France exonerates women convicted over abortions before legalisation

'For humanities departments to continue to matter, they must challenge the modern world rather than accommodate it. Indeed, the most useful lesson the humanities have to offer today is a profoundly countercultural one: Difficulty is good, an end in its own right.' 2/2

Burned out.

Politics can be complex but on the heels of a weekend marked by dreadful murderous attacks in public, and against the background of ongoing killings in Gaza and South Sudan, Russia's war on Ukraine etc., let me please remind you: there is no contradiction in siding with all victims of violence.

I’ve been seeing this cover over and over and I just… In the original you’re aware of the horror of falling, but the body positions of the workers are solid on the beam. Here, most of them should be falling off, yet they don’t, because they live in an unreal, consequence-free space.

I think the fundamental gap here is that non-creative people think that creative people make things for the end product, when in fact it’s the act of creation and not the end point that makes it worthwhile.

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

A new report examines 🔟 reasons for the UK to stay in the #ECHR. 👉🏻 protecting everyone’s rights 👉🏻 ensuring accountability 👉🏻 safeguarding democracy 👉🏻 maintaining UK influence With @victoriaadamant.bsky.social Başak Çalı @joellegrogan.bsky.social Philip Leach lnkd.in/eD3bH5jU

Hello, I’m Keir Starmer and I’m a former human rights lawyer, so you can trust me when I tell you human rights are bad and need to be eradicated

Michael Palin, Stephen Fry and Joanna Lumley among celebrities urging UK not to weaken torture protections www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

On Human Rights Day 2025, Keir Starmer is calling to get rid of the European Convention on Human Rights with Mette Frederiksen, Giorgia Meloni, and several other European leaders.

Victims of NHS maternity failings in England ‘received unacceptable care’

There's even a comics adaptation by Gareth Brookes’s of 😍 Izaak Walton’s 1653 fishing manual The Compleat Angler (SelfMadeHero) with linocut prints to "Walton’s poetic prose, conjuring a landscape of cruelty and plenty in a meditative book of subtle carp, malicious frogs and dainty eels."

We Choose Every Day: Hebe Stanton reviews Claire North's SLOW GODS (@orbitbooks.bsky.social)

Spent last week in India for a wedding, with a little bit of free time for exploring... and now back to cold Britain and marking!

“Conversation with Smaug”, by JRR Tolkien, for 1937’s “The Hobbit”. I’ve no idea what state of mind Tolkien was in when he painted it. But every time I’ve seen it, and I’ve seen it a lot, I get the impression that he was having a really great time. It’s so zestful, in its details & as a whole.

Happy Doctor Who day! To celebrate here is the greatest of Doctor Who images: Verity Lambert using a Mechanoid as a lighter.

Abortions effectively banned or restricted in nearly half of Russia’s regions According to The Insider’s estimates, more than 30 Russian regions now enforce either full or partial bans on abortion procedures. 📰 theins.ru/en/news/286765

This week, reproductive rights specialist @whiterxbbit.bsky.social hosted a screening of the documentary 'Zurawski v Texas,' a film distributed by Together Films that exposes the legal, political, and physical suffering of pregnant people denied healthcare in Texas after the Dobbs SCOTUS case

Not a reboot. Not a reunion show. But set in same universe and continuity as the various original series. Bunch of original writers onboard. If they stick to that principle, it'll be fascinating. I'm WAY more likely to watch a show done this way than yet another reboot of a beloved thing.

This is easily my favourite book of the year, and possibly the most incredible book I have ever read.

There should really be some consideration of whether removing direct entry midwifery, going after lecturers, reducing capacity to teach critical thinking skills and assuming women's bodies are faulty and broken from the start will truly solve the safety issues or wider systematic challenges

NEWS JUST IN! A new book will in fact solve all your problems

My second year volunteering at Thought Bubble was so fun ❤️

The Court finds that the interference with the applicant's sights was not "in accordance with law" due to the unlawful composition of the Constitutional Court. The court therefore swerves the substantive question as to whether restrictions on access to abortion are themselves proportionate.

