"Anti-Choice Floridians Peddling Constitutional Ammendment to Criminalize Birth Control Pill"

Much as I wish I had, it’s hard to miss a headline like 

Anti-Choice Floridians Peddling Constitutional Amendment to Criminalize Birth Control Pill

from the pages of alternet.org (for whom I sometimes write)

         Sigh. It isn’t just having to scream “We’re not all crackpots!” in defense of Floridians again. It isn’t just that exhausted “Oh, what now?” feeling when far-right hysterics try to get in our business. It’s the waste.

      Here’s the skinny.

       ON 9/11/09, Tampa Bay Online reported “The "Personhood Amendment" that conservative activists are filing today in Tallahassee would add language to the state constitution that defines someone as a "person," regardless of age or health status, "from the beginning of the biological development of that human being." Lisa Lowen  of About.com explains the implications of this, saying “If a "Personhood Amendment" passes in Florida, an embryo would have human rights at the moment of conception. Supporters say this would make abortion and many forms of contraception -- such as oral contraceptives and the morning after pill -- illegal.”

       She says it would be a mistake to dismiss this as an inevitable failure and I agree that you can never be to vigilant in protecting your reproductive rights. The good news, though, is that The American Life League, a Catholic “pro-life” group, backed similar legislation in Colorado, where it did not pass. They spent $250,000 on that particular failure.

       That's what gets to me. $250,000. How much good could you do for that? How many homes could you heat this winter so the old people living there wouldn’t get sick and die? That seems very pro-life to me. How much free day care could you sponsor? How much medication could your spring for? For god’s sake, how many people could you hire, even short-term, with a budget that grand?

       – That’s what gets to me. The waste. To spend money politicking when so many are suffering so extravagantly (ALL are the same people distributing that placard “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy,” shortly after the Senator’s death). When Jesus did miracles  - and $250,000 is a miracle -  it was loaves and fishes for everyone. How many poor people in Colorado could have used a tuna sandwich on the day that amendment failed?      

       But feeding people isn’t glamourous (not since 1985). It isn’t thrilling, like a political power-grab is. It doesn’t satisfy your ego as much as holding court or holding sway. Goodness doesn’t get you on CNN.

       So it’s not just the attempted denegration of women’s rights – it’s seeing people who have the power to do good, but not the will. I just wish religious organizations would stop doing damage in places they’re not wanted and take their massive wealth to the places where it would be a godsend. I haven’t been a Catholic since 1978, but I remember Sister Anna, eighth grade, Book of Mark:

         "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.'"

       I know a lot of people brought this up concerning the health care debate as well, but I really did remember it from school. So I did learn something from the nuns. I’ll be damned.