Category Archives: Freedom

With the six Republican-appointed justices on the U.S. Supreme Court now authorizing states to cancel freedom of abortion for mothers, Connecticut and other Democratic-led states will maintain protections once established by Roe v. Wade. Many Republican-led states, however, have moved in the opposite direction, banning freedom of abortion well before fetal viability and as early as conception.

These states have made no exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape and other states are preparing to target exceptions that would save the life of the mother. As extreme as it is to have no exceptions, other states are considering going further, seeking to curb abortion-related freedoms, including contraception, as raised by Justice Clarence Thomas.

To preserve the freedom of abortion in all states, activists need to reframe the messaging in the debate. New and effective messaging will persuade voters to elect candidates who will win back this essential freedom in the Republican-led states that wantgovernment in charge of making our decisions.

Opponents of the freedom of abortion in the U.S., predominantly in the Republican Party, have advanced four essential arguments in favor of restricting it. First, they believe life begins at conception and, thus, the fetus is life. Aborting the fetus means aborting life.

Second, a mothers life is equal to that of the fetus she is carrying. So, if push came to shove, some opponents of abortion freedom would have a hard time picking who ismore important not just if the mother were in danger of death during delivery but also for any matters prior to delivery.

Third, a living but miserable kid is better than an aborted one.

Fourth, why get an abortion when you can just put the thing up for adoption how hard can that be?

These four arguments are often borne out of religion. Through strict Christianity, many opponents of the freedom of abortion have been instructed that life begins at conception. It hasmotivated them to take their religion to the extreme, wanting to impose their beliefs on everyone else, including on those who have a different religious view.

Hypocritically, many of these same people revere the freedom of religion protected by the U.S. Constitution. In fact, its freedom of religion that theyve pointed to to decline to bake a wedding cake for same-sex couples, or to cover contraception in employee health insurance plans, or to vaccinate their child.

Further, they condemn extremism in other religions, often chastising Sharia law in Islam. In the 1990s, for instance, the Taliban enforced a version of Sharia in Afghanistan to restrict the freedom of women to go to school or leave the home. As a result, high-profile supporters of the freedom of abortion in the U.S. recently have compared extreme Christianity to Sharia.

Though the comparison has drawn criticism from Muslim Americans who believe the comparison is unflattering to Sharia, what are we left to conclude from Christian Sharia extremists who are in positions of power to enforce our freedoms? That freedom of religion only applies toyou if you comply with their religious views.

Nonetheless, defenders of the freedom of abortion must directly respond to these arguments with messaging of our own.

The final two messaging arguments here having to do with parental rights and fewer tax increases are why Republicans just put the thing up for adoption argument fails. This casual approach toward adoption is not only costly for taxpayers, but it, too, has led to forced births struggling in foster care, a temporary placement until theyre permanently adopted.

Currently,420,000 children are waitingin foster care, costing taxpayers at least $9 billion before healthcare expenses are factored in. While parents should maintain the right to give up their child for adoption, its a decision that should be left to parents, not to the government. In forcing births into adoption, the government is imposing a one-size-fits-allfor all parents, infringing on parental freedom. In short, the government has narrowed parental choices for their children to two: poverty in adoption or poverty at home.

Of course, we can expect the Republican hypocrisy on abortion to continue after abortion is outlawed in their states. In recent years, weve heard several accounts of the most ardent Republican opponents of abortion having impregnatedwomen with whom they were having an affair. Surprising no one, these Republicans encouraged their mistresses to obtain an abortion.

Among the examples: a current Tennessee Congressman, a former Pennsylvania Congressman, and a former senior campaign advisor to President Trump. Despite their public and political opposition to abortion, Republicans have maintained one narrow exception in favor of it: abortion should be legal only in the case of a pregnant mistress. This narrow preference for abortion contrasts with progressives broader support for it because of the contrast in each partys ideologies: Democrats are largely driven by empathy while Republicans are driven by individualism. While Democrats tend to care about issues that affect people they dont even know, Republicans will limit their interests to only issues that personally affect them. It follows then that Republicans will oppose abortion for your wife or daughter, but not for their own and certainly not for their mistress. In effect, its ok for me, but not for thee.

Where opponents of the freedom of abortion will lose on this issue is on their extremism. They wont be able to help themselves in abusing their power and privilege. Now that states can criminalize freedom of abortion within their borders and to jail mothers who need it, states have already moved in the extreme.Several states have enacted blanket bans that include no exceptions for rape while at least one state is targeting its exception to save the life of the mother. Other states will ban out-of-state travel and medication by mail.