The European Court of Human Rights has again found that Poland's restriction on abortion in cases of foetal impairment has violated the Article 8 rights of an applicant hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22docu...

2026 will mark 50 years since the UK ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Join us 16th-17th June 2026 for a conference, funded by the Society for Legal Scholars and @lawatleeds.bsky.social, to discuss future trajectories and challenges!

👀

Zohran Mamdani has won the New York City mayoral race, capping a meteoric rise from a little-known state politician to one of the country's most visible Democratic figures.

Leeds friends, I'm hosting a documentary screening later this month!

Are you working on a paper on law, history and reproduction? My great colleague Dr Gauri Pillai and I are organising a workshop for you at the University of Bristol Law School on 1 May 2026! Please send your abstract by 15 December 2025. Travel grants available.

Happy Halloween from Batman Below

"...as a matter of law, the house is haunted" This by a Canadian lawyer is the best thing on ghosts and the law: www.fasken.com/en/commonlaw... Enjoy.

A horror film where a person (hot) is making a pb&j & starts by putting peanut butter on a slice of bread (normal) & then (sociopathically) puts the jam DIRECTLY & DISGUSTINGLY ON TOP OF THE PEANUT BUTTER INSTEAD OF ON A SEPARATE PIECE OF BREAD.

BBC confirms future of Doctor Who and a new Christmas Special in 2026 www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

"Russia is trying new restrictions to halt the backslide [of declining birth rates] and embrace what it calls “traditional family values” with laws banning the promotion of abortion and “child-free ideology” and outlawing all LGBTQ+ activism." Read more below ⬇️

The number of reports by nurses of racist incidents at work has risen by 55% over three years - the Royal College of Nursing calls on govt to stop using anti migrant rhetoric that drives this, and for employers to prioritise tackling racism and work with unions www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I just received my contributor copy of The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy! My chapter is about the personhood of animals/nature/monsters/robots in BotW and ToTK. Read it to find out the names of my beloved (in-game) horses!

Happy Anniversary to the Penguin, who debuted way back in 1941!

If any of you lovely people are in Leeds for the @thoughtbubbleuk.bsky.social The Comics Research Group at Leeds University is hosting a roundtable and exhibition event on Comics Theory and Practice on Nov 12. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/comics-pra...

"Do we want to live in a world where books and culture flourish? Or in a purely functional world where the value of education is solely measured in expected earnings? Perhaps Kemi would be a better leader if she’d dropped engineering for religious studies or psychology."

NoaF needs more contributors. Maybe that could be you? If not, we'd really appreciate a share, or if you fancied passing the link across to someone who might be interested, so we can keep on covering as wide a ground in SFF as we can.

#DoctorWho Postcards are now available to buy! 15 Doctors. 15 debut stories. Published by Penguin Books in another universe, in a different time. Get them here: colemandesign.co.uk/shop

Some law nerding at Durham Cathedral's exhibition of the only surviving 1216 Magna Carta, and the 1225 reissue that someone spilled a bottle of ink over in the 1700s, getting themselves permanently banned from the library.

For anyone in the Liverpool area, we are hosting a conversation and hands-on workshop on abortion rights and creative methods as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science - come join us! Sign up here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/claire-piers... @livunihss.bsky.social @livunipol.bsky.social

Blimey, the French media didn't even have time to pop down to Carrefour for a lettuce.

Heaton Park. My heart is broken. British Jews have been warning you about this for years. It’s Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur. This is one of every Jews worst nightmare. Why we have so much security at synagogue. The anxious thought you try and push to the back of your mind. Heartbroken.

In US Catholic universities, students are stepping up to meet the #reproductive and #contraceptive health needs of their peers: www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

My new article on Climate Change Litigation under the ECHR is out in @echr-law-review.bsky.social. (Thanks to my colleagues @lancasterlaw.bsky.social and @cohelongo.bsky.social for comments.) brill.com/view/journal...

Prof Conor Gearty on the UK Supreme Court’s legal tactics for erasing the Human Rights Act. “The​ current members of the Supreme Court, ten men and two women, all of them white, seem to regard the Human Rights Act as an unwelcome remnant of a past era”. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...