Ginsburg commented,
Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.
Bazelon did not ask any follow-up question to Ginsburg's suggestion that she subscribes to a eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
-based rationale for legalized abortion, i.e., as a remedy for "populations that we don't want to have too many of". Bazelon was criticized by some conservative commentators for not doing so. Michael Gerson
Michael Gerson
Michael John Gerson is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, a Policy Fellow with the ONE Campaign, and a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as President George W...
in the Washington Post asked, "Who, in Ginsburg's statement, is the 'we'? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?" Gerson suggested that Ginsburg was expressing an attitude of some in her "social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
" -- that abortion is useful in reducing the number of social undesirables—and noted, "Neither judge nor journalist apparently found this attitude exceptional; there was no follow-up question." Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Jacob Goldberg is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Goldberg is known for his contributions on politics and culture to , of which he is editor-at-large...
, writing in the Jewish World Review
Jewish World Review
Jewish World Review is a free, online magazine updated Monday through Friday , which seeks to appeal to "people of faith and those interested in learning more about contemporary Judaism from Jews who take their religion seriously."It carries informational articles related to Judaism, dozens of...
, called Bazelon's failure to ask a follow-up question "bizarre." The on-line magazine Politics Daily
Politics Daily
Politics Daily was an American political journalism web site launched by AOL News in April 2009. It described itself as a "political news magazine for the general reader."Melinda Henneberger, a former Newsweek and New York Times reporter,...
attributed the lack of a follow-up question to Bazelon's "strongly pro-choice" views, noting that "when an interviewer assumes that he or she shares the subject's sympathies and world view, even the most shocking statements can fly right by, or be assigned the most benign possible meaning."
In response to the criticism, Bazelon said that she did not ask a follow-up question because she believed that Ginsburg's use of "we" had referred to "some people at the time, not [Ginsburg] herself or a group that she feels a part of." Bazelon added that she (Bazelon) is "imperfect". Carl M. Cannon, writing in Politics Daily, dismissed Bazelon's explanation, remarking that it was "hardly the first time prominent pro-choicers have had to engage in semantic gymnastics to obscure a longtime underlying rationale for their position that is neither politically nor morally correct."
Personal life
Bazelon was raised in Philadelphia and attended Germantown Friends SchoolGermantown Friends School
Germantown Friends School is a coeducational K-12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends . It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn mainly...
. She graduated from Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...
in 1993 and from Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
in 2000 and was an editor of the Yale Law Journal
Yale Law Journal
The Yale Law Journal is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School...
. After law school she worked as a law clerk
Law clerk
A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...
for Judge Kermit Lipez
Kermit Lipez
Kermit Victor Lipez is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He is the only active judge from Maine currently serving on that court.-Judicial service:...
of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Maine* District of Massachusetts...
.
Bazelon is the granddaughter of David L. Bazelon
David L. Bazelon
David Lionel Bazelon was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.-Early life, education, and career:...
, formerly a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
, and second cousin twice removed
Cousin
In kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...
of feminist Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
with her husband, Paul Sabin, an assistant professor of history at Yale, and their sons, Eli and Simon.