Besides the ethical problems with selling body parts from aborted children, research using those body parts has never led to a single successful clinical treatment despite decades of trying.

It’s time Republicans and conservatives have a conversation among themselves and in their communities, not just about cannabis policy, but also about alcohol, drunk driving and criminal justice reform. And if Barnes’ dumb joke is the impetus for those conversations, I’m certain that’s a good thing.

I came of age in a family that revered former Chief Justice Edward George Ryan, so I was a bit surprised when former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, who was also revered in my family, raised an eyebrow as we considered the bust of her predecessor on a summer afternoon many years ago. Abrahamson recalled when Lavinia Goodell, the first woman admitted to practice law in Wisconsin, applied in 1876 for permission to argue cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Ryan rejected her — and all women. He argued that allowing women to practice law would be a “departure from the order of nature.”