Some days I wake up and answer with a very big NO! I am the kind of guy that catches indoor spiders to set them free outdoors. So, I don’t want to play a part in the ending of any living thing.
On other days, I wake up and answer with a very big YES! Abortions should be required of every pregnant woman and post-birth abortions should be the law of the land for anyone not obeying. Only in that way can we rid the earth of this human befoulment. Now I know, on those YES days, all people are aghast at my position, but I feel confident that every other life form on the planet would stand in ovation.
In politics, as in all life your fans can become your biggest maligners.
You do not know what people really think of you until you are seen as used, vulnerable and expendable, which gives courage and makes bold those that were never at your side.
But also, for those lucky enough to have them, there stand naked are your friends.
Back 40 years ago, when I was a State Senator and had something meaningful to say about abortions, I was a knee jerk. That is to say, I believed it was none of my business, even on the Senate issue I am currently recalling (should a teenager seeking an abortion be required to tell her parents) I was a NO as long as the rules set by Row vs. Wade, (the wisdom of its day) were applied.
Now a half century later, knowledge (wisdom) has adjusted somewhat. And now, as then, I turn to those in the business of knowing for a knowing of what to believe and a what to do.
Most involved in prenatal medicine believe there’s clear evidence that a fetus – a developing baby in the womb – can’t feel physical pain until after the 24th week (6th month) of pregnancy. But many others say it’s possible for a fetus to feel pain as early as 12 weeks (3 months) into its development.
Today 93% of abortions were done at or before 13 weeks. While 5.5% were done between 14 and 20 weeks and less than 1% were performed after 21 weeks.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG), say that a fetus isn’t capable of feeling pain until at least 24-25 weeks.
The conclusions say these lifelong experienced, in what I know nothing about is:
The cortex, the outer layer of the brain thought to be largely responsible for consciousness, and the thalamus, which relays sensory information (like pain) to the cortex, develop only after 24 weeks.
Just because a fetus has other brain structures that process pain doesn’t mean the connections that can cause it to feel pain are working yet.
The nerve connections that allow a fetus to tell the difference between a harmless touch and a painful one don’t develop until late in the third trimester.
When a fetus under 28 weeks seems to respond to “noxious stimuli” (actions an adult would perceive as unpleasant), it’s a reflex or hormonal reaction.
While doctors may use pain-relieving drugs during fetal surgery, it’s mostly to keep the fetus from moving or prevent long-term damage from stress.
Today 93% of abortions are done at or before 13 weeks. While 5.5% are done between 14 and 20 weeks and less than 1% are performed after 21 weeks.
The lack of consensus is as confounding for me, as it is for the “experts.”
Bottom line: Where do you draw that line between life’s urge to fornicate and the growing life that results?
It has become harder for a thoughtful someone, anyone, even me who is careful not to step on an ant not to sympathize WHEN two bodies share the resources of one. WHENEVER that is!
Air Force Veteran Speaks Out; Why Republicans Must Vote For Democracy
For some of you receiving this email, we may not always agree on politics, but I always respect your opinion and reasoning and your right to disagree with me and think differently about things. Many people don’t know, but I have deep Republican roots on my Mom’s side. My Grandmother Peggy Hurley was good friends with Barry Goldwater and served as an alternate delegate for him at the 1964 Convention. Nana’s house was covered in GOP inspired memorabilia. There was an elephant piggy bank, elephant coasters, elephant coffee mugs, GOP ashtrays, lighters, plaques, hand towels, coins, you name it, the house was a GOP museum. I’m sure some of you can relate… My grandmother was the kindest, smartest, most loving person you would ever meet, and she was also a proud, right wing Goldwater Republican. So, I understand and respect traditional, Old Republican Party values like: hard work, free markets, individual responsibility, self-determination, lower taxes, less regulation, less bureaucracy, strong defense, fiscal responsibility, etc.
If you are a Republican reading this, I’m not trying to convert you into a Democrat and I think that having a strong, principled Republican party is a necessary component of a stable democracy here in the U.S. In other words, we (all of us) need the Old Republican Party back. The problem is that the Fake Republican Party under Trump is trying to undermine democracy as we know it and if Trump succeeds, we won’t have any policy issues to argue about.
