It has been a week of rallies and marches and signs and anguished social media postings. It has been a week of declarations and determination — to speak out, to not be silent, to vote, to organize, to protest.
It is the latest infuriating moment. They pile up, one upon another. Gun violence, Ukraine, gas prices, the Jan. 6 hearings, the Supreme Court decision.
It is a time of outrage. It is a time of inaction. It is a time of honesty. It is a time of deceit. It is a time of progress. It is a time of retrenchment. It has been a week of rallies and marches and heartfelt commitments.
And it has been 50 years since Roe v. Wade was first decided and women were granted a right that they should have had all along — but was denied them as so many other rights have been as a matter of routine — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Fifty years in which the anti-abortion advocates have never relented, never stopped advocating, never stopped pushing for state legislators and members of Congress and governors and presidents and Supreme Court justices who will embrace the conviction that the rights of the unborn must be protected absolutely.
It is a time of absolutes. It is a time of uncertainty.
Fifty years in which the nation’s conservatives have proven more skilled at absconding with the symbols of this country — the flag, individual freedom, the courts, the Constitution.
Fifty years in which they have proven more adept at unified passion and long-term strategies and messaging that boils down a complex and emotional issue into simplistic string of words that sums up their feelings, while others struggle to be accurate, or to explain.
Pro-life.
Pro-choice is pro-life.
It is the promise that some 15-year-old in South Dakota, who was one week away from ending a pregnancy without telling her parents, is not condemned to a life in which a child is told she must raise a child.
There can be few things as tragic as an unwelcome, unwanted child.
It is a cliché among like-minded people who cluster on America’s coasts and wonder why everyone else fails to understand this reality: The anti-abortion advocates care deeply about the survival of the fetus and care nothing about the viability of the child.
It is a time of compassion. It is a time of indifference.
The rights of the unborn. Fifty years of repetition has rendered it an acceptable phrase, despite its borderline absurdity — like the rights of the post-dead.
Fifty years, during which Donald Trump went from a pro-choice Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton to a president whose lasting legacy will be a Supreme Court that has only begun to strip away landmark civil rights and personal freedoms that a true conservative should think is no business of the governments.
In “A Christmas Carol,” three ghosts visit Ebenezer Scrooge and in one night he is transformed from a miserable, anti-social old miser to the epitome of Christian love and charity.
I have been wondering what ghosts visited Donald Trump (and continue to haunt him) that caused his transformation. Although, in his case, it can be assumed safely that this was a calculated decision to serve his own interests and not a moral awakening.
The full nature of Trump is so abundantly clear that we are mystified how anyone can support him. But his supporters are incredibly loyal, suggesting there is something they see in him that is too opaque for us to comprehend.
It is a time of blind passion. It is a time of blind reason.
It has been a week of messages at rallies and marches.
“March, donate, organize and, most importantly, we must not be silent.”
“The only path forward is that we have to win at the ballot box. This is just the beginning of the fight.”
“San Mateo County is a welcoming county. Whether you live in Fresno County or Texas, we have your back.”
“It’s going to be hard and it’s going to take years.”
“The Supreme Court has unleashed a seething fury felt by the majority of Americans.”
This last one was from Toni Atkins, president pro tem of the state Senate, which joined with the Assembly to put a measure on the November ballot that will “enshrine” reproductive rights in the state Constitution.
Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans — and even more Californians — may not like abortion but they believe women should make the decision whether to have a child.
The California amendment will pass. Easily. Will the “seething fury?”
Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.
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(17) comments
"Pro choice is pro-life." Be fair.Media knee-jerk has limited "choice" to one subject. I seldom see it used in connection with guns or education.
Hilarious - if there’s any outrage, it should be outrage that we have another person who doesn’t understand our system of government and the US Constitution. If there’s any outrage, it should be that it took 50 years to fix an obvious mistake in the original Roe v. Wade ruling. Instead of misplaced hysterical screeching, convince your state to legalize abortion.
Oh Terence - Do me a favor, will you? Show what you wrote to ten women in your life and ask them to educate you on how they feel about someone who uses the phrase 'hysterical screeching' in a discussion about women's rights.
Sure, Mr. Wiesner, I can do that. Before I conduct this “test” can you first provide guidelines, else I know you’re going to find fault with my “test”? For instance, should I ask 10 biological women, women who have taken a class on American Government, women who are members of the NRA? As for the most important women in my life, they think the adjective “hysterical” is too nice. Yes, they are biological women and have taken classes on American Government, but not all are NRA members.
