In 1999, the Montana Supreme Court issued a ruling in Armstrong v. State, “which said the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution gave women the right to decide whether to have an abortion without excessive interference by the government. This allowed women to have an abortion prior to fetal viability”.1 Now, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Republican governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, the Republican Attorney General and the Republican-controlled state legislature are looking for ways to have that decision overturned or to amend the state constitution to have the ‘right to privacy’ specifically exclude the right for a woman to have an abortion.
I continue to find it extremely ironic that all of these Republicans are continuously talking about ‘government overreach’ and how they want a smaller Federal government and less regulation, but at the same time, they seem to think the reach into a woman’s reproductive health decisions is within their purview.
It begs the question, if these Republicans are successful in amending the Montana Constitution or stacking the Montana Supreme Court with justices who will bend to their desires, what is next? Will these same people decide that they now have the right to manage all aspects of a woman’s uterus and outlaw all forms of contraceptives? People can sit around and think that would never happen, but the fact is, there are states where people are trying to do exactly that.
In addition, there are certainly some people who would like to really roll us back to the dark ages and pass laws to outlaw premarital sex, interracial marriage and same sex marriage to name a few things that used to be thought of as ‘private’ acts. Clearly, according to some people, ‘right to privacy’ does not include one’s sexual organs and how and with whom they are used.
That is the whole problem with this abortion debate. It is a very slippery slope. Once the local governments believe they have the right to interfere with the most personal aspects of one’s life, I guarantee it will not stop where a lot of people think it should stop. The very vocal minority who fervently, and erroneously, believe that this is a Christian country and there should be no separation of church and state, will continue to push their agenda until enough people in this country stand up and vote people into office who will stop this nonsense. And, based upon what is going on in many of the primary elections around the country, that doesn’t seem likely any time soon.
I have never understood why people get so consumed worrying about and wanting to interfere with how other people live their lives. It is a big enough job for me to worry about my own little lily pad and those close to me. I just don’t care what my neighbors do as long as it does not affect me. If my next door neighbor wants of be a swinger and have orgies in their house with Martians and pink hippos, I don’t give a rat’s ass. It’s none of my business. And if in the process of having their orgies, someone gets pregnant and wants to have an abortion, I don’t give a rat’s ass. It’s none of my business.
As a man, who the hell am I to try to tell any woman what she can and can’t do with her reproductive system? Why is it always the woman who has to shoulder the entire responsibility in this whole mess? If you want to stop unwanted pregnancies, the answer is simple. When every male reaches puberty, they should be forced to undergo a vasectomy. At some point in the future, when that male is married and wants to have kids, they could simply get a license from the government to ‘undo’ the vasectomy and try to procreate. I’ll bet all of these anti-abortion males would not jump on that bandwagon. They want to be able to tell women what decision they can and cannot make with respect to their uteri, but they want their little spermatozoa to be able to fly freely and frequently without a care in the world. Make no mistake. This is not about abortion. This is not about babies. This is about control.
The amount of time and money spent on this issue over the last 50 years is staggering, not to mention depressing. The country and the world are facing huge problems – real impacts from climate change; food and water shortages; increasing homelessness; gun violence; adverse impacts on the public education system – and these are problems that are affecting millions of people. Think of all of the real good the money and time could have been spent on addressing some of these issues instead of it being wasted on an ideological war, that, in the end, will have zero positive impact on the quality of life of humans in this country and on this planet.
I don’t think it really matters what it is – abortion, gay rights, transgender, etc – the R party and the religious zealots driving it will simply continue to move onto what ever the next hate subject they can drum up to drive their subjects mad about – in the name of their god. Gets to the root of why Jefferson wanted us to not be a religious nation. Jefferson was a devout fan of Jesus (not Christ) and despised Christianity. Read the introduction to his mis-named Jefferson Bible to get the gist of why – which requires one to understand what he called the “Helonization” of the New Testament. The short of that is – St. Paul and others came upon a crisis when Jesus did not appear 20 years after his death – and they had to create something to explain that. Then read about Constantine’s vision of Jesus predicting his victory in battle at the river and why Rome adopted the church and eventually mandated it (Jesus predicting glorious death in a battle ?). I’m ok with what Jesus said – if one can filter out all the other nonsense – it’s a simple but hard message – that men have corrupted. And here we have in play big time in our nation – since the colonials landed – which I am reading about now. All the different churches wanting their’s to dominate at least in the early 1700s where I am now. No tolerance for each other at that time – before the next phase that I have just started. The concept of religious tolerance is largely a myth – so far. More than 1/2 the people came here to exploit – the south had more slaves than colonists. Some actually used religion to justify it – would not take much to get that started again – put us heathens in Trump concentration camps – you know – those scum bag homeless in the inner Democrat cities.
I also never knew that America was also settled like Australia was to some degree – a prison colony – Convicts were shipped here to the south as well as slaves. Our country was initially settled by the British as a way to get rid of an excess of un-desirable people without work in London – things were so bad. They dumped the scum here – so to speak as a way to get rid of them on the miserable Tobacco Farms as indentured servants on 5 year or longer contracts – where most died before completing them – before chattle slave labor from Africa became cheaper. There is nothing holy or reverent about the settling of our continent – it was brutal and all about money. The Puritans – a blight on england and the Pilgrams ran for their lives getting kicked out of the Netherlands for ruining their welcome there as well. All arguing over religion. Will not end well here either – my 2 cents. Peace out. Preacher Bob ( a minister in the state of California where 1 click of the internet makes that legal) – is done for the day. I don’t even listen to myself – why should anyone else. Nobody seems to read history anymore.
Certainly not president 45 – asking his generals to be like the German Generals of WW-II. Wish they had. They told him those generals tried to kill Hitler 3 times – which he did not know.
In his resignation letter – the joint chief of staff Gen Milley accused him of being a NAZI, in so many words – supporting the principles that the NAZIs believed in. As default head of the R party – that means to me we have a confirmed N party in our country.
I am moving to within 5 miles of the Canadian border shortly after the Nov midterms – if those elections go south – place picked out already.