So, I have made a few videos in hopes that I can help shift the paradigm back to what it used to be and persuade maybe just a few undecided voters to reject Trump and vote for Vice President Harris. And if you are a Republican, then maybe it’s just this once because the times call for it.
If you agree with what I’m saying about Trump and you think that someone else would benefit from seeing the videos, please feel free to forward or post them. Also, if you are interested, the long version on my Youtube channel is more persuasive, but fairly long at 20 minutes.
It’s just not possible to comprehend the hate being injected into those crushed but still surviving in Gaza or struggling for freedom in Ukraine, if you have not suffered as they do.
Gaza and Ukraine are the best modern-day examples of human vengeance and greed before us.
I, for one, have never experienced such horror, which leaves me without any tools or experience to guide my empathy.
The best I can do was during my 14th birthday, a year when some communist named Khrushchev said he would bury us and started shipping nuclear missiles off our shores to do just that.
I was scared, particularly my Senator, a guy named Barry Goldwater said if you lived in Tucson, (my town) and they fire you might as well sit on your roof and watch the show. Tucson was surrounded by a dozen or so Titan nuclear missiles of our own.
That was as close as I got to worry about bombs landing in my backyard. But they never came and I went right back to my pleasant life in Lala Land.
What would you do, if the lives you loved, your town and home were just splattered about you?
For me, like most of you, I would instantly learn hate and be engorged with a desire for blood boiling, vicious, vengeance.
Then there are those that don’t react as me, won’t kill, can’t kill, yet run into the horror of it all to save lives, offer comfort, sanity and hope. Where are the monuments to them?
That was the furious, in my face, response to a speech I once gave about the need to provide voters with easy access to accurate relevant facts about candidates that anyone, conservative or liberal, could turn for the truth in absolute confidence.
That quote was from Arizona’s representative on the Democratic National Committee, the “The oldest continuing party… leading with its values…” says their website. It is exactly that horror of hypocrisy that has led to the frustration that Trump feeds and grows on.
Are you going to be a problem
It is not too late. Do your homework. VoteSmart.org, the organization I had been referring to in that speech, is still a place that can help you do it.
Much like me, “I never met a person I didn’t like,” said Will Rogers a century ago.
It’s a sad lesson learned by life’s end that, that feeling is not always reciprocal. As such, it was with Will who later said, “There ain’t nothing that breaks up homes, country and nations like someone exposing (what they really think of you)”
A slap me in the face awareness of this, first smacked me when opening my mail as a State Senator and this dropped out:
Turns out that the slug was from my campaign manager who thankfully also threatened then President Jimmy Carter, bringing in the Secret Service to hog tie him.
People you trusted can be taught to blame or hate from sources you never realized existed for reasons so foreign to your experience, you never, even in your darkest thoughts, fantasized where there.
So it is that most of my fellow Americans, who I trusted and have been so proud and encouraging of, MAY turn to the dark side on Election Day and unleash the lesser, angrier, more hateful selves that nests within us all.
I once heard a Political Science professor arrogantly brag that he never voted, because the chances of HIS vote making the difference was infinitesimal.
It infuriated me that someone with a doctorate, teaching others would say such a stupid thing.
His self-aggrandizing argument completely ignored what was even obvious to the simpletons amongst us. His power to vote was not tossed away. It did not evaporate with his pomposity.
A vote is a little hard nugget of power each one of us is given. Its power cannot be thrown away, when tossed, it lives on, on its own. If it is not used, it simply moves on and doubles-up the power of someone that does vote.
Debate performance may earn your vote for an Academy Award but not something as precious as your vote for President.
Tonight’s Presidential debate is the first Presidential Debate I have refused to watch since Nixon (who sweated too much) vs Kennedy. Largely won because Kennedy’s people recognized Kennedy never sweated and had the heat turned up on the debate stage.
Presidential debates have nothing to do with being President and everything to do with theater. So, if your vote depends on theater, presidential debates to professional wrestling matches are for you. All are choreographed by dozens of experienced manipulators of you, the duck they hope to shoot.
Air Force Veteran Speaks Out; Why Republicans Must Vote For Democracy
