I've been spending some time with my 93-year-old mother-in-law. As you might imagine, that, in itself, has its challenges. But apart from the physical limitations of sight and hearing, the mental ones of technology and age, she does remarkably well at navigating the massive social change that surrounds us all.
Betsy is a liberal. A classic liberal. She lives in Berkeley, California, and in many ways epitomizes the world-view of what that is supposed to mean. She's lived through world war, and at least 15 Presidential terms, notwithstanding the fact that FDR was elected 4 times.
This past weekend, as luck would have it, most of the family went in different directions and the two of us remained to spend some time together.
We watched some films, we took a hike around a local lake at one of the regional parks that dot the East Bay hills, and then settled in one evening to watch a political commentator on cable news. Not surprising, the program soon turned to the recent news that the Supreme Court was about to receive a new member since Justice Kennedy announced his impending retirement.
It was not long afterward that the conversation before us turned to the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, given the present political climate. Many such discussions seem to be covering the talk show landscape these dates. Now my mother-in-law was married to a man who could best be described as a real pioneer in women's reproductive rights. A former OB-GYN, he devoted the second half of his life to public health and worked in various places on various continents. I know her mind on this issue, but the renewed fervor of the issue lately has left us all thinking. In one of those rare moments when a complex issue becomes strikingly clear the following conversation took place:
Me: Abortion and a woman's right to choose has become the great moral issue of our time. It's not unlike slavery was 150 years ago.
She: Yes it has. But I have a question for you.
Me: What's your question?
She: Why do these men think it's their decision to make?
Me: Well, it's a political decision, and it's about power, political power, isn't it?
Suddenly a thought occurred to me.
Cue celestial music...
This entire issue became reduced to an absurdity; the complexity of the arguments seemed to vanish under the realization that any institution that has men making decisions for and about women and their bodies is ludicrous and an anachronism.
Now maybe it just seemed that way to me because I am a man. But I can only speak from my own experience and report what I perceived at that moment. So what? So what now?
I'm ready to put my body on the line. Time's Up.
Betsy is a liberal. A classic liberal. She lives in Berkeley, California, and in many ways epitomizes the world-view of what that is supposed to mean. She's lived through world war, and at least 15 Presidential terms, notwithstanding the fact that FDR was elected 4 times.
This past weekend, as luck would have it, most of the family went in different directions and the two of us remained to spend some time together.
We watched some films, we took a hike around a local lake at one of the regional parks that dot the East Bay hills, and then settled in one evening to watch a political commentator on cable news. Not surprising, the program soon turned to the recent news that the Supreme Court was about to receive a new member since Justice Kennedy announced his impending retirement.
It was not long afterward that the conversation before us turned to the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, given the present political climate. Many such discussions seem to be covering the talk show landscape these dates. Now my mother-in-law was married to a man who could best be described as a real pioneer in women's reproductive rights. A former OB-GYN, he devoted the second half of his life to public health and worked in various places on various continents. I know her mind on this issue, but the renewed fervor of the issue lately has left us all thinking. In one of those rare moments when a complex issue becomes strikingly clear the following conversation took place:
Me: Abortion and a woman's right to choose has become the great moral issue of our time. It's not unlike slavery was 150 years ago.
She: Yes it has. But I have a question for you.
Me: What's your question?
She: Why do these men think it's their decision to make?
Me: Well, it's a political decision, and it's about power, political power, isn't it?
Suddenly a thought occurred to me.
Cue celestial music...
This entire issue became reduced to an absurdity; the complexity of the arguments seemed to vanish under the realization that any institution that has men making decisions for and about women and their bodies is ludicrous and an anachronism.
Now maybe it just seemed that way to me because I am a man. But I can only speak from my own experience and report what I perceived at that moment. So what? So what now?
I'm ready to put my body on the line. Time's Up.
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