Showing posts with label Opinon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinon. Show all posts

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Did you ever know a Nancy or Jean?

I’m suspicious that one reason the draft of conservative SCOTUS justices dismantling Roe v. Wade is because the Rethugs are hoping we’ll all “forget” in favor of the “next news things” by the time midterms roll around.  I won’t forget.

I was struck by an article I saw in my Daily Sound & Fury newsletter. https://dailysoundandfury.com/birth-control-for-married-women-wasnt-legal-until-1965-individual-women-not-until-1972/   It has to do with birth control for women, something we’ve had access to for all the lives of Millennials, GenZ, and most of Gen Xers.  We take it for granted that we women can get birth control when we need it, but that could change.

I was 20 when my doctor prescribed the pill to me.  He was a doctor from another country, much more open-minded that American doctors.  It was 1975 and I didn’t realize that how recent it was that single women were even allowed to have the pill.  Although the pill was developed in the early 1960s, it wasn’t available to married women until 1965 and even then, they had to get permission from their husbands!  Single women were able to get the pill prescribed in 1972.  1972!! That’s a mere 50 years ago.

Having access to birth control is a fundamental right.  We have a right to our privacy, but those issues are not in the Constitution.  The trumper Rethuglican justices apparently are hiding behind that reason to take away our rights: “it’s not in the Constitution.”  Neither is interracial or same sex marriages, certain consensual sex acts and a bunch of other things we take for granted.

Throughout junior high and high school, my brother and I bowled on a team with his best friend, Jimmy.  Jimmy had an older sister, Nancy, who was a year ahead of me in school.  Although I liked Nancy’s snarky sense of humor, we were worlds apart and she was so much more “sophisticated” than I was.  We would say hello to each other but were more acquaintances than friends.

When I was a sophomore, I noticed that Nancy was gaining weight.  Then she disappeared.  I asked Jimmy what happened to her, but he was very evasive.  She was “staying with relatives.”  About a year later, she returned and had lost a lot of weight.

At the bowling alley one day, we met up in the ladies’ room and I asked her where she’d been.  She was very sad and explained that she’d gotten pregnant.  Her boyfriend didn’t want to have anything more to do with her and getting an abortion was illegal.  Her parents sent her away to live out her pregnancy, deliver the baby and give it up for adoption.

She was too young to take care of a baby and her parents were “done” raising children.  She deeply regretted having to give her baby up and missed her baby girl every day.

Wow, I thought, taken aback.  How awful for Nancy.  She hadn’t wanted a baby; she got pregnant in “the heat of the moment” and what a price to pay.  She hadn’t been able to get birth control for herself; her boyfriend didn’t want to use condoms.  They used the “pull out” method.  Nancy hadn’t wanted to carry the baby, knowing she would have to give it up at birth.

That must’ve been what happened to my classmate, Jean, I reflected.  Jean and I were friends for a while in 8th grade.  She was completely boy crazy and lusted after our 8th grade geography teacher (not reciprocated) and a boy in our class named Gary.  One night, my brother came back after a night of carousing in the woods with his buddies.  Laughing, he told me they’d come across Jean and Gary “doing it”.

No access to birth control.

Jean got pregnant too.  She and Gary were barely 16.  They didn’t want a baby either.  Abortion was illegal.  There were legal methods and Jean tried them.  She failed.  Luckily, she didn’t injure herself or get sick.  I don’t know what they decided to do after the baby was born because the school year ended and I didn’t see them again.

The biggest thing I took away from Nancy and Jean then was:  whatever I did, I would NOT have sex.  Not because I thought it was wrong or because I didn’t want to.  It was because I was afraid of getting pregnant and ending up in a traumatic situation like Nancy’s or Jean’s.

How wonderful it’s been to have sex education, access to birth control to prevent pregnancy, and the ability to choose an abortion.  Now, though, this SCOTUS is opening the door to taking away rights other than abortion.  Already some Rethuglican clown has asked SCOTUS to have another look at gay marriage.  I’m sure that would be followed by interracial marriage and on down the line until the looming possibility of counting people of color as 3/5 of a person.

