Statement from Bishop David Zubik on the passing of Franco Harris

Statement from Bishop David Zubik on the passing of Franco Harris: Franco Harris brought more than football championships to the Pittsburgh region. While winning games, he brought our city together across all ethnic and racial lines, as people of every heritage waved green, white and red flags for “Franco’s Italian Army.”

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

We noted earlier this week the passing of Tom McIntyre.

One thing that I've noted in particular is this. This is how this is captioned on Stephen Bodio's blog, a link to which appears to the side here:

Thomas McIntyre, 1952–2022

1952 to 2022.  Seventy years.

1952 strikes me in particular.  I wasn't alive in 1952.  Indeed, my parents hadn't yet met in 52.  My mother was living in Canada and my father was going to school in Lincoln, Nebraska.  They'd meet and marry about six years later, by which time my mother had left Alberta to attend to her sister's wedding in Colorado, and had taken a job here on her way back north.  My father had served in the Air Force and was back out and starting a career here in town.

I'd come along in 1963.  So there's an eleven-year difference in that.

But there's a nine-year difference, almost ten, between my wife and I. About the same span of years here.

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Psalms, 90:10. 

I'm 59.  

Mr. McIntyre made it exactly to the Biblically referenced number of years. That number doesn't amount to, I'd note, a indication that the inspired writer was promising that God was going to terminate your life at that point.  No, rather, it indicates that even at that time it people lived just about as long as they do now.  Indeed, what's noted is that life tended to be hard and people tended to die around age 70, maybe 80 if they were of strong constitution.  Elsewhere, an upper maximum life span of 120 years is mentioned, which in fact does correlate to the rare examples of extreme old age.

Somebody I know well, and have for over 30 years, is very ill.  It came out of the blue from nowhere. They're only slightly older than me.

Yesterday, a lawyer I've practiced with for nearly 30 years called and spoke to me.  He's had a heart attack and is retiring.  After that, a lawyer I know elsewhere in another city was learned to be retiring.

A month ago or so a practicing lawyer I know, probably in his late 60s, died suddenly.

The point?

Well only this.  Financial planners may tell you to keep working forever, but you aren't going to live that long.

I've long said that after men reach age 30, they're living on borrowed time.  Up at my age, that becomes increasingly obvious for anyone who has eyes to see.

Saturday, November 18, 1922. Tragedies near and far.

It was Saturday on this date in 1922, and the Saturday Evening Post went to press with a female golfer, an odd choice for a time of year that's nearly winter in much of the country.

The Naval Academy formed up its midshipmen for a portrait.

United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, November 18, 1922.

On the same day, Greek residents of Gallipoli were being evacuated by sea, their city and region going over to a Turkish government that was not welcoming to Greeks, and which had entered into a treaty of population exchange with Greece.

Greeks being evacuated from Gallipoli.

While a huge tragedy was unfolding in Turkey, a smaller tragedy struck closer to home.

I know the Bolton Creek Road well, but I know of know oilfields on it, although I can think of a fwe abandoned wells.  Bear Creek enters the North Platte near where Bolton Creek does, but I don't know of any place that the Bolton Creek Road crosses it.  Having said that, there is a good modern bridge across Bear Creek, which is normally dry, on an improved road which just recently was the subject of controversy when the current owners of that ranch, the Martons, attempted to sell it to the Federal Government only to encounter the objection of the State.  Hopefully that will be worked out soon.

Anyhow, that would seem to be the probable location of this accident.

Georgetown and Bucknell played a football game.

Georgetown v. Bucknell football game.

Today In Wyoming's History: The grave of Alvah H. Unthank

Today In Wyoming's History: The grave of Alvah H. Unthank: 

The grave of Alvah H. Unthank

Alvah H. Unthank was a 19-year-old pioneer travelling the Oregon who died of Cholera at a spot near the Dave Johnson Power Plant outside Glendrock in July, 1850.  

One of many such tragic deaths on the trails.

 

Thanks for having been in the service

The Ghosts of Prior Careers

On a Saturday, while working on my now very long term one of nearly thirty years.

I just ran this item:

A Veterans' Day Essay on Worshiping the Military

It'd be very easy to take it the wrong way.

As noted in that thread, it's common now for people to tell you "thank you for your service!"  Indeed, some years ago I saw a National Guardsman coming out of the barber shop and, out on the street, a woman being arrested for something yelled it out, to his surprise.

I'm a contraran anyhow, and I always feel awkward about such thanks, but this thread is on thanks.

But in another direction.  I'm thankful that I served in the National Guard.

Technically, I served in the Army and the National Guard.  Basic training and AIT were so long for cannoneers that I received an Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Army after AIT.  And FWIW I was activated for summer employment and other active service at the armory that I have more time in active service than some guys who did the short two-year Cold War enlistments do.

I've often regretted getting out.  The end of my Guard career was due to a misconception about how busy I'd be in law school.  I listed to people about law school and how hard it was.  I shouldn't have.

Anyhow, I'm glad I served in the Guard.

The National Guard/Army put me together with a lot of men, and we're talking about the basically nearly all military of that era, who came from very different backgrounds than me and who worked in lots of different occupations, many of them in manual occupations.  I learned from that a lot of them had very common interests with me.  I also learned that a lot of them were every bit as smart as I was.  

This is something I've found that a lot of people who haven't ever been in the service don't appreciate.  Blue collar workers aren't there due to intellectual deficit.  And the knowledge they possess in their fields is both vast, and interesting.  Knowing that has served me all my life.

Getting through basic training taught me that I was pretty tough.  I don't know what basic is like now, but the Army basic training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, of the 1980s was very close to what was depicted in Full Metal Jacket.  We were told by one of our drill sergeants early on that his job was to make basic training as rough as possible, as combat would be worse, and he wanted those who were going to fail, to fail then.  Quite a few did fail.

That's served me ever since as well.  Indeed, not so much now, but for years decades after Ft. Sill, in times of high stress, things I learned there by memory would come flooding bad to mind.  We'd been so well-trained that it was automatic.

It also made every one "man up", although by that age I was pretty much an adult already.  Since getting out of school, I've been amazed by the degree to which a lot of modern adults never actually become adults.  There's a song out there somewhere called High School Never Ends, and for an amazing number of people, it really doesn't.  Being part of an organization in which you are flatly informed that in the event of certain circumstances you are expected to perform until dead, and that death would come soon and violently, really takes the game playing out of a person in serious settings.

Related to that, I've noted it before, and will again, but the Guard also taught me a system of organization and its stayed with me ever since.  Everything I've learned about office management I learned in the Guard, including that there's different roles and classes in offices, just like in the Army, for a reason.  I've watched over the years as people who don't have that background run around talking about "teams" and "we're all in this together" only to see things fail.    I've seen people make friends in offices they shouldn't have, surrender their efficiency to inattention or whatever, and go into power pouts when things didn't go the way they personally felt they should, or just because they turned out to be serious.  I've avoided all of that, in no small part due to the Guard/Army.

