disasters, ethics, healthcare, law, narcissists, politicians, politics

Special thanks to Patti for this scary insight…

It’s hump day, which means Arran is going to see the vet for chemo. Bill is coming home this afternoon. Hopefully, he’ll get home early enough to take the dog to the vet. However, I have my doubts I’ll get that lucky, as I look outside and watch the snow fall. Yes, that’s right… on the Ides of March in 2023, it’s snowing. It’ll probably be gone in an hour or so. For now, it’s sticking.

So… I’m sitting here now, wondering what to write about today. And I noticed that my friend, Patti, left a very insightful comment on yesterday’s post. I want to give her proper credit for making the leap that I didn’t quite make yesterday, when I wrote about Republican Representative Rob Harris of South Carolina proposing that women who have abortions be subject to the death penalty, and a new bill proposed in Massachusetts that would offer prisoners the chance to donate organs for time off their sentences.

Patti wrote this, and I had a big AHA moment (bolded emphasis mine)…

At the beginning of these anti-choice laws popping up the last few years I stated it was a matter of bodily autonomy. You can’t force someone to donate organs or blood no matter who needs it – you can’t even take it from a corpse without permission of them prior to death or from a family member afterward. These two issues are actually entangled as they are inching more and more away from bodily autonomy and being able to compel people to give up an organ or blood to someone who “deserves” it.

What’s even freakier to me is that these are two very different states. South Carolina is extremely conservative and Republican. Massachusetts is famously liberal. Rob Harris, who authored the South Carolina bill advocating for executing women who have abortions, is a Spartanburg Republican who happens to be a registered nurse. Representative Carlos Gonzalez, of Springfield. Massachusetts, a Democrat, apparently worked as a social worker, although I haven’t seen evidence of him having a social work degree.

If Gonzalez doesn’t have a social work degree, he’s technically NOT a social worker— in the same way that someone who didn’t go to medical school or nursing school isn’t a physician or a nurse. I hasten to add, I don’t know what he studied in school. I’ve casually looked, but the information isn’t coming up easily this morning, and I’m not willing to spend more time looking for it right now.

The point is, both Harris and Gonzalez (especially if he is a social worker), should have more respect for the self-determination of all people. It makes no sense to me, whatsoever, that a nurse would think and outwardly state that executing people who have abortions is an appropriate course of action. I would hope and expect that nurses, above all, should seek to preserve health and life. And when death inevitably occurs, they should have a compassionate attitude.

Nurses (and social workers) are in a unique position to see the many complex situations that would cause a person to consider having an abortion. Yes, sometimes they’re done for the sake of convenience, which could also be the safest and wisest course of action. I studied social work and public health and worked in South Carolina, and I have an idea of what people who are unexpectedly pregnant can be up against, even if the person has some means.

A young woman who is just launching her career, isn’t involved with her partner, and doesn’t have the financial resources to take care of a baby, should have the option to terminate the pregnancy if that’s what she deems best. Being pregnant has a huge effect on a person’s life and their finances. So, allowing a termination early in the pregnancy is probably a lot kinder than forcing that young woman to endure pregnancy and choose to either give the baby up for adoption, or forgo her own financial security. Yes, I would hope it would also mean she’d be more careful about contraception, but even people who are careful about contraception can experience failures.

I might feel differently if I saw evidence that Mr. Harris advocates providing financial resources for pregnant people. Unfortunately, all I’ve seen from him is a line about personal responsibility, and how the unborn must be “protected”. Does that just mean forcing the woman to gestate? Or is he also proposing making sure that the pregnant person has housing, food, medical care, reliable transportation, help finding work and affordable child care, and all of the other things needed to have a healthy pregnancy and safe delivery? I notice he makes no provisions for cases of rape or incest. Does he also think a ten year old pregnant child should be forced to birth or risk the death penalty? People like Harris never seem to have an answer to those questions, do they?

