Tag Archives: Roe v. Wade

medical news

Pro-birth … not pro-life

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I am on the verge of abandoning the long-held term used to identify those who oppose a woman’s reproductive rights.

They call themselves “pro-life.” The reality is that they instead are “pro-birth,”

Why the change? It stems from the draconian measures enacted to restrict abortion in many states, including Texas. Here, legislators approved a ban on any abortion when a woman has been pregnant for six weeks or longer.

It makes no exception for the health of the unborn babies. Consider what happened to a Dallas woman who had to go out of state to obtain an abortion because one of the twins she was carrying had no chance of survival. She obtained the abortion.

Legislators are requiring women to give birth to children even when that act would jeopardize the health of the child and possibly destroy a woman’s ability to give birth in the future.

That is not a pro-life position. It promotes birth …. and it is a lie!

Should the 2024 election turn on this issue? Damn straight it should!

The Republican nominee in waiting has bragged about how he “single-handedly” deprived women of their right to govern their own bodies. The Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden, cannot let his opponent get away with that idiotic boast.

national news, political news

Listen to my friend, Mr. POTUS

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I have a friend with whom I share an interest in politics and public policy. She is well-read and is a student of the process that delivers policy decisions to us … for better or worse.

She believes President Biden is trailing the presumptive GOP presidential nominee because he has become tone-deaf to the current reality. Which is that not all Americans are feeling as good about the economy as the president thinks they are.

Thus, my friend surmises, he should stop crowing about the economy and appeal directly to the fear that many of us have about the possibility that the former Sexual Assailant in Chief just might win the presidency once again.

Biden needs to talk directly and incessantly about the threat to our democratic system that the wannabe dictator poses to our system.

Americans are historically proud of the liberty we enjoy. The GOP nominee-to-be is stated categorically that he intends to impose a dictatorship “for one day only” if he becomes POTUS. One day? Really? Do you think the former Liar in Chief will reinstate all our democratic norms?

He has boasted about his placing three justices on the Supreme Court, and their hand in revoking women’s right to terminate pregnancies. Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 SCOTUS decision is now history. Biden vows to restore it if he’s re-elected. His opponent promises to tighten the screws women’s reproductive rights.

Democratic political guru James Carville, no slouch on these matters, said recently that the Republican message has gained traction. The GOP nominee’s hush money trial isn’t making a dent in the lead Carville says he enjoys. Democrats are blowing it, Carville declared. Remember, this is the guy who coined the phrase in 1992 that “It’s the economy, stupid.” It worked for Bill Clinton.

Well, my friend is on board with the likes of Carville. She, too, wants Biden to crystallize his message, harden it to drive home the point that our democracy is in dire peril if Americans make the wrong choice at the ballot box this fall.

Listen to these people, Mr. President! They’re all pulling for you!

national news, political news

So many issues …

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So many issues from which to choose that will define this upcoming presidential election … so little time to decide which one matters the most.

If you were to ask me the one issue that resonates the most clearly with voters, I would go with “reproductive rights.”

Call it “abortion rights” as well. Whichever term you prefer, I believe this single issue could help decide who wins the presidential election. At least as importantly, may be more so, it could decide which party controls Congress. Democrats at this moment hold a slim majority of Senate seats; Republicans, meanwhile, hold an equally slim majority in the House of Representatives.

You know my preference, but I’ll repeat it here: I want Democrats to tighten their Senate grip and want Democrats to wrest control of the House from the GOP.

Republicans are hellbent to make abortion illegal nationwide. They would deprive women the right to make this profoundly personal choice on their own. The 45th POTUS managed to get three Supreme Court justices seated in his term in office.

He is taking personal credit for “killing” Roe v. Wade. Let us hope the boast bites him in his overfed backside as he seeks the presidency yet again.

Abortion is far from the only linchpin issue that could swing this election. We also have democracy vs. autocracy, support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the ongoing crisis on our southern border.

The fight over whether women should control their own bodies, though, resonates with me as the one issue that could propel women to vote en masse to protect those rights against the mostly male governing bodies wanting to dictate to them.

medical news, national news, political news

Ex-POTUS now opposes national abortion ban … oh, really?

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POTUS No. 45 has just declared his opposition to a national ban on abortion, saying that states should have the final say on what happens within their borders.

What in the world are we to glean from the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee’s latest stance on abortion?

Let’s review for a moment this moron’s path through the abortion pea patch.

