Tag Archives: abortion

All Posts, civil rights, Congress, Constitution, justice

LET’S CONTINUE ARGUING

It was on July 4, 1776 that representatives of the people of every colony unanimously announced themselves as member states that would form a new nation.   Before there was a constitution or a president, there was our Declaration of Independence.

In just one eloquent sentence that declaration laid the philosophical foundation for the United States of America, its Constitution, laws and traditions.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  That sentence provides glimpses of the shining city on the hill that Americans aspire to build.  As each generation adds to the city, there are debates and battles over laws, the role of government and our vision for the future. Continue reading LET’S CONTINUE ARGUING →

All Posts, civil rights, Constitution, justice, religion

WHO MAKES YOUR DECISIONS?

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There is a rising chorus of threats against the rights of Americans to make decisions about their own bodies.  Yes, I’m writing about abortion, not because I want to but because we now have a President and a Republican congressional majority who intend to impose their version of morality on every individual.  It’s un-American.  It’s dictatorial.  It’s patriarchal.  And they will absolutely do it unless freedom loving people stand up to them.

As preface, let’s acknowledge that consideration of abortion arises at a very difficult time in a woman’s life.  Our question is, “Who will make the decision, the woman or the government?”  Our judgments about her choice or her conscience are merely opinions.   Who decides?

For historical perspective, abortion is recorded in the earliest human histories.  Plato, for example, noted the ability of midwives to “…cause miscarriages if they think them desirable…”  Herbs, drugs and physical procedures for abortion have been generally known and widely used in every culture.  There is occasional documentation of moral or religious objections but historically, abortion was widely accepted without legal regulation or intervention.  The greatest concern was the risk posed by procedures and toxic herbs used to induce abortions.

In colonial and early America, abortion was common practice.  In the 19th century it was openly advertised and it was estimated that 20-25 percent of pregnancies were terminated by abortion.  Birth control options were limited; and at least half of abortions were among married women who had children and didn’t want or couldn’t afford more.

American religious objections evolved into attempts to ban abortion in the late 19th century, spurred by opposition to the emerging women’s rights and suffrage movements.  One notorious example of that radical religious movement is the Comstock Law of 1873.  It banned publication and teaching (even in medical schools) of any information regarding birth control, abortion or prevention of venereal disease.  Religious extremists had taken charge of the congress but clinics offering abortions continued to operate in many American cities.  Abortion continued to be available (often illegally and often dangerously) across the nation until the 1973 Supreme Court decision that overturned anti-abortion laws.

Since that time, misogynists and religious zealots have been fighting to re-impose their will on pregnant women.  Our Republican President and Congress are among them.  They certainly have the right to believe and teach whatever they choose; but they have no right to limit a woman’s full control of her own body.  That is where the battle line is drawn.

It is the nature of freedom that a person may do things – even make mistakes – which the majority of society disapproves.  For example, we allow parents to feed their children so much junk food that they are grossly obese, diabetic and destined for a life of disability before they start school. We don’t put the parents in jail for it.  Meanwhile religious zealots, obsessed with other people’s pelvic morality, insist on controlling one singular and personal aspect of a woman’s life – her pregnancy.

Among the zealots are those who put a velvet glove on the iron hand of tyranny by saying that they would allow abortion in cases of rape, or when the woman’s life would be endangered by the pregnancy. Their self-righteousness leaves them with no doubt that they know better what is right for her and her body than she does. They reserve to themselves the right to judge her motives and to require that if her sexual encounter was consensual then she will be denied an abortion.  Can you think of any other issue where laws might delve so intensely into personal matters?

Invariably we wish that whatever problem caused a woman to decide for abortion had not occurred.  With that in mind, we should acknowledge and celebrate the fact that the abortion rate in America is now at or near the lowest level in our history.  That success is due in large part to good information about birth control and inexpensive access to it.  But our nation is divided, even on that.

Abortions will continue because the reasons why some women choose them have not changed since Plato’s time.  But if Republicans have their way, abortions won’t be legal and safe.  If religious zealots are allowed to impose their will through force of law, they won’t stop with abortion, and you need not bother ask for whom the bell will toll.  It will toll for freedom.

