Privacy and Civil Liberties
In September 2000 (shortly before Al Gore won the popular vote, but
George W. Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court) my article "Abortion and
the Left" appeared in the Stanislaus Connections, a monthly newspaper put
out by the Modesto, CA Peace/Life Center.
I wrote:
"A rational, secular case thus exists for the rights of preborn humans.
Individual life is a continuum from fertilization until death. Zygote,
embryo, fetus, infant, adolescent, etc. are all stages of development. To
destroy that life at any stage of development is to destroy that individual.
"The real question in the abortion debate is not necessarily the seemingly
absurd scenario of giving human rights to zygotes and embryos, but rather
the thorny question of how to legally protect those rights without violating
a new mother’s privacy and civil liberties.
"And the right to privacy is not absolute. If parents are abusing an already
born child, for example, government 'intrusion' is warranted — children have
rights.
"Recognizing the rights of another class of beings limits our freedoms and
our choices and requires a change in our lifestyle — the abolition of
(human) slavery is a good example of this.
"A 1964 New Jersey court ruling required a pregnant woman to undergo blood
transfusions, even if her religion forbade it, for the sake of her unborn
child. One could argue, therefore, apart from religion, that recognizing the
rights of the unborn, like the rights of blacks, women, LGBTs, children,
animals and the environment, is a sign of social progress."
****
Let's not play a semantics game!
Emergency "contraception" is really an abortifacient if it takes effect
after fertilization.
Pro-choicers must not resort to intellectual dishonesty, like pro-lifers!
"Pro-life" and "Pro-choice" are each propagandistic euphemisms. I am forced
to use these terms when discussing abortion, because these are the political
labels by which each side identifies themselves. But they are each
misleading.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a physician who co-founded NARAL and presided over
some 60,000 abortions before changing sides on the issue, wrote in his 1979
book, Aborting America:
"...the Right-to-Lifers are not in favor of all 'life' under all
circumstances. They are not in the forefront of the save-the-seals crusades.
They are not devotees of Albert Schweitzer's 'reverence for life,' or its
equivalent in Eastern religions, in which the extinction of cows or flies
somehow violates the sanctity of the cosmos.
"Turning to the human species, they do not necessarily oppose the taking of
human life via capital punishment. Where were they when Caryl Chessman was
executed for a crime he likely did not commit--and a rape at that, not a
murder?
"They were likely not notably in the opposition while the United States was
sacrificing lives on both sides of a questionable war in Vietnam. They are
not 'pro-life'; they are simply anti-abortion."
However, Dr. Nathanson goes on to say about abortion-rights advocates,
wanting to call themselves "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion":
"This is the Madison Avenue euphemism of the other side. Who could possibly
be opposed to something so benign as 'choice'?
"The answer is: Almost anyone -- depending.
"The diehard opposition to civil rights and public accommodations for black
Americans in the '50s and '60s was 'pro-choice' with a vengeance.
"Some whites wanted the 'right' to rent hotel rooms to whomever they wished.
"Most of us now oppose the concept of choice in such ugly claims.
"The true question is, What choice is being offered, and should society
sanction that choice?
"In any honest discussion we must focus upon what is being chosen, without
hiding behind the slogan."
Similarly, abortion-rights advocates referring to abortion opponents as
"forced birthers," wouldn't that make opponents of infanticide advocates of
"forced parenthood" ?!
****
There are compelling reasons why banning emergency "contraception" would
prove futile.
1. It's impossible for girls and/or women in a certain age range to engage
in sexual activity with boys and/or men without even merely risking
pregnancy.
2. As long as sex is seen as separate from reproduction, i.e...
3. As long as illicit sex is viewed in the public mind solely as a private,
recreational, and secret activity...
4. As long as we heterosexuals think we have a "right" to engage in sex
without even merely risking pregnancy...
5. and as long as the unborn in their earliest stages of development are
considered in the public mind to be a "lower" life form which can be killed
and/or disposed of in private or in secret (like animals and/or perhaps even
insects being killed and/or disposed of -- which only happens because
nonhuman life is considered dirt cheap! Consider the parallels between
vivisection and embryonic stem-cell research!),
...then there will always be a demand for emergency "contraception."