In Texas, after six weeks of pregnancy, a rapist can sue his victims doctor for helping the victim seek freedom from raising the rapists child. In Missouri,Republican legislators are looking to prevent mothers from traveling to another state for an abortion. In Tennessee, anyone helping mothers to obtain abortion medication in the mail face lengthy jail time.

The people, however, wont stand for it. As weve seen during Covid, many Americans value their liberty, even if it means risking their life. Through persuasive messaging on the freedom of abortion, we can entice more people to join us in electing candidates who will restore freedom.

Riju Das is a Connecticut attorney.

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Opinion: Let's win the messaging war on the freedom of abortion - The Connecticut Mirror

Last weeks U.S. Supreme Courts ruling that Americans no longer have a constitutional right to control their own reproduction is a disaster of monumental proportions. Never before in U.S. history has the nations high court taken away such a well-established and long exercised fundamental right.

By returning the physical and emotional health and well-being of millions of Americans to the frequently ill-informed whims and prejudices of politicians most of them old, well-off white men who will be unaffected directly by the ruling the Court has grievously harmed the cause of human rights and ushered in a new and dark era of repression.

Across the globe, autocrats and religious fundamentalists are smiling at the notion that the worlds greatest democracy has retreated from its longstanding embrace of equality and individual freedom.

As UNC law professor and constitutional scholar Gene Nichol observed in a powerful essay:

The U.S. Supreme Court has informed the nation and the world that the American constitutional ideal of liberty protects guns but not a womans right to reproductive freedom. A huge majority of us dont believe that. These right-wing statists have declared that doesnt matter. Theyll force it on us anyway. Their preferences prevail. Human rights and democracy be damned.

Veteran Florida journalist Diane Roberts put it this way:

Along with the courts other reactionaries Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Thomas (Roberts voted to uphold Dobbs but not overturn Roe) [Justice Samuel] Alito clearly believes that a collection of cells that dont become recognizable as a human until its at least three months old should have equal (or greater) standing than the grown, thinking, reasoning woman carrying it.

What comes next, in all likelihood, is a procession of sickening scenarios that one would have thought possible only in a grim, science fiction dystopia:

Those whom this strikes as at all farfetched should talk to Dr. Anu Kumar of the global reproductive health nonprofit Ipas. As Kumar noted in a statement decrying the Courts ruling:

In Brazil, weve seen police raids of abortion clinics, and in Nicaragua weve seen doctors stop providing lifesaving treatment because theyre scared of arrest. In places like El Salvador, and in the past in Nepal and Rwanda, women have been put in jail when abortion is criminalized.

If there is even a hint of a silver lining in the Courts reprehensible act, it is the new and unmistakable clarity it brings to the national political debate. After Dobbs v. Jackson (a ruling that will long reside in infamy alongside the Dred Scott, Korematsu and Bowers v. Hardwick decisions), Americans who believe in freedom and human rights can no longer at least for the time being take it as a given that the Constitution will protect us. For the foreseeable future, the only safeguard for our rights lies in organizing and advocating, as well as electing leaders who will do that job.

This will be no easy task. The forces of reaction and regression may represent only a noisy and deeply confused minority, but they have worked long and hard to reach this moment and have deep pockets. And any group that is so clearly wed to such a crude and cruel amalgam of repression and violence will undoubtedly use every tool at its disposal to cling to power.

Moreover, recent polls, experience with midterm elections and gerrymandering both the kind state legislatures pursue and the kind thats baked into the DNA of the U.S. Senate add a degree of difficulty to the task.

But the simple and powerful fact remains that whats coming next in our country is not at all what the majority desires.

Americans may have many views on abortion (and contraception and gun violence and same-sex marriage for that matter), but there can be no doubt that the overwhelming majority has no desire to, as is already occurring, turn back the clock 100 years or more.

In short, bad as things are, we voters still retain the tools to resist and dismantle this ghastly Gilead before it is full constructed. Notwithstanding the relentless treachery that the extreme right has employed to bring us to the present moment from the daily drumbeat of Fox News lies, to the outrageous rigging and perversion of the Supreme Court confirmation process, to the deadly attempted coup dtat of Jan. 6, 2021 its hegemony cannot hold if the nations frequently silent majority wakes up this November and says, hell no!

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American freedom will be on the line this November - ncpolicywatch.com

American cultural norms could be making us fat.

A new study looked at the effects of societal traits on obesity rates and it found that countries that value individualism have higher body mass indexes in males.

Published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, the study examined data from 51 countries to find out why there is so much variation in global obesity rates.

While economic prosperity is an important factor with wealthier nations having greater access to food and lower levels of physical activity it doesnt explain why some less-developed countries have high levels of obesity (Egypt, Jordan, Mexico) and more developed ones dont (Japan, South Korea, Singapore).

