Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to rule on two provocative issues: a Nebraska law outlawing "partial-birth" abortion, and a former New Jersey Boy Scout's contention that he cannot be excluded from the organization because he is gay. In 1998, Atul Gawande described the cruel realities of late-term abortion and argued that fixation on the partial-birth procedure misses a larger ethical debate. And in 1999, Geoffrey Wheatcroft explored the New Jersey lawsuit by recounting the alternative lifestyle of the Scouts' founder, Lord Baden-Powell.