"In addition, many drugs needed for a woman to live are contraindicated in pregnancy."
Fwiw - I know a woman who is forgoing chemo because she is pregnant. She'll resume treatments after the baby is born. Neither praising nor criticizing, just calling out that the dilemma is real.
No everybody Katherine. A whole lot of people are thrilled that thousands of women, mostly the poor ones who are the majority of those who seek abortion, will now be forced to give birth. Or maybe risk their own lives at the hands of a back alley abortionist. At the same time, they will still work to elect politicians who promise to cut social welfare programs so they don’t have to pay as many taxes.
This is from a statement today, by our archbishop, George Lucas: "The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case is a major victory for unborn children, for their mothers and for the cause of justice in our country. Citizens and their elected representatives in each state will now have the opportunity to guarantee the right to life for the child ithe womb. "Many in our country will not agree with the reasoning and the decision of the Supreme Court. And some women will still wonder how they can meet the challenge of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. This is a moment for each of us to commit to not let any woman face her challenge alone. In the Catholic community, we possess many resources that are well suited to support moms and their children. "
Cardinal Cupich has approved these points which may be read from pulpits on Sunday in our archdiocese:
Providing Parishioners with a Context for the Supreme Court Decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Following the recent Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it would be appropriate for presiders to offer some words from the pulpit this weekend. The following talking points have been prepared with the approval of Cardinal Cupich to assist you in doing so and as a means of conveying a consistent message across the archdiocese. As an attempt to link any message about the decision with the Sunday readings may come across as contrived, it is suggested that you speak to this issue separately, either prior to the homily or at the end of mass.
1. The recent Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. That earlier decision removed legal protection for unborn children in our nation.
2. The Catholic community welcomes this decision. We share with other people of good will, the conviction that all human life must be respected and protected from conception to natural death. Life is a gift of God entrusted to our care.
3. This Supreme Court decision does not ban abortions, but it does redirect our nation, particularly the states, to a conversation and decision-making process about how best to protect the unborn. Therefore, the decision Dobbs v. Jackson is not the conclusion of the issue, but an opportunity to begin anew.
4. This ruling is a challenge and an opportunity for Catholic citizens to call for and contribute to a national conversation on protecting and promoting human dignity at all stages of life. This moment should serve as a turning point in our dialogue about the place an unborn child holds in our nation, about our responsibility to assist women through unplanned and difficult pregnancies and after the birth of their children, and about the need to refocus our national priorities to support families, particularly those in need. It is time for the nation to live up to the oft-invoked but seldom actualized family values it claims to cherish. As citizens we have an important role to play in shaping public policy that gives every individual the dignity they deserve as children of God.
5. To be truly pro-life means that it is never enough to oppose abortion and provide legal protection for the child in the womb. It is also essential for the Church to address root causes that lead to abortions and to find ways to support both women and the children they carry, so that both mothers and children may flourish. We need to find practical ways to stand with and support women who face the challenges of a difficult pregnancy. In fact, we have a history of providing help in many ways. We need to redouble our efforts.
6. The Church also needs to stand ready—as it has in the past—to accompany those women who have had abortions, have regretted their decision, and have been deeply wounded by the experience. As a community of faith, we must be instruments of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.
7. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life and have it in abundance.” In this important moment for our nation, we pray for the gift of abundant life and that we would take up our responsibility to foster it both as believers and as citizens.
I should add: the email which contained the "pulpit points" I pasted above also included direction/warning from the archdiocese to secure our buildings, ask police to be present this weekend and next weekend, and follow guidelines for de-escalation in the event of any confrontation. The fear is that pro-choice protesters will target churches and other religious buildings in coming days. Interesting times we live in.
Moments like today are when I most regret the intermixing of politics and religion in American society. The political instincts of virtually everyone who is politically invested in this issue is to scream, either triumphantly or in rage, at the other side. But as disciples of Jesus, we must work for a peaceful society which is able to digest policy wins and losses without losing the ties that bind us together.
When I saw the title of this post, I said to myself “Dobbs? is this about Lou Dobbs?” Only when I got down to Katherine’s comment did I realize that the case name was Dobbs. So, I guess from now on people will be shouting about Dobbs from now on.
I was aware early in the day that the decision had been announced but I did not see anything at the top of the news feed that said that it was in some way different from the leaked document, so I did not bother to read any of the coverage because basically there is not any new news being made today.
Historic day? I don’t think it will change anyone’s mind on the issue. I don’t think it will change the minds and hearts of women who have an unwanted pregnancy. I don’t think it will change the minds and hearts of people who are in the position to help a woman who is pregnant. That was my mother’s problem with the anti-abortion people. She saw it basically as men (the clergy, the politicians, the fathers) who wanted to make it a woman’s problem when in almost all cases it is really men who are the problem.
The big thing that impresses me about this decision is that it was the three appointees of Trump that made this decision and will continue to make a lot of decisions that will continue to divide our nation. I think those appointees have changed the Supreme Court and our form of government and not for the better.
I think it's not just men who are the problem. Just watched the Elvis movie and I was already alive in that era. All that screaming from the teenage girls wasn't coming from agape or filia. I remember one of the married secretaries from my 70's workplace saying she'd sleep with Elvis in a heartbeat, married or not. There is such a thing as female lust even though they bear the immediate consequences.
Your point? Women are also at fault so it’s just punishment for them that they should be fully responsible for raising a child to adulthood with everything that requires ( including coming up with $250,000 to feed, clothe and shelter them to age 18) while the vast majority of the men not only just walk away, but are often admired by other men for getting away with it. Is that your point?
"It's all about men" is not correct. It's all about heterosexual men and women for the most part and what they do. Sexuality is much older than reason and wins out a lot. The vast majority of these pregnancies result from people who like sex and intimacy. Should men be held responsible and share financial responsibility? Of course. Are women sluts who have sex outside of marriage? I would just say they're human. Like most people I know.
No - it’s not all about men. But men don’t pay the price for their human weaknesses - their sexual frolics - that women pay. And their v lives are not put at risk by pregnancy - both metaphorically and literally - as womens are.
Women are impacted by pregnancy in far more ways than men. They have struggled to get equal pay for equal work. Their careers are far more impacted by pregnancy than those of men. They have traditionally done a far larger amount of the unpaid childcare and housework than have men. They are far more the glue that keeps our families together than are men.
As my mother and most women are aware, it is the men in the church, the government, and business world who have structured things so that women in general get the short end of the deal.
I am not one of those people who think that patriarchy is the only problem that we have, I think that inequality of wealth is a far greater problem.
I think there's a chance someone who already hates Catholics can be triggered this Sunday in the great Land of Guns. I'm not concerned right now with debating abstract moral and metaphysical issues as I am with improving my safety while I go to mass. I would imagine there are also many who wouldn't shed tears over a pile of dead Catholics. That's where we live right now. Not the nicey nice alternative universe of the bishops.
Well, all kinds of things may start happening now. Women who want abortions can go to abortion states but that'll be a long haul for women who live in the deep south which is anti-abortion as a bloc.. They can also move to those states where they have more rights. But that uprooting is expensive and living in the Northeast is expensive. Doctors are under risk of lawsuit all the time and now who knows what criminal liabilities they could stumble into in the practice of their skills. Who would want to be an obstetrician under these circumstances? Will health care in these states decline? The laws like Texas' seem strange and clumsy. Will the Democrats pass a national law thar can reinstate abortion rights? If the Republicans retake the Senate and House, can they do the opposite, banning abortion throughout the country?
It's too early for many not us to wrap our heads around Dobbs and its implications. I am not offering these parting thoughts as arguments for abortion rights.
1. Dobbs will disrupt the lives of many women, even if the majority are "only" college girls having to take a few months off their education to give birth and put their babies up for adoption, as I my fundie inlaws put it.
2. In Michigan, half the abortions are sought by African-American women, about 15,000 abortions per year, according to Michigan RTL. Are Michigan citizens, in one of the most segregated states in the U.S., ready to adopt 15,000 babies of color every year?
3. Governmental agencies are tracking extremist chatter. Conservative Christian groups are urging believers to protect their churches against left-wing extremists. With guns. That SCOTUS has made it easier to carry. A smaller group of left-wing nuts are calling for "rage" demonstrations. "Bring rifles." (This report was in the WaPo this morning, and I presume was carried in other outlets.) An anti-abortion pregnancy center in Jackson, Mich., was vandalized last week. People are pissed and scared about a lot of things. Look for unrest to jack up.
4. Jim mentions above a pregnant woman he knows of foregoing cancer treatment until her baby is born. In Illinois, she has a choice to continue the pregnancy and forego treatment. Women elsewhere will have fewer options. And one wonders: In total-ban states, how long will it take for some anti-abortion advocates to agitatate against any kind of medical treatment that could cause a spontaneous abortion?
5. Re women and medication, women with mental health issues, diabetes, many auto-immune diseases, and chronic cancers must take medication their whole lives to control their health. They may not be able to forego the meds while pregnant. The meds may lead to stillbirths and profoundly affect fetal development. This could be a problem if states decide to limit contraception access (see #8).
6. I know what it's like to raise a kid with a fairly mild learning disability. I know what it's like to have to cut back work in order to balance making a living with providing extra care. I know what kind of financial ripples that causes from birth of the child to retirement of the parents. More children with severe disabilities will now be born. They will be largely unadoptable. To what extent are our social safety nets prepared to assist parents and foster parents to care for them?
7. To what extent are adoption agencies, foster care programs, childrens protective services, and friends of the court prepared to deal with more children at risk and in the adoption "market"?
8. Roe was overturned because it was predicated on a faulty interpretation of the "right to privacy" (forgive me, I don't speak legalese). That same interpretation was the basis for contraceptive freedom and gay marriage. Justice Thomas has signalled that these rulings must now be "corrected," which, like abortion, would throw federal protections out the window and back to the states. Look for states to be mired in these issues for a long time if these rights are thrown out.
I opined earlier in deleted comments that the Dobbs decision has made abortion illegal in some states. Maybe that's an overall good. But Dobbs has not changed any minds, and so it has not made us any better--more human, more caring, more willing to care for the vulnerable--than we were before it was handed down.
Best case scenario: If Dobbs ultimately changes the way we operate by providing more support to pregnant women and their children, it will be some time coming. There will be a lot of anger, frustration, and lives altered before we get our sh*t together. I will support Catholic (and other) initiatives that assist in the new realities. But I am done with the Church and I am done with Catholics who think this is a wonderful day to celebrate.
I am not in a mood of celebration, more sitting in a mood of sober reflection, and exhaustion. I won't pretend that I am sorry to see Roe go, because I thought it was poorly decided in the first place. And I do believe that we should respect life, from the first moment to the last. What I am sorry about is that so many people feel that they were thrown under the bus. Which from their point of view, they were.The exhaustion is from the unending time of anger that we are living in. Half the nation is angry about the Dobbs decision. We are angry about the revelations coming out of the January 6th hearings (though I can't feel any surprise.) We are still dealing with Covid. And that has generated so much anger in so many ways. We are angry about inflation. We are angry about the war in Ukraine. We are angry about cultural change, or lack of it, and the effects of climate change. We are angry about racism that we thought we were doing better with. But it has relapsed, or we had just swept it under the surface. At a certain point we can only process so much anger, and we just check out.
