Just when we thought it can’t get any worse, it does! This just in from the Associated Press: 14-year old Iowa girl abandoned under Nebraska law.”
Yes, folks, that’s right. Now, they’re hauling their unwanted kids in from out-of-state. According to the wire, the unfortunate girl is from Council Bluffs,Iowa, just across the state line from Omaha. She was abandoned–oh, excuse me–“safe havened”–at Creighton University Medical Center (where the 9 Statons were dumped last month) by her mother. No details have been released yet, but Nebraska DFS spokesperson Todd Landry says Nebraska law may not apply, since the girl and her mother are from out-of-state.
But why wouldn’t it apply? There is nothing in the law that says no outsiders need apply.
Again, for late comers, here is the ENTIRE text of the law:
Section 1. No person shall be prosecuted for any crime based solely upon the act of leaving a child in the custody of an employee on duty at a hospital licensed by the State of Nebraska. The hospital shall promptly contact appropriate authorities to take custody of the child.
Parents are home free. No blame. No shame, No name. Oops! Scratch that last one! All of Nebraska’s dumpess are preteens and teens. Can’t have anonymity there!
As I wrote back on July 17, when the Nebraska law went into effect, in Nebraska Safe Haven Law: Tired of Your Kid? :
Actually on closer look, this isn’t a “Baby Safe Haven” law at all. It’s decriminalization of child abandonment dressed up in fashionable safe haven bombastia.
And that’s what they they got. (I’ll drop the pig and lipstick homily). Politicians and DFS can try to clean it up all they want. They can put out their press releases and hold their press conferences, and beg parents, “that’s not what we really meant.” But not only the horse, but the cows and the chickens and the pigs (with lipstick–ok, I lied!) are out of the barn.
State officials knew what they were doing. when they enacted HB 157. They admit it. (I’ll write about that later). Now, they are shocked…shocked…that nearly 20 parents or “guardians” have taken them up on their offer to take their kids off their hands, no questions asked.
Todd Landry says DFS has sent a formal report on the Iowa dumpee to the Iowa child abuse hotline.
Hotline????? Can’t DFS read their own law?
In my July 17, blog I also facetiously threatened to take my obnoxious teenage neighbor–the one who jumps on the hoods of cars at 3:00 AM (and I’m not making this up!)–on a road trip to Omaha. Since the governor and cronies seem reluctant to call a special session to repeal this crackpot bill I guess I still have time to ditch her. It’s for her own good. And for the good of the neighbors. And it’s better and cheaper than Ritalin.
I hate to be Trotskyte about this whole thing, but the longer this goes on, the easier it will be to discredit baby dump laws. THANK YOU NEBRASKA, for making our job that much easier. Implode, Baby, Implode!
I have to agree that NE has made a sitcom out of the whole thing and shown the nation just how ridiculous the idea of dumping a child really is. They’ve, unconciously, done us a big favor.
Before you take your neighbor to Omaha, take a side trip down here to FL. I’d love someone to jump on the hoods of the loud cars of two of my neighbors. I’d ask her to aim for the electrical system. 😉
That’s right Robin, let’s jump on the hoods of some cars!
Let’s march, chant and wave some signs that show how we feel.
The speeches will be great, the work has just begun.
How do we do this?
The radio and TV news will cover us, what do we do next?
Jump on the hoods of some cars!
That’ll send out the message loud and clear.
Save the children of the corn!
“I hate to be Trotskyte about this whole thing, but the longer this goes on, the easier it will be to discredit baby dump laws. ”
I’m not so optimistic, though I’d love for you to be right and me wrong.
I think that that public attention will be focused on the side issues (the shocking inadequacies of social services) to the exclusion of the flaws inherent in baby safe haven laws.
Baby safe havens are a sacred cow.
We must give it our best shot, Kippa. Make baby dumps toxic. Ridicule them, expose them. Keep parents away from them. Bill was quite clear that this was the future of “safe haven” laws. I’m not so sure, though, he’d actually be happy about it.
