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How deadly could climate change be? Last fall, in an idiosyncratic corner of the internet where I happen to spend a lot of time, an argument broke out about how to quantify and characterize the mortality impact of global warming. An activist named Roger Hallam — a founder of Extinction Rebellion who now helps lead the harder-line group Just Stop Oil — had told the BBC that, if global temperatures reach two degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average, “mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly one billion mainly poorer humans.” (David Wallace-Wells, 2/22)

Alabama's Supreme Court ruling asserting that frozen embryos are "children" will have devastating and far-reaching implications. One of the largest hospitals in the state has already suspended in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments while its administrators weigh the legal risks of the decision—with potentially more clinics and hospitals to follow. (Leah Jones, 2/22)

Margaret Atwood couldn't make this up. The claimants in LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic argued their "embryonic children" were victims of wrongful deaths after their accidental destruction. Last week, Alabama's highest court not only ruled in their favor but also expanded the definition of "children" to include cryopreserved, fertilized eggs. That's right: Despite containing as few as two cells, these pre-Alabamans will now unconsciously enjoy all the same rights, legal status, and privileges as actual Alabamans. (Melina Cohen, 2/22)

Despite the lofty and expansive rhetoric of his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito insisted throughout the text that the actual decision was more modest than it might appear. The end of Roe, he said, was not the end of abortion access as much as it was the beginning of a new era of democratic deliberation and decision-making. No longer shackled by a prior dictate of the Supreme Court, the people were free to choose. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote. (Jamelle Bouie, 2/23)

My nonprofit, Period Law, has been fighting to end the sales tax on menstrual products since 2016. We made our case to the national sales tax group that “feminine hygiene products” is vague and unhelpful. More important, it’s confusing to male legislators. (Laura Strausfeld, 2/22)

Filling out paperwork is no one's idea of a good time. But a delay in crossing that off your to-do list could put your health insurance at risk if you're one of the nearly 1.5 million Minnesotans whose medical care is covered through the state's public health programs. (2/22)