David French is worth reading in The Atlantic. Here is his conclusion:
"...the best way for pro-life Americans to view the reversal of Roe is not as the beginning of the end of abortion in the United States, but rather as the end of the beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child."
Part 1 of 2 the beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child." The anti- abortionists have had 50 YEARS to try to make our culture “more hospitable” to mothers and children. - to overcome the current reality - the reality created by anti- abortion activists because of the politics of the people they voted for. French seems to be feeling a bit of guilty conscience for helping to bring about a situation that threatens disaster for the future of this country. Now he mouths meaningless platitudes. If he had really cared, he would have put some effort into it before now. He's smart, educated at Harvard Law,, and devoted decades of his professional life t o the anti-abortion cause. The article includes information that anti- abortion folk have consistently ignored - for 50 years. The pro- choice have long known it and tried to educate the anti- abortion crowd. But they had no ears to hear, deafened by their own self- righteousness. They had decades to work for comprehensive sex education, for affordable contraception for ALL, and for social safety nets to care for women who see NO way to be able to support another child in safety and at least minimal dignity (the majority of women who seek abortion are not only poor, they already have children whom they struggle to support). It recommends policies that conservatives (like Jim and French) generally don’t support, nor are they supported by the politicians that the time and money of the anti-abortion movement have put into office. It is highly unlikely that those in this movement are suddenly going to develop compassion towards poor, desperate women. They never have, so they will not likely have a change of heart now. Instead they will likely expand their campaign to go after gay marriage, and perhaps contraception also, whilre seeking the increasingly restrictive measures that will put the lives of women facing miscarriage in danger because doctors fear to intervene because they fear being investigated and prosecuted. David French was surely immersed in all the data, all the information about why women seek abortions. Now he seems to be trying to claim that it's all news to him. I also hope everyone is aware of the content of Clarence Thomas’s formal opinion on this case. Pandora’s box has been opened and the polarization in this country now is likely to get incalculably worse. There is another article in The Atlantic that goes into that subject. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/pro-life-dobbs-roe-culture-of-life/661394/ Abortion was more common when it was mostly illegal. According to data ….the abortion rate was at about 16 abortions per 1,000 women when Roe was decided in 1973, soared to 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women by the end of the Carter administration in 1981, and then began a long, slow, and steady decline to an all-time low of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women in 2017….the historical record does tell us that ending abortion is a different matter from banning abortion, and we cannot end abortion until we learn why women seek abortions and how our nation can address the concerns that lead them to make that choice….
[“until we learn” - oh come on, Mr. French. Give us a break. The reasons women seek abortion have been known for many years, but have been ignored by the anti-abortion movement. Pretending ignorance of this until just now is less than honest]
Part 2 of 2 If banning abortion doesn’t end abortion, then what will? The answer is deceptively simple in concept, yet extraordinarily difficult in practice. Our nation must ease the fears and concerns—which are legitimate—of women who are already predisposed to view abortion as a last resort, not a first choice.
Doing so is a matter of both better policy and personal conduct. Better policy is embodied by Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act, which would provide most American families with monthly financial assistance even when a child is still in the womb. Parents of young children would receive $350 a month per child, and parents of older children would receive $250 a month per child. Pregnant women could receive up to four $700 monthly payments, one for each of the last four months of pregnancy. The Romney plan isn’t the answer to child poverty and family financial insecurity, but it is an answer, and its concrete financial support for mothers and children would be a tangible statement of our nation’s moral commitment to young families….No virtue can be had in “owning the libs” when a hostile posture will close hearts and minds….Earlier this month, we learned that the abortion rate increased during Trump’s presidency. He was the first American president since Jimmy Carter to end his term with a higher abortion rate than when he began.
This suggests that, for the first time in three decades, the cultural momentum is not on the pro-life side, that women are facing an increased sense of instability and uncertainty,
The increased sense of instability and uncertainty can be laid directly at the feet of the politicians that the anti-abortionists worked so hard to elect.
Yes, Romney (now essentially without influence in the GOP) has a decent idea as a beginning. Biden's Build back Better would have been even, well, better. But it was fought tooth and nail by the "pro-life" politicians.
the beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child."
But all the programs that have been proposed by the Democrats that would make our culture more hospital to women, e.g equal pay for women, parental leave, sick leave, free college education, etc. etc. have been opposed by Republicans and conservative Catholics. Mitt Romney has been one of the few Republicans with any good ideas.
For decades now I have been quoting paragraph 23 of the Declaration on Procured Abortion (CDF, 1974) to conservative anti-abortion Catholics asking if they agree:
On the contrary, it is the task of law to pursue a reform of society and of conditions of life in all milieux, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person. Help for families and for unmarried mothers, assured grants for children, a statute for illegitimate children and reasonable arrangements for adoption - a whole positive policy must be put into force so that there will always be a concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion.
The cost of having an abortion is really not very high. It is certainly within the ability of the pro-abortion camp to raise sufficient funds for “all-expenses paid vacations” to California to have an abortion.
On the other hand, the costs for the pro-life camp to provide an all-expenses paid child is very prohibitive.
USDA recently issued Expenditures on Children by Families, 2015. This report is also known as “The Cost of Raising a Child.” USDA has been tracking the cost of raising a child since 1960 and this analysis examines expenses by age of child, household income, budgetary component, and region of the country.
Based on the most recent data from the Consumer Expenditures Survey, in 2015, a family will spend approximately $12,980 annually per child in a middle-income ($59,200-$107,400), two-child, married-couple family. Middle-income, married-couple parents of a child born in 2015 may expect to spend $233,610 ($284,570 if projected inflation costs are factored in*) for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise a child through age 17. This does not include the cost of a college education.
Where does the money go? For a middle-income family, housing accounts for the largest share at 29% of total child-rearing costs. Food is second at 18%, and child care/education (for those with the expense) is third at 16%. Expenses vary depending on the age of the child.
Obviously great changes in taxes, tax rates, and government programs would be needed to bring this about. I am certainly willing to tax not only the billionaires but also the millionaires to bring this about. (Full disclosure: I am obviously not a millionaire).
The reality, of course, is that the pro-abortion people are not likely to raise money for abortions. But they could, and if they did, they would likely succeed, and we will have more abortions not less.
Rather, if my inbox is an indication, this will be a great political fundraiser that will do little to help pregnant women.
The reality, of course, is that the pro-life people are not going to go beyond tokenism to help pregnant women. I don’t expect my wealthy parish to have an annual fundraiser for $233,610 to endow another baby raising slot.
I also don’t expect that many Republicans will begin to vote Democratic to make the tax and policy changes that are necessary to support families.
My conclusion is there is a lot of self-righteous and pointing of fingers on both sides of this issue that provides little help to pregnant women and their unborn children.
You lay it out well, as usual, Jack. If Jean is to be believed, and I always believe Jean, 15,000 black children will be born per year in Chicago that otherwise would not. Multiply that figure by your cost to raise a child, that's around 3.5B USD. Can the Archdiocese of Chicago eventually ramp up to provide that as a yearly amount? Also to be considered is the population problem. The spaceship planet is overburdened with humans. Our medical and agricultural technologies have pushed the efficiency of reproduction way beyond its original capabilities. When the Church speaks of the value of the unborn human, I think it has a case, as it is ending a life, even if potential as Anne says. Where I get lost is the no birth control thing. To me, that is the Catholic version of the no blood transfusion thing of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their thing is based on fundamentalist obsessing over an O.T. proscription. The Catholic thing is based on obsessing over some overthinking in Greek philosophy which the Church adopted. Birth control is better than abortion. The fact that the Church opposes both birth control and abortion has always weakened their abortion case.
Jack - The reality is that the pro-life people are not going to go beyond tokenism to help pregnant women. I don’t expect my wealthy parish to have an annual fundraiser for $233,610 to endow [a] baby raising slot. I also don’t expect that many Republicans will begin to vote Democratic to make the tax and policy changes that are necessary… My conclusion is there is a lot of self-righteous and pointing of fingers on both sides of this issue that provides little help to pregnant women and their unborn children. Agree with all Jack says. And like Jean, I am ambivalent. Some pro-choice activists go too far, but, sadly, pro-choice politicians pose less danger to our country than the GOP. The other critical issue is freedom of religion. The right-wing is systematically dismantling the wall between church and state. Their religious views on abortion will be forced on millions. I had prayed that the SC wasn’t so far gone that it wouldn’t put some brakes on the drive to ban “abortion“ from the moment of conception, but would uphold a limit (12-16 weeks) rather than permit a total ban. (I prefer 12 weeks, because that’s when all the body systems needed to support human life are in place. But I wish NO woman faced this choice. Plan B and contraception should be free to all women.) The SC is even worse than I feared. This court now has decades to help the GOP impose the will of right-wing extremists on the whole country - letting them get away with voter suppression laws, overturning the Civil Rights Act – a goal written into the Texas GOP platform- reverting to the old wild west with their willingness to undo even mild gun control regs enacted by states. Amazing how they forget all about states’ rights when it suits them. School districts are now spending BILLIONS to “harden” school “defenses”. Those who are concerned about violence against churches this week should examine their consciences about imposing their own religious beliefs on ALL by voting for politicians who have no concern for the safety of born people, who are threatened everywhere they go - churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, rock concerts, grocery stores - they have opened the floodgates of gun violence. Imagine what that money could do if invested in improving public education instead of arming teachers. Right wing Catholics/evangelicals want to use taxpayer money to support their own religious schools, something the SC ruled in favor of last week in Maine. Have they forgotten that the reason the Catholic school system was set up was because of religious teachings forced on their children - Protestant religious teachings - in public schools? Now they want the govt to fund Catholic schools. After Uvalde a writer at the Federalist said the solution was to have families revert to homeschool and eliminate public schools. It’s the Federalist Society that created the lists of SC candidates during the trump administration. The right-wing is accelerating its agenda to create an authoritarian government, headed by someone - maybe trump but definitely a policy clone of trump - who will move to further dismantle our freedoms and cement their control of government. Following Orban, they will eliminate genuine freedom of the press, and demolish other freedoms. Why do you think that every right-wing extremist - trump, Pence, Carlson etc, and CPAC (conservative political action committee) have made pilgrimages to Hungary? CPAC openly admits that the reason their convention was held there in May was so that they could confer with like-minded people to help them plan their next moves. There is a lot more at stake than abortion. This ruling will lead to worse unless a lot of Republicans hold their noses and vote Dem in November for ALL political offices - state and national. If the Republicans gain control of Congress, and then the WH, there will be no stopping their agenda.
