#864 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday February 23)
Good morning,
After a week of a lot of political Musings, I was hoping to end the week with a music-based Musing to send us into the weekend. Alas, I’ve been musing about other things…
I’ve been trying to develop a “unified theory” of what has been happening in America. While I’ll have more to say about this in coming weeks, we are facing multiple threats as we plunge forward toward an aristocracy, a plutocracy, and/or a theocracy. It is hard not to see the issues surrounding restrictions on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, increasing pressure to backpedal on gay marriage rights, limitations on stem-cell research, and open embrace of religious rituals in connection with school and civic meetings are all of an attempt to create a far-right evangelical, white Christian state.
Last week’s Alabama Supreme Court establishment of “personhood” not only for a fetus, but even for fertilized eggs, brings this religious quest into sharp focus.
ABORTION—AND MORE—ARE GREATLY RESTRICTED
According to the Supreme Court of Alabama, embryos are considered persons under state law and entitled to the same protections as are living, breathing humans.
The impact of this ruling is significant. Not only does it ensure that elective abortions in Alabama—even in the earliest weeks of a woman’s pregnancy—are illegal, but it reverberates in other circumstances as well.
Physicians in Alabama who determine abortion is the best way to save a mother’s life will now have to balance the possibility that they could be tried for manslaughter (or worse) in ending the life of an embryo. Mothers will be at greater risk.
Selective abortion of less viable embryos in utero, in order to improve the chances of survival for the most viable remaining embryo, will be at risk.
In vitro fertilization requires that multiple ova are inseminated, and embryos are grown in petri dishes. When the woman whose egg was donated becomes pregnant, presumably the rest are human beings and, as such cannot be destroyed. It seems a near certainty that IVF in Alabama will have to end. Certainly, family planning agencies in Alabama already have indicated they cannot assume this increased legal risk.
The use of unused embryos from IVF for medical purposes would seem a dead letter.
THE THEOCRACY EXPANDS
I see little way to read the court’s ruling as anything other than one group imposing their religious beliefs on others. The concurring judge even quoted the Bible in his decision.
I certainly respect that people may choose to treat the “fetus in their family” as a human being, but I cannot accept that they have the right to decide—without anything more than religious conviction—that a fetus as part of IVF all of the sudden is my family member.
A majority of Americans favor some abortion rights, early in the pregnancy (typically around viability at 24 weeks), when the mother’s health is at risk, and when the fetus is unlikely to be viable. Yet, the religious right is able to thwart the will of the people through the appointment of increasingly conservative and religious judges. How far can this go? Certainly, in Republican-majority states, we can expect to see more of this. Will the Supreme Court ultimately adopt the “personhood” argument for fetuses? I fear they might. If they do, abortion will be a crime throughout the land. I’m guessing there are at least three, if not four, solid votes among the Supremes who would join in an opinion to extend this concept.
As I’ve written before, the determination of whether a fetus is a person is a question of religious doctrine. There is no scientific basis for believing that a “pre-quickening” fetus is a person. The courts are applying their religious views, at the expense of the religious views of others. Judaism, Islam, and many Christian denominations hold a woman’s health—including her mental health—as paramount, particularly early in a pregnancy. But a woman’s health may be at risk even late in a pregnancy. But no matter, as our views are being supplanted, as a matter of law, by the religious views of a religious minority that just happens to have disproportionate representation in the judiciary.
THEY’RE COMING FOR MORE
Make no mistake about it, the Conservative Christian movement is coming for more restrictions on the life choices of you and your neighbors. The Alabama court’s ruling is a wake-up call.
Justice Alito already has indicated a willingness to overturn Obergfell and again make same sex marriage illegal. As best as I can tell, they point to a single biblical proscription as fundamental to their view. As to abortion, this case presages what other courts likely will do, affecting individual decisions of prospective parents and accidental pregnancies, but also the health of us all, as testing of embryos and fetal tissue most assuredly will be a thing of the past. The prospective Trump administration has indicated it will employ the Comstock Act to restrict the delivery of abortion pills across state lines. I doubt this is the limit.
We are slowly, but seemingly inexorably, descending into a theocracy. Add that to the current plutocracy using lobbyists and PACs to strengthen their hold, plus the autocratic dreams of Donald Trump and others. Theocracy, autocracy, and plutocracy—definitely not the American system we were raised with. Times they are a changin’—and not for the better.
Nothing would surprise me.
HALEY CONTINUES TO FIGHT IT OUT
The South Carolina Republican primary is this weekend. Trump is expected to best Haley by 2:1. Sure that’s a landslide, but not so much for a candidate who is running as an incumbent. While Haley hardly is making inroads on delegates, she is pummeling Trump and forcing him to respond to her, rather than to Biden. More importantly, by garnering 1/3 of the votes, she is showing Trump’s fundamental weakness at attracting those closer to the middle. Let’s hope she stays through Super Tuesday.
Have a good day,
Glenn