The Racial Undercurrent in the Health Care Reform Brouhaha...

It's so painfully obvious. Birthers. Teabaggers. The sudden flip in the Republican Party's key talking points, from same-sex marriage and abortion to Affirmative Action and gun control (a not so subliminal play to age-old race panic about black crime perpetrated against white chastity). Swelling membership of white-supremacist ranks, cries of "reverse-discrimination and Obama's alleged racism and comparisons to Hitler. They try to play it off as if it's not racism. Nowhere remotely near racism—after all, how can we be racist if we have a Black President? Indeed, they try to convince us that it's Socialism they're against (though the American tradition of anti-Socialism is itself spurned on by xenophobia). Never mind those signs comparing Obama to a monkey, or outright calling him "nigger". Forget that Beck is claiming Obama's attempt at reform is all about reparations. Nope, nothing at all to do with race here, move along, please.

I voice it to my immediate associates every time I see it dripping from the foaming mouths of the protesters in their worked up panics. But I don't see it addressed. Well, at least not with any degree of mainstream exposure, which I'm admittedly not too shocked over. Thus I was quite pleased to see NPR cover it recently.

Professor Harris-Lacewell hits the nail squarely on the head. "I want my America back" is coded language with racist undertones. Which America is it, exactly, that they want back? One with legislated segregation? One with rampant, overt institutionalized racism and sexism? What precisely do we need to repeal to get back to these beautiful glory days? Welfare? Social Security? Medicare? A national highway system? Child labor laws? Unions? Women's suffrage? Manumission? Whose America is it we so desperately need to return to? Exactly which freedoms have been so rampantly eroded, other than the freedom to openly discriminate and oppress entire chunks of the population with no regard to repercussion? The attrition of disparate privilege is not a loss of rights. Equality for all is not implicit with oppression of others.

"Individual responsibility" is classic political white supremacist lingo that is almost exclusively applied to those very same individuals they refuse to actually view as individuals, instead of representative embodiments of an entire population group and supposed "cultural pathology". When is this phrase injected into public discourse other than conversations on welfare, criminal punishment, or any other social issue which is immediately identified with black people in the eyes of the majority?

Who are they talking about when they say "real Americans"? Natives?

Race is most definitely an underlying factor, and anyone who thinks the protest against reform would be equally as rowdy if proposed by a white President is simply disingenuous.

But enough with vain attempts at reason or logic. At times we can just apply simple measures and see what conclusions can be drawn. So, I propose a quick test: Simply ask yourself, how many minorities are so up in arms about Health Care reform? I pretty much see only white faces protesting. Not too many black or brown faces in the affray (unless they're having their Rosa Parks posters ripped out of their hands). Isn't that odd? Yes, quite peculiar indeed.


Update: Tim Wise elucidates the issue in his article Racism, Right-Wing Rage and the Politics of White Nostalgia, which he penned after his CNN appearance discussing this matter:

Damn Liberals...

A favorite of mine, which I feel needs reiterated:

"A Day in the Life of Joe Average Conservative

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards (*1).

With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised (*2).

All but $10 of his medications is paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too (*3).

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry (*4).

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained (*5).

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air (*6).

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his workday. He has a good job (*7) with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression(*8).

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage (*9!) and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads (*10).

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension(*11) because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: 'We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.'"

======================

Update:

The following annotations provided:

Sadly, the most striking thing about rereading this is the fact that it is now outdated. The ascendancy of the Selfish Right has undermined or made mockery of so many of the institutions described it is heartbreaking.

The asterisks indicate where these protections have been either seriously eroded or outright destroyed by RW governance, through lax enforcement or repeal:

1. "Healthy Forests", mountaintop removal

2. FDA medicine/ food contamination scandals

3. Employers dropping health care en masse

4. See #2

5. See #2

6. Pollution controls on all fronts weakened over last decade

7. Jobs lost = about 6-7 million over last 18 months

8. Current system no longer protects from banksters

9. Fannie Mae mortgage. LOL

10. That car better be safe, the roads and bridges sure aren't!

11. Union pensions vs polar bears. Who faces quicker extinction?".

Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater...

Most of us on Facebook have probably seen the little poll about Universal Healthcare, which asks "Are you in favor of a Government run healthcare system?"