Welcome the the fabulous land of bad legislation! I live in Nebraska, and Kansas and Nebraska are have a stupid contest to see who can create the most unconstitutional, theocratic, or just plain stupid law. So far Kansas is winning but we are coming on fast! All that is needed to get into the Unicameral here is fake Christian ethics and a nice suit. Good googamooga.
They have had this for a long time and I don’t fully disagree with it. I’d rather a parent drop a kid off at a hospital than abuse them or simply leave them. I am from Nebraska and my brother and I were dropped off at St. Joseph. My brother got dropped off (age 10)because he had large medication bills that my mother couln’t afford and there was no assistance for it. He also got kicked out of school and we couldn’t afford the babysitting. As for me, my mother was an alcoholic and simply couldn’t care for me. In the end, my brother went into many group homes, Boys Town, and at 23 now lives in an adult home. I returned home for a little while until my mother left me for he boyfriend. The cops showed up, arrested her boyfriends friends who had crashed there and I went to foster care. I am very successful and unless I told you, you’d have no idea I got left or abused in any way. As for my mother, after running off, the state finally caught up to her and started deducting back child support for the care they gave my brother and I from her social security. I still talk to her. This safe haven rule has it’s ups and downs. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Well, Nebraska clearly doesn’t want to help these kids. Where is that “spirit of the lord” or “light of the world” crap? Where is the helping hand? Where is the goodwill towards men, break bread, share water, open your arms, have a heart, Nebraska. I suppose they’d rather see the parent pull off a murder/suicide like we’ve been seeing in the news lately. “Here, take this child from me, I am an unfit parent and will harm this child.” And Ne says, “Nope, I think you’re doing fine, here’s your child back, and would you like me to light your crack pipe for you?”
I think they would rather see the children sold into slavery or into prostitution. Where oh where has the goodness in mankind gone? Can noone help out a distressed fellow human being? Have we become so truly heartless and cold? Horrid, horrid depravity engulfs us, to see the selfishness and greed to which we’ve sunk that we can’t even open our doors to children in need, for the love of all things holy, have a heart!
“Actually on closer look, this isn’t a “Baby Safe Haven” law at all. It’s decriminalization of child abandonment dressed up in fashionable safe haven bombastia.”
I hope that this finally opens some people’s eyes to seeing that ALL safe haven laws (and indeed “voluntary surrender” infant adoption procedures) are just prettied-up ways to legally abandon a child.
Safe haven laws ignore the basic fact that women who commit neonaticide are most often in the midst of post-partum psychosis. They don’t have the cognition to think about “safe baby havens.”
They are mentally divorced from reality.
On the other hand, the straight-thinking but desperate mothers who just need support and who otherwise would approach family services are the only ones using these “safe havens.”
“Safe Havens” don’t save babies and never will. But of course, they provide uncomplicated tabula-rasa “free product” to the adoption industry, so does anyone other than us really care?
I think this is a great law and should be adopted in all 50 states. When kids start hearing how being a ward of the state sucks, maybe they will start behaving!
I am apalled to hear there are these laws.Why not bring back the ancient custom of selling your kids into slavery? I am more apalled that the great religious right will scream and holler about abortion but not say one word about children after they are born or the parents trying to cope. It seems that the anti-abortion movement doesn’t care about children or anguished families as much as it cares about having the power to punish some frightened young girl to have that child out of wedlock
Anybody who’s had trouble with a teenager (as I have had) can commiserate with the Iowa Mom. Dumping? Hardly. It’s an act of desperation, where our hands are tied and teenagers are now empowered to dictate terms to their parents. For 20,000 years, humans have raised teenagers under the “golden rule”: he who has the gold, makes the rules. Otherwise stated as: “my house, my rules, kid”.
But thanks to the past 40 years of “engendering” child-raising theories from latte-sipping PhD academics, we parents are now forced to “discuss” things with our teens. And when your teen drunkenly smashes the front door window at 4am to get into the house, you’re supposed to “discuss the ramifications of his actions” with him.
