Friday, July 29, 2005

Frist
Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has endorsed federally funded stem cell research, switching his allegiance from President Bush to those who favor federal funding.

Intransigency is not wisdom. Bush says he will veto any such legislation that comes before him. Bush flaunts his stubbornness as if it were a virtue.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

CAFTA
Bush will meet with House Republicans in a closed session today, Wed, July 27, 2005. He will urge passage of CAFTA,(the free trade agreement similar to NAFTA), with the U S, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and possibly Dominican Republic, If passed, it will be a disaster for small farmers, and workers in the U S, Canada, and Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and family farms foreclosed.

Corporate domination will lead to privatization of resources and utilities in these South American countries, resulting in lower pay for workers while increasing the cost of living. Public interest laws are routinely and secretly overturned and challenged in NAFTA courts; pollution of the environment causes health concerns; job loss increases poverty. The Bush administration has already pressured Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina to accede to U.S. demands or be left out of the agreement.

To learn more about CAFTA go to Http://www.citizen.org/trade/cafta

Thursday, July 21, 2005

I’m glad the democrats are waiting for the hearings to begin before voicing loud objections to Robert’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I hope Senators ask and demand candid and straight answers from him when he’s asked about questions affecting choices of women if he becomes an associate justice.

I’ve heard on the radio and TV news that Robert’s wife is a devoted advocate of the ‘right to life’. As practicing Catholics, her husband in all probability thinks the same. I don’t care what religion they practice, but I do care that if he sits on the Supreme Court, Roe v Wade not be overturned.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Sandra Day O’Conner has announced her retirement from the Supreme Court. When Reagan appointed her, I was pleased a woman was chosen, but leery about her ‘politics’. From all accounts, she has been ‘the voice of reason’, casting swing votes to stabilize the court’s rulings on abortion and affirmative action, but reverted to type when she cast the deciding vote that made Bush president.

I heartily support those Democrats gearing up to protest any appointment replacing O’Connor if they are considered too extreme in their views and threaten to over turn Roe v Wade.

John Irving tells about researching abortion at the Yale medical-history library in his book, My Movie Business. The book is a diary of re-writing the screen script for his novel, The Cider House Rules. John Irving’s grandfather, Dr. Frederick C. Irving, a famous doctor, and member of the medical-school faculty at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, a Lying-in hospital, also authored many articles on the subject.

Since the landing of the pilgrims, abortion had been legal for 226years. Most women had their babies at home with midwives attending. Midwives also performed abortions with the same degree of safety as doctors, but in 1830, a group of doctors in the American Medical Association decided midwives were making too much money performing abortions and they wanted some of it. They began to argue that it was safer in hospitals with only doctors being permitted to perform them.

After 1830 when women started having abortions and babies in lying-in hospitals, they were at great risk of dying from childbed fever, (puerperal fever). By 1840, doctors had taken the abortion out of the hands of midwives, but soon another group of doctors lobbied to make the performance illegal. In 1840, the state of Maine passed the Eastman-Everett Act making the performing of an abortion punishable by a year in jail or a $1000 fine, or both. Drs might also lose their license to practice. By 1846, abortion was illegal throughout the United States, remaining so for the next 127 years until 1973.

Irving writes that the underlying message of Right-to-Life is fundamental sexual Puritanism that ‘promiscuity’ should be punished by ‘paying the piper’. Religious zealots should let doctors practice medicine, and keep their religion to themselves. Religious freedom works both ways. We are free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must be free from having someone else’s religion practiced on us.