Who’s right?
I have long been fascinated… no that’s not the right word… perturbed by America’s fascination with abortion issues… a topic that practically anywhere else in the world, is far less than a one-day wonder. No other country gives this topic as much relevance to our daily lives and Americans.
Many, many years ago, when I first started writing for newspapers, one of my first columns for the then Daily News, was a verbal scuffle with an anti-abortionist over the issue of abortions. His name was Edmund Broad (funny remembering that name) and I have no idea as to his status, though I suspect he might have long passed.
Broad was a vocal opponent of abortion at any level, for any reason. I disagreed and we took to the papers. I remember one of the questions I had asked of Broad, ‘What becomes of the child born but unwanted? Would Broad or his cohorts take care of those they fought to keep from being aborted’.
The reply if my memory serves me correctly, was that ‘…there were children’s homes and adoption’. And it has always filled me with wonder that anti-abortionists fight to keep the pregnancy alive, but want to have nothing to do with the born child.
Recently the topic has again moved front-page, what with Obama’s nomination for the supreme court, Sonya Sotomayor and with the murder of George Tiller, a doctor who performed late term abortions on women who didn’t want to bring their deformed fetuses to birth.
I haven’t changed my stance on abortion as I believe that it is every woman’s right to choose whether or not she carries her ‘baby’ to term. The truth is that abortion is a far more difficult task to defend than to attack. The woman’s right to choose is almost too subjective to build an argument around.
If I was forced to defend myself, I doubt that I could relay sum up a decent debate. Most of the arguments defending are fairly weak, except of course the fact that if abortions were made illegal, many women would either die or suffer severe complications from procedures performed by hacks.
Whether anyone likes it or not, abortion will always be with us. Women will always resort to that action based on the circumstances of the pregnancy.
The so-called pro-lifers arguments are a little more cogent but still far from decent debate material. Who knows exactly when a pregnancy should be considered a human being? And how factual can one make the claim that a woman has no right to make complete choices of her body and what may or may not be in it?
To me, the acceptance of the right of a woman to maintain full control of her body irrespective of the beliefs of a male dominated society, is unshakeable and doesn’t necessarily need a supply of facts. I would agree that abortion opponents have the right to believe the opposite. But both beliefs are not facts.
There are no facts available to support that ‘all men are equal’. Yet not many of us would differ. And there are also no facts backing any belief that one man is superior to another .
However, what I do know is that no one has the right to deprive another human of life just on the basis of this disagreement, something the so-called ‘pro-lifers’ fail to accept. The harassment, violence and even murder that these people carry on to enforce this belief must stop, and such crimes should be treated as hate crimes with extremely tough penalties.
I have always thought that if men were the ones getting pregnant, abortion wouldn’t be an issue.
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Last week I read an article that stated that Iran’s current president Ahmadinejad was history, that he would lose the Iranian election big time. I know wishful thinking when I saw it and knew it someone would be severely embarrassed. Well, Ahmadinejad has been declared the winner and westerners are scratching their heads and crying foul.
I have no idea whether voter fraud took place and apparently that will be investigated internally. Of course we will hear that is not enough and any inquiry must come form outside. Why?
In the 2004 election, the United States rejected the idea of being monitored by Jimmy carter’s US election group.
Ahmadinejad loss is the thinking of the current administration and a glow would have suffused Obama if he had lost. It would have given Americans the impression that Obama’s speeches to the Arab nations had an effect. Again, more wishful thinking.
Arabs aren’t fools as much as the experts and pundits would have us think. They know which side their interests are buttered on. They know the history of the United states and one or two speeches by a black president isn’t going to affect much change… especially when that president has already described his relationship with Israel as unbreakable.
The Arabs hatred of Israel is based on solid conviction coming from the past to the present. There is no two words about it… what is going on in Israel regarding the Palestinians and other Arabs is apartheid, bordering on genocide.
The United States one must remember, accepted and supported the apartheid regime in South Africa so Israel is par for the course. Sensible people should realize that against overwhelming military weaponry, the Palestinians fight back, even with stones. Something must be wrong. There must be something more than the public is being told.
It is not far from when northerners were being told that black slaves were better off as they were, than as free men. That they actually enjoyed working under fatal conditions on massa’s plantation than being back in the land they were forcibly taken from.
Yet many northerners accepted these lies and many of us accept the lies that the Israelis are always the good guys and the Arab’s the bad guys.
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And while that is going on, there is another dance of absurdity going on over North Korea.
To hell with them all, I say. If North Korea wants nuclear weapons, let them make the, buy them, barter them, whatever. Why shouldn’t they? They are no more unstable than most governments worldwide.
The real point should be to clear the planet of all wmds and not have an exclusive nuclear country club. I trust no government with nuclear weapons. We are just one psychotic breakdown from having a disaster, depending on who is in power, including who is in the white House.
Let everybody have the weapons or have none at all.
Interestingly, the argument used by those who defend the right to arms, states that the more weapons there are, the less thieves are likely to rob anyone (a fallacy of course). Why then shouldn’t we extend the same principle to wmds.
Obama says that the North Koreans are dangerous. That’s just for public manipulation. He knows better. It’s all a distraction folks.
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One of the definitely good things Obama is trying domestically, is for national health care coverage. Whether we believe the 46 million w/o health care numbers, the fact is that millions of Americans are without health coverage of any sort, while some have the barest of coverage.
One would have thought that any attempt at health reform would be greatly embraced, yet the administration is going to have a hard time getting this agenda done. There are many economic interests involved because there is so much money to be made on the backs of the American people, using or better abusing the system as it is now.
The doctors are mixed up with the insurers who are in it with the pharmaceutical companies who buy primarily republican politicians to keep the system as is.
And everyday more and more people find healthcare beyond their reach.
At a recent medical association meeting, Obama was booed. No surprised there, simply because he didn’t help them with their priority… limits on awards from medical malpractice cases.
The truth is that there is an issue. But not with the legal system… with the doctors themselves. I would think that more than 30% of America’s doctors practicing today would flunk out of UWI med school… more if you removed those foreign born.
The culture of American medicine makes little priority of patient care. The money is made ripping of the patient. Studies have shown that at least 30% of the health care dollar is spent on tests and procedures with little value. In other words, doctors willfully send patients for expensive tests that are unnecessary.
Ask any Jamaican nurse to tell you stories of the amount of misdiagnoses, the errors in prescription or drug dosages. It’s a comedy if so many people weren’t dying or losing wrong limbs.
These are the types of tragedies of self-interest we have when capitalism goes mad.
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I will be spending a few days in Jamaica, so I’ll probably tell you more when I return. But let me do a little bit of shameless self-promotion which is the poster below. Until next…