Has Congress addressed the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh?
Has anyone ever questioned the merchants who sold guns to men to kill Blacks in stores and churches? May 17: Buffalo Supermarket, June 20, 2015: Charleston Church to mention a few instances…
Has anyone ever questioned the merchants who sold guns to men who went on to kill school children and their teachers? To recall a few: Uvalde School, Santa Fe High School, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Umpqua Community College, Sandy Hook Elementary. Oikos University, Virginia Tech. West Nickel Mines School, Red Lake Senior High School.
How do members of the National Rifle Association feel about their recent convention?
Bob Harvey, a Judsonite, had this article on his website. He credits Keith Flynn. I have copied the article and Ursula K. Le Guin’s photo. It’s a chilling and instructive comment on illegal abortion. Thank you Bob and Mr. Flynn for drawing this to my attention.
Ursula K. Le Guin:
“They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all f*cked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke….
What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call ‘unlawful,’ ‘illegitimate,’ this child whose father denied it … What was it like? […]
It’s like this: if I had dropped out of college, thrown away my education, depended on my parents … if I had done all that, which is what the anti-abortion people want me to have done, I would have borne a child for them, … the authorities, the theorists, the fundamentalists; I would have born a child for them, their child.
But I would not have born my own first child, or second child, or third child. My children.
The life of that fetus would have prevented, would have aborted, three other fetuses … the three wanted children, the three I had with my husband—whom, if I had not aborted the unwanted one, I would never have met … I would have been an ‘unwed mother’ of a three-year-old in California, without work, with half an education, living off her parents….
But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear.
What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal? – because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist.
You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.”
Ursula K. LeGuin Courtesy of Bob Harvey and Keith Flynn
From “The Princess” originally published in Dancing at the Edge of the World, 1982
Tomorrow, May 15, is Nakba Day. It commemorates the catastrophe that occurred to the Palestinians since 1948 when Israel was founded. I had thought that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the worst events of Harry S. Truman’s presidency. I now include the founding of Israel.
To honor Nakba, American Friends of the Parents Circle- Families Forum quote several grieving Palestinians:
“The Nakba destroyed my family, like other refugee families. It transformed us from farmers and land owners to tent-dwellers living on UNRWA aid.
The Nakba means the same thing today as it did in 1948. It continues today, even if it’s happening at a slower pace or by different means. It’s a story of a continuous pain, and the world must hear the voice of those in pain.”
Shireen Abu Akleh was an Al-Jazeera journalist
She risked her life supporting the Palestinian people.
Born: January 3, 1971, Jerusalem
Died: May 11, 2022, Jenin Camp
Shireen Abu Akleh Courtesy of American Friends of the Parents Circle- Families Forum :Shireen Abu Akleh’s Coffin
Congresswoman Betty McCollum who represents Minnesota’s Fourth District is a principled member of Congress. She supported aid to Palestinian children, is a staunch environmentalist and a firm supporter of women’s rights. Women Won’t Go Back is from her May 5, 2022 letter to her constituency.
Women Won’t Go Back
The leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade is an attack on all women and our reproductive freedom. Republican lawmakers and judges want to decide women’s health care access instead of women deciding by themselves in consultation with a medical provider. Make no mistake: the Trump Supreme Court and Republicans in Congress and state legislatures are using their power to impose an authoritarian agenda to make women less free.
The far-reaching implications of this draft opinion are incredibly ominous for the future of our nation. The Trump Court is making it clear that fundamental civil rights and freedoms can be rolled back against any group of Americans, anywhere, at any time.
States are now on the forefront of this battle. Because of GOP-led legislatures and governors, nearly half of our states have trigger laws in place that will make abortion illegal immediately following this decision. In Minnesota, Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan are committed to protecting reproductive rights. With the governor’s race and state legislature on the ballot in November, protecting reproductive freedom is squarely in the hands of Minnesotans.
As a young woman prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and now as a member of Congress, I’ve been fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment as well as the Women’s Health Protection Act to enshrine the rights of women and the right to choose. I know what it is like to fight for, and fail to secure, a constitutional right to equality for women in the U.S. Constitution. But the battle continues.