The study found that those latter countries were more flexible. In other words, they prioritize thrift, discipline, self control and delaying gratification all behaviors that can help with weight control. They were also slimmer across the board.

Meanwhile, countries that valued individualism such as the United States and those in Northwestern Europe, as well as some in Latin America are more headstrong about personal independence and choices. Men in these countries tended to be heftier, although it was surprisingly not a factor when it comes to women.

While the study acknowledged that genetics and diet particularly the fatty, processed and sugary foods Americans love contribute to obesity, it found that national culture also played an underdiscussed role.

The findings resonated with Dr. George Fielding, a bariatric surgeon and professor of surgery at New York University.

Im not trying to be crass, but fat is the new normal here, Fielding told The Post.

Culturally, its fine to be considered fat. Britain and Australia are the same. Most of the people making national health policies are aiming it at individuals to eat less and exercise more, rather than look at the [societal] cost of health care and early death.

As of 2020, the prevalence of obesity among adults was 41.9% in the United States, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity one of the leading causes of death globally is linked to a myriad of life-shortening illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, many cancers and cardiovascular disease.

On the flip side, in Asian countries, theres a belief you should comply with restraint, which is not inherent in American culture, said Fielding. There are rules, and you are supposed to follow the rules.

As for the difference between male and female obesity rates in individualist countries, the surgeon said he sees the dynamic play out in his own practice where women outnumber men for bariatric surgery 3 to 1.

Men in particularthink, Im an individual, dont tell me what to do. Im going to eat what I want, said Fielding, who notes that surgery should be considered once a persons BMI hits 40.

He said female patients seek interventions because they feel terrible, while his male patients are motivated to lose weight once theyve become ill due to diabetes, high blood pressure or heart ailments.

Fielding, who called obesity a national disaster, added that other societal factors play into our collective weight issues.

Fewer and fewer jobs require physical exertion, and you dont have to work hard to get food anymore, he said. We have heaps of processed food, and we are bombarded with advertisements for it. It all plays a big part.

As for reversing the trend, Fielding said its an uphill battle: How do you institute a national policy in a country where you cant tell anyone anything?

But he said that acknowledging Americas obesity problem now verboten in polite society would help.

Its the new normal, and how dare you be mean to the new normal? Fielding said. The people out there who are fat, they think thats how it is now.

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America's obsession with freedom is making men fat: study - New York Post

Under former head coach Joe Judge and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, New York Giants receivers essentially had one job: to run the route that was called and nothing else.

There was little pre-snap motion and even fewer options once the ball was in the quarterbacks hands. It was robotic.

Youre able to just win. You dont have to run the pen-and-paper version of your route every time, Kadarius Toney told Giants Huddle of Brian Dabolls new offense. Its not set in stone, like, no matter which way the cornerback is playing you have to run that route.

A lot of offensive coaches have the pen-and-paper mentality like you have to run it exactly like that every time. But Dabes gives us a lot of freedom, a lot of leeway to win. Thats the object of playing football to win. He just gives that option.

Its clear the players are thrilled with that change, but it also comes with its own set of challenges. After years in a much more conservative and simplistic offense, Dabolls approach opens things up.

Instead of a singular route and nothing to think about, Giants receivers now have an overwhelming amount of options.

Moving parts all day long, Sterling Shepard said. It kind of gets overwhelming whenever you look at the motion list too. They have it broken down on our [tablets], so when you look at the motion list, its so many different motions that you can do. Itll be good getting a lot of our playmakers moving around. Its going to be tough on defenses.

And its a lot of one-words, so you have to know the formation and you have to know the play concept all in one word. Thats where it gets pretty tough. Usually, you have a full play concept and theyll read everything out to you. But this is just one word, and you have to remember it.

Learning and implementing the new system may be like drinking from a firehose for these Giants, but they know that itll benefit everyone in the long run both individually and as a team.

It has potential for a lot of big plays, and it has some fancy plays in there as well. I think the fans will love it. Weve just to keep doing our part and putting in work, Shepard said.

It just allows you to get a lot more one-on-ones and get a lot of space, rookie wide receiver WanDale Robinson said. Create mismatches for the defense. They have to communicate and things like that. Whenever youre moving and playing fast, defenses cant communicate, and you get a lot of big plays out of that.

In addition to the receivers, you have to imagine quarterback Daniel Jones is also thrilled with this change. It plays more to his strengths and that alone should lead to better production.

