God the Supreme Abortionist?

Googling the statistics one finds that about 70% of pregnancies end in miscarriage if failure of the fertilized ovum to implant in the uterus is included.  

Not counting implantation failures, 15-20% of confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage.   

Either way, one can only surmise that  there are millions of spontaneous abortions each year.   I use the word "abortion" advisedly because according to those who regard a fertilized egg as a "person," a miscarriage is also the death of a "person."    The objection to certain forms of contraception is framed precisely in terms of those methods being "abortifacient" because they can result in miscarriages, even if undetected by the prospective mothers.  

But wait.  Those spontaneous and natural abortions are not really the same as those brought about by human intervention.    Because in the traditional view of God, it is God's mysterious will that those spontaneous abortions should occur.   Preventing babies and their birth by means of human knowledge and applied techniques is wrong because it goes against nature, which is surely a realm where everything happens according to God's will.  And human beings (oops, I mean "mankind") therefore should not do anything contrary to nature.  In which case, we should get rid of all our technologies, both simple and complex, including  the technology of fire and the use of tools,  and  return to living as naked apes.  But wait again.  Is it not "natural" for human beings (dang, I mean mankind) to create and use technology to enhance and enrich survival?  

But if its okay for humans to use technologies on behalf of their sundry biological needs, and for that matter, there mere wishes, why is contraception wrong.  

Well, I suppose there is the religious argument  that specifically in the case of contraception (and abortion) God doesn't want human beings to apply their technology.  But that is an argument only for a certain class of religious believers who cleave to a pretty specific interpretation of a Holy Book that many simply don't share.  So why should that class of believers feel that it is right to force their standards to everyone? 

(By way of a non sequitur, one doesn't see priests running around trying to baptize miscarriages.)

And regarding the specifics of that religious argument, as far as I can tell, there are no unambiguous biblical passages that forbid contraception, or even abortion.  Neither in the Old Testament is there much sentimentality about babies, as when God apparently ordered the Israelites to bash out the brains of the their enemies' infants.  (In another passage, Onan got in trouble because he didn't want to impregnate his late brother's widow, which was a very specific rule at the time.  That passage also is often taken as forbidding masturbation, which plainly is not the issue.)  

It is also clear from some of the remarks that Jesus and Paul made about family life that they and thus many of the early Christians thought there were definite limitations on the Old Testament command to "be fruitful and multiply"--meaning at the least that it was not to be taken as an admonition to individuals, but only to the generality of mankind (I mean, human beings)--if that.  

It is a complete travesty of the notion of "religious freedom" that contraception should figure as an issue before the Supreme Court of the U.S.  If a Court majority sides with Hobby Lobby, Roberts and the conservative judges will likely try and craft some clumsy narrow ruling that would prevent the principle involved from being applied to other medical issues, such as blood transfusions and vaccination.    Even so, the fallout from breaching the wall between church and state looks to be an awful, awful mess.  

One hopes that Kennedy will be a Good Guy on this one.  

R. 

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

Weisbrot on Venezuela

Thanks to Russ T. for the link.  

U.S. media distortions of political reality in Latin America are even more annoying to me than those elsewhere because they concern people and places that are far less alien than, say, the people and places of the Mideast and Central Asia--not to mention the Russian Federation.  

Even the reporting in the NYT (?) shows a flair for uncanny inaccuracy when it comes to Latin American and particularly Venezuela--(such things have never happened before, of course)  

Any way here's  a on-the-scene account of the situation in Venezuela by Marc Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Progress, a progressive think tank whose relative objectivity is such that its facts and figures often are considered reliable even by its enemies on the Right:  

The Truth About Venezuela: A Revolt of the Well-off, Not a 'Terror Campaign'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38027.htm

U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America seems to be a habit inherited by each succeeding presidential administration, rather than something thought out by...well, anybody in particular...

R. 

 

http://gg9-tto.blogspot.com/

An Apostrophe to a Failed Manuscript...

