The New York Times printed this headline today: “How Roe Warped the Republic.” Granted it was on the op ed page and it was above a column written by the myopic navel-gazing theocrat Ross Douthat, but think about what those words say for a moment: A Supreme Court decision that recognized a Constitutional right of women blew up a nation in which at least fifty percent of the citizenship is female. Not only was abortion not a right before
The priest at the Mass we attended today spent his homily attacking the abortion rights movement and applauding this week's news, and offered the usual mix of faulty science/medicine and platitudes about "the moral alternatives", all the while ignoring the rights of women not to be forced to give birth (even in the case of rape, incest, life-threatening condition of the mother, etc.) and not acknowledging that his vision of a theocratic state would dominate ALL citizens and not just Catholics. Other faiths hold the life of the MOTHER to be paramount, not the viability or potential viability of the unborn. And never a mention of the man's part in this, or HIS responsibilities.
He also lamented that "pro-abortion advocates" were prone to violence and that their grievances were manifestations of some deeper disturbance -- he also noted an unnamed special demon who works against the unborn/pregnant women -- but never once did he mention how many Planned Parenthood doctors and staff have been attacked or harassed by anti-abortion mobs or how many doctors have been *stalked and murdered* by fanatics convinced that their "pro-life" beliefs give them license to kill.
The nominal subject of this 4th Sunday of Easter is supposed to be the lesson of Christ the Good Shepherd who watches over His flock. There was no discussion of this concept anywhere in the sermon. I was ashamed (hardly for the first time) for the Church and these experiences really bring home why so many Catholics abandon their faith and feel the Church has betrayed them.
As has been often noted, if MEN could get pregnant, it would be as easy to get an abortion as taking an aspirin.
I was about to say the same thing. one of the cool things about being Jewish is that you can always find a place to "worship" in which the dominant beliefs are close to your own, even down to "god-optional" congregations. my own solution is to stay away completely.
FWIW, I have always greatly enjoyed attending services in a synagogue for the weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs for a family we've been friends with since the early 1990s. It's Reform Jewish, I believe. Always dignified, moving, and welcoming to guests.
Find the right synagogue. I have. Adas Israel in DC. Social activist music loving welcoming realistic great Fri night musical service--I could go on. Your heritage! C'mon. Repair the world. You won't find an antiabortion service at Adas, that's for sure.
We're new to this area, and making a circuit of all the parishes (don't even know which one would be our "regular" parish); Catholic dogma is what it is. You either accept it, reject it, or come to your own compromises with it. But I often wonder how fast some clergy will be to disavow previously held positions if/when the higher authorities make a sea change on some positions. Women priests? Contraception? Abortion rights? A lot of folks will have to make an about-turn. Meanwhile, the Church continues to hemorrhage members. We're in a stupid era.
When I left the legal profession, my boss had just signed on to defend priests accused of sexual relationships with parishioners for an Archdiocese in California. I was not having any part of that.
The Catholic Church has undergone many changes in its history, so I disagree that dogma is what it is. For instance, weekly confession is a fairly new doctrine, as is having small children confess, which precipitated the invention of the confessional booth, apparently as a protective device. (Look back at the great Churches of Rome, the confessionals are all later additions, not built into the original structure of the building.) Also, Communion was originally for only the priests, taken in private. I believe that it was not until the 12th century that congregants were also invited to participate, and this precipitated a rash of devotees who claimed to live on the Host alone.
Especially relevant to this discussion, the Catholic Church has NOT always asserted that life begins at conception, and has NOT always opposed abortion. I am not sure when the change occurred, but abortion used to be permitted in the first three months, because the soul was not believed to enter the body until then. Don’t let any abortion-opposing priest tell you differently!
Well, the music was beautiful! Old plainsong and traditional Latin prayers. Not musical theatre or disco Mass. And in a centuries-old church with beautiful stained glass and woodwork. What can I say? Aesthetics can take you to a different world despite rumblings from the peanut gallery (i.e. an indifferent priest or squalling babies in the pews).
My guilt still brings me to the pageantry in big, old prosperous Churches where the chants hauntingly fill the caverns of the church and the incense creates a smoky aura and the main show mesmerizes. I come out feeling holy, feeling good and within five hours I realize I’d just been injected with a fresh dose of guilt.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a voice to communicate “the end” until I was a teenager but that was the point that I realized all they were trying to teach me wasn’t real. I didn’t absorb anymore of the information although I was physically present. So yes, the end of their ceremony for me!
English came earlier than that I think. But In 1972 I was invited to join a Catholic evangelical group, speaking in tongues, swooning in services, and all that. I had been invited to go by a young man I'd had a crush on since we were in 1st grade, so of course I went with him. Later, sitting in his car in my parent's driveway, after all that singing and group swooning, well, "things" finally started to happen for real! And WOW, his spirit was moving, too, and, "STOP!" he yelled. "The Devil is making me do this!" Shocked, I mumbled something about my being a pretty good devil, but to no avail. The next day he took a vow of celibacy, and later became a priest.
More or less that took place between 1963 and 1970 when the Novus Ordo was promulgated that permitted/encouraged the vernacular in the revised liturgy. Many churches still incorporate Latin to a greater or lesser degree, I find, plus there's still the old Tridentine Rite celebrated in many parishes at select times and places, and that's like 80% in Latin. Which I like. The old rite has dignity and sonority and tradition and historical connotations and I approve of a "ritual language" that takes you out of mundane concerns and transports you to a special dimension. Plenty of other religions than Christianity appreciate this quality.
