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The abortion plank in the 2016 Democratic platform effectively marginalizes the voices of 21 million pro-life Democrats. It means the party that is supposedly on the side of justice for the vulnerable no longer welcomes those of us who #ChooseBoth; that is, those of us who want the government to protect and support prenatal children and their mothers. (Kristen Day and Charles Camosy, 7/25)

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the party's pro-choice components have consolidated power. There is little in the polls to support a more liberal posture on the issue. Since Gallup began tracking abortion in the 1970s, the main default position of Americans has been support for abortion "only under certain circumstances." (Francis Wilkinson, 7/25)

When a congressional panel investigating the procurement of fetal tissue from abortion clinics was formed last fall, its Republican leader and members made no secret of their mission to expose businesses that “sell baby body parts.” (They even said as much on their website.) Their inquiry was inspired by hidden-camera videos (later discredited) that supposedly showed Planned Parenthood officials negotiating over payments for harvested fetal tissue. It’s illegal in the U.S. to profit from the sale of fetal tissue — payments are limited to the cost of collecting and handling it — so if the committee actually found organizations doing that, it would be legitimate to bust them. (7/25)

The Affordable Care Act continues to provide an opportunity for religious zealots to complain that someone, somewhere, might be doing something of which they disapprove. Another such case advancing through the courts is that of Missouri State Rep. Paul Wieland and his wife, Teresa, who assert that Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate tramples on their family’s religious rights even if they don’t make use of it. St. Louis Federal Judge Jean Constance Hamilton thinks they may have a point. On Thursday she denied the government’s motion to throw out the case on summary judgment. Merely requiring individuals to buy an insurance policy that provides contraception could infringe on their religious conscience, she ruled in clearing the case for trial. (Michael Hiltzik, 7/25)

The federal government's own actuaries are once again pessimistic that America's health-care costs will continue their slow growth. Thankfully, their boss, Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of Health and Human Services, is working hard to prove them wrong. On Monday, she took another big step in the right direction. Medicare costs this year are up only 4 percent, which means that on an inflation-adjusted basis, spending per beneficiary is declining. (Peter R. Orszag, 7/25)

National action in response to superbugs is growing. In 2015, the White House released the National Action Plan for Combating Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria. While we applaud this effort, these domestic steps need to be accompanied by a much stronger global approach. The reality is drug resistance usually emerges in parts of the world where antibiotic use in people and animals is rampant, poorly regulated and largely untracked. (Lisa Cohen, Guy Palmer and John Lynch, 7/24)

The big rate increases announced last week for health insurance policies sold by California’s version of the federal health reform are the latest evidence that the Affordable Care Act, despite its name, cannot do much to tame the rise of health care costs. The government-run health insurance market is facing all the same cost pressures that the private market has confronted for years, plus more that have resulted from the dynamics of the federal law itself. Covered California, the state insurance agency created to implement the federal law, announced last week that rates for insurance sold through the program will increase an average of 13.2 percent in 2017. (Daniel Weintraub, 7/25)

In the wake of the brutal killings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, Delrawn Small, and police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, America is confronting how its long history of racial injustice continues into the present. We must all address these wounds, including those of us in medicine. As medical students soon to be entrusted with the health and well-being of individual patients and entire communities, we see responding to these tragedies as intertwined with our professional responsibilities. (Jocelyn Streid, Margaret Hayden, Rahul Nayak and Cameron Nutt, 7/25)

State-supported mental health care is now available only for the sickest of the sickest of the sick. As a rough rule of thumb in any medical or mental health care delivery system, 20 percent of the people consume 80 percent of the money. The state chose an all-or-nothing response to limit the types of services and the number of people covered. ... North Carolina is now in the process of repeating this same mistake in its unnecessary and politically driven effort to reform Medicaid, which delivers medical care to the poor, the great majority of whom are children. Unlike the mental health care system, the Medicaid system in North Carolina run by Community Care of NC has been a model of care delivery that has received national recognition. (David Horowitz, 7/24)

Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) is a drug and alcohol treatment organization with centers in Eastern and Central Kentucky and is headquartered in Louisa, Kentucky. Addiction is devastating our region. Our region has suffered from one of the worst prescription drug abuse problems in the nation. Now, we see overdoses increasing as heroin and fentanyl flood into the mountains. (Tim Robinson, 7/25)

The plight of the elderly, mentally ill and disabled who are unable to take care of themselves is heartbreaking, but until recently their fate was luck of the draw: Many had loving families who stepped in as legal guardians; others got good-hearted community volunteers; some got diligent attorneys who worked under very minimal court supervision; and others — hundreds of Franklin County’s 7,000 wards — got crooked lawyers who had turned guardianship appointments into a cottage industry and stole their wards’ money, dignity and freedom. (7/26)

The 26th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is certainly something to celebrate. But it also highlights how much work still needs to be done. A recent article in the Washington Post pointed out a paradox that the parents of children with special needs are all too familiar with: while the federal government has for decades required states to accommodate the special needs of people with disabilities like cerebral palsy and autism, Congress has never provided the money to do so. (Brian Roy, 7/26)