Ben Jackson

Writer

But the ROE Act isn’t enough. What do our rights mean if we do not extend them to every citizen of our nation?

We have an opportunity in Massachusetts to not only guarantee reproductive freedom to our residents, but to anyone seeking care.

Mass. Should Become A Reproductive Health Care Sanctuary State

Protesters from the Center for Popular Democracy Action, dressed in Handmaid's Tale costumes, walk across the plaza of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020, to voice opposition to Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Amy Coney Barrett Protest

Commentary

Boston

Crime & Justice

Health

Life

News

Opinion

Politics

Fred Guttenberg speaks in front of photos of his daughter Jaime, who was killed in the Parkland school shootings, during a news conference on May 24 in Miami. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Khary Penebaker holds a photograph of his mother, Joyce, at a protest of the NRA convention in Dallas, Texas, on May 5, 2018. (Courtesy of NoRA)

Not only will these laws prevent shootings like Parkland, they have the potential to save the lives of thousands of people who use guns to kill themselves every year.

A Parkland Father, The Son Of A Suicide Victim And The Case For 'Red Flag' Laws In Mass.

One month after February 2018's deadly Parkland, Fla. school shooting, Massachusetts students gather at the state house to express concerns about gun violence. Many called for stricter gun laws. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

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Debate Over Gun Laws

When those who serve join the military, we sign contracts in the full knowledge of what that contract means. But it also binds our family as well to the specter of death, ever looming until the contract expires -- or we do.

If Trump wants to attack veterans, well, we’re tough. We can take it. It is quite another thing to attack those families who have sacrifice thrust upon them in the most painful and public way.

Gold Star Grief: Donald Trump's Attack On One Veteran's Family Is An Attack On Them All

The tombstone of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun S. M. Khan is seen in  Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, Aug. 1, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

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2016 Democratic National Convention

Election 2016

Donald Trump

Like so many other men. In being convicted of sexual assault, [Turner] and his father are somehow convinced that he is the victim.

We need to teach our daughters and our sons that consent is sacrosanct. That there are consequences to violating it.

Brock Turner, And What We Talk About When We Talk To Our Kids About Rape

A six-month jail term for a former Stanford University student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman is being decried as a slap on the wrist. In this photo, a student walks on Stanford's campus on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

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Education

Media

family

Security

One of these groups has seen a comprehensive government response aimed at reducing access to the product that causes death. The other has seen a government actively obstructing similar efforts.

...are we wrong to ask whether, if the most affected populations were reversed, one or the other crisis would be getting different attention? 

‘Embedded’: Inside The Opioid-HIV Explosion In One Indiana Town

Opioids And Guns: Does The Race Of Their Victims Drive How We Combat Them?

Ben Jackson: "Two epidemics. Thousands of deaths. So why aren't our leaders attacking these crises with equal urgency, funding and legislation?" (Thomas Marthinsen/Flickr, left, and Jens Lelie/Unsplash)


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policy

Listen to the audio version of this commentary

As I watched my daughter die, possibilities collapsed inward. Time, as it is wont to do in moments of extremity, became unglued...

Saving Emma: A Daughter's Life, A Father's Powerlessness To Save It

Ben Jackson: "In the face of real emergency, I was only able to help her by surrendering to those who knew better and trusting in their expertise." (slightly-less-random/Flickr)

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Best Of Cog

'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' acknowledged the melancholy many of us feel over the holidays. 

...look for the muddlers, the sad eyes behind the strained smiles. See them. Hold them close, acknowledge their feelings, include them.

Muddling Through The Season Of Joy

Ben Jackson: "We are chided to smile, to feel joy, to hide the sadness that mixes with the other, warmer emotions of this cold season." (Agustin Rafael Reyes/Flickr)

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Listen to Ben Jackson on WBUR's Morning Edition

If you believe in the Black Lives Matter movement, then it is unconscionable that we give such huge electoral power to two of the whitest states in America.

Primary Colors: Why Do Two Of America's Whitest States Hold So Much Electoral Sway?

Ben Jackson: "Without a national primary, we deprive the vast majority of Americans -- especially non-white Americans -- of the opportunity to shape the future of the nation." Pictured: Voters listen as Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks during a campaign stop at Robie's Country Store Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, in Hooksett, N.H. (Jim Cole/AP)

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Business

Economy

I wasn’t irresponsible. I didn’t sell drugs or make too much noise or waste my money on lavish and unnecessary things. It doesn’t matter.

Ben Jackson On Becoming Homeless

...you will get up in the morning, groggily discern where you are, and rise to meet the new day, hopeful it will end with a home.

4 Months And Counting: Lessons From Homelessness

Ben Jackson: "The adjustment from having a home to being homeless is a conglomeration of realizations swift and slow, empowering and terminally depressing." (Gudbjörn Valgeirsson/Unsplash)


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Food

Listen to the radio version of this story

I am the single father of a disabled teenager, and I am newly homeless.

The author and his daughter, Emma, during one of her many stays at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2015. (Ben Jackson/Courtesy)

We cannot be the nation that allows children and families to go homeless and destitute because we lack adequate resources.

Dear State And Federal Representatives: A Hotel Room Is Not A Home

Ben Jackson: "As a society, we must fight for people like me and like my daughter." (Nikolai Vassiliev/flickr) 

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Stories about the Brown-Warren Senate election in 2012.

Ben Jackson

Recently published

Mass. Should Become A Reproductive Health Care Sanctuary State

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A Parkland Father, The Son Of A Suicide Victim And The Case For 'Red Flag' Laws In Mass.

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Gold Star Grief: Donald Trump's Attack On One Veteran's Family Is An Attack On Them All

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Brock Turner, And What We Talk About When We Talk To Our Kids About Rape

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Opioids And Guns: Does The Race Of Their Victims Drive How We Combat Them?

Cognoscenti

Saving Emma: A Daughter's Life, A Father's Powerlessness To Save It

Cognoscenti

Muddling Through The Season Of Joy

Cognoscenti

Primary Colors: Why Do Two Of America's Whitest States Hold So Much Electoral Sway?

Cognoscenti

4 Months And Counting: Lessons From Homelessness

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Dear State And Federal Representatives: A Hotel Room Is Not A Home

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