Oh my gosh, I forgot to post this flag cake image for July 4, so now here it is!
Daughter Stephanie visited from Honolulu recently, as mentioned before. She must have raided old photo albums while here, as she just posted on Facebook a long-ago Christmas photo of me with my late former husband, Tom.
That photo must have been taken before we became parents, as no children appear. I think that was during a fairly tranquil, hopeful period that we experienced when living in Sacramento, California. I do feel nostalgia looking at that photo and feel some regret that our life together so many years later was shattered. The photo was taken well before we moved to Washington, DC, in 1969 with our 2 older kids who were quite small then, right to the very same house where I still live today. We eventually became parents of 4 kids.
The future is never guaranteed and change is a fact of life. After my husband left us in 1980 after 24 years of marriage to marry his young office assistant, I was initially devastated. He was totally blind, so had relied heavily on me, making us more interconnected that perhaps most couples. But I actually rebounded rather quickly and was able to provide for my family, branching out into occupational therapy, a field I had never explored before. I had a serious suitor who wanted to marry me, but I wasn’t ready to do that again and he died in the late 1990s.
Unexpected events happen all the time. We try to guard against them, but cannot eliminate them entirely. From my perspective, being divorced after 24 years of marriage was an accident, a shock over which I had no control. But it was not the worst I was to experience. That came when my older son died suddenly after a work accident in 1994. The next year, a Cuban foster son, an unaccompanied minor who had arrived in 1980 with Mariel, died of AIDS. Their deaths blindsided me, left me completely devastated, and were totally out of my control. I became a walking zombie for a few years, as is recounted in more detail near the end of this posting and also in my books. I pray that no more younger family members go before me. Sometimes, I just sit out by son’s grave in my backyard and recall the good times of our life together.
After Peace Corps, I had also started making annual medical/humanitarian volunteer missions to Honduras up through Feb./March 2020, when medical brigades there were halted.
(Again, please overlook any typos or misspellings. This is a tricky format to work with. My main intent here is to share personal news as well as observations about the wider world. I welcome your comments, which almost always come in via email.)
Personal flash alert! So now, after much consideration, I’m on my way back to Honduras once again in mid-July. I’ve already bought a new wheelchair to take as I gave away the one that I’d been saving to someone here who needed it, as per the photo below and after that, you see me in the new wheelchair.
My motivation to return started out with online requests from Hondurans. I also had a special offer from a former Peace Corps friend, now retired in Honduras, offering to drive me around the country in his car, provided I covered expenses. That was a very tantalizing proposition, eliminating the need to get in and out of commercial buses with my folded-up wheelchair and all my other give-away items. I am no longer agile and, because of Covid, wouldn’t want to be exposed to other bus passengers. I used to enjoy talking to fellow bus riders, but now that would be risky. I’ve always returned home empty-handed from such trips, with Honduran airport staff surprised to see me walking onto the plane on my own, after having arrived in a wheelchair. This will be my last blog posting until after my return, so you won’t hear from me again until later. This is an extra-long post before my journey, to hold readers until the next one. You don’t have to read this one all at once. (Should I write another book instead?)
This blog is mostly about one woman’s life and observations, namely, my own. While I hope it’s proving informative to readers, it also helps me try to make sense of the world. Sometimes, I scroll back to a particular date to remember what happened then, such as on Jan. 6, or even to my last visit to Honduras in Feb./March 2020. I do appreciate people's feedback, mostly coming in via email, and sometimes I share portions of it here.
After many New Yorkers and other city dwellers, including those here in DC, had moved out during the pandemic, some are now coming back, according to both cities’ 2022 population figures. As a city dweller myself, living in close proximity to the capitol, Supreme Court, national mall, federal buildings, monuments, and museums, I feel able to monitor the national pulse up close and personal, and hope to remain living here in my own home until the end.
But some scary things have
been happening in our immediate neighborhood, and not just package thefts. This
report appeared recently on the neighborhood website:
Here is another worrisome report
on the neighborhood website. Still, I have vowed to stay on and stand my ground
after more than 50 years in this neighborhood.
Just an observation now about gmail, which I have as well as Yahoo mail, namely, that when I’m writing a message there, not only are spelling errors automatically corrected in either English or Spanish, but when I leave out a word in either language, gmail inserts the proper word. Is gmail a mind reader, or what?