And the Guard gave me a job when I was young, and really needed one.  It helped pay for my schooling and gave me a way to try to do that, for which I remain grateful.

The Guard also blessed me with at least one instance of nearly being killed and not be.  That may sound odd, but only people whom have been exposed to sudden violent death, and then escaped it, knows what that means.  People's plans are always subject to the fickle hand of fate.  One moment you are doing your job, and the next an entire battery of 8in artillery shells are coming right down on you.

And finally, it gave me an appreciation of history in a way which only somebody who has been in a military unit can.

Foothill Agrarian: More Dog than I've Deserved

Foothill Agrarian: More Dog than I've Deserved: Our family said goodbye last week to the best sheep dog I’ve ever had the privilege to work with. Mo, who technically belonged to my oldest ...

 

Poisonous Death Cap Mushrooms Already In Mountain West, Will Spread To Wyoming Soon

Sunday, September 24, 2012. The end of the World War II Day-By-Day Blog.

The last entry on the World War II Day-By-Day Blog occurred on this day, ten years ago.

Day 1120 September 24, 1942

The blog was excellent, and we've drawn from it as a source here frequently.

Comments on the blog trailed on for some time after that, but have stopped updating.

Something happened. There was no indication at all the blog would be shut down, and none of the comments that were put up were replied to.  The fact that comments were put up for almost two years suggests that somebody continued to monitor it, as spam comments did not appear.

These blogs are put up by people, most of whom do this as labors of love. This blog demonstrated a colossal amount of labor going into it.  The sudden end of the blog likely means the death or severe health crisis of the author.

Some blogs disappear that way.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

The death of Ivana Trump serves as a reminder. . .

that Donald Trump, who seems to have decided to run for President again in 2024, and Joseph Biden, are quite old and frankly are as likely as not to have naturally shuffled off their mortal coil by that date.

Indeed, my guess is that at least one of them, if not both, with be undergoing the review of their Earthly deeds by that time.

I don't mean to be morbid.

My mother was 90 when she died.  

Her mother was older than that when her time came.  Her brother Terry, who died a few years ago, was either 99 or 100, I can't recall which.

My father was 62 when he died, his father was 47 when he passed.

There are of course no guarantees.  There are those in their 70s who are as fit as somebody in their 40s, and whose minds are as sharp as ever.

Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden strike me that way.

The Presidency, it is often noted, ages a person.  It's common to compare before and afters. Trump seems somewhat of an exception. We'll see if Biden is. But whether or not their appearances show it, the job, if they are really doing it (and Biden clearly is, it's questionable how much Trump did) takes its toll.

Most Americans are not yet 40 years old.

To most Americans, the Cold War, and hits hot expressions such as the Vietnam War, are pure ancient history.

To most Americans, the cold 1970s, weather wise, isn't thing they recall.

The recent shock over the Dobbs decision shows that to many Americans the mere concept that only 50 years ago, not really that long ago, states had to make up their minds about abortion rather than having the Supreme Court foist a decision was how things worked.

Most Americans have little connection with the formative eras for Biden or Trump.

And, beyond that, we're gambling as a nation.  

Most Americans don't age out with no problems at all. Those who do are blessed.  But then, it's a rare politician, although there are some, who serves in his old age.

We aren't really that likely to have Trump or Biden actually on the ballot in 2024. If we do, we are even less likely to have them serve until 2028.

All of which is a reason to hand the wheel to somebody else, in both warring camps.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIII (Maybe) overruling Roe v. Wade. Let the misstated arguments, bad analogies, and outright lies begin. .

When in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Unknown.

Everyone has heard the news, of course, a leaked draft of a United States Supreme Court opinion would, if it becomes the final opinion, definitively overrule Roe v. Wade.

Which means that the Supreme Court has not overruled Roe v. Wade yet, and it very well may not, and if it does, it frankly likely will not in the form of the draft opinion, even though the draft is a good draft and this is the approach, absent one based on natural law, that they should take, in context.

Well, anyhow, a firestorm of predictable protests has broken out. So let's look at the controversy, such as it is, and the supposed issues and features of it.

A surprise that isn't a surprise.

Let's start with an obvious one.

Every legal analyst in the universe has known that Roe v. Wade was going to be overruled, so this is no surprise whatsoever.  The huge surprise would be if it wasn't.  This has been suspected for years.

So why the shock and amazement?

. . . a Lander resident, said she wasn’t surprised by the leaked draft, which was publicized Monday. But she was “a little surprised at the audacity of the claims that (Roe v. Wade) has been so wrong all along,” she said.

Casper Star Tribune.

Well, I really don't know, quite frankly, but part of it is simply manufactured.  Indeed, for that reason I think the leaker is most likely from the political left, not the right.  Since the leak, the press has taken up the theory that surely the leaker is from the right, and this is an effort to keep doubtful judges from straying.  Knowing that protests would result with Roe was overruled, no matter what, the opposite is much more likely.  The release was likely from the left, as part of a last ditch effort to keep Roe in place.

As part of that, quite frankly legal scholars have found the text of Roe to be wanting right from day one.  Hardly noticed now, quite a few on the left questioned it for decades, and even such figures as Justice Ginsberg stated that the text was pretty much crap.  The Court nearly overruled it at the time of the Casey decision, and apparently was set to until Justice Kennedy changed his mind out of a fear of what it would do to the court.  Kennedy is my least favorite modern justice so that he'd become a limp noodle at this point only cements my opinion of him, quite frankly, but as he's done on to retirement, and the justices appointed after him were not of his mindset, that Roe would be reversed isn't a surprise at all.

Scary democracy.

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.

From the draft opinion.

So, after the tulmet and shouting, what does that draft, if it becomes the law, really do?

Well, if you listen to folks like Chuck Todd, Cossacks will be arriving at your house next Thursday to rifle through your drawers, steal your children, eat your lunch, and shave your cats.

Not so.

It does one thing, really, and only one.  It returns the issue of legislating and regulating on the topic of abortion, to the voters, through their legislators.

That's it.

Basher: All right chaps. Hang on to your knickers.  [He triggers the bomb, and the safe door cracks open.]  [Laughing, Basher dances into the vault – and the alarm goes off]  Basher: Oh leave it out! You tossers! You had one job to do!

Ocean's Eleven 

And everybody loves democracy, and therefore the left in particular is excited about that, right?

Obviously not.  So much so, that even legally trained Democratic politicians are willing to tell some huge whoppers about it.

The court's decision does one thing and one thing only.  It returns this issue to the states, which means it returns it to the voters.