And just as the Prohibition of alcohol failed in a country where social
drinking is socially acceptable, banning emergency "contraception" in a
country where nonhuman life is considered dirt cheap would similarly prove
futile and would be a privacy and civil liberties disaster!
Intoxication: alcohol, coffee, ganja, tea, tobacco, etc. are not forbidden
in the Hindu religious tradition, but they are considered low-class, and
definitely not permitted in the practice of yoga and meditation!
Mohandas Gandhi similarly felt the "Indian States should close all liquor
shops... I trust the day is not distant when there will be not a single
liquor shop in our peninsula...Whereas total prohibition in the West is most
difficult of accomplishment, I hold it is the easiest of accomplishment in
this country (India).
"When an evil like drink in the West attains the status of respectability,
it is the most difficult to deal with. With us (Indians) drink is still,
thank God, sufficiently disrespectful and confined not to the general body
of the people, but to a minority of the poorer classes.
"(Millions) of Indians are tetolalers by religion and by habit. Millions
therefore cannot possibly be interested in keeping up the nefarious liquor
traffic."
(Young India, September 8, 1927)
On the other hand, prostitution was *legal* in ancient India for the
identical reason the Prohibition of alcohol in the United States failed (and
the current prohibition of marijuana is failing as well).
In his purport (commentary) to the Srimad Bhagavatam 1.11.19, A.C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes:
"We may not hate even the prostitutes if they are devotees of the Lord. Even
to date there are many prostitutes in great cities of India who are sincere
devotees of the Lord.
"By tricks of chance, one may be obliged to adopt a profession which is not
very adorable in society... even in those days, about five thousand years
ago, there were prostitutes in a city like Dwarka... This means that
prostitutes are necessary citizens for the proper upkeep of society.
"The government opens wine shops, but this does not mean that the government
encourages the drinking of wine. The idea is that there is a class of men
who will drink at any cost, and it has been experienced that prohibition in
great cities encouraged illicit smuggling of wine.
"Similarly, men who are not satisfied at home require such concessions... It
is better that prostitutes be available in the marketplace so that the
sanctity of society can be maintained."
And since its coming West in the 1960s, the Hare Krishna movement has
received numerous commendations for getting young people off drugs, alcohol,
tobacco and caffeine.
"The combination of our medical care, and the spiritual care from the Hare
Krishna philosophy, has resulted in a very powerful tool indeed for the
treatment of drug addiction and for this we are very grateful," wrote Fraser
McDonald, Medical Superintendent of the Parnell Drug Clinic, in Auckland,
New Zealand.
Similarly, Addictions magazine, the magazine of the Washington, DC Area
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Inc., reported that "Krishna
Consciousness is one hundred percent successful in stopping drug use among
those who voluntarily enter the program."
New Orleans welfare director Morris Jeff said, "You have done good work in
establishing a workable alternative to the problem of drug addiction and
alienation."
Dr. Gertrude Speiss, a national senator and former mayor of Basel,
Switzerland concurs: "The International Society for Krishna Consciousness is
very much engaged in the fight against drugs and assists those who have been
harmed by drug use. I, therefore, wish this society all the best."
A Christian clergyman in Australia, similarly predicted the Hare Krishna
movement would become "the Salvation Army of the 21st century" in this
regard.
****
Should drugs be legal? Even persons believing in privacy and civil liberties
have reason to view drugs with caution. Tobacco and alcohol cause more
damage in our society than any other drug, and the principle reason for this
is because they are legal and thus socially acceptable.
Former United States Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, a political liberal,
argued for the exploration of the possibility of drug legalization, and
supported the distribution of contraception in the public schools. President
Clinton, a centrist, stood by Elders, saying that she was misunderstood.
Like many liberals open to the possible rights of the unborn, Elders
commented about pro-lifers' lack of concern for already born children,
saying in January 1994, "We really need to get over this love affair with
the fetus and start worrying about children."
