The Abortion, a Confession

The Abortion (1971), a novel by Richard Brautigan

How many of you have had or have been intimately involved with an abortion? Maybe you knew a close friend or family member? No one? Not one of you? It's a touchy subject, isn't it.  For some, difficult to admit. Maybe as a woman it saved your life. 

Perhaps you were raised to believe that the aborting of a fetus is the killing of a life.

Some religions believe that. Other religions believe that a fetus is not a life. It's certainly not a person. These believers think that life begins at birth when the fetus is detached from the mother and a child takes his or her first breath. Until that moment it is part of a living, breathing human being

Our language uses the verb “born” when a child comes into the world separated from the mother.

I had a philosophy teacher in college who believed that a sperm was no different from a fetus based on its ultimate purpose. That, to me, coincides with Roman Catholic doctrine that says the rhythm method is the only acceptable form of birth control.

How many of you believe that?

I'm going out on a limb here. I don't want to judge. I just want to get to the facts of an extremely contentious, sensitive situation with far reaching effects for all.

I wonder what our Founding Fathers thought? Or better yet, what our Founding Mothers believed?

Mothers weren't really involved in "political" decisions. Too bad. We may have been way ahead of this political game by now, a game that is actually a personal decision, not a political or governmental one. That is what I believe. Free choice. 

I don't like the idea of abortion. As a principle it repulses me. I am disturbed by abortion being a handy tool following conception. I was raised Catholic and although I've changed my mind about abortion, which I once believed to be murder, I hold a great deal of Catholic guilt about many things, including abortion.

I am one of many recovering Catholics who walk the streets carrying guilty baggage yet soothed by my understanding of the heart of Jesus's message: Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I restate: a fetus is not my neighbor. It is a potential human being that until the final trimester cannot live on its own. The mother is my neighbor.

I believe in equal protection for all citizens as stated in the Fourteenth amendment (1868), which essentially declared slavery unconstitutional. Many slave women were impregnated unwittingly by their owners. Presumably, according to law, when Black women were freed from ownership, and accorded equal protection, that included being free like all citizens to make personal decisions about their bodies. 

I'm not a lawyer, just a fellow citizen trying to follow the laws and do the right thing. Our constitution applies to all citizens, whether they live in Alabama or Alaska, Texas or California. Whether they come from the White upper class elite or the poor Black ghettos.

Our 16th President Abraham Lincoln said  "a house divided against itself will not stand." If states within our nation want to outlaw abortion, a right of equality that has been protected since 1868, more specifically for the past 50 years under Roe v. Wade, we will eventually break apart. We will not be one nation. 

All of the polls I have seen reveal that about 60% of people in the US disapprove of outlawing abortion, with less than 40% approval of outlawing abortion.

The new Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to make the decision a state’s right. Three of those six votes were by Justices appointed by President Donald Trump, who never won a majority of the popular vote. Who was impeached and appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett shortly before the Election in 2020 that he lost, no matter what he says. Two of the conservative justices on the recent decision were accused of sexual impropriety, Justices Clarence Thomas (by Anita Hill) and Brett Kavanaugh (by Christine Blasey Ford) during their questioning before the US Senate.

I wonder if either one was ever involved with an abortion to save his ass? 

We fought a horrific Civil War, in which more than 630,000 men, brothers fighting brothers, were killed because of a states’ right argument.

Kavanaugh is obviously a child of white male privilege, who fooled Republican Senators Susan Collins (R- Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R- Alaska) during questioning for SCOTUS. They understood that Kavanaugh would not rule against a Supreme Court precedent. They were alluding to Roe v Wade. He misled them.

I wonder if any of the three Trump appointees had been asked if they had ever been involved or knew a close friend or relative who had an abortion, how they would have answered? I think I know.

It's mainly poor, vulnerable women who are faced with abortion. The wealthy can ship an unwanted child off to a care home, or easily arrange an abortion and hide it. As though it never happened.

Just think if Justice Kavanaugh had copped to the truth that he attempted to rape Christine Blasey Ford which seems very likely. He probably would not have been named to the Supreme Court, but it would have been the right thing to do. He would have risen above the wimp factor.

"I like beer," he told the Senators.

I confess that I was a supportive participant in an abortion. There were all sorts of reasons and they made sense at the time. And whether I knew it or not, I had white male privilege going for me. It was most difficult for my partner and ultimately her decision. She handled it willingly and courageously.

The only way we will advance as a nation is to give women the right to make decisions regarding their bodies, as it's been for the past 50 years. Abortion is a personal decision, not a state's decision. Most of the states that are outlawing abortion have legislators whose districts have been gerrymandered to favor conservative white men. That's a fact, not fiction. Those are the same states that want to keep certain people from voting. 

That's my story. What's yours?

Make My Day

I don't want a gun. Or maybe I do.

I know it's my constitutional right to own and carry one with me when I walk, for example, to the library.  A tidy little Glock pistol would fit nicely in my shoulder bag, along with my reading glasses and iPhone. 

I don't know what peril I might find between my house and the book depository. It might be a disgruntled car driver or bicyclist. A street person might suddenly shout an expletive into thin air. 

