Our country expresses its values in how health care is delivered.
Health
Pinkwashed?
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When people working for a good cause turn in directions that aren’t good—or might even be bad—do their virtuous intentions outweigh the unintended side effects of their activities? How far can the ethical standards of activists and philanthropists be trusted when people worship capitalism as blindly as many Americans do today?
US Politics
Why the Affordable Care Act Will Not Remedy the U.S. Health Crisis
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Many liberals are describing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold “Obamacare” as a resounding victory for the president and likely to contribute to his chances for re-election. I don’t see it that way.
2012
Drug Prohibition Is the Problem: Reflections from a Former Judge
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Drug prohibition is the biggest failed policy in the history of our country. I know that is a strong statement, but once more people realize the unnecessary harms and disasters this policy has inflicted, they will surely start to agree.
Articles
Healing Our World
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For years, we danced with the idea of a bar mitzvah. Thirteen is a milestone for all Jewish children, and I was determined that our son would take part. I knew he could learn a few simple prayers and songs; he has amazing memory skills, not uncommon for children with autism. Still, we worried. What if a large crowd unnerved him?
Politics & Society
Healing From and Unlearning Violence
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What does it mean to make accountability not a buzzword but a solid foundation for a life path? True accountability requires an offender to commit to entering those deep, dark, scary, shut-down places and attempt to heal. Healing is hard work.
Health
Another element of the Obama Administration’s Lesser but Still real Evil
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When people often say that they are going to reelect Obama as “the lesser evil,” it is important to acknowledge that though lesser evil, the Obama Administration has been involved in considerable evil. By Jeffrey Sachs
Huffington Post
November 25, 201
The wonder of our world is that scientific knowledge is
now so powerful that we can save millions of children,
mothers, and fathers from killer diseases each year at
little cost. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and
Malaria has mobilized that knowledge over the past
decade to save more than 7 million lives and to protect
the health of hundreds of millions more. Yet now the
Global Fund is under mortal threat because of budget
cuts approved by President Obama and the Congress. The Obama Administration had pledged $4 billion during
2011-13 to the Global Fund, or $1.33 billion per year.
Articles
The Primal Spirituality of Circumcision vs. the Cultural Steamroller of Scientism
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Should a society based on the principles of democracy and Western thinking permit people to circumcise children? The answer to that question may well be no. I suggest, however, that this is the wrong question through which to understand the issue of circumcision.
Articles
Becoming a Jew Is Dangerous — Circumcision Is the Least of It
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Matthew Taylor initiates his sharp critique of brit milah (the covenant of circumcision) with anger … as a rabbi, I would of course be very engaged by such a confession and would want to know more. But as an introduction to a learned discussion over a ritual practice that is so central to the Jewish narrative, this expression of anger is not exactly conducive to a rational exchange. It is, however, honest and deserves a sober response.
Gender & Sexuality
My Body, My Choice: Ban Non-Consensual Circumcision
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Like countless men who have been circumcised, I’m angry about what was taken from me. If I could go back in time to the moment before this was done to me, I would use any means necessary to stop it. I wish there’d been a law against it.
Articles
Faith Healing For Skeptics: How the Expectant Brain Relieves Pain
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Are those who seek faith healing deluded? Not entirely. Although no amount of faith can regenerate a lost limb, faith can indeed help a person overcome crippling pain. The natural brain mechanisms that allow this to occur are increasingly understood. Believing in a Higher Power—even a fictional one—can cure ills amenable to the placebo response.
Reviews
The Work of Healing
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Mary Jane Nealon’s gorgeous memoir works along that revelatory thread, examining the physical and metaphysical life of a person who became both a nurse and a writer.
Culture
Twelve-Step Healing: Beyond Disease Metaphors and God-Talk
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While it may be true, as Nicholas Boeving states in this issue of Tikkun, that recovery (the blanket term used to describe twelve-step programs) works for only a minority of addicts, that minority is a rather large number: millions around the world. And because recovery is such a large and growing movement, Boeving’s criticisms—which for the most part are valid—only speak to a certain aspect of the twelve-step paradigm.
Spirituality
Is Addiction Really a Disease? A Challenge to Twelve-Step Programs
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For most of America, having a disease means having a foreign body assume residence in the biological tissue, multiplying itself and attacking the surrounding healthy tissue. This idea is a direct result of the discovery of microscopy and the bacterial origin of many afflictions. The metaphor here is war, and all good doctors are on the front lines, battling leukemia, eradicating AIDS and other serious illnesses. Sometimes we cause the war ourselves and sometimes we are simply invaded. But where is the infection in addiction? To what can we actually point?
Politics & Society
Health Care Versus Wealth Care: Investors with a Conscience Should Divest from Health Insurance Companies
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Who can defend health insurance companies? There is no business case, no health care case, no moral case to support their ongoing existence. They make their profits by avoiding taking care of sick people — by refusing to issue policies, canceling policies, or denying payment. The health insurance industry must go.