I would have walked out and made a show of it. The incels that inhabit the priesthood still cling to their sense of infallibility and the gullibility of their flock. I’m surprised that you didn’t report people leaving. One big reason I don’t attend Catholic Mass. I detest them for the guilt they built in me from childhood on.
I completely understand the sentiment. But I can't go to mass looking to be offended and start a public fight , it seems rude and bad manners and you can't take it back and it probably wouldn't have impressed anyone. Their house, their rules -- but some of us are part of The Resistance.
My first clinical rotation in my third year of medical school (Harvard) was gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital. The first patient assigned to me was an 18 year old BU freshman from Long Island who was admitted through the ER with a perforated uterus and peritonitis after a botched backroom abortion.
She almost died, and eventually had to undergo a hysterectomy.
I will never forget the anguish of her parents when they arrived at the hospital.
Needless to say, Roe was a human rights breakthrough, and reversing it will do great harm.
Ross Douthat's image is what one encounters upon looking up "obtuse" in Roget's Thesaurus. Has anyone ever been so wrong, on so many issues, so often, so consistently, and yet still maintained a position of relative prominence? Surely his continued presence on the New York Times frontage is a tribute to the broad acceptance among the liberal media in general of the principles of remedial advancement for perennial silly-buggers?
I used to single out every one of his columns I considered rambling, weird and hateful until I realized that those flaws were his default settings. fuck him.
Well at least Ross is honest. What a reversal on Roe is actually all about is a lot more than abortion. It is about turning back the clock and in case you have not been watching TV or reading anything but FACEBOOK when that old clock gets turned back Roe will only be the surface.
What the right in America wants is to have all of us travel back to the good old days of the 50s. No, not just the 1950s but full on 1850s when wealthy property owning white men controlled all the levers of power and, yes, owned just about everything. They set all the rules like the ones saying it was OK for ten and twelve year old children to work 12 hours a day in sweat shops. Sure, in modern times the economic elites have been able to recreate that scenario but they had to export the jobs to China to get it done. Time to bring the jobs back here, right?
Today the governor of Mississippi opined contraception might be on the chopping block in his state. In case no one has gotten the message the Bat Crap Crazy deluge is just beginning.
I have been warning for the past half century that the Christian fundie fanatics won't stop with banning abortions-- birth control is next on their triumphant march to a theocratic dictatorship.
Although I agree that "it has always been about who gets to control women's bodies," that is not ALL that it has been, and still is-- about. It is also about punishment. It's about forcing a woman to "pay for her sinful act" -- as I once actually _heard_ an evangelical Christian say-- by making her bear an unwanted child.
I have been convinced for many years that the savage vengefulness of the anti-abortion movement has deep roots in rage and ENVY; anti-abortion fanatics are convinced that women who want abortions are mostly sex-crazed sluts who are having a lot more fun in bed than they (the anti-abortion people) are having, and this drives them nuts with an unacknowledged envy that curdles into rage and hatred and desire to inflict punishment. This is especially true with regard to black women, who are regarded as being hyper-sexual, and who therefore need to be "put in their place" by being forced to have unwanted children. The fact-- which pro-choice people often bring up-- that banning abortion has a much greater impact on women of color than on white women-- is exactly what the anti-abortion people want, not that they would ever admit to any of this!
And why is it always the women who are at fault? Do these ‘judges’ forget that a man had to be involved? The man gets to walk away unless he agrees to a marriage or a court orders him to pay child support.
Ross ("Don't") Douthat, who was probably 40 when he was born, is America's leading public doofus. Not only does he take up journalistic real estate that would be better devoted to Leonard Pitts, Will Bunch, Elie Mystal, Eugene Robinson, James Fallows, you, or another heir of the late and much missed Eric Boehlert, his stuff is both wrong and wrong-headed. Ross, we're all really sorry about that mean Martin Luther and those nasty Huguenots, but pull yourself together. I'm old enough to remember pre-Roe days and the terrible chances women who needed care and could not reliably get it were compelled to take; Ross is not. Those were awful times, and anyone who could think that returning to them might be a good idea is either flat stupid or medieval. I will say that any legal opinion that relies on the maintenance of a steady domestic supply of white infants for adoption (this piece of shit, page 34, I'm serious; I've seen more emotional sympathy in memos about stocking trout streams) lacks any fucking humanity and should be referred for psychiatric evaluation.
The sad irony is that making abortions more difficult will NOT lead to a significantly larger supply of “pure white” babies for adoption. That’s because middle class white girls and women will continue to get abortions. Banning abortions will lead to many more black and mixed race children being born, and I don’t see the Ross Douthats of the world lining up to adopt them.
It makes you wonder if the wives, girlfriends and daughters of these powerful men are in full ad agreement with their views. It seems improbable that could be the case, I'm sure there are some heated family discussions: It seems unfair that a few people on the "supreme" court can dismiss such a a strong precedent decided by an earlier court as if to say 'you people were wrong. we are right' and by doing so condemn millions of women now and in the future untold anguish and misery and hardship.
I truly wish your theory was true - that the wives, colleagues, daughters, and extended female family members are likely initiating "heated discussions" about this, but I sincerely suggest that it's likely not true. I was raised in one of these families. There was no pushback. There was silence. Deference to the Man (which is what is demanded by such men). And then there were hushed up arrangements made if someone needed an abortion.
Actually, I appreciated the essence of your thinking because you rightly suggest that women do speak up. And many do! Just not in the kind of powerful and powerfully patriarchal families I suspect produce the men - and women, at times (looking at you, Amy Coney Barrett) - behind the legal actions to strip women of their agency and autonomy. Season that kind of family with white, far-right Christian ideology...and there are sadly no dinner table discussions.
