Category: Abortion

Abortion, Abuse, Aesthetics, Art, Artist, Authenticity, Bad Ideas, Beauty, Being True To Yourself, Dance, Don, Erotic Dance, Free Spirit, Fun, People, Sex, Sexuality, Sexualization, Wisdom

Elle: Nurse by Day, Stripper by Night

Paul Sunstone

(About a 10 minute read)

The first thing I noticed about Elle was that she seemed mysteriously out of place.  She was sitting alone at a table in Shotgun Willies’, watching a young woman dance on one of the stages, and smoking a cigarette.

Because Elle was fully dressed in street clothes, I wasn’t sure what she was doing there?  Was she an erotic dancer?  Then why the clothes?  But if she wasn’t a dancer, what was she doing in an erotic dance club? I spent no little time wondering about her like that before she rose, crossed over to the other side of the room, and strolled through the dressing room door.

Continue reading “Elle: Nurse by Day, Stripper by Night” →

Abortion, Dominionism, Freedom and Liberty, Politicians and Scoundrels, Politics

The Pro-Life Conspiracy

Paul Sunstone

(About a 3 minute read)

“I am not a conspiracy nut. But in this case no other word than conspiracy will do. We did what we did covertly, telling supporters one thing, and telling leaders on the inside of the political establishment another thing.

“There was one agenda in public, another one behind closed doors. And we changed America for the worse.” — Frank Schaeffer​

Most of us today no longer remember back when abortion was opposed, mostly, only by Catholics. Indeed, there was a time when it was condoned even by some of the most religiously conservative denominations in America. For instance:

In 1968, Christianity Today published a special issue on contraception and abortion, encapsulating the consensus among evangelical thinkers at the time. In the leading article, professor Bruce Waltke, of the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth:

“God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: ‘If a man kills any human life he will be put to death’ (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22–24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense… Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.” [Source]​

Southern Baptists were on record supporting abortion rights as late as 1976, and they did not officially reverse themselves until the 1980s. [Source]

So what caused the reversal? Why did abortion become the huge issue it is today for so many religious folks?

By most accounts, the one person who had the most to do with the reversal was Francis Schaeffer. He was Frank Schaeffer’s father. Francis was also the Protestant theologian most responsible — not only for creating the notion that abortion violated biblical teachings — but for propagating it. He, along with other people, did everything they could to make sure it became a popular issue.

Francis’ son, Frank, was heavily and intimately involved in his father’s efforts. And, according to Frank, those efforts crucially involved conspiring with Republican leaders to turn abortion into a means of creating a reliable, Republican-voting block out of America’s Evangelicals and other fundamentalists.

The deal was this: The Republicans would get the Evangelicals, etc delivered to them by the religious leaders in exchange for the religious leaders getting power and wealth.

So, in a vital way, the abortion issue boils down to the ancient story of political elites and religious elites finding reasons to be in cahoots with each other. That story has been a constantly recurring theme in human history since the first civilizations were founded 5,500 years ago.

Beyond that, I wonder how many of us are genuinely surprised by this? I know some of us will dismiss it and the evidence for it, but that’s only human nature. I’m not all that interested in them. But I am interested in knowing if anyone has been genuinely surprised to hear that the anti-abortion movement had its origins more in politics, than in unquestioned biblical principles?

A Little Further Reading:

The Actual “Pro-Life” Conspiracy That Handed America to the Tea Party & Far Religious Right (An Insider’s Perspective)

The Not so Lofty Origins of the Evangelical Pro-Life Movement

Abortion, Abstinence Only Sex Ed, Bad Ideas, Class War, Conservative, Creativity, Cultural Change, Cultural Traits, Culture, Economic Crisis, Ethics, Homeless, Humor, Idealism, Ideologies, Infatuation, Invention, Late Night Thoughts, Life, Love, Memes, Morality, Morals, New Idea, Political Issues, Politics, Poverty, Quality of Life, Reason, Relationships, Religion, Religious Ideologies, Society, Talents and Skills, Values, Village Idiots, War on Drugs

Late Night Thoughts: Infatuation, Invention, Creativity, Pragmatism, and More

Paul Sunstone

(About a 9 minute read)

It snowed last night.  Not a light, romantic snow either, but a heavy wet snow that piled up to seven inches on some of the tree branches, bowing them, sometimes breaking them.  Now and then a mass of snow would fall from one of the trees overhanging my cottage and land on my roof, sounding like some large animal had pounced on it.