Bull.
In my day, I got a good swift kick in the ass. I grew up getting my ears boxed for the slightest transgression; as did all teenagers over the past 19,999 years of human history. Suddenly these methods are wrong? Are ‘barbaric’? I think not.
If Nebraska’s safe-haven law is flawed, it illustrates that we have to go back to good old-fashioned child-rearing. To hell with this “self-esteem” model; when a kid is out of line, they get a spanking. In front of everybody, preferably. Good old fashioned humiliation. Enough of this crap of placing teenagers on a pedestal.
Life is tough, and a teenager better damn well learn that ASAP.
“If Nebraska’s safe-haven law is flawed, it illustrates that we have to go back to good old-fashioned child-rearing. To hell with this “self-esteem” model; when a kid is out of line, they get a spanking.”
Well I do believe that Nebraska’s law demonstrates that we need more help for parents of teenagers. It’s true. Parents rights have been taken away as to parenting.
However this blog is about adoption reform so…
Let people keep dropping teens, it shows what an idiotic law “safe haven” is and exactly WHO is using it and now even Nebraska is showing by notifying DCF that they have no clue what their own law means and what it means for the children abandoned under it…
http://www.kptm.com/Global/story.asp?S=9131010&nav=menu606_24_10_1
Two More Left Under Safe Haven Law
Here’s more on the other 12 year old boy.
No matter how difficult a teen is “dumping” a child is NOT the answer.
Taking away the power from parents is not the answer, same a taking away the power from teachers isnt the answer.
All this “I will sue you soon as you look at me” crap is OTT that is for sure
BUT something had to be done because our society was far to slap happy
Unfortunately its gone the complete opposite
It needs to be somewhere happily in the middle.
Unfortunately it seems society is INCAPABLE of doing that they either swing one way or the other.
TRUE Safe Havens should be where a woman can go because she has NO option and would put her new born baby into a toilet or dumpster. It should be somewhere for HER TO BE SAFE AS well as the baby, where she will get some accommodation and support and medical attention until she can make a RATIONAL RESPONSIBLE Decision.
Not just Dump and run.
Society is far too much about denying its own responsibility and holding its hand up and saying Yes it is me, it is my problem, I own it, but I NEED HELP.
Not just dumping the problem and responsibility to someone else.
I am more apalled that the great religious right will scream and holler about abortion but not say one word about children after they are born or the parents trying to cope. It seems that the anti-abortion movement doesn’t care about children or anguished families as much as it cares about having the power to punish some frightened young girl to have that child out of wedlock
How many anti-abortion people do you know, personally? Because I’ve always wondered how that stereotype persists. Me, I’ve worked with the local United Way, Salvation army, food banks, and other groups. I’ve donated to international aid agencies, and the scholarship fund of my (evangelical) high school.
Jane said, “TRUE Safe Havens should be where a woman can go because she has NO option and would put her new born baby into a toilet or dumpster. It should be somewhere for HER TO BE SAFE AS well as the baby, where she will get some accommodation and support and medical attention until she can make a RATIONAL RESPONSIBLE Decision.”
Yeah. Exactly, Jane.
*None* of these so-called “safe havens” are really what they pretend to be.
What they should be is a place of refuge and protection, for the mother as well as the child. Then maybe, just maybe, they might, just might, be actually used by the kind of people they were supposedly created to help.
Women who’ve been in nine months denial about being pregnant, or have lived in constant terror of being ‘found out’, aren’t going to up and take themselves and their newborn to a safe haven.
They are more likely to be totally dissociated, out of their skulls from the trauma of their experience.
On the other hand ‘baby safe havens’ do offer a convenient short-cut to relinquishment for those (ignorant or gutless?) types who’d prefer to avoid hassle and/or and are indifferent to depriving their child of its origins.
