Friday, February 13, 2004
An exchange with Assemblywoman Paulin
"Dear Friend of Choice:
From day one, the Bush administration has deliberately and doggedly
attempted to turn back decades of progress in our struggle for
reproductive freedom. On April 25th, I will be marching in Washington,
D.C. with thousands of women and men from across the country to
demonstrate overwhelming majority support for women's right to choose
safe, legal abortion and birth control, and women's right to
self-determination.
I hope that you will join me in representing the 88th Assembly District of
New York State at the march. I am organizing a bus that will depart from
the Vernon Hills Shopping Center (Lord and Taylor) in
Eastchester/Scarsdale. Please see the attached registration form for more
details.
WE ARE MARCHING BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN:
*Timely, affordable and culturally appropriate reproductive health care
for all, including low-income women whose ability to obtain services is
currently impeded by Hyde Amendment restrictions or by lack of insurance;
*An end to state-imposed restrictions on abortion rights in many parts of
the country, such as 24-hour waiting periods, state-mandated biased
counseling and forced parental notification; *Provision of comprehensive,
medically-accurate sexuality education and provider training; *Freedom
from government intrusion into private decisions about sexuality and
reproduction; *An end to discrimination in health care on the basis of
income, race, ethnic background, legal status, or sexual orientation; and
*The right of each woman to use her own ethical and/or religious beliefs
to make decisions about whether and when to have children-unrestricted by
institutional religious policies.
We must show the White House that we will not go back and we will not rest
until all people, all over the world, have the right to high quality,
affordable, accessible, and safe reproductive health care.
Please call Victoria Broccolo at my District Office (914-723-1115) for
additional information.
Thank you."
My response, in bold:
Assemblywoman,
If I may quote Ghandi:"It seems to me clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime."
Perhaps Lincoln. In one of his debates with Lincoln in 1858, Douglas scolded his opponent for telling the people in the slave states that their institution violated the law of God. "Better for him," he said, to cheers and applause, "to adopt the doctrine of `judge not lest ye be judged.'"
Emma Goldman?
"The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief...So great is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions are committed in every one hundred pregnancies."
Mother Earth, 1911
Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library
Susan B. Anthony?
"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"
The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869
Even Planned Parenthood has admitted that anti-abortion people make up most of the country. If they admit it, the actual figures must be much more skewed.
This is not the White House that you march against. It is the people of the United States, and the people of the world. I ask you to recall a particular session of the UN General Assembly a few years ago when several nations marched in a group of adolescents who, claiming to speak for all the young people of the world, demanded contraception and abortion on demand enforced by the UN. You will recall, I think, that very soon after that a rather larger group of people marched in and told the General Assembly that the others were not speaking for all the young people of the world, and that in fact most of the youth didn't want any of that. Such was the beginning of the World Youth Alliance, now a million strong, responsible in large part for the pro-life victories at Bejing+5.
Perhaps the Feminists for Life would be more your style. http://www.feministsforlife.com . Or perhaps Atheists for Life. I'm not sure.
Our understanding of self-determination is that your right to swing your fist ends when it meets your neighbor's jaw. I don't think you need any religion to understand that. Nor do I propose any religious answers to what you have said. I'm quite sure that I would disagree violently with Ghandi, Goldman, Stanton, Anthony, and Lincoln about any religious point that could be brought up. But abortion, we all agree on.
An interesting statistic. The most pro-life people in this country are ages 12-30. Those most in favor of abortion, as any 19th century feminist could have told you, are males ages 18-25. I don't think I need to explain why that is.
If I may end as I ended our last exchange, fetus is just the Latin word for child. It was meant, once, to be cute. I do not think it was intended to become a curse.
Sincerely,
David Solimano
From day one, the Bush administration has deliberately and doggedly
attempted to turn back decades of progress in our struggle for
reproductive freedom. On April 25th, I will be marching in Washington,
D.C. with thousands of women and men from across the country to
demonstrate overwhelming majority support for women's right to choose
safe, legal abortion and birth control, and women's right to
self-determination.
I hope that you will join me in representing the 88th Assembly District of
New York State at the march. I am organizing a bus that will depart from
the Vernon Hills Shopping Center (Lord and Taylor) in
Eastchester/Scarsdale. Please see the attached registration form for more
details.
WE ARE MARCHING BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN:
*Timely, affordable and culturally appropriate reproductive health care
for all, including low-income women whose ability to obtain services is
currently impeded by Hyde Amendment restrictions or by lack of insurance;
*An end to state-imposed restrictions on abortion rights in many parts of
the country, such as 24-hour waiting periods, state-mandated biased
counseling and forced parental notification; *Provision of comprehensive,
medically-accurate sexuality education and provider training; *Freedom
from government intrusion into private decisions about sexuality and
reproduction; *An end to discrimination in health care on the basis of
income, race, ethnic background, legal status, or sexual orientation; and
*The right of each woman to use her own ethical and/or religious beliefs
to make decisions about whether and when to have children-unrestricted by
institutional religious policies.
We must show the White House that we will not go back and we will not rest
until all people, all over the world, have the right to high quality,
affordable, accessible, and safe reproductive health care.
Please call Victoria Broccolo at my District Office (914-723-1115) for
additional information.
Thank you."
My response, in bold:
Assemblywoman,
If I may quote Ghandi:"It seems to me clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime."
Perhaps Lincoln. In one of his debates with Lincoln in 1858, Douglas scolded his opponent for telling the people in the slave states that their institution violated the law of God. "Better for him," he said, to cheers and applause, "to adopt the doctrine of `judge not lest ye be judged.'"
Emma Goldman?
"The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief...So great is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions are committed in every one hundred pregnancies."
Mother Earth, 1911
Elizabeth Cady Stanton?
"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library
Susan B. Anthony?
"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!"
The Revolution, 4(1):4 July 8, 1869
Even Planned Parenthood has admitted that anti-abortion people make up most of the country. If they admit it, the actual figures must be much more skewed.
This is not the White House that you march against. It is the people of the United States, and the people of the world. I ask you to recall a particular session of the UN General Assembly a few years ago when several nations marched in a group of adolescents who, claiming to speak for all the young people of the world, demanded contraception and abortion on demand enforced by the UN. You will recall, I think, that very soon after that a rather larger group of people marched in and told the General Assembly that the others were not speaking for all the young people of the world, and that in fact most of the youth didn't want any of that. Such was the beginning of the World Youth Alliance, now a million strong, responsible in large part for the pro-life victories at Bejing+5.
Perhaps the Feminists for Life would be more your style. http://www.feministsforlife.com . Or perhaps Atheists for Life. I'm not sure.
Our understanding of self-determination is that your right to swing your fist ends when it meets your neighbor's jaw. I don't think you need any religion to understand that. Nor do I propose any religious answers to what you have said. I'm quite sure that I would disagree violently with Ghandi, Goldman, Stanton, Anthony, and Lincoln about any religious point that could be brought up. But abortion, we all agree on.
An interesting statistic. The most pro-life people in this country are ages 12-30. Those most in favor of abortion, as any 19th century feminist could have told you, are males ages 18-25. I don't think I need to explain why that is.
If I may end as I ended our last exchange, fetus is just the Latin word for child. It was meant, once, to be cute. I do not think it was intended to become a curse.
Sincerely,
David Solimano
