LAmom

EFFECTIVENESS VS. RIGHTS

Today is the selected day for the Pro-Life, Pro-Contraception Blogswarm.  Most of my contributions for the day are going to be cheating (referring to posts that I already wrote long ago).  But I'll add one thing that's currently on my mind.

When it comes to our support of the use of contraception, some pro-lifers want to put an onus on us to prove that contraception reduces the rate of abortions.  When statistics come out about the number of abortions going in one direction or another, they want to examine all the numbers to see whether allowing women to use contraception is "working".

But this ignores a larger issue.  That issue is whether a woman has a basic right to do whatever she chooses to do in order to avoid conceiving.  We assert that abortion is wrong because there are two people involved in the situation and one of them is going to end up dead.  But before a woman conceives, there is no other person in the equation.  One person, by herself, making her own decisions about what she wants to do.  What she decides is nobody else's business.  Whether the availability of contraception reduces the abortion rate or not does not change the fact that it is only right for women to have the right to use it.  If we want to reduce the number of abortions, we need to do it by preaching the true message of the sanctity of life of the unborn, not by denying women their right to prevent pregnancy through non-violent means (and I still don't see how people think that taking contraception away would reduce abortions anyway).

Similarly (and I shudder to think about it), there are some people who oppose allowing abortions to save the life of the mother because they fear it would be used as a loophole to achieve unrestricted abortion on demand.  The fundamental truth is that no one should ever be required to lose their life in favor of the life of another person.  Concerns about subversion of that principle to achieve other ends would have to be addressed in other ways, but not by denying someone their right to save their own life.

Similarly (if I may stray from today's subject), a lot of people try to look at capital punishment in terms of whether it has a "deterrent effect" on other would-be criminals.  I don't believe that the effect it has on other people should take priority over the principle of whether or not we believe that the government should have the authority to kill people.

So the overall principle is that if I believe someone has a right to something, I'm not going to be persuaded to trade their rights away to achieve some other goal.

(Ooh, now that's got me thinking about stuff like The Patriot Act.  Stay on topic, Joan.  Stay on topic.)

SOME PRO-LIFE LINKS

I should have done this one a while back: You are invited to sign a petition supporting the Pro Every Life, Pro Woman, Pro Reproductive Justice for All manifesto.  The manifesto was brought by Mary and Jen and supports both the sanctity of life of the unborn (and everybody else) AND the dignity of women and their right to self-determination when it comes to preventing pregnancy.

And this one is just in: Jen is proposing a Pro-Life, Pro-Contraception Blogswarm on May 31, 2008.  If you are anti-abortion and pro-contraception, blog about in on May 31st!  See you then!

PPJ WEB RING IS BACK UP

I don't know how, I don't know why, but at some point the Pro-Lifers for Peace and Justice web ring had been closed out by webring.com.  It was somehow merged into another pro-life ring that was (gasp!) inclusive to everyone, not just liberals.

But I have rectified the situation!  The PPJ ring is back.  If you were previously a member of the ring, or if you are a pro-life liberal and wish to join, this is your invitation.  I think all you have to do is click over to this page to get started.  Your site doesn't have to be a blog; it doesn't even have to talk about pro-life issues or politics or anything.  If you yourself are a pro-life liberal, we would love for you to join.  Thanks.

TALK TO THE PRESIDENT!

I don't know if anybody out there is still reading here, but if so, perhaps you will join me in this effort.

Last week, President Bush wrote a letter to the Congress telling them that he will veto any legislation that includes federal funding for abortions. In the letter he talks about how wrong it is to "allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life." As a pro-life liberal, it was impossible for me to read that part without thinking about the Iraq War, where our tax money is killing a lot of people.

If you feel the same way I do, join me in contacting the president to express your views. You can call 202-456-1111 or email to comments@whitehouse.gov

IF YOU ARE PRO-LIFE, PLEASE MENTION IT IN YOUR COMMENT!

Here's an article at LifeNews.com that includes the text of Bush's letter.

If you do send him a message, feel free to leave a comment here and tell me that you did.

I'm still way too busy to do quality blogging, so I'm not promising that I'll write anything else soon, but I am going to call the White House.

IT'S MOTHER'S DAY AGAIN

This is a re-run of the Mother's Day post I wrote last year.  Sad to say, it's just as relevant now as it was then.