That doesn't deprive anyone of anything, if the concept of deprivation is even operable here.  It doesn't tell women what to do about anything whatsoever.

Our nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.

* * * 

Our decision returns the issue to those legislative bodies and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting and running for office. Women are not without electoral or political power

Justice Samuel Alito.

Well, that's just a sham, right because men control the vote, right?

Not so at all.

Women are registered to vote in the U.S. at higher rates than men. In recent years, the number of women registered to vote in the U.S. has typically been about 10 million more than the number of men registered to vote.

Rutgers.

And here's the thing, it's been shown that in states that will act to restrict abortion, like Oklahoma for example, the female electorate in those states supports those moves. That is, more women favor restricting abortion than not.

That's the way democratic societies are supposed to work.

Indeed, while there are indeed rights enshrined in the Constitution to protect minorities against majorities, they are few in number, and they should be.  They must be limited to essentials to guard against demonstrated abuses, or they inflict abuses, or, and here's the thing, they can also address essential existential rights to protect them.

Well, that's what Roe did, right?

Not so much.  Indeed, right at all.

What a conservative court could do, and didn't.

To listed to the press, you'd think that what the Supreme Court determined was that abortions should be illegal, which is completely false. But that's why this decision is not a "conservative" one, it's a libertarian one.

We've noted before that there are no real "conservatives" on the Supreme Court.  If there were, a much different result could be reached.

At one time, the Supreme Court openly took the position that there was a natural law, and that the natural law deserved consideration in matters.  It didn't always dominate, however, and a really good example of that is a case we've discussed here before, The Antelope.  In that pre Civil War case the Supreme Court outright held that slavery was against the natural law, but not against the law of the United States, and therefore the law of the United States won out.

As abortion, however, involves the killing of a human being, no matter how a person may wish to camouflage that, a very different result could be reached.

Indeed, perhaps one thing the long build up to this debate may have served to do is to destroy the bogus arguments about the topic of abortion that had existed at one time.  Early on there were plenty of people who claimed to not know when human life began, but hardly anyone takes that position anymore.  Current abortion supporters either just don't address this at all, or are outright in their view that a mother has the right to off her child up to a certain point.

In order to take that position, except in the case of the life of the mother, a person is really limited, if they think it through, to a position of atheistic conveyance.  That is, there's nothing beyond us and our immediate goals dominate.  That argues, we'd note, not only for abortion, but also pretty widespread killing in general.  Certainly euthanasia should be allowed, if we believe that, but we probably ought to kill most felons too, as it would be a lot cheaper and convenient if we did that, rather than warehouse them in prisons. And for that matter we probably ought to do in those with serious mental defects.

That very few really are for mass killing tends to demonstrate that few have really thought this through.  It's much easier, frankly, just not to.  If you do, this is the only place to go. Once we start killing for convenience, the old phrase "well. .  he needed killing" begins to have pretty wide application.

Anyhow, a contrary natural law position is that all humans have a right to life that can only be forfitted to protect a person or society from the putative decedent inflicting bodily harm.  Ie., generally, there's a right to self-defense, but that's where the line is drawn in an individual killing another person.  And there's no reason that a really conservative court couldn't hold that the infant's rights and the mother's are co-equal, and therefore at a bare minimum she could not kill the infant save in the instance of the infant being set to inflict certain grave bodily injury.

And indeed, frankly, in the history of our laws, and in keeping with the concept of being secure in our persons, that's the opinion that would make the most sense.

That isn't the one the court decided.  Not even close.

The Supreme Court has never taken away a right

This argument is based solely on the idea that the unborn child has no rights at all, that's the only way you can get the argument to work.

Even then it's a bad argument, although its the stare decisis argument.  Essentially it  holds that no matter how badly the Supreme Court messes something up, once they totally screw it up, it must be preserved as a screw-up for all time and eternity.

If this was the case, the Dred Scott decision, which held that a slave owner had a right to the return of his slave even if they crossed into a free state, would still be admired as a brilliant legal decision.  Indeed, it should be noted, that holding wasn't much different than Roe.  One party had a right, and the other didn't.

The Civil War and the post-war amendments took care of that situation, of course, not the Supreme Court itself.  But the point is obvious.  If some people had a right, for example, to a "separate but equal" education, and then that was changed, yes, you were taking away a right that had previously been extended, but one that needed to be because the prior decision was wrong.

This decision doesn't even go that far, of course.  It just tosses things back to the states.

It jeopardizes other "rights"

This is the one argument, and the only one, that actually makes some sense, although only somewhat.

Because the fanciful creation of a fictional right by Roe utilized a discovery of a right that didn't actually exist within the "penumbra" of the Constitution, it created a method to extend such rights where they also didn't really exist in print.  That created a frankly dangerous situation in that Roe was easy to cite as a basis for finding those rights existed.

Having said that, the impact here is much more limited than might be claimed.  The claim that it's going to lead to a lot of state legislation regarding marriage, for example, is constrained by Loving v. Virginia, which predates Roe.   So no matter what may be claimed, it's not the case that states can now outlaw interracial marriage, as some have suggested might now occur.  That wouldn't occur anyhow, but the holding in Loving and what it means is in no way impacted.

What it might mean for same-sex marriage, however, is in fact much less clear.  The reason for that is that the holding in Obergefell was frankly made up just like the holding in Roe, and everyone pretty much knows that.  Indeed, Obergefell may be the last of the post 1970s decisions that really simply invented something out of whole cloth, and the process used to arrive upon it was nearly identical to that of Roe's.

Indeed, the near term history of it was as well.  Like Roe, following it gained widespread acceptance while, at the same time, it was clear that it wasn't universally accepted, and it had the impact of simply preserving a debate rather than deciding one.  Long term, therefore, it might very well be expected to have the same history.  Given that, its frankly the case that it would be better if Obergefell was in fact overruled and this returned to the states right now.  That won't occur, however, as it would be too traumatic for the court.

This likely might mean, however, that coming attacks on state's rights to regulate marriage, which has always been the legal norm, might be arrested.  I.e., we may not see any polygamy challenges soon, which we could have expected otherwise.

The other thing we keep hearing is that this may mean that the Supreme Court will send the issue of the regulation of contraceptives back to the states.  This is also unlikely.

The Court determined this issue before Roe as well, in 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut. The raising of the issue is a stalking horse, but it's not a wholly illogical thing to bring up.  Rather than Roe being a foundation for Griswold, it's actually the other way around.

The thing here that's of interest is that contraceptives have become so accepted that their health hazards, known to a much better degree in 2022 than they were in 1965. That's not really on point, but it's interesting in that if the same pharmaceuticals were being released for the first time today, as they were then, I'm not sure the FDA would actually approve them for public safety reasons.  At any rate, this decision, if it becomes law, has no impact on the 1965 opinion and no matter what the arguments on this topic are, or may have been, its doubtful this will change in any fashion, even if legally it probably really ought to revisit the topic.