Thank you for your thoughts, Robert, and for your reply.
Right. it all seems so unfair. I think with Barrett that had she not been Catholic she may have been of a different opinion but it is well known that think they abortion and even contraception is frowned on by God and in fact is a sin which if committed could have dire consequences. I'm not sure what those consequences would be as to me if there is a God he/she/it would I should think not have human imperfections of character such as anger and revenge and want to severely punish his creation for anything. After all part of the creation theory is that we are given free will, so now that we use it we will be punished for it? However that said I do believe that for every action there is a reaction, if not immediately at a later date, We are all products of the past events and decisions in our life , of our good choices and our bad choices. There is a belief in metaphysical circles related r to karmic consequences, so any bad decisions, even if made in good faith we will often have to pay the piper. A vey small example would be losing ones temper: Most people feel bad afterwards, ashamed for having lost control of their emotions.and for making the other person feel bad. People who for example hate other ethnic groups for no other reason than that they are different from themselves or that it is believed that somehow they are less worthy than themselves pay a steep price as it is impossible ti be consumed with hate and to feel happy at the same time. Some people go trough their entire life very discontented, envious of other, etc., and sometimes take it out on innocent people like waiters or others in a subservient position that they feel they can bully and be nasty to. They are always unhappy because unhappy because they always have a smouldering resentment and easily snap at people, especially those in the service industry or a rep on the phone,even family members. If they are rich they can sometimes be very auty and demanding towards hired help. Sorry for the long answer but once I start writing I go on and on :).
I'd like to add to the above....Re some of these new draconian laws being contemplated by the red states are downright cruel. You'd think thee Taliban had been consulted to get their advice on how best to deprive women of their basic human rights. I'm surprised some of these arrogant pompous state governors don't suggest reactivating the stocks from the 1600's to be set up in the city squares to punish their disobedient women. . I assume they will stop short of accusing them of witchcraft.
The New York Times LOST ITS CREDIBILITY IN 2016. Shout it out—they are no longer publishing the news “fit to print”—they are an off-shoot of bullshitters riding on their laurels…and right-wing money.
Dawna, I thought I was “liking” Lucian’s piece. Anyway, Iunderstand your anger with the New York Times, and certainly with giving Douthat’s column so much play in the headline. But it is important in a paper of its standing to allow conservative voices in their op-page, if the writing is reasonably reasoned and coherent, and not dishonest about the facts or clearly nuts.
I agree, which is why Douthat is such an obscenity...no perceptible reasoning, almost total incoherence and...I suppose he believes what he writes, but to read the "prose" itself is like eating what looks like shredded wheat, but tastes like sawdust.
The editorial does not accord with your own criteria of reasoned and coherent,. One could make a reasoned and coherent argument for slavery and this was done for centuries, so that is not a reasonable rationale for Douthat and his ilk. Further, he is disingenuous about the facts, and only includes a selective approach in this regard.
Perhaps alternative realities are in play here. Regardless, the editorial is just another example of the mainstream medias need for "balance" (bothsiderism).
when I was a high school counselor, I had a Dominican student who was enough of a devout Catholic that her family would say a few rosaries every night after dinner. her mother was a private nurse. one day, she showed up pregnant and assumed (as I did) that it was time to prepare the house for a baby. when she told this to her mother and began to talk about baby plans, her mother looked at her like she was crazy and told her that she was going to have an abortion "tomorrow." and she did.
From a Rabbi: “ While rabbis may disagree (we often do) about some elements of this debate, it is clear that in Jewish law full personhood begins at birth when the head (or perhaps shoulders) have emerged, not at conception. And if the health of the mother is threatened, an abortion is not only permitted, it is sometimes required. Restricting reproductive rights can also restrict the religious rights of Jews, as put so beautifully by the Orthodox Union (OU):
“Jewish law prioritizes the life of the pregnant mother over the life of the fetus such that where the pregnancy critically endangers the physical health or mental health of the mother, an abortion may be authorized, if not mandated, by halacha and should be available to all women irrespective of their economic status,” the OU said in statement, and added, “Legislation and court rulings — federally or in any state — that absolutely ban abortion without regard for the health of the mother would literally limit our ability to live our lives in accordance with our responsibility to preserve life.”
Thank you for pointing out, Lucian, that this is actually not about the "unborn," or the "moral" implications of getting an abortion. This is about raw power exerted over more than half the population by the other less than half.
Female autonomy, and agency. Everything else is a rabbit hole down which I have stumbled myself in the past."For conservatives, life begins at conception and ends at birth" was my go-to for far too long. Yes, child poverty and the never-ending zeal with which the right perpetuates it is a heinous problem. But this is different. This is about the selves that we women are, as females of our species (and overburdened wives and mothers of the ruling class) - body, mind, and spirit we are persons, finally, after centuries of being property. What percentage of men have ever, ever realized that their rights as full persons habe never been assailed?
So...The Doughy Pantload got his knickers in a twist. Again. Thank you, LTIV, for shining a light on this benighted excuse for affirmative action for white troglodytes on the NYT op-ed page.
In fairness to Anthony Comstock, he understood what few others grasp and that was unregulated postal delivery and unregulated teletype connected to 'news feeds' could unintentionally allow the spread of dangerous information and spread conspiracy theories. He stated publicly that he was no opposed to women's vote should it come and he agreed regulations could be abused. Along with P.T. Barnum, Comstock wanted a better understanding of what was happening. 1873 saw radical communes, theosophy and radical neo-Confederate clubs sending messages to rural folk. Comstock was a prude and he did harbor idiot ideas, he was a creature of his times. He was not considered a misogynist but a very ordinary moralist.