◊◊◊

Most of us in America have been taught the difference between infatuation and love is a matter of duration.  If an attraction endures for a long time, then it’s love, but if it’s fleeting, transient, then it’s infatuation.  But even when I was in high school, I knew that was a greasy idea.

Because of Janet.

I met Janet the second semester of my freshman year, and I became infatuated with her the day after I met her.  That infatuation lasted five or six years, but I never mistook it for love.  I knew almost from the first moment I noticed it that it was infatuation. What I didn’t know was how to shake it off.

◊◊◊

Some years ago, I made a genuine, serious count of the most profound insights and creative inventions I’d discovered up until that moment in my life.

I went at it in earnest, left nothing out unless it was too minor, insignificant to include in the count.

There had been about a dozen.

Yet everyone of the ideas had been discovered by someone before me, someone whose work I was ignorant of until after I re-invented the idea myself.

And each of the inventions had, each for its own reasons, come to nothing.

“Thank you for writing up your proposal, Paul.  We appreciate the hard work you put into it, but we decided yesterday in an executive meeting not to pursue your idea.  Frankly, we don’t see a major market for it.  People will never purchase in droves a plastic card allowing them to make long distance calls from any phone”.

Two years later.  “Hey, could you tell me what these things are?”

“Oh, those are something new.  Seven-Eleven just started carrying them a couple days ago.  We call them, ‘Phone Cards’.  Buy one! They allow you to make long distance calls from any phone.

“Why are you crying, Sir?  Can I get you a towel?  Um…maybe a few…?”

“No. no. It’s too late, my shirt is already soaked.  It’s just that…that I’m so happy for you!”

“Sir?  Sir, I’m going for those towels right now!”

◊◊◊

I once thought creativity was a by-product of intelligence, but someone emailed me links to a few articles on the subject a couple years ago in what turned out to be a rather creative attempt to open the way to romancing me.

Seems creativity has been a subject of scientific study for a bit over 30 years now, and that it has little enough to do with intelligence.  There’s a kind of minimum threshold of sorts, but it’s not high, and if you’re smarter than that, then you might or might not be a creative person.

One of the scientist’s major findings: Especially creative people have brains hard-wired for it.

The woman who emailed me the links, by the way, ended up after a few back and forths, emailing me one of the most lengthy, vicious, and creative attacks on my character and life-choices that I’ve ever read the first few lines of before deleting.  Seems she was a wee little bit peeved to learn I was really, genuinely committed to celibacy.

◊◊◊

A month back, my young, 22 year old friend Sophie asked me “Why is sex shameful?  Even though I know in my mind there’s nothing to be ashamed of, I still feel shame.  Why is that, Paul?”

“Why are you asking me, Sophie?”

“Because you know everything, Paul.  You’ve told me so yourself!”

“Oh, that’s right!  Yes, I did.  But I forgot to mention to you that by ‘know’, I meant ‘I have an opinion about it’.  For me, you understand, those are the exact same things.”

“You’re such a real man, Paul.  Such a real man.”

“Thank you so much, Sophie!  Your lavish praise is so annoying.”

“Just get on with it.  What’s your opinion?”

“Well, I do know there used to be an hypothesis in anthropology and evolutionary psychology.  Maybe it’s still current.  According to it, sexual shame evolved in us as an instinct in order to facilitate male bonding, which allowed us to live in larger, more survivable groups.”

“Figures.  It’s always about you men, isn’t it?”

“This time it’s about you women, too.  You see, the notion is that our evolving feelings of shame meant couples quit having public sex.  And that meant male friendship bonds were not as often broken by the sight of another male getting it on with a delicious, desirable female that every other male jealously wanted.  Obviously, the anthropologists had you in mind, Sophie, because you’re so delectable!”

“I am NOT loaning you my money, Paul! Not a dime!”

“Delectable. Kind. Compassionate. Caring…”.

“Shuddup Paul!”

◊◊◊

It is so often necessary to see less truth in order to see a deeper truth.

 ◊◊◊

A few days ago, I was on my way to the corner store when a homeless man approached me with a smile on his mostly toothless face, and a whiff of alcohol on his breath.  “You look just like Arlo Gutherie!” He said.

Truth, it was he who looked like Arlo.  You could see the resemblance despite how his face had been warped over the years by the occupational hazards of long-term homelessness.

