I've been asked twice here for Mike Arcuri's stand on abortion.
However, this is my soapbox. But before I try to explain my stand on abortion, I'll say this. Distilled down to my fundamentals, I am a woman who is pro-choice and I am supporting Mike Arcuri in his bid to be our Representative.
But, my job is neither to make nor enforce law. By day, I'm a counselor, but I've also mentored, been a big-sister-by-choice, friend, daughter and female through it all. We've become a society of cheap, fast and easy, but life doesn't always allow such a simplistic way of problem-solving. It often feels like some people on both sides want a easy, black-and-white approach to what has to be one of the most complex situations a human faces in life. Both sides seem to want "I'm right and you're wrong" to cover everything.
I don't have children and I'm not going to say that I know what it's like.
But I do believe, even in circumstances where both parents feel ready and prepared for a baby, there are times of uncertainly and fear. For parents who don't feel ready, those times must be so much more frequent. For a mother alone, even more so. Add to issues of preparedness any worries about health, etc and there are no black-and-whites anymore but only a vast array of gray.
Abortion isn't a problem... it's a procedure. And long before it was a sterile, regulated medical act, it was back-alley, and probably herbal before that. I would love to see the day it's no longer needed, but that day can never come.
It's one thing for a woman to choose to put her own life in danger to try to have a child. How scary is someone who would force a woman to do so?
And there is only one word that describes someone who would force a rape victim to have the rapist's baby and thereby create a permanent and active link between the victim and her attacker for the remainder of their lives. Evil.
I wish there was as much talk and passion about prenatal care, postnatal care, education, child wellness, family stability, good parenting skills, safe environments, health, medical care, fair opportunities and all the other things that children are born into as there is about abortion.
Maimun
4 comments:
Regarding j.clifford's questions to me:
"how does it make [me] feel...?"
No changes in my feeling. I know where he stands and when his position is announced, you'll be able to make up your mind.
"Doesn't it disturb [me]...?"
No, since I was the one who asked for the upgrades on the discussion boards that are being worked on so I can use it as the campaign tool I need.
"[I] seemed eager to slam... [over typos]"
Hardly. Read my reply to Roberts' letter for my issues.
"Don't [I] agreee...?"
I disagree with the premise of your question. As you yourself saw in Lansing, Mike does answer questions. Interestingly enough, in all the meetings I've attended with him, no one has asked him for his stand. I believe you're "question" to him was about railroads, Walter Rich, and David Butler's book. I did ask him about abortion and he did answer me.
Maimun
I asked him a couple questions, actually. Also one about his insights into the NSA spying case, given his legal expertise - and I was quite satisfied with his answer.
The whole Walter Rich thing really went nowhere, in a legal sense, but a closer look at Boehlert's railroad funding would be very educational for us in the way that influence peddling can work in the House of Representatives.
As for myself, I didn't see what needed any upgrading at all in that discussion board. I also know enough about web sites that any hosting company worth its salt can keep one discussion board going while another is being prepared.
I've upgraded discussion boards myself. How long did it take me? 20 minutes. This stuff is not rocket science.
Also, the discussion board was up and functioning for quite some time after the links to it were taken down. That, to me is suspicious.
Maybe it is all innocent. Even then, the timing - right when Boehlert was announcing retirement, was ill-advised.
If it is just an innocent glitch, however, I can tell you that the Arcuri for Congress campaign is using an incompetent web consulting company. Nobody has any excuse for launching a substandard discussion board on a campaign web site that has been months in the making, and then taking three days and counting now to get a discussion board back up. Any college student could learn to do it better in a matter of days.
So, I'm skeptical, because I have a hard time believing that any web company could be so incompetent, slow, and lazy. The weekend excuse doesn't cut it either - every web company that I've worked with has long weekend hours just in case this sort of emergency comes up, and that includes web companies that I've paid as little as $9.95 per month.
So, Maimun, if this web glitch is causing the Arcuri campaign this much trouble, if I were you I'd get the Arcuri campaign manager to call the web consultants' lazy butts out of bed pronto, and have them fix the problem while I watched. You'd be surprised how quickly this can be achieved... a few clicks here... a few clicks there.