There are one or two good ideas floating about in the comments. I could get behind better parental-leave permissions.
Yes, lots of Republicans are mean. (Cf. the initiatives French mentions to criminally prosecute women who illegally obtain abortions). There is no legislative remedy for that. It will require a different kind of transformation.
If only poor women obtained abortions, and if the rate of abortion tracked with the ups and downs of the economy, I'd be more likely to accept the claim that poverty is the great cause of abortion, and throwing more government programs at the problem would make it go away. Let's agree that poverty is one factor that may cause someone to decide to end a pregnancy, and let's agree that the US can do better than it does when it comes to the social safety net.
Let me just point to the gun legislation which is passing Congress because of bipartisan cooperation. The lesson seems to be: propose something that Republicans would wish to vote for, and some of them will vote for it.
Yes, it seems logical that contraception would reduce the number of abortions. But it's worth noting that the Obamacare contraception mandate, which offers virtually all women cost-free, very effective contraception, has been in effect for 10 years and doesn't seem to have had any impact on abortion trends.
FWIW, my thoughts are: government assistance programs might have some role to play in reducing abortions. But we can't look to politics and policy alone to solve the abortion problem for us. To the extent it's solvable, it would require good personal decisions, a good personal/family support network, and cultural shifts.
In the last few weeks, I've heard a number of folks express surprise that there are more gun deaths by suicide than homicide in the US. A person who is experiencing the sort of personal darkness which leads him/her to seriously consider suicide must find the availability of a gun to be a big temptation. I think the same has been true, and will continue to be true, about legal abortion. Abortion is always going to be a huge temptation for someone with an unwanted pregnancy. I don't think it's realistic to remove all guns from all households. Nor is it realistic to completely cut off the availability of abortion. But both guns and abortions can be made less available - perhaps significantly less available - than they have been up to now. And then we as a society must figure out how to help the suicidal person, and the person with an unwanted pregnancy.
This society does not want to figure out how to help anybody. They may want to talk a lot about it, because talking is easier than doing. It just won't happen here at this time. But a law has been passed so it will be the work of prosecutors and police. Americans like to punish people much more than helping people. An underground abortion industry will appear. Cops and prosecutors will have to be paid to investigate and prosecute. This will require more money or the reallocation of resources applied to battling other criminal activities. I'm not sure how Obamacare plays into the abortion rates which WERE going down for some reason and before Obamacare. One would have to determine the intersection between the population that can access Obamacare and the population that most probably gets unwanted pregnancies, I don't know. But our birth rate is down and our abortions were down so I imagine birth control plays a role or there's been a religious revival about which no one has told me.
Jim, maybe you need more (and better) sources of information. When 2/3 of the women who get abortions are below or just above the poverty line it doesn't take a Sherlock to figure that poverty has something to do with their decisions. I also know that including comprehensive sex education in public schools (fought by christian conservatives), AND providing free access to contraception reduced both teen pregnancy rates and subsequent teen abortion rates.
As a freelancer, about 75% of my work was in economics. But I was also hired by others for my research, analytic, and writing experience. I worked on an abstinence education project during the Bush years. The Bush admin opposed comprehensive sex education and gave funding to abstinence ed projects. I was immersed in mountains of data and studies on teen pregnancy, and abortion. I began to learn about how poverty plays into it by being immersed in REAL, hard data. That's also when I first learned how much more success the secular western European countries had achieved in reducing both teen pregnancy rates and abortion rates, including abortion in non-teens, than the religious US. I also worked as a (volunteer) grant writer for a free health clinic staffed by volunteers (including docs) that served the working poor in our county - mostly service industry people (including the uninsured people who clean the houses of millions of richer Americans) earning 'too much" money to qualify for medicaid and too little to afford to buy health insurance. I learned about how totally horrible our PROFIT-based health system is compared to every other developed country in the world - all of which provide some kind of universal health care and are not focused on maximizing profit by minimizing coverage. Obamacare cut the number of totally uninsured Americans in half, but millions remain without health insurance. We need sweeping change from a profit-based system to a universal health care system. It's no wonder that the US expends 8 times as much on healthcare than other developed nations. BTW, women can’t get “free” contraception if they can't afford to buy health insurance - even when subsidized. The RCC continues to fight provisions that would help people who aren't even Catholic obtain contraception.
I was a conservative, active Catholic Republican when I had the abstinence project job. I learned then that I really didn't know or understand the reality. My volunteer job at the free health clinic also opened my eyes. Friends who had known me as a hardline conservative couldn't believe that I was able to not only change my mind when learning the reality, but admitted that I had been wrong about many things for many years. Humbling. I re-registered as independent. Like you, Jim, I don't have a home in either political party. But I will vote for Dems from now on unless the GOP rejects the current trend. I fear it's too late, and I am ashamed that I refused to see the reality for as long as I did. I was among the millions of clueless people who think they are well-informed but are actually poorly informed. I lived not only in an information bubble, but had mostly family and many friends who were conservative, living in white, upper-middle class communities. Echo chambers all around me. But, most of our neighbors are not christian, and most of the Jewish, Muslim, and Asian-no religion neighbors support Democrats. I was exposed to people who hadn't been immersed in conservative christian religion and conservative politics their entire lives as I had been.That helped too.
"The right-wing is systematically dismantling the wall between church and state. Their religious views on abortion will be forced on millions. I had prayed that the SC wasn’t so far gone that it wouldn’t put some brakes on the drive to ban “abortion“ from the moment of conception, but would uphold a limit (12-16 weeks) rather than permit a total ban."
Last week, the Supreme Court ended unjust case law that prevented the people of the United States from working out their own preferred abortion legislation, state by state. Now that the obstructing tree and its roots have been cleared away, we have green fields in all 50 states to do what we should have been able to do all along: legislate. If abortion up to 16 weeks is what the people want, then their legislators can make that happen. If pro-life people can make a better argument that abortion should be more restricted than that, then let them make that argument and try to persuade their fellow citizens.
Jim, are you unaware of the total bans that are already being triggered in a number of states? Do you object to ALL national laws? Are we to devolve into 50 separate “ countries”?
Whatever is enacted in states can be changed, in the same way they were enacted. If states pass unpopular legislation which causes bad consequences, the voters have remedies to replace those legislators with new ones.
Again - do you oppose ALL laws that are imposed on the entire country? Should we go back to being 50 separate states with no national government ?
BTW, I “ pick on” you because I see so much of myself in you (at least the self I was 20 years ago). I know that very few people change their political identity once past young adulthood. But I can hope. I even pray for you because I know that you are a decent guy. I agree that abortion is at minimu a sad solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies. But I do believe in separation of church and state, and I believe that women should be allowed to make theirbown choice in this matter. You are right that reducing the opportunities for abortion might lead to a drop, Guns kill a lot of people, and the most gun deaths are suicides, as you note. But I have only heard one liberal politician suggest banning all guns. I think limiting the window for abortions would be reasonable, especially since about 95% are already done before 12 weeks ( about 80% by 8 weeks). I believe that waiting periods are reasonable for both gun purchasers and foe women who may panic when learning they are pregnant and immediately seek an abortion. I don’t object to asking them to have a sonogram, although I doubt that would have the impact the anti- abortion folk think it would have. And I strongly believe that extensive improvements in the social safety nets would convince many women not to go to California for an abortion, or, if too poor, to find a back alley abortionist. Paid maternity leave is a minimum. Free or heavily subsidized child care is desperately needed also. Until that happens (never if the GOP wins) childcare centers in churches should become preferred projects for parishes. Put the money and time where their mouths are. Women who are employed in low pay jobs can’t afford childcare.
I am hearing that several companies are offering to pay an employee's travel expenses if they have to go out of state to obtain an abortion. I'm afraid they will see that as a less expensive alternative to expanding the social safety net with things such as paid maternity leave. I'm also thinking that an offer like that could very easily devolve into a form of de facto coercion.
I doubt that many companies will do this. I’ve read about a couple of companies offering this. One is Apple. As a huge Silicon Valley company I’m quite sure that both men and women have a long period of paid parental leave already. Google’s is 24 weeks. I believe Apple gives 20 weeks. These benefits are at the corporate locations. Apple also has retail, unlike Google, Twitter, FB, yahoo, etc. The benefits aren’t as generous at the retail level but more generous than most retail jobs provide. At their SV corporate locations they also provide quality child care on the premises, nursery schools on the premises, and even doggy day care on the premises. And of course, excellent healthcare benefits. My d-i-l is a senior account executive at her company - not SV. She had NO paid maternity leave when her daughter was born two years ago - she could use her sick days and vacation days. After paying more than $1000/month for her company’s health plan for the family, they had to pay thousands more in deductibles and co- pays for her prenatal care and her her C- section, with 3 days of hospitalization. Fortunately they aren’t actually poor but it was a big financial strain. Their childcare is also expensive. A lot of financially secure Americans have no idea what millions of other Americans with low incomes - the working poor - face.
"I agree that abortion is at minimum a sad solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies."
Anne, thanks for that entire comment. You and I don't agree on every specific, but I appreciate the willingness to offer some suggestions which might find a practical consensus. If they would just put you and me in charge for about 15 minutes, I have a feeling we could arrive at a handshake deal that would make the abortion issue go away, or at least cool off, once and for all :-).
Yes, of course I think the federal government has a legitimate role. But I also believe in federalism. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the law for anyone to call me an originalist, but maybe I'm a constitutionalist (if there is such a thing): we should be governed according to our Constitution. The constitution enumerates that for which the federal government is responsible, and all else belongs to the states.
One of my daily newsletters had this to say about Justice Kavanaugh and his concurring opinion on Dobbs. I agree with him on this:
""Throughout his concurrence, Kavanaugh maintained a laser-like focus on what he sees as the justices’ limited role in answering the profound questions before them. “The issue before this Court … is not the policy or morality of abortion. The issue before this Court is what the Constitution says about abortion,” he wrote. “The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress—like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address.”
"“Because the Constitution is neutral on the issue of abortion, this Court also must be scrupulously neutral,” he continued. “The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process and to decree either a pro-life or a pro-choice abortion policy for all 330 million people in the United States.”"
And thank you for the prayers! I pray for you, too, although I admit I hadn't thought to pray that you would become a Republican :-).
I was officially a money- contributing, volunteering Republican until I was in my early 50s, although not officially reregistered independent until about 60. But I finally saw the light - because my work exposed me to reality, not the fantasy world painted by conservatives that I accepted for too many decades.
Two good articles this morning on the dangers of having the states makes these decisions. The potential problems that were warned about are already surfacing. The fanatics will not easily undo what they have just done and there will be tragic consequences. Plus, if the GOP takes over Congress and the WH by 2024, they plan to forget all about states rights and impose a national ban on abortion. So moderate Republicans had better think twice before voting GOP for Congress. Even before that happens it is likely the SC will use the same premises to overturn the decision that legalized gay marriage. After that, they may go after contraception. The Texas GOPs platform already states that they want to make gay marriage illegal again, and repeal the Civil Rights Act. In addition, they hope to be able to put secession on the ballot for Texans to vote on in 2023. As far as I’m concerned, good riddance. But we fought a bloody war to prevent the breakup of the union. Are we facing that possibility again? The extreme right wing has been arming itself to the teeth - « just in case ».