Would I be prepared to shoot? Would I feel safer? If I came upon a mad person maiming people with a military-style AR17 assault rifle could I take him out and save the day?

Following the Supreme Court's recent decision to knock down New York City's attempt to outlaw toting guns around neighborhoods, I have heard the argument that not only is it our constitutional right to have a gun but we will be safer.

I'd likely shoot a few toes off the end of my foot. Or maybe fire a bullet into the window of the flower shop. Maybe I'd wound an innocent bystander, or even end their life. Considering the collateral damage that occurs with professional shooters, it's a good bet we're going to see more missing legs and arms, more people in wheel chairs. Or heads blown off.

That could be good for the economy. The sales of healthcare hardware could boom. Even dressings like gauze could see an uptick.

In a free enterprise system like ours we can count on selling more goods to address the situation. 

I think we'd also need to build more hospitals, although currently many are going into bankruptcy. But that's a good problem, right? More construction means more jobs.

Just knowing that I have a gun on me at all times would add a little tension to my dreary days. I could pretend to be the Terminator, or Clint Eastwood. 

"Make my day," I could say to a would-be assassin. "Just try it."

Maybe a slick Colt 45 with a pearly white handle would be more my style than a wimpy Glock.

I probably would begin to walk with a strut, with my hand hovering near my pistol.

"First one who tries anything is a dead man," I could proclaim.

These are my gun fantasies and they're pretty damned cool.

The more I think about it, the crazier I get. I mean, like "crazy baby."

I could call myself "Second Amendment Sam." Nobody messes with SAS.

I could ask myself, what's been keeping me from being armed all these years? Fear? Was I chickenshit? Not a real man? Would a gun make me more of a man?

And what's the deal with rules? Imagine if they had a no-guns rule in the saloons of old Dodge City, wouldn't you just stick one in your boot? Nobody followed rules during the days of the Western Frontier. 

Times haven't changed. Guns are like the milk of our land, the honey of our soul, they're embedded in our culture like hardcore whiskey. 

Don't fool yourself. Thanks to our new Supreme Court it's 1791 all over again.

Good Vibrations Again and Again

Brian Wilson

Remember the Beach Boys? Those guys, including three brothers, who lived down the street in Hawthorne and formed a rock band that changed the world?

Maybe you weren't around in 1961, or maybe you passed them off as post adolescent boys straining to harmonize when they exploited Chuck Berry's song "Sweet Little Sixteen" by changing the lyrics into a surf song: "Surfin' USA." I admittedly fell into the latter category.

Or maybe, just maybe, you've always known that you were listening to the astonishing music of a tormented genius.

Obviously, you hear what you hear. Brian Wilson, the leader of the Beach Boys who wrote the songs and created the increasingly complex arrangements, hears voices and melodies that ordinary folk do not.

This is not breaking news, for Wilson's story has been told and retold, including packaged in the cool biopic Love and Mercy, with John Cusack playing Wilson along with cast members Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks. A more recent documentary about Brian Wilson is now playing through July 6 on PBS channels (and online) entitled Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (2021), part of PBS's American Masters series. This one is the real deal, in that we see Wilson, the savant, without filters.

Wilson has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

In the film, Jason Fine, who attached himself to Wilson as a writer for Rolling Stone and won his trust and friendship, cruises with Wilson around his old neighborhoods, including Hawthorne and Malibu, during the a one-hour and 23-minute film. The film cuts back to Wilson's and the band's early career. Wilson's honesty and vulnerability come through. Chilling in the car with Fine works as a relaxer. Wilson's facial expressions speak volumes.

Musician godheads Bruce Springsteen and Elton John add commentary of Wilson's genius. 

Even if you're not a Beach Boys fan, you can't help being drawn into the story of this extraordinary music man who has been compared to the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach. Seriously. His simple answers to deep questions are remindful of his most enchanting musical pieces: tender emotion amidst complex musical orchestration, for example in "Wouldn't it be Nice," "Caroline No" and "God Only Knows."

Not one for introspection, "[Wilson] says just enough to get you in tune with his heart," according to Owen Gleibermann, who reviewed the film in Variety.

And that's the key. You feel as though you get to know the artist, with doses of pain and awe. The documentary brought me to tears.

Wilson talks about how nervous he becomes before a performance. You sense his anxiety just listening to him talk about it.

Fine asks how long it takes him to overcome nervousness when he's on stage:

"Two minutes." says Wilson, without hesitation. 

Brian Wilson turns 80 this month. As of the making of this film, he was touring with a full orchestra and seemingly loving it. As much as his fans seem to love him. 

Due to Wilson's superb studio orchestration during the1960s rock music scene, Los Angeles became a magnet for the leading bands and musicians of that era*, including the Mama's and Poppa's, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, the Doors, Neil Young,  Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, songwriter Jimmy Webb, Glen Campbell, Johnny Rivers, the Wrecking Crew, producer Phil Spector and many, many more. 

*Everybody Had an Ocean, Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles by William McKeen (2017).