Well, I've had 'Net access at home again for a few days now, but since I didn't really have a worthwhile post, I haven't put anything up. In the interest of keeping the blog alive (gasping for breath as it is), I offer a few thoughts about the recent election. I'm not usually much of a political pundit, but it's been on my mind a bit, so there ya go.
As far as offices go, I'm fairly indifferent. Actually, "resigned" is a better word, or maybe "cynical." While I'm not particularly happy with a Democrat majority in Congress, neither was I particularly happy with the way the Republican majority was running things. Frankly, I think I'm ready for the "two-party system" to collapse in on itself; maybe then we could get around to doing some more
government instead of just doing
politics. In fact, the sooner we get to the Second Coming, the better for all of us, I think.
I think one of the biggest disappointments for me was the failure of California's
Proposition 85. As the description says, Prop 85 would have amended the CA constitution to "prohibit abortion for unemancipated minor until 48 hours after physician notifies minor’s parent or legal guardian, except in medical emergency or with parental waiver." It provided for waivers for children in abusive or otherwise exceptional situations. I think I've mentioned before how much I despise the practice of abortion (aside from cases of saving the mother's life, and even then I'm not comfortable with it), but