Ooops, I meant that if safe havens really were the sanctuaries they should be, maybe, just maybe *some*, just a few, of the people they’re supposed to help would go to them.
But even if that were the case, I don’t hold out much hope. It seems like most of the mothers who commit neonaticide are unmarried, poor, and have denied and/or concealed the pregnancy since its conception. They also tend to give birth in secret.
People who are truly in denial are unreachable by normal means.
You know I have been thining of this and the fiasco this law has created and the light it is finally shining on safe haven laws.
What strikes me is that people are actually doing this – something I too had joked about in the beginning because it just didn’t even seem real. Could it be possible some are really just so heartless that they don’t care about abandoning their child – maybe. But I believe, over that these are parents who don’t know or can’t find the support they need in difficult times. Something pushes them to this extreme but, as is society’s great way, instead ofd offering them a place where they can all go safely and get the help and support they need, it’s instead just another way to separate children from their parents.
We are failing so very badly here. If these laws exist they need to do so by encompassing the parents, by giving them a place where they can come without questions asked and not leave their child but instead remain with their child while getting whatever support it is they are in need of.
A parent’s desperation and sense of failure is such a terrible thing to take advantage and yet it’s being done every day and most don’t see a thing wrong with it and encourage even more ways to separate a child forever from his or her family.
“Could it be possible some are really just so heartless that they don’t care about abandoning their child – maybe. But I believe, over that these are parents who don’t know or can’t find the support they need in difficult times. Something pushes them to this extreme but, as is society’s great way, instead of offering them a place where they can all go safely and get the help and support they need, it’s instead just another way to separate children from their parents.”
Personally, I think a significant part of the intent of the original laws IS to separate BABIES from their parents. Preferably anonymously.
But I also think this latest development is not so much an attempt to separate children from their parents (especially since there’s no demand for unruly older kids for adoption) as a short cut to social services.
However, you are quite right to remind me that many of these folk (and of course, they aren’t all parents – some are grandparents or other relatives, or guardians of one sort or another) who are relinquishing in Nebraska are really desperate for help. Really, I think few, if any of them, are ignorant or gutless. The maze social of social services is hard enough to navigate for anyone, and if you’re old or sick or uneducated it may be well nigh impossible.
“”Me, I’ve worked with the local United Way, Salvation army, food banks, and other groups. I’ve donated to international aid agencies, and the scholarship fund of my (evangelical) high school.””
And……your point is??????
The girl from Iowa has been returned and ‘reunited’ with family. She’s listed on the Nebraska DHHS list as an officially counted abandonment under the law.
I’ve termed her a ‘return to sender’ (out of state) abandonment.
My latest blog post covers the Iowa-Nebraska dump (among other aspects of the Nebraska legalized child abandonment law.)
Nothing short of full repeal of these laws is going to even begin to stem the tide of the carnage they’ve unleashed.
As for those already dumped, not just in Nebraska, but nationwide?
They are but the latest ‘products’ of an ill conceived form of child social welfare experimentation built on the foundation laid by those who value the cover of secrecy as a means of obscuring culpability. Those enamored of decoupling parentage from biology where there’s a buck to be made, or where it suits their ideology or theological leanings.
Yes, Chris. I would love to hear what the point is, as well. I know just as many pro-choice people involved in “good works” and that seems to me to be neither here nor there.
“And……your point is??????”
I’d have thought it’s obvious – that she was objecting to what she considers an unjust generalization.
Unjust generalizations are something we Mothers of Adoption Loss are used to. We’ve had that kind of thing thrown at us by everyone and anyone. But let us bite back and, boy oh boy, do we get the hate mail.
We who are pro-choice have also had the privilege of being stereotyped and chastized by those who are anti. It seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Oh, and I am also wary of the Religious Right and their attempts to bring their tenets and dogmas into our government. THAT, I will fight to my dying breath. I was raised in a southern church, I know the Bible and I know to be careful of those who publicly proclaim their “good works” and cry “Lord, Lord.” (look it up)
I know a lot of anti-abortion folks, up close and personal, and many of them are narrow, judgmental and inordantly proud of their own righteousness.
