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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

On Playing Your Position.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jun 4 2009, 9:00 AM ET Comment

My own views on abortion are anchored mostly in my experience with pregnancy. I was a doting partner, but those nine months made it abundantly clear that my burden was not Kenyatta's burden. It didn't matter that my heart was in it--there were simply places, on account of biology, that I could not go.

I have a good friend who almost died in the process of pregnancy. I am not willing to instruct people to carry a burden, that I can not. I will not do it.  Andrew's recent of dispatches from people who've grappled with abortion, have only reinforced that for me. Read them here, here, here, here, here and here.


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