Abortion: Only For Those Who Need It!

NOTE: This post contains my opinions on Catholicism based on my experiences as a child in the 1960's and 70's. Take what you like and leave the rest. I mean no disrespect to anyone who is happy with their faith, but the Supreme Court leak has shaken me to my core and dredged up some old demons. 

In 1977 I was a senior in high school. Roe v. Wade was four years old, and the Catholic Church was hopping mad. At the end of that school year I would finally break free from the prison I had been in for twelve years. But they weren't done with me yet.

For those twelve years, all us good little Catholic girls and boys were marched to church on the first Friday of every month and for various religious holidays to pray for our miserable souls and beg God's forgiveness. I had stopped going to church on Sundays when I was eleven. There were no adults at home to force me, but of course it was near impossible to get out of those perp walks with the rest of my sinning classmates and armed guards nuns keeping watch. We weren't angels, but it was drilled into our heads that we were definitely sinners. After all, we were born in sin thanks to some chick with an apple who took some bad advice from a talking snake and convinced the guy from whose rib she was created to go along with her. We were screwed from the start, and only the grace of God would heal us. But the nuns never explained exactly what that meant. They called it a 'mystery'. All I knew is that I couldn't find it, and by the time I was a senior, I didn't give a shit. Drugs and alcohol were making me feel a whole lot better than the Act of Contrition ever could. God hadn't helped me all the times I cried out in the night, dutifully said my prayers at mass or a zillion Hail Marys after confession, or brought in all the change from my piggy bank to 'buy' starving babies 'over there' in some nameless country while my own refrigerator sat practically empty. No, grace seemed to only be attainable by real saints who were burned at the stake or crucified or shot through with arrows like poor St. Sebastian over there.

I remember the priests at mass telling us to pray for all the unborn children. "Wait a minute, what about me? Who's praying for me?" Surely the nuns knew my home life was a train wreck, they must have known how bad it was. Why weren't they praying for me?  Why weren't they helping me!? I guess all of my problems were my own fault because, you know, ORIGINAL SIN!!!

So, on a particular spring day in 1977, our church decided to hold a special 'pro-life' mass that all the students in my high school were supposed to attend. I was told by my art teacher (who was one of the coolest people I knew at the time and was just following orders), that senior AP art students were to create anti-abortion signs. My hackles went up. Until that point, none of my friends ever had to make that extremely difficult choice (that I knew of), but there were a couple of scares. And no one—especially a bunch of men and women hiding behind robes of hypocrisy—was going to force me to take a public stand against something as profound as bodily autonomy. What to do? 

The words came to me pretty quickly. I grabbed a piece of poster board and a marker and wrote:

Abortion:

Only for those who need it!

I don't remember going to the mass or what happened to that poster, but I do remember two of my very good friends refused to attend. They were suspended and their parents were called. Heathens!

Over the years, I tried a few times to return to the church because my connection with my higher power was, and still is, very strong, but each time, I was met with acute hypocrisy. I tried to focus on that relationship, but the priest sex abuse scandal was the final straw. To be fair, there are many Christian organizations that do tremendous work helping others, and with the majority of Americans supporting abortion, it's safe to say that not every Christian wants to return to the days of Hester Prynne. Along the way I found one priest—one—at a particular church who made a point of saying at the end of every mass, this is the church of Jesus Christ, and all are welcome whether straight, gay, married, divorce, black, white, yellow, pink or blue. That's what Jesus would have said. That is true Christianity.

I think about my own daughter at the dawn of her adult life, and I am grateful that we live in a state (NJ) that respects the right of women to make their own healthcare decisions. I think about the women—and men—I know who have had to make that terribly difficult decision because they were not in a space to raise a child. And while the Christian right wrong touts it as the killing of a human being, isn't it also a death—albeit a slow, painful one—to bring a human being into a world where they will not—for whatever reason—be able to live a full, productive life?

While I was born into a loving household, that safety and security dissolved very quickly and life was dark and scary for many years. There should have been social services to help me and my siblings, but there weren't. And now, almost 50 years later, the wealthiest nation in the history of this planet still does not have an adequate social safety net to help women, children and families living on the edge because a very vocal minority has gamed the system in their favor and those in the majority seem to be afraid to offend them.

The US already leads the world's wealthiest nations in maternal mortality, and the states most likely to ban abortion are also least likely to provide adequate, affordable healthcare, including contraception, pre- and postnatal and infant/child healthcare. Pregnancy is a 50-50 operation, yet women are blamed. We—like Eve—are the original sinners and we must pay while men still get their Viagra. As Abraham Lincoln said in his famous anti-slavery speech, "A house divided against itself cannot stand... this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."