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Giants receivers excited about freedom of Brian Daboll's offense - Giants Wire

Jim McClure| York Daily Record

Tour historic 18th century Mifflin house in 2016

The Mifflin House is a stone Hellam Township farmhouse with much of its original interior, as it was in the 18th century

Paul Kuehnel, York Daily Record

A member of the audience who had sat through my hourlong Riverfest presentation on a 90-degree Sunday showed he caught my big theme.

Big moral decisions confronted those living in York and Lancaster counties in the Civil War era.

After I had finished my talk on the Underground Railroad and Hellam Townships preserved Mifflin House, he told me that he was glad that I had concentrated on matters of right and wrong in the 1860s and before.

We need that today, he said. Particularly today.

He was saying that a consideration of thorny issues from the past might help us in this day of sorting through complex matters being brought to bear in the public square.

His remarks were gratifying and indicate that people are hungry to understand serious history, even under a withering sun on the green lawn of the John Wright Restaurant in Wrightsville.

I presented about 10 decision points facing people in the Civil War era, leading with a case that likely confronted countless York County residents at night: At their door, many would have faced distressed individuals or families of freedom seekers, enslaved people in flight from bondage using the loose network of safe houses called the Underground Railroad.

The context is that aiding such weary travelers could have been an act of civil disobedience, a willful breaking of state or federal law. It could have meant imprisonment, fines or both.

I asked the Riverfest audience to use the four Ds as a memory device.

More:'Marauders and Murderers' by York, Pa. author focuses on Civil War history mystery

More:The tale of William C. Goodridge of York, PA would make a good movie

Would they have denied the weary traveler, simply closing the door? Or even reported him to authorities. Would they have delivered the freedom seeker, inviting him in for food and lodging and then safely guide him along his way?

Or would they have delayed or distributed aid, offering a measure of help without unduly risking exposure of family and farm to legal authority? In this case, a property owner might say that the traveler could stay on the edge of his property and rest for a couple of hours and then proceed alone to a known safe house. Or give biscuits and milk to restore strength but ask them to be on their way.

Well return to these options deliver, deny, distribute or delay in a minute.

A sampling of other decision points that I presented at Riverfest:

If you were enslaved in Maryland or northern Virginia, do you run for freedom and face the threat of a beating or death or stay enslaved and live in bondage?

Those two states are useful in this discussion because they were homes to large populations of enslaved people and proximate to the Mason-Dixon Line. About 87,000 enslaved people were listed in Marylands census in 1860 and about 491,000 in Virginia.

York County would have been a destination, with its 40+-mile border with Maryland and promise of multiple routes to the Susquehanna. Relative safety awaited those crossing the river.

Maps show York County as host to major Underground Railroad routes, and historian Scott Mingus has identified at least 20 safe houses in the county.

York County would not have offered real safety from enslavers, so a freedom seeker would not gain liberty until reaching Canada or having traveled a considerable distance from the Mason-Dixon Line.

State and federal laws aside, the majority of York countians in the Civil War era were not in accord with the war or the practice of freeing enslaved people. In other words, county residents would have offered a mixed bag of assistance, if any, to freedom seekers.

A.B. Farquhar, a factory owner who hired a substitute to serve for him in the Civil War, gave insight about the county view of slavery. He wrote in 1922 about John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry and its failed goal of causing a slave insurrection. Farquhar said that enslaved people did not understand revolt, that they were, in the main, more interested in three meals a day than in political theory .

But there was a worthy minority Society of Friends (Quakers), free Black people and others who risked everything to aid those on the run.

S. Morgan Smith, a Moravian pastor who served as a Union Army chaplain in the war, was one of those who preached abolition. Smith like Farquhar, a noted York County industrialist after the war asked in a sermon one Sunday: Who are the persons who unjustly bind with the fetters of bondage and oppress him to the day of his death?

The milewide Susquehanna was a mighty big river for weary bands of travelers to cross without aid.

A survey of fords and ferries was undertaken in 1777, when the Continental Congress members in York feared British troopers would splash across the Susquehanna and capture them. Twice, the survey noted that guides would be needed to steer British raiders across at Wrights Ferry, running between Wrightsville and Columbia: The river is fordable in low water, but it is so wide and the bed so full of rocks and stones that the ford is only of service to those persons who know it perfectly well.

In the years before the Civil War, Robert Loney was one such person who knew it well. He came to York as a free man in 1819, lived in Columbia and knew the tricky river like the back of his paddle. He would guide freedom seekers across, working at great risk with the Mifflin family, who operated a safe house on a hilltop outside Wrightsville.

The Quaker family of Jonathan and Susanna Mifflin came to what is today known as Hellam Townships Mifflin House in the early 1800s.

