Back in the mid eighties, I fell in with a group of people who really shaped a lot of my social and cultural outlook.
I was canvassing for an environmental organization, mostly out of necessity really, it was a job I was good at, at a time when the economy was terrible. I was new to the West Coast. Of course the people I worked along side of had a lot more awareness in general about national and world circumstances, and they rubbed off on me as I learned more about the workings of the world around me. I kept my eyes and ears open wide, and I was a sponge, learning about so much that I had been ignoring.
I certainly did not anticipate the day that the Berlin wall would come down, and I stood at many an apartheid protest wondering if Nelson Mandela would die in prison.
We were in the Reagan years, and conservatism was on the march. Our country was pedaling weapons to Iran through Israel in a clandestine program called Iran-Contra. Donald Rumsfeld was arranging the delivery of mustard gas to Saddam Hussein. It was sort of the “War on Terror” of the eighties, where we create terrorists and supply them with weapons so that we can fight them with well connected government contractors on no-bid contracts.
The answer to my prayers, economically at least, was supposed to be Reagan’s “trickle-down" approach of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of banks,pubic utilities and corporations, and then all those Good Times would trickle down, eventually, to me. Unemployment was spiking to generational highs. I held on to my canvassing job.
On weekends, we had to find stuff to do that didn’t cost money.
So, on quite a few Saturday mornings we would go to the women’s health clinic in the inner city, to escort the young women that needed physical protection to enter the clinic. Each Saturday morning two forces would assemble: one squad intent on humiliating and debasing the women who came for an abortion, and one squad of people there to protect the girl who would be otherwise harmed.
This was my introduction to the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate.
I was twenty at the time, and if anyone had asked me, I would have said that abortion is a terrible thing that should never happen. I hope I never have to have one. I’ve fortunately never been faced with the choice, and I hope I’m never in that position. Far be it from me, though, to judge for someone else, the outcome of such a heavy personal choice.
So quite a few of those Saturday mornings were a little like a roller derby.
These poor girls would have faced kicking, grabbing, spitting people without us if we hadn’t been there. To me, it didn't seem like a question of abortion at all.
Since then, my bewilderment with the question endures.
I still think abortions are terrible. But when the government decides such a personal thing for a woman, she can hardly call herself "free".
Now that I’m in my mid 40’s I’ve seen quite a few more years of my country at war than I had seen before. I was born in ’64 and was too young to understand a lot of the Viet Nam debacle.
I did see the largest street protests in the history of the United States and the world go ignored by our media. The only patriotic choice for a whole nation was a “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign going in to Iraq, for reasons that were shifting weekly. Not only were the reasons for war changing every few days at one point, but we were also told that we were required to support the effort in order to be “patriots”. People I know who knew of my opposition to the war, told me I must be a terrorist, since of course “you are with us, or you are a terrorist.” Neighbors, friends and family recoiled from one another in fear, and rightfully so under the circumstances.
Most of us could see that this would kick off decades of war, and that the journey the country has now embarked upon, coming back to it’s senses, would be a long and extremely costly one.
Along the way though, I think it’s important to notice, now that our country has made a long trip around the block, that despite massive resistance from the start, so many Americans felt it their patriotic duty to unquestioningly support the senseless bombing of neutral people and bystanders, in the pursuit of one man, in a campaign called "Shock and Awe". Along the way, recognizing the casualty counts of such a senselessly large scale onslaught, theirs and ours, isn’t worth tallying for some dark reason that I don’t understand.
Here is where I’ve found another troubling question that I can’t answer. Why do so many people who claim to be "pro-life" also espouse the killing of innocent people as the by-product of every war? Much less the strategic killing of our actual enemies, or the execution of convicted prisoners of our courts?
When I took religious studies as a boy, I guess I was very naïve and far too literal when I took the sixth commandment to mean: “thou shalt not kill”.
Somehow apparently the phrase has more than a few translations and interpretations. I guess one can then assume that the rest of the ten commandments are also meant to be applied variously, depending on circumstances, the importance of feeling justified, vindicated, the emotions of the moment?
Myself, I can’t claim a close enough relationship to God or Jesus that would in any way grant me that ultimate power, to dictate a life or death sentence. I’m certainly no expert. The “experts” that our society does choose for the job make mistakes all the time, and there’s a lot of evidence pointing to our collective execution of innocent people.
It’s strange.
I find the subject very personal and have always wondered why so many people would try to force other people to accept their religious views. Unfortunately, world history implicates Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in a bloody trail of political conquest.
But “thou shalt not Kill” sure seems like a no-brainer to me.
I’m certainly no expert on Christian doctrine, but I don’t understand why so many people who are “pro-life” are also quite wholeheartedly committed in their “pro-death” positions...being only a common man with no first hand experience with the Creator, I can only pose the question...I certainly don't have all the answers...