Almost daily, I read the Wash. Post and NYTimes online, also listen regularly to NPR. Now, with digital access, newspapers can reach so many readers, almost too many to count. The Post has a print circulation of 160,000 and 3 million digital subscribers. The Times estimates 10 million readers in both print and digital. Many New Yorkers buy the print copy from a sidewalk vendor. My daughter Stephanie in Hawaii and her husband are online subscribers to both the Post and the Times.
What about fake news? On this blog and in my personal life, like most people in the world today, I rely on many sources for news and information, including print, broadcasts, and the internet. I’ve also contributed to them all, appearing occasionally on radio and television, also in print through my articles and books, as well as via the internet with daily email exchanges and with this blog. I've also given book talks in person. But our cyber/electronic life today almost overshadows our in-person exchanges with others and even our reliance on print and broadcasts, in huge contrast with earlier times. My sister and her husband refuse to participate in this new world by having no internet, though they do watch TV and have a daily newspaper delivered to their door. To communicate with them, I must write a letter, call, or visit them.
Those of us with cyber connections have access to so much more information than before and enjoy instantaneous communication with others all over the world. This keeps us informed and engaged but also perhaps too involved digitally to the detriment of in-person relationships, and also exposes us to potential “deep fakes,” that is, to realistically engineered cyber and audio sometimes hard to distinguish from the real thing. Apparently, it can be produced by anyone and everyone—even amateurs. So, how can we recognize, police, and control our actual consumption of “fake news”? It seems that every new advance induces a negative counter-development and this is one. Donald Trump has called attention to the existence of “fake news,” by twisting real news into “fake” and vice versa. So I'll put a challenge out there, how do we know what is real and actually happening beyond our immediate observation? I have no answer and can only hope that sources cited on this blog are as reliable and genuine as I trust them to be. I also try to be as forthright as possible with my own personal, firsthand observations.
Wash. Post, Trump knew his supporters were armed on January 6 and tried to insist on leading them on their march to the Capitol, said a former White House aide. (We who live nearby all witnessed the commotion on that day.)
NYTimes, Aide’s Testimony Highlights Legal Risk for Trump Cassidy Hutchinson, a young, very credible former aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff, gave explosive Congressional testimony, saying that Trump knew his supporters were armed and potentially violent but encouraged them to help him overthrow the 2020 election anyway. She also testified that a Secret Service agent told her that Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel of his armored limousine to turn back to the Capitol after the Secret Service informed him that they’d be unable to take him there on Jan. 6. Considering Hutchinson’s testimony as a party insider to be trustworthy, even the conservative Washington Examiner has pulled back on its support of Trump. Is this a death blow to Trump’s future candidacy or will his supporters rise up to defend him even more fiercely?
The Guardian, Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide before her testimony
Daily Beast, Fox
News Anchor Martha MacCallum Defends Trump Smashing Lunch Against the Wall:
‘Not Wholly Out of Character’
Donald Trump
was obviously upset about losing the 2020 election and tried to reverse the
outcome in very childish ways.
NYTimes, Ghislaine Maxwell, Who Helped Procure Victims for Epstein, Faces Sentencing
Why
would a female enabler like Maxwell want to lure young sex victims to her lover?
Was it simply to please him and remain in his good graces? Maxwell had been expected
to pay dearly for her role, especially as Epstein himself is dead and can no
longer be punished.
And now she actually has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Wash. Post, 46 migrants found dead in San Antonio inside sweltering
truck,
(The toll has now risen to 53
and 4 men have been charged.)
LA Times, The 53 migrants who died in Texas included this college-educated Honduran couple
It’s happened again, with numerous migrants from Mexico and Central America now dead after trying to illegally enter the US. Those of us already living here, confronting daily problems, can only wonder what folks expect once they cross that magic border? Probably it’s the same as many folks here anticipate when getting married, winning the lottery, or getting religion, that they are entering a new problem-free existence or even one of never-ending bliss. However, as those of us who already live here can readily attest, there is no such nirvana, at least not here, rather only life’s regular ups and downs. Those who survive the crossing may actually come to experience some improvement, but was it worth all the risk to their own lives and to those of their loved ones? Most of us do tend to justify previous decisions after-the-fact, as undocumented immigrants probably do as well, provided they are lucky enough to have survived and not get deported.
