More Americana: A very friendly priest
I’ve just concluded a lightning-quick two-week stay in the still-mighty USA. As you readers might have surely seen on the numerous American television stations, the recent Supreme Court overturning of the fifty-year old law permitting abortion has captured county-wide attention and a multitude of raw dramatic emotions – in a country of rights, freedoms, choices and constitutional law.
Just appreciate the concepts: abortions; right-to-life; pro-choice, just when a human life begins; contraception and one element seemingly lost in the current controversial debates -prevention.
The consequences of the Supreme Court ruling include the reality that quite a few States – very Christian/mainly Republican – have instantly banned (the right to) abortions; others are mulling methods to partially allow the procedures within certain existing laws and civil human rights; and numerous legal challenges in courts as well as approaches to the Congress and Senate will abound.
Frankly speaking to me who just visited in the heat of the American controversy, the basic questions and clashes simply surround the issues of a woman’s right to choose for her body – when/if she was careless with pregnancy earlier; the morality of “murdering” a living foetus – just when does human life begin in that sacred womb of a woman!? And, naturally, just when and/or why is an abortion necessary?
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Abortion, the World and our Guyana
Simply put to abort is to stop; to conclude, to truncate. In abortion it means ending prematurely that which has begun.
Naturally in the U.S. and I guess around all global (democratic) societies, complex moral and medical issues are once again engendered: sperm meets egg then embryo in the women’s body; just cells? Or the beginning of human life? Does Pro-Choice give the women the right to stop the life within her which she accommodated- knowingly or not.
I wonder how the male law makers and enforcers in such States as North Korea, Russia, Uzbekistan or Thailand deal with abortion. After all China and India just can’t afford runaway birth-rates. What do young married ladies do there? Ho ho ho
Back in my Good Ole Guyana, I once heard stories of foetuses being aborted to be buried under back-steps or in backyards; of some many upright young ladies drinking queer concoctions or under-going brutal physical “extractions” to end unwanted pregnancies before marriage. Of course, even staunch Christian ladies opted for abortions when legality arrived. (Then Czarina Minister Gail allowed a vote on conscience to usher in legality.)
I end, for now, on this personal humorous note: as a young husband with two young daughters, I would ride my old bike for miles to acquire my wife’s special contraceptive pills. So to prevent! What happened to prevention?
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More Americana: a very friendly priest
In my daughter’s Brooklyn neighbourhood, I was quickly inspired, two weeks ago, to create another meaning or definition for “USA” – Universal Sustained Accommodation.
That Nation of Immigrants/Land of Opportunity – the U.S.A – is still a magnet for the world’s migrants – I hear thousands of displaced Ukrainians can now get swift semi-permanent status. And thousands of Afghans have been already “absorbed.”
Where I stayed, the Brooklyn/Queens landscape accommodates countless Bangladeshis and other Asians. In their native garments! Popeyes, KFC, Burger King, Wendy’s all seem Bangla-owned franchises, though once distinctively “American.” Even the Hispanics from its Southern border have significant competition. But America accommodates!
Over drinks as we spoke of the various LGBTQI + Pride Parades, one fellow told of a new priest who arrived to head a Parish in a little Southern town. At Communion he would wink at the males and fondle their fingers. He was being extra friendly. Parishioners tried to understand but…
I wonder…
1. So why is VP Bharrat J. Suing Su?
2. Does the PNC need violence to be relevant?
3. Will our Guyana be recognised for Oil or Cocaine? Both?
4. Next Friday: Why I’m interested in the Afro-professional
Charles Ceres.
`Til next week…