“It seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.”
It does indeed. Tit for tat. But who threw this particular first stone? (John 8:7)
It seems disingenuous to claim not to see the point she was attempting to make (which, dare I say, hardly comes into the category of hate speech)
I don’t trust people who boast about their ‘good works’ either (Matt 7:16} , but this person’s response seems to me to be more in the nature of defending individuals of a particular persuasion against accusations of callous self-interest and indifference, than boasting. Not everyone in a stigmatized group conforms to the stereotype, as we very well know.
Citing scripture for my own purpose 😉
“”It seems disingenuous to claim not to see the point she was attempting to make “”
Not ‘disingenous’ at all. I am quite ‘genuine’. I was asking the poster to clarify her ‘point’, expand upon, with my own measure of ‘snark’. And we all know ‘snark’ is an attribute the majority of ‘commenters’ in the adoption arena share. Sheesh! You are making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’, with me saying.. “And….your point is???”
I know anti-abortion folks who are very good people, very sincere and loving. Especially those who subscribe to the “seamless fabric of life” concept, and not only oppose abortion, but also the death penalty, and are involved with many works of social justice. Check out the Catholic Worker Movement, started by unwed mother Dorothy Day in the 1930s. I also know a woman who started a pro-life shelter for pregnant women where there is no pressure for adoption and almost all the clients keep their babies.
I also know pro-choice folks who are since, loving, good people who are involved in all sorts of social justice and help for the poor and helpless causes.
There are good and bad individuals on both sides of this issue. There are indeed narrowminded,dishonest, judgemental assholes in both the pro-life and pro-choice camps.
I’m with Kippa on this, I think all that poster was pointing out was that not ALL pro-life people are narrow-minded bigots. Some are, some are not. Same as with the other side. Hey, some people I love and respect are even Republicans!:-)
Personally I do not trust either fantatic pro-life or pro-abortion groups. Both have their own agenda that does not admit any version of truth at odds with their presupposed ideas. Abortion is a tragic and painful personal issue, and it is complex, not black and white. Like adoption.
No matter what the issue, nothing is gained by seeing one’s sincere opponents as cartoon villains with no redeeming qualities. Life, and people, are just not that easy to categorize.
Well, it seems that the girl’s back with her family now. Apparently the grandparents dumped her to teach her a lesson. Charming, init?
I bet she has learned something out of the experience, though I doubt it’s what they intended.
It would be nice if the proponents of safe havens could open their minds to the reality that legitimizing the dumping of people, of whatever age, is Not Good – not for the dumpee, the dumper or for society at large.
‘Genuine’ and ‘snarky’ just don’t work together.
‘Snark’ is a combination of ‘snide’ and ‘remark’.
Try checking out ‘snide’ in your dictionary.
It definitely doesn’t qualify as meaning ‘genuine’.
As for making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’, I wuz jus’ sayin’.
Pretty much a one-liner really.
LOL, Kippa…even the Devil can do dat. Moot point, here. Sometimes we can never see eye to eye. I speak, mainly, from my personal experience with anti-choice people.
Most of the people with whom I now associate, either believe it is a woman’s right or feel they have no right to judge.
One anecdote…there was a minister and his wife with an adoption daughter. They haunted the women’s clinics, bringing the child with them, where they shouted and harassed every women walking into the clinic, handing out their poorly-printed brochures and waving the Bible at them.
After these “outings,” said minister would then go home, take his adoptee into a basement or back room and sexually abuse her while the minister’s wife went about her business of being a “Godly” woman.
That’s an extreme case, but evil can come more subtle packages..such as in pointing out a speck in someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in one’s own eye (also paraphrasing scripture for my own purposes). =oD
duh…make that an “adopted daughter.” My fingers have a mind of their own.