There were people peddling sex toys and patent medicines that were dangerous.
The United States was a rustic civilization well into the 20th century.
Much of Alito's opinion is remarkably defensive and he does state twice that his ruling ONLY applies to Roe. 5 Members of the current court are Federalist Society supporters and are noticeably prejudiced. White power is fading, and it will not return, the United States is growing up, and women are not going to give up anything. The fact that the court is so reactionary tells you that they know the future will not be theirs unless they destroy the constitution. They will not succeed. Be certain Americans are much aware of the Federalist Society agenda today. Like the John Birchers they will eventually be tossed into the ash bin of history.
Good piece in the New Yorker about Alito's sources: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution. Jill Lepore notes that it's not just "abortion" that doesn't appear in the Constitution, it's "women". She also points out that "Alito cites a number of eighteenth-century texts; he does not cite anything written by a woman, and not because there’s nothing available." (Mary Wollstonecraft published her _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ in 1791.) Having read Lepore's article, I'm guessing that Injustice Alito got his law degree in the 1860s.
You are on target. Alito hurts his credibility by visible omissions of not just women but honest coverage of other European societies plus the legacy of Rome, where women had various rights. From a world view Alito seems restricted to openly prejudiced English men and laws that were seen as repressive centuries ago. One wonders if Alito ever realizes his own limitations?
Good question, and I suspect the answer is no, or at least "not often." Something the right-wing culture warriors don't get is that diversity makes a community or a nation stronger, smarter, more adaptable. Living in a white-male-dominated bubble does the opposite. These right-wing justices, and many right-wing legislators, have impeccable educational credentials. They aren't stupid, but they seem to be woefully ignorant of how those outside the bubble live, think, etc.
I'm thinking of the crew that David Halberstam called "the best and the brightest" -- the U.S. government officials, elected and appointed, that got us into the Vietnam quagmire. They had impeccable educational credentials too, but they were nearly all affluent white men who didn't realize their limitations. In a word, they didn't know what they didn't know, and they probably assumed that if they didn't know it, it wasn't important.
Till it blew up in their faces. I like to think that over the decades liberals/Democrats have learned their lesson -- at least some of us have. Conservatives/Republicans have been going in the other direction: backwards, into more homogeneity, not less.
As usual, Lucian gets right to the bottom of the issue.
In the mid to late 1990s, I lived with a woman whose entire career was in neo-natal and childbirth nursing. She was thinking about expanding her role, and I supported her fully in doing that. So she entered a nurse midwifery program, which she completed successfully, becoming the first nurse midwife in our county.
Did you know that the AMA was just another healthcare option back in the 19th century? The AMA was on par with herbology/pharmacology, osteopathy, chiropractic, and yes, midwifery. The word “midwife“ comes from the Germanic “mit” = with. A midwife is a woman who is experienced at helping other women give birth. Midwife = With wife.
Then the AMA took the domineering steps that came close to eliminating the other health modalities. Hospitals, maternity care, elder care, and almost all of the healthcare industry in the United States, even dentistry, is dominated and controlled by the AMA. When I was a child, that history was only 30 to 50 years old. Before that time, if you wanted your tooth pulled, doctors were not involved. If you needed to deliver a child, no doctors were involved. If you needed herbs, no doctors were involved.
Not so in Germany for example. Almost all the births in Germany are facilitated by midwives. Not so in India, either. In India, there are multiple completely different tracks and schools for physicians: Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy . . . and western medicine.
Bullies and thugs. That’s the best description of the AMA. Similar to what happened to baseball, which used to be a sport of the people, not a commercial enterprise.
Yes. The AMA pretty much declared they were cleaning out quackery, of which there was some, but it was more about eliminating competition. Their assault on midwifery was perhaps the most despicable and detrimental.
Today I was perusing my old FB posts and I found this paragraph that I'd posted a long time ago:
"There is no acceptable universe where forcing women to have a child without their consent warrants her loss of her individual freedom. Men never pay the real price for having children. They can walk away and usually do."
Which is what the entire argument comes down to: after they dictate what women will or will not do with their bodies men will walk away, satisfied that they have used their power to justify stripping women of the power to be.
Remember, too-most of the anti-abortion crusaders are religious people who believe in the imaginary sky fairy who comes down to tell them what they should do. Not if it's right morally or legally, but because their hypocrisy and zealotry makes them do so, therefore they are right by reason of believing in the imaginary sky fairy to dictate terms of a woman's existence.
And an UNhappy Mother's Day to America. Thank you for this clear if horrid picture. As a former director of a state nursing association, I should have known more about the American Medical Association. And as a former nursing instructor I should have taught it. Thanks for filling in the blanks.
The priest at the Mass we attended today spent his homily attacking the abortion rights movement and applauding this week's news, and offered the usual mix of faulty science/medicine and platitudes about "the moral alternatives", all the while ignoring the rights of women not to be forced to give birth (even in the case of rape, incest, life-threatening condition of the mother, etc.) and not acknowledging that his vision of a theocratic state would dominate ALL citizens and not just Catholics. Other faiths hold the life of the MOTHER to be paramount, not the viability or potential viability of the unborn. And never a mention of the man's part in this, or HIS responsibilities.
