Roy Exum
Ever since Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law the most nauseating abortion legislation in the history of the United States on Wednesday, I have tried to find a worse decision by the lawmakers in any state to equal such absurdity and I most certainly cannot. While I am confident those in the State house would have voted differently had each been asked, “What if it was your little girl?” I can predict with equal certainty that “common sense” is already on the way. So is the next election.
Candidly, I’ve never paid much attention to the harangue between the equally repulsive “far left” and the “far right.” All that does is prove to me that stupidity comes in every flavor. My view is far simpler. I believe abortion should have no place in politics – none whatsoever – because every citizen in the United States has just as much a guarantee to their personal freedom as the next and it must be totally absolute.
In my mind, the abortion issue is over-shaded in every direction by the Constitution. Nowhere can I find that women are not equal to men, and equally absent is there anything to suggest some group of strangers – Planned Parenthood, for one – should hold sway over anything a female in the United States decides to do. She should have the only opinion and that’s final, as far as I am concerned, unless she is “underage,” which is where the only voice would then be that of her parents or guardian.
Those who are convinced they do the right thing have only succeeded in doing the wrong thing. Churches of every denomination are eager for righteousness yet have no idea the definition – my Jesus wouldn’t begin to do with what they did in His name, have done to defile the purposes of the Bible. No? Then examine the reasons people are turning away from the Cross – the Bible hasn’t changed but all the tribes (various religions) have attracted an unprecedented parade of goofs.
With me, it gets down to this: The only person who should have any say in the decision should be the mother. I would hope she would seek professional help – both medically and psychologically, but those must never become a prerequisite. The absolute last place any pregnant person is going for help is to a legislator – it is none of their business. So instead the desperate girl goes to what we grew up calling “a coat-hanger shanty.”
I’m all about freedom and freedom includes one’s choice. If an American is physically or emotionally unable to make that choice, that person’s next-in-line becomes the sole voice. Yes, there are problems that can arise, and should be appropriately addressed, but a state law should have nothing to do with anyone’s freedom, including that of choice.
You ask, “When does life begin?” and I’ll again be totally frank -- it is none of my business nor yours. That question should only be asked by the mother, not force-fed down some poor girl’s throat by any of the many-favored jerks on both sides who are guided by only money. If you will go to Montgomery right now, stand on the Capitol steps and silently listen, you can hear hammers-and-nail from every direction – the vermin among us are building abortion clinics in every contiguous state right over the Alabama border.
It’s been that way for years. During my last years in the newspaper business, I was hired by “a national publication” to chase a rumor up near Copper Hill about “The Hicks Babies.” The State of Tennessee could never pin it down – there were no records anywhere. That’s because you simply walk down the street in Copper Hill until you walk over an invisible state line into McCaysville, Ga., And that’s where the beloved town doctor sold over 200 black-market babies for $1,000 each between 1950 and somewhere in the mid-60s.
Doc Hicks died in 1972 so there is mystery to this day. He was an abortion doctor to thousands of young women but he talked over 200 girls into carrying their babies to term, hiding them in “foster homes,” so to speak. Some say he would tell a lot of these girls their baby died during birth but sell the infant instead. He had a dazzling set-up that included fake Georgia birth certificates where he could even put the adoptive parents’ names as the biological father and mother.
It was a blockbuster of a story until about six weeks after I started digging, my contract was abruptly cancelled. After I agreed not to pursue it and a generous stipend was added to assure my amnesia, I pledged the oath of silence and was paid in full. (About five years later the story really did break, and the NY Times had some great articles about Dr. Thomas J. Hicks. Several years after that, I met one of “The Hicks Babies” who, of course, could recollect nothing.)
In the last 50 years much has changed but in today’s news comes a poll, which seems to have been conveniently hidden from the Alabama legislative circles until now, that shows the abortion issue and the law signed this week, are tremendously unpopular in “The Land of Dixie.”
A liberal crowd in Montgomery, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, claims in 2018 its group did a poll much like it provided in the Obama and Clinton’s campaigns. In an AL.com story Saturday, a memo delivered by Planned Parenthood Southeast (headquartered in Atlanta) was quite revealing.
“Polling conducted by ALG Research for Planned Parent Southeast last year showed that banning abortion without exceptions for rape and incest is overwhelmingly a minority position among Alabama voters,” the memo read.
“Further, even among conservative-leaning subgroups like Republicans, evangelicals, and those who attend church at least weekly, more voters back abortion access with, at least, exceptions for rape and incest than support a policy of the type passed through the Alabama legislature this week that bans abortion without such exceptions.”
Example: Only 16 percent of those polled said they agreed that abortion should be outlawed except when the woman’s life is in danger while 15 percent said abortion should be illegal in all cases.
“A plurality of Alabamians polled – 29 percent – said abortion should only be legal in cases of rape, incest or the life of the woman is in danger. Two in 10 said abortion ‘should be legal in most cases but with some restrictions” and 16 percent responded that abortion should be legal in all cases.”
AL.com added, “The bill’s provisions were unpopular even among the strongest conservative subgroups – Republicans, Kay Ivey voters, evangelicals and those who attend church at least once a week. The provisions only had minority support among those subgroups – 41 percent among Republicans; 39 percent among Ivey voters; 40 percent among evangelicals; and 36 percent of those who attend church at least weekly.
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ALABAMA PROTESTERS WILL BE OUT IN FORCE TODAY
Well over 5,000 will gather at UA-Huntsville today under the ‘My Body, My Choice’ banner and similar outrage is expected in Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery and everywhere else in the state that includes a college campus. Organizers for Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the NAACP, and other “fringe groups” are expected to have membership cards available.
In Anniston a “Protest for Reproductive Freedom” is scheduled for Tuesday and those who must drive long distances, paint signs, work up a fever, or “get the game face on,” are invited to a “Stand Up, Let Your Voices Heard” rally at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 25, outside the Capitol building in Montgomery.
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“You just raped every woman who has been raped by a man. You just raped her again. The is just a shame, this is a disgrace, this is a travesty,” – Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) in a legislative session earlier this week.
royexum@aol.com