How clueless is Elizabeth Warren and other abortion comments.

 Eh?

With Roe gone, it’s more important than ever to crack down on so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" that mislead and deceive patients seeking abortion care. My bill with

@SenatorMenendez

would stop these harmful practices.

So called?

Warren's nonsensical crap that she twittered, and that's what it is, has provoked some reaction. The first one I saw was from Patricia Heaton, an actress perhaps best known for Everybody Loves Raymond.  She stated:

Patricia Heaton

@PatriciaHeaton

·

13m

Our medical pregnancy clinic serves client families for five years, providing superior services for anyone who asks. We raised $250K for a mobile medical clinic for underserved areas, treating everyone. Because of people like

@SenWarren

we now have to hire armed security.

She's not the only one who reacted this way, however.  One woman recounted her personal story of being in a "crisis" pregnancy and receiving only advice to abort the child, which she didn't want to do.  She found the help she needed in just such a clinic as Warren would seek to "crack down" on.

An African American woman (that is, a woman who is an African, with citizenship in an African nation, and also an American, tweeted the following:

Wow! Elizabeth Warren wants to “crack down” on organizations that exist purely to give help and assistance to women in crisis pregnancy situations. What do these people have against saving the lives of babies?

"Kay", a young woman in her twenties who is married with children, whose tweets I've posted here before, on the topic in general reacted with what might be called outrage at something I've noted before, the absurd claim that everyone receiving an abortion is twelve years old.  As she rightfully pointed out, most aren't anything like that, but are rather adult women who freely engaged in the act of bringing the child about.  I note that again here, as this was the situation for the woman whose tweet I didn't put in (I couldn't find it again).  

Perhaps the bravest reaction in some ways was that of Cal Thomas's granddaughter.

Thomas is a conservative columnist.  Snarky left-wingers like to take shots at conservatives in general as being hypocrites for not living the life they espouse (the criticism, I'd note, runs both ways, but on different topics), but this can't really be said of Thomas, whose willing to publish about life's failures and wrong turns openly.  He did just that, and then turned his column over to his granddaughter in his most recent edition.  In his current column, called "A Personal Story", she wrote:

"I was 19 when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. 

"I didn't have any future plans. Just taking one day at a time. The father of my child didn't want to be involved so it was just me. Never did I think abortion was my solution. I had people tell me my life would be ruined, I would not be able to provide for my unborn child, doctors encouraged me to get an abortion. People encouraged adoption. I wanted none of that! I became a mother. My instincts to love, protect and nurture my child were immediate. I didn't have a college degree or a well-paying job. I didn't have a bunch of money. I didn't even have a car! 

"Having my child set me on a path and God guided me the whole way. I am thankful to have the courage and the ability to think for myself to make my OWN decisions. I am thankful I was not easily swayed by the lies that abortion is and was the only solution. If you find yourself in a similar situation there is help! People say pro-lifers don't care about the child once the baby is born. That is a huge lie. There are SO MANY resources out there for young pregnant moms and people who choose life but need help to build a strong foundation. 

"There are people who can't have children and WANT them. Adoption is a beautiful thing. Death for convenience and out of fear is not so beautiful. I know people who have shared their abortion stories with me and not one of them was because of a defect, rape, abuse. Every single one was because of fear. I want to share my story to counter the big lies told by the abortion industry. It's a business. They don't care about you or your baby. They want the money. My firstborn is 16, he is smart, funny, responsible, dedicated and I'm so lucky I get to be his mom. I am where I am today in my life because I became a mother early on. I don't regret a second of it. I have achieved so much in my life, having a child didn't hold me back, it propelled me."

This gets back to something about life, and by that I mean just our individual lives and life existentially.  The great lie of the feminist movement was that a woman could "have it all". Early on, that meant have it all except for children and marriage, as the early feminist were hostile to both.  The thought was that by living, in essence, the Playboy lifestyle, but as a woman rather than a man, perpetual economic fortune and personal freedom would lead to bliss.

It didn't, and hasn't.

Women never adopted that view by and large, and much of our behavior having been set in the ancient past 500,000 years or more ago on African plains, people continued to marry and have children, or not marry and have children.  The genes of our hunter-gatherer forebears turn out to matter more than the drivel shoved out by Cosmopolitan or Playboy in the print portion.  So babies keep happening.

What's also kept happening is the Warren argument that killing a child who wasn't specifically planned out for is a better option for a living woman, as that way she can go on to be fulfilled as a human, or whatever, blood on her hands notwithstanding.  In reality, however, the unexpected turns of life continue on no matter what, the great lie that by killing an infant you can live in perpetual 1970s Cosmo bliss remains untrue.

