Abortion & The Law

   There are mediating factors between abortion and the law.  The two primary ones are morality and science.  Semantics tend to get involved too.  Some might call the termination of a pregnancy a murder.  I wouldn’t strenuously object to the use of the term.  It is the willful termination of a human life.  I hate to admit it, but the Catholics got it right on this one.  “Life begins at the time of conception.”  The embryo is certainly alive and is it not the first stage of a human individual?   Put out enough religion based moral decrees and sooner or later you are bound to get one right.

   The embryo, fetus, unborn child, baby are all the same critter.  They are stages of development.  The same is true of the twenty year old water skier and the eighty year old in assisted living.  It is the same human in a different stage of life’s journey.  And how is it different to end this human life at 13 weeks than it is at 25weeks?  The mother and her doctor are deciding to end a human life in either case.  An embryo is not a chicken or a lizard.  The acorn is part of the life story of the mighty oak.  Same critter, at a different stage in its development.

   Fetal viability is an odd concept to be used in laws governing abortion rights.  For one thing, ending a life at 19 weeks isn’t a whole lot different than ending one at 20 weeks.  For another what does viability refer to?  A baby born in a well-equipped hospital can be born premature, in the last trimester and still have a good chance of survival.  Not so good for a baby born at home and delivered by a mid-wife.   I believe that this early birth technology will be developed to a point where an embryo can be on high-tech life support through gestation.  What will that do to the definition of “fetal viability”?

   When the pro-abortion women claim something like, “My body.  My choice.”  I believe they are somewhat incorrect.  They are housing and feeding another human being.  That is who they claim the decision of life or death over.  Perhaps they have that right.  Not because it is their body, but because it is their possession and they have the right to end its life.  A woman surely has a better right to kill her unborn than a man has to fly half way around the world to kill a stranger, afforded by his membership in the military.  I would guess that the best captain to guide a moral rudder would be the half-bred child of The Golden Rule and reason.

   So, to me, the best three guiding factors for considering an abortion would be:  is the child wanted, is the child the result of a rape and what are the pending health ramifications for the mother and the child in child birth?  There needs to be the nationally legal, over the counter availability of a cheap “morning after” pill.  This pill would result in the least guilt for the woman and the least pain for an unlikely embryo.  On the morning after, there would be very little embryo awareness even if there were an embryo.  Possibly less awareness of pain than grass has when you mow your lawn.

Merry Christmas, Old Buz       12/03/2021      

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"Affirmative Action"

Nobody is perfect.  We all have our faults.  But, in my case, they are a fricking avalanche.   If you have read this blog, you have come to expect that I am a Liberal.  Your expectation is correct, but don’t count on it as a predictor of opinion.  I occasionally step out of the parade.  Such is the case with the recent Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action for the colleges of the state of Michigan.  The Roberts’ Court will generally side 5:4 for the ultra-right.  These decisions are normally not good law or good policy.  But, even with their weighted scales of justice, they will occasionally get a decision right.  Can't seem to avoid it. Affirmative Action or positive discrimination is a temporary solution to a hopefully temporary problem.  I would like to see a day in American when skin color is no more important than hair color, but obviously we are not there yet.

By a wide margin in 2006, the voters of Michigan approved an amendment to the state constitution that says, “Michigan’s public universities shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.”  The Supreme Court of the United States decided not to strike that down as unconstitutional, thus opening the door for the State of Michigan to strike down Affirmative Action and showing other states how to do the same.  This Michigan constitutional amendment is not only fair, but it should have been in all states’ constitutions two hundred years ago.  It is long overdue.

To me, the big plus for Affirmative Action was placing a black faculty in front of a black student body in an elementary school.  The students need to see that authority and success does not only come in white.  Having a black president, of course, goes a long way in this direction.  There are probably states in our country where Affirmative Action is no longer needed.  But certainly there are areas where it is.  The concept that our higher educational system has for generations discriminated against black students is well established, but to make that right, the discrimination must be stopped, not turned into an advantage.  The best example of reverse discrimination is Indian Gaming Casinos which are a bad idea both for the Indians and for those they prey on.

Good law should be good for today and hopefully good for the next century, as well.  It would mean writing fewer laws, but spending more time thinking about what is written.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz