D-Day Arrives: "Life begins at Erection"

In a way, this is the third version of my blog.  When I started blogging in 2001, I was mostly reacting to the news of the day.  A few years in, I was not happy with that approach.  I deleted all the posts in one sweep.  But then I didn't quite know what I wanted to do in a new iteration.

I took a few months off.  And then I relaunched my blog in 2008.  In this second version, I was a lot more thoughtful about what I wanted to say, brought in the essays that I read and the videos that I watched, and also used the space as notes for my classes, and early drafts for the commentaries that I wrote.

Now, it is the third act.  (Will there be a fourth?)  The posts are longer, and a lot more direct with even less sugar-coating than before; I don't think there are any more bridges to be burnt ;)

A couple of weeks ago, when a draft Supreme Court opinion on the highly controversial issue of abortion was leaked, I wanted to clarify my own thinking on abortion.  Instead, I went a different route, and highlighted an important point that was made in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973:

One's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions.

With my religious background when young and the godless secular life that I have intentionally chosen to lead, and my thinking, I concluded a long time ago that it always a woman's choice whether or not to carry her pregnancy all the way through to delivery.  Nobody else, not even the husband or partner, has a say in the matter.

Almost ten years ago, in January 2013, I blogged about abortion after reading a horrific news.  A pregnant woman, who was less than halfway through the gestation period, suffered a miscarriage.  Even though it was clear that the fetus would not develop into a full-grown child, and even though the mother and the father explicitly preferred an abortion, the hospital staff refused to carry it out.  Over the next few days, the mother developed multiple problems that led to several organs failing, which, in turn, killed her.

It was a multinational story: the mother, Savita Halappanavar--a dentist herself--and her husband, were legal residents in Ireland, after immigrating from India.  The Irish law prevented the medical personnel from carrying out the abortion.  The law itself being a reflection of the strong Catholic traditions.  (Think again about the 1973 Supreme Court opinion referring to one's religious training.)

Katha Pollitt wrote then in the Nation:

This was not a case of choosing between the fetus and the woman—the seventeen-week fetus was doomed, and nothing could have saved it. But it still had a heartbeat, and abortion is banned in Ireland.

Pollitt quoted the husband's report:

“The doctor told us the cervix was fully dilated, amniotic fluid was leaking and unfortunately the baby wouldn’t survive.” The doctor, he says, said it should be over in a few hours. There followed three days, he says, of the foetal heartbeat being checked several times a day.
“Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby. When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning Savita asked if they could not save the baby could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said, ‘As long as there is a foetal heartbeat we can’t do anything.’
“Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita [a Hindu] said: ‘I am neither Irish nor Catholic’ but they said there was nothing they could do.”

Because the heartbeat was detected in a doomed fetus in a Catholic country, Savita Halappanavar, a Hindu from India, died.

Savita Halappanavar's death galvanized the country into a rethinking about abortion.  "Never again" became a rallying cry.  In 2018, Irish voters overwhelmingly elected to make abortion legal during the first trimester and with those costs covered by the public health service.

source

In a total contrast to the direction in which a strongly Catholic Ireland was moving on the issue of abortion, Alabama's Republican legislators voted to criminalize abortion at any stage of the pregnancy, with very little exceptions.  Saturday Night Live responded to the increasingly loud and emboldened Republicans who were making abortion their focus, and I tweeted:

#SNL has an awesome #Election2020 bumper sticker for #Republicans who are opposed to #abortion:
"Life begins at erection"
🤣🤣🤣
And, oh my, Cecily Strong as Susan Collins is phenomenal!https://t.co/wcmGyelQGi#tRump #ShootsOn5thAvenueAllTheTime

— Am.Dr.Khe (@congoboy) May 12, 2019

The punchline "life begins at erection" was not new to me.  I had blogged about that in 2012:

Commentators pointed to what happened in Romania, when the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu completely banned abortion and contraception.

Prior to 1966, Romania had one of the most liberal abortion policies in the world. But, desperate for population growth, Ceaușescu issued Decree 770, essentially nationalizing Romanian women’s wombs. Both abortion and contraception were criminalized for all women age 45 and under who had not borne at least four children (later increased to five). The only exceptions were for rape and incest, high-risk pregnancies, and cases in which the fetus could contract a hereditary disease from either parent. The law was strictly enforced. The Romanian secret police, the Securitate, registered suspected pregnancies and kept tabs on women until the birth of the child. It was the kind of natalist authoritarianism that US "pro-life" advocates have long dreamed of.

So, here we are in 2022, only a few days away from the Supreme Court's decision that will most probably overthrow Roe v. Wade, which will then allow Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, ... to move to practically make abortion illegal in their states.  A good chunk of the 63 million who delivered the disaster in November 2016 will be ecstatic upon reaching their promised land.  With their religious training, their attitudes toward life and family and their values, they want to create a theocracy here.  It is only a matter of time before we begin to read about our own Savita Halappanavar news reports.

Is there anything that I can do other than blogging?  I vote.  I contribute to the campaigns of people who reflect my opinions.  How do you act?