CommentsGUEST COMMENTARY - Supreme Court Justices were appointed for life under the assumption that these were righteous men.
But now we have two rapists.
We also have four or five who have politicized their role through public participation in partisan organizations. Organizations their rulings favor, giving a clear indication that they inject their personal beliefs into what should be straight-forward legal determinations. And refusing to recuse themselves from matters in which they have documented political bias.
This includes the handmaiden of the religious right who should remove herself from anything that hints of moral matters as a clear conflict of interest since she seems fundamentally incapable of separating church from state.
Women are not cattle to have our bodies cared for by a politicized “old boy” network in the thrall of the religious right.
Nor do we need to have our personal beliefs curated by holier-than-thou conservatives. OK, I won’t laugh at their neuroses if they won’t tell me what to do or condemn me for what I believe.
My soul is what is good and right with my world and I believe any woman’s ability to live life as she chooses should be cherished, and that the quality of her life is worth more than a few parasitic cells she might choose to remove long before there is any possibility of consciousness.
My soul says that murder is wrong but what is wrong about removing a small mass of cells with no brain and no self-awareness?
What is really wrong in this country are the vengeance seekers calling for the state to execute those on Death Row. Gruesomely. And in most cases these are the same folks who advocate that a woman’s body is better curated by the state
If legislators want to join the Christian Scientists and reject surgery for their own parasitic cancer or the cancer of their loved ones, so be it.
If they want their wives and daughters to bear the children of rapists, so be it.
All women should have the right to make their own choice. So if their wives and daughters are in agreement, so be it.
But any power to impose that choice should stop at the doors of their own homes and they should not break down MY door or impose their religious beliefs on MY doctor.
That is what freedom is. Freedom to do what you want provided it does not impinge on the rights of others.
Until the anti-vaxxers tarnished our meme, our theme was My Body, My Choice. Now there is a lot more at stake.
In too many communities across the country, the lack of access to abortion or healthcare of any kind and the burden of child-rearing are especially onerous.
Places of high poverty and low-quality services. Places where people have brown or black-toned skin or speak languages other than English.
For the moment, we may think that Angelenos are protected by a progressive state government. But situations can change quickly and could leave our women vulnerable to this stacked Supreme Court.
Please do what reactionary and politicized elements on the Supreme Court will not do, and act to safeguard abortion protections in federal law so ALL Americans will be free again.
Fight for women’s souls.
The Women’s Health Protection Act passed in the House but failed to achieve the 60-vote minimum necessary to advance in the Senate.
It was unfortunate that the vote was called the day following the death of Dianne Feinstein’s husband and while New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján was still recovering from a stroke, and that Rafael Warnock failed to vote. Their votes would have made all the difference.
Shame on Joe Manchin, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski who were among the 48 who voted Nay.
On Monday the battle may have been lost, but the war to stop government interference in personal medical matters continues. If you are or love a woman, your mission must be to carry on fighting to protect the rights of all women to control their own bodies in accordance with their own souls.
When the time comes, make sure that every Senator who opposed the rights of American women is replaced by someone more in tune with the people of this country.
(Liz Amsden is an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