Aside from finding it blatantly misleading (using an image of Obama, who doesn't promote anything near a universal healthcare system), I rather enjoy this poll. Not solely because I'm a HUGE advocate of such a plan, but because it gives me a glimpse into other people's perspectives, and I'm a student of human behavior.

Case in point, someone on my friends list voted "No" and left the following comment:

"I don't think my tax $ should pay for someones 'choice' to kill a baby!!"

Now, I obviously respect her (one of the kindest people I've ever met), or she wouldn't be on my friends list...but I'm going to use this as a case point to make a couple of observations.

She has every right to be concerned about what her tax money pays for. I don't want my tax dollars paying for religious schools, supporting faith-based initiatives and the batshit insane bigots that run them, buying bombs to kill brown people for oil in a religious crusade, paying the salaries of racist officials, creating an oppressively brutal police force, or any other myriad elements of our reality. But I'm only one 320 millionth—0.000000003125%— of the population, and I realize how democracy works (or is supposed to).

But the main problem here seems to be the typical over-zealousness and narrow-mindedness mixed with ignorance of the facts in the face of intentional misrepresentation. And I honestly mean nothing negative in that statement.

First, some of the facts as reported here:

"Abortion is not mentioned in the 1,018-page bill..."

"The Supreme Court has established a woman's right to abortion, but federal law prohibits government funds from being used to pay for the procedure in most cases. However, nearly 90 percent of employer-based private insurance plans routinely cover abortion."

OK. Pretty cut and dry.

Second, let's forget almost the entirety of my personal belief system, and attempt to deal with this just on the basis of these and a few other established facts (namely 1: there are a shit-ton of uninsured Americans, and 2: some pretty serious problems come along with being uninsured or not sufficiently insured in a society that has ridiculous healthcare costs).

So, she's saying that 46 MILLION uninsured Americans essentially should continue to suffer because the government MIGHT use tax dollars to fund abortions, most likely only in the event that it saves the mother's life (again, not even a definite option, but, if it is an option, a rarely used one)?

But in the meanwhile, the current private system covers almost all abortions, AND screws over 46 million American men, women (and their fetuses), and children. Not to mention, the dollars YOU pay into YOUR premiums are what the insurance companies use to pay for those abortions (!). So, in the current, private system you already ARE paying for abortions. For less debatable reasons. And there are still 46 MILLION people going without any health care or all, or substandard health care.

So, in a nutshell, the reasoning is "I don't want to help my fellow humans because it might lead to significantly lower levels of something that is already happening". I must say that doesn't make much sense at all.

It is worsened by the fact that the assumed reasoning is based on a religious affiliation with a faith that is supposedly defined by merciful dedication, sacrifice, and non-judgmental service to one's fellow humans according to the example set by a God/prophet that never once mentioned abortion but did prop up the poor, condemn the rich, and stress egalitarianism and beneficence.

Correction, we didn't evolve from monkeys...

We are monkeys.

Well, we're still of the taxonomic parvorder Catarrhini. I suppose it's still more "accurate" to say we're apes, being of the superfamily Hominoidea, but the point remains.

This isn't about opinion or feelings. We're primates, plain and simple. This proves to be a very difficult FACT for some people to accept, and this is mainly due to a certain arrogance: people find it "dehumanizing" and somehow degrading to think of themselves as animals. This, of course, is ridiculous. These are technical terms. If you're a living, locomotive organism that digests other living organisms to survive, well, guess what? You're an animal. Lose the self-righteous indignation.

Okay, perhaps I simplified things with motile and heterotrophic. As AronRa puts it in his excellent video on cladistic phylogenetics, you ARE a primate as long as you are a:

"gill-less, organic RNA/DNA protein-based, metabolic, metazoic, nucleic, diploid, bilaterally-symmetrical, endothermic, digestive, tryploblast, opisthokont, deuterostome coelemate with a spinal chord and 12 cranial nerves connecting to a limbic system in an enlarged cerebrial cortex with a reduced olfactory region inside a jawed-skull with specialized teeth including canines and premolars, forward-oriented fully-enclosed optical orbits, and a single temporal fenestra, -attached to a vertebrate hind-leg dominant tetrapoidal skeleton with a sacral pelvis, clavical, and wrist & ankle bones; and having lungs, tear ducts, body-wide hair follicles, lactal mammaries, opposable thumbs, and keratinized dermis with chitinous nails on all five digits on all four extremities, in addition to an embryonic development in amniotic fluid, leading to a placental birth and highly social lifestyle."