That brings up "abortion pills".  It's been claimed that this may mean, and it very well might, that states will outlaw these, or outlaw them coming by mail.

On the last item, that's a curious one, and particularly creepy one, which will simply note.

The thing here is whether or not court's will rule that this is simply an area dominated by the Federal Government through the Commerce Clause.  Generally that's the case with pharmaceuticals and state's don't, and probably can't, regulate them at all.  That issue is sure to come up, and the direction even the Supreme Court takes on this may very well be surprising to those panicking now.  It should be noted, as will be below, that the entire concepts of abortion pills as legitimate pharmaceuticals is more than a little Orwellian and not much different than imagining small arms ammunition to be the same thing, but nonetheless, this is not nearly as predicable as some may imagine.

But what about. . . 

Because so much of this is patently obvious, supporters of abortion resort rapidly to stalking horse arguments, the classic one being "well what about instances of rape or incest".

No normal person even wants to discuss rape and incest, so this argument sends a person into silence as a rule, but we'll point out here that at least as to rape, ever single living human being on the planet is undoubtedly a descendant from that event at some point.  I know one very gentle soul who knows for a fact that, in his case, he is, his grandmother having been employed as a maid and suffering a rape from her employer.  His "grandfather" was not, but rather a man who married her while she was still pregnant.

Here's the thing, a person is no less a person because of a rape.  That's a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless.  Yes, carrying a child due to rape must be awful, but nonetheless, killing a person because of it doesn't make the event less awful.

Interestingly here, I'd note, rape is one of the original common law felonies and was in fact punishable by death at one time.  Seemingly nobody makes the argument that rapist should be executed, but then that argument does not have an equivalency here.

Incest is an even more horrific crime against the individual and nature, but the same arguments pertain.

In both instances, however, it would be noted that the number of abortions due to these events is incredibly small, something like 1% at most.  So the argument that widespread bloodshed should be allowed because of the 1% is knowingly disengenguine.  It's much like the logic that allowed white communities to wipe out entire black ones in the South due to an allegation of rape.  One person, that is, was accused, typically falsely, but the entire black section of town is torched.

That in fact gets to two other arguments, one involving distance and the other involving race.

Another argument that's revived in this debate is the old one about somebody having to travel for miles and miles to another state to procure an abortion.  First of all, that assumes abortion is legitimate to start with.  But just as an argument, it's a dog that doesn't hunt anymore.

By and large, in states that will outlaw abortion, it's already the case that it's fallen out of favor to such an extent that people already experience this.  So that won't change much.  The other thing is that an argument that made some sense as an argument in 1973 doesn't anymore.

Indeed, in 1979 the Nitty Gritty Dirt band issued a song about wistful thinking of traveling that included this line:

Voila! An American Dream Well, 

we can travel girl, without any means

 When it's as easy as closing your eyes 

And dream Jamaica is a big neon sign

That song involved a person dreaming of travel, but the "we can travel . . . without any means" became pretty much true in later years and almost was then.

The truth is, in the modern United States, this is already a feature of the landscape of this issue and, while people really hesitate to note it, the American culture of 2022 is so much wealthier than that of 1972 that things like travel are much less an impediment to anything than they were then.  Indeed, the concentration of poverty in some urban areas of the United States actually reflects that, as the urban poor have migrated to them, rather than being stuck in urban areas that they were previously in by default.

That bring up the odd "particularly minority women", by which pro abortion people fall back on one of their oldest arguments, which is that abortion is necessary to off African American babies.

This treads on being a racist argument on their part, and it at one time very much was.  Early proponents of any type of birth control often based their arguments on controlling the black population.

There's no overt effort to do this now, but the racist nature of the argument nonetheless comes through.  It suggests that there's just something different about blacks and for abortion . . . 

An interesting aside to this is the degree to which the WASP culture in the US is sort of a post children culture in and of itself.  There are a lot of cultural aspects of that which are outside this debate, but regarding children as almost sort of a virus is part of it.  Which gets to this

"Healthcare"

There's suddenly all sorts of claims and for that matter press about abortion being "healthcare".

Something that frustrates a natural process isn't healthcare, and that's obvious.  The natural process is what is seeking to be prevented.  It's the antithesis of healthcare.  This is no more healthcare than it would be if you stopped into your doctor, and he just suggested killing you if you had a cold.  Yes, it'd stop the cold alright, but sure wouldn't be healthcare.  Accelerating death or actually causing it never is.

It'll impact the fall election.

Finally, this is really a different topic, but it comes up again and again.  How will this impact the fall election?

The hope of Democrats is that it brings out hordes of enraged Democratic voters who will help them keep slim majorities in the House and Senate.

It won't.  

If anything, recent history has shown that no matter what the issue is, Democratic voters tend to stay home and watch reruns of Dawson's Creek or something rather than go vote.

Last Prior Thread:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXII. The, public address, forgetting where you are, graduation speech, ⚥,part II, exhibitionist edition.

Pandemic Part 9. Omicron becomes dominant

 

December 22, 2021

Well, with Omicron now becoming dominant, time for a new installment.

Israel is recommending a second booster.  It was the first country to recommend a booster shot in general.

The CDC warns that the Omicron may see 140,000,000 new cases in the United States in the next couple of months.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has stated that it is a moral duty to be vaccinated.  The Catholic Bishop of Cairns, Australia, decried the role of ignorant and divisive parishioners in spread vaccine myths.

In a rare instance of some unity in politics, former President Trump stated in an interview how pleased he was that President Biden mentioned his administration's role in developing the vaccine. Trump went on to state that healing of the nation's divides needed to occur and urged people to get vaccinated, while also stating that he though mandates counterproductive.

December 31, 2021

An additional 200+ Marines have been discharged for refusing orders to take the vaccine.

Israel has approved a 4th booster shot.

January 10, 2022

Listening to the weekend shows, it's become clear that the new Coronavirus strategy is now "learn to live with it".  Going forward, it's going to be treated with annual (if not more frequent) vaccinations and treated upon infection.

Perhaps this was inevitable, but it also represents a global public health failure.  In the developed world, large numbers of the population refused to acknowledge the disease as fundamentally different and overall the world in general failed to act to prevent the spread of the disease in the Third World.  If there's a bright spot, a big if, it seems to be evolving towards less lethal.

Which doesn't mean it isn't lethal.  This will mean we'll have a period of years in which the unvaccinated and those who were vaccinated but who slip into disregard will in fact get killed by the disease until vaccination becomes general.