He also lamented that "pro-abortion advocates" were prone to violence and that their grievances were manifestations of some deeper disturbance -- he also noted an unnamed special demon who works against the unborn/pregnant women -- but never once did he mention how many Planned Parenthood doctors and staff have been attacked or harassed by anti-abortion mobs or how many doctors have been *stalked and murdered* by fanatics convinced that their "pro-life" beliefs give them license to kill.
The nominal subject of this 4th Sunday of Easter is supposed to be the lesson of Christ the Good Shepherd who watches over His flock. There was no discussion of this concept anywhere in the sermon. I was ashamed (hardly for the first time) for the Church and these experiences really bring home why so many Catholics abandon their faith and feel the Church has betrayed them.
As has been often noted, if MEN could get pregnant, it would be as easy to get an abortion as taking an aspirin.
I hope that was the LAST time you attend that particular Catholic church!
I was about to say the same thing. one of the cool things about being Jewish is that you can always find a place to "worship" in which the dominant beliefs are close to your own, even down to "god-optional" congregations. my own solution is to stay away completely.
FWIW, I have always greatly enjoyed attending services in a synagogue for the weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs for a family we've been friends with since the early 1990s. It's Reform Jewish, I believe. Always dignified, moving, and welcoming to guests.
it's when you get to the right-ish Conservatives and the Orthodox shuls that things start to get hairy....
Find the right synagogue. I have. Adas Israel in DC. Social activist music loving welcoming realistic great Fri night musical service--I could go on. Your heritage! C'mon. Repair the world. You won't find an antiabortion service at Adas, that's for sure.
We're new to this area, and making a circuit of all the parishes (don't even know which one would be our "regular" parish); Catholic dogma is what it is. You either accept it, reject it, or come to your own compromises with it. But I often wonder how fast some clergy will be to disavow previously held positions if/when the higher authorities make a sea change on some positions. Women priests? Contraception? Abortion rights? A lot of folks will have to make an about-turn. Meanwhile, the Church continues to hemorrhage members. We're in a stupid era.
Have you ever heard a Catholic priest denounce pedophile priests?
When I left the legal profession, my boss had just signed on to defend priests accused of sexual relationships with parishioners for an Archdiocese in California. I was not having any part of that.
Melany, you obviously allowed your ethics and real morality to get in the way of what was going to be a lifetime stream of income. Good for you.
There is a difference between right and EVIL. The huge wave of aggrandisement in exchange for ethics then and now is disheartening.
The Catholic Church has undergone many changes in its history, so I disagree that dogma is what it is. For instance, weekly confession is a fairly new doctrine, as is having small children confess, which precipitated the invention of the confessional booth, apparently as a protective device. (Look back at the great Churches of Rome, the confessionals are all later additions, not built into the original structure of the building.) Also, Communion was originally for only the priests, taken in private. I believe that it was not until the 12th century that congregants were also invited to participate, and this precipitated a rash of devotees who claimed to live on the Host alone.
Especially relevant to this discussion, the Catholic Church has NOT always asserted that life begins at conception, and has NOT always opposed abortion. I am not sure when the change occurred, but abortion used to be permitted in the first three months, because the soul was not believed to enter the body until then. Don’t let any abortion-opposing priest tell you differently!
Well, the music was beautiful! Old plainsong and traditional Latin prayers. Not musical theatre or disco Mass. And in a centuries-old church with beautiful stained glass and woodwork. What can I say? Aesthetics can take you to a different world despite rumblings from the peanut gallery (i.e. an indifferent priest or squalling babies in the pews).
My guilt still brings me to the pageantry in big, old prosperous Churches where the chants hauntingly fill the caverns of the church and the incense creates a smoky aura and the main show mesmerizes. I come out feeling holy, feeling good and within five hours I realize I’d just been injected with a fresh dose of guilt.
And that is why I left the church in 1972.
Interesting! I was just thinking that for me it ended when I was 6 years old -that was in 1972.
The end of ceremony.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a voice to communicate “the end” until I was a teenager but that was the point that I realized all they were trying to teach me wasn’t real. I didn’t absorb anymore of the information although I was physically present. So yes, the end of their ceremony for me!
Wasn't that when Latin trashed?
English came earlier than that I think. But In 1972 I was invited to join a Catholic evangelical group, speaking in tongues, swooning in services, and all that. I had been invited to go by a young man I'd had a crush on since we were in 1st grade, so of course I went with him. Later, sitting in his car in my parent's driveway, after all that singing and group swooning, well, "things" finally started to happen for real! And WOW, his spirit was moving, too, and, "STOP!" he yelled. "The Devil is making me do this!" Shocked, I mumbled something about my being a pretty good devil, but to no avail. The next day he took a vow of celibacy, and later became a priest.
All your fault!!!
CLEARLY!!
Wow.
P.S. He is a terrific priest, except for his anti-abortion position, of course.
More or less that took place between 1963 and 1970 when the Novus Ordo was promulgated that permitted/encouraged the vernacular in the revised liturgy. Many churches still incorporate Latin to a greater or lesser degree, I find, plus there's still the old Tridentine Rite celebrated in many parishes at select times and places, and that's like 80% in Latin. Which I like. The old rite has dignity and sonority and tradition and historical connotations and I approve of a "ritual language" that takes you out of mundane concerns and transports you to a special dimension. Plenty of other religions than Christianity appreciate this quality.
❤
I would have walked out and made a show of it. The incels that inhabit the priesthood still cling to their sense of infallibility and the gullibility of their flock. I’m surprised that you didn’t report people leaving. One big reason I don’t attend Catholic Mass. I detest them for the guilt they built in me from childhood on.
