What about the views and voices of women? Maybe only women can settle this debate; assuming it can ever be settled. God, or nature, has already mandated women as the bearers of life. Since the power of life has been given to women, isn’t it possible they were also meant to have power over the life inside their bodies?
[Speaking Truth To Power]
For the last few days, amid President Obama’s Notre Dame Commencement Address, religious “moral majority” zealots and phony “right-to-lifers” have hijacked the abortion issue preaching fire and damnation for the nation, if Roe v. Wade isn’t overturned.
Ever since the 1973 Supreme Court’s 7-2 majority landmark decision, the issue of abortion has divided the nation. Abortion is an extremely complex topic, with primarily two concerns that often collide. One is the question regarding the sanctity of life and the duty of humankind to respect it. The other: how much power should the state have over the bodies of people?
This issue is a profoundly challenging one. On one hand, part of me isn’t very comfortable sanctioning abortion. It does end a life. Yet, I’m totally against government having legislative power over the decisions people make regarding their bodies. Therein lays the conundrum.
Governments already have too much influence over people’s bodies. America is no exception. For example, half of the two million people in American prisons are Black. Blacks comprise a mere 15 percent of America’s population. A significant majority of these prisoners are non-violent drug “offenders.”
St. Louis District Judge Charles Shaw has pointed out that although “African-Americans account for about 14 percent of the nation’s drug users, yet they make up 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted for drug possession, and 74 percent of those sentenced to serve time.” Some are even given more time than convicted murderers.
Isn’t this criminalization of people for using substances, in their bodies, because of the political chicanery of an elite minority a great sin against man and god? Why aren’t the phony “religious right” pretenders protesting this blasphemy?
Also, the United States, along with Japan and Singapore, are the only so-called developed countries that still institute capital punishment. In 2007, only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan executed more people than the U.S. Ironically, most of the very same anti-abortion “sanctity of life” crusaders don’t seem to exhibit the same righteous indignation about America’s sanctioning of state murder.
In fact, some of these same “god-fearing” folk clamor for the blood of those who’ve been condemned by the courts. Don’t these imposters realize this is a glaring contradiction? Isn’t the life of the prisoner also worth saving, especially, when repeatedly we’ve seen DNA exonerate many from impending execution?
According to the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization that fights wrongful convictions using DNA, “To date, 238 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row.” How do we know just how many have already been murdered unjustly by the apparatus of American “justice?”
Anyhow, the question we should now be grappling with is: does the “right to life” trump the right to control ones body? The answer to that isn’t easy. If a woman wants to kill her unborn baby does America have the right to stop her? Some will argue, as a “Christian” country, yes. Now, if America was truly a godly nation that argument might be a little more convincing.
Moreover, ongoing fiscal cutbacks across the nation in educational and social welfare programs are leaving the most vulnerable people, including many kids, at risk.
There are other profound questions that need to be addressed when it comes to abortion. A rape occurs in America every eight minutes. Could we in good conscience force pregnant rape victims, under threat of imprisonment, to have babies born of that crime?
Norma McCorvey, the famous plaintiff known as “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade had claimed that the baby she was pregnant with was conceived through rape. She has since recanted that statement and is now a converted anti-abortion Catholic. She was one of 39 people arrested at the president’s Notre Dame Commencement address.
If America was a caring nation the task of nurturing and raising unwanted babies wouldn’t be so daunting. Given the apathy the country shows indigent kids how many more of these kids would end up being societal outcasts?
Are these same “Christian conservatives” going to be willing to use their tax money to fund more orphanages and adoption agencies? Americans seem to prefer to pay to imprison poor kids, instead of educating them.
In America, 13 million kids are classified as poor by federal guidelines. Keep in mind those guidelines see a family of four as being poor if the family has a combined income below $20,000. Therefore, the real picture of the legions of America’s poor kids is far greater. If abortion was outlawed how would that affect the pandemic of poverty?
There is another major problem with the abortion debate. The voice of men, often, seems to dominate. What about the views and voices of women? Maybe only women can settle this debate; assuming it can ever be settled. God, or nature, has already mandated women as the bearers of life. Since the power of life has been given to women, isn’t it possible they were also meant to have power over the life inside their bodies?
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers here.
However, we can’t afford the dangerously pretentious and sanctimonious knee-jerk reaction of these fake fundamentalists and others in the so-called “moral majority” movement.
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“Speaking Truth To Empower.”
