Commentary by Christiane Cook on various US and State Bills.
This is a commentaries on US Bill (SB-3155, HR-3887, SB-3061) and State Bills (SB-1589, SB-1199, AB-2937)
When I studied American education in the 19th century, I read textbooks and the geography ones always described countries that “respect” women as civilized. It’s still a subtext of many women’s studies. Our country is not that bad for most women but there are women all around us who can’t leave their homes, have to be submissive and not complain if they are beaten up… They home school their daughters in their ignorance. I believe ti it a problem we should address. Worse: in 2000, Paul Welltstone, the principled and compassionate senator from Minnesota authored a bill that would curb the importation of sex slaves into our country. 80% were women and 30 % children. In addition, the bill forbid sex tours. Friends told me that in Thailand they saw scores of men affectionately holding the hand of young boys or girls. A few years ago a girl died in Berkeley because her room heater malfunctioned. It was discovered that she was a sex slave imported by a man who was trafficking in the importation of Indian girls and women. A few months ago, an SF policeman died in Thailand while making love to a child. He had visited the country numerous times, the article said and his colleagues knew what he was up to…The Wellstone bill is up for re-authorization this year. Please help me push it. I will bring tonight a letter to our senators asking them to move the bill. (Feinstein’s administrative assistant said it might be effective. and for those of you who want to only push bills approved by ACLU, I can assure you that it is pushing it at the national level.)
One could also say that only a country that protects its children and help them thrive is civilized. Our country is not doing well. Some children are imported as sex slaves and our neglected and delinquent children are cruelly treated or severely neglected. Biden’s bill on slave slaves would help them and the Leahey federal Re-authorization bill on Juvenile Justice should pass. The (state) Yee bill would also stop life incarceration of children.As to the (state) Carmona bill it would compensate the wrongly convicted and the (state) Romero bill will make an attempt at avoiding false convictions. Those 3 state bills are on the governor’s desk. I believe he has until the November election to sign or veto them Letters are needed. I’ll bring ready-made ones tonight.
As to the propositions, you know all about them. I have tabled three times to push Prop. 4. It is not easy to do. Many people - and it includes me - have a hard time accepting abortion, because whatever argument is used to justify the killing, it is still the destruction of something alive. But it is evident that no one wants to put a child into the world that would have no chance to have a decent life. Many parents are upset when their children gets pregnant, of course, and have a secret abortion. I have invented 3 scenarios to convince the people who object to a secret abortion that in some circumstances it might save a child’s life. Imagine Yasmina, I say, she was home schooled by her mother into ignorance until the woman died. The father put her in public school where she got pregnant. Her older sister told the father who killed his sinning daughter. Then there is Mary whose parents are very conservative Christians. She does get pregnant and when her parents learn about it they send her to live with a bachelor uncle who rapes her. She has her baby in a special clinic that has adoptive parents on the ready. Her parents still don’t want her back and she ends up so depressed she kills herself. Then there is Jane who has nice parents who would be disappointed, she thinks, to learn their daughter is pregnant. She has an abortion on a kitchen table, gets an infection that requires an operation that makes her sterile.
Next week I’ll tackle Prop. 6, which is very complex and difficult to present. I will try to synthesize the penalties to make them clearer and show they are extreme.
I would also like to say that, in my opinion, people who treat their animals well are civilized! I believe in animal rights and am in favor of Prop 2. I have a friend who is a large animals vet in the San Joachim Valley and he wishes that lawyers would come to the Valley to defend the rights of farm animals who are so poorly treated.
Voila
Chris
Filed under: Politics, Social Action