He once declared himself to be fully pro-choice on the issue. Then he ran for president in 2016 and promised to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that inscribed a woman’s right to choose as a civil liberty. He kept that promise, with three judges named to the high court during his single — and hopefully only — presidential term. Republican senators declared their intention to enact a national ban, the former POTUS was silent. Now he says it’s up to the states.

While making that declaration, the former Idiot in Chief has boasted about “single-handedly overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Where does this clown stand on the issue? Don’t answer that. I think I know. He doesn’t stand anywhere on it.

He has no view. He has no policy.

local news, national news, political news

Pro-life, pro-choice: not mutually exclusive

Shall we now commence a brief discussion on what I believe could become the determining issue of the 2024 election?

It’s called euphemistically “reproductive rights.” Women across this land are angry that their rights have been stripped away by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended a 50-year landmark court ruling that granted women the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy.

Yes, to get an abortion!

Republicans by and large line up in favor of the SCOTUS ruling; Democrats oppose it.

Where am I on this matter? No surprise to know that I favor allowing women the right to determine a matter that is deeply personal. Politicians — most of whom are men — have no business making that determination for them.

Am I pro-choice? Yes! Am I pro-life? Yes!

Am I a hypocrite for affirming both views? No!

As a red-blooded American male, I am in no position to determine whether a woman should obtain an abortion. I have no standing on that matter. Zero. None.

Neither, in my view, does any other human being.

To be clear, no woman ever has asked me whether she should get an abortion. For that fact I am eternally grateful. I pray to God Almighty I never will have to answer that inquiry. That doesn’t mean for one instant that I would counsel a woman to do something I consider to be an act of immense cruelty.

I live in a state, Texas, that has enacted a strict anti-abortion law; the Legislature acted in the wake of the SCOTUS decision. Texas legislators placed a six-week time limit on women; six weeks after conception, abortion is determined to be illegal. The law makes no exception for the health of the mother, let alone for the health and life of the unborn child. It also subjects women and their physician to criminal penalty if they proceed with an abortion.

Is that what you call a pro-life stance? Hell no! It is a pro-birth stance.

This matter is quickly becoming a major campaign issue in the race for U.S. Senate. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz favors the idiotic law; his two main Democratic opponents, state Sen. Roland Guiterrez and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred oppose it.

I will venture to suggest that neither of these two Democratic pols would advise an abortion any more than I would. The religious right, though, will sling arrows at the individual nominated on Tuesday to run against Cruz.

This issue is fundamental to women across the state and the nation. I stand with them — and against the fanatics on the right — in this important battle for personal liberty.

I stand with them proudly as a Texas resident who is both pro-choice and pro-life.

national news

GOP on wrong side in abortion fight

Abortion is a political issue that gives me the heebie-jeebies, given the intensity of views on both sides of the great divide.

I consider myself to be pro-choice, but clearly I am not pro-abortion. And, no, those terms are not mutually exclusive. I merely cannot counsel a woman to obtain an abortion; then again, I do not deserve to have any say on how a woman should make such a gut-wrenching decision.

Republican politicians, therefore, are on the wrong side of history when they continue to dictate to women what they can and cannot do to manage their own biological affairs. Voters across the nation are making their feelings clear as well on that issue, turning back GOP-led efforts to ban abortion, to make it illegal.

Ohio voters spoke loudly and clearly on the matter by ratifying a measure to make abortion rights part of that state’s constitution. Other states’ voters in places such as Kansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Virginia have offered the same message to GOP pols: Do not dictate to us how we can make these decisions.

The Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade earlier this year, energizing abortion-rights advocates across the land. Let us not be coy about this fact, either: abortion is going to play a major role in every election going forward as we march toward the 2024 presidential election.

Voters already are speaking with absolute clarity on this issue. They have warned the pols in D.C. to keep their mitts of women’s reproductive rights. The key question now is this: Will the hide-bound politicians listen to what their constituents — their bosses — are telling them?

national news

GOP becomes nationalist party

Just how topsy turvy has the political machinery become in this country? Consider this example.

Republicans once thought that the federal government should leave key decisions up to the states and local government entities. Big Brother had no business telling people how to live or how to handle their affairs.

But wait! Now we have abortion on the table. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that abortion should be legalized and is a protected right under the Constitution, conservatives stuck to the let-the-locals-handle-it argument.

The current SCOTUS has overturned Roe v. Wade, unleashing a torrent of efforts to ban the practice.