I changed from being a staunch “pro- life” movement supporter to being a reluctant pro- choice supporter by learning reality mostly from dry, boring statistical data. The author of this piece learned it from years of face- to - face work with reality, with live, (born) women and girls.
"I am hearing that several companies are offering to pay an employee's travel expenses if they have to go out of state to obtain an abortion."
As an old econ major, I just want to make a point about this. In economic theory there is a concept called utility, which is sort of a catch-all term for, "that which motivates a person", or "that which satisfies a person" (satisfaction and motivation are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin). If a thing is something we prize, we will expend time, treasure and talent to pursue it.
Of course, for most of us, money is a thing we prize. But it needn't be money. For a politician or an ambitious corporate type, it could be power. For a collector, it's possessing the thing s/he covets. For many people, it could be an emotional state like feeling loved or feeling respected.
But in most economic activity, it's thought to be money, which is why an employer's first resort usually is to offer financial incentives to encourage behavior it wants to see. That is why salespeople are paid sales commissions: the more products or services they sell (which is the behavior employers want to encourage), the more money they make. I have known many salespeople over the years, and I can tell you that money is an important motivator for them. They think it satisfies them. (This can get complex, but let's agree that money is a big part of it).
In this case of providing abortion travel benefits, it seems to me that these companies who cater to young people, both as employees and as consumers, are betting that young women see utility in having abortion as an option. The utility in this case seems to be, "Mitigate the risk of an unwanted pregnancy by keeping the abortion option on the table." This is primarily for the benefit of their employees (we're in a time right now of nearly full employment, with many unfilled corporate positions); but there may be a sort of secondary marketing benefit, too, to be known as a company that will protect abortion rights.
Jim, I’ve mentioned the generous benefits of most SV companies - even smaller tech companies there have great benefits. They are offered because, as you note, the workforce they need is a scarce « good ». The cost of living, especially housing, is sky high. A house that might cost $450k in an upper- middle, professional community like yours is $ 2 million or more there. So the salaries seem to be really high, even though adjusted to the cost of living, really aren’t as amazing as they appear. California is a high tax state. The GOP capped property tax and state tax deductions which mostly targeted high income, high property value blue states like CA and NY, further increasing the federal taxes on people who live there, without a cost of living adjustment. Same with the state property taxes - based on the inflated values without inflation adjustments. So the companies compete for employees through non- taxable benefits in addition to salaries. The tech industry has a young workforce. But it is also a predominantly male workforce. I wonder if the new abortion travel cost benefits will cover spouses and partners - probably anyone who is under the company health plan, which does cover unmarried partners. However, California is now gearing up to welcome abortion refugees. The California employees don’t «need» this. So there might be a bit of marketing going on as you suggest.
I've made arguments against abortion before but now that it is being forbidden by law, I will not bother. What was previously a case of winning hearts and minds is now irrelevant. The winners have won the remedy of applying state power and any efforts of mine would just be in the service to the state. They don't need my stinking persuasion or thoughts.
Yes, its the coercive and punishment-focused aspect of overturning Roe that unsettles me. It seems to me that states were already doing a pretty good job limiting abortion within the confines of Roe.
Imo, states rights--and high court rulings that uphold states rights--do little but deepen regional divides and create wildly disparate crime and penalty standards.
What have states rights ever given us but slavery, Jim Crow, anti-miscegenation laws, "right to work" laws that weaken unions, and civil war?
In any case, you and I will have to roll up our sleeves and try to keep the triumphalists from thinking that they saved the babies and now if the gals get themselves knocked up, it's nobody's problem but theirs. The smug Repubs aren't gonna help them.
Sometimes I feel like this country is about to go China Syndrome. It would be nice if we could sort out issues one at a time but things just seem to be piling up. We have a scary war confronting a nuclear power, climate crisis, inflation. I guess we just have to keep plodding on while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
"China syndrome" is a good description of the mood of the country at present. We as a society are just so, so angry , about nearly everything. It scares me.
Right now we have a lot of militant Christians preoccupied with legislating other people's moral behavior while other problems seem more pressing to me. As I see it, the Supreme Court, state legislatures, and Congress will continue to be distracted with all that b.s. to the detriment of other issues.
I would get less exercised about abortion, which I think should be limited to the first trimester, if it weren't of a piece with hysterics over gun control, anti LGBTQ initiatives, bans on birth control, hysteria over critical race theory, erosion of public education, and refusal to accept scientific facts about global warming, pandemic preparedness, etc.
Some Texas Repubs are talking about secession. I sure as heck would not stand in their way, provided they took Oklahoma, and everything east to and including Florida with them. They'd first have to give up US military personnel and materiel on all bases down there.
“Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase,” he wrote. “In the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the maternal mortality rate has gone from 20.1 deaths of women per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020. And, strikingly, the maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2020 was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for white women.”
Being pro-life also means helping pregnant women welcome new life, which requires a response to studies that show that in the United States “about 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or have low wages.”
In addition, he noted, “16% of employees in private industry have access to paid parental leave, according to a study published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry” in 2020. “Almost one in four new mothers who are not entitled to paid leave are forced to return to work within 10 days of giving birth.”
“Being for life always,” Tornielli wrote, “also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S.”
The maternal mortality rate in the US is among the worst in more advanced countries. This is a reflection of the disparities in healthcare access in the US due to poverty and minimal social safety nets.
I cited the very generous parental leave policies in SV companies. I knew they were rare. But even I didn’t realize how common my d-I-l’s situation of NO paid maternity leave is - only 16% of American women have access to maternity leave in private industry in our country.
The company I worked for when my wife was having children was a six week paid maternity leave program. It could be combined with FMLA (which is an unpaid benefit, but at least your job is preserved) for a total of 18 weeks - about 4 months.
My wife worked for a large company at that time, one that aspired to lead the world in employee benefits. I don't remember exactly what the benefit was, but combined with FMLA, she was able to take 6 months off after each baby was born.
Just my personal opinion: I think the country could be ripe for a more generous paid family leave benefit. The current, stingy regime (basically, FMLA, with whatever the employer is willing to offer tacked on) was promulgated at a time when big business was pretty uniformly Republican. That's not the case anymore: corporate leadership, like lawyers and other college-educated Americans, are a good deal more progressive now. The parties have realigned. It could be timely to revisit this issue.
Maternity leave in the company I work for is covered in part by short-term disability. It's something, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make up for lost wages.
I got 8 weeks unpaid leave after C-section. I used two weeks of vacation, but did not add any sick time in case I needed that later. My boss paid me hourly for any work I could do at home or come in and do during the 8 weeks. I was in the office one day a week 3 weeks after the C section, and on the phone most afternoons. It was not conducive to nursing (which I didn't even bother to try because I figured it was one more frustration) or bonding with the baby. Raber was not working at all.
My workplace started offering more generous leave some years after I left. Skilled workers are now given paid parental leave because they are expensive to replace. However, if you are a grunt, they figure they can replace you easily, and there is no financial incentive to shuck out paid leave. So young parents who work in the service industries in lower level positions are out of luck.
I was working at the World Bank when my first was born, more than 40 years ago. Since it is an international organization (part of the UN) it employs mostly non-Americans, who work in the US under a special visa category - international civil servant. The staff expect the same kind of benefits they get in their home country. So I had 4 weeks before the birth and 2 months after. All employees received this at all levels, just as 6 weeks vacation/year to start was SOP for all. At the same time, most of my friends working in the private sector had 2 weeks maternity leave - if that. Only those working for big companies like IBM. Of course, most Americans make do with 2 weeks paid vacation/year. I decided to stay home after my first was born but I still got the 2 months pay. I was also guaranteed my job if I returned within two years - another standard feature in western european countries. Western european countries are far more supportive of families, with policies that are far more family friendly than the so-called family values USA. Add in the benefit for all of free or heavily subsidized child-care and the security of their health care systems (available to ALL) and it's easy to see why far fewer women seek abortion there than in this country. They know they can afford to raise the child that might be born from an unplanned pregnancy.
Clarifying- I had 3 months (4 weeks before the birth and 8 after) that were full- salary. Although I could stay home for 2 more years, that time was unpaid. By then I had a second child, so when they contacted me about returning I decided to stay home. I started my freelance career when my second child was 2 years old. At that time I was dependent on my husband’s job for health insurance. .
Like Jim, I am not persuaded that abortion rates are tied directly to poverty or lack of health care and family leave, though they must certainly overlap. Other factors include fetal monitoring that reveals unfixable birth defects much earlier. Morning-after pills in Michigan cannot be purchased by anyone under 17, and that might be a reason some girls don't avail themselves and want abortions later. There are the clueless, careless, and those cowed in bad relationships.
Yes - true. But European countries also teach comprehensive sex education in all their schools, including comprehensive information about birth control. Birth control is free and available to teenagers. More education about, and access to, birth control in American schools is credited with lowering the teen pregnancy rate here in recent years.Interestingly enough, young adults in these secular Western European countries also don’t initiate sexual activity as early as Americans do. I suspect that may be related to demographics - there is far less poverty in those countries than in the US, and the educational systems are superior to most in the US - even kids who are at the lower income levels have mostly good schools and are better equipped for decent- pay jobs when they finish secondary education than American kids are. I think that there are complex intertwining factors at work in Western European countries that result in better outcomes in a wide array of behavior- lower teen pregnancy, lower abortion rates, lower divorce rates, more kids under 18 living with both birth parents (even if unmarried as is fairly common in some countries) that all seem in some way to be connected to less extreme poverty due to the social safety nets.
I am starting to train my replacement at work this week. She previously worked in another area in the same company. She is just coming off maternity leave. I asked her what the policy was now. She said it was covered under short-term disability for up to 12 weeks. The pay is 70% of one's regular salary. Not perfect, but better than a lot of workplaces do.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"In addition, many drugs needed for a woman to live are contraindicated in pregnancy."
DeleteFwiw - I know a woman who is forgoing chemo because she is pregnant. She'll resume treatments after the baby is born. Neither praising nor criticizing, just calling out that the dilemma is real.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJean, everybody's got some ambivalence.
DeleteNo everybody Katherine. A whole lot of people are thrilled that thousands of women, mostly the poor ones who are the majority of those who seek abortion, will now be forced to give birth. Or maybe risk their own lives at the hands of a back alley abortionist. At the same time, they will still work to elect politicians who promise to cut social welfare programs so they don’t have to pay as many taxes.
DeleteThis is from a statement today, by our archbishop, George Lucas:
ReplyDelete"The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case is a major victory for unborn children, for their mothers and for the cause of justice in our country. Citizens and their elected representatives in each state will now have the opportunity to guarantee the right to life for the child ithe womb.