If for any reason you feel the above passage doesn't describe you...

...well, I don't know what to say to that. Just watch out for those government agents, and good luck phoning home.

Mothers' Day Bible Study:

"And Jesus said to her, 'O woman [Mary], what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.'" — John 2:4

"While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him...He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?'" — Matthew 12:46-48

Jesus loved his mama. He was sooooo respectful. But let's not forget his whole view on "family values":

"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."— Luke 14:26

"For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" — Matt. 10:35-37; Luke 12:51-53

And, of course, nothing drives it home as well as internal contradictions:

"For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.'" — Matt. 15:4

Where's that crackpot James Dobson at?

My Other Side of the Fence...

Forbes let's us in on the Happiest Places on Earth.

No surprise at all that they're also ranked quite low in religiosity. It's a documented fact that the less religious nations rank higher in categories indicative of human happiness.

Bible Study: Geneis 32:23-34

"After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.'

But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'

The man asked him, 'What is your name?'

'Jacob,' he answered.

Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.'

Jacob said, 'Please tell me your name.'

But he replied, 'Why do you ask my name?' Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.'

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon." — Genesis 32:23-34

Jacob (a human, by the way) wrestles with God (you know, the ALL-POWERFUL Creator of the Universe), and God (who is Omnipotent AND Omniscient) has to pretty much beg Jacob to let him go. So Jacob makes a demand. Of GOD. And gets what he asks for.

I have to wonder...how would God do against, say, Randy Couture? I mean, sure, God's had 3,000 years or so to practice, but just think of the reward. Jacob's family became the most favoritest of ALL the people on Earth...EVER!! OK, so he essentially won a chunk of otherwise worthless land that has been the center of endless dissonance for eons, and those same people—although "God's chosen"—are going to burn in eternal hellfire when God's son comes back. But still, the prize has got to be pretty damn fabulous.

Bible Study: Judges 1:19

"The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots." — Judges 1:19

So, Judah had God on his side, which is pretty kick-ass, so he and his buddies do a lot of ass kicking. With the omnipotent, omniscient creator on their side, they were just whoopin' Canaanite and Perizzite tail. They killed 10,000 in Bezek alone, burnt Jerusalem, and cut off Adonibezek's thumbs and big-toes. NOBODY was left standing in their path...

...until they got to the valley. Because, after all, those people had iron chariots for, uh...God's sake.

Yeah. The most powerful entity in the universe can't fuck with iron chariots. Even though he made iron. And chariots. Flooding the planet? No problem. Pillars of fire and gaping holes in the earth? Easy. I mean, you'd think he could at least kill the horses, leaving the people trying to kick-push the chariots Flintstone or skateboard style. But no. God turns completely flaccid at the sight of iron chariots. Kinda like me and Star Jones.

I still think I could whoop Star's ass, though, and I can't even open those windows in the sky to let it rain.

But at least he gave them fair warning:

"but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have iron chariots and though they are strong, you can drive them out." — Joshua 17:18

Or that could just be one of those pesky contradictions. Or God lying. Or changing His omniscient mind. Or just the ancient ramblings of a superstitious Bronze-Age goat herder.

Well, waddaya know?...

Salon.com posted an article that says the most by having to say anything at all. Newsflash: America is not a Christian nation!!

Could go MUCH more in depth, and provide LOADS more FACT, but it does nicely. But, then again, how can you mess up the truth?

Also in news, scientists and medical professionals suggest heavy intake of oxygen may be beneficial.

Tim Minchin's "Storm"

"Science adjusts its views, based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved."

The Unconditional Love of Reality

A very rare and lovely piece of art by Dale McGowan:


A Christian friend once asked me what it is about religion that most irritates me. It was big of her to ask, and I did my best to answer. I said something about religion so often actively standing in the way of things that are important to me — knowledge of human origins, for example, important medical advances, effective contraception, women’s rights…the simple ability to think without fear. I gave a pragmatic answer — and the wrong one.