Like moi judging the judgers of groups judged by some others to be pretty much entirely judgmental, I suppose. And so it goes. Pearls before swine 😉
On an upnote, check out the latest Zogby poll on Yahoo:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081012/us/
politics_us_usa_politics_poll which puts Obama 6 points ahead.
It indicates that Obama’s getting 35% support among born-again or evangelical (Christian) voters.
Yes, there’s a lot of evil that goes on under the mantle of religion, and no single denomination is immune, though I do believe some are more prone to abuse than others. Your story about the minister – monstrous. The events behind Marley’s latest blog entry, as you so rightly said in your comment, reek of evil.
But I unapologetically continue to think that it’s wrong, as well as damaging, to write off huge sectors of the population because of the vile acts of a few.
Kippa wrote:
“But I unapologetically continue to think that it’s wrong, as well as damaging, to write off huge sectors of the population because of the vile acts of a few.”
I fully agree. There are good and bad adoptive parents, adoptees, and birthparents. And disagreement on some issues does not necessarily make one “bad” or a traitor, or a “birthmartyr” or in denial, just a person who views their adoption experience in a different way.
I find myself in agreement with some of what the “senior mothers” and anti-adoption people say. No doubt they sometimes find themselves in agreement with me or other more moderate activists. But that does not mean either of us has to agree with the other’s entire agenda or point of view, especially not about our personal adoption experiences.
Basically, I was just pointing out what my personal experience has been with the anti-choice faction. I know that you can’t brand everyone with the same iron. However, I tend to mistrust anyone who presumes that their beliefs give them the right to determine the course of my private life or what I or any other women does where her own reproductive rights are concerned.
I still like what John Lennon wrote..”Imagine no religion….” If it weren’t for the smug, judgmental legalism of our Puritan heritage, I doubt that most young, single women would be so fearful of letting their pregnancies be known that they would dump a baby rather than claim motherhood.
Patriarchial, organized religion and its many archaic, woman-hating, self-righteous rules has been one of the factors that has made this nation sick and now it’s dying. Add to that the fact that capitalism has run amok, and the CEOs bailing with their golden parachutes and leaving us, the middle class and the poor, to take it on the chin, factor in the ignorance and fear that has been generated by the so-called “Moral Majority” and you have destruction on a national level. It took longer for Rome to fall than it has for the US to be brought to its knees.
I have many European friends and they laugh at us and hate our president and consider us preoccupied with sex and reproduction and sticking our noses into places where they shouldn’t be. I hate it, but I have to agree. Rant over.
I realize we’re all informed as well as formed by our personal experiences, but it doesn’t mean we have to put on our blinkers and be as prejudiced towards others as some were towards us. I would think that’s a perversion of the Golden Rule.
The poster who sparked this discussion implied that that the religious right is a homogeneous group that unanimously opposes abortion and has no further interest in the welfare of children once they are born and none in that of struggling families.
All of which adds up to a generalization that begs for rebuttal.
There are many Christians, even of the Evangelical politically conservative variety, who support a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions, and equally many who work hard and sincerely to help distressed people and keep families intact. By no means all Evangelical Christians, even of the right wing variety, are nut cases.
Negative personal experience isn’t IMO a good reason to assume that such people don’t exist.
And just in case you think I’m defending my own beliefs, I’m not.
I’m not religious and never have been (missed out on the “God gene”). I’m passionately pro-choice, and politically lean very much to the left. I was born and raised in Europe and visit my family there as often as I can. I know what they think about the worst excesses of the American religious right.
You know, they have their own problems with Christian fundamentalism in the UK. It’s an import they could have done without.
“I tend to mistrust anyone who presumes that their beliefs give them the right to determine the course of my private life or what I or any other women does where her own reproductive rights are concerned.”
Of course I agree with that 🙂
In fact I more than mistrust them. I regard them as my enemy and the enemy of all sane people everywhere.
I just think that not making clear distinctions has a polarizing effect. Which is the last thing we need.
