There is one more element in the equation that goes into the effort to roll back legal abortion in test cases like South Dakota, and that is how strange it is that an administration that prides itself on a "free market" economy, daily pollutes the environment by deregulating greenhouse gas emissions, by allowing gross polluting trucks, under NAFTA, to pour toxic waste into California's air, now wants to regulate decisions a woman makes in the privacy of her own home, and in consultation with her physician.
In fact, these "free market" folks want to transform licensed physicians into government pitch men who function as FDA warning labels on a pack of cigarettes. Yes, they're into free markets, not free women.
A country that has infrastructure in place to deprive women of pay equity, and equal opportunity while, simultaneously, peddling "welfare to work" programs only succeeds in creating a faux caste system from which only the most indigent suffer, and these are the women they want to deprive of choice when choice is the only thing they have.
Moreover, should Roe v. Wade be overturned, or turned over to the states to decide, there won't be fewer abortions, only fewer poor women having abortions, so this is not about ideology, after all, but about privilege.
Keep in mind, too, that the word "regle," in French, means "rule." Fascinating, isn't it, how those who are best at breaking the rules, in Washington, these days, are working hard at making rules from which they may, someday, too claim immunity.
As a society, we're willing to immunize cheats, liars, war criminals, and law breakers, but prosecute any physician who acknowledges a woman's constitutional right to seek remedy from an unwanted pregnancy.
Governmental interference in a woman's personal decision to terminate her pregnancy is no different from governmental intervention in the bedroom. It's the same principle really.
Any arranged marriage between health, politics, and religion is one that can only lead to divorce.
After the National Security Agency scandal, and revelations of telecom eavesdropping, any illusions we had, as citizens, to privacy have been quickly dispelled.
The "war on terror" is really a war on privacy, after all, is it not?
Leave regulation for the oil companies, military contractors, banks, and credit card companies that are gouging the consumer, and keep them the hell out of our private lives.
http://ladyjaynestahl.blogspot.com
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA. Jayne Lyn Stahl is a Huffington Post blogger.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Jayne, you've properly pointed out one of the hypocrisies that exists within a societal ordering system comprised of government laws enacted by elected legislators, administered by elected and appointed executives, clerked by low level bureaucrats and enforced by various policing agencies (the ones with the guns). "Governmental interference in a woman's personal decision to terminate her pregnancy is no different from governmental intervention in the bedroom. It's the same principle really."
Government interference in the decisions, choices and then voluntary interactions between a woman and the provider of the abortion service she has contracted to perform that service is just that - interference. If she contracts with (pays) an abortion provider who does so as a private business, then properly the arrangement should be between those parties and no others, without the agreement of both. However, when someone wants government at some level to pay for those services, that can only take place by government interfering in the lives of the people from whom it has taken that money, always under threat of force. (Note Who is Really Paying the Bills) And the principle is the same no matter what the service or product some government agency is providing.
For those who want to assist some person in the acquisition of some service or product that the person states is of high priority but has insufficient funds, that too should be between those parties only, without any compelling that goes along with government, the legalized use of force. All the interactions involved - the exchange of money for a service or product - would be those of individuals trading to mutual benefit. This is how a true free market operates, which I think you realize does not exist in the US (at least in part by your use of "free market"), nor has it for a great many years. And the principle, which is not permitted by government to be fully practiced, is the same in regard to all other areas of human endeavors - individuals interacting to mutual benefit, each for the purpose of maximizing hir lifetime happiness, the goal of each individual whether or not s/he consciously recognizes it.
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness, individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
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Kitty Antonik Wakfer (26 articles, 27 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 163 comments [15 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:59:26 AM
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