I hadn’t been the only man in a crowded room like this since joining a discussion over a decade ago on the 200th anniversary of the publication of “Pride and Prejudice.” The occasion last week at the Summit County Library was Pam Houston’s talk about her book “Without Exception,” a rumination centered on abortion, toward the tail end of a two-month speaking tour that must feel like 200 years.Of course, that’s nothing like the simmering nightmare a sizable majority of women in this country are enduring with the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of a half-century of freedom to undergo the procedure. This in a country where 63% of the population, according to the Pew Research Center, favors a woman’s right and responsibility to make this decision for herself. Not an overweening state.A corollary, bear with me, is the antiquated Electoral College, which makes the presidential election the only one that doesn’t at all follow the one person-one vote principle in reality.The direct result is my vote for president in Utah doesn’t count. My vote in California doesn’t count. In most states it doesn’t count. A few states, a few counties in those few states, and a few precincts in those few counties in those few states will decide who will become the most powerful leader in the free world.And that person alone will have the authority to choose new members of the Supreme Court, as political a body as either house in Congress.  Bear in mind that the majority of the religious community, including followers of each Christian faith other than evangelical Protestants, believes in the moral right of a woman rather than the state to decide such an immense and personal matter.Perhaps to stretch a point to breaking but not beyond truth, you could say a corner of greater Philadelphia or a few counties in lesser Wisconsin or Michigan in 2016 pretty much settled the fate of Roe and Casey, which together formed a sensible balance of a woman’s human right to choose and society’s responsibility to the unborn.But I digress, though in Pam Houston form in her rushed-to-press pocketbook that came out Sept. 3, just in time for the last sprint to the 2024 election.The book contains snippets of memoir, more than a little journalism, and a lot of pure punditry tailored to her tribe. That is to say, her underlying assumptions are unlikely to sway anyone from what they already believe.That includes me concerning abortion and its politics. I’m much more moderate than her. I believe the spark of potential life should be considered more than she seems to, frankly. But I think we agree that the government has no moral, constitutional or state’s right to dictate what a woman does with this life-altering choice short of the viability of the fetus outside the womb, my own hard-line game changer.The Bible has something to say and quite specifically about such ancient matters as eating pork and keeping a slave, quoted often in a different age to justify the practice in America, but nothing about abortion. Leavened vs. unleavened bread gets more attention.Ambiguous passages are, um, interpreted or ignored where inconvenient in religious justifications for the state to outlaw a woman’s right to decide for herself. To me, this isn’t so, so far from the Taliban making crap up about women’s place in society even though the Prophet elevated their rights dramatically for the time.Culture, not scripture itself, is the devil here.There’s nothing in science, either, to support abortion bans, including long-term studies revealing women as far more sensible than the state in every way if going by outcomes for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not to mention the health and welfare of the greater society. The hallowed mission of limited government, in other words.Most of this is in the book. Houston’s journalism summarizes studies, looks at faith, at lives, politics, culture, all that. The poignant, painful personal anecdotes and the punditry make the sum more powerful than the parts.I picked up “Without Exception” after hearing her speak last Monday in Salt Lake City. There wasn’t much choice if I wanted to sample her canon. “Cowboys Are My Weakness” and “Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country” weren’t available.Halfway through “Without Exception” by Thursday, I decided to go to her Park City appearance.The craft is fine, the book reads well. I like how she divided it into 60 sections (for her 60 years at the time of writing) with subheds — each could be a column in my paper. I don’t think that’s what brought me back, though. I’m also pecking away at Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” (in my ears), DeLillo’s “Underworld,” Updike’s “Rabbit, Run,” all classics. But this pocket stuffer took over my reading, and not only that. Houston sent my mind rocketing far from the page, arguing with some points, taking others further as I pondered them in the shower, while driving, between things, I’m sure running if I weren’t taking a short break from the trail.   In Jane Austin’s hands, “Pride and Prejudice” is deft and wise. Houston’s book is nothing of the sort, so blunt and hard swung, but also not fiction. This one is all too real. Now what are we going to do about it, all of it? Reading the room — that is, by who was missing — I can’t say I’m entirely encouraged.Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745.The post Journalism Matters: Book uproots thin reed supporting abortion bans appeared first on Park Record.