We carried on a lively back and forth for twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes.  It was a real conversation, too.  I made a point of that.  When I myself was homeless, the one thing I missed the most was being treated like I actually existed.

◊◊◊

It seems to be an American cultural trait to address problems pragmatically, except for human problems.  Back in the 1930s and ’40s, fatal, crippling, and maiming automobile accidents were almost as common as women in a coffee shop are today.

The problem was tackled with scientific precision.  Hundreds of studies were done.  Then change was brought about by dozens upon dozens of innovations.  Guard rails installed at key places.  Road curves redesigned to make them safer to negotiate at normal speeds.  Seat belts made mandatory.  Driving tests required before licensing.  Air bags.  Child safety seats.  And so forth.

None of the innovations was, by itself, anywhere near to being a solution to the problem.  But each innovation reduced the problem by perhaps as much as 1% or 2%.  And like drops of water filling a bucket, they began adding up.  Today, tens of thousands of people still die on the roads — there is much that remains to be done — but the carnage is not even close to what it once was.

That’s how Americans, at least until recently, tended to approach most problems.  Pragmatically.  But the exception has always  been “human problems”.  Then the Puritan rears up in us.  We become, not pragmatists, but moralists.  Not rationalists, but irrationalists.

Unwanted teen pregnancies, substance abuse, rape, homelessness, poverty, joblessness, scientific illiteracy, declining middle class incomes — these are all problems that could be solved almost overnight in relative terms.  Solved, or at least ameliorated, reduced to their lowest possible frequency, if only we would approach them with sustained, pragmatic efforts to solve or ameliorate them.

And some of us wish to do exactly that.

But apparently, not enough of us to matter all that much.  The Puritans, the moralists, for the most part have the upper hand in America.  We put men on the moon within a single decade of pragmatic effort, but we can’t even get effective comprehensive sex education taught in most Southern public schools, and all too many public schools in the rest of the country.

It isn’t sex that’s shameful.  It’s moralism.

Abortion, Belief, Culture, Drug Abuse, Ethics, Fundamentalism, Health, Human Nature, Ideologies, Market Fundamentalism, Morality, Morals, News and Current Events, Political Ideologies, Political Issues, Religious Ideologies, Science, Thinking, Village Idiots

Hamlet, Sex, and Drugs

Paul Sunstone

(About a 6 minute read)

I was reading earlier tonight of a new, scientific study published just two days ago that analyzed the hospital medical records of 20 million people in the United States and found those folks who used cannabis had a 26 per cent higher chance of suffering a stroke than those who did not, and a 10 per cent higher chance of having a heart attack.  The study of course concluded that cannabis use could endanger the health of one’s heart.

Now, there seems to be an excellent, detailed write up about the study here.  I would urge you to check it out if you use cannabis, know someone who uses cannabis, or are planning to vote on whether to legalize cannabis.  But please understand that I’m not suggesting what you should do about the study.  That’s up to you to decide.

No, the reason I began this post by mentioning the study is certainly not because I intend to go on from there to advocating that you and everyone else should give up cannabis now because there seems to be some risk to using it.  Instead, I have what I myself believe is something fully more important — and perhaps even more interesting — to talk with you about at three o’clock in the morning, my time.

But I wonder now what is the best way to introduce this new subject?  Were we speaking in person, I would naturally signal my excitement at the prospect of discussing the new subject with you by of course vigorously flapping my arms while squawking at you like a chicken: A move I have learned through repeated experience is an excellent and virtually guaranteed way to get someone’s attention. I use it all the time.

Alas!  We are not speaking in person.  So, I’ll just blurt out the subject I wish to discuss with you just like a thirteen or fourteen year old schoolboy is apt to spontaneously blurt out the very first words that come to his mind the very first time in his life he asks a girl to hang out alone with him.  Ready?  Here goes: “Why does our noble species of supersized chimpanzees so very often refuse to acknowledge there can be good points on both sides of an issue?”

It was the cannabis study, you see, that brought that question to mind for me.

I like most of us, I have more than enough  experience in life to know the release of such a study is not only going to cause thousands of debates around the world within the next few days, but that many of the people debating the various issues that the study raises will be absolutely and immovably convince that their side, and only their side, has all the good points on it.

