I stood beside a hill Smooth with new-laid snow, A single star looked out From the cold evening glow. There was not other creature That saw what I could see, I stood and watched the evening star As long as it watched me.
February Twilight Sara Teasdale
Such a perfect little poem for a chilly night like tonight
So unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, I'm sure you've heard about the pro-life ad that will be running during tonight's Super Bowl, an ad sponsored by Focus on the Family (you can watch the ad here). All things considered, I don't think it's that bad of an ad -- I'm in favor of women having choice when it comes to their reproductive options. Pam Tebow had a decision to make -- one that was against the advice of her doctor, mind you -- but it was her CHOICE of what she should do. I'm genuinely glad that her choice ended up so happy.
That said, not all choices end so positively and not all women should be obligated to make the same decision as she did.
I fully acknowledge the emotional power behind seeing a grown man who could have been aborted, but is alive today. One of the best arguments in favor of the pro-life movement is the emotive power behind the potentiality of life that is cut short by abortions. But I think if we are to make informed decisions about women and their reproductive lives, we need to look at the issue more objectively, and not just FEEL our way around what's at stake.
Pam's story certainly is moving. But as a guide to making abortion decisions, it's misleading. Doctors are right to worry about continuing pregnancies like hers. Placental abruption has killed thousands of women and fetuses. No doubt some of these women trusted in God and said no to abortion, as she did. But they didn't end up with Heisman-winning sons. They ended up dead.
Being dead is just the first problem with dying in pregnancy. Another problem is that the fetus you were trying to save dies with you. A third problem is that your existing kids lose their mother. A fourth problem is that if you had aborted the pregnancy, you might have gotten pregnant again and brought a new baby into the world, but now you can't. And now the Tebows have exposed a fifth problem: You can't make a TV ad.
On Sunday, we won't see all the women who chose life and found death. We'll just see the Tebows, because they're alive and happy to talk about it. In the business world, this is known as survivor bias: Failed mutual funds disappear, leaving behind the successful ones, which creates the illusion that mutual funds tend to beat market averages. In the Tebows' case, the survivor bias is literal. If you're diagnosed with placental abruption, you have the right to choose life. But don't be so sure that life is what you'll get.
Believe it or not, I'm not necessarily out here to change peoples' minds from being pro-life to being pro-choice. I just think it's important to rationally understand your position and be able to defend all the angles of your stance. For me, I have a hard time understanding how adamant pro-lifers can rationally support their stance when it seems so discriminatory and short-sighted when the no-abortion principle is practically applied to women.
If you're interested, here's the Planned Parenthood response to the Tebow ad:
Ultimately, I think it does come down to trusting women with the choice of what should happen in their reproductive lives. To take away the option of abortion (as repellent as you may find that choice to be) means that you don't trust women and their decision-making, and want to make the decision for them. Which, if you think about it, means you're forcing a pregnancy upon a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant -- and that's just horrific, in my (outspoken) opinion.
Anyway, my two cents on the latest chapter on reproductive rights. If you're pro-choice, and looking to be further discouraged about the status of womens' reproductive rights, you can watch PBS's mini-documentary Democrats and the Politics of Abortion. So far I've only been able to watch the first 5 minutes.
A debate on Larry King re: Repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy:
I love that Perkins and the "other side" (ie., the side encouraging continued discrimination) really have nothing to support themselves with, other than vague and baseless appeals. Lt. Choi, on the other hand, is not only a hero, but is so persuasive in articulating the reasons why it's time to end this military policy.
More evidence that the tide is turning when it comes to gay rights -- now to allow all couples the equal access and protection of marriage!
Through my various Twitter connections, someone pointed me to The Living Artist's blog and her latest piece of artwork, Not Yours. The artist writes this about her piece:
Obviously the message is centered on reproductive freedom, but many of the statements apply to gender identity and expression, religious freedom, disability rights, and gender equality as a whole. In short: my body is mine and mine alone. I and I alone have the right to control what happens within it, and to declare my own experience.
If you go to her blog, you can read the various statements that surround the woman, statements like: "I am not your incubator" or "Your discomfort with my life is not my problem."
Agree with the sentiments or not, I love it. I hope she'll make prints so I can buy a copy.
The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos -- A book I've had on my radar for a while now. Avalos is a former fundie, now religious scholar. I have a feeling this book will make some people in my life pretty nervous.
So you ask for my opinion Well what is there to say To be honest and just foolish Won't make you wanna stay You've got to go on and get moving I can't do that for you Got so many plans and so much you want to do
Love is tough, time is rough Love is tough, time is rough Whoaaaa on me
Well I see you've got your bible Your delusion imagery Well I don't need your eternity Or your meaning to feel free I just live because I love to And that's enough you see So don''t come preach about morality That's just human sense to me
Love is tough, time is rough Love is tough, time is rough Whoaaaa on me On me-eeee .. on me-eee ...
And it's one life and it's this life And it's beautiful (repeat) And it's beau .. beau .. beau ... beautiful
From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than ‘objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.
I remember my first encounter with Dr. Zinn -- I was in 11th grade (or as Canadians like to say, Grade 11). It was in my AP US History class, with Ms. Hearn, one of my favorite-ever teachers. She gave us the book A People's History of the United States to read. I remember that after I read that first chapter on Columbus's discovery of North America, I never thought of history the same way again.
This first chapter focused on the disease that ravaged through the indigenous tribes of the Americas, brought to them by the Europeans. I had never thought about "the other side" before when it came to reading history -- reading this first chapter turned on something inside of me, and I think it helped to jumpstart much of my sense of social justice that I feel today.
I remember talking to my dad about some of what I was reading in this class, and I heard him dismissively label it as "revisionist history." I think it was meant to be a slam on Zinn, but the older I grow, the more value I see in people taking revisionist approaches.
When I starting reading and considering the Bible in more revisionist ways, I started seeing through the happy Sunday-School stories I was taught, and saw some of the underlying ugliness. Noah's Ark no longer was about cute animals walking two-by-two, but instead was a story of a genocide to cover up God's mistake. The plagues of the Exodus no longer showed how God saved Israel, but instead illustrated how creative God could be when punishing anyone he deemed as "the other." Job wasn't just the story of a faithful man, but a tale of how God is eager to use us all as pawns in supernatural bets.
We all know how my revisionist readings of the Bible and my revisionist approaches to theology & dogma took me in my "faith journey."
So, today, I'm thinking of Howard Zinn, and appreciating how it's partially because of his unique way of looking at the world that I was influenced to go beyond what is conventional.
Last night I designed a bulletin insert for all the United churches in the area. I'm helping put on St. Andrew's "Winter Refresher" conference in a couple weeks, and I'm in charge of promotions (since I couldn't really offer much in terms of planning worship or liturgy, etc).
I'm actually really looking forward to hearing the speaker, Timothy Beal, a religious studies scholar, specializing in the Bible/religion & pop culture. Over the weekend I bought one of his books, Biblical Literacy: The Essential Bible Stories Everyone Needs to Know. The introduction to that book is entitled "How to read the Bible like President Obama ... or Bob Dylan." Check out his list of books here. I'm thinking of picking up his book on theodicy from the library later today.
Even though I don't believe in the Bible, and think that much of it is utter crap, I also see the value in being religiously literate in today's world. Emma will grow up knowing about the Bible, and other religious books -- it's important that she recognizes how we humans have tried to understand the world around us (and have succeeded or failed in the process).
Carvens is a Hatian-American poet and performer from New York City. He was on the 2009 Urban Word NYC slam team. His poem, "Haiti" was written a year ago and has a startling prophetic tone in the wake of recent tragic events in Haiti.