January 14, 2020

The US Supreme Court ruled that OSHA lacks the authority to impose mask mandates on conventional workplaces under the existing laws and regulations applying to it.

January 22, 2022

The state has hit an all-time new high for new infections.

February 3, 2022

The Army is discharging soldiers who refused to get the vaccine.  The discharges are for misconduct, so they are in fact bad conduct discharges, which will therefore carry some lifelong negative implications.

The Secretary of the Army also replied to Governor Gordon, and some other Governors, that this applies to National Guardsmen in spite of their letters of protest.

New Zealand is reopening its boarders.

Justin Trudeau and his family apparently have COVID.  His infection is coincident with a massive trucking industry protest over new rules applying to unvaccinated truckers.

February 11, 2022

The United States has sustained 900,000 deaths due to COVID 19.

A spike in deaths has occurred since January, principally due to the Omicron variant in the unvaccinated.  The US has the highest reported deaths of any country on earth, which is due to the resistance to getting vaccinated.

The American death toll now exceeds the number of deaths due to the Spanish Flu, which is a reported 675,000, although in reality due to the lingering effects of the disease, it was higher than that.  Put in context, however, given the population at the time, that would equate to approximately 2,000,000 Americans today.

Put back in context, it's clear the US is going to exceed 1,000,000 deaths due to COVID 19.

Last prior installment:

Pandemic Part 8. Enter Omicron

Momento mori.

I can't recall exactly when it was, but it was some point while I was in university. As I don't remember it being right when I first went down to UW, I suspect it was when I went to law school, which I would have started in the fall of 1987.  I was supposed to start in the fall of 1986, but I had reservations about it, so I held off for a year, and my mother was also deathly ill as well, so I had reason to return home.

I'll leave that story for some other time, but what I recall is that I went back down to UW and at the start of law school I was under the impression that it was going to be really hard. Truth be known, law school, and I suspect any law school, is an incredibly easy course of study.  Indeed, one of the first deflating things about becoming a lawyer, at least for me, was to realize how easy law school was. ^[1]   I'd just gone through an undergraduate course of study in geology, and that was very hard.  Law school involved readsing cases and knowing what they held.  Any idiot can do that.

Anyhow, the first year I didn't come home much to my old hunting haunts as I thought the finals as the end of the semester were going to be really hard and I couldn't afford the time off.  M'eh, they were not.  That did establish a course of conduct, however, in that throughout law school I didn't come home for Thanksgiving. It was right before finals and I always used it to study for finals.  I didn't go home for Spring Break either.

Somewhere in there, I came home and found to my surprise that my father hadn't gotten his antelope.  He had gone out after I had come home and got mine, but he didn't get one that time and didn't get one at all.  It was a shock.  Even my mother, who was quite ill, remarked on it, and she'd gone out with him, whihc was also very surprising.

More surprising is that he hadn't hunted waterfowl at all.  

It concerned me as it didn't seem like him.

When I returned from law school, he was much his old self, but slowed down.  He still fished regularly when the streams opened back up.  He went with me when I hunted antelope and sometimes deer (he never took weekdays off to do these things ever, but back then I would).  He helped, and by that I mean did almost all the work, butcher a moose and an elk I shot back then.  But he also was getting a little absent minded, enough that I noticed.

The year he turned 62 he was too sick to go antelope hunting with me and my good friend Tom.  I knew he must be really sick, as he'd never cancelled on anything like that ever.  He died the following April, never recovering from what started off like a cold.

This has been on my mind.

It's not on my mind as I'm missing hunting season.  I'm not.  But it has occured to me that I've become so busy in recent years that I'm now like my father.  I don't take weekdays off to go, unlike when I what I did when I was younger.  At some point my father went from a schedule that was six days a week, with half a day off on Wednesday and half a day off on Saturday, to all of Saturday off, and retaining the half day off on Wednesday, but he still started work incredibly early.  For my part, over the years I've reached the point where I work six days a week nearly every week and sometimes seven days a week.  

The past year, or indeed ever since the onset of COVID, I've been really busy. Things may have slowed down for oether people, but they sure didn't for me.  So I've had my whithers to the yoke the entire time.  So I'm a bit tired right now.

Which is what my wife tells me is going on here.

Well, during the really busy run up to a trial I started waking up early, as in 4:00 a.m.  Recently that retreated back to 3:00 a.m, then a couple of times after that, it started crowing 2:00 a.m.  At that point you have to do something and so I'm not back to sleeping into 5:00 a.m., thank goodness.  But I'm just back to that.

Deer season has been wrapping up.

I didn't make the weekend before last out, as I had to work one of the days (I ended up working on Sunday) and we shipped cattle on Saturday.

No problems there, up at 3:00 a.m., worked all day, came home, ate out, and then up for Mass the following morning.  And off to work after that.

That meant that I didn't go out for deer that weekend, but I met my son in a new area that we tried the following weekend. And that went fine.  Up at 3:00, drove to Medicine Bow, met him there and hunted all day, without luck.

That takes me to this past weekend.

It was a frustrating week for a lot of reasons, some of which I'll not go into detail with but which make me feel a lot like John Daly, the saddle maker, in the 1920s.  Anyhow, I had to work again on Saturday, which I did until a little after 2:00 p.m.  About that time I knocked off and stopped by Our Lady of Fatima for confession. That took a little longer than I'd anticipated as the pastor was ill and a substitute priest came from downtown, but he was a bit late.  I stopped at the sporting goods store after that, thinking about getting a replacement 15 watt gmrs radio for the Jeep to replace one I'd recently bought which was defective.  I went home after that, getting home a little after 3:30.

I'd thought about going to Mass that night, and asked Long Suffering Spouse about going, but in the end we went to the across town sporting goods store instead.  I was just pretty fatigued by that point for some reason, with the suspect being that I"d bee up since about 2:00 a.m.  I'd have been better if I went that night, as that would have given me all the next day to go deer hunting, but I was simply worn out.  I ddin't even get ready to go the following day.

The next morning I slept in to about 4:00 a.m., much later than I'd bee doing, and felt pretty good.  While I was tempted to skip breakfast (I think eatinng three meals a day has contributed to my earlier rising for reasons I'll skip going into), I intead made two breakfast sandwiches with eggs, Canadian bacon and cheese, which is a gigantic breakfast for me.  I don't really know what I was thinking, quite frankly.

I continued to feel fine until about halfway through Mass.

About that time, I was hit by a wave of fatigue that's difficult to describe.  I attributed it to eating a big breakfast, but about the same time I began to feel odd.  By the time I left Mass I was definitely feeling odd.  At home, I briefly considered staying home for the day or switching to nearby duck hunting, but that was conceding I didn't want to, so I loaded up and got ready to go.  By that time, I didn't just feel sleepy, I had a toothache where my one remaining wisdom tooth is located.