Modest traffic can also go in the other direction. Some Americans and Canadians are retiring to Mexico where their dollars will go further. A friend from DC, now deceased, who bought a home in an expatriate enclave in Mexico, kept urging me to join him there. A good friend right now, as mentioned, has retired to Honduras. Of course, a big part of feeling comfort and satisfaction in living anywhere requires not experiencing privation—in having adequate shelter and enough to eat. That’s why Kamala Harris is promoting more wealth generation and better income distribution in Central America hoping to keep people there from wanting to leave, but, so far, she’s had limited success. That was also part of our efforts in the Peace Corps, which is only tentatively reviving service now, though not yet in Central America or Mexico.
Wall St. Journal, Latin Grammy Winner Gets 9-Year Prison Sentence in
Cuba
Cuban court sentences rapper Maykel Castillo and artist Luis Manuel Otero for contempt, public disorder and desecrating national symbols. (I have met Otero.)
This is from my friend at the Hudson Institute: China’s Forced Organ Harvesting Continues These organs reputedly are taken from prisoners to be executed, including Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong members, and prisoners of conscience.
NY Times, Nine People Are Injured in Newark Shooting, Officials Say Though if no one dies, it’s not frontpage news.
HuffPost, 2 Killed, 3 Cops Wounded In Texas By Suspect With Assault-Style Rifle And 'Battle Belt'
WSB Cox, ‘Too much mayo’: Subway customer arrested
after shooting 2 employees, killing 1 over sandwich order
AP, Newspaper:
Oklahoma gun deaths rose as firearms access grew
OKLAHOMA CITY— Gun deaths in Oklahoma have increased
since a “permitless carry” law allowing people over the age of 21 to carry a
gun without a permit or training went into effect in 2019, according to a
recent review.
The Oklahoman analyzed
state medical examiner data and found that Oklahoma has recorded some of its
deadliest months since the law took effect. The expansion of gun rights was
touted as a measure to make Oklahomans safer by allowing them to defend
themselves. But as state lawmakers have increased access to firearms over
the past decade, firearm suicides, accidents, and homicides in the state have
increased, The Oklahoman reported. As usual, more guns mean more gun
deaths.
Progress
Index,
Chesterfield
toddler dies in unattended hot car. His father killed himself afterward
If you put your precious young child in your car in a protective car seat in case of an accident, why can’t you remember to take that child out afterward? What is so important that you would simply forget? You turn off the motor, you unload purchases or a briefcase, you take care to lock the car doors, so what about your baby? It happens every summer when a number of children die in hot cars and, in winter, others die in freezing cars.
NBC
News,
1-year-old
dies after being left in hot car outside Walgreens in Georgia for hours
AP, More than 1 million voters switch to GOP in warning for Dems
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has now officially joined the
Supreme Court, replacing now retired Justice Stephen Breyer. On the last day of June, Brown Jackson was sworn in at
noon just as Breyer was vacating his seat, swearing a Constitutional oath
administered by Chief Justice John Roberts and a Judicial oath
administered by departing Justice Breyer himself.
Before Brown Jackson came on board, Amy
Coney Barrett was the only high court member who was a mother, in her case
of 5 bio children and 2 adopted from Haiti. So when she voted to overturn Roe,
you might say she had “skin in the game.” Subsequently, “abortion rights” protesters
have demonstrated outside her Virginia home. NY Post, Pro-abortion protesters target
Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s home
Politico, Clarence
Thomas claims Covid vaccines are derived from the cells of ‘aborted children Using fetal cells was once routine in vaccine testing and
other medical research, but the practice seems to have been cut back due to
public objections.
Daily Beast, Whoopi Comes for Clarence Thomas: Your Marriage Rights Are Next!
Many voters supported Joe Biden only because they opposed Donald Trump. But the prospect of another Trump presidency is very scary indeed. Still, at this point, support for Biden seems lukewarm at best and no other Democrat is on the presidential horizon. Harris, so far, does not look viable. So, what to do? Biden and most other Democratic lawmakers may hope that going big on “abortion rights” will help them retain voters, especially among women, in the midterms.