With their son, Samuel, they operated what one newspaper account in 1913 stated: The house occupied a commanding position and was one of the most noted (Underground Railroad) stations in the country. One account tells about 13 freedom seekers gathered in their parlor for two days because the uncrossable Susquehanna was swollen with rain.

The Mifflin House also served as a Confederate artillery position in the Battle of Wrightsville in late June 1863. In that fight, the Union Armys initial plan was to blow up one span of the milelong covered bridge to stop the attacking Confederates from crossing.

One freedman fought the enemy with a cigar.

One old negro to whom was entrusted the duty of igniting the fuse sat very cooly on the edge of the pier smoking a cigar, Mingus wrote, citing a newspaper account at the time.

He faced 1,800 seasoned Confederates without panic.

In contrast, the day before, Farquhar, part of a group of panicking city fathers facing the Confederate invasion force, had sought out the enemy and cut a preliminary deal to surrender York.

Alone, and without authority to speak for the council, Mingus wrote, he rode off (to Abbottstown) in the early afternoon.

About 15 years ago, excavation had started in three places at the base of Highpoint, starting a sweeping land-use controversy known as Lauxmont. An order from government came for the developer to stop this high-end residential development on this prime river view property.

After years of complex litigation, Highpoint and Native Lands county parks emerged for public use. That started a cascading series of heritage projects that included Long Levels Zimmerman Center and the designation of the river region as the Susquehanna National Heritage Area, under the National Parks Service.

The Susquehanna National Heritage Region recently teamed up with Preservation Pennsylvania and the Conservation Fund to save the Mifflin House from demolition.

Instead of being cleared for warehouse use, the Mifflin House farmstead will become a regional welcome center and Underground Railroad historic site. Early planning calls for a trail to run from the house to the Susquehanna, replicating a possible path that freedom seekers took to meet up with Robert Loney.

At Riverfest near the end of my presentation, I asked the audience about which of the Ds they would choose if faced with that knock at midnight from a stranger on the run.

One member said he would seek a way to help in some way but would not put his family at risk from imprisonment or fines the middle ground of delaying and distributing.

Another audience member, a Quaker, said she would go the full route in helping a freedom seeker an act of delivery.

To the question of whether any audience member would deny or refuse any aid to a struggling traveler at the door, not a single person raised their hand.

With these cases from history after benefiting from examples in which weve done the right thing were now in a better position to not be deniers, to make a right moral decision.

Arent we?

Sources: Scott Mingus The Ground Swallowed Them Up and Guiding Lights: Underground Railroad Conductors in York County, Pa.

Jim McClure is the retired editor of the York Daily Record and has authored or co-authored nine books on York County history. Reach him at jimmcclure21@outlook.com.

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What would you have done if a freedom seeker had knocked on your door? - York Daily Record

As we near the end of Pride Month for 2022, Meta has shared a new video which outlines the potential value of the metaverse as a vehicle for increased freedom of expression, by enabling people to be seen as they choose via the use of digital avatars.

This is an interesting benefit of the broader metaverse shift, in that there are some societal boundaries that may be better mitigated in a more deliberate and personal depiction of the self, which could be enabled through broader digital connectivity, and more immersive, engaging social spaces.

Though there are also potential downsides too. Ive often questioned, given the rise of visual enhancement tools, via filters, effects and more, whether people who regularly apply such become more introverted in real life, because they may not look like what they project in their posts online.

As the creators in the above video note, their use of VR for connection has actually enhanced their real-life experiences as well - but I do wonder whether becoming more detached from your actual physical self could eventually be more isolating, if you then become more comfortable in your digital skin.

Thats one of the many psychological impacts that will require more study, but the idea that metaverse expression could be more freeing, in a range of ways, does seem promising, and another avenue worthy of exploration.

But the next stage, if it does play out as Meta is predicting, and we do end up spending hours per day in digital worlds, will also have a range of flow-on effects that need to be carefully assessed, and ideally, before any large scale roll-out.

Social media has caused many societal harms, because it caught on so quickly that we didnt know what the impacts might be till it was too late. Given Metas push to move fast, even if it means breaking things, I remain concerned about its approach to the metaverse in the same respect, with the desire to push ahead potentially outweighing any concerns about such impacts. And with no regulatory framework ahead of time, itll again be too late before we recognize the worst effects of the same.

We cant know, but hopefully Meta does take a more measured approach to such in its next shift, which could enable this type of more open and more personally freeing expression of identity.