Not that those things aren’t important. They’re all crowded up near the top of my list of motivators. But in the years since I gave that answer, I’ve realized there’s something much deeper, much more fundamentally galling and outrageous that religion too often represents for me — something that constitutes one of the main reasons I hope my kids remain unseduced by any brand of theism that endorses it.

What I want them to reject, most of all, is the conditional love of reality.

I’ve talked to countless Christians about their religious faith over the years. I have often been moved and challenged by what their expressed faith has done for them. But the doctrine of conditional love of reality simply mystifies, offends, and frankly infuriates me.

Conditional love is at play whenever a healthy, well-fed, well-educated person looks me in the eye and says, Without God, life would be hopeless, pointless, devoid of meaning and beauty. Conditional love is present whenever a believer expresses “sadness” for me or my kids, or wonders how on Earth any given nonbeliever drags herself through the bothersome task of existing.

Whenever I hear someone say, “I am happy because…” or “Life is only bearable if…”, I want to take a white riding glove, strike them across the face, and challenge them to a duel in the name of reality.

The universe is an astonishing, thrilling place to be. There’s no adequate way to express the good fortune of being conscious, even for a brief moment, in the midst of it. My amazement at the universe and gratitude for being awake in it is unconditional. I’m thrilled if there is a god, and I’m thrilled if there isn’t.

Unconscious nonexistence is our natural condition. Through most of the history of the universe, that’s where we’ll be. THIS is the freak moment, right now, the moment you’d remember for the next several billion years — if you could. You’re a bunch of very lucky stuff, and so am I. That we each get to live at all is so mind-blowingly improbable that we should never stop laughing and dancing and singing about it.

Richard Dawkins expressed this gorgeously in my favorite passage from my favorite of his books, Unweaving the Rainbow:

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.

I want my kids to feel that same unconditional love of being alive, conscious, and wondering. Like the passionate love of anything, an unconditional love of reality breeds a voracious hunger to experience it directly, to embrace it, whatever form it may take. Children with that exciting combination of love and hunger will not stand for anything that gets in the way of that clarity. If religious ideas seem to illuminate reality, kids with that combination will embrace those ideas. If instead such ideas seem to obscure reality, kids with that love and hunger will bat the damn things aside.

And when people ask, as they often do, whether I will be “okay with it” if my kids eventually choose a religious identity, my glib answer is “99 and three-quarters percent guaranteed!” That unlikely 1/4 percent covers the scenario in which they come home from college one day with the news that they’ve embraced a worldview that says they are wretched sinners in need of continual forgiveness, that hatred pleases God, that reason is the tool of Satan, and/or that life without X is an intolerable drag — and that they’d be raising my grandkids to see the world through the same hateful, fearful lens.

Woohoo! is not, I’m afraid, quite a manageable response for me in that scenario. Yes, it would be their decision, yes, I would still love their socks off — and no, I wouldn’t be “okay with it.” More than anything, I’d weep for the loss of their unconditional joie de vivre.

But since we’re raising them to be thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally smitten with their own conscious existence, I’ll bet you a dollar that whatever worldview they ultimately align themselves with — religious or otherwise — will be a thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally joyful one. Check back with me in 20 years, and for the fastest possible service, please form a line on the left and have your dollars ready.

Bible Study: II Kings 2:23-24

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' they said. 'Go on up, you baldhead!' He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths." — II Kings 2:23-24

42 children attacked and killed by bears.

For calling a man "bald".

God is good.

Upon having this verse brought to his attention, my cousin voiced that his position on Christianity might be worthy of reconsideration if it allows one the ability to have bears maul all who harass you. I do suppose that one of the fringe benefits of being JEWISH appears to be summoning "Power of Bear" whenever necessary. Of course you lose Resistance to Iron Chariot, but it's a fairly even trade off. Especially considering you also get the ability to live in fish bellies, Water Control, complete dominion over women, Pillar of Fire, and Gaping Hole in Earth. You do lose all sense of direction and occasionally spend a few decades wandering around aimlessly, but all in all it's one hell of a deal.

If you like having to constantly fawn over a fiercely jealous god who has a obsessive fascination with foreskins, menses, and burning meat, that is.

I Told Y'all I Love This Woman...

Exactly how out of touch with reality are people who think wearing sleeves is the most important thing she can do?