********************************************************************************
********************************************************************************

Read the Mother's Day Proclamation of Julia Ward Howe, the originator of the holiday.  I'm planning to make copies of it to pass out on Mother's Day:

(excerpt)
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

This weekend is all about me, right?  Mom's special day.  Thank you so much for thinking of me.  Here I am, sitting up in bed, plumped up pillows all around me, eating breakfast from a tray table with a little vase holding a red rose.  And you all want to shower me with gifts. You are so kind, really you are.  So what does LAmom want for Mother's Day?  I'm sure you'll think of something nice that will make me feel cherished . . .

• A racial truce in Los Angeles?  Oh, that would be lovely!

• A moratorium on the death penalty?  How thoughtful!

• Nuclear disarmament?  Ooh, I've wanted one of those for as long as I can remember!  I know there are a lot of newer gift ideas out there, but this one never goes out of style.  It would be prized for generations to come.

• A plan for cleaning up the mess we've made in Iraq? Hmmm, the one you gave me last year isn't working that well.  You can give me another one if you like, but what really needs to be addressed is your behavior problem.  First, you need to apologize for making the mess and apologize for lying to Mommy, OK?  When you're ready to talk, I'll be here.

• A culture of life?  I've been hearing that that's the hot gift for this year, but there are some defective models on the market.  Don't blow this!  If you decide to get me one, do take some of my friends along when you go shopping.

See?  I'm not so hard to please.

Happy Mother's Day to me and to all of the other moms out there.  I hope you get something that's on your list.

********************************************************************************
********************************************************************************

(excerpt)
From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...

This weekend is all about me, right?  Mom's special day.  Thank you so much for thinking of me.  Here I am, sitting up in bed, plumped up pillows all around me, eating breakfast from a tray table with a little vase holding a red rose.  And you all want to shower me with gifts. You are so kind, really you are.  So what does LAmom want for Mother's Day?  I'm sure you'll think of something nice that will make me feel cherished . . .

• A racial truce in Los Angeles?  Oh, that would be lovely!

• A moratorium on the death penalty?  How thoughtful!

• Nuclear disarmament?  Ooh, I've wanted one of those for as long as I can remember!  I know there are a lot of newer gift ideas out there, but this one never goes out of style.  It would be prized for generations to come.

• A plan for cleaning up the mess we've made in Iraq? Hmmm, the one you gave me last year isn't working that well.  You can give me another one if you like, but what really needs to be addressed is your behavior problem.  First, you need to apologize for making the mess and apologize for lying to Mommy, OK?  When you're ready to talk, I'll be here.

• A culture of life?  I've been hearing that that's the hot gift for this year, but there are some defective models on the market.  Don't blow this!  If you decide to get me one, do take some of my friends along when you go shopping.

See?  I'm not so hard to please.

Happy Mother's Day to me and to all of the other moms out there.  I hope you get something that's on your list.

CHECK OUT MOMS RISING!

If you know me at all, you'll know that THIS is right up my alley:

Help America's Mothers and Families Now!

There is a silent crisis in America. Mothers and families are in trouble. The wage gap between mothers and non-mothers is now greater than between women and men: One study found non-mothers earn 10% less than their male counterparts; mothers earn 27% less; and single mothers earn between 44% and 34% less.

This wage hit has a direct impact on families--a full quarter of families with children under six live in poverty, at least 9 million children don’t have any health care, and far too many parents can’t afford to stay home with sick children. Working toward common sense family-friendly policies like those covered in The Motherhood Manifesto will help all families.

The Moms Rising campaign seeks policies that support parents and children, like parental leave, flexible work options, child care and after-school care, fair wages, and universal health care for kids.

I blog about pregnancy and motherhood discrimination all the time.  Moms Rising seems to be focused mainly on the motherhood side and less on pregnancy equality, but it's all good.

Go sign their petition.  Tell them LAmom sent you.

COOL AERIAL PHOTO

This is from CODEPINK LA's Women Say No to War rally.

"IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT . . ."

" . . . then abortion would be a sacrament."  You've probably heard that quote before.

What do I think?  I think it's very possibly true.  Think about waging war, for instance.  It's killing, it's state-sanctioned, and it has long been presented by the establishment as something glorious and noble.  Something that turns a boy into a man.  Yuck.

As warfare has evolved into a process that kills many more civilians than soldiers, there has been some reframing of it as a necessary evil instead of a virtue, but the criteria that make war "necessary" still seem to be awfully broad.

I don't know if I should include honor killings as another example, because those are not officially approved of by the governments in the countries where they occur.  But the idea that the people who practice them put the words honor and killing side by side illustrates the point in a pretty disgusting manner.

I'm not a pacifist, but my standards for war as a means of self-defense go about as far as standing on our own soil armed and ready to fight off anyone who attacks us, or sending folks out to the caves to search for bin Laden (to bring him to trial, not kill him).  Anything beyond that is not glorious, not noble, and not justified.