"Misplaced hysterical screeching."
Tell that to your women friends, if you have any.
Thank you for this, and sharing ALL of the assorted reactions, feelings, responses. California needs to enshrine a woman's right to control her own body and actually should have done it long ago, as our Federal government should have done long ago. More work ahead!
Thanks, Mark, for a great and very necessary column, putting the abortion issue in some perspective.
Regardless of how we may feel about late abortions, ultimately, it has to be the woman’s decision as long as the fetus is inside her and a part of her anatomy. It should not be up to someone else, no matter how religiously infested or power hungry, and certainly not up to a Supreme Court falsely put together by a minority selected president who has become such a stain on our democracy. The abortion issue has nothing to do with the US Constitution, any more than road and air traffic control, neither of which is mentioned in the Constitution. The arbitrariness of the SCOTUS decision is mind boggling: 3 Justices, who lied about what they would do with Roe v. Wade, picked by a president who lied about his fake religiosity to fool the gullible Evangelicals. After 50 years, supported by the vast majority, all of a sudden, it should be revoked?
Now, let’s sit back and wait for the next screwy thing they’ll cook up after being encouraged by those who can’t stand the thought of personal freedom, - especially for young women. Some backwards states are already talking about banning birth control! Perhaps outlawing coitus interruptus? Or, what about a woman who all of a sudden shows up prematurely unpregnant? Does she have to explain to a nosey someone why? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Thanks Jorg! I've been reading a lot about Jewish thought on abortion (I'm Jewish and my husband is Presbyterian) recently and really had my eyes opened by some wonderful rabbis in my life as to ancient and current Jewish thought on the issue. Jewish groups are saying that anti-abortion laws discriminate against Jewish women and in the coming months and years there will be cases making their way through courts demanding recognition of Jewish women's rights. Should be amazing to watch as these cases move forward. Meanwhile, let's do what we can to help women in California (whether they live here or come here for help) get the care they want, need, and deserve.
It’s our friend Jorg, with, wait for it… another orange man bad rant. That’s par for the course. Surprisingly though, Jorg has it right when he says, “The abortion issue has nothing to do with the US Constitution…” Jorg, instead of sour grapes, a class in American government would explain why abortion should never have been a federal issue. BTW Jorg, your “star” witness in the Unselect Committee failed miserably in her 15 minutes of fame. I hear (or did I overhear) she may be charged with lying under oath. Either way, she’s destroyed her reputation – but in your eyes, she probably still qualifies to be a CNN or MSNBC mouthpiece.
Terence: Y should such a personal issue as abortion even be a state issue? It is strictly a personal issue, as it should be, and not something to be decided by someone else, and certainly not by a wrongly established Supreme Court, with a majority of blatant liars, put there by a fake president Trump, the worst liar of them all.
Obviously, you haven’t even watched Miss Hutchinson’s convincing testimony during the Jan. 6 hearing. Or, perhaps you didn’t understand any of it, so someone told you what to believe and what to say. Right?
Well, Jorg, if you truly believe that, then get off the pot and do something instead of spewing another orange man bad rant. It appears your Ms. Hutchinson’s 15 minutes of fame is over and she’s been discarded by the Dems – ever since her hearsay testimony has been debunked by people who know the truth. BTW, why so stingy with your exclamation points? You usually share a few with me. Right?
Terence Y: I know you just mean to be nice and supportive, but you don’t need to prove my point every time you don’t have a valid counter point!!! (Enough?)
Jorg, thank you for sharing the only valid points you ever make - exclamation points. Most everything else can be summarized with a laughable “orange man bad” rant. Have a great Fourth of July, assuming you celebrate that day. Of course we know it may pale in comparison to your favorite day of celebration, June 14.
Wow! How did you know? Yes, indeed, I'm a gold level donor and certainly celebrate June 14th as the World Blood Donor Day. I'll give you a triple for that: !!!
Terence Y: You may have to contact the Secret Service to correct them:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/1/2107838/-Secret-Service-Sources-confirm-Cassidy-s-Chilling-Claims?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email
Actually, Trump confirmed it himself, - by denying that it happened.
Really excellent column as usual. Mark usually does exactly that. He hits the mark. so well written as well. Glad he's a regular on the Journal.
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