I completely understand the sentiment. But I can't go to mass looking to be offended and start a public fight , it seems rude and bad manners and you can't take it back and it probably wouldn't have impressed anyone. Their house, their rules -- but some of us are part of The Resistance.
Can't remember who coined this, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament".
My first clinical rotation in my third year of medical school (Harvard) was gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital. The first patient assigned to me was an 18 year old BU freshman from Long Island who was admitted through the ER with a perforated uterus and peritonitis after a botched backroom abortion.
She almost died, and eventually had to undergo a hysterectomy.
I will never forget the anguish of her parents when they arrived at the hospital.
Needless to say, Roe was a human rights breakthrough, and reversing it will do great harm.
Ross Douthat's image is what one encounters upon looking up "obtuse" in Roget's Thesaurus. Has anyone ever been so wrong, on so many issues, so often, so consistently, and yet still maintained a position of relative prominence? Surely his continued presence on the New York Times frontage is a tribute to the broad acceptance among the liberal media in general of the principles of remedial advancement for perennial silly-buggers?
I used to single out every one of his columns I considered rambling, weird and hateful until I realized that those flaws were his default settings. fuck him.
Well at least Ross is honest. What a reversal on Roe is actually all about is a lot more than abortion. It is about turning back the clock and in case you have not been watching TV or reading anything but FACEBOOK when that old clock gets turned back Roe will only be the surface.
What the right in America wants is to have all of us travel back to the good old days of the 50s. No, not just the 1950s but full on 1850s when wealthy property owning white men controlled all the levers of power and, yes, owned just about everything. They set all the rules like the ones saying it was OK for ten and twelve year old children to work 12 hours a day in sweat shops. Sure, in modern times the economic elites have been able to recreate that scenario but they had to export the jobs to China to get it done. Time to bring the jobs back here, right?
Today the governor of Mississippi opined contraception might be on the chopping block in his state. In case no one has gotten the message the Bat Crap Crazy deluge is just beginning.
I have been warning for the past half century that the Christian fundie fanatics won't stop with banning abortions-- birth control is next on their triumphant march to a theocratic dictatorship.
PS to my comment: I have not noticed that evangelicals have huge families…. I guess they practice abstinence, huh?
"Natural" birth control - no sex when a woman is in heat (ovulating) , which of course, is when it is most pleasurable.
Obvious...theocracy!!!
Although I agree that "it has always been about who gets to control women's bodies," that is not ALL that it has been, and still is-- about. It is also about punishment. It's about forcing a woman to "pay for her sinful act" -- as I once actually _heard_ an evangelical Christian say-- by making her bear an unwanted child.
I have been convinced for many years that the savage vengefulness of the anti-abortion movement has deep roots in rage and ENVY; anti-abortion fanatics are convinced that women who want abortions are mostly sex-crazed sluts who are having a lot more fun in bed than they (the anti-abortion people) are having, and this drives them nuts with an unacknowledged envy that curdles into rage and hatred and desire to inflict punishment. This is especially true with regard to black women, who are regarded as being hyper-sexual, and who therefore need to be "put in their place" by being forced to have unwanted children. The fact-- which pro-choice people often bring up-- that banning abortion has a much greater impact on women of color than on white women-- is exactly what the anti-abortion people want, not that they would ever admit to any of this!
And why is it always the women who are at fault? Do these ‘judges’ forget that a man had to be involved? The man gets to walk away unless he agrees to a marriage or a court orders him to pay child support.
Ross ("Don't") Douthat, who was probably 40 when he was born, is America's leading public doofus. Not only does he take up journalistic real estate that would be better devoted to Leonard Pitts, Will Bunch, Elie Mystal, Eugene Robinson, James Fallows, you, or another heir of the late and much missed Eric Boehlert, his stuff is both wrong and wrong-headed. Ross, we're all really sorry about that mean Martin Luther and those nasty Huguenots, but pull yourself together. I'm old enough to remember pre-Roe days and the terrible chances women who needed care and could not reliably get it were compelled to take; Ross is not. Those were awful times, and anyone who could think that returning to them might be a good idea is either flat stupid or medieval. I will say that any legal opinion that relies on the maintenance of a steady domestic supply of white infants for adoption (this piece of shit, page 34, I'm serious; I've seen more emotional sympathy in memos about stocking trout streams) lacks any fucking humanity and should be referred for psychiatric evaluation.
To your stupid or medieval I would add: viciously, sadistically cruel.
The sad irony is that making abortions more difficult will NOT lead to a significantly larger supply of “pure white” babies for adoption. That’s because middle class white girls and women will continue to get abortions. Banning abortions will lead to many more black and mixed race children being born, and I don’t see the Ross Douthats of the world lining up to adopt them.
Convince the Right they are providing more criminals...voila!!!
It makes you wonder if the wives, girlfriends and daughters of these powerful men are in full ad agreement with their views. It seems improbable that could be the case, I'm sure there are some heated family discussions: It seems unfair that a few people on the "supreme" court can dismiss such a a strong precedent decided by an earlier court as if to say 'you people were wrong. we are right' and by doing so condemn millions of women now and in the future untold anguish and misery and hardship.
I truly wish your theory was true - that the wives, colleagues, daughters, and extended female family members are likely initiating "heated discussions" about this, but I sincerely suggest that it's likely not true. I was raised in one of these families. There was no pushback. There was silence. Deference to the Man (which is what is demanded by such men). And then there were hushed up arrangements made if someone needed an abortion.
Debora, so sad to her, but I am not surprised though. I guess it was wishful thinking on my part..