All Posts, Constitution, guns, health, lgbtq, north carolina, poverty, public education, taxes, war

What to do on the morning after?

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The day after the election will be the first day of the rest of our lives. What should we expect of our elected officials? Will we help or undermine each other and elected leaders?  If individuals, families and communities listen to each other’s ideas and agree on how to move forward together, we can invigorate the idea of “commonwealth”, a society that is organized to benefit all.  Everybody wins.  If, on the other hand, winners kick losers while they’re down in order to maintain dominance and if losers do all they can to stop winners from implementing their ideas then the republic will decline.  Everybody loses.

It’s happened in great societies throughout history and it’s especially clear in the Bible’s Old Testament. When those in power dominate and abuse the powerless, everybody loses and the society fails.  When the principle of commonwealth guides decisions, the society blossoms.

Poverty, income inequality and homelessness are at crisis levels in many places.  Rural America has depended on agriculture and manufacturing to provide family incomes and property tax revenue for local governments.  Both of those economic sectors now produce more goods with fewer people than ever before.  At the same time that rural employment opportunities paying middle class wages have become scarce, the tax revenues of rural communities have stagnated.  Budgets for public education, safety, and human services are under severe stress at a time when they are critical to redevelopment of communities.  The plight of rural America has much in common with high poverty neighborhoods of urban America.  Low incomes and insufficient resources have similar effects in both places.

Will legislatures reconsider how public services are funded and which tax revenues are available at local, state and federal levels?  Will high poverty areas have funding for education, high-speed internet, water, sewer, quality of life, health and other priorities at a level that is proportionate to wealthy areas?  If not, will their future be inter-generational poverty and emigration of successful residents to more desirable areas?  Will legislators work at solving the underlying problems or will they pit urban vs rural and white vs black vs Hispanic for partisan gain?

What about the sanctity of human life?  Will we expect our congress, legislatures and executives to behave as if “all lives matter”?  Does someone who wants a gun have the right to own an assault rifle designed for mass killing?  Does a woman have the right to remove a fetus from her body?  In which decisions should government have a role?

Conflicts between personal and constitutional values will not be fully resolved but can we make progress for the common good?   Could we agree to reduce the demand for abortion by providing free birth control, better access to pre-natal care, simple and inexpensive adoption procedures, and by solving our income inequality problems?   Will we expect legislators to find ways to preserve gun ownership for self-defense and recreation while getting weapons designed for mass killing out of circulation and screening gun purchasers to rule out suspected terrorists and known criminals?  Or will we reward leaders for continuing to insult each other?

The Republican controlled Senate has refused to consider President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.  They hope to win the Presidential election and get a conservative-leaning nominee. Senators Richard Burr and Ted Cruz have made the radical statement that if Hillary Clinton is elected, they will refuse to confirm nominees and let the court shrink.  That abrogation of a senator’s constitutional responsibility would invite similar behavior from Democrats toward a Republican president. Will we insist that senators fulfill their constitutional duties?

Differences of race, wealth, religion and philosophy divide us on a long list of issues: immigration, transpacific partnership, climate change, war, taxes, LBGTQ rights, health care, and more.

We’re not all going to miraculously agree after the election. Continued success for our republic will require two things of us.  First, we must look honestly at facts.  Second, we must engage each other in ongoing conversation (listening more than arguing) about the principle of commonwealth – making decisions and laws that create opportunity and peace for all of us.

Our legislators are capable of that, but they will do it only if they know that we voters expect it, demand it, and that we’re doing it ourselves.

We can start on November 9.

All Posts, economy, justice, poverty, race

IS THE SYSTEM RIGGED AGAINST YOU?

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Try Googling  “Is the system rigged?”  I found:  “FBI Director Comey: I need the American people to know the system is not rigged”  “Trump on Clinton FBI announcement: The system is rigged” “71% of Americans believe economy is rigged”  “The System Didn’t Fail Eric Garner. It Worked How a Racist System Is Supposed to”

The stories shared two disturbing qualities.  1)  Each is about an American institution.  2)  Each contended that some “system” is rigged.  Those headlines introduce angry stories that are backed by at least a few grains of truth.