"Many in our country will not agree with the reasoning and the decision of the Supreme Court. And some women will still wonder how they can meet the challenge of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. This is a moment for each of us to commit to not let any woman face her challenge alone. In the Catholic community, we possess many resources that are well suited to support moms and their children. "
Cardinal Cupich has approved these points which may be read from pulpits on Sunday in our archdiocese:
ReplyDeleteProviding Parishioners with a Context for the Supreme Court Decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Following the recent Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it would be appropriate for presiders to offer some words from the pulpit this weekend. The
following talking points have been prepared with the approval of Cardinal Cupich to assist you in doing so and as a means of conveying a consistent message across the archdiocese. As an
attempt to link any message about the decision with the Sunday readings may come across as contrived, it is suggested that you speak to this issue separately, either prior to the homily or at
the end of mass.
1. The recent Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. That earlier decision removed legal protection for unborn children in our nation.
2. The Catholic community welcomes this decision. We share with other people of good will, the conviction that all human life must be respected and protected from conception to natural death. Life is a gift of God entrusted to our care.
3. This Supreme Court decision does not ban abortions, but it does redirect our nation, particularly the states, to a conversation and decision-making process about how best to protect the unborn. Therefore, the decision Dobbs v. Jackson is not the conclusion of the
issue, but an opportunity to begin anew.
4. This ruling is a challenge and an opportunity for Catholic citizens to call for and contribute to a national conversation on protecting and promoting human dignity at all stages of life. This moment should serve as a turning point in our dialogue about the place an unborn child holds in our nation, about our responsibility to assist women through unplanned and difficult pregnancies and after the birth of their children, and about the need to refocus our national priorities to support families, particularly those in need. It is time for the nation to live up to the oft-invoked but seldom actualized family values it claims to cherish. As citizens we have an important role to play in shaping public policy that gives every individual the dignity they deserve as children of God.
5. To be truly pro-life means that it is never enough to oppose abortion and provide legal protection for the child in the womb. It is also essential for the Church to address root causes that lead to abortions and to find ways to support both women and the children they carry, so that both mothers and children may flourish. We need to find practical ways to stand with and support women who face the challenges of a difficult pregnancy. In fact, we have a history of providing help in many ways. We need to redouble our efforts.
6. The Church also needs to stand ready—as it has in the past—to accompany those women who have had abortions, have regretted their decision, and have been deeply wounded by the experience. As a community of faith, we must be instruments of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.
7. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life and have it in abundance.” In this important moment for our nation, we pray for the gift of abundant life and that we would take up our responsibility to foster it both as believers and as citizens.
I should add: the email which contained the "pulpit points" I pasted above also included direction/warning from the archdiocese to secure our buildings, ask police to be present this weekend and next weekend, and follow guidelines for de-escalation in the event of any confrontation. The fear is that pro-choice protesters will target churches and other religious buildings in coming days. Interesting times we live in.
ReplyDeleteMoments like today are when I most regret the intermixing of politics and religion in American society. The political instincts of virtually everyone who is politically invested in this issue is to scream, either triumphantly or in rage, at the other side. But as disciples of Jesus, we must work for a peaceful society which is able to digest policy wins and losses without losing the ties that bind us together.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWhen I saw the title of this post, I said to myself “Dobbs? is this about Lou Dobbs?” Only when I got down to Katherine’s comment did I realize that the case name was Dobbs. So, I guess from now on people will be shouting about Dobbs from now on.
ReplyDeleteI was aware early in the day that the decision had been announced but I did not see anything at the top of the news feed that said that it was in some way different from the leaked document, so I did not bother to read any of the coverage because basically there is not any new news being made today.
Historic day? I don’t think it will change anyone’s mind on the issue. I don’t think it will change the minds and hearts of women who have an unwanted pregnancy. I don’t think it will change the minds and hearts of people who are in the position to help a woman who is pregnant. That was my mother’s problem with the anti-abortion people. She saw it basically as men (the clergy, the politicians, the fathers) who wanted to make it a woman’s problem when in almost all cases it is really men who are the problem.
The big thing that impresses me about this decision is that it was the three appointees of Trump that made this decision and will continue to make a lot of decisions that will continue to divide our nation. I think those appointees have changed the Supreme Court and our form of government and not for the better.
I think it's not just men who are the problem. Just watched the Elvis movie and I was already alive in that era. All that screaming from the teenage girls wasn't coming from agape or filia. I remember one of the married secretaries from my 70's workplace saying she'd sleep with Elvis in a heartbeat, married or not. There is such a thing as female lust even though they bear the immediate consequences.
DeleteYour point? Women are also at fault so it’s just punishment for them that they should be fully responsible for raising a child to adulthood with everything that requires ( including coming up with $250,000 to feed, clothe and shelter them to age 18) while the vast majority of the men not only just walk away, but are often admired by other men for getting away with it. Is that your point?
DeleteThen what was the point?
Delete"It's all about men" is not correct. It's all about heterosexual men and women for the most part and what they do. Sexuality is much older than reason and wins out a lot.
DeleteThe vast majority of these pregnancies result from people who like sex and intimacy. Should men be held responsible and share financial responsibility? Of course. Are women sluts who have sex outside of marriage? I would just say they're human. Like most people I know.
No - it’s not all about men. But men don’t pay the price for their human weaknesses - their sexual frolics - that women pay. And their v lives are not put at risk by pregnancy - both metaphorically and literally - as womens are.
DeleteWomen are impacted by pregnancy in far more ways than men. They have struggled to get equal pay for equal work. Their careers are far more impacted by pregnancy than those of men. They have traditionally done a far larger amount of the unpaid childcare and housework than have men. They are far more the glue that keeps our families together than are men.
DeleteAs my mother and most women are aware, it is the men in the church, the government, and business world who have structured things so that women in general get the short end of the deal.
I am not one of those people who think that patriarchy is the only problem that we have, I think that inequality of wealth is a far greater problem.
I think there's a chance someone who already hates Catholics can be triggered this Sunday in the great Land of Guns. I'm not concerned right now with debating abstract moral and metaphysical issues as I am with improving my safety while I go to mass. I would imagine there are also many who wouldn't shed tears over a pile of dead Catholics. That's where we live right now. Not the nicey nice alternative universe of the bishops.
ReplyDeleteWell, all kinds of things may start happening now. Women who want abortions can go to abortion states but that'll be a long haul for women who live in the deep south which is anti-abortion as a bloc.. They can also move to those states where they have more rights. But that uprooting is expensive and living in the Northeast is expensive.
ReplyDeleteDoctors are under risk of lawsuit all the time and now who knows what criminal liabilities they could stumble into in the practice of their skills. Who would want to be an obstetrician under these circumstances? Will health care in these states decline? The laws like Texas' seem strange and clumsy.
Will the Democrats pass a national law thar can reinstate abortion rights? If the Republicans retake the Senate and House, can they do the opposite, banning abortion throughout the country?
I should add that the Democrats can't seem to even pass gas.
DeleteIt's too early for many not us to wrap our heads around Dobbs and its implications. I am not offering these parting thoughts as arguments for abortion rights.
ReplyDelete1. Dobbs will disrupt the lives of many women, even if the majority are "only" college girls having to take a few months off their education to give birth and put their babies up for adoption, as I my fundie inlaws put it.
2. In Michigan, half the abortions are sought by African-American women, about 15,000 abortions per year, according to Michigan RTL. Are Michigan citizens, in one of the most segregated states in the U.S., ready to adopt 15,000 babies of color every year?
3. Governmental agencies are tracking extremist chatter. Conservative Christian groups are urging believers to protect their churches against left-wing extremists. With guns. That SCOTUS has made it easier to carry. A smaller group of left-wing nuts are calling for "rage" demonstrations. "Bring rifles." (This report was in the WaPo this morning, and I presume was carried in other outlets.) An anti-abortion pregnancy center in Jackson, Mich., was vandalized last week. People are pissed and scared about a lot of things. Look for unrest to jack up.
4. Jim mentions above a pregnant woman he knows of foregoing cancer treatment until her baby is born. In Illinois, she has a choice to continue the pregnancy and forego treatment. Women elsewhere will have fewer options. And one wonders: In total-ban states, how long will it take for some anti-abortion advocates to agitatate against any kind of medical treatment that could cause a spontaneous abortion?
5. Re women and medication, women with mental health issues, diabetes, many auto-immune diseases, and chronic cancers must take medication their whole lives to control their health. They may not be able to forego the meds while pregnant. The meds may lead to stillbirths and profoundly affect fetal development. This could be a problem if states decide to limit contraception access (see #8).
6. I know what it's like to raise a kid with a fairly mild learning disability. I know what it's like to have to cut back work in order to balance making a living with providing extra care. I know what kind of financial ripples that causes from birth of the child to retirement of the parents. More children with severe disabilities will now be born. They will be largely unadoptable. To what extent are our social safety nets prepared to assist parents and foster parents to care for them?
7. To what extent are adoption agencies, foster care programs, childrens protective services, and friends of the court prepared to deal with more children at risk and in the adoption "market"?
8. Roe was overturned because it was predicated on a faulty interpretation of the "right to privacy" (forgive me, I don't speak legalese). That same interpretation was the basis for contraceptive freedom and gay marriage. Justice Thomas has signalled that these rulings must now be "corrected," which, like abortion, would throw federal protections out the window and back to the states. Look for states to be mired in these issues for a long time if these rights are thrown out.
I opined earlier in deleted comments that the Dobbs decision has made abortion illegal in some states. Maybe that's an overall good. But Dobbs has not changed any minds, and so it has not made us any better--more human, more caring, more willing to care for the vulnerable--than we were before it was handed down.
Best case scenario: If Dobbs ultimately changes the way we operate by providing more support to pregnant women and their children, it will be some time coming. There will be a lot of anger, frustration, and lives altered before we get our sh*t together. I will support Catholic (and other) initiatives that assist in the new realities. But I am done with the Church and I am done with Catholics who think this is a wonderful day to celebrate.
I am not in a mood of celebration, more sitting in a mood of sober reflection, and exhaustion. I won't pretend that I am sorry to see Roe go, because I thought it was poorly decided in the first place. And I do believe that we should respect life, from the first moment to the last. What I am sorry about is that so
Deletemany people feel that they were thrown under the bus. Which from their point of view, they were.The exhaustion is from the unending time of anger that we are living in. Half the nation is angry about the Dobbs decision. We are angry about the revelations coming out of the January 6th hearings (though I can't feel any surprise.) We are still dealing with Covid. And that has generated so much anger in so many ways. We are angry about inflation. We are angry about the war in Ukraine. We are angry about cultural change, or lack of it, and the effects of climate change. We are angry about racism that we thought we were doing better with. But it has relapsed, or we had just swept it under the surface. At a certain point we can only process so much anger, and we just check out.
