[Peace-discuss] Stop dividing AntiWar

Sun Jul 29 02:37:00 UTC 2018

bjornsona--

You write, “I consider it inappropriate ... for you to continue dragging abortion into an anti-war, anti-racism discussion action group.”

I disagree. The contemporary anti-war movement - during the Bush/Obama/Trump administrations - has taken as a motto, “My political views: I'm basically against anything that kills people or destroys the planet we live on." 

My grandchildren were obviously people a month before they were born, as they were a month afterwards. If we’re against actions of the US government that end human lives in Afghanistan, we should also be against social policies that encourage poor people to end their children’s lives so that they won’t cost the government money. 

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out that Roe v. Wade was decided for economic and eugenic reasons: “Frankly,” she said in July 2009, “I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” As a result, abortion is the leading cause of death in the US today - more than cancer, heart disease, homicide, suicide, etc. - but disproportionally affects the poor.

Just as it’s not enough to forbid the killing of poor people in the Mideast for the profits of the US one percent, so it’s not enough to forbid the killing of the children of the poor to protect the profits of that same one percent. We must pay reparations for our Mideast wars, and at home, establish medical care for all, as well as child supports, housing, and education for all.  

What you call the “anti-abortion group” (parallel, I suppose to the ‘anti-war group’ - i.e., those  opposed respectively to abortion and war) is not “another identity group, controlled by [various conspirators].” That’s the charge made against various anti-war movements at the outset, and I know you don’t accept that.

I have no fondness for the GOP, even if Russiagate - a largely successful attempt to restore the war policies and provocations of the last administration, from Ukraine to the South China Sea - makes it clear that the Democrats at the moment are worse.

Yes, it’s true that only women (not men) get pregnant and abortion ends a human life. But trying to define quickening as the moment a fetus become human and acquires rights is otiose. There’s an obvious point at which one becomes human - conception. 

Your question about “Mary’s free will” (“If she had said No to being the mother of Jesus, would God the Father have given up?”) is the sort of thing that Scholastics in the theological faculties of medieval universities used to sharpen their dialectical abilities (which were considerable), but arguments about what God would have done do not I think get us very far.

Neither, I think, do arguments about the coming and going of a soul. Soul is not even mentioned in the early Christian creeds: the central doctrine is the resurrection of the body. To regard the the soul as an entelechy - the actualization of the potential of being human - seems to me a good summary of a long theological and philosophical discussion. But as clever a man as Descartes thought that the soul was a different substance, connected to the body in the pineal gland, deep in the brain. He could tell the Russian doctors where to look... 

Your animadversions about organized Christianity are sadly frequently justified - perhaps not surprising in any movement that’s been around so long and is so large (are there any others?) - but I’m not sure your case is strengthened by a literalistic reading of the some two dozen memoirs, letters, meditations, and notes that make up the New Testament - and took a century to be rather haphazardly assembled. Generations of Christians lived and died without ever seeing a New Testament; Christian groups had no agreement about what texts belonged until the 16th century and differ from one another today.

Christianity is a movement, not a book - more like a fissiparous political party - or group of parties - than a constitution-based organization (like the United States).  When the present bishop of Rome was elected, he was asked, “Who are you?” Pope Francis replied, “I’m a sinner.” Yes, of course.    

But our subject here is not a theological or religious matter. It’s ethical and political: Is opposition to abortion - and the conditions that occasion it - like opposition to war, and the conditions that occasion that - or is it unrelated and therefore potentially a distraction? 

I think the answer is that they are bound up together, encompassing as they do questions of the deaths of many of our coevals. And we haven’t even mentioned capitalism, which commodifies all human lives.