RACIST, CLASSIST, ANTI-LIFE AND ANTI-WOMAN'S-CHOICE, JUDGMENTAL . . . AM I LEAVING ANYTHING OUT?

I'm not making this up.  Check out this Dutch politician:

Alderman Marianne van den Anker for the Leefbaar Rotterdam (LR) party has called for a debate in Rotterdam on compulsory abortion and contraception for mothers she believes are responsible for raising unloved babies that fall victim to child abuse.

Yick.  Being pro-life, I know that some people like to call me "anti-choice."  If I'm going to be called that, do I get to define what anti-choice means to me?  Most people who identify themselves as pro-choice are "pro-pregnant-woman's-choice"; they want the woman to be the one who chooses.  To me, what Ms. van den Anker is proposing is a way different form of choice, one where outsiders are given the right to choose which babies will be born and which won't.  That's not anti-choice in my book; that's "pro-government-choice."  My vision of anti-choice would be that nobody would be choosing whether a fetus gets to live or not. But I do, of course, support pregnancy termination if a woman needs it for medical reasons, so I guess that makes me "pro-woman's-right-to-choose-to-save-her-own-life."

I have on rare occasions heard other people advocate compulsory abortion (e. g., in cases where both parents are minors).  But I've never heard anyone actually single out a particular race before:

The three target groups she has in mind are Antillean teenage mothers; drug addicts and people with mental handicaps.

Van den Anker said children from these groups run an "unacceptable risk" of growing up without love and with "violence, neglect, mistreatment and sexual abuse."

Antilleans are folks from the Netherlands Antilles, a group of Carribean islands with an 85% mixed black population.  So a white Dutch teenager is OK to have a baby, but a black one better not try it?  I am the daughter of a black teen mom myself.  Was I at an unacceptable risk of growing up unloved and mistreated?  Amazing how my parents beat the odds!  Of course, Ms. van den Anker might have granted me clemency because my mother was a married teen.

But wait, there's more!  I hope you're sitting down . . .

The politician told the newspaper the courts would decide on whether abortion was the right option. The decision would be based on experts and care workers who "who can see in 95 percent or even 100 percent of cases whether the child has a chance of growing up with love".

This part reminds me of those American politicians who say that under their proposed plan for administering the death penalty, they can guarantee that we will always be 100% certain that the prisoner is guilty before we kill them.

Please, dear experts and care workers, tell me now whether or not I am going to love my baby.  I won't get an abortion no matter what you say, but maybe you can convince me to give my baby to more worthy parents based on your infallible analysis.

Van den Anker supported her argument by suggesting that there were a lot of Antillean youth gangs in Rotterdam whose members come from loveless homes. The gangs, she said, committed rapes, were loverboys (pimps) and guilty of street terror.

"Antillean youths who commit serious crimes have been through everything themselves. History repeats itself and they visit the tragedy of their life history on others," she said.

Again, it seems to be all about the blacks immigrants.  Because white kids never have troubled childhoods or turn to crime.

Fortunately, Ms. van den Anker appears to be alone in her sentiments:

SWA, a foundation promoting health among Antilleans and Arubans in Rotterdam, said the alderman's comments were degrading. It called on the Mayor Ivo Opstelten and the LR's coalition partners, the Christian Democrat (CDA) and Liberal (VVD) parties, to distance themselves from Van den Anker's views. She has also received dozens of emails criticising her ideas.

As legal experts pointed out, Van den Anker's plan would never be permitted, a CDA spokesperson warned: "If Leefbaar Rotterdam raises this idea in the talks to form a new coalition, the CDA will not be part of such an executive."

IT'S OFFICIAL: DRUG SMUGGLERS ARE HEARTLESS JERKS

It might seem strange for this story to provoke me to write a pro-life post,

Authorities have found what they call the largest and most sophisticated tunnel running into the United States along the Mexican border.

The tunnel contained 2 tons of marijuana, stacked in bales, according to a statement issued by the Justice Department.

but that's how it hit me.  When I read the story and saw the pictures, my first reaction was a deep anger.  The largest and most sophisticated tunnel ever found, and what is it transporting?  Drugs!  There doesn't seem to be any evidence that the tunnel is ever used to help people get across the border.  So while human beings are being stuffed into cargo trucks and dying in the desert trying to reach the United States, tons of pot are making the journey in style:

Made of concrete, the passageway had lighting, electricity, ventilation and a pump to remove water, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That is valuing money more than human life.  Of course, I don't expect any better from drug dealers.  Their whole industry is based on making money at the cost of human life.  But it still made me mad.