When Did Being Informed Become "Harmful?"

“The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to let Texas enforce its new abortion sonogram law…” reads the first line of Emily Ramshaw’s Texas Tribune article titled “Supreme Court Won't Reinstate Abortion Sonogram Law.” Ramshaw concludes that she is “awaiting comment on the denial from the AG's office,” not really stating her own view point on the matter either way.

Allow me to share MY view point… I’m a tad disheartened that the law, “which would have forced women to have a sonogram and hear a description of the fetus before terminating a pregnancy,”  wasn’t passed. Yes, I said “disheartened!” The mere fact that we were even debating over whether or not to pass this law is puzzling! No one objects to x-rays regarding sore knees or aching backs. Very few demand medical treatment, with little information collected or provided. Furthermore, many physicians would be considered negligent if they declined to collect information concerning a medical condition and provide that information to a patient before offering treatment. But then, pregnancy is a peculiar medical condition. Most often a patient is very much aware of her medical condition before she walks into a doctor's office. With the case of abortions, she surely knows she is pregnant and she knows the cure, at least by name. A woman does not need an x-ray to tell her she is pregnant, prior to having an abortion. What she might not know, and what she may not WANT to know, are the details.

My question though is, “Where is the harm?” According to Ramshaw’s article, Julie Rikelman, senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights stated that “the district court’s decision to block portions of this new law, which is intrusive and unconstitutional, was well-supported.  There is no basis for the state’s attempts to short-circuit the legal process by trying to nullify the court’s decision on an emergency basis.” But to me, any type of medical procedure should be considered an “emergency basis.”

Abortion has always been a psychologically complex medical procedure to consider. Numerous studies have been conducted that identify the often troubling psychological consequences that take place after an abortion is received. Many women undergo depression and regret in the years following having an abortion. For abortion advocates, front loading the procedure with information will only make a difficult choice even more difficult. There is apprehension that many women will decline receiving an abortion if they are mandated to listen to details before receiving one. A women strolling down to the clinic in anticipation of receiving an abortion might have second thoughts if she is required to deal with the details of what she is considering. She might learn that an abortion is not quite the casual procedure she expected.

Why any of that should bother abortion rights advocates puzzles me. Should the law have been permissible to stand, abortion would be no less safe or legal. It might have become infrequent, but hasn't that been the stated objective of abortion advocates from the start? Or have they really intended that abortion should ONLY be safe, legal, and easy?

If “being informed” is the enemy of abortion, it scares me to think of what constitutes as its allies…

To Scheme or Not to Scheme... That is the Question

It appears that Democrats as well as Republicans equally are reprimanding Governor Rick Perry for his categorization of the Social Security retirement system as a “Ponzi scheme.” Instead of pondering on what he’s trying to get across, many immediately come to the defense of the system and instantly contort Perry’s stance into one where he’s determined to abolish the program instantly upon becoming President. Let’s face it folks, the shock of the current and growing senior citizen population draws the need to at least evaluate the current Social Security Program.

So that we’re all clear, as defined by Wikipedia, a Ponzi scheme is “a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.”

 To be fair, the Social Security retirement program did not begin as a Ponzi scheme. At its conception, the initial person to receive benefits in the United States contributed nearly twenty-five dollars and collected benefits of nearly twenty-five thousand before her death. The dilemmas with the programs emerge from the reality that the average citizen presently lives much longer following retirement than when the program was started in 1935. Additionally, the federal government has unceasingly reached into the Social Security Trust fund to subsidize its deficiency consumption. They procure the money debited from our paychecks and utilize it as they wish. Often substituting it with an IOU, however that IOU does not achieve the credits that could be gained in alternative investments. With folks lasting longer along and with us taking in a bit less, the time/compounding belief cannot imaginably compensate the extended portion of time seniors of the present are anticipated to receive.

Although I am “Pure Texan,” I admit to not being as big a fan of Governor Perry and his idealisms as my fellow Empower Texans cohorts who wrote “Excuse Me, But It Is A Ponzi Scheme.” I honestly do not know as much as I should about Governor Perry's politics and integrity. Still, I admire his boldness to voice out clearly as he discerns it regardless of all the chastisement he is getting for not illuminating ''diplomacy”. Many politicians are too afraid to bring about the issue of Social Security for apprehension of not winning the senior vote. I arbitrarily consider that it brings forth a new perspective on boldness to listen to a candidate voice their opinion.