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abortion AT ALL. It's like free speech, and freedom of religion. The state should exit the discussion. This is solely a matter of a woman's bodily integrity--a matter that only she and her doctor can judge. If she gives up that judgment to a church and its male prelates, that is her business. But it is NOT the state's. Politicians like Bush making it the business of the state is an unconstitutional mixing of religion and government.
As for the Catholic Church, a) if they want to slug it out in the realm of public opinion and religious teaching, fine--let them try to convince people; and b) they only came very late to the notion of the "infusion" of the soul at conception, in the 19th century when all sorts of other anti-female and fascist doctrines were being concocted--there are NO theological OR scientific bases for this belief; it is based on FEAR of women and our sexual and reproductive power, hatred of the Goddess, a desire to CONTROL women, and a need for breeders of future Catholics, quite the same as the Fascists' need for breeders of cannon fodder.
The Catholic Church's primitive notions about condoms, birth control, abortion, marriage and divorce are all of a piece with their ban on women priests. It's all a power game. It has NOTHING--zilch, zero--to do with the teachings of Jesus. And to enforce these notions as DOCTRINE, claiming them as the direct will of God to the Pope, with the fires of hell as the punishment for disobedience, is insanely arrogant and out of line. There is nothing Christian about it. It is just power madness.
Personally, I have nothing but contempt for those who condemn abortion, and support war and capital punishment, which often combines with approval of greed and selfishness that inflict great harm on others, especially the poor. This is not a Catholic failing, particularly. The Church opposes capital punishment, and for the most part, opposes war. (They have their "just war" exception.) And they advocate for the poor, but then align themselves with fascist oligarichies. But the Bushites and their 'christian' followers are out and out, full scale hypocrites. The Church is corrupt. The Bushites are nuts. Their position is irrational, and strongly smells of cynicism on the part of the rich, and witch-burning tendencies on the part of the poor.
I can see having a reasonable discussion on whether or not the freedom and equality of women should be based as much as they are on solutions devised mostly by male scientists: taking a drug company drug to prevent conception; solving an unwanted pregnancy by surgically removing the fetus. I've sometimes wondered about this--should we not, instead, provide support to pregnant women and to children, as the duty of society--and make the need for pregnancy prevention and abortion rarer? Shouldn't women's procreative power be treated more as a precious gift, than as an inconvenience to industrialized, corporatized society? And if we really believe in family and community, how can we foster them--in this fragmented, automobile-driven, corporate-dominated life that many of us lead?
These are important and interesting questions--but dictating to people out of motives of powermongering and fear will never do. If we want to revere life, and promote the view that life is sacred, we need to start with RESPECT for the givers of life, and the carriers of life: women.
And we most certainly must bring an end to war--the greatest destroyer of human life ever devised.
Some day humans may be quite other than what we are now: maybe people will be created in sophisticated "test tubes" with many choices, and the procreative line between men and women will disappear. I think it's rather likely, actually--and I don't necessarily think it's an appalling idea. But as long as the best place for creating life is within a woman's body, and this huge difference exists between men and women, we need to figure out what equality means in this, our present context and present conditions. The Church and the Bushites stand against women's equality, and want to destroy it--each for their own ill motives. Secular society needs to reassert itself, and address these issues head on, not just narrowly, over abortion, but in a much larger context of society's responsibility toward pregnant women and children, and toward real community.
And by secular society, I mean something equivalent to AMERICAN society, because the principle of SECULAR society is written into our Constitution and is not only the LAW OF THE LAND, it is the BEST SOLUTION human beings have ever come up with to prevent the kinds of religious wars, and inquisitions, and witch-burnings, and oppression that wracked Europe for a thousand years, and that still bedevil humanity--and women most of all--in many parts of the world.
So let's please have a SECULAR discussion of these important matters. It's long overdue.
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