By Donald A. Collins | 29 May 2018
Church and State
As the Irish partially throw off a long historic yoke on reproductive choices for women there by approving the right to an abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, the USA sinks deeper into its Slough of Despond on the issue of choice. Recall that the phrase The Slough of Despond is “the swamp of despair” in the fictional, deep bog in John Bunyan’s 1678 fictional allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress into which, as Wikipedia tells us, “the protagonist Christian sinks under the weight of his sins and his sense of guilt for them.”
Let’s start by calling the right position of the oft called “sin” of abortion.
Over 40 million abortions occur annually worldwide. It takes two to tango and two to start a pregnancy. But a huge percentage of those abortions are not safely treated.
It has been since 1973 when Roe vs Wade said women had the right to a safe abortion, since undermined by constant religious zealots who have often caused what should be offered as a medically simple safe procedure into a constant trauma for our poorest, youngest and least powerful women. These enemies of personal freedom, many hiding under their avowed cloaks of economic freedom in every other category, are often happy for example to despoil our environment to fulfil their goals of unregulated profit. And ignore the basic human rights of women!
Most of these laissez-faire adherents seem to be Trump Republicans. Women who do not want an abortion don’t need to have one, but in my long years in helping providers who help women obtain safe early abortions, I have heard about many women of all faiths who were anti-abortion until they needed one and then got one, some only to later take up active anti-abortion activism again.
We as a nation are willing to spend endless amounts of money on military killing.
However, evacuating fetal tissue to help women achieve better life paths didn’t keep The Donald on May 24, 2018 from announcing he is pulling funding from Planned Parenthood whose safe, inexpensive and convenient clinics welcome millions of poor women for many other vital gynecological services along with abortion. Go figure. And read the full story here.
The continuing efforts of Trump’s anti freedom right wing zealots to interfere with secular matters long settled by scientific truths are the stuff of what makes atheism America’s fastest growing religion.
Attendance figures more and more show people are joining the ranks of atheism, agnosticism or simply being “unchurched”. Why don’t these basically agnostic voices rise up against the absurdity of these religious cultists trying to inflict their beliefs on the rest of us?
The obvious answer is that too many among us, especially those we elect to serve us in public offices, are afraid of “going public” because of the pain of being attacked or losing their perks and privileges. Study the history of what happened to those who signed our Declaration of Independence and you will be enlightened about how many of these brave patriots suffered the loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of the happiness (ie LofLLandPofH) that they had hoped to gain from their bravery. And today we see how often the fates of “whistle blowers” against fraud and corruption do not get properly supported by their superiors in making justified claims against villains vs LofLLandPofH.
Americans better be better at perceiving their best interests or they will lose the precious privileges of LofLLandPofH they have now and don’t treasure enough.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC., has spent over 40 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013.
From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013
By Donald A. Collins
Publisher: Church and State Press (July 30, 2014)
ASIN: B00MA40TVE
Kindle Store
Back in 1991, the NGO Don Collins founded in 1976, International Services Assistance Fund (ISAF), co-produced a TV quality 22-minute film called “Whose Choice?” which Ted Turner arranged to broadcast on September 21, 1992 in prime time on his then independent Turner Broadcast System (TBS). Other outlets such as PBS and several of its affiliates Collins and his colleagues contacted then refused to run it because of its forthright treatment of the abortion issue, arguing for all women’s right to choose not to have a baby. ISAF has made a new edition of that DVD. The purpose for reissuing this 3rd version of “Whose Choice?” was simply to show the historical urgency that attended those times, still blocked and attacked over 40 years after the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. This video is available for public viewing for the first time.
Ireland votes to lift abortion ban in landslide referendum | ITV News
Bill Nye: Can We Stop Telling Women What to Do With Their Bodies?
Abortions Before Roe vs Wade?? When Abortions Were Illegal In America
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