Sorry Kippa, but I have yet to meet the kind you talk about in your reply. I do know some more moderate, less judmental religious people, but they are not of the fundamentalist, evangelical or Pentacostal persuasion. Being anti-choice shouldn’t be more than a personal belief, ie., if you don’t believe abortion is right, then don’t have one.
When one campaigns, actively, to make choosing termination of a pregnancy a crime, or tries to interfere with a woman’s right to all birth control methods, they are attempting to force their personal beliefs on the general populace. Whether they are Bible-pounding, hellfire and brimstone fundies or reasonable, moderate people, they are overstepping their boudaries and getting into the personal space of others.
The adoption industry wants more healthy infants for their market so they are on the anti-choice bandwagon. I guess I am already “polarized” and just can’t help myself. :oP
No need for sorry. You have your POV, I have mine.
Of course the adoption industry is riding the anti-choice bandwagon. It would. It’s in its interests to exploit and encourage extremism. After all, “Every sperm is sacred” 😉
However, the point I’m trying to make is that one shoe doesn’t fit all and that faith is too complicated an issue for standard labels such as those you list to be a ‘fit-all’. I believe we should be able to recognize that there are exceptions to every rule.
For instance. many people people would consider that Obama fits the evangelical mould (although I doubt he thinks he does).
Joe Biden has declared that as a Catholic, he believes life begins at conception. But he’s also said he wouldn’t impose his personal views on others, and he has voted against curtailing abortion rights and against criminalizing abortion.
Even Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter came round to supporting abortion if it meant saving the life of a mother, because of birth defects or other extreme circumstances such as rape or incest.
‘Evangelical’ is a more wide-ranging term than ‘fundamentalist’, and not all of the former conform to the latter.
According to this article http://www.newsweek.com/id/130710
about 1/3 of white evangelicals think abortion should be sometimes or always legal, but that “moderate voices have been drowned out by hard-line shouting on both sides.”
I’d agree with that.
I was raised in the buckle of the Bible Belt and know all of the religious “flavors” and the differences between each, AS THEY ARE PRESENTED. But they all have one thing in common. They are convinced that the only “right” religion is theirs and that they are the only ones who hold a key to Heaven..they are all enjoined to “testify” to the “non-believer” (anyone whose beliefs differ from theirs)…they seem to have the same amount of judgmentalism and intolerance. They also feel justified in forcing their beliefs on others as in trying to take down Roe v Wade. And THAT is invading private space and is, at the very least, poor manners and, at the worst, a power play.
My grandmother, in SC, was a fundie, southern Baptist, my aunt was an evangelical Methodist, I was raised in the United Methodist Church, one of my best friends was a Charismatic Pentecostal and I married a very fundie, non-denominational evangelical. (he is now my ex) I know what makes them “different” but I also know what overlaps and makes them the same. I lived in the thick of it for years.
I have yet to find a “moderate voice” in any of those religious groups, especially in the pulpits. I know one member of a certain non-denominational church that would die if anyone ever found out that her daughter had an abortion.
Examining and learning about them is an intellectual exercise. Being assailed by them from all sides is emotionally and spiritually oppressive and tends to push the thinking person away.
From what I know about it, and I know more than you think I do, those “moderates” haven’t spoken up very often or with any vigor. If you profess to be anti-choice, then you are using your religion to invade the privacy and reproductive choices of others not of your belief. It’s as simple as that.
“From what I know about it, and I know more than you think I do,”
I think you know a great deal. However, I was brought up in the heartland of Welsh nonconformism and know something myself of the hell-and-damnation mentality.
I have also lived in Canada and America over the least thirty-odd years, and while I recognise that America is not the same in respect to all its attitudes and prejudices, the similarities are strong and it is tempting to assume that anti-choiceism is totally pervasive among religious groups.
Nevertheless, when someone like Condoleeza Rice describes herself as a pro-choice Evangelical and says that she believes that the decision to have an abortion is personal and shouldn’t be subject to governmental mandates, I see hope for change.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice also speaks out forcefully for women and families.