While to many there is nothing Michelle Obama can do right, to many, many more she changes lives.

Bible Study: Ezekiel 23:19-20

"Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." — Ezekiel 23:19-20

Yes, this means exactly what you think it does.

I've often pondered the potential influence of this verse on Afrocentrists and their "Egyptians were black" claims, but quickly realized the negative effects it would have on the "Jesus was black" claim.

I mean, ya gotta pick which one "uplifts" your ego more: you have a HUGE penis or God looks like you?

Tough choice.

Did Sartre Write for Cracked Magazine?

This is phenomenal. I've spent hours on Cracked.com wading through complete nonsense only to stumble upon this for enlightenment.

(But this was pretty damn cool, too.)

Well, At Least It's For a Good Cause...

Proceeds will go to 'Faith based' teaching in public school.

That's FAITH-BASED Teaching. In PUBLIC SCHOOLS.


I see "In God We Trust" plates from Indiana almost daily, but this takes the cake.

The only thing more amazing than the ease at which they continually violate the Constitution is the complete lack of concern from the public.

Oh, yeah: "faith-based teaching in PUBLIC SCHOOL"!!

Can I get one with Frigga chucking a sprigg of mistletoe at Baldur? Or maybe Minerva springing forth from the head of Jupiter? Xenu hydrogen-bombing the volcanoes?

No? Well, then how about the signing of the Constitution?

Bible Study: Murder + Abortion

Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah: because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up—2 Kings 15:16

Ripping open pregnant women's bellies? In the Bible. Condemning slavery? Not in the Bible.

Oh, and what was that about God's love for little unborn fetuses?

Bible Study: 2 Kings 15:16

"At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women." — 2 Kings 15:16

Ripping open pregnant womens' bellies? In the Bible. Condemning slavery? Not in the Bible. It's the Good Book.

Oh, and God loves little unborn babies more than actual people and will send you to hell forever if you get an abortion.

What Does the Bible Say About Abortion?

I could have very well left this post absolutely blank, but let's give an FFRF classic:

*Thought Sunday would be a good day to start a little bible study. Lucky it's not the real Sabbath, or I could be stoned to death for typing.*

What Does The Bible Say About Abortion?

Absolutely nothing! The word "abortion" does not appear in any translation of the bible!

Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, none comments on abortion. One Mosaic law about miscarriage specifically contradicts the claim that the bible is antiabortion, clearly stating that miscarriage does not involve the death of a human being. If a woman has a miscarriage as the result of a fight, the man who caused it should be fined. If the woman dies, however, the culprit must be killed:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

"And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth . . ."--Ex. 21:22-25

The bible orders the death penalty for murder of a human being, but not for the expulsion of a fetus.

When Does Life Begin?

According to the bible, life begins at birth--when a baby draws its first breath. The bible defines life as "breath" in several significant passages, including the story of Adam's creation in Genesis 2:7, when God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Jewish law traditionally considers that personhood begins at birth.

Desperate for a biblical basis for their beliefs, some antiabortionists cite obscure passages, usually metaphors or poetic phrasing, such as: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psalm 51:5 This is sexist, but does nothing other than to invoke original sin. It says nothing about abortion.

The Commandments, Moses, Jesus and Paul ignored every chance to condemn abortion. If abortion was an important concern, why didn't the bible say so?

Thou Shalt Not Kill?

Many antiabortionists quote the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Ex. 20:13) as evidence that the bible is antiabortion. They fail to investigate the bible's definition of life (breath) or its deafening silence on abortion. Moreover, the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25, directly following the Ten Commandments, makes it clear that an embryo or fetus is not a human being.

An honest reader must admit that the bible contradicts itself. "Thou shalt not kill" did not apply to many living, breathing human beings, including children, who are routinely massacred in the bible. The Mosaic law orders "Thou shalt kill" people for committing such "crimes" as cursing one's father or mother (Ex. 21:17), for being a "stubborn son" (Deut. 21:18-21), for being a homosexual (Lev. 20:13), or even for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-35)! Far from protecting the sanctity of life, the bible promotes capital punishment for conduct which no civilized person or nation would regard as criminal.