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Meta Showcases How the Metaverse Will Enhance Freedom of Expression - Social Media Today

The United States Supreme Court in dramatic fashion fired two shots in the defense of liberty and freedom last week. In two historic decisions, the High Court confirmed that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to carry a weapon outside of their home and that the issue of abortion should be decided by the people and not by judicial fiat. Massachusetts current gun regulation structure is effectively dead and the issue of abortion can now be waged at the ballot box instead of the courts.

The significance of these two decisions cannot be understated. For nearly half a century, the Democratic Party imposed its liberal social agenda through the use of the courts because it was been unable to secure victories through elections. The progressive desire to change society included weakening the role of the Second Amendment and allowing unfettered lack of consequence for individual sexual choice. The Supreme Court stopped the progressive effort on those two fronts last week.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomass opinion stated that the Second and 14th Amendments protect an individuals right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home. This would seem to be obvious from the text of the Second Amendment but progressive Democrats tend not to be bothered by textually specific requirements. But the Supreme Court does care about constitutional text and, therefore, New Yorks law requiring that applicants justify their need for a concealed-weapons permit is unconstitutional. In the clearest terms, the Court stated that the Second Amendment demands that a state shall issue gun permits, including concealed ones, not may.

Massachusetts entire gun regulation system is seemingly now unconstitutional. Indeed, the Court specifically called into question the Commonwealths gun regime. You could live in the rural town of Oakham out near the Quabbin and get a permit from the police chief without any effort but it is nearly impossible to get one in Boston or its suburbs. The Second Amendment is not controlled by the whims of a particular towns police chief and the Supreme Court has affirmed this fact.

In an earthquake of a decision, the Supreme Court overturned the 50-year precedent of Roe v Wade guaranteeing a so-called Constitutional right to abortion. In Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, the Court stated the obvious. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Court, opined that The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the peoples elected representatives.

The issue of abortion now will be resolved where it always belonged, in the hands of the voters and their elected representatives. Although Massachusetts seemingly is a pro-abortion state, opponents of abortion can now make their case through the electoral process and change hearts and minds and votes.

The greatest irony is that we can thank the Democrats and the far-left former Senator Harry Reid from Nevada for these two opinions when he ended the filibuster for appellate court nominees in 2013. Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell warned Reid that he would regret it. Well Donald Trump and his three Supreme Court appointments proved McConnell right.

It is indeed a good week for the cause of liberty and freedom in America and Massachusetts.

James P. Ehrhard is a writer whose columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, Boston Herald, Lowell Sun, Worcester Telegram, Springfield Republican and other publications. He is the owner and manager of the Worcester law firm Ehrhard & Associates.

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Ehrhard: Liberty, freedom score wins at the Supreme Court - Boston Herald

The sea has long tugged at the human imagination, inspiring stories of hubristic individuals seeking to tame the inhabitants of that seemingly endless expanse. The ocean has also borne the consequences of excessive modern consumptioncommercial fishing, microplasticsparadoxically transforming many of its dwellers into martyrs, pet causes to be championed and protected.

Yet an emergent narrative complicates both these perspectives, positing instead a deep, co-equal bond between humansparticularly those who feel discomfort with rigid taxonomies, or who exist at the margins of societyand sea creatures of the deep. In the new essay collection Voice of the Fish, Lars Horn wonders how common [it is] to feel completely at odds with being human, and uses a long-standing fascination with marine life to reimagine the bodys potential. And in the 2020 book Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals, the poet and scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs argues that the lives of marine mammals such as dolphins and whales offer helpful models for resisting exploitation. Aligning herself with these put-upon creatures, she writes, I am related to all those in captivity. Though the collections tackle their subjects differently, they would seem to be in conversation with each other, finding in the endurance and fluidity of sea life liberation from human control.

Read: The dark side of the houseplant boom

Voice of the Fish attempts to undo ideas of what is normal or natural by teasing out the expansiveness of marine life. As a child questioning not only their gender but also more existential matters of the body and soul, Horn found comfort in enumerating facts about fishfor example, that some fish species change their sex, or that a particular type of jellyfish can revert to earlier stages of development and reproduce asexually. Science [has] so often reserved the animalistic for those who fall outside of a societys dominant ideologies, Horn notes, alluding to medical experiments on Black men and women, forced sterilization of women with disabilities, and the erasure of transness as a mental disorder. Studying the world of fish, they write, has helped dissolve a world I found too hard, too strict in how it required me to live within it.

Finding terms like dysphoria too clinical, too sterile, Horn instead seeks to understand their body (an otherworldly being) through mystical stories about fish across a variety of disciplines, including ancient myth, the Bible, and the work of classical taxonomists such as Pliny the Elder and Linneaus. In Naturalis historia, for example, Pliny describes sacred eels, adorned with jewelry, that were said to have oracular powers. In 19th-century Japan, watching goldfish in their bowls was thought to cool people down in summer. Tilapia were believed to be protectors of the sun god Ra. Taken by these ethereal tales, Horn wonders, Maybe this is the nearest we come to the divine?