Letter to the local Movement for a Democratic Society regarding the Ukraine

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) for geriatrics, according to some...

 

 I am in general agreement with Roger et al about the U.S. not having any boots on the ground in the Ukraine, nor should any of the other signatories to the Budapest Memorandum of 1995 guaranteeing the Ukraine's independence.  But countries in the area--Turkey, Poland & Hungary who rightly fear the intentions of the Bear (yes, I know they have conservative governments, but they are still right) would be justified in assisting in Marcy Kaptur's idea of a military cordon around the Crimea to prevent further Russian encroachment.   Let Russia have Crimea, if they really want it.  They used to have it until Kruschev gave it to the Ukraine.  (Last night Rachel Maddow professed bewilderment as to why he would do that.  Could it be because K. was Ukrainian himself?)   I rather wish that the idea for such a military cordon had not come from somebody in the U.S., but it is a good idea & I believe the signatories to the Budapest Memorandum should provide materiel support to such a cordon.   And freezing Russian assets and travel should be on the table, if not actually implemented in order to discourage any further encroachments.  

I believe Putin is playing on the residual sympathy for the Soviet Union that remains because of the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazism--and even the nostalgia that some western lefties feel for the existence of the Soviet Union itself (I among them, even as a Trotskyist manque).  What I'm referring to is Putin's alleged fear of a resurgence of Nazism in the Ukraine that he gives as his justification for his intervention.  It's true that the Svoda (sp?)  party is a nationalist anti-Russian outfit that has some bona fide Nazis on its right fringe & their numbers are sufficient to make trouble, but they are nowhere nearly influential enough to be in striking distance of power.   And it should be noted that the exiled ex-prez is just as unpopular in the Russian ethnic majority sectors of the Ukraine as he was elsewhere in the Ukraine.  

(I would also say that the apparently similar situation that obtained in Georgia a couple of years ago was quite different.  There, it was clear that the Georgian President, egged on by irresponsible politicians like Mccain, was the proximate guilty party in instigating the conflict.  These days, I trust that Obama's "cool head" (and self-interest) will keep him from being rushed into anything by the asswipes like Mccain and Graham.)  

In short, I don't believe that Putin is motivated by any particularly progressive agenda in the Ukraine--just economics, Great Power politics and perhaps more than a dash of Great Russian Chauvinism.   

That said, I've been pretty soft on Putin, heretofore.  His regime is certainly better than the Yeltsin era of robber baron kleptocracy, the poverty rate is way down, he has re-nationalized critical resources and state enterprises reportedly are better run than their private counterparts.  (Interestingly, keeping in mind the stereotypes about Russian gloominess, I saw a poll that indicated that during the Yeltsin era, 7% of Russians thought that "life was better."  Under Putin, that figure has risen to a whopping 29%).  

But the country is being run by a metaphorical "mafia," largely informal perhaps, of ex-KGB types who do not entertain particularly warm feelings about democracy, free expression and other forms of western "decandence"  And he has allied himself with one of the most reactionary forces in Russia life--namely, the institution of the Russian Orthodox Church, a longtime incubator of anti-semitism and sympathy for despotism. (Although IMHO, Orthodox theology and spirituality independent of the institutional structure have some features that are at least potentially liberatory and humanist in their impact--but that's another conversation)    I reckon I see Putin's Russia as a somewhat less corrupt and more efficient analog to Mexico as it was under the PRI before it had much serious competition--maybe Russia has even more of the trappings of democracy than Mexico's at the time.  Though it's a start, it's not enough.  Somewhat like the U.S. in that regard. 

I hope this critique of Putin and his foreign policy vis a vis the Ukraine will not be taken as a defense of the current and probably increasing provocation of blanket anti-Russian popular sentiment by the media and politicians.  

How can one not love a country that produces such beautiful figure skating?  And I mean that in all seriousness.  I was transfixed during the Olympics.  Not to mention all the great art, music and literature the country produces to this day.  

R.