The electric company knocked on my door today to say they wanted to replace my meter. I said that'd be cool and asked when. Then I saw the guys carrying one to the back of the house. We had a few moments' notice.
And I didn't even watch the movie!
It's a big deal in the Marshall Islands.
They say we have two seasons here: winter and road construction.
We spent most of our day out of our home, in places that wouldn't have been worth mentioning three summers ago, and not wearing masks, which has been unheard of for the last couple summers.
Just, wow.
Of course, I'm no lawyer, and the 213-page law-babble that the decision is written in filled with context and associations I don't have. I suspect that's true for most of us. The core of the ruling is pretty easy to understand: the SCOTUS voted to agree simply that abortion is not protected by the constitution, and a little less simply that the states are responsible for it.
Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey
are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the
people and their elected representatives.
Skimming through it, because who has the time and fortitude to read that all (well, the media will paraphrase it for us, just wait), they draw on all manner of rules around morality and feasibility, culture and history, and get all kinds of twists and turns weaving the story with other laws and amendments. The meat of the what and why are practically meaningless in comparison with the impact and backlash that will come after.
I mean I think the spirit of the thing is right, even if the legalese is wrong, and if there was a need to correct that law part, there should have been other moves made first.
The crux is, and what should be in the Constitution, interpreted in all of the other freedoms, or added as an amendment, is the right of an individual to chose the way they maintain their person, with reasonable allowances of accepted medical and mental practices, to the point of where it impacts an otherwise disengaged person. And I get, it's that last bit that rocks the abortion fight; when is that conception a person.
Roe didn't compel abortions, but its opposition stops them. Roe allowed people and families to make decisions with their support systems and doctors, and its opposition prevents that. Roe was more right giving the decision to the people involved, the opposition is wrong trying to make everyone else follow their ideas.
I'm not a fan of abortion. I had kids in my twenties because we chose life. I've supported friends who've chosen otherwise. We've adopted children because we and others made other choices. Those are the choices.
I'm Pro-Choice, and chose Pro-Life. If the law is Pro-Life, there is no choice. And you don't want me making choices for your life any more than any other person wants us to make choices for them.
Roe doesn't compel abortions, it makes it illegal to prevent them. It doesn't say the government pays for them, it just makes it illegal to prevent them. It doesn't judge whether its right or wrong, it just makes it illegal to prevent them.
The spirit of the ruling protected people. That protection is gone. There are states and communities jumping on that loss of protection and forcing people into choices. Roe wouldn't be important if states were protecting people and their choices about their families, lifestyles, liberties, and happiness. But the states aren't doing that.
That's wrong.
That's why this decision is wrong.
That's what needs to be changed.
It's the estival solstice, or summer solstice, sometime today. The Earth is tilted with its northern hemisphere most toward the sun. Hitting the top of the figure-8 on globes, if you happen to have one.