David French is worth reading in The Atlantic. Here is his conclusion:
ReplyDelete"...the best way for pro-life Americans to view the reversal of Roe is not as the beginning of the end of abortion in the United States, but rather as the end of the beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child."
I really hope David French is right.
DeletePart 1 of 2
Deletethe beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child."
The anti- abortionists have had 50 YEARS to try to make our culture “more hospitable” to mothers and children. - to overcome the current reality - the reality created by anti- abortion activists because of the politics of the people they voted for.
French seems to be feeling a bit of guilty conscience for helping to bring about a situation that threatens disaster for the future of this country. Now he mouths meaningless platitudes. If he had really cared, he would have put some effort into it before now. He's smart, educated at Harvard Law,, and devoted decades of his professional life t o the anti-abortion cause.
The article includes information that anti- abortion folk have consistently ignored - for 50 years. The pro- choice have long known it and tried to educate the anti- abortion crowd. But they had no ears to hear, deafened by their own self- righteousness. They had decades to work for comprehensive sex education, for affordable contraception for ALL, and for social safety nets to care for women who see NO way to be able to support another child in safety and at least minimal dignity (the majority of women who seek abortion are not only poor, they already have children whom they struggle to support). It recommends policies that conservatives (like Jim and French) generally don’t support, nor are they supported by the politicians that the time and money of the anti-abortion movement have put into office. It is highly unlikely that those in this movement are suddenly going to develop compassion towards poor, desperate women. They never have, so they will not likely have a change of heart now. Instead they will likely expand their campaign to go after gay marriage, and perhaps contraception also, whilre seeking the increasingly restrictive measures that will put the lives of women facing miscarriage in danger because doctors fear to intervene because they fear being investigated and prosecuted.
David French was surely immersed in all the data, all the information about why women seek abortions. Now he seems to be trying to claim that it's all news to him.
I also hope everyone is aware of the content of Clarence Thomas’s formal opinion on this case. Pandora’s box has been opened and the polarization in this country now is likely to get incalculably worse. There is another article in The Atlantic that goes into that subject.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/pro-life-dobbs-roe-culture-of-life/661394/
Abortion was more common when it was mostly illegal. According to data ….the abortion rate was at about 16 abortions per 1,000 women when Roe was decided in 1973, soared to 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women by the end of the Carter administration in 1981, and then began a long, slow, and steady decline to an all-time low of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women in 2017….the historical record does tell us that ending abortion is a different matter from banning abortion, and we cannot end abortion until we learn why women seek abortions and how our nation can address the concerns that lead them to make that choice….
[“until we learn” - oh come on, Mr. French. Give us a break. The reasons women seek abortion have been known for many years, but have been ignored by the anti-abortion movement. Pretending ignorance of this until just now is less than honest]
Part 2 of 2
DeleteIf banning abortion doesn’t end abortion, then what will? The answer is deceptively simple in concept, yet extraordinarily difficult in practice. Our nation must ease the fears and concerns—which are legitimate—of women who are already predisposed to view abortion as a last resort, not a first choice.
Doing so is a matter of both better policy and personal conduct. Better policy is embodied by Mitt Romney’s proposed Family Security Act, which would provide most American families with monthly financial assistance even when a child is still in the womb. Parents of young children would receive $350 a month per child, and parents of older children would receive $250 a month per child. Pregnant women could receive up to four $700 monthly payments, one for each of the last four months of pregnancy. The Romney plan isn’t the answer to child poverty and family financial insecurity, but it is an answer, and its concrete financial support for mothers and children would be a tangible statement of our nation’s moral commitment to young families….No virtue can be had in “owning the libs” when a hostile posture will close hearts and minds….Earlier this month, we learned that the abortion rate increased during Trump’s presidency. He was the first American president since Jimmy Carter to end his term with a higher abortion rate than when he began.
This suggests that, for the first time in three decades, the cultural momentum is not on the pro-life side, that women are facing an increased sense of instability and uncertainty,
The increased sense of instability and uncertainty can be laid directly at the feet of the politicians that the anti-abortionists worked so hard to elect.
Yes, Romney (now essentially without influence in the GOP) has a decent idea as a beginning. Biden's Build back Better would have been even, well, better. But it was fought tooth and nail by the "pro-life" politicians.
To French (and Jim)
ReplyDeletethe beginning of a long struggle to remake our nation into a culture that is far more hospitable to mother and child."
But all the programs that have been proposed by the Democrats that would make our culture more hospital to women, e.g equal pay for women, parental leave, sick leave, free college education, etc. etc. have been opposed by Republicans and conservative Catholics. Mitt Romney has been one of the few Republicans with any good ideas.
For decades now I have been quoting paragraph 23 of the Declaration on Procured Abortion (CDF, 1974) to conservative anti-abortion Catholics asking if they agree:
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, it is the task of law to pursue a reform of society and of conditions of life in all milieux, starting with the most deprived, so that always and everywhere it may be possible to give every child coming into this world a welcome worthy of a person. Help for families and for unmarried mothers, assured grants for children, a statute for illegitimate children and reasonable arrangements for adoption - a whole positive policy must be put into force so that there will always be a concrete, honorable and possible alternative to abortion.
Most interesting. I never heard of this document, and certainly have not seen it quoted.
DeleteMaybe Dobbs will result in more abortions!
ReplyDeleteThe cost of having an abortion is really not very high. It is certainly within the ability of the pro-abortion camp to raise sufficient funds for “all-expenses paid vacations” to California to have an abortion.
On the other hand, the costs for the pro-life camp to provide an all-expenses paid child is very prohibitive.
USDA recently issued Expenditures on Children by Families, 2015. This report is also known as “The Cost of Raising a Child.” USDA has been tracking the cost of raising a child since 1960 and this analysis examines expenses by age of child, household income, budgetary component, and region of the country.
Based on the most recent data from the Consumer Expenditures Survey, in 2015, a family will spend approximately $12,980 annually per child in a middle-income ($59,200-$107,400), two-child, married-couple family. Middle-income, married-couple parents of a child born in 2015 may expect to spend $233,610 ($284,570 if projected inflation costs are factored in*) for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise a child through age 17. This does not include the cost of a college education.
Where does the money go? For a middle-income family, housing accounts for the largest share at 29% of total child-rearing costs. Food is second at 18%, and child care/education (for those with the expense) is third at 16%. Expenses vary depending on the age of the child.
Obviously great changes in taxes, tax rates, and government programs would be needed to bring this about. I am certainly willing to tax not only the billionaires but also the millionaires to bring this about. (Full disclosure: I am obviously not a millionaire).
The reality, of course, is that the pro-abortion people are not likely to raise money for abortions. But they could, and if they did, they would likely succeed, and we will have more abortions not less.
Rather, if my inbox is an indication, this will be a great political fundraiser that will do little to help pregnant women.
The reality, of course, is that the pro-life people are not going to go beyond tokenism to help pregnant women. I don’t expect my wealthy parish to have an annual fundraiser for $233,610 to endow another baby raising slot.
I also don’t expect that many Republicans will begin to vote Democratic to make the tax and policy changes that are necessary to support families.
My conclusion is there is a lot of self-righteous and pointing of fingers on both sides of this issue that provides little help to pregnant women and their unborn children.
You lay it out well, as usual, Jack. If Jean is to be believed, and I always believe Jean, 15,000 black children will be born per year in Chicago that otherwise would not. Multiply that figure by your cost to raise a child, that's around 3.5B USD. Can the Archdiocese of Chicago eventually ramp up to provide that as a yearly amount?
DeleteAlso to be considered is the population problem. The spaceship planet is overburdened with humans. Our medical and agricultural technologies have pushed the efficiency of reproduction way beyond its original capabilities.
When the Church speaks of the value of the unborn human, I think it has a case, as it is ending a life, even if potential as Anne says. Where I get lost is the no birth control thing. To me, that is the Catholic version of the no blood transfusion thing of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their thing is based on fundamentalist obsessing over an O.T. proscription. The Catholic thing is based on obsessing over some overthinking in Greek philosophy which the Church adopted.
Birth control is better than abortion. The fact that the Church opposes both birth control and abortion has always weakened their abortion case.
Jack - The reality is that the pro-life people are not going to go beyond tokenism to help pregnant women. I don’t expect my wealthy parish to have an annual fundraiser for $233,610 to endow [a] baby raising slot.
DeleteI also don’t expect that many Republicans will begin to vote Democratic to make the tax and policy changes that are necessary…
My conclusion is there is a lot of self-righteous and pointing of fingers on both sides of this issue that provides little help to pregnant women and their unborn children.
Agree with all Jack says. And like Jean, I am ambivalent. Some pro-choice activists go too far, but, sadly, pro-choice politicians pose less danger to our country than the GOP.
The other critical issue is freedom of religion. The right-wing is systematically dismantling the wall between church and state. Their religious views on abortion will be forced on millions. I had prayed that the SC wasn’t so far gone that it wouldn’t put some brakes on the drive to ban “abortion“ from the moment of conception, but would uphold a limit (12-16 weeks) rather than permit a total ban. (I prefer 12 weeks, because that’s when all the body systems needed to support human life are in place. But I wish NO woman faced this choice. Plan B and contraception should be free to all women.) The SC is even worse than I feared. This court now has decades to help the GOP impose the will of right-wing extremists on the whole country - letting them get away with voter suppression laws, overturning the Civil Rights Act – a goal written into the Texas GOP platform- reverting to the old wild west with their willingness to undo even mild gun control regs enacted by states. Amazing how they forget all about states’ rights when it suits them. School districts are now spending BILLIONS to “harden” school “defenses”. Those who are concerned about violence against churches this week should examine their consciences about imposing their own religious beliefs on ALL by voting for politicians who have no concern for the safety of born people, who are threatened everywhere they go - churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, rock concerts, grocery stores - they have opened the floodgates of gun violence. Imagine what that money could do if invested in improving public education instead of arming teachers. Right wing Catholics/evangelicals want to use taxpayer money to support their own religious schools, something the SC ruled in favor of last week in Maine. Have they forgotten that the reason the Catholic school system was set up was because of religious teachings forced on their children - Protestant religious teachings - in public schools? Now they want the govt to fund Catholic schools. After Uvalde a writer at the Federalist said the solution was to have families revert to homeschool and eliminate public schools. It’s the Federalist Society that created the lists of SC candidates during the trump administration.
The right-wing is accelerating its agenda to create an authoritarian government, headed by someone - maybe trump but definitely a policy clone of trump - who will move to further dismantle our freedoms and cement their control of government. Following Orban, they will eliminate genuine freedom of the press, and demolish other freedoms. Why do you think that every right-wing extremist - trump, Pence, Carlson etc, and CPAC (conservative political action committee) have made pilgrimages to Hungary? CPAC openly admits that the reason their convention was held there in May was so that they could confer with like-minded people to help them plan their next moves.
There is a lot more at stake than abortion. This ruling will lead to worse unless a lot of Republicans hold their noses and vote Dem in November for ALL political offices - state and national. If the Republicans gain control of Congress, and then the WH, there will be no stopping their agenda.