Now, though, they want to enact a national ban on abortion. They insist that Congress enact federal laws that ban abortion after, say, 15 weeks of a pregnancy. Some states, such as Texas, have gone even further, banning abortion after six weeks … which often is before women even know they are pregnant.

So, which is it?

I know the answer. It depends on the issue. It’s a form of selective principle. Go small on government interference, until the issue involves the hottest of the hot-button matters. Then you go big.

Conservative, small-government philosophies be damned!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

What would they do … ?

I am willing to wait for as long as it takes for a self-righteous, sanctimonious politician to answer a simple question that I believe needs asking.

What would they do, how would they react, if their daughter was raped and beaten half to death and then learned that she is carrying an unborn child as a result of that attack?

While we’re on the subject, how would they react if, say, a lecherous uncle impregnated them?

No one has asked the likes of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, or Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that question. Nor has anyone asked any other politician who has enacted laws that all but eliminate abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

It’s a fair question. I admit it’s a bit of a “gotcha” inquiry. I can remember when then-GOP Sen. Dan Quayle was running for vice president in 1988 on a ticket led by VP George H.W. Bush. Quayle said he would “support” whatever decision his daughter made, even if she chose to have an abortion. Quayle was notably pro-life on the issue of abortion but didn’t flinch when someone asked him publicly about how he would react if a member of his own family faced that gut-wrenching decision.

Politicians simply must thrust themselves into the lives of those who must live by the laws enacted. They must be forced to answer the tough questions that some of those decisions require of them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news, national news, State news

Abortion: state or national issue?

Lindsey Graham once thought and talked like a traditional Republican, such as the time he said that abortion laws needed to be settled by states.

Now, though, the South Carolina Republican is ratcheting up the argument, pitching for a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Which is it, Sen. Graham, state issue or national prerogative?

Politicians on both sides of the divide have criticized Graham’s about-face. Then, of course, are those of us who dislike the government dictating how a woman can govern her own body.

Public opinion polls suggest Graham is on the losing side of this debate. He isn’t dissuaded. Graham believes the nationwide ban will become law despite those polls and despite some election results that suggest Americans want to retain a woman’s right to choose whether to end a pregnancy.

I will give Graham some credit for recognizing the need for excepting cases involving rape and incest from the ban. Certain statewide bans, such as what’s been enacted in Texas, require girls impregnated by their lecherous uncles or fathers to carry their pregnancies to full term.

However, Graham is getting way ahead of himself if he believes most Americans will line up behind what he’s proposing. According to the Huffington Post: “I am confident the American people would accept a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks,” Graham told “Fox News Sunday.” “And to those who suggest that being pro-life is losing politics, I reject that.”

Graham ‘Confident’ Public Backs U.S. Abortion Ban Despite Elections Proving Otherwise (msn.com)

Instead, he has joined the wacky wing of the Republican Party that now wants to nationalize what used to be part of the GOP mantra: it is better to leave some things up to the states than to have the feds impose their iron will.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news, national news

Land of the Free? Hah!

Didn’t this country found itself as the “Land of the Free,” a nation that prided itself on delivering freedom to all Americans, a land that honored our civil liberties?

I ask because of what has transpired in recent months with the U.S. Supreme Court rescinding one of our sacred civil liberties, the one that granted women the right to determine how to control their own bodies, as covered in the rights of privacy spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.

The court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that made abortion legal in this country. Over the nearly five decades of its existence, legal scholars and other courts had determined that Roe was “settled law.” In other words, we couldn’t mess with what had become part of the nation’s legal fabric.

Not so, according to the current Supreme Court.

When the court rescinded Roe v. Wade it essentially determined that on this key issue, women are longer free to make critical, gut-wrenching and highly emotional decisions involving their own bodies.

There doesn’t appear to be any remedies available, given the current makeup of the U.S. Senate and certainly given the ideological bent of the court, with its six conservative justices. Senate Democrats want to “codify” legality of abortion legislatively, but they would have to overcome a certain Republican filibuster; they need 60 votes to end such an obstructionist act. A 50-50 Senate split isn’t likely to bend.

Oh, but wait. The midterm election could give Democrats an actual majority, enabling them perhaps to toss out the filibuster. We’ll have to see.

I just am baffled at the frontal attack that the GOP and their allies on the Supreme Court have leveled against a fundamental principle established by our nation’s founders. It is that American citizens enjoy the freedom to make decisions that only they can make for themselves.

I would say that a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy qualifies as a critical component of living in the Land of the Free.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com