Ever since Elizabeth and John Edwards announced that her breast cancer had recurred, the couple’s decision to continue John Edwards’ campaign for president has gotten lots of scrutiny.
You can understand the questions about whether John Edwards will be too distracted by his wife’s illness to be a good president. He is running for office and his mental state is fair game.
But the questions that are harder to make sense of are the ones about their personal priorities. There was this exchange, for example, with Katie Couric on 60 Minutes Sunday night:

Couric: Some people watching this would say, ‘I would put my family first always, and my job second.’ And you’re doing the exact opposite. You’re putting your work first, and your family second.
John Edwards: But this is not work. Work is what I did as a lawyer. This is service. This is…this is a country that I love — both of us love as much as we love our lives.
Couric: I guess some people would say that there’s some middle ground. You don’t have to necessarily stay at home and feel sorry for yourself, and do nothing. but, if given a finite — a possibly finite period of time on the planet — being on the campaign trail, away from my children a lot of time and sort of pursuing this goal is not necessarily what I’d do.

But it’s not about what you and I and Katie Couric think. It’s about what is best for Elizabeth and John Edwards.
That’s the point Katherine Quinn makes. She’s the executive director of Support Connection in Yorktown Heights, which offers support groups, yoga, meditation, art classes and other services for women with breast and ovarian cancer.
“Each person is an individual,� she says, “and each cancer diagnosis affects people in a different way.�
“We never tell anyone what they need to do. We work with them to provide resources and support to decide what works best for them.�
That seems so simple.

Meanwhile today Sheryl Crow, who had breast cancer, appeared with U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey of Harrison, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton and other politicians to call for new cancer legislation. It would create research centers that would explore links between environmental pollutants and breast cancer. The centers would be funded by the National Institutes of Health.