How many people, really, have their lives planned out at 18 and life goes exactly that way?  Some do, but they're few, at least in an absolutest sense.  Some indeed do know what they want to do, and achieve that, but even for them, there's bumps on the way.  I don't know very many people, if any people at all, who haven't had some sort of crisis in their life.

And lots of people lives take unexpected turns.

Some of those turns are huge, but at the same time, we usually bring those about somehow.  Not always, of course.

Killing is always never the answer.

Answering the question above, Warren is obviously an intelligent woman, but I've wondered about her cluelessness before.  She comes from academia and was originally a Republican.  She had a rough early life and indeed a sort of rough start in the law before becoming a professor.  In public addresses, she often seems to not really grasp what she's talking about.

Warren is 73, making her a Boomer in the true sense.  A lot of post Dobbs focus has been on her, as she was the focus of a lot of hardcore "Progressive" attention in the last election.  The other individuals really leading the charge on abortion, if we discount Pelosi and Biden, which we probably really should here (and whom we'll address in a later post, maybe) is Kamala Harris, who is 57, making her a post Boomer.  She's also from the hard left, and she's been floundering as Vice President.  It's widely speculated that the Democrats will dump Biden in 2024, although they can't say that now, and it's been speculated that Harris will be dumped too.  Now she's contending for that position through this issue, figuring its near and dear to the country's  heart.

Frankly, I doubt it is.  The press has been putting out polls about a large majority of Americans favoring Roe, but those polls have weaknesses. For one thing, most Americans don't realize that abortion in the United States was far more legally authorized than it is almost anywhere else.  When people compare the US to Europe on this, they fail to realize that European nations are far more restrictive of it. And when people dig into the issue, it turns out that the "for" position has a lot of nuances to it.  People don't really grasp how broad Roe was, or that Casey basically repealed it years ago, and they tend to favor a lot of restrictions.

Added to that, it's just not really an issue that brings that many "pro" people to the polls.  Left wing Democrats who are strongly in favor it have been going to the polls anyway.  It'll make, therefore, no real difference in voting.

What might make a societal difference, however, is the realization of what Cal Thomas' granddaughter stated, and what is obvious to anyone who knows how deeply those opposed to abortion really care.

I know people who have shared their abortion stories with me and not one of them was because of a defect, rape, abuse. Every single one was because of fear. I want to share my story to counter the big lies told by the abortion industry. It's a business. They don't care about you or your baby. 

Tuesday, June 30, 1942. Spreading Nazi Oppression.

The Third Reich closed all remaining Jewish schools inside of Germany.

This odd fact, that the schools were still open to some degree, points out the oddity that German Jews, while subject to all of the repression that Jews in German occupied territories were, were still safer than those in the occupied territories.  Indeed, the mortality rate during the Third Reich, while still ghastly and large, was significantly lower than it was for the occupied territories.  This has been explained by there being at least a remnant of laws applying to Jews in Germany, whereas those elsewhere were completely subject to Nazi lawlessness.

The U158, having destroyed 12 ships during a successful patrol, was sunk by a U.S. Navy PBM Mariner off of Bermuda, demonstrating how submarines were vulnerable to aircraft.

German forces moved forward again in Case Blue.  At Sevastopol, Stalin ordered senior figures evacuated by submarine.

The Afrika Korps arrived in front of El Alamein.

British troops at El Alamein.

Wedding fashions, by which we mean female wedding fashions, was the topic of the Life magazine that came out on this day.

Friday, June 30, 1922. End of the Four Courts Seige

An explosion and fire at the Four Courts resulted in a cease fire, and then a surrender of the IRA men occupying the structure.

The United States agreed to end its occupation of the Dominican Republic, which had started in 1916.  The last U.S. troops would withdraw in 1924.

Congress passed the Lodge-Fish Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration.  The State Department opposed the move.

It must be summer. . .

Some headlines I saw this morning:

Man Gored by Bison in Yellowstone.

New Yorker Mauled By Grizzly

Neither are amusing, but that time of year.

Dobbs reactions when thought out.

A good and little noticed point:

Ross Douthat

@DouthatNYT

Taped The Argument earlier today, fumbled through some closing remarks; this from

@michaelbd

is the more eloquent version of what I tried to say: https://nationalreview.com/2022/06/roes-end-it-took-everybody/…

9:03 PM · Jun 27, 2022·Twitter Web App

To add to this, I've heard some of the oddest language in regard to this issue in recent months.

Kamala Harris: "First of all, if you are a parent of sons, do think about what this means for the life of your son and what that will mean in terms of the choices he will have."

Well, I'm the parent of a son and a daughter, so I guess I'm qualified to comment.  