In 1994, Joycelyn Elders was invited to speak at a United Nations conference
on AIDS. She was asked whether it would be appropriate to promote
masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier
forms of sexual activity, and she replied, "I think that it is part of human
sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught."
Oddly enough, it was Ms. Elders' statement about masturbation which finally
caused her to be fired from her position as Surgeon General by President
Clinton (a centrist) in December 1994!
“Want to Stop Abortions?”: asks the June 1995 newsletter for the Colorado
Peace Mission in Boulder, CO. “Make them unnecessary. Provide everyone with:
A choice of whether to have sex...and with whom; Comprehensive sex
education; Non-coercive family planning; Safe, affordable birth control;
Open, honest talk about sex; Loving parents...”
In his 1992 book, Visions of Liberty, former Executive Director of the ACLU,
Ira Glasser writes:
"The use of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping emerged during the
Prohibition era. Roy Olmstead was a suspected bootlegger whom the government
wished to search. It placed taps in the basement of his office building and
on wires in the streets near his home. No physical entry into his office or
home took place. Olmstead was convicted entirely on the basis of evidence
from the wiretaps.
"In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Olmstead argued that the taps were a
search conducted without a warrant and without probable cause, and that the
evidence seized against him should have been excluded because it was
illegally gathered. He also argued that his Fifth Amendment right not to be
a witness against himself was violated.
"By a 5-4 vote, the Court rejected his arguments and upheld the government's
power to wiretap without limit and without any Fourth Amendment
restrictions, on the grounds that no actual physical intrusion had taken
place.
"Olmstead's Fifth Amendment claim was also dismissed on the grounds that he
had not been compelled to talk on the telephone, but had done so
voluntarily.
"Thus the Court upheld the government's power to do by trickery and
surreptitious means what it was not permitted to do honestly and openly.
"It wasn't until 1967, in a similar case involving gambling, that the Court
overruled the Olmstead decision by an 8-1 margin and recognized that the
Fourth Amendment applied to wiretapping and electronic surveillance."
According to Ira Glasser:
"Prohibition led to Al Capone and rising crime, violence and corruption,
overflowing courts, jails, and prisons, the labeling of tens of millions of
Americans as criminals and the consequent broadening of disrespect for the
law, the dangerous expansions of federal police powers, encroachments on
civil liberties, hundreds of thousands of Americans blinded, paralyzed, and
killed by poisonous moonshine and industrial alcohol, and the increasing
government expenditure devoted to enforcing the Prohibition laws.
"Prohibition did succeed in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related
ills ranging from cirrhosis to public drunkenness and employee related
absenteeism. But this was due to the effectiveness of the temperance
movement in publicizing the dangers of alcohol. The decline in alcohol
consumption during those years, like the recent decline in cigarette
consumption, had less to do with laws than with changing social attitudes.
"During the 1980s, for example, Americans began switching from hard liquor
to beer and wine, from high tar-and-nicotine to low tar-and-nicotine
cigarettes, and even from caffeinated to decaffeinated sodas, coffees, and
teas.
"Alcohol prohibition was repealed after just thirteen years while the
prohibition of other drugs has continued for over 75 years. Why? Alcohol
prohibition struck directly at society's most powerful members. The
prohibition of other drugs, by contrast, threatened far fewer Americans with
hardly any political power.
"Only the prohibition of marijuana, which nearly one hundred million
Americans have violated since 1965, has come close to approximating the
Prohibition era experience, but marijuana smokers consist mostly of young
and relatively powerless Americans."
According to Glasser:
"In turn-of-the-century America, opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and
marijuana were subject to few restrictions. Many of our drug laws were
enacted with racist overtones.
"The first anti-opium laws were passed in California in the 1870s and
directed at the Chinese immigrants and their opium dens, in which, it was
feared, young white women were being seduced.
"A generation later, reports of rising cocaine use among young black men in
the South -- who were said to rape white women while under its influence --
prompted similar legislation.
"During the 1930s marijuana prohibitions were directed for the most part
against Mexican and Chicano workers who had lost their jobs in the
Depression."
