I was born and raised as a feminist by my mother, who is exactly 40 years older than I am. My mother went to college in the 1960s in New England, where she tried to open a bank account but they wouldn’t let her unless her husband or father co-signed as an account holder. She wasn’t legally allowed to have a credit card until 1974. She got married in 1975, and legally, she had no right to refuse to have sex with her husband until the late 1970s in some states (and 1993 in others).
Last week, Senator Rand Paul was interviewed by David Axelrod, and spoke about the polarization in America over abortion. He talked about how he believes the country is “somewhere in the middle” on abortion and needs to be persuaded before abortion can be made illegal. His stance is surprisingly gentle considering his March 2013 introduction of the Life at Conception Act, which never made it to the floor of either the House or Senate.
The trouble I find with this whole “polarization” discussion is that there’s really just one group that doesn’t wish to compromise at all. They’re the ones who claim we want “abortion on demand” and try to ban emergency contraception. They’re the ones that hold up signs at clinics with pictures of dead fetuses, as if that represents what most abortions look like. They’re the ones that don’t rush to condemn domestic terrorism against abortion providers, even when that violence murders doctors.
But when you look at the public opinion polls and talk to people, reasonably, you’ll find that most people, even those opposed to abortion, aren’t actually like the people I just described above. Out of civility, I’ll refer to that whole group by the name they call themselves: pro-life.
In the interest of non-hysteria, let’s note that most pro-life individuals often support the option to abort in the instances of incest, rape or risk to life of the mother. And let’s also acknowledge that even pro-choice individuals speak out against things like “partial birth abortion“, which has been banned federally since 2003 (it was already illegal almost everywhere, but the “party of small government” apparently loves redundant laws), and nearly all pro-choice individuals defer to medical standards of viability when discussing acceptable restrictions.
Yesterday was the American holiday of Thanksgiving. I was never particularly taken with the children’s lore of Natives and Pilgrims making peace over shared food as I was always made aware by my academic and sometimes cynical parents about the genocide of Natives and the problems of imperialism.
As a teenager, what I observed most was the sheer gluttony of the holidays; an abundance of food while, in much of the world, people go hungry – we as Americans consume until we enter “food comas”, only to be brought out of them by early morning sales the next day as another display of gluttony and consumerism pervades our collective culture – Black Friday. Continue reading Thanksgiving→
Yesterday was October 31st, which was the holiday of Halloween.
There is an excellent article by Isaac Bonewits about the pagan origins of Halloween, which I highly recommend you read – but I’ll be the first to admit that by now and in mainstream American culture, Halloween is a secular holiday where people dress up in costumes, children get candy, adults get drunk, and everybody has a grand time.
However, I am one of those odd people well acquainted with the pagan origins of Halloween, as I was raised by neo-pagan parents who also happened to be academics. So forgive me as I ramble on about the other less mainstream aspects of this particular holiday. Continue reading Halloween & Samhain→
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin
