I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the meeting today of the Bryan County Federation of Democratic Women at the library, because my schedule for the day was already filled with getting flea medicine for the dog at the veterinary clinic, after taking Darlene out to Boomerang’s for breakfast.
I am glad I made the effort.
The speaker was an historian named Glenn Melancon, if memory serves. I didn’t grab the schedule after the meeting, and my memory doesn't serve me as well as it used to.
He was knowledgeable, forceful, and best of all, he give me a little shot of hope that at least some Democrats still remember FDR and the New Deal.
After the meeting I thanked him for the kindest words I’ve heard about FDR in the last fifty years from any Democrat.
I am still baffled why the official Democratic Party ran away from his record of saving the country from the Great Depression, bringing electric power to millions of people who didn’t live in the cities, winning the war against the Fascists, educating millions of GIs after the war, and kicking off the most prosperous fifty years this country has seen in its history.
Touching on the recent abortion law in Texas, he told the story of a young woman who is thrilled to find she is pregnant and tells all her friends about the baby on its way. One day she goes to the doctor for a prenatal checkup, only to find the fetus has died and she has to have a D & C from the doctor to remove it.
As excruciating as this revelation is, her troubles are now just starting.
When her “friends” find out that she lost the baby, they are now empowered to sue the doctor, sue her husband, and anybody else that helped her that day. In effect, she now has a $10,000 bounty on her head, and any self righteous or unscrupulous person can try to collect the money.
There are women in El Salvador today serving thirty years in prison for having miscarriages. We are going back to the dark ages, when churches made the rules for the government to enforce. Inquisition, anyone?
I have hope that the stark reality of hundreds or thousands of women in court or prison might cause a huge swing in voter sympathies. If Roe v Wade is actually overturned, what will Republicans use to motivate their base of conservative Evangelicals? If they get what they have wanted for thirty years, why bother voting anymore?
On the other hand, millions of wives, daughters, and girlfriends will see the horror of back alley abortions, coat hangers and knitting needles and be motivated to get out and vote. Democrats have been hiding behind the Supreme Court for too many years when they should have passed a Federal law guaranteeing women’s rights to choose an abortion.
If you haven’t voted before, or haven’t in years, now would be a good time to go down and get registered. The states are making it harder to register in an effort to keep as many people as possible from exercising their right as a citizen to vote. The fewer of us “little people” vote, the easier time the rich people and corporations have to get politicians elected who will pass bills in their favor.
We are blessed to be living in “interesting times.”