The people who brought down our financial system avoided prosecution and most of them kept their ill-gotten gains. There is energy for deporting undocumented immigrants and their children but very little for prosecuting employers who hire them without mandatory benefits and wages.

The FBI Director didn’t recommend prosecution of a Secretary of State who was careless with national security information because, he says, she didn’t intend to break any law.  But when I unintentionally made an illegal right turn because I didn’t see the sign prohibiting it, I paid a fine.

We’ve seen people of African descent unjustifiably killed by police and the killers walked away.  Black youth are arrested for possession of marijuana in convenience store parking lots but campus police don’t arrest white college students for the same offense.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”  That one-liner isn’t funny anymore.  Unfairness, whether real or imagined, is a great danger because our freedom and democracy work well only when the great majority of us support the system and see it as fair.

It is the need for fairness, not fear of violence, that should drive our national conversation about these issues.  The violence often comes from one deranged soul (lone wolf) not from Advocacy organizations.   One enraged man (not associated with the Black Lives Matter movement) used their Dallas demonstration as an opportunity to kill five police officers.  One Christian extremist (not associated with the Right To Life movement) shot five officers and six civilians at a Colorado Planned Parenthood Clinic.  The movements express the concerns of substantial numbers of Americans about laws or institutions that they see as unfair. Most don’t promote violence.

During a previous era of dramatic social and economic change, when family farms and the shops of cobblers and blacksmiths were giving way to mechanized industries, America saw similar unrest and even greater violence.  In 1882, Congress passed the  Chinese Exclusion Act banning all Chinese immigration because their cheap labor was perceived as driving wages down.  In 1887 there was a labor demonstration (The Haymarket Affair) in Chicago supporting an 8 hour work day.  Someone threw a bomb.  Gunfire followed.  Seven police and at least four civilians died.  In 1901, President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist who blamed his unemployment on government policies.  In 1920, Wall Street was bombed, apparently by an activist who believed that the financial system was rigged against him.

Recent events are strikingly similar to our history.   Activists and political candidates promise to fix rigged systems with simplistic ideas: Exclude immigrants.  Build a wall.   Block trade treaties.  Hold police accountable.  Enforce law and order.  Many Americans believe that “other” Americans are rigging our institutions (the system) against them, and that does not bode well for our future.

Our nation’s systems for finance, justice, law enforcement, health care, education and others that compose our national identity must be perceived as fair for all of us. We’ll need genuine improvements in fairness, not just slogans and polite listening. Otherwise we will continue to experience demonstrations and rage from those who believe that systems are rigged against them.

After successful efforts to pass civil rights and voting rights laws, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. shifted his attention toward economic justice by addressing financial and wage issues affecting Hispanic and white workers as well as blacks. At the time of his assassination he was in Memphis supporting a strike for higher wages by public sanitation workers.  Nearly half a century later many issues of economic and racial justice have not yet been addressed. Now is the time to improve, not because of fear but because our national sensitivity to fairness has been raised.    It is said that “Most people don’t read the writing on the wall until their backs are up against it.”  I can feel the wall now.

 

All Posts, Christianity, Congress, islam, justice, religion, Terrorism, war

WILL PEOPLE CONSENT TO BE GOVERNED?

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Some Americans have begun to speak of the USA as a failing nation.  I don’t agree. Our internal divisions are nothing new; they have persisted throughout our history. We succeed because most of us remain committed to working out our differences for the common good. We are justifiably worried about anarchy and terrorism, but they too have always been present. From the British point of view, our Revolutionary War heroes were domestic terrorists.  From the point of view of many colonists, the war was a justified and necessary step toward freedom.  The principal difference between terrorism and a “just war” is which side you are on.

Anarchy and terrorism lost when colonists created a new government based on “the consent of the governed”.  Within it they argued, debated and compromised to create something that the great majority of them would support.  That kind of political struggle is at the core of “consent of the governed”.  Our constitution protects the rights of individuals over the wishes and whims of majorities but our government is strong enough to make laws for the public good. That balance makes consent of the governed possible.