Regards, CGE

> On Jul 13, 2018, at 8:26 PM, ewj via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
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> bjornsona's email was scrozzled in the mailserver somehow and would not display but i found this in the raw data..
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> Carl and ewg at pigs.ag <mailto:ewg at pigs.ag>, whoever you are, again enough is enough. At the risk of projecting my own Shadow,  I consider it inappropriate, counterproductive and self-indulgent for you to continue dragging abortion into an anti-war, anti-racism discussion action group. I am sure I speak for others in this group. Carl, I respect your work quite a lot.  You have pointed out how identity politics splits the hungry and angry masses into easily controllable groups. The anti- abortion group is only  another identity group, controlled by the Vatican, the U.S. bishops,  the Christian fundamentalists, the GOP misogynists & the Stepford women. A large identity group, sure, BUT not as large as the rest of the country and the world who disagree & who generally  have more science education, actual practical experience of pregnancy & birth, and belong to other spiritual traditions. It amazes me that an intelligent person like yourself would try to pass that "Live Action"  article off on us as logically sound and not a collection of overwrought anecdotes. As the GOP, of whom you appear to be so fond, says, let those nurses get other jobs if they don't want to work in the delivery room. Writing your message below with such blanket  statements as "pregnant people" & "abortion obviously ends a human lif e," fail the logic test too. Many WOMEN have abortions at early stages when the fetus has not yet reached quickening. I believe that is around 15-20 weeks. For thousands of years, women did not consider the fetus to be an actual baby until quickening, which I believe we now know was when the risk of spontaneous miscarriage was lower. Quickening is also after a woman has spent time eating for two and her body has begun preparing for an actual baby to develop. In other words, it is a triple venture between God, the woman, and the fetus. ( NOT that  some parasite has taken over a woman's body and  can develop on its own.) Even a critical reading of the Annunciation story in the New Testament allows Mary free will. If she had said No to being the mother of Jesus, would God the Father have given up? Of course not! He simply would have found another Mary, or Sarah, to be the Mother of his Son. Evidence for that is clear all over our daily lives. We are given free will choices every day. If we choose not to do somet hing, and God needs it done, it gets done in another way. (I bet you have witnessed that.) Educators & doctors know what happens if a woman does not want, or is not able to care for her own and the fetus' , then later, the baby's body. Society ends up with a stillborn or injured child:- brain damaged by lead, if the woman lives in Flint, for example. Perhaps women actually know something and care  about their own bodies and fetuses/babies. What a thought!  You have probably read that Russian scientists have measured a small amount of weight that leaves the body when a person dies. They speculate that is the weight of the soul.  When does the soul enter the body? Perhaps at quickening, when the fetus has been determined to be able to grow into a healthy baby and not be miscarried.   To address some of what you have written: yes, it would be lovely if we lived in a perfect world and the economics are such that every woman/ family could afford every pregnancy that makes it through the zygote/fetus/spontaneous miscarriage/quickening/developing baby/ to healthy birth stage. Unfortunately, we do not have that. It is cruel and ridiculous to make laws that force women & children to bear the brunt of the wars, rape, environmental degradation, floods, refugee crisis, lack of education, housing, food, jobs that we are experiencing. Not to mention climate change. It is very easy for religious ministers to pick on the smallest and weakest in their congregations in their sermons. Sure, tell the women and homosexuals how to run their lives. Their $$ contributions are less. I have read NOTHING in the New Testament in red print, in Jesus' actual words, that says ANYTHING about no abortions or that it is not ok to live life as God made one. I have seen PLENTY about no divorce, sharing with the poor, accepting everyone for who they are, getting the moneylenders out of the temple,etc. As we all must agree, if the Vatican or the Christian fundamentalists preached on that as much as they hate on women and gay people, very little $$$ would flow their way.  Just to address the two verses quoted as nauseum. The Jeremiah verse: "I knew you in your mother's womb.." etc. Lovely verse. Said by God in the Old Testament TO JEREMIAH. NOT to every person who wants to adopt it as their personal slogan to march.in front of a clinic and harass people and then disappear for antiwar.marches while taking advantage of the perks of living in Empire. Also NOT Jesus' words and NOT in the New Testament, which supersedes the Old. The same people who cherrypick what they want from the OT try to force poor women in the U.S.what to do. And Paul's advice on not being homosexual. Please. Not Jesus' words. Also a different time and place, with rampant orgies, sexual mores run amuck. And yet Paul did not preach about no sex with children or slaves and neither do most preachers today. And you have been to Rome, I assume? Statues from antiquity of naked men everywhere. Still going on today. Many people think the "thorn in Paul's side" was his own homosexuality. How strange. I lose my respect.  The ONLY way these powermongers and warmongers hold on to their divisions is by FEAR. This particular fear is strong: that of going to hell when we die. I submit that the Hell is really here on earth where so many people suffer. And that they know it and use it against us.  For evidence: the many books and Ted Talk videos on experiences people have when they die and come back to life. I cannot believe they were all perfect, yet each one has a beautiful experience. Love and heaven are here on earth and after death. We get them by tearing people well and as individuals, not as possessions we can legislate. What is that quote from Rumi about how our children are not ours and they go into a future we cannot know? Unless you have concrete plans on how to convince  antiabortion groups to join their admittedly concentrated focus to our anti-war efforts, it would be great if you all would join an anti abortion or pro life list serve if you want to have those conversations. It wastes our time here. We already know our mission. 
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> On 2018-07-14 00:36 ,  bjornsona--- via Peace-discuss <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> Wrote: 
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> https://www.liveaction.org/news/babies-born-alive-after-abortions-part-3-nurses-tell-their-stories/ <https://www.liveaction.org/news/babies-born-alive-after-abortions-part-3-nurses-tell-their-stories/>
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>  <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_HASCDemocrats_status_1017477541031014401&d=DwMF_g&c=OCIEmEwdEq_aNlsP4fF3gFqSN-E3mlr2t9JcDdfOZag&r=4p_1umaGy6GSn3GnAtc6qB-u5jRD_xNUZTMjXBfCFOY&m=XBpDQNfsCpbFk73bxmmnUJ7FBpflXyyw-7eQtc2XPJ8&s=C8hP89MiNwyJ5vhZqEjWF5ZRb2lRWdY6gAMz3hobZdE&e=>
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