But many lifelong
Democrats, like myself, are not so outraged by the reversal of Roe. I actually thought
that law went too far, though I’m still not ready to vote Republican, never having
done so in my entire life. Many of us would have preferred not to have had to
confront the abortion issue again, which seems to pit 2 rights against each
other, that of a woman who becomes pregnant inadvertently and that of someone
not yet born. Gay rights’ folks have rallied around abortion rights, even
though the issue seldom directly affects them. Pregnancy centers are now being
vandalized, even as abortion clinics had been before. Feelings are running high
on both sides and reconciliation looks out of reach. If there is a middle
ground anywhere, where is it?
Fox, Democrat House candidate in Illinois says
Democratic Party must 'make room at the table' for pro-life Dems
Abortion has become a news topic impossible to avoid now after the Supreme Court has struck down Roe vs. Wade. That long-ago decision was apparently not written in stone nor actually protected by the Constitution, as has just been demonstrated. The ensuing controversy has led to the coining of the term “Disunited States.”
It’s been hard for some folks to wrap their heads around the realization that Supreme Court justices, both those who decided Roe almost 50 years ago, as well as those now on the bench, are not infallible, but simply ordinary humans with opinions and prejudices, just like the rest of us. It’s also especially hard for women who have relied on abortion in case of a contraception failure or their own mistake to feel that option being threatened, that what they had regarded as a right may no longer exist, at least in some states. Even women who may never have personally confronted an abortion decision might still want to preserve that future choice, just in case.
Podcaster Sarah Stewart Holland advises “abortion rights” advocates to refer to “abortion care” and “abortion services” to link abortion in the public mind to routine medical care. That’s what NPR does. She and others also propose various strategies to win over the public, including citing the case histories of pregnant women in trouble. Pro-life folks have yet to produce persuasive arguments on their side, except to introduce single mothers who had considered abortion but are now caring for their live babies, which may be more powerful than any slogan.
I’ve explored the whole abortion question further, not only because it’s still big news and the subject of fierce controversy and political debate, but also to try to clarify my own thinking and position. While I’m past child-bearing and child-rearing myself, it’s a subject that may impact my kids, as well as people everywhere. For women, pregnancy may be considered both a privilege and a burden, ardently desired by some, regarded as a calamity by others. Having been a single parent myself, I can imagine a woman thinking that she simply cannot go through all this again, that she cannot add another mouth to feed, bring forth another helpless being needing care. But with abortion, depending on her personal circumstances and where she lives, she may have the option to reverse course. That, along with contraception, gives her fertility control than women in past generations never had, so it’s no surprise that women now are having fewer children. I can empathize with a woman not wanting to be pregnant who now has the means to reverse course via abortion, but also can envision a future person who would otherwise be born. Of course, with birth control, many potential people are never even conceived.
While diehard “abortion rights” advocates support abortion at any point in a pregnancy and for any reason whatsoever, most Americans’ actually hold more nuanced views. About 60% of Americans do support abortion, but just in the first trimester, approving of it only beyond that point when there is a problem with the fetus or a threat to the mother’s health. That is the same timetable being proposed in some red states where protests are now becoming loudest. And even the most ardent pro-lifers are not advocating taking away the right to an abortion if a woman’s life or health are in danger or the fetus has a potentially fatal condition. Dire warnings about rare fetal defects and other scare tactics have energized “abortion rights” demonstrators, even though most pro-lifers are not opposed to pregnancy termination in such cases. Abortion after rape or incest, especially in the case of a young girl, also has broad support, although some people actually born in such cases report being glad to be alive.
Back when I was working as a Spanish interpreter, a girl of 11 or 12 was 8 months pregnant before her mother even noticed. I considered the stepfather to be the likely culprit—though, of course, as the interpreter, I did not express an opinion. The girl admitted to sometimes sleeping in the marital bed, but steadfastly refused to name the actual father. The pregnancy was so far along that it was expected to result in a live birth with the baby then being kept within the family. DNA evidence later might well have pointed to the step-father, something the girl’s mother seemed to fear, as he was the main family breadwinner, but I was not asked to follow the case that far.