Terrorism emerges when extremely angry people who don’t get what they want through politics decide to use violence instead. An early example was the whiskey rebellion of 1791. Congress levied a tax on distilled spirits to pay off war debts. Farmers who made whiskey from their surplus corn were so opposed to the tax that they banded together and killed tax collectors. President George Washington personally led an army of 13,000 to put down the rebellion and enforce the law.  Our civil war, the biggest threat the nation has faced, was organized by slaveholders because they knew they were losing their political struggle to preserve slavery.

Americans’ ever-changing attitudes bring debate, conflict and changed laws. There was violence (terrorism) in opposition to the constitutional amendment that allowed women to vote. Our electorate was once dominated by religious extremists who passed laws to ban birth control and racially segregate society. As attitudes and beliefs changed, those laws have been repealed or found unconstitutional. The same can be said of the Prohibition Amendment that banned alcoholic beverages. Examples of terrorists in those causes include organized criminal gangs (alcohol) and KKK (segregation). 20th century arguments over civil rights, union rights, abortion rights, and the Viet Nam War brought violence and uncountable deaths.  As the issues were addressed some very angry people resorted to violence.

We shouldn’t expect today’s challenges to be easier than those faced by prior generations. Terrorists continue to attack both freedom and the government that protects it.  A majority of us now see marriage equality as a right, and our Supreme Court has determined that it is protected by our Constitution. That change was preceded by decades of homophobic violence. In 1973, women gained the legal right to control their own bodies, including the right to make their own decisions about ending a pregnancy. “Lone wolf” terrorist Eric Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Olympics to protest abortion rights and government protection of homosexuals. Timothy McVeigh, a “Christian” white supremacist, bombed the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City as revenge for government support of civil rights.

Today we still have angry people who think their needs are not being addressed.   That includes Americans who lack adequate education and skills. They face a bleak economic outlook; suffer from depression and die younger than previous generations. Many African-Americans think that new voting laws are designed to reduce their influence. Some religious conservatives say their nation has been stolen by a majority that won’t accept literal interpretation of scripture as a basis for laws. Readers can probably add to the list of reasons why people are angry. In Biloxi, Mississippi a restaurant customer was enraged when a waitress told him that smoking was not allowed.  He shot her dead on the spot.  She might be angry too if she could talk to us.

So much anger makes it difficult to listen, to understand, and to accept our differences.  It also feeds the desire to control others through laws or violence rather than nurturing the individual freedoms that we cherish. Our “culture war” will continue in legislatures, courtrooms, and in our streets. Yes, there is terrorism, but there is also hope.  I remain optimistic that we will listen, learn, acknowledge our differences; and then find sufficient agreement for future “consent of the governed”.  Then we can move on to argue about another set of issues.  It’s what Americans do.

 

All Posts, Congress, health, justice

GOP vs Planned Parenthood – New revelations

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My previous post argued that charges against Planned Parenthood are false.  Click any of the green links for added evidence.  Investigation of allegations that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue for profit has shown that

  1. The charges are baseless.
  2. The videos used to support the accusation were carefully edited to mislead viewers.
  3. Fetal tissue is vital to medical research and it is governed by appropriate rules.
  4. Carly Fiorina’s horrific claims about Planned Parenthood in the second GOP Presidential debate were false.  Yet she recently complained about other candidates creating their own facts.

The situation reminds us of an important life lesson: What we don’t know is often less dangerous than what we think we know that turns out to be untrue.  Congressional Republicans and GOP Presidential candidates are now so heavily committed to actions based on lies about Planned Parenthood that they can’t (or won’t) admit their error.  Where is Republican outrage at being deceived by anti-choice radicals?  Are they so committed to their current course of action that they’re unable to see that it is based on lies, or are they just unwilling?  Either a terribly dangerous state of affairs.

 

All Posts, Congress, health, religion

THOUGHTS ABOUT PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Is it OK to use unethical methods to accomplish goals that you think are good?  Does the end justify the means?  Anti-abortion forces are using dishonest propaganda and character assassination in their assault on Planned Parenthood.  They have adopted devilish methods in pursuit of goals that they consider godly. They posed as representatives of companies seeking to acquire fetal tissue for medical research and secretly recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood executives.  Then they extensively edited the recordings to make it appear that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for a profit.  The accusation is unproven, but their propaganda has convinced a lot of people. Continue reading THOUGHTS ABOUT PLANNED PARENTHOOD →