There are one or two good ideas floating about in the comments. I could get behind better parental-leave permissions.
ReplyDeleteYes, lots of Republicans are mean. (Cf. the initiatives French mentions to criminally prosecute women who illegally obtain abortions). There is no legislative remedy for that. It will require a different kind of transformation.
If only poor women obtained abortions, and if the rate of abortion tracked with the ups and downs of the economy, I'd be more likely to accept the claim that poverty is the great cause of abortion, and throwing more government programs at the problem would make it go away. Let's agree that poverty is one factor that may cause someone to decide to end a pregnancy, and let's agree that the US can do better than it does when it comes to the social safety net.
Let me just point to the gun legislation which is passing Congress because of bipartisan cooperation. The lesson seems to be: propose something that Republicans would wish to vote for, and some of them will vote for it.
Yes, it seems logical that contraception would reduce the number of abortions. But it's worth noting that the Obamacare contraception mandate, which offers virtually all women cost-free, very effective contraception, has been in effect for 10 years and doesn't seem to have had any impact on abortion trends.
FWIW, my thoughts are: government assistance programs might have some role to play in reducing abortions. But we can't look to politics and policy alone to solve the abortion problem for us. To the extent it's solvable, it would require good personal decisions, a good personal/family support network, and cultural shifts.
In the last few weeks, I've heard a number of folks express surprise that there are more gun deaths by suicide than homicide in the US. A person who is experiencing the sort of personal darkness which leads him/her to seriously consider suicide must find the availability of a gun to be a big temptation. I think the same has been true, and will continue to be true, about legal abortion. Abortion is always going to be a huge temptation for someone with an unwanted pregnancy. I don't think it's realistic to remove all guns from all households. Nor is it realistic to completely cut off the availability of abortion. But both guns and abortions can be made less available - perhaps significantly less available - than they have been up to now. And then we as a society must figure out how to help the suicidal person, and the person with an unwanted pregnancy.
This society does not want to figure out how to help anybody. They may want to talk a lot about it, because talking is easier than doing. It just won't happen here at this time. But a law has been passed so it will be the work of prosecutors and police. Americans like to punish people much more than helping people. An underground abortion industry will appear. Cops and prosecutors will have to be paid to investigate and prosecute. This will require more money or the reallocation of resources applied to battling other criminal activities.
DeleteI'm not sure how Obamacare plays into the abortion rates which WERE going down for some reason and before Obamacare. One would have to determine the intersection between the population that can access Obamacare and the population that most probably gets unwanted pregnancies, I don't know. But our birth rate is down and our abortions were down so I imagine birth control plays a role or there's been a religious revival about which no one has told me.
Jim, maybe you need more (and better) sources of information. When 2/3 of the women who get abortions are below or just above the poverty line it doesn't take a Sherlock to figure that poverty has something to do with their decisions. I also know that including comprehensive sex education in public schools (fought by christian conservatives), AND providing free access to contraception reduced both teen pregnancy rates and subsequent teen abortion rates.
ReplyDeleteAs a freelancer, about 75% of my work was in economics. But I was also hired by others for my research, analytic, and writing experience. I worked on an abstinence education project during the Bush years. The Bush admin opposed comprehensive sex education and gave funding to abstinence ed projects. I was immersed in mountains of data and studies on teen pregnancy, and abortion. I began to learn about how poverty plays into it by being immersed in REAL, hard data. That's also when I first learned how much more success the secular western European countries had achieved in reducing both teen pregnancy rates and abortion rates, including abortion in non-teens, than the religious US. I also worked as a (volunteer) grant writer for a free health clinic staffed by volunteers (including docs) that served the working poor in our county - mostly service industry people (including the uninsured people who clean the houses of millions of richer Americans) earning 'too much" money to qualify for medicaid and too little to afford to buy health insurance. I learned about how totally horrible our PROFIT-based health system is compared to every other developed country in the world - all of which provide some kind of universal health care and are not focused on maximizing profit by minimizing coverage. Obamacare cut the number of totally uninsured Americans in half, but millions remain without health insurance. We need sweeping change from a profit-based system to a universal health care system. It's no wonder that the US expends 8 times as much on healthcare than other developed nations. BTW, women can’t get “free” contraception if they can't afford to buy health insurance - even when subsidized. The RCC continues to fight provisions that would help people who aren't even Catholic obtain contraception.
I was a conservative, active Catholic Republican when I had the abstinence project job. I learned then that I really didn't know or understand the reality. My volunteer job at the free health clinic also opened my eyes. Friends who had known me as a hardline conservative couldn't believe that I was able to not only change my mind when learning the reality, but admitted that I had been wrong about many things for many years. Humbling. I re-registered as independent. Like you, Jim, I don't have a home in either political party. But I will vote for Dems from now on unless the GOP rejects the current trend. I fear it's too late, and I am ashamed that I refused to see the reality for as long as I did. I was among the millions of clueless people who think they are well-informed but are actually poorly informed. I lived not only in an information bubble, but had mostly family and many friends who were conservative, living in white, upper-middle class communities. Echo chambers all around me. But, most of our neighbors are not christian, and most of the Jewish, Muslim, and Asian-no religion neighbors support Democrats. I was exposed to people who hadn't been immersed in conservative christian religion and conservative politics their entire lives as I had been.That helped too.
"The right-wing is systematically dismantling the wall between church and state. Their religious views on abortion will be forced on millions. I had prayed that the SC wasn’t so far gone that it wouldn’t put some brakes on the drive to ban “abortion“ from the moment of conception, but would uphold a limit (12-16 weeks) rather than permit a total ban."
ReplyDeleteLast week, the Supreme Court ended unjust case law that prevented the people of the United States from working out their own preferred abortion legislation, state by state. Now that the obstructing tree and its roots have been cleared away, we have green fields in all 50 states to do what we should have been able to do all along: legislate. If abortion up to 16 weeks is what the people want, then their legislators can make that happen. If pro-life people can make a better argument that abortion should be more restricted than that, then let them make that argument and try to persuade their fellow citizens.
Jim, are you unaware of the total bans that are already being triggered in a number of states? Do you object to ALL national laws? Are we to devolve into 50 separate “ countries”?
ReplyDeleteWhatever is enacted in states can be changed, in the same way they were enacted. If states pass unpopular legislation which causes bad consequences, the voters have remedies to replace those legislators with new ones.
DeleteAgain - do you oppose ALL laws that are imposed on the entire country? Should we go back to being 50 separate states with no national government ?
DeleteBTW, I “ pick on” you because I see so much of myself in you (at least the self I was 20 years ago). I know that very few people change their political identity once past young adulthood. But I can hope. I even pray for you because I know that you are a decent guy. I agree that abortion is at minimu a sad solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies. But I do believe in separation of church and state, and I believe that women should be allowed to make theirbown choice in this matter. You are right that reducing the opportunities for abortion might lead to a drop, Guns kill a lot of people, and the most gun deaths are suicides, as you note. But I have only heard one liberal politician suggest banning all guns. I think limiting the window for abortions would be reasonable, especially since about 95% are already done before 12 weeks ( about 80% by 8 weeks). I believe that waiting periods are reasonable for both gun purchasers and foe women who may panic when learning they are pregnant and immediately seek an abortion. I don’t object to asking them to have a sonogram, although I doubt that would have the impact the anti- abortion folk think it would have. And I strongly believe that extensive improvements in the social safety nets would convince many women not to go to California for an abortion, or, if too poor, to find a back alley abortionist. Paid maternity leave is a minimum. Free or heavily subsidized child care is desperately needed also. Until that happens (never if the GOP wins) childcare centers in churches should become preferred projects for parishes. Put the money and time where their mouths are. Women who are employed in low pay jobs can’t afford childcare.
I am hearing that several companies are offering to pay an employee's travel expenses if they have to go out of state to obtain an abortion. I'm afraid they will see that as a less expensive alternative to expanding the social safety net with things such as paid maternity leave. I'm also thinking that an offer like that could very easily devolve into a form of de facto coercion.
DeleteI doubt that many companies will do this. I’ve read about a couple of companies offering this. One is Apple. As a huge Silicon Valley company I’m quite sure that both men and women have a long period of paid parental leave already. Google’s is 24 weeks. I believe Apple gives 20 weeks. These benefits are at the corporate locations. Apple also has retail, unlike Google, Twitter, FB, yahoo, etc. The benefits aren’t as generous at the retail level but more generous than most retail jobs provide. At their SV corporate locations they also provide quality child care on the premises, nursery schools on the premises, and even doggy day care on the premises. And of course, excellent healthcare benefits. My d-i-l is a senior account executive at her company - not SV. She had NO paid maternity leave when her daughter was born two years ago - she could use her sick days and vacation days. After paying more than $1000/month for her company’s health plan for the family, they had to pay thousands more in deductibles and co- pays for her prenatal care and her her C- section, with 3 days of hospitalization. Fortunately they aren’t actually poor but it was a big financial strain. Their childcare is also expensive. A lot of financially secure Americans have no idea what millions of other Americans with low incomes - the working poor - face.
Delete"I agree that abortion is at minimum a sad solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies."
DeleteAnne, thanks for that entire comment. You and I don't agree on every specific, but I appreciate the willingness to offer some suggestions which might find a practical consensus. If they would just put you and me in charge for about 15 minutes, I have a feeling we could arrive at a handshake deal that would make the abortion issue go away, or at least cool off, once and for all :-).
Yes, of course I think the federal government has a legitimate role. But I also believe in federalism. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the law for anyone to call me an originalist, but maybe I'm a constitutionalist (if there is such a thing): we should be governed according to our Constitution. The constitution enumerates that for which the federal government is responsible, and all else belongs to the states.
One of my daily newsletters had this to say about Justice Kavanaugh and his concurring opinion on Dobbs. I agree with him on this:
""Throughout his concurrence, Kavanaugh maintained a laser-like focus on what he sees as the justices’ limited role in answering the profound questions before them. “The issue before this Court … is not the policy or morality of abortion. The issue before this Court is what the Constitution says about abortion,” he wrote. “The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress—like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address.”
"“Because the Constitution is neutral on the issue of abortion, this Court also must be scrupulously neutral,” he continued. “The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process and to decree either a pro-life or a pro-choice abortion policy for all 330 million people in the United States.”"
And thank you for the prayers! I pray for you, too, although I admit I hadn't thought to pray that you would become a Republican :-).
I was officially a money- contributing, volunteering Republican until I was in my early 50s, although not officially reregistered independent until about 60. But I finally saw the light - because my work exposed me to reality, not the fantasy world painted by conservatives that I accepted for too many decades.