Aquariums become, for Horn, both spaces of communion and, paradoxically, reminders of human cruelty. Waiting out a storm at the Georgia Aquarium one day, they find solace in the display of a lone eel. Its presence allows Horn to reflect on the morphological dexterity of the European eel (which changes color and features several times throughout its life) and its general refusal to conform to scientific knowledge. Only moments later, Horn, in turn, is put on display, deemed a pervert by a passing family.

The feeling of being exposed, for Horn, dates back to childhood, when their eccentric artist mother had them pose next to dead squids, or in full-body plaster casts. These activities compounded the physical unease Horn felt. But through these and other experiences, they become fascinated by the mutability of their bodyas when their ailing foot is mysteriously healed by an animal breeder or when they, for a time, seem to lose the ability to speak, read, or write. Like the fish they admire, Horn observes their body appearing to adhere to a logic more ancient than science alone can explain.

Read: What it would take to see the world completely differently

While Horn finds affinity in the strangeness of sea creatures, Gumbs sees them as relatives of a sort, describing her subjects with a startling intimacy. Considering the resilience of family ties, she recounts the story of Tokitae, one of the last survivors of a group of orcas taken from their home in the Salish Sea. Because orcas care for their young communally, Gumbs imagines Tokitae as a mother figure and wonders at her own response: What does it mean to love someone who has seen her children taken and, at the risk of capture, stayed to witness and scream?" She then directly addresses both the reader and Tokitae: I love you with a love of screams. I love you with a love of witness.

Gumbss meditations are poetic and inquisitive, often diving beyond anecdotes to tease out what goes unsaid. A heartwarming story of a dolphin mother singing to her child, for example, leads Gumbs to ruminate on the hundreds of women who give birth per year in U.S. prisons. In stories of animal-human interaction, she reads a secret life of marine activismor perhaps theyre simply acts of survival. As the population of endangered Hawaiian monk seals begins to rebound, including on two islands where U.S. military bases have closed, she optimistically deems their reappearance an act of reclamation. Similarly, when a tropical whale swallows a tour operator (Not long enough to kill him, just long enough to change his outlook), she wonders whether its an act of protest against human encroachment, rather than a simple accident, as its been widely reported to be (Im not saying you cant trust those reports. Im just saying that they come from the tourist industry, something we also know something about in the Caribbean).

In the exploitation of these sea dwellers, Gumbs sees an eerie parallel with the transatlantic slave trade, which she argues produced not survivors but the undrowned, who breathe in unbreathable circumstances. The ability to survive underwater becomes, to Gumbs, a metaphor for human resistance to oppressive institutions, both past and present. The stories of baby seals whose mothers coax them into the ocean before they understand that they can survive in water, mirror, for her, the human potential to meet unexpected challenges. In the gigantic breathing of whales, she sees the power of the collective. She cites a 2010 study on whaling and the ocean carbon cycle, which estimated that if whale populations were restored to pre-whaling numbers, theyd be able to store as much carbon as 110,000 hectares of forest. She also uses the blacktip reef shark to push back on the myth of the lone predator that dominates capitalist societies. To Gumbs, their communal nature and sense of play show that our survival need not make us into monsters.

At one point, Gumbs addresses both sea creatures and readers with the passion of prayer: Our kinship is the kind of salve that heals whole oceans. Horn, too, feels this soulful connection, wondering at the ability of fish to swim beyond their body into some other, mythic, imagined space. As we continue to face the material consequences of our rising seas, both Horn and Gumbs ultimately turn to a different, more spiritual plane to reimagine the dichotomies between human and animal. In the process, they challenge us to think anew about the way our bodies can, or might be able to, move through the world.

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The Freedom of Imagining Yourself as a Fish - The Atlantic

Hundreds of people gathered Monday in front of the Midland County Courthouse for a "Reproductive Freedom Rally" and petition signing.

At the back of the crowd sat 73-year-old Sharon Hale, sporting a Ruth Bader Ginsburg T-shirt.

With neuropathy in her feet, Hale said she can hardly walk. Instead, she rode her scooter to the rally, where she said people were kind and made room for her. The rally was personal to her, bringing back memories of the trauma endured by a friend who sought an abortion before Roe v. Wade was decided in January 1973.

I know someone that had to fly to New York in 1970 to have an abortion, Hale recalled. She was forced to see a psychologist. She had to tell that person (she) was going to throw herself down the stairs if (she) didn't get one.