Say what you want about how dystopian Gilead is in The Handmaid’s Tale, but at least the pregnant women in that story get what they need to stay healthy. In our increasingly dystopian country– the United States, so called land of the free– we don’t offer any help to the people some politicians want to force to give birth under penalty of execution if they don’t. It’s sick and WRONG, and I am so very weary of MEN like Rob Harris trying to legislate morality and impose draconian penalties on pregnant people. Mr. Harris will NEVER have to face an unintended pregnancy or the direct consequences related to pregnancy. He should sit the fuck down, and shut the fuck up! I hope he loses his nursing license! He’s not fit for the profession.

You’d think the Democrats would be more mindful about ethics. But Carlos Gonzalez, who was evidently influenced by his dear friend with kidney disease on dialysis, seems to want to compel incarcerated people to donate their organs. I know, on the surface, it sounds like the incarcerated people would have a choice. Maybe that’s how it would start out, anyway. However, Mr. Gonzalez doesn’t seem to realize that offering desperate people a deal that gives them a year off their prison sentences in exchange for a kidney is, frankly, putting us on a slippery slope. How long would it take before that idea would extend to people on welfare, for instance.

I like the way Patti put it in her comment.

“…they are inching more and more away from bodily autonomy and being able to compel people to give up an organ or blood to someone who ‘deserves’ it.

Politicians tend to be powerful, influential people. Mr. Gonzalez would like to save his friend’s life. He explains:

“He’s a father of three children and is in stage 4 of kidney failure,” González said, adding, “I love my friend and I’m praying through this legislation that we can extend the chances of life for him and any other person in a similar life-or-death situation.” 

Would Mr. Gonzalez feel the same way about someone who wasn’t a father of three? How about someone who is single? What about a person who is homeless or mentally ill? What about someone with Down Syndrome, or another genetic disease? How about a prisoner? How about someone like Jared Fogle?

What exactly would make a person “deserving” of receiving a prisoner’s donated kidney, bone marrow, or blood? Would they have to be a “good” person? Who gets to decide who warrants getting a kidney? What will the criteria be?

And what are the proposed standards for allowing prisoners to donate? Will they get counseling from a lawyer? A psychologist? How about a physician who will talk to them about potential drawbacks to donating, rather than just assessing their health and suitability for donating? Isn’t a vital organ worth more than sixty days off a prison sentence? Isn’t it worth more than a year?

At least Mr. Gonzalez uses the word “love” when he proposes his bill. Rob Harris just sounds hateful toward women. He says:

”We have a problem with abortion, we don’t respect all life,” Harris said. “So, what my bill uniquely does is that it protects all life by defining life at conception. We have to ask ourselves as a culture, whether we believe life begins at conception or not. The ramifications of that are the same for anybody else who would take another life.”

Harris added that the bill’s intent was not to subject a mother who undergoes an abortion to the death penalty, but to save babies.

”The state has become an abortion destination, so what are we doing to stop abortion?”

When asked about whether the media’s focus on aborting mothers potentially receiving the death penalty weakens his bill or the chances of the bill passing, Harris said, “The laws are already on the books about murder, and all that stuff. I’m not arguing to change any of those laws. The bill is forcing our culture to decide, is this really life inside?”

It blows my mind that Rob Harris seems to imply that abortion is the biggest issue threatening human life in 2023. We can’t even protect the already born babies from the gun toting nuts that his party actively courts. We can’t even stop six year olds from shooting their teachers. We can’t stop a virus from killing people before their time.

Rob Harris dares to suggest that the way to make life better for everyone is to execute women who seek abortions and don’t want to have to explain why they want or need one to people like him? I would be much more impressed with Rob Harris if he was more concerned about the health and safety of people who have already been born and whose lives are being threatened every day by violent people with guns. And regardless of what his “intent” is, when he presents his ridiculous idea that women who have abortions should be executed, the fact is, presenting those kinds of bills can have terrible consequences for real people.

I really think Rob Harris needs to kicked out of the nursing profession. He clearly doesn’t really care about people, especially women. He doesn’t work for half of the population of South Carolina. He’s apparently for conservative men with money, and keeping women and people of color at a lower level. And his bill, regardless of his “stated intent”, displays a disturbing desire to punish and control women!