Now that might require a little explanation.

I was born with wisdom teeth, having a full set of four.  When I was a teenager they started to "erupt", and my father pulled out the top two when it was convenient to do so.  We always think of oral surgeons doing that work, but he did it for me as a result dentist.  And both of them were removed without pain or inconvenience.  I amazed at the time when people complained about how painful this process was, as it wasn't for me.

But he didn't get to the bottom two before he died.  For the most part this hasn't been much of a problem.  They'd erupt from time to time, but generally that would pass with there being only a little pain while they were erupting.  

Once I was in my fifties, however, I began to break molars.  And I broke one that was near my back left wisdom tooth. When that one was pulled by the oral surgeon (it was cracked right to the base in three pieces), the wisdom tooth in that area was removed as well.

That left just one.

This wasn't a problem until just the other day.  I cracked the molar over there, and it was crowned, just like its opposite on the other side, leaving one molar between it and the wisdom tooth.  The crown came in just last week.

All of a sudden, on Sunday morning, the wisdom tooth made its presence very much known.

It started hurting, and that went from annoying to really noticeable.  I ignored it however, hoping it would go away.  I packed up, and drove off.  By the time I left the gas station, I had an incredibly dry mouth, and it was really hurting. This grew worse and worse as I drove out to where I wanted to hunt.  I finally reached a place I wanted to check my maps and stopped.

By that time I was incredibly sleepy and in a huge amount of pain.  I got out a canteen of water I had with me, checking its appearance (I filled it up about two weeks ago), and took a drink. The drink tasted good and I sat in the truck for a while contemplating the maps. By now it was foggy and wet and had snowed, I was tracking mud, and we still had a very long ways to go.

Normally I  would have done that without hesitation.

Well, I hesitated.  I felt so sick, I turned around to head back in.

Driving back in quickly became dicey.  I was driving much slower than normal just due to the fatigue and the pain.  To add to it, my tongue started to swell up on one side, the side that the wisdom tooth was on.  I began to worry a little, but just a little, that I wouldn't be able to make it all the way back in, but then I was calmed by the double realities of being in far too much pain to accidentally fall asleep and that I had no other choice.  No other choice really focuses a person.

I hit the highway finally, by which time I took the truck out of four-wheel drive as it seemed like the weather had improved.  I started coming on in the hour-long highway speed final leg of the trip, still keeping my speed down.  I was doing highway speed, but not high speed, which was in part because of the road still being wet.  As I crossed the road where the bridge over the Power River is, I realized it was more than wet.

As I approached the accident scene, I knew what had happened. The Dodge truck, just like mine, had slip on black ice, its sudden disaster created in part because it was towing a trailer.  It had happened on the bridge.  It' had made it over the bridge, by which time the disaster was on.  It had gone off the road and the trailer had rolled.  One of the truck's windows was out.

I was headed towards the bridge myself of course and I knew that it had black ice, and I was in two-wheel drive.  I'll go into four-wheel drive at the drop of a hat, but there was no time to do it now.  Normally this would be pretty tense for me, but it wasn't.  Just hurt too much.  Up the hill I drove through what I knew to be a fatal accident site in bad weather from just a couple of years ago.  I stopped in Powder River and went into four-wheel drive.

By the time I got home, I didn't feel so bad, but I didn't feel great.  My wife recommended I take some Tylenol, but the tongue swelling had gone way down.  About 4:00 I drank a glass of Irish whiskey, very slowly.  I had a second over dinner, very slowly, and started to feel a lot better.  I stayed up as long as I could, but when it was obvious that no Trick or Treaters were going to common in the 20F weather, I went and took a shower and hung on for bed.  

On Monday I mostly felt a lot better.  The mouth pain still comes and goes.  I probably ought to call the dentist.  I recall my father telling me that oral infections have the risk of being fatal, simply due to their location.  The plan was, after all, to take that tooth out.

So, what of this experience, and those leading up to it?  When I was a kid in the 70s I recall watching in math class in junior high, for some inexplicable reason, a Disney cartoon that was filmed in the 40s, probably for industrial workers, reminding them to stay home if they were sick. The film took the position that a cold was nature's way of making you take a day off.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's an opportunist predators chance to take something out, as it's worn down.  Slow moving member of the herd so to speak.  Or, more accurately, somebody who have worn themselves down through long hours and stress has a bit of a weakened immune system, maybe.

Still, maybe that means take some time off.  That's hard to do, however, with things rolling on by.  Or at least so I imagine.  Perhaps it's often we imagine things that way.  Not like a month or anything, but a day or two.

World War Two Office of Defense Transporation poster.  Vacationing at home was no doubt easier prior to the cell phone and all of its electronic intrusions.

So perhaps none of this is as ominous as a person might suspect.  At 58, I'm in a lot better shape than many, probably most, my age.  But other than trying not to pack on too much weight (something I've always tried not to do, but I've always had to be careful about it), and being the beneficiary of my father's strong genes and my mother's athletic ones, I haven't been as active in any fashion as I used to be.  I don't have a regular exercise routine like I once did, which was based simply on the 1980s Army Physical Fitness Test and walking or riding my bicycle to work. ^[2]  And that's not really good. For some time, I've thought I should get back at it, but that's difficult when there are reasons you need your car at work and that you don't feel like doing much when you get  home.

Still, as noted in a prior entry, the scene from No Country For Old Men put in above makes more and more sense to me as time goes by, and like Servant of God Black Elk, I agree "“Death? There is no death, only a change of worlds.".  That's pretty evident.

And I'll be back out there next weekend.  Probably for waterfowl.  Deer has closed.

Footnotes.

1.  There are a whole series of things like this.

Being a lawyer is really hard work, but you soon find as a lawyer that the field isn't populated by super genious of a Wil E Coyote level. There are huge intellects in the law to be sure, but you also encounter some folks whom you know aren't Albert Einstein or  Richard Oppenheimer.

One of the big deflating things is the poor quality of oral argument, I'd note.  I've been to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals twice, and when you do that, you sit there waiting for your turn, listening to the prior arguments.  As a rule, they aren't great.  Indeed, all in all the arguments I've heard at the Wyoming Supreme Court have been much better.

2.  I'm not a "gym" guy and simply couldn't bring myself to do that, even though some of the gyms around here have swimming pools.

My mother was a fanatic swimmer and bicyclist which probably helps explain her remarkably physical condition after she recovered from her long illness.  She basically went from somebody on death's door to somebody in their high 70s who was incredibly fit.  Indeed, her really fit condition helped stave off, in my view, her ultimate mental decline, and when she suddenly quit her physical activities, I knew that something was very badly wrong.

