The Attack On Women’s Rights Must STOP!
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.
I often wonder if we sleep into problems. They are often but a heartbeat away.
There are times when we are all guilty of being hyper vigilant. Looking after the child of a neighbor, you become super parent, when the people you care most about have an issue needing some attention you are the most supportive you can be and when there is an obvious threat to your status quo, you become that angry person who will repel all threats.
We may not recognize exactly one of those situations, but we can see ourselves in a version of them at some point.
But it is not the obvious that kills our freedoms. It is the sneaky and the less obvious things which reduce us to tears because they are, in a good old Scottish word, sleekit.
I have written before about the progress of anti-abortion movements in the US and how they cause me some concern. I am pro-choice for mothers. I have some sympathy for those pro-life people who have heartfelt convictions which are explained and expressed in temperate language. I have little time for the shouty ones who try and bully their way into your consciousness.
This week I was struck by a report that there is a Texan “ranch” for mothers who have no place to go, thanks to the draconian laws in place by the shouty people.
Texan abortion laws are now amongst the most unforgiving on the planet. Aubrey Schlackman has opened a place with accommodation for young expectant mothers. She and her husband are committed Christians and though you do not have to be a believer in Christianity to access their help, you do have to attend bible study classes if you are receiving it. Many state authorities seem to be giving such faith-based initiatives support as they have a caring Christian ethos – $100 Million apparently.
On the face of it both Schlackman and her husband, who is behind her all the way, seem to be doing the Lord’s work and finding some form of practical way of helping these poor unfortunates.
It is a touching thought that where there are issues and problems that God is able to provide. His bounty shall be shared throughout his children as he shall comfort them in their hour of need.
mm….
Well, here is the thing.
I may be being naïve, but I am sure that there as a heavy load of bibles in the air when the law was being created in the first place. And if, at best, having created a mess, they are in there helping clean it up, is that such a bad thing?
Well, if that was my toddler, no, but I would hope he did not create the same mess again…
I was brought up amongst a relatively strict Presbyterian church to which I never really succumbed to their teaching and turned out relatively OK. I can find many examples of people with no religion who managed just fine. I can also find many people with plenty religion who practice it properly and they have managed just fine. It is the purpose of the state, however, to make fair laws not based on color, or creed or religion.
Some of the stories in this sympathetic report that arose, from interviews of people escaping abuse, of helpless and confused expectant mothers and the lack of spaces at the ranch were moving. You cannot fail to be touched by the sincerity of the people behind the ranch and the desperate nature of the need they address.
The so-called Heartbeat Act, as the Texan law is referred to, got them “on the map” according to the husband. I found that chilling.
I still found the initiative of the Blue Haven Ranch touching and moving, but I found the passing of the bill which has brought such misery to their clients, heartbreaking. If we simply shrug our shoulders as more of these bills are passed and the freedoms are curtailed then more of these ranches shall be held up as examples of how the laws and the issues therein are being addressed.
It’s a creeping and sleekit way of normalizing that which should never be normalized…
I think I know which demands more of my attention…
A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…
(Kailyard n. a cabbage patch, often attached to a school of writing – the Kailyard School – a genre of overly sentimental and sweet Scottish literature from the late 19th century where sentimental and nostalgic tales are told in escapist tales of fantasy, but here we seek to reverse it by making the Kailyard Observations of effective invective comment from that looks not to return to the past but to launch us into a better future by the one Donald worth believing…)
And today’s Scots word tae bamboozle ye…
Each time we see ye, we shall try tae leave ye wi a word o oors tae replace a word o thine. Jist fur the sake o learnin, ken!
Sleekit – crafty, deceitful.