Remember Roe v. Wade?

Or perhaps the better question would be: Did you ever know what Roe v. Wade says?

I've seen pro-life literature that says, "Did you know that Roe v. Wade allows elective abortions up to the seventh month of pregnancy?" Nope, I didn't know that. And I read the case.

I've seen seen pro-choice people insist that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the whole country would be immediately cast into a dark world of back-alley abortions...overlooking, of course, the fact that before that happened, each state would have to enact independent legislation prohibiting abortion.

With the Presidential election around the corner, the issue is once again getting a lot of press, but little (if any) of it accurately represents just what Roe v. Wade said or the role it plays in the future of abortion law across the country.

The law that was challenged (and struck down) in Roe v. Wade criminalized abortion in all cases except where it was a life-saving procedure. The United States Supreme Court found that such a restrictive statute violated the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause and that states could exercise varying degrees of discretion in regulating abortion, depending upon the stage of pregnancy.

During approximately the first trimester, states could not limit the right to abortion--that was to be left to the "medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."

From the end of the first trimester to viability, the state could "regulate abortion in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health".

After viability, the state could regulate--or even prohibit--abortion except where necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

One interesting point is that the regulation allowed post-first-trimester was required to be reasonably related to maternal health, whereas that shifted post-viability and the state interest in preserving the "potentiality" of human life was deemed sufficient reason for the restrictions.

It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court ruling only placed a limit upon the regulations a state could impose--it did not impose any regulations itself. Thus, for instance, when pro-life activists say that Roe v. Wade "allows" for abortion minutes before birth, it's technically true...because Roe v. Wade doesn't put any restrictions on abortion; it simply sets forth the circumstances under which a state may do so. And that's as it should be; health and welfare provisions are specifically reserved to the states under the U.S. Constitution (and in any case wouldn't be the purview of the judiciary). What Roe v. Wade said about late term abortions was that states could forbid them, except where the mother's life was in danger. Period.

On the flipside, if Roe v. Wade were reversed, it wouldn't mean that abortion was illegal--it would mean that if states so chose, they could MAKE abortion illegal.

Obviously, Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that changed the face of abortion law across the U.S. But abortion law is made by the states, within the parameters set forth in Roe v. Wade and subsequent cases. Before millions of Americans--pro-life or pro-choice--base their votes in the Presidential election on the chance that the next President might appoint Supreme Court Justices who might have occasion to rule on a case that might impact the Roe decision, we should all understand what the case says, and what that means to the states.

And Now, For Another Perspective...

In my last post, I shared with you a touching and reality-based view of Bosnia from someone who'd been there. Today, I can't help but share a much more humorous (but nearly as serious) description of the inner workings of the U.S. Postal Service.

This may have rung especially true with me because of my own past experiences with the U.S. Postal service...experiences that once led my five-year-old daughter to tug on my sleeve as I stood at the counter in my local post office and say innocently "How 'bout FedEx?" But somehow I think that if you've ever tried to ship a package...or pick one up...or figure out why one with someone else's name on it was left on your porch...this post is for you.

Bosnia Up Close and Personal

This post by an American lawyer who worked in Bosnia in 2001 brings home the destruction wrought by Radovan Karadzic. Maybe his crimes aren't so far away after all--in time or space: Karadzic's Destruction of Bosnia Last Long After War

Are you REALLY entitled to your opinion?

I'm inclined to say no.

Not to everyone, of course, and not even to those who disagree with me. No, I just want to cut off this whole "right to my opinion" thing for people who don't have a freaking clue and can't be bothered to get one.

Again, whether or not I think you have a clue does NOT depend on whether or not you agree with me. It depends entirely upon whether or not you have a basic understanding of the basic factual information necessary to FORM a meaningful opinion. If you'd prefer not to be bothered with the facts, that's fine: just acknowledge that you don't know enough to have an opinion and SHUT UP. Or, if you really, really feel strongly about your "rights" (even though you're probably misusing the term), go right ahead and form an opinion without any of the necessary information...but then keep it to yourself. Please. Don't confuse others, who might assume that you know what you're talking about.

And here's a tip: it's not a good investment of time to go around forming strong opinions about things that never happened.

Just a few examples:

The Supreme Court did NOT make a recent ruling relating to victims of domestic violence--rather, it made a ruling with universal applicability to the admission of certain kinds of testimony in criminal cases.