Mass killings were routinely ordered, committed or approved by the God of the bible. One typical example is Numbers 25:4-9, when the Lord casually orders Moses to massacre 24,000 Israelites: "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun." Clearly, the bible is not pro-life!

Most scholars and translators agree that the injunction against killing forbade only the murder of (already born) Hebrews. It was open season on everyone else, including children, pregnant women and newborn babies.

Does God Kill Babies?

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."--Psalm 137:9

The bible is not pro-child. Why did God set a bear upon 42 children just for teasing a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-24)? Far from demonstrating a "pro-life" attitude, the bible decimates innocent babies and pregnant women in passage after gory passage, starting with the flood and the wanton destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, progressing to the murder of the firstborn child of every household in Egypt (Ex. 12:29), and the New Testament threats of annihilation.

Space permits only a small sampling of biblical commandments or threats to kill children:

Numbers 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones.
Deuteronomy 2:34 utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones.
Deuteronomy 28:53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters.
I Samuel 15:3 slay both man and woman, infant and suckling.
2 Kings 8:12 dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
2 Kings 15:16 all the women therein that were with child he ripped up.
Isaiah 13:16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished.
Isaiah 13:18 They shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children.
Lamentations 2:20 Shall the women eat their fruit, and children.
Ezekiel 9:6 Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children.
Hosea 9:14 give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
Hosea 13:16 their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
Then there are the dire warnings of Jesus in the New Testament:

"For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the womb that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck."--Luke 23:29

The teachings and contradictions of the bible show that antiabortionists do not have a "scriptural base" for their claim that their deity is "pro-life." Spontaneous abortions occur far more often than medical abortions. Gynecology textbooks conservatively cite a 15% miscarriage rate, with one medical study finding a spontaneous abortion rate of almost 90% in very early pregnancy. That would make a deity in charge of nature the greatest abortionist in history!

Are Bible Teachings Kind to Women?

The bible is neither antiabortion nor pro-life, but does provide a biblical basis for the real motivation behind the antiabortion religious crusade: hatred of women. The bible is anti-woman, blaming women for sin, demanding subservience, mandating a slave/master relationship to men, and demonstrating contempt and lack of compassion:

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."--Genesis 3:16

What self-respecting woman today would submit willingly to such tyranny?

The antiabortion position does not demonstrate love for humanity, or compassion for real human beings. Worldwatch Institute statistics show that 50% of abortions worldwide are illegal, and that at least 200,000 women die every year--and thousands more are hurt and maimed--from illegal or self-induced abortions. Unwanted pregnancies and complications from multiple pregnancies are a leading killer of women. Why do antiabortionists want North American women to join these ghastly mortality statistics? Every day around the world more than 40,000 people, mostly children, die from starvation or malnutrition. We must protect and cherish the right to life of the already-born.

Do Churches Support Abortion Rights?

Numerous Christian denominations and religious groups agree that the bible does not condemn abortion and that abortion should continue to be legal. These include:

American Baptist Churches-USA
American Ethical Union
American Friends (Quaker) Service Committee
American Jewish Congress
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Episcopal Church
Lutheran Women's Caucus
Moravian Church in America-Northern Province
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church
United Synagogue of America
Women's Caucus Church of the Brethren
YWCA
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Catholics for Free Choice
Evangelicals for Choice

Belief that "a human being exists at conception" is a matter of faith, not fact. Legislating antiabortion faith would be as immoral and unAmerican as passing a law that all citizens must attend Catholic mass!

The bible does not condemn abortion; but even if it did, we live under a secular constitution, not in a theocracy. The separation of church and state, the right to privacy, and women's rights all demand freedom of choice.


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When Zombies Attack...

Top Five Things to Have:

1) Toilet paper. Because, let's be real, zombies just attacked, and you shit yourself.

2) An Ann Coulter book. Everyone knows zombies just want brains and, well, if you have a book by Ann Coulter they'll just assume they won't find any and keep moving.

3) But in the case they don't, having the actual Ann Coulter around can't hurt. Her uncanny resemblance to a Thiller extra might help you blend in.

4) Air freshener. You're surrounded by rotting flesh (and Ann Coulter's junkbox) and that's got to smell really, really bad. Plus, you just shit yourself.

5) Sniper rifle. Because sooner or later Ann's going to say something extremely stupid.