As for Gonzalez… I think his heart may be in the right place for people like his friend with kidney disease. However, as a politician, he’s supposed to be serving all people, including those whom he may not think “deserve” a donated organ. And yes, that means he serves prisoners, too. I think his bill does prisoners (who are still human beings) a disservice, but I also think that precedent could ultimately take our society in a direction it really shouldn’t be going. I don’t know how Gonzalez feels about abortion, but as Patti rightly points out, his idea isn’t so different than Harris’s draconian “pro-life” bullshit (for the unborn, anyway).

Our society is rapidly turning into a place that is blatantly just for the “haves”, and not for the “have nots”… Either way, the people who will be the most negatively affected by either of these proposed bills are going to be the poor, people of color, women, and people who have made mistakes. Those who are lucky enough to have money or connections won’t have to worry at all. And that’s just wrong and immoral, especially in the so-called “land of the free”. Both of these legislators from different states and opposing political sides need to reset their moral compasses. Likewise, voters need to wake up and take notice, and stop tolerating these extremist ideas. We all need to come together to make life better for everyone, not just the so-called “deserving”.

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complaints, condescending twatbags, healthcare, law, politicians, politics, rants, social welfare, stupid people, YouTube

Matters of life and death…

The featured photo is of Bill wearing a t-shirt that says in German, “Life is too short to drink shitty beer…” If only that was our biggest problem!

Last night, I had a rather strained chat with Bill. I was feeling kind of fed up and put out, as he told me when his next week long business trip is planned. After twenty years of this, you’d think I’d be used to hanging out alone in big houses. But, to be honest, the older I get, the harder it seems to be for me. I think Arran’s cancer and COVID-19 have made me more eager to get out and do things. I used to be quite content to do things by myself. Not anymore.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should take some solo trips. I hate the idea of wasting all this time in Europe, sitting at home with my proverbial thumb up my ass, waiting until we can do stuff together. Sometimes, it really feels like life is passing me by. I was trying to have this conversation with Bill. I could tell he was conflicted. He says he’d worry about my “safety”. Never mind that for thirty years, I pretty much did most things on my own. My own parents didn’t worry very much about my safety.

There was a time when this would be a non-issue. Twenty-one years ago, Bill put me on a plane to Jamaica so I could sing at my sister’s wedding. I got around just fine on my own, and came back safe and sound. But, since we became an official couple, it’s been a rare thing for me to do stuff alone. I know I’m capable and have the time, and we have the money. Maybe he’d like it more if I traveled with a friend, but I don’t have any local friends I want to travel with. The older I get, the more set in my ways I am.

So, we ended the chat without resolving anything. As I was about to fall asleep, I noticed a former co-worker had shared disturbing news out of South Carolina. I looked at the familiar photo of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, where I had once jogged regularly. Twenty-one representatives have sponsored a bill in South Carolina that would classify abortion as murder and make anyone who has an abortion eligible for the death penalty.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why people who are supposedly “pro-life” would want to execute other people for having abortions. It’s absolutely batshit nuts to me. Even more crazy is the fact that this bill was authored by Rep. Rob Harris, who is a fucking registered NURSE!!!!! Mr. Harris is also a member of the so-called “Freedom Caucus”– freedom for whom? Probably white, Southern, Protestant Christian, men who aren’t poor.

According to Rolling Stone:

The “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” would amend the state’s code of laws, redefining “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception, affording that zygote “equal protection under the homicide laws of the state” — up to and including the ultimate punishment: death.  

I went to graduate school at the University of South Carolina. I earned master’s degrees in public health and social work at that university, and worked for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control as a graduate assistant, both in healthcare policy and maternal and child health, and for the Bureau of Epidemiology. Twenty-two years ago, I didn’t get the impression that politics in South Carolina were that batshit crazy. I mean, yes, in the first job I had as a G.A., it was my job to track healthcare legislation.

I remember the controversies being about abstinence education, kangaroo meat (as in it was illegal), and chelation therapy. South Carolina had a big problem with teen pregnancy, as well as child abuse. One of my internships was working with Healthy Families South Carolina, part of Prevent Child Abuse. Because there were a lot of young people having babies they weren’t ready for, there was a big problem with child abuse, and other social ills.

And yet, this idiot Republican Representative Harris wants to put women to death for exercising dominion over their own bodies! It defies logic! And do we really need to imprison more Americans? Will that help them be able to stand on their own feet and pay their own bills in the long run? Will it be helpful for their children? And the answer, of course, is a resounding “NO”!