A UK court did NOT sentence a man to one day in jail for the murder of a prostitute--it sentences him to one day in addition to approximately thirty months of time already served.

The woman who burned herself with McDonald's coffee did NOT win millions of dollars--and she did suffer very serious injuries necessitating reconstructive surgery.

Bottom line: learn the facts. Or don't. It's your call. But if you choose not to know anything then please, please, please...also choose not to share your ignorance.

Look How Far We Haven't Come

You've probably seen a lot of press coverage over the past few days concerning the Connecticut man who was struck by an automobile and then lay paralyzed in the street while bystanders went on about their business and passing cars switched lanes to go around him without so much as slowing down.

Despite the outrage all of us seem to feel while sitting in our living rooms and watching the inaction of the people on the street, it's impossible to ignore the fact that there were a lot of people out there--people who weren't together, weren't conferring, were of various ages and presumably various other demographics...and they all behaved pretty much the same way. They are us. And I know the inclination is to immediately protest that WE would have done something. I feel the same way.

But do we honestly believe that those people who stood there on the street and did nothing wouldn't have said exactly the same thing if they'd seen that clip on their televisions instead of finding themselves in the middle of the action? I think the vast majority of them would have.

44 years ago, a woman named Catherine Genovese was murdered in Queens. "Kitty" Genovese became something of a poster child for what's wrong with our society today...err...I mean...what was wrong with our society 44 years ago...because 38 people watched her being attacked and ultimately killed. The attack reportedly went on for half an hour, but not only did no one intervene, no one called the police until it was over and she lay in the street, dead from 17 stab wounds.

The public, of course, was horrified.

And here we are, 44 years later, still shocked by the same kind of reaction.

Maybe it's time to stop shaking our heads in disgust and wondering what's wrong with other people and try to take an honest look at the roots of this kind of reaction BEFORE we find ourselves in circumstances in which we'll have to find out what we're really made of.

What Passes for Inspiration

I've probably mentioned before that I don't turn on the television very often, but this evening I wanted to watch John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama and then I didn't turn it back off. Big mistake. What came on afterward involved some soap opera actress who'd gone in for lap band surgery.

Even (insert name of big celebrity magazine), they told us, was covering her "inspirational journey".

In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I have some feelings about lap band surgery, and they're not positive ones. But that's not what this post is about. It's about the "inspirational journey" of someone who paid $12-25,000 for a surgical procedure to make weight loss easier.

Have we really fallen that far in this country, that a 45-minute surgical procedure and the weight loss that follows is an "inspirational journey"? Have we really grown that weak? Are we that short on true inspiration?

We Have a Winner

Since I started this blog about a year ago, I've written about the outrageous, the unbelievable, and the just plain stupid. It's often seemed that there were so many varied things wrong with our world today that they fell into an undifferentiated mass. Until today, that is.

Today, a co-worker sent me this link, and everything changed.

Yes, that's right. For a mere...well, okay, for several thousand dollars...you can have "the carbon from your loved one" made into a synthetic diamond and...you know...wear pieces of your dead friend or family member.

The process is simple, really. You just have your beloved cremated, ship the ashes off to LifeGem with a small boatload of money, and the company uses its "patented process" to press your loved one's carbon into a synthetic diamond just for you. You can also buy settings, of course, and cases, and everything else you might need to go with your chunk of dead relative beautiful new piece of jewelry.

The LifeGem website contains testimonials that I can only hope are faked. Here are a few excerpts:

"I've requested in my will that my children turn me into a diamond when I die."

"Knowing that my mother is in the stone and I can take her with me is an awesome feeling."

Some are even more...disturbing. I don't want to recreate those here because these letters, if they are real, were written by people who have suffered terrible losses and evidently are finding some comfort. Unfortunately, that comfort is being offered in a way that is not only disturbing, but extraordinarily expensive. The least expensive loved-one-turned-diamond that I was able to find on the website was $2,699. That's just the diamond--no setting or anything--and there's only one that comes that cheap.

Our loved ones, of course, are more than their carbon. It's unfortunate that a company has sprung up to capitalize on the pain of people in mourning by pretending that crushing a bit of their organic matter into a diamond is what remembrance is all about...and that if you REALLY loved your husband (or mother, or child, or wife, or cat), you'd go with the SEVEN thousand dollar diamond....