Actually, I appreciated the essence of your thinking because you rightly suggest that women do speak up. And many do! Just not in the kind of powerful and powerfully patriarchal families I suspect produce the men - and women, at times (looking at you, Amy Coney Barrett) - behind the legal actions to strip women of their agency and autonomy. Season that kind of family with white, far-right Christian ideology...and there are sadly no dinner table discussions.
Thank you for your thoughts, Robert, and for your reply.
Right. it all seems so unfair. I think with Barrett that had she not been Catholic she may have been of a different opinion but it is well known that think they abortion and even contraception is frowned on by God and in fact is a sin which if committed could have dire consequences. I'm not sure what those consequences would be as to me if there is a God he/she/it would I should think not have human imperfections of character such as anger and revenge and want to severely punish his creation for anything. After all part of the creation theory is that we are given free will, so now that we use it we will be punished for it? However that said I do believe that for every action there is a reaction, if not immediately at a later date, We are all products of the past events and decisions in our life , of our good choices and our bad choices. There is a belief in metaphysical circles related r to karmic consequences, so any bad decisions, even if made in good faith we will often have to pay the piper. A vey small example would be losing ones temper: Most people feel bad afterwards, ashamed for having lost control of their emotions.and for making the other person feel bad. People who for example hate other ethnic groups for no other reason than that they are different from themselves or that it is believed that somehow they are less worthy than themselves pay a steep price as it is impossible ti be consumed with hate and to feel happy at the same time. Some people go trough their entire life very discontented, envious of other, etc., and sometimes take it out on innocent people like waiters or others in a subservient position that they feel they can bully and be nasty to. They are always unhappy because unhappy because they always have a smouldering resentment and easily snap at people, especially those in the service industry or a rep on the phone,even family members. If they are rich they can sometimes be very auty and demanding towards hired help. Sorry for the long answer but once I start writing I go on and on :).
I'd like to add to the above....Re some of these new draconian laws being contemplated by the red states are downright cruel. You'd think thee Taliban had been consulted to get their advice on how best to deprive women of their basic human rights. I'm surprised some of these arrogant pompous state governors don't suggest reactivating the stocks from the 1600's to be set up in the city squares to punish their disobedient women. . I assume they will stop short of accusing them of witchcraft.
The New York Times LOST ITS CREDIBILITY IN 2016. Shout it out—they are no longer publishing the news “fit to print”—they are an off-shoot of bullshitters riding on their laurels…and right-wing money.
Dawna, I thought I was “liking” Lucian’s piece. Anyway, Iunderstand your anger with the New York Times, and certainly with giving Douthat’s column so much play in the headline. But it is important in a paper of its standing to allow conservative voices in their op-page, if the writing is reasonably reasoned and coherent, and not dishonest about the facts or clearly nuts.
I agree, which is why Douthat is such an obscenity...no perceptible reasoning, almost total incoherence and...I suppose he believes what he writes, but to read the "prose" itself is like eating what looks like shredded wheat, but tastes like sawdust.
Maybe the Times is doing what the leaker at the SCOTUS has done, let the right commit suicide.
The editorial does not accord with your own criteria of reasoned and coherent,. One could make a reasoned and coherent argument for slavery and this was done for centuries, so that is not a reasonable rationale for Douthat and his ilk. Further, he is disingenuous about the facts, and only includes a selective approach in this regard.
Perhaps alternative realities are in play here. Regardless, the editorial is just another example of the mainstream medias need for "balance" (bothsiderism).
I canceled my NYT subscription about a year and a half ago. I don’t miss it.
when I was a high school counselor, I had a Dominican student who was enough of a devout Catholic that her family would say a few rosaries every night after dinner. her mother was a private nurse. one day, she showed up pregnant and assumed (as I did) that it was time to prepare the house for a baby. when she told this to her mother and began to talk about baby plans, her mother looked at her like she was crazy and told her that she was going to have an abortion "tomorrow." and she did.
From a Rabbi: “ While rabbis may disagree (we often do) about some elements of this debate, it is clear that in Jewish law full personhood begins at birth when the head (or perhaps shoulders) have emerged, not at conception. And if the health of the mother is threatened, an abortion is not only permitted, it is sometimes required. Restricting reproductive rights can also restrict the religious rights of Jews, as put so beautifully by the Orthodox Union (OU):
“Jewish law prioritizes the life of the pregnant mother over the life of the fetus such that where the pregnancy critically endangers the physical health or mental health of the mother, an abortion may be authorized, if not mandated, by halacha and should be available to all women irrespective of their economic status,” the OU said in statement, and added, “Legislation and court rulings — federally or in any state — that absolutely ban abortion without regard for the health of the mother would literally limit our ability to live our lives in accordance with our responsibility to preserve life.”
Thank you for pointing out, Lucian, that this is actually not about the "unborn," or the "moral" implications of getting an abortion. This is about raw power exerted over more than half the population by the other less than half.
Female autonomy, and agency. Everything else is a rabbit hole down which I have stumbled myself in the past."For conservatives, life begins at conception and ends at birth" was my go-to for far too long. Yes, child poverty and the never-ending zeal with which the right perpetuates it is a heinous problem. But this is different. This is about the selves that we women are, as females of our species (and overburdened wives and mothers of the ruling class) - body, mind, and spirit we are persons, finally, after centuries of being property. What percentage of men have ever, ever realized that their rights as full persons habe never been assailed?
So...The Doughy Pantload got his knickers in a twist. Again. Thank you, LTIV, for shining a light on this benighted excuse for affirmative action for white troglodytes on the NYT op-ed page.