Pill abortions, the majority of current procedures, as indicated before, are a done deal and will go forward regardless. Since the Supreme Court decision was announced, there has been a run on “morning-after” pills, with some women reportedly just wanting to keep them on hand. Abortion numbers in the US have been falling steadily as contraception has improved. Are morning-after pills just an extension of contraception or do they actually snuff out an incipient individual human life? What is the line? Could it be when the fetus can start feeling pain and how would that be determined?
Arguing
against even trying to draw a line is professor Amanda Roth, who herself lost a
twin pregnancy at an intermediate stage. She proposes “gradualism” instead.
The Conversation, When
does the fetus acquire a moral status of a human being? The philosophy of
'gradualism' can provide answers
“[W]hile a 6- or 8-week embryo might have very minimal status, a fetus at 32 or 35 weeks has virtually identical moral status to a newborn. Therefore, the earliest abortion is generally morally unconcerning to someone with a gradualist view, while third-trimester abortion is seen as a grave action that requires the strongest of moral reasons. Meanwhile, midpregnancy fetuses are morally “in between”... by this point in pregnancy fetuses have not achieved full moral status, but they certainly have significant moral value – and ending their lives therefore requires moral justification. Compared with the bright line views, gradualism has the benefit of making sense of the public’s strong support for early abortion, but hesitating about terminations in the second and third trimesters.
The Hill, The end of a life: One doctor’s view of abortion
by Dr. Marc Siegel, Opinion
contributor
Another article attempting
to take a measured approach comes from a physician who says that a fetus with a
beating heart appears in the very first trimester of pregnancy, not a mere clump
of cells. But neither does he advocate that all abortions be stopped. Instead, he
argues for making more medical and other resources available to support incipient
life, pointing out that almost unlimited medical and other resources are spent to
keep semi-comatose patients “alive” indefinitely, as in the case of one of his
own relatives. I’ve mentioned before that a woman I know has shown no signs of
consciousness or response for over a year now, but is still breathing on her
own while lying inert in a care facility with a stomach feeding tube. Is she
“alive” and leading a life that has any value or meaning for her? As a member
of her immediate family, I would not have authorized a feeding tube. I would
not want one for myself. When my own 93-year-old mother could only swallow
small sips of water, my siblings and I agreed not to have a feeding tube inserted.
She died peacefully at home with all of us at her side.
Reuters, Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican
says after U.S. ruling Anti-abortion activists should be
concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to
guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial
director said on Saturday. In a media editorial on the United States Supreme
Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli
said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues. "Being
for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of
women due to motherhood increase."..."Being for life, always, means
asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced
statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage
earners..."Being for life, always, also means defending it against the
threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of
children and adolescents in the U.S."
Daily Beast, Abortion Ruling Is a Start, But U.S. Needs to Go Further, Vatican Says Being pro-life extends beyond concern for unborn children, though, the Vatican said. “This also means ensuring adequate sexual education, guaranteeing health care accessible to all and preparing legislative measures to protect the family and motherhood, overcoming existing inequalities"... “We need solid assistance to mothers, couples and the unborn child that involve the whole community, encouraging the possibility for mothers in difficulty to carry on with the pregnancy and to entrust the child to those who can guarantee the child’s growth.”
Insider, Some anti-abortion organizations say
they're unprepared to provide services for those who need them as Texas braces
for a surge of births following the overturning of Roe v. Wade: report
Among those receiving help
from Blue Haven is T., a domestic violence survivor and mother of four who was
denied an abortion of her latest pregnancy for being too far along at seven
weeks. Blue Haven will support her family of five for up to a year after the
birth of T.'s son but, with limited donation-based resources, the organization
is forced to turn away other pregnant women in need of support.
It’s certainly much easier and less costly to provide an abortion for a pregnant woman, especially if she pays for it, than to provide care and services for a woman giving birth, then to assure care for a newborn thereafter. (Abortion also makes the consequences of sex more equal between men and women.) Many Texas facilities offering help to pregnant mothers in need have now been caught unprepared for the end of Roe and for an avalanche of requests. And states adopting abortion restrictions have not stepped up their services either. The Biden administration may not dare to offer more assistance to pregnant women or to states for fear of muddling up its “pro-choice” message before the upcoming elections. But Biden is promoting more daycare for working mothers.