Hale said when she learned that the United States Supreme Court had overturned the decision on June 24, she thought of her friend and the days before Roe v. Wade and she felt absolutely terrible.

Michael Burhans has volunteered for candidates or legislative issues in every election since 1968. He was collecting signatures for the petition at the event and was struck by the fact that he will have to continue to fight for women's reproductive health issues in the 21st century.

I fought this battle when I was a teenager on college campuses around the country with my parents, he said. I can't believe I'm out here fighting it again.

The Reproductive Freedom for All ballot initiative is an effort coordinated by ACLU of Michigan, Michigan Voices, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan. Petitioners need to collect 425,059 signatures from registered Michigan voters to get the effort on the November 2022 ballot. As of Sunday, organizers say they already have well above that number -- over 600,000 signatures.

If Michigan voters approve the ballot initiative in November, the state Constitution would affirm that Michiganders have reproductive freedom. That means the right to make decisions about pregnancy, including birth control, abortion, infertility, miscarriage care, prenatal care and childbirth.

The rally was packed with people of all ages and genders. Many were angry, sad and tired. All were determined to express their opinions and unite with others who are fighting back against the Supreme Court decision.

I was born in 1978, so I've always had this freedom. For this to be taken away is just deplorable, said Sarah Haskett, of Midland, one of many mothers attending in support of their daughters.

Four speakers addressed the group, including U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, the only Democratic candidate for the new 8th Congressional District.

I don't trust the United States Supreme Court to protect fundamental freedoms, Kildee said. I trust women.

Midland County Clerk Ann Manary, a Republican candidate for the 95th State House District, said the decision whether or not to have a child is a sacred choice that every woman should have.

I'm running as a Republican and I'm pro-choice, Manary said, drawing enthusiastic cheers from the audience. Sometimes people think those two things can't go together and I'll tell you all you're wrong. Women have the right to choose. I will vote to protect that right each and every time it comes before me.

Many people said they were pleased to see Manary representing the Republican Party at a pro-choice rally. The rally was organized by the Women of Michigan Action Network and led by Allison Wilcox. Wilcox encourages people to do what they can to support the movement by talking to friends and relatives, putting a sign in their yard, and doing whatever they can to help, even if they try to avoid getting involved in politics.

Democracy is at stake, Wilcox said. People think talking about politics is hard, and it is, but that's the only way people understand the stories of other people and get that empathy.

For more on this subject, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/

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Hundreds gather at Reproductive Freedom Rally in Midland - Midland Daily News

Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom looking for 356K signatures to get abortion initiative on the ballot

TEMPE, Ariz. - Abortion rights supporters launched a bid to give residents in Arizona a chance to vote on whether the right to abortion should be legal in the state.

Backers need to have enough signatures by July 7 to get it on the ballot.

In Tempe at Brick Road Coffee, people are coming to sign the ballot and they say since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, they've seen a huge showing of support from all ages.

They wanted to make sure their voices are heard by signing this petition created by Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom, with the hopes to create a constitutional amendment to protect the right to abortions in Arizona.

"So many people are upset. Yesterday, we had an event at Tres Leches. People traveled from Sun City and Glendale, so people are coming from everywhere and that is why we are thankful to these businesses for opening their doors and creating a safe place for us to meet up," said Celina Washburn with Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom.

The initiative rolled out weeks after the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion showed Roe could be overturned.

In a statement, Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, says this new ballot measure actually goes beyond Roe in that it not only legalizes abortion to the point of birth, it also makes it nearly impossible to set regulations or limitations on abortions.

Backers of this initiative need 356,000 signatures by July 7 to get it on the November ballot.

RELATED: Abortion laws addressed by Maricopa County's top prosecutor

MORE: Roe v. Wade: What to know about the now-overturned abortion ruling, and what's next for Arizona

RELATED: Police at Arizona Capitol fire tear gas, Roe v. Wade abortion protesters arrested

Days after a Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, officials with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office announced that Rachel Mitchell will hold a news conference on June 28 to address the matter of abortion laws in Arizona.

On June 26, DPS says Aiden Starkey was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and vandalism. Four others were arrested, with DPS saying they failed to identify. They are, Kyla Ford, 20; Taylor Calderson, 20; Sage Myers, 19 and Brianna Ford, 19.

More than 13,000 abortions were performed in Arizona in 2020, according to state statistics, and a little over half of those used the abortion pill. It is unclear if that will remain an option. FOX 10's Brian Webb reports.

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Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom looking for 356K signatures to get abortion initiative on the ballot - FOX 10 News Phoenix