In fairness to Anthony Comstock, he understood what few others grasp and that was unregulated postal delivery and unregulated teletype connected to 'news feeds' could unintentionally allow the spread of dangerous information and spread conspiracy theories. He stated publicly that he was no opposed to women's vote should it come and he agreed regulations could be abused. Along with P.T. Barnum, Comstock wanted a better understanding of what was happening. 1873 saw radical communes, theosophy and radical neo-Confederate clubs sending messages to rural folk. Comstock was a prude and he did harbor idiot ideas, he was a creature of his times. He was not considered a misogynist but a very ordinary moralist.
There were people peddling sex toys and patent medicines that were dangerous.
The United States was a rustic civilization well into the 20th century.
Much of Alito's opinion is remarkably defensive and he does state twice that his ruling ONLY applies to Roe. 5 Members of the current court are Federalist Society supporters and are noticeably prejudiced. White power is fading, and it will not return, the United States is growing up, and women are not going to give up anything. The fact that the court is so reactionary tells you that they know the future will not be theirs unless they destroy the constitution. They will not succeed. Be certain Americans are much aware of the Federalist Society agenda today. Like the John Birchers they will eventually be tossed into the ash bin of history.
Good piece in the New Yorker about Alito's sources: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution. Jill Lepore notes that it's not just "abortion" that doesn't appear in the Constitution, it's "women". She also points out that "Alito cites a number of eighteenth-century texts; he does not cite anything written by a woman, and not because there’s nothing available." (Mary Wollstonecraft published her _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ in 1791.) Having read Lepore's article, I'm guessing that Injustice Alito got his law degree in the 1860s.
You are on target. Alito hurts his credibility by visible omissions of not just women but honest coverage of other European societies plus the legacy of Rome, where women had various rights. From a world view Alito seems restricted to openly prejudiced English men and laws that were seen as repressive centuries ago. One wonders if Alito ever realizes his own limitations?
Good question, and I suspect the answer is no, or at least "not often." Something the right-wing culture warriors don't get is that diversity makes a community or a nation stronger, smarter, more adaptable. Living in a white-male-dominated bubble does the opposite. These right-wing justices, and many right-wing legislators, have impeccable educational credentials. They aren't stupid, but they seem to be woefully ignorant of how those outside the bubble live, think, etc.
I'm thinking of the crew that David Halberstam called "the best and the brightest" -- the U.S. government officials, elected and appointed, that got us into the Vietnam quagmire. They had impeccable educational credentials too, but they were nearly all affluent white men who didn't realize their limitations. In a word, they didn't know what they didn't know, and they probably assumed that if they didn't know it, it wasn't important.
Till it blew up in their faces. I like to think that over the decades liberals/Democrats have learned their lesson -- at least some of us have. Conservatives/Republicans have been going in the other direction: backwards, into more homogeneity, not less.
Here's more evidence of bubble thinking, from Injustice Clarence Thomas. He doesn't seem to see the inconsistency between his berating people for not accepting reality and his wife's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/clarence-thomas-speaks-shows-profound-lack-self-awareness-rcna27896?
Alito's opinion cites a 17th century jurist who was responsible for burning witches at the stake. I don't take his opinion very seriously.
As usual, Lucian gets right to the bottom of the issue.
In the mid to late 1990s, I lived with a woman whose entire career was in neo-natal and childbirth nursing. She was thinking about expanding her role, and I supported her fully in doing that. So she entered a nurse midwifery program, which she completed successfully, becoming the first nurse midwife in our county.
Did you know that the AMA was just another healthcare option back in the 19th century? The AMA was on par with herbology/pharmacology, osteopathy, chiropractic, and yes, midwifery. The word “midwife“ comes from the Germanic “mit” = with. A midwife is a woman who is experienced at helping other women give birth. Midwife = With wife.
Then the AMA took the domineering steps that came close to eliminating the other health modalities. Hospitals, maternity care, elder care, and almost all of the healthcare industry in the United States, even dentistry, is dominated and controlled by the AMA. When I was a child, that history was only 30 to 50 years old. Before that time, if you wanted your tooth pulled, doctors were not involved. If you needed to deliver a child, no doctors were involved. If you needed herbs, no doctors were involved.
Not so in Germany for example. Almost all the births in Germany are facilitated by midwives. Not so in India, either. In India, there are multiple completely different tracks and schools for physicians: Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy . . . and western medicine.
Bullies and thugs. That’s the best description of the AMA. Similar to what happened to baseball, which used to be a sport of the people, not a commercial enterprise.
Yes. The AMA pretty much declared they were cleaning out quackery, of which there was some, but it was more about eliminating competition. Their assault on midwifery was perhaps the most despicable and detrimental.
Today I was perusing my old FB posts and I found this paragraph that I'd posted a long time ago:
"There is no acceptable universe where forcing women to have a child without their consent warrants her loss of her individual freedom. Men never pay the real price for having children. They can walk away and usually do."
Which is what the entire argument comes down to: after they dictate what women will or will not do with their bodies men will walk away, satisfied that they have used their power to justify stripping women of the power to be.
Remember, too-most of the anti-abortion crusaders are religious people who believe in the imaginary sky fairy who comes down to tell them what they should do. Not if it's right morally or legally, but because their hypocrisy and zealotry makes them do so, therefore they are right by reason of believing in the imaginary sky fairy to dictate terms of a woman's existence.
And an UNhappy Mother's Day to America. Thank you for this clear if horrid picture. As a former director of a state nursing association, I should have known more about the American Medical Association. And as a former nursing instructor I should have taught it. Thanks for filling in the blanks.