Saturday October 8, 1921. Committees, Anthrax, Teasing, Football

The Park Site Legislative Committee in the Davis Mountains

 

Radio met football on this day when KDKA broadcast the West Virginia v. University of Pittsburgh game.

Michael F. Farley

Congressman Michael F. Farley died of anthrax acquired from an infected shaving brush on this day in 1921.  The incident emphasized an effort in New York to eliminate products made from infected animals, including shaving brushes and toothbrushes.

Farley was an Irish immigrant who had prospered as a barman before becoming a Democratic Congressman.

Judge ran an illustration of a lady golfer with a teasing caption.

The Saturday Evening Post ran a sad cover of an illustration of a boy with his St. Bernard for sale, but I can't find a clearly copyright free example of it to put up.

In the Midwest, it was the first Sweetest Day, which is apparently a thing.

Misconstruing the arguments: Was Monday At The Bar. Misconstruing the law

On September 6, we posted this item noting how the arguments about the new Texas law on abortion are misconstruing what really happened in regard to that aw.:

Lex Anteinternet: Monday At The Bar. Misconstruing the law: If you listened to the weekend news shows you are now fully up to speed on all the left of center angst, or feigned angst, over the new anti...

But almost as misconstrued are the "progressive" arguments that are inserted as "policy" arguments, if they can be called that. The degree to which these fit a certain pattern, is not only notable, but frankly shocking.

Regarding the argument over abortion, it all boils down to two basic arguments, of which there are subsets.  Basically, you either 1) feel that people shouldn't kill other people; or 2) you feel that killing people for convenience is okay.

Now, that sounds extreme, and we will get into that,  but this is somewhat simplistic.  We'd note that most people who don't believe people should kill other people do hold there are exceptions, such as in self-defense, or the extension of self-defense when it's done in the course and scope of a public officer's duties (military and police).  And we'd also note that almost nobody actually states that they're for killing people based on convenience, and probably a lot of pro choice people have never really stopped to think about the nature of their argument in this regard.

But beyond that, that's pretty much it.  And that takes us, although it's out of order, to the first principal of this. There aren't really any exceptions.  

We'll get to that in a minute. But first, the big question.

Is a fetus a human being?

Is a fetus a human being?

Maybe in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was simply made up by the Supreme Court, this could be fairly debated.  It seems to be the case that the mushy Roe opinion basically determined that for the first "trimester" a fetus wasn't a human being because. . .well, it depended on its mother.

That was always a way stupid way of looking at things and not supported by facts or science. A baby depends on some maternal support at least for a few years after it's born, for one thing.  And viability isn't a good argument for preservation of life.  There are thousands of impaired human beings who aren't "viable" in the full sense.  If Roe made sense when in 1973, Hitler's campaign to murder the impaired in Germany made just as much sense.

What the court was trying to do, if you want to give it perhaps considerably more credit than it deserves, was to create some sort of strange argument that prior to that time the forming human wasn't quite human, and not endowed with humanness.  

People made that argument for a long time, but hardly anyone does now  Science has come to far, and we know that a fetus is a human from the instant of conception.  We can't escape that, and nobody tries to.

So what we're really arguing about is killing for convenience.  When can we kill people because we find them inconvenient?

Most people, we'll note, will not openly resort to that argument as it sounds too brutal, because in fact it is.  Indeed, many of the same people who are "pro-choice" are very much against killing people, and indeed sometimes anything, under any other situation.  They've separated the reality of human life in this are from their argument of convenience.  And that's been made easy by fifty years of mushy thinking on the topic, inspired in no small part by the mushy thinking of the Roe era, and the court decision itself.

But mushy thinking rarely leads to a correct decision.  Honest thinking on the topic, particularly one that involves life and death, is mandated by the argument itself.

You can't really hold to exceptions if you believe killing people is wrong, and you really can't limit it that much if you are okay with killing for convenience.

The anti-abortion must be "never" in answer to that question.  The pro-choice person's argument ought to be "lots of times", although they'll rarely make that argument.

Again, this is out of order, but let's make it plain.  If you believe killing people is wrong, not only is abortion wrong, but the death penalty is wrong.  That's just the way it is.

The exceptions most would hold to would be in self-defense of yourself, and in self-defense of the public, such as in the role of policing or legitimate war.  But those exceptions, we'd note, are really limited.  Indeed, a person sincere in this view really can't take the position that every time there's a war soldiers may kill in it.  Only in a just war, which are limited in number.

You really have to take the view that killing for convenience is okay if you are for abortion.

On the flip side, all arguments about abortion made by its proponents tend to desperately camouflage the real issue, as the real answer is extremely disturbing if you are okay with abortion.

As a fetus is a human being and abortion kills it, if you are for abortion, you are taking the position that killing people is okay for convenience.  The only question is where does the convenience stop.

Pretty clearly, that line is difficult to draw and is by social construct only.  Euthanasia is a close second to abortion and some abortion proponents are okay with it.  The death penalty ought to be okay with anyone who is for abortion, as convicted prisoners are inconvenient.  Indeed, the old common law application of it, which was for any felony, would make a lot of sense in this context.

So do such things as nuclear war or even genocide, really.  

Now, hardly any "pro-choice" person is going to argue that, as they haven't thought it out in this fashion. But that's where it really leads.

The false flag arguments

• "The 13 year old victim of rape or incest"

What you tend to hear about instead is the "13-year-old victim of rape or incest".  

That's because it's a horrific moral situation which presents a moral response.  Ironically, that appeal to emotion is made by the pro killing folks, who otherwise seem pretty immune to emotion in this area.  That suggest this argument is a false flag.

It's interesting strikes back to the "old law", which sanctioned death as a penalty for a lot of crimes, although it skews it a bit, and it also hearkens back to our distant ancestry as an argument.  Therefore, in making this appeal, an appeal to some really ancient, pre-Christian, principals are urged, showing how deeply ingrained they are.

Part of that appeal is the old law sanction of death to the transgressor, although the mark is missed in this case and hits the fetus.  Rape was punishable by death at common law, and going back even further, it was certainly punishable by death in primitive societies.  Rape and incest are crimes that authorities will still allow for a lethal act of retribution in some circumstances even now.  Indeed, while its certainly not a current example, one of my high school colleagues killed her father after years of enduring rape and the authorities made no effort to prosecute her whatsoever.

The second part of that is a darker part of our past, which is both the historical motivator to rape and the ancient reaction to it.  It gets into people's instinct for self-preservation as well as our loyalty to our family and tribe.

Rape is a horrible crime, maybe the worst of crimes, but its also something that was historically common when one tribe raided another. Indeed, it still is.  It's been a major feature of modern warfare in northern Africa in recent years.  Bizarrely, it's a genetic way for the victor to not only claim his spoils, but spread his DNA as the conqueror.  Inside the tribe, however, such things are a horror.  Simply killing the offspring of such unions was not uncommon, as well known.