****
A pamphlet entitled 10 Things Every Parent, Teenager and Teacher Should Know
About Marijuana produced by the Family Council on Drug Awareness tells us
marijuana is not physically addictive. The 1980 Costa Rican study, the 1975
Jamaican study and the 1972 Nixon Blue Ribbon Report all concluded that
marijuana use does not lead to physical dependency.
The FBI reports that 65 to 75 percent of criminal violence is
alcohol-related. On the other hand, Federal Bureau of Narcotics director
Harry Anslinger testified before Congress in 1948 that marijuana leads to
nonviolence and pacifism.
In a message to Congress on August 2, 1977, President Jimmy Carter insisted:
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an
individual than the use of the drug itself."
Conservatives are living in the past--in the days of "reefer madness."
In a March 1979 radio broadcast, for example, Ronald Reagan said, "Somehow
they (young people) never seemed to have heard the other side. Never heard,
for example, that marijuana contains 300 or more chemicals and 60 of those
are found in no other plant."
What Reagan failed to mention is that tobacco smoke contains over 3,000
chemicals!
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Law Judge Francis L. Young wrote on
September 8, 1988: "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal
effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the
extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented
cannabis-induced fatality Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the
safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
After years of suppression by the government, the truth about medical
marijuana is finally out. Dr. Tod Mikuriya, former director of marijuana
research for the entire federal government, wrote in 1996: "I was hired by
the government to provide scientific evidence that marijuana was harmful. As
I studied the subject, I began to realize that marijuana was once widely
used as a safe and effective medicine. But the government had a different
agenda, and I had to resign."
Tobacco kills about 430,700 each year. Alcohol and alcohol-related diseases
and injuries kill about 110,000 per year. Secondhand tobacco smoke kills
about 50,000 every year. Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs kill
7,600 each year. Cocaine kills about 500 yearly alone, and another 2,500 in
combination with another drug. Heroin kills about 400 yearly alone, and
another 2,500 in combination with another drug. Adverse reactions to
prescription drugs total 32,000 per year, while marijuana kills no one.
A November 4, 2002 Time/CNN Poll found that eighty percent of those polled
felt marijuana should be legal only for therapeutic (medicinal) purposes. 72
percent felt recreational users should get fines rather than jail time,
which is essentially decriminalization. The complete legalization of
marijuana was favored only by 34 percent of respondents, but this figure is
twice as large as it was in 1986. Marijuana is safer than alcohol and
tobacco, and our drug laws should reflect reality.
According to a 2003 Zogby poll, two of every five Americans say “the
government should treat marijuana the same way it treats alcohol: It should
regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal for children.”
Close to one hundred million Americans, including over half of those between
the ages of 18 and 50, have tried marijuana at least once. Military and
police recruiters often have no alternative but to ignore past marijuana use
by job seekers.
In 1996, California voters passed a law to regulate medical marijuana within
the state. In 2000, voters in California approved an initiative allowing
people who are arrested for simple possession of drugs to go through a
rehabilitation program rather than through the court process that would
result in prison. Since the program began, most agree it has been very
successful. It results in less recidivism and is considered cheaper than
imprisonment.
Dissenting from the Supreme Court ruling on the suspension of an Alaskan
student for waving a banner -- "BONG HITS 4 Jesus" -- at a high school
event, Justice John Paul Stevens took the long view:
"...the current dominant opinion supporting the war on drugs in general, and
our anti-marijuana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that
supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student.
While alcoholic beverages are now regarded as ordinary articles of commerce,
their use was then condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports
the war on drugs...
"...just as Prohibition in the 1920's and early 1930's was secretly
questioned by thousands of otherwise law-abiding patrons of bootleggers and
speakeasies, today the actions of literally millions of otherwise law
abiding users of marijuana, and of the majority of voters in each of the
several states that tolerate medicinal uses of the product, lead me to
wonder whether the fear of disapproval by those in the majority is silencing
opponents of the war on drugs."
The Washington Post, July 26, 2007, reported: "Stevens compared the current
marijuana ban to the abandoned alcohol ban and urged a respectful hearing
for those who suggest 'however inarticulately' that the ban is 'futile' and
that marijuana should be legalized, taxed and regulated instead of
prohibited."