Do we really stand for this?  Not me.  I’m going to do what I can to voice my opposition in every forum I can.  Just because I was born in the 1950s doesn’t mean I consider it a “golden age” and I sure as hell don’t want to go back there!

Speak up.  Protest.  Call your representatives.  Volunteer.  Vote.  DO something.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Wake Up, People!

My news feed is overfilled with newsletters and organizations’ letters about the horrendous draft of the leaked Supreme Court decision about Roe v. Wade.  Many of us thought it couldn’t happen.  I began to see it happening with the last disastrous administration.  I’m sure the Rethugs and trumpers have been planning this for years.  Forty-Five nailed the coffin on a Supreme Court with integrity through the nomination of his three jokers.  All three of these lied through their teeth to get on the Court.  I wasn’t fooled with their assurances that Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.

I was a high school senior in 1973 when Roe v. Wade became law.  I have to admit I was indifferent to the whole thing.  My parents didn’t rant or rave about it, and my friends and I were too busy with graduating and summer jobs to think how this law would affect us. 

I was too young to suffer the restrictions women faced.  In those days, doctors would discuss a woman’s condition with her husband—in her presence, as if she wasn’t there.  In those days, a woman had to get permission from her husband before the doctor would prescribe the birth control pill.  In those days, pregnancy, child birth and child care were all the woman’s responsibilities.  Men just planted their seeds and went their merry way.

By the time I was an adult and then a mother, things had changed.  I didn’t have to have my husband present for doctor visits.  He and I split the parenting responsibilities as fairly as we could.  There was one time I did come across male supremacy from a doctor.  I wanted to have my tubes tied after my third child was born.  I was 37 and already had been considered “high risk” because of my age.

The doctor asked: “Are you sure?  What if you lose one of your children?”  Um, what? Like a new baby could replace a lost child?

The doctor then asked: “What does your husband say about it?  Does he agree to this?”

I already knew my husband agreed and said so.  I felt deeply offended.  Why did this doctor think my husband controlled my health care?

It’s because men have thought from the very beginning of time that they were in charge.  They’re the strong ones.  They’re the heads of their families.  They have final say in everything.  It’s even Biblical, for crying out loud.  I was fortunate enough to have an enlightened husband who didn’t see issues that way.

And so, I’ve lived with Roe v. Wade in my background for almost 50 years.  I am not an advocate of abortion.  I wouldn’t consider one for myself but every woman has a right to choose what’s best for her health.  I absolutely understand necessary abortions: pregnancies that harm the mom’s health, pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, pregnancies where the baby is so disabled life would be difficult.  I’m not a fan of birth control abortion but there aren’t enough resources out there to educate or help women who get pregnant “in the heat of the moment”.

I’m reading now that Roe v. Wade isn’t encoded, whatever the hell that means.  The bottom line is that the Supreme Court is primed to take away a woman’s right to choose, denying her the right to decisions about her health.  I realize that it won’t stop there.

Some people may be indifferent, thinking well, I am never going to get an abortion so who cares?

Do you really think the Rethugs, trumpers, GQP followers and other right-wing influencers will stop there?  People, listen to what they’re saying and WAKE UP.  I’m sure they’d love to dismantle other fundamental rights.  I read a Reuters article which said in part:

Abortion is among a number of fundamental rights that the court over many decades recognized at least in part as what are called "substantive" due process liberties, including contraception in 1965, interracial marriage in 1967 and same-sex marriage in 2015.

“Though these rights are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, they are linked to personal privacy, autonomy, dignity and equality. Conservative critics of the substantive due process principle have said it improperly lets unelected justices make policy choices better left to legislators.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/gay-marriage-other-rights-risk-after-us-supreme-court-abortion-move-2022-05-04/

It seems to me the trumpers on the Supreme Court are saying if it’s not mentioned specifically in the Constitution, we can throw it out.  This offends me to my very core.  I see that if the Rethugs, trumpers and GQP take control of the House and/or Senate this year, we are going to be following a path to a patriarchal dictatorship with 45 installed as king.