I don’t think Mr. Harris has a fucking clue about his constituents and what they face, his nursing degree notwithstanding. Not to mention the fact that making people who have abortions eligible for the death penalty will cost a lot of taxpayer money and back up the court system. We don’t even put disgusting child predators like Josh Duggar and Jared Fogle to death for their crimes, but Harris wants to execute women who might want an abortion because of rape or incest or some other, totally private reason? What a sick, misogynistic bastard he is! How in the hell did he go into nursing? ETA: I see that Mr. Harris has just an Associate’s degree. Well, that explains a lot.

I am glad to see that at least Rep. Nancy Mace, who is a Republican, is intelligent enough to speak out against this disturbing trend of criminalizing women for seeking abortion care. I lived in South Carolina, and I know of some of the issues there that its children face. I think Rob Harris needs his head examined and his ass kicked out of politics… and maybe the nursing profession, too. What a colossal anti-woman asshole he is!

I pondered those thoughts as I drifted off to sleep for a couple of hours. Then, this morning, I woke up and watched a video by Jessica Kent, who has a very popular YouTube channel. Jessica Kent famously had a baby while she was incarcerated in an Arkansas prison. She now makes a living producing videos on YouTube, Tik Tok, and the like about her experiences as a prisoner.

This morning, I listened to Jessica talk about a new idea that was proposed within a recent bill in Massachusetts. Lawmakers there have evidently determined that one way to deal with the shortage of donated organs, bone marrow, and human tissues is to offer prison inmates the opportunity to donate theirs in exchange for time off their prison sentences.

On the surface, maybe this seems like a good idea… until you realize that people in prison are already exploited and basically enslaved. And some of those people are also innocent. Should we really be encouraging/coercing them to be living organ donors? Especially since they may not have the best environments for recovering from donating?

A lot of people think of incarcerated as less than human and deserving of whatever inhumane treatment they get… This seems a bridge too far for me.

Besides the potential health risks and ethical dilemmas of such an idea, there’s also a side that I didn’t hear Jessica talk so much about. She says most people in prison aren’t absolutely terrible humans… but there are incarcerated people who are, in fact, very dangerous and belong behind bars. Is it really a good idea to make such a person the reason why another person lives? Can you just imagine what might happen in such a situation? A very manipulative person with no scruples gives up an organ for someone, and then, once they are released, proceeds to find them and manipulate, threaten, and harass them for personal gain. I can see it.

But I think it’s more likely that the opposite will more frequently happen. Someone who is desperate to get out of prison will donate just so they can get out and go home. And there may be significant repercussions for making that decision. I don’t have a problem with allowing inmates to donate organs if it’s their idea, and it’s something they sincerely want to do for humanitarian reasons. Politicians offering a carrot on a stick to them to fix organ shortages and overcrowded prison conditions is something else altogether, and decidedly not right, in my opinion. I think that idea could potentially lead to disaster.

Besides… it appears that the time off the sentence isn’t enough to warrant the donation. There would be no financial incentive, of course, since that’s illegal. And the time off would be at least 60 days, but no more than a year. I think someone’s kidney or part of their liver is worth much more than that. Especially when we consider that, in the future, the people who donate may be very sorry they did so. What happens if the person’s other kidney, for instance, fails or is injured in an accident? What if they get shot or stabbed in the healthy kidney? It’s America, folks. That could really happen.

Then… after I watched Jessica’s video, I realized that my problems are pretty small and not very earth shattering. Yes, I hate sitting here alone for weeks on end, but at least I don’t have to worry about needing an abortion in South Carolina. And I am not, nor are any of my loved ones or friends, sitting in a prison cell anywhere… Even in liberal Massachusetts, prisoners are treated as less than human. And, even though my dog has cancer, and I watch him nervously every day to see if he’s suffering, at this point, he’s still happy to be with us. I don’t have any matters of life or death facing me, at this point in time. Bill will be home tomorrow, too.

So… I guess I’ll end this rant and get on with the day. Practicing guitar is less disturbing than reading the news is.

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