DeleteTwo good articles this morning on the dangers of having the states makes these decisions. The potential problems that were warned about are already surfacing. The fanatics will not easily undo what they have just done and there will be tragic consequences. Plus, if the GOP takes over Congress and the WH by 2024, they plan to forget all about states rights and impose a national ban on abortion. So moderate Republicans had better think twice before voting GOP for Congress. Even before that happens it is likely the SC will use the same premises to overturn the decision that legalized gay marriage. After that, they may go after contraception. The Texas GOPs platform already states that they want to make gay marriage illegal again, and repeal the Civil Rights Act. In addition, they hope to be able to put secession on the ballot for Texans to vote on in 2023. As far as I’m concerned, good riddance. But we fought a bloody war to prevent the breakup of the union. Are we facing that possibility again? The extreme right wing has been arming itself to the teeth - « just in case ».
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/06/27/abortion-dobbs-catholic-exceptions-243163
I changed from being a staunch “pro- life” movement supporter to being a reluctant pro- choice supporter by learning reality mostly from dry, boring statistical data. The author of this piece learned it from years of face- to - face work with reality, with live, (born) women and girls.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/column/wise-abortion-public-policy-should-deal-realities-well-moralities
"I am hearing that several companies are offering to pay an employee's travel expenses if they have to go out of state to obtain an abortion."
DeleteAs an old econ major, I just want to make a point about this. In economic theory there is a concept called utility, which is sort of a catch-all term for, "that which motivates a person", or "that which satisfies a person" (satisfaction and motivation are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin). If a thing is something we prize, we will expend time, treasure and talent to pursue it.
Of course, for most of us, money is a thing we prize. But it needn't be money. For a politician or an ambitious corporate type, it could be power. For a collector, it's possessing the thing s/he covets. For many people, it could be an emotional state like feeling loved or feeling respected.
But in most economic activity, it's thought to be money, which is why an employer's first resort usually is to offer financial incentives to encourage behavior it wants to see. That is why salespeople are paid sales commissions: the more products or services they sell (which is the behavior employers want to encourage), the more money they make. I have known many salespeople over the years, and I can tell you that money is an important motivator for them. They think it satisfies them. (This can get complex, but let's agree that money is a big part of it).
In this case of providing abortion travel benefits, it seems to me that these companies who cater to young people, both as employees and as consumers, are betting that young women see utility in having abortion as an option. The utility in this case seems to be, "Mitigate the risk of an unwanted pregnancy by keeping the abortion option on the table." This is primarily for the benefit of their employees (we're in a time right now of nearly full employment, with many unfilled corporate positions); but there may be a sort of secondary marketing benefit, too, to be known as a company that will protect abortion rights.
Jim, I’ve mentioned the generous benefits of most SV companies - even smaller tech companies there have great benefits. They are offered because, as you note, the workforce they need is a scarce « good ». The cost of living, especially housing, is sky high. A house that might cost $450k in an upper- middle, professional community like yours is $ 2 million or more there. So the salaries seem to be really high, even though adjusted to the cost of living, really aren’t as amazing as they appear. California is a high tax state. The GOP capped property tax and state tax deductions which mostly targeted high income, high property value blue states like CA and NY, further increasing the federal taxes on people who live there, without a cost of living adjustment. Same with the state property taxes - based on the inflated values without inflation adjustments. So the companies compete for employees through non- taxable benefits in addition to salaries. The tech industry has a young workforce. But it is also a predominantly male workforce. I wonder if the new abortion travel cost benefits will cover spouses and partners - probably anyone who is under the company health plan, which does cover unmarried partners. However, California is now gearing up to welcome abortion refugees. The California employees don’t «need» this. So there might be a bit of marketing going on as you suggest.
DeleteI've made arguments against abortion before but now that it is being forbidden by law, I will not bother. What was previously a case of winning hearts and minds is now irrelevant. The winners have won the remedy of applying state power and any efforts of mine would just be in the service to the state. They don't need my stinking persuasion or thoughts.
ReplyDeleteYes, its the coercive and punishment-focused aspect of overturning Roe that unsettles me. It seems to me that states were already doing a pretty good job limiting abortion within the confines of Roe.
DeleteImo, states rights--and high court rulings that uphold states rights--do little but deepen regional divides and create wildly disparate crime and penalty standards.
What have states rights ever given us but slavery, Jim Crow, anti-miscegenation laws, "right to work" laws that weaken unions, and civil war?
In any case, you and I will have to roll up our sleeves and try to keep the triumphalists from thinking that they saved the babies and now if the gals get themselves knocked up, it's nobody's problem but theirs. The smug Repubs aren't gonna help them.
Sometimes I feel like this country is about to go China Syndrome. It would be nice if we could sort out issues one at a time but things just seem to be piling up. We have a scary war confronting a nuclear power, climate crisis, inflation. I guess we just have to keep plodding on while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Delete"China syndrome" is a good description of the mood of the country at present. We as a society are just so, so angry , about nearly everything. It scares me.
DeleteRight now we have a lot of militant Christians preoccupied with legislating other people's moral behavior while other problems seem more pressing to me. As I see it, the Supreme Court, state legislatures, and Congress will continue to be distracted with all that b.s. to the detriment of other issues.
DeleteI would get less exercised about abortion, which I think should be limited to the first trimester, if it weren't of a piece with hysterics over gun control, anti LGBTQ initiatives, bans on birth control, hysteria over critical race theory, erosion of public education, and refusal to accept scientific facts about global warming, pandemic preparedness, etc.
Some Texas Repubs are talking about secession. I sure as heck would not stand in their way, provided they took Oklahoma, and everything east to and including Florida with them. They'd first have to give up US military personnel and materiel on all bases down there.
And definitely no nukes. I'd go to civil war over that one.
DeleteVatican news reported in America
ReplyDelete“Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase,” he wrote. “In the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the maternal mortality rate has gone from 20.1 deaths of women per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020. And, strikingly, the maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2020 was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for white women.”
Being pro-life also means helping pregnant women welcome new life, which requires a response to studies that show that in the United States “about 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or have low wages.”
In addition, he noted, “16% of employees in private industry have access to paid parental leave, according to a study published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry” in 2020. “Almost one in four new mothers who are not entitled to paid leave are forced to return to work within 10 days of giving birth.”
“Being for life always,” Tornielli wrote, “also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S.”
The maternal mortality rate in the US is among the worst in more advanced countries. This is a reflection of the disparities in healthcare access in the US due to poverty and minimal social safety nets.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1240400/maternal-mortality-rates-worldwide-by-country/
I cited the very generous parental leave policies in SV companies. I knew they were rare. But even I didn’t realize how common my d-I-l’s situation of NO paid maternity leave is - only 16% of American women have access to maternity leave in private industry in our country.
The company I worked for when my wife was having children was a six week paid maternity leave program. It could be combined with FMLA (which is an unpaid benefit, but at least your job is preserved) for a total of 18 weeks - about 4 months.
DeleteMy wife worked for a large company at that time, one that aspired to lead the world in employee benefits. I don't remember exactly what the benefit was, but combined with FMLA, she was able to take 6 months off after each baby was born.
Just my personal opinion: I think the country could be ripe for a more generous paid family leave benefit. The current, stingy regime (basically, FMLA, with whatever the employer is willing to offer tacked on) was promulgated at a time when big business was pretty uniformly Republican. That's not the case anymore: corporate leadership, like lawyers and other college-educated Americans, are a good deal more progressive now. The parties have realigned. It could be timely to revisit this issue.
DeleteMaternity leave in the company I work for is covered in part by short-term disability. It's something, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make up for lost wages.
DeleteI got 8 weeks unpaid leave after C-section. I used two weeks of vacation, but did not add any sick time in case I needed that later. My boss paid me hourly for any work I could do at home or come in and do during the 8 weeks. I was in the office one day a week 3 weeks after the C section, and on the phone most afternoons. It was not conducive to nursing (which I didn't even bother to try because I figured it was one more frustration) or bonding with the baby. Raber was not working at all.
DeleteMy workplace started offering more generous leave some years after I left. Skilled workers are now given paid parental leave because they are expensive to replace. However, if you are a grunt, they figure they can replace you easily, and there is no financial incentive to shuck out paid leave. So young parents who work in the service industries in lower level positions are out of luck.
DeleteI was working at the World Bank when my first was born, more than 40 years ago. Since it is an international organization (part of the UN) it employs mostly non-Americans, who work in the US under a special visa category - international civil servant. The staff expect the same kind of benefits they get in their home country. So I had 4 weeks before the birth and 2 months after. All employees received this at all levels, just as 6 weeks vacation/year to start was SOP for all. At the same time, most of my friends working in the private sector had 2 weeks maternity leave - if that. Only those working for big companies like IBM. Of course, most Americans make do with 2 weeks paid vacation/year. I decided to stay home after my first was born but I still got the 2 months pay. I was also guaranteed my job if I returned within two years - another standard feature in western european countries. Western european countries are far more supportive of families, with policies that are far more family friendly than the so-called family values USA. Add in the benefit for all of free or heavily subsidized child-care and the security of their health care systems (available to ALL) and it's easy to see why far fewer women seek abortion there than in this country. They know they can afford to raise the child that might be born from an unplanned pregnancy.
DeleteClarifying- I had 3 months (4 weeks before the birth and 8 after) that were full- salary. Although I could stay home for 2 more years, that time was unpaid. By then I had a second child, so when they contacted me about returning I decided to stay home. I started my freelance career when my second child was 2 years old. At that time I was dependent on my husband’s job for health insurance.
Delete.
Like Jim, I am not persuaded that abortion rates are tied directly to poverty or lack of health care and family leave, though they must certainly overlap. Other factors include fetal monitoring that reveals unfixable birth defects much earlier. Morning-after pills in Michigan cannot be purchased by anyone under 17, and that might be a reason some girls don't avail themselves and want abortions later. There are the clueless, careless, and those cowed in bad relationships.
DeleteYes - true. But European countries also teach comprehensive sex education in all their schools, including comprehensive information about birth control. Birth control is free and available to teenagers. More education about, and access to, birth control in American schools is credited with lowering the teen pregnancy rate here in recent years.Interestingly enough, young adults in these secular Western European countries also don’t initiate sexual activity as early as Americans do. I suspect that may be related to demographics - there is far less poverty in those countries than in the US, and the educational systems are superior to most in the US - even kids who are at the lower income levels have mostly good schools and are better equipped for decent- pay jobs when they finish secondary education than American kids are. I think that there are complex intertwining factors at work in Western European countries that result in better outcomes in a wide array of behavior- lower teen pregnancy, lower abortion rates, lower divorce rates, more kids under 18 living with both birth parents (even if unmarried as is fairly common in some countries) that all seem in some way to be connected to less extreme poverty due to the social safety nets.
DeleteOh, not arguing with you, Anne. Childbirth issues are always going to be hardest on poor Americans wo European benefits.
DeleteI am starting to train my replacement at work this week. She previously worked in another area in the same company. She is just coming off maternity leave. I asked her what the policy was now. She said it was covered under short-term disability for up to 12 weeks. The pay is 70% of one's regular salary. Not perfect, but better than a lot of workplaces do.
Delete