My first comment is that for years and years men were told to shut their mouths and keep out of this debate as it was a women's issue. Now all of a sudden, and probably in realization that in states which are moving to restrict or ban abortion it has the support of the women there, supporters of abortion are crying out that men need to be voicing their opinion.

Well, in terms of what it means, I guess what it means is that men, who have been absolved of responsibility for their children via the feminist movement, will have to be responsible again.  I.e, the flood of "single mothers" that the modern era has brought about probably ought to not be going on. That'd take us back to the old standard, which was where accidents happen, the couple thought of the child first.

That standard existed at least as late as the early 90s in a lot of circles, which was already well into the destruction of standards brought about by the Sexual Revolution.  Even that late, as amazing as it is to think on now, you'd find couples that married as the female member of a dating couple had become pregnant.  That seems like a rarity now, although just the other day I stumbled upon an item written by a man who wanted to note that he'd gotten a female acquaintance pregnant that he barely knew in a single encounter. When he learned of it sometime later, he actually proposed to her, they married, and it all worked out, an instance of irresponsibility yielding to responsibility producing a successful result.

Of course, irresponsibility has been the theme of the recent era.

Indeed, one right wing legal commentator I read recently attached part of the gross overreaction to the Dobbs decision to a sense of mourning by the left.  In one of his columns, Jonathan Turley noted:

Indeed, there is a tendency toward Roe revisionism. Roe supporters ignore that Roe’s constitutional rationale was always controversial, including among some liberals. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, called the ruling “heavy-handed judicial activism” and felt the decision went too far. The original Roe actually died years ago when it was gutted by Casey in 1992 in its logic and tests. It was later the subject of 5-4 decisions that created a confusing muddle of what constituted “undue burdens.”

Such revisionism is a natural part of grieving. In Shakespeare’s “Richard III,”the Queen Mother was asked how to deal with the hate of loss. She responds: “Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were; And he that slew them fouler than he is.” The same is true of Roe revisionism. Roe is now presented as inviolate and beyond question in its constitutional footing, while the opinion that slew it is presented as threatening every right secured since 1973.

In recent years, we've been stumbling back to a backwards restoration of old standards, including from the left.  The entire "Me Too" movement has essentially been such an effort.  With the death of Roe, which was long on artificial life support, one of the real institutions of the left wing revolution that began in 1968, and which featured the Sexual Revolution, has collapsed.

There were those who mourned the passing of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, and even still do.  The quote from Richard III is well applicable here, in some quarters.

Mid Week At Work. Tony Owen, organic farmer, California, 1972.

 

Monday, June 29, 1942. More German advances.

Meresa Matruh, an Egyptian port city well into Egypt, fell to the Afrika Korps. Rommel's forces were now advancing at a rapid pace into Egypt.  

The city today remains a significant Egyptian port.  It's history stretches back into antiquity.

The city in 1942, Allied armor column.

They also reached Sidi Abd el Rahman, which was only 20 miles from El Alamein, even further East.  The city today is a tourist destination, although large numbers of landmines still exist in the area.

Mussolini flew, as the pilot, from Italy to Libya, carrying his white horse in anticipation of a complete conquest of North Africa in near days, and a triumphal parade in Cairo.

The Germans were also advancing rapidly in the southern Soviet Union. Dust columns from German forces could be seen from a distance of 40 miles.

The Germans crossed Severnaya Bay at Sevastopol by boat.

Admiral King proposed an invasion of the Eastern Solomon Islands to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Let's grossly overreact.

I used to like Robert Reich, the economist, but after following him for a while on Twitter, that's less and less the case every day.

For one thing, Mr. Reich draws some economic conclusions that are extremely strained.  He blames inflation nearly 100% on high corporate profits.  Whatever you think of high corporate profits, that thesis is demonstrable BS.

Additionally, Mr. Reich is so hardcore left wing that there's no left wing position he doesn't agree with adamantly.  Anyone who agrees 100% with the left or right isn't really giving much analysis to anything.

And then there's stuff like this.

Robert Reich

@RBReich

·

18h

In 1951, I was cast as Baby Jesus in my school's Christmas show. As a 5-year-old boy from Jewish family, I felt lost and vulnerable. Today, after SCOTUS' ruling in favor of the football coach who led his players in prayer, I feel it all over again.

robertreich.substack.com

When I was Baby Jesus

Listen now (3 min) | Today's Supreme Court's decision

I read that opinion, and what the case dealt with is the coach praying on the field after games by himself.  Not leading his players in prayer during games.  I didn't give it a really in depth read, I'll confess, as I just wanted to see the holding, but basically it dealt with an individual's right to pray wherever he wanted, not with a teacher or coach leading anyone in prayer.

Whatever Reich experienced in 1951 isn't the issue here.