There's a scene from a movie with Jeaneane Garofalo, can't remember the title, in which there's a geneologist who has an office with stacks of papers, and old file folders, and photographs, and underneath it is hidden a computer where the geneologist can just get the answer to any question with a few clicks. The more experience I have with web consultants who work with political campaigns, the more I suspect that that most of them have a similar scam going.
You know, if you just had a campaign blog, or could write a 60 word news item for the web space as you've got it, Arcuri could clear this all up in a matter of minutes.
Why isn't he?
Why is Arcuri not addressing the abortion issue.
And oh... if this whole discussion board deletion thing is just a computer glitch, then how come that earlier question on the discussion board about abortion was deleted???
I saw it myself. Then I saw it gone, while other messages, posted previous and afterwards, were still there. That needs an explanation. Do you have one?
I have watched the people of America fall right into the hands of politicians by allowing abortion to be a wedge issue. The more time we spend on it, the less likely we all are to notice the other things everyone is up to. They do it on purpose. They love it. Don't let them do it to us again. I don't care what any of these candidates opinion on abortion is. They aren't nominees to the Supreme Court and their opinion is uesless. But still, we will see the republicans use it again. Why are we doing it to ourselves as well? If Democrats don't become more united we will be crushed by Republicans again. They know how to pull our chains don't they, hey? Are we going to let them teach us how to do it to ourselves as well?
I'm a woman. I think abortion is between God and the woman who makes this decision. I don't think it's anybody else's business and it's certainly not some slime ball politician's business. Same goes for religion. But we allow them to put these wedges between us and success at the polls. Keep everybody busy fighting about abortion while we rob them blind. How clever they are in the end. Does any of us really believe they care about children, when they talk about "saving" the unborn and then couldn't care less if the same children die of starvation? No. It's their wedge issue. If we removed every politician in DC who participated in an abortion in some way, there would be an echo. Yet, they are seemingly so passionate. We all know why. It's how they rile the base. Are we going to help them do it again?
I am interested in what the candidates have to say about the billions we have spent in Iraq. I am interested in their opinion of the fifty million working Americans who can't afford extortionist health care insurance. I want to know what they think about our national debt and the fact that countries like China own most of our debt paper. I want to know what their plans are to stop the industrial-military complex that is taking over our country. The last thing I care to hear is their opinion on abortion. It's none of their business and we already have enough to worry about with the current borderline facist appointees to the Supreme Court. Are we really going to let this wedge happen to us again? To be honest, I don't care if Dracula runs on the democrat party ticket, I will vote for him. But I will tell you this....I know Mike Arcuri and he's no Dracula, and I am more than fairly certain that the other candidates hoping to run on are ticket aren't either.
Now I know that there is competition for this slot on the Democratic ticket, and that is what America is all about. I will support the person who wins a primary if there is one. And if there is one and your personal candidate doesn't win, will you do the same? Because if you don't, the Democratic party will be dead meat once more.
All I ask is that you consider not clouding the most important issue of all with the deliberate wedge issue that has been used well to keep everyone in America distracted from what is happening in our corrupt congress. The important issue? Taking back America by getting rid of congressional fascists and hypocrits who want to rule our lives and tell us how to live whilst robbing our wallets and lining their pockets. Hypocrits who want to tell us what is right when they need to pay attention to what's right themselves. Does any of us REALLY think any of our Democratic candidates for Congress falls into that category? And do we really want to force any of our candidates to alienate a predominantly Republican district and lose as many votes as possible over an issue that doesn't even belong in this race at a time when we know darned well it's the Supreme Court we need to worry about when it comes to abortion? Because if we do, we will play right into the hands of the opposition....again.
Peace to all of you and please I do hope we do not make our own selves the enemy so that we might help those who are hoping we will do just that.
C.
Thank you, Anonymous, for your comments. You're absolutely right. Any candidate can have a plan for anything, but if it's not within their scope of authority or they don't have a plan to impliment their plan, they're only half-done.
You asked if I would support the primary winner if he's not my personal choice. Honestly, I'm not sure. There are too many "Democrats in name only" and I'm tired of candidates who think that just because they apply the label to themselves, that's good enough for me.
It's not. I want a Democrat who walks, talks and lives like a Democrat. Anything else, I might vote for when push came to shove, but I can't support.
My candidate has asked that should he not be the candidate in Nov, that we support whoever it is, as he will. I did like what I heard/saw from one of the other candidates though, so 2 out of 4 I can live with in March.
Maimun
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