For instance, there will surely be people who favor cannabis use that will be simply unable to entertain the thought — even for a brief moment — that the study could be reliable and that cannabis use could endanger one’s heart.  And just like them, there will surely be people on the other side unable to acknowledge that the risks might not be great enough to some people to deter them from using cannabis.

But why is that so?  Put differently, don’t you find it a little strange we humans are so often unable to accept complexity, and seemingly feel compelled to deny any complexity actually exists?  After all, we’ve got the sharpest brains of all the animals on the planet.  Even our esteemed political leaders are second only to most plants and some minerals in terms of the processing power of their brains.   Why can’t we — at least why can’t so many of us — cope with complexity?

I wish to propose an answer to those questions.  An answer that, as it happens, is to be found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

As you might recall, there is very little action in the play.  There are many great soliloquies and speeches, but nothing much actually happens until a brief, climatic moment at the very end.  (Indeed, the play is uncannily reminiscent of  my two wedding nights.)  The cause of the lack of action is that the character of Hamlet spends nearly the entire play dithering.

Why doth he dither?  I believe it was the philosopher Walter Kaufmann who pointed out that Hamlet wavers because he has too many choices, and to my recollection, there’s some science that backs up Kaufmann.  The phenomenon is called, “overchoice“:

The phenomenon of overchoice occurs when many equivalent choices are available.  Making a decision becomes overwhelming due to the many potential outcomes and risks that may result from making the wrong choice. Having too many approximately equally good options is mentally draining because each option must be weighed against alternatives to select the best one.

But what has overchoice to do with acknowledging that there can be good points on both sides of an issue?

I believe the relationship is fairly straightforward.  When faced with complexity — such as a situation in which there are good points on both sides of an issue — many of us adopt a strategy of reducing the complexity to manageable proportions by going into denial that there are good points on the other side of the issue.  At least, that’s my guess.

Furthermore, by seeing things in a less than realistic way — that is, by seeing them as one-sided — we crush the wavering doubt we feel and thus open ourselves to taking unhesitant action.

You see that reductive strategy employed nearly everywhere by folks.  Not just in the debates over cannabis that are sure now to flood us for a few days if the reports of the new study go viral, but also in nearly everything else.  Take the issue of abortion.  Few issues seem to bring out one-sided views so decisively as abortion.  I would suggest here that the reason for that might be — not that the issue is simple — but that it is so overwhelmingly complex.  For precisely which reason so many of us adamantly reduce it to black and white.

That’s pretty much all I want to say on this topic for now.  But I can’t resist finishing up this post by offering a practical tip any pastors in the audience.  If you’re a pastor and your sermons have been putting people to sleep, I would suggest to you, based on my singular research into such matters, that you should dress up in a chicken suit when it’s time to man the pulpit.  Trust me!  I have years of experience in this, and flapping around and squawking like a chicken is the best practical way I’ve ever found of seizing people’s attention.  Folks loves them a good chicken act.  And, so far as I can see, there’s absolutely no downside to it at all!

Abortion, Abuse, Elections, Freedom, Freedom and Liberty, Health, Health Care, Ideologies, Kindness, News and Current Events, Political Issues, Politics, Quality of Life, Religion, Values

Colorado Constitutional Amendment 62

Paul Sunstone

I just finished marking my mail-in ballot for this election cycle.   As you might recall, I live in Colorado and the ballot once again includes a proposal to amend the state constitution to ban abortions.

This year, the amendment would ban abortions even in cases of rape and incest.  Which instantly made me wonder what kind of person requires a woman to carry her rapist’s spawn to term?

Well, a close reading of the proposed amendment discovers that the kind of person who would require a woman to carry her rapist’s spawn to term is precisely the same kind of person who would deny her an abortion even if one was necessary to save her life, for the amendment would do that too!

But even that is not enough: The proposed amendment turns out to be worse than bad:

The amendment would declare that, for legal purposes, personhood is defined as the “beginning of the biological development of that human being.” Such a sweeping definition of personhood would not only ban all abortions (even in cases of rape, incest and threats to the mother’s life), it would also make certain forms of birth control, stem-cell research and even some fertility treatments illegal. [emphasis mine]

At this point, you might want to believe the amendment is a joke.  But it’s not.  Instead, it appears that two fundamentalist pastors put their heads together and the amendment was birthed of that union.

Golly.  Who would have suspected a couple fundamentalists to be behind a perfect storm of insanity?