” If you profess to be anti-choice, then you are using your religion to invade the privacy and reproductive choices of others not of your belief.”
Of course. Where have I said otherwise?
My initial objection was to the implication that people who oppose abortion for religious reasons don’t care about children and families.
I don’t think that’s generally true. Rather, I believe they do care – just not in the way we would like them to or believe they should.
Oh, that was me, Kippa (as if anyone wouldn’t be able to guess)
Kippa, I think there are exceptions that prove the rule. I am not well-traveled and have not lived in that many places. I had to come by my modest amount of sophistication by reading and observing. I lived among snake-handlers, Pentecostal Jews for Jesus, Biblical literalists, you name it. I don’t know about how they treat their children, except that the seem to go all-out to narrow their little minds, but they sure shouldn’t recruit them for anti-abortion demonstrations. Those kids don’t even know what the signs they carry mean.
Again, the poster who was so eager to share her good works didn’t impress me. Pro-choicers do as much good work as the distaff side and that is what Chris and I were trying to get across. Bragging about what one does on a comment section in a blog is not going to make any Brownie points with me or win any converts.
All that comment showed me was someone trying to be a good person while still sticking her nose into our government and private rights.
“I think there are exceptions that prove the rule.”
I do too.
I also think the very fact that there are exceptions (and in not inconsiderable numbers really) shows that the “rule” is a generalization.
Surely it’s in our interest to recognise and acknowledge support where it exists by not as good as damnit tarring everyone with the same brush.
As for the person whose post prompted this discussion, like I’ve already said, I didn’t see it so much as bragging as an attempt to defend herself and others like her against the accusation of “not caring”.
“All that comment showed me was someone trying to be a good person while still sticking her nose into our government and private rights.”
She didn’t actually mention the reproductive rights issue, just the “caring” stuff. Though I think it can be safely assumed that’s she’s against abortion, though to what extent it would be interesting to know.
(Lucille, are you still reading? Perhaps you’d care to enlighten us)
The argument about private rights is also made in support of closed records.
An adoption record is not a woman’s body. The comparison is a bit askew.
So far, I have made some exceptions and tried not to be so dogmatic, but I will still question anyone who involves themselves in trying to place their religious doctrine on the slate of our federal, state and local laws. I will also look askance at anyone who starts listing their “good works” as if opting for sainthood. To me, that had nothing to do with the fact that the anti-choice factions have their noses stuck where they don’t need to be.
THEY don’t like the right to choose??Then they shouldn’t choose it for themselves. But don’t try to tell me and mine, through the laws of the land, that we can’t make that choice and stop harassing women who walk into the women’s clinics. That is just hateful.
Of course, sometimes hate is thinly disguised as “moral judgment.” I have found more intolerance inside the walls of churches than anywhere else on earth. And I am intolerant of intolerance. Guess we all have our shortcomings.
I went out and took advantage of early voting, yesterday. You can bet that McCain/Palin did NOT get my vote.
This whole argument started over a comment. Here’s one…The industry and the anti-choicers who are in the pro-adoption cadre say,”Let’s have Safe Havens instead of legalized pregnancy termination so that we can keep adoption going long and strong.” That IS what’s behind it all and it is wrong, wrong, wrong. I see a future, if this faction isn’t stopped, of giant mega-stores. tricked out as old-style maternity wards, with babies for sale on every aisle.
I guess there will also be large, penned-in areas for recalcitrant teens dropped off by lazy parents.
We seem to have sidetracked to a rather different argument from that of people being entitled to defend themselves from accusations they feel to be unjust. Or that there actually are some committed Christians who support a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices.
So I guess that’s it then as far as that’s concerned.
However, I’m totally in agreement with you about ‘safe havens’.
They are a curse masquerading as charity – and the ‘unintended consquences’, such as those that have already come to pass in Nebraska, are only unforseeable to those who lack foresight, either from naivety or because, as you point out, they have their own very particular agenda.