Are aspirations for achieving a world more
welcoming to new life mere pie-in-the-sky? How and by whose efforts would such support
actually come about? What is the government’s role, either of a state or the
federal government? And why don’t we already offer more help to needy new
mothers? Pro-lifers should be on the frontlines now as advocates, but they too seem
to have been caught unprepared. If fewer abortions mean that more needy mothers and
babies are coming on board, pro-life folks certainly should be out there displaying
signs, not of a fetus in the womb because they’ve partially won that battle, but
rather of a woman now holding her tiny newborn. Support for new mothers is crucial not
only for their families, but for our country and for humankind in general, as the US population and that of many developed nations is already top-heavy with
elders like me, lacking enough young people coming along behind. Granted, with so
many problems in the world today, with so much strife already, the task of creating
a more equitable, more caring world for families poses an overwhelming challenge,
and not just to prevent abortions.
Each citizen’s contributions are the only path forward for achieving long lasting social improvements. Our own finite, personal efforts are all each of us has to offer during our brief time here on earth, though not everyone is on board with helping new mothers and babies, as well as many others in need, as some folks seem bent only on creating misery for themselves and others.
Do we even consider our own personal life worth living? And do we, those now alive, have the right to decide on the value of the future life of someone else, of someone not yet born? No one can really answer that question and until safe, routine abortion appeared, just in our own lifetime, it was never even a question that called for an answer.
Until recently, babies—people—simply were born into an imperfect world, often at times and in situations inconvenient and stressful for their parents, who then undertook the task of raising them as best they could, a task that fate had decreed, sometimes while even lacking the means to feed them, as is still the case for many children today. Of course, sexual abstinence and same sex relations have always been options that do not result in births. But often married women felt obligated to submit to sex as their wifely duty. Men traditionally held agency over female partners, just as slaveowners once did over slaves and masters over their servants. Even today, workers submit to the directives of their employers in exchange for wages.
On a very practical note, though it’s something rarely mentioned, when more babies are nursing than is now common in the US, overall fertility may be reduced or delayed by natural means. And something like the US baby formula crisis would not arise in other parts of the world where babies are routinely nursed and don’t require formula. Furthermore, nursing is also a natural form of birth control, delaying the return of menstruation, though not totally reliable in that respect. Yet many American mothers using bottle feeding don’t even know that they might delay their period and reduce their risk of pregnancy by nursing, as well as avoid having to worrying about formula, as most mothers here no longer adopt this most basic natural process.
Pregnancy as the result of
heterosexual relations is also a natural process, happening since almost forever,
and is how the human race has continued so far. Now many questions have arisen.
Is abortion, which interrupts the natural process of pregnancy, mere “medical
care”? And is the morning-after pill just an extension of birth control and
where does the crossover into ending an incipient individual human life begin? Abortion
either ends the existence of a potential human or an actual one and doesn’t
that distinction matter? Additionally, countless frozen fertilized human ova
are now being held in suspended animation in embryo banks, so what rights would apply
to them or to those who created them? There is no agreement on these answers, which are also related to the current controversy over abortion.
Abortion involves not just an individual woman and her rights—that is, those of a mother or a potential mother depending on the definition-- but also the rights of a developing human at the very earliest stages, a helpless being without any agency. When does the fetus begin to feel pain? Maybe that’s the threshold that should be considered. We do try to prevent or minimize pain for animals, after all.
There is a growing consensus about protecting some animals as sentient beings, certainly of mammals, especially of pet dogs and cats. Even animals expected to be eaten need to be slaughtered “humanely,” though more consumers are now opting for veganism and artificial “meat.” But even regarding animals, a divide exists, as some still extol hunting as a legitimate sport, although the animal killed will not be eaten, only displayed after death as a trophy. (“Animal rights” is also largely a Western concept.)
And what about fathers' rights? Is there a point in fetal development when a father might exert some rights to guarantee the wellbeing and future existence of his offspring? Our tradition does not recognize a father’s rights prenatally, but that could change, especially now with gay males taking custody of infants whose conception and birth they have specifically engineered. Nor does unwed motherhood, once the main impetus for seeking an abortion, still carry a stigma. To the contrary, it may now even be hailed as a brave choice.