About 5% of rapes, as defined in our society, result in pregnancies.  But those tend to be concentrated in interfamily and known perpetrator situations.  I don't know the reason for that, but it probably is due to the frequency of the assaults.  I.e, most human sexual acts don't result in pregnancy and therefore most rapes wouldn't .   A normal young couple that is simply having sex has a 1 in 20 chance of getting pregnant.  I.e., a couple acting with complete disregard to the results has a 5% chance of getting pregnant from one act.  Therefore, the percentage in rapes is just about the same.  Added into that, couples seeking to get pregnant will get the advice to have sex frequently, which is also why of course victims of incest and rape from close contacts is more likely to result in pregnancy than other rapes.

A grim topic to be sure.

As part of that grim topic, a normal person doesn't even want to think about this, for obvious reasons, and therefore the resort to the ancient law is easy to make.  It's just programmed into our DNA.

The thing is, of course, is that it also runs counter to our Christian morality, and even though thousands of people who aren't Christians, and even many who are, will bristle at the thought, Western society is basically Christian.  Indeed, wherever Western societies have been, and had a major influence, large elements of Christian thought have come into those societies.

And even in pre-Christian societies the leeway on killing the offspring of such horrors was limited.  Rome gives us the bizarre example of the "rape of the Sabine women" which is one such example, albeit a very strange one.  But others would suggest that it's probably the case that every living human being today has at least one or more ancestor who came into existence this way, which means that we all have ancestors who perpetrated the horrible act. That doesn't excuse it in any fashion, it's just the truth.  Indeed, one of my close friends is aware that his grandmother or great-grandmother, I've forgotten which, had her first child, his ancestor, as a product of such an act when she was employed as a domestic servant.  She had the baby, and a male friend of her married her prior to the baby being born, raising the child as his own.

Not good argument can be made for compelling a woman who becomes pregnant in this fashion to raise the child. That would be absurd. But in the calculations of life and death, its' hard to make out a rational argument that those who innocently come into being in this horrible fashion should be killed.  It's too close to the old old law that held that the infants themselves could be slaughtered, or even the women for having "dishonored" the tribe.  Wants death starts being meted out, it's hard to draw that line where you stop it, as in the end, you are back to the fact that there's really not much of a license for people to kill other people.

• No man should be able to tell a woman what to do

A common feminist argument is "it's my body" and "no man should tell a woman what to do with a woman's body".

The problem with that is that the entire topic comes about due to two bodies producing a third.

Yes, one of those bodies is the nine-month host for the third, but it still doesn't change the fact that an argument about "my body" shows a profound level of individualistic thought.  I.e., it takes the position that "you can't tell me what to do with my body, even if doing that kills somebody else".

This is actually the only area where this argument is actually widely made. There are others, but where they arise, it's a minority view for sure.  We do tell people what they can do with their bodies in numerous other areas, including health and safety.  No welder could go to the rig site and refuse to wear FRs for example, as it's only his body at risk.

This gets back to the sense of community, which may be why this might be a uniquely American argument.  Americans have a strong sense of individualism, even to the point that it's grossly exaggerated in American culture. There really aren't very many "lone wolves" who achieve something, but we like to think there are.

There are no women whatsoever who become pregnant on their own, of course, and that's in part why this argument makes no sense.  It almost assumes that pregnancy comes about due to autogeneration.

Of course, we've gotten used to the post contraceptive concept that a man's responsibility is over once he gets up from the bed and puts his clothes on, but that's a deeply barbaric view of the world.  Indeed, the acceptance of that view, which has come on since the early 1960s, is very strongly akin to the ancient view of rape in a way which gives rise to the primitive argument about killing the offspring.  It's not identical, but its not too far away.

And that's why the occasional effort of men to claim they have a right to voice what happens to their own offspring gets shouted down. But they do.

Now, it's true that the woman will carry that offspring for nine months, and if the mother chooses to keep her child, she'll bear far more of the burden of raising the child to adulthood, at least in the early years, than the father. But what this really cries out for is restoring male responsibility.  Traditionally men carried far more of the financial obligation, with men not infrequently working themselves to death in the process.  In stable couples, men still tend to bear far more of the financial burden.  Allowing men to have escaped this was a terrible societal mistake, and what this argument really argues for is a restoration of more of the old set of responsibilities.

Frankly, to add to it, this argument leads to a real "cop out" opportunity for men, and they frequently take it.

• If pro lifers really cared, then they'd support . . . 

You hear this one all the time, but it's blatantly false.

The argument tends to be that if pro lifers really cared about the mothers, then they'd support all sorts of social programs that are dear to the left.

The problems, they actually tend to.

If you know anyone in this camp who is really active, they tend to actually pretty liberal on social programs. They're for assisting unwed mothers in any way they can, and often support organizations that do so. They tend to be for "socialized" medicine, as it helps the poor and those in this situation. They tend to oppose the death penalty.

Indeed, some of these folks would nearly be regarded as flower children in any other discussion.  The entire argument is just baloney.

The reason I think it tends to get made is that politicians who are pro-life often are on the political right, indeed nearly always so, and they don't appear to be the most sympathetic people in the world  That can be deceptive too, however, if you know anything about them personally.  Lindsey Graham, for example, isn't somebody I generally am a fan of, but his record in supporting his sister when she was young is a model of Christian charity.  One former South Carolinian who was commonly sited as a right wing figure had adopted children that crossed racial lines.  Amy Coney Barrett, who was blasted for being a conservative Catholic when she was nominated for the Supreme Court, also has an adoptive family.

Indeed, the counter might be to ask to what degree do "pro-choice" people really directly support the situation of women in this situation.  In their minds, they no doubt do, but in reality, their help often seems to be limited to the suggestion to kill.

• Keep your Rosaries off my Ovaries

Finally, there's the common suggestion that this is a Catholic issue only and that Catholics should but out.  Expanded out, there's the suggestion that maybe this is a Christian issue only, and Christians should but out.

The argument that people shouldn't bring their religions views to an argument is a false one to start with.  On the contrary, people who are sincere believers in any religion really have an obligation to be informed by their faiths and act accordingly.

Having said that, while those who are informed by their faiths in this area and act accordingly should be admired, rather than condemned, it isn't the case that all that many citations to religion are actually made in the public argument.  Those positions may have informed many of the opponents and brought them to the debate, but they don't tend to cite them in the public debate.  And, moreover, some notable opponents of abortion have had low, weak, or no connection with religion and have come about to their position by other means.

The counter to the phrase, moreover, would argue for a complete abandonment of any moral standard.  It's the ultimate cry for convenience.  It really means "let's keep a moral compass out of this".  The problem is, when you do that, the killing really starts.