From a college fraternity brother of mine:
Doc Howl-a-dayJune 12, 2019 at 10:51 PM
As a physician who has performed abortions, legally, shortly after Roe v. Wade was interpreted as Carte Blanche in Federally Funded Hospitals, such as the Naval Hospital at which I was stationed. At that time, as a young recently graduated M.D. I was very open-minded about it. Now I am even MORE open minded about it. I believe abortion should not be illegal, especially at the Federal Level, but neither do I think they should be performed without intense scrutiny of each case. (That does not meet the one-size-fits-all of todays "managed care" in modern Medicine.) Alabama should be ashamed of itself to have resorted to sheer chickanery with its 'heartbeat detection' line of limitation. Yet I believe it IS for Alabama to do so. It is for the SCOTUS to determine its Constitutionality. Would that the Alabama Supreme Justices would do the right thing.
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Thanks for your input, Doc. When I read it the second time, I thought it would make sense for the Republicans, en masse, to agree with you, given they against welfare babies, and free access to abortion by poor pregnant women would fit hand in glove with reducing welfare babies. My ever irreverent buddy Sancho Panza wrote yesterday, that his solution would be to castrate the entire human race. I don't see the Republicans, nor the Democrats, getting in lockstep with that. As for what the U.S. and Alabama Supreme Courts might do, I have no clue.
Regarding this part of yesterday's Who but the mother knows when a soul attaches in the womb? post at this blog:
They [Alabama legislature and governor] won't allow women who were raped or had sex with their brother to get an abortion, but they just passed a bill to chemically castrate sex offenders before they are released, but they are reluctant to take a way a rapist's parental rights.
Sancho Panza wrote:
What do you want me to say? Honestly? I
wouldn't mind if they castrated the entire Human Race!
A true lover of
wisdom has hands too busy to hold on to anything! He learns by doing and
every pebble in the path becomes her teacher! Oink
I replied:
Heh
Sancho responded:
Heh?
Go ahead, play lawyer for the defense
and give me your best closing argument as to why the Human Species needs to
continue... w/o alluding to cheap, personal sentimentality, tell me, what has
the Human Experiment done, is doing, and will do to benefit Planetary Life?
Anyway... it's a beautiful day here!
I replied:
Heh was respect for your blunt res ipsa loquitur [the thing speaks for itself] argument and solution,
although I can imagine the Democrats and the Republicans, and their foreign
counterparts, would holler, NAY!!! to preserve their lineages, and
perhaps they should pool their resources and hire the brilliant lawyer Portia
in "The Merchant of Venice" to try persuade the court otherwise?
Sancho, a retired Lucent Technologies scientist, fluent in several languages, including Latin, responded:
OK! 
Portia's prayer for mercy:
The
quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant
there.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant
there.
Then Portia pounced:
Tarry a little; there is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh:'
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh:'
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