Yet, pro-life advocates have simply not come up with adequate or pithy public messages to counter “my body, my choice” and the depiction of abortion as mere “medical care.” Skipping over the abortion pill phase of pregnancy termination, which pro-lifers cannot influence except by persuasion, they need to focus instead on laws addressing the direct effects of abortion on the next developmental phase of what is, at that point, an undeniably human fetus, that is, on procedures that would end the continued existence of (kill?) that incipient or future person. Among aborted fetuses, half are female, after all. However, appeals to religion mostly won’t work. And the social and economic supports must be there for the long haul that raising a child either by a biological parent or someone else necessarily entails. That’s not something provided adequately right now for many babies already being born, so how can it be assured for others not yet born? And those opposed to capital punishment might also be enlisted to support unborn life as per the “seamless garment” philosophy. So now, get to work, pro-lifers!
Last time, I posted this same photo of a teenage Texas mother changing the diapers of her twins, born of an accidental pregnancy, as is actually the case with most pregnancies. In the photo, her male partner is seen sitting back calmly eating a sandwich. OK, Dad, how about stepping up and changing those diapers yourself? Those babies are yours as much as hers.
Star
News [N
Carolina], Men's mysterious silence on their responsibility for pregnancy Where
are the men? Have you noticed the peculiar absence of them from the Roe v. Wade
discussions? It’s as if no one realizes they supply half the genetic material.
Have they “gone fishin’?”
Based on my own experience of pregnancy and that of other women I’ve known, the very early days, when morning sickness first kicks in, are quite uncomfortable and might be when a woman first thinks about having an abortion. But later on, until actually nearing the birth, she often feels pretty well and in good spirits. Might those hard early days convince a woman to try to halt the whole thing immediately with an abortion?
Pregnancy is a natural process, one that women have experienced since time immemorial and is how all the world’s people have come into being. It trivializes this universal process of gestation and birth to characterize abortion as just a “medical procedure.” Abortion is a medical intervention halting crucial gestation and a subsequent birth, but the decision to intervene is not a medical one except in the case of a serious fetal anomaly or a threat to the woman’s health, which are not the actual reasons for most abortions. But that loud message coming from abortion advocates has still gotten the attention of the American public. Pro-lifers remain far behind in the war of words. While the Supreme Court has now extended a lifeline to pro-lifers, most have not seized it by making a compelling case for “choice” on their side.
Kansas City
Star, We women don’t need Roe v. Wade. We can choose not to get
pregnant in the first place
Here’s a woman
who does not regret the loss of Roe.
A woman’s right to choose and have control over her own body
means the ability to choose when and under what circumstances to become
pregnant in the first place. The right to be free from any kind of violence,
including rape and incest... Equal wages, job opportunities and child care
should already be rights...These are how we have personal autonomy. Let us stop
bemoaning the fate of Roe and recognize that it was an unnecessary
oversimplification of our rights. Just let it die. Mary Bognich, Overland
Park
It’s a truism that we all sometimes have regrets and might wish for the chance for a do-over, and not only for reversing a pregnancy. Almost half of marriages end in divorce, as happened to me after 24 years of marriage. But the pain of divorce for me was overshadowed by the loss of my older son Andrew, my very first child, whose gravestone still remains in my back yard.
When Andrew died, I later imagined having gone to his place in Florida after his serious work injury to stay by his side to make sure he didn’t stop breathing in his sleep, as that was what had actually happened. (I’d been planning to go, but hadn’t left yet when he died.) Only in my dreams has he ever come back to life again. Then the following year, when my Cuban foster son Alex died of AIDS, he also began living only in my dreams. During those dreams, I would pinch my boys’ solid arms to assure myself that they were really there. They’ve even argued with me in my dreams, just like in old times. But, of course, when I awake at morning’s light, I realize with a sudden sinking feeling that both are really gone forever. I also sometimes dream that I am with my late former husband, always blind in dreams as in real life, but sometimes acting quite friendly toward me, as indeed he was during much of our 24-year marriage. As time goes by, my boys and my ex appear less often during sleep, now replaced by more recent associations and composites.
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HONDURAS PEACE CORPS
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