People have to start caring.  Here is another issue that really gets me.  I belong to a generation known as Baby Boomers, those of us born from 1945-6 to 1960.  When we were young, we rebelled against repression, racial injustice, the war in Viet Nam that killed and maimed so many, bureaucrats, autocrats and generally, The Establishment.  I wonder where all our fire has gone?  I’m sure there are many Boomers who are still activated and for human rights and equality.

But what happened to so many Boomers who are now seniors and enthralled with the Rethugs and 45?  How can they support those people?  Those politicians do nothing to help anyone but themselves and the rich.  They fight any program that would help seniors, children, pregnant mothers, and families.  Why are these seniors so deluded?  Do they not remember how it was in the 60s and 70s?  Where did their fire go?

This day, May 4, 1970, students at Kent State were shot down and killed by National Guardsmen.  It sent shock waves through everyone.  I think about how we reacted then and the crickets I hear now after learning that 45 asked then Secretary Esper if people protesting the police murder of George Floyd could be shot.  Esper demurred and 45 then asked why protestors couldn’t be shot in the legs.  We’ve become so numbed to outrageous Rethuglican behavior that no one says anything about this.

We’ve been asleep too long, hoping the Democratic leaders would DO SOMETHING.  Well, they can’t.  They’re stymied by the Rethugs and by the DINOs in their party.  It’s up to us.  We have to vote in every election and we have to vote against the Rethuglican candidates.  The name I call what used to be the GOP is disrespectful, I know, but I don’t care.  Those people have done more damage to our country than any foreign attack on us. 

Vote, people, for God’s sake, vote.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Twitter & Elon Musk

A lot of the news chatter today has to do with Elon Musk.  Musk is a billionaire who spends his money on things.  As far as I can tell, he doesn’t use his money to help people.  His biggest beneficiary seems to be himself or, rather, Tesla.  He made the news by sending a rocket into space successfully and again, with 90 year old William Shatner aboard.  Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, was the oldest man to go up in space.  All of this stuff can be entertaining but meanwhile, there was still covid running wild in the country and people who’ve lost their jobs, homes and are hungry as a result.  No charitable organization got any funds he claims to have donated.

Why does he seem so self-centered and cold-hearted?  Well, on Saturday Night Live last year, he announced he was the first SNL guest host with Asperger’s Syndrome.  First of all, he’s not.  Dan Ackroyd, an original SNL member, has had diagnosed Asperger’s for years.

What is Asperger’s?  It’s on the autism spectrum and many people might have it without knowing it.  It all depends on presenting symptoms.  Musk went on to say to his audience that his voice seems without intonation, he doesn’t make eye contact and he’ll emulate emotions.  Most people with Asperger’s are high functioning, socially delayed, and many are geniuses.

I speak with some experience because two of my adult children have been diagnosed with Asperger’s.  They have varying degrees of executive order function, the ability to read social cues, understand some forms of humor, irony, or sarcasm.  Neither of my kids had the motor skills to do well in sports and so focused their attentions elsewhere.  Throughout their lives as kids, they’ve become very focused on one thing or another.  It wasn’t easy “fitting in” at school.

As adults, they’ve both become successful, caring adults and have learned how to socialize with family and friends.

All of this meandering about Asperger’s is just to say this might be why Musk seems indifferent to people’s needs.

Or, maybe he’s just a grasping, selfish individual looking for the next bright, expensive toy to play with.

That new toy right now is Twitter.  I worry about what Twitter will turn into.  Musk says he wants to make Twitter “private” and wants free speech.  Does that mean he’s going to allow hateful, racist, violence language on the platform now?  Right now Twitter works to keep some of that negativity off. 

Will Musk allow TFG back on Twitter?  What a disaster that would be.  The TFG is a very vocal hate machine.

I am active on Twitter, mostly with creative writing, liberal left leaning and cat groups.  I try to stimulate interest in my blog, support other writers, express frustration about the GQP’s continuing shenanigans without consequences, and share  cat pictures.  I plan on staying but already registered with a platform called Counter Social.

What will make me quit Twitter?  If Musk charges for membership, if it becomes filled with ranting, hate filled Q-Anon trumper fanatics, and if I’m bounced off for saying what I think that isn’t in line with Musk politically.

The man scares me.

My New Blogs

The Old Gray Mare Speaks Irishcoda54