If this Supreme Court decision goes through, this nation will have come full circle. The slavery of all women will be legal. Forced childbirth is slavery. Period.

Artwork by me

Mad? Me too. 

VOTE!

Franklin Twp update: No, Ms. Stanley, it's not your opinion. You're just wrong

If you've been following the controversy over Franklin Township (Somerset) Board of Education President Ed Potosnak's graduation speech last month, (Franklin Reporter here; Blue Jersey here, here, here; NJ.com here), you know that last night was the first board meeting after board member Patricia Stanley sent a letter to Ed, an openly gay man, and the rest of the board calling for his resignation because he dared to spend approximately 1:30 out of a seven and a half minute speech talking about how the Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage—handed down that same day—affected his life. 

Here's the video of his speech:



Last night's meeting was straight out of a Hollywood movie script—almost: Ignorance meets Fearlessness, and in a public showdown with unanimous community support for the protagonist, Fearlessness wins, Ignorance realizes the error of her ways, we have the Kumbaya moment, and everyone goes home happy. 

Except there was no realization and no Kumbaya moment. Despite 90 minutes of impassioned statements from supporters both inside and outside of the township, many of whom expressed compassion for Stanley, she doubled down on her 'opinion' that Ed had somehow 'hijacked' the event (...with his gay agenda?). 

Funny thing about opinions: they're very easy to hide behind in the name of free speech. We heard several reminders of that from Stanley and one other board member who, while not agreeing with Stanley, repeatedly reminded us that she is entitled to her own opinion. But as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You are entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts." And therein lies the rub: Stanley confuses opinion with fact.

In a moment of synchronisity, a friend who attended the meeting with me posted this piece by Jef Rouner this morning that appeared in today's Houston Press titled, No, it's not your opinion. You're just wrong.

Rouner reminds us that in a world in which policy is increasingly being shaped by opinion rather than facts, it's important to distinguish 'right' opinion from 'wrong' (all emphasis mine):

There’s a common conception that an opinion cannot be wrong. My dad said it. Hell, everyone’s dad probably said it and in the strictest terms it is true. However, before you crouch behind your Shield of Opinion you need to ask yourself a two questions.

1. Is this actually an opinion?
2. If it is an opinion how informed is it and why do I hold it?

(...)
An opinion is a preference for or judgment of something. My favorite color is black. I think mint tastes awful. Doctor Who is the best television show. These are all opinions. They may be unique to me alone or massively shared across the general population but they all have one thing in common; they cannot be verified outside the fact that I believe them.

There’s nothing wrong with an opinion on those things. The problem comes from people whose opinions are actually misconceptions. If you think vaccines cause autism you are expressing something factually wrong, not an opinion. The fact that you may still believe that vaccines cause autism does not move your misconception into the realm of valid opinion. Nor does the fact that many others share this opinion give it any more validity.
(...)
What mucks it all up is when a narrow set of information is assumed to be wider than it is. There is a difference between a belief and things you just didn’t know. It’s easy to believe, for instance, that whites face as much discrimination as people of color, but only if you are completely ignorant of the unemployment rates of blacks versus whites... 

(...) 

Many, many, many of your opinions will turn out to be uninformed or just flat out wrong. No, the fact that you believed it doesn’t make it any more valid or worthwhile, and nobody owes your viewpoint any respect simply because it is yours.

So, when Stanley says, 

"(I)n my thirteen years in professional music and theatre, I have known many, many homosexual men. I still have friends who are professionals in the business. But they always behave like mature gentlemen and are truly considerate of other people."

... what she really means is that she likes her gay men (and by inference all non-heterosexual individuals) walking with their heads down and their lives in the closet, and that's just wrong!

And when she says, 

“You presented very personal information regarding yourself and your intimate life which was just uncalled for in that venue. It was inappropriate behavior at an inappropriate time.”

... we can infer that, in her opinion, no one should make any mention of their families or their personal lives or experiences in any way, shape or form when giving a speech such as this lest someone be offended.  

The human experience is shaped by the human experience, and with the SCOTUS ruling, that experience just got a whole lot wider, deeper and richer, and that scares the bejeezus out of some people just the way it did when slavery ended, women got the right to vote and America became desegregated. 

So, while Ms. Stanley is indeed entitled to her own opinion, her opinion does not entitle her to be a bigot. And that's a fact.

ADDING: While there were many calls for her resignation, there were many (myself included) who expressed the hope that she wouldn't resign; that this would be a teachable moment that would draw the board closer together in discussions about tolerance and sensitivity. Ms. Stanley has three more years to serve on the board. I truly hope she changes her opinion.