****
"I don't want you to hear me pee..."
"Nor has electronic surveillance been the only source of our loss of
privacy," writes Ira Glasser in his 1992 book Visions of Liberty. "The
widespread use of urine-testing in employment to see whether people may have
been using illegal substances violates the rights of many innocent people.
"Urine-testing programs are usually not restricted to those who show
evidence of impaired job performance that may be due to the use of drugs.
These tests are normally administered randomly. Without any probable cause
for search, this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
"Many of these random tests have been struck down by the courts, where the
government is the employer. But some have been upheld. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia (hardly a Constitutional liberal!), denounced them as 'an
immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug
use.'"
****
And Ira Glasser writes in Visions of Liberty:
"The other major use of electronic eavesdropping has been to punish
political dissent. For decades, former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used
wiretaps and other electronic devices to spy on political figures and
citizens not yet suspected of having committed a crime. He built vast
dossiers on their political activities and personal lives. Special units of
local police called 'Red Squads' did the same."
When I was younger, I contributed $1,008 to the ACLU Foundation, not because
I've suddenly become a huge fan of partial-birth abortions, but because
having lived unwillingly under electronic surveillance, like a political
prisoner, with persons around me wired for sound, and my past probed to a
degree no real life political or religious figure has had to endure, it's my
conviction we have a right to privacy.
ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York NY 10004 (212) 549 - 2500****
In January 2006, on the eve of the West Coast Walk For Life in San
Francisco, CA, Carol Crossed of Democrats For Life (kind enough to write the
foreword to my own book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion) spoke
optimistically of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
When I asked her if Roe could be overturned without Griswold v. Connecticut
(the 1965 Supreme Court decision which only guaranteed a right to marital
privacy regarding the practice of contraception -- grihastas and illicit
sex) being overturned as well, Carol froze, and couldn't answer the
question!
Although this was well before the scandals involving Republican politicians
Larry Craig and David Vitter, I would have preferred it if Carol had said:
"You're correct. Only a pervert watches or eavesdrops when others pee,
defecate, copulate, masturbate, etc. It's wrong to put people under
surveillance without their knowledge or consent. Democrats For Life of
America will never resort to draconian tactics to protect prenatal life."
That being said, pro-life Democrats deserve greater visibility!
If pro-lifers really want to end the abortion crisis, opposition to abortion
and the various strategies and solutions being put forth to end it are going
to have to come from across the political spectrum (e.g., Joycelyn Elders
and/or the Colorado Peace Mission advocating open, honest talk about sex),
and not just from the far right.
"The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of
life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and
those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the
handicapped."
--Hubert H. Humphrey
Fifty-nine percent of Democrats favored a ban on partial-birth abortion.
(Gallup Poll, November 1, 2000)
Eighty-nine percent of Americans favor informed consent for women seeking
abortions. (Gallup Poll, 2002)
Sixty-seven percent of Democrats would outlaw some or all abortions. (Gallup
Poll, May 5-7, 2003)
Forty-three percent of Democrats agreed with the statement that abortion
"destroys a human life and is manslaughter." (Zogby Poll, December 2004)
Seventy percent of high school senior females say they would not consider
abortion if they became pregnant while in high school. (Hamilton
College/Zogby Poll, January 2008)
Seventy-seven percent of Americans believe abortion should have stricter
limitations. (CBS News Poll, January 2008)
Twenty-nine percent of Democratic Convention delegates disagreed with the
statement, "Abortion should be generally available to those who want it
rather than under stricter limits or not permitted." However, 52 percent of
Democratic voters as a whole disagreed. This large discrepancy between party
leadership and membership indicates a serious problem that Democrats For
Life of America wants to correct.
During the 2008 campaign, Reverend Jim Wallis (of Sojourners fame) advised
Barack Obama to support a plank in the Democratic Party Platform that would
aim to reduce abortions by focusing on supporting low income women and
making adoption easier.
Democrats For Life of America, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building,
Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 (202) - 220 - 3066
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