Nancy Pelois being punished in SF for standing up for women’s rights
Ok, This actually happened on May 20th, but I am slow to learn these things. Thanks for my sometimes checking on the braying of the right wing, I finally found out about this issue today.
Let’s example what the Catholic Church in San Francisco has decided to impose on Nancy. Now, let’s be sure, if she had had an abortion, herself, based on the beliefs of the Church, they would likely have ex-communicated her, and I would have little to say. I would be sad, but I would understand that she had broken trust with her claims as an active and devout Catholic. However, that is NOT what she did.
So what has she done? She has stood up for the rights of woman to make their own choices about this matter. Put in religious terms, she has even said that God has provided the right to makes one’s personal decisions and that the government has no right to impose on that decision. This is what I can, in my simple way “mind your own business.” My advice to “pro-lifers” is, if you believe that abortion is wrong, don’t get one, just as I told my own mother many years ago, that if she thought inter-racial marriage was wrong, then she was totally free to not marry a person of another ethnicity. Otherwise it was none of her business what the law allowed for others.
Of course, the Catholic Church, especially the conservative group that seems to be in power in the United States right now doesn’t see it that way. Their response is that “if you are a Catholic, you have to oppose anybody, anywhere being able to have the medical procedure that they feel they need. The outcome of that would be just another knotch in the wall of authoritarian and theocractic rule by one group over against another.
I find myself wondering what Pope Francis would think of this action by San Francisco’s ArchBishop (or is he just a Bishop) At base, this is a violation of freedom of religion as well as an attack on the often sad cases of women in horrible situations making decisions to get themselves out of a unwanted situation that in some cases may ruin not only their lives, but the life of the next generation.
How about if the Catholic Church and all the other so called pro-lifers, actually put their money where their mouths are, and financed and voted for monies to be focused on actually helping the women and potential off-spring to actually have a decent life instead of using demanding that the woman bring the child into the world (often at her own health risk) and then support it. At least, then they would be doing something constructive instead of just making demands on others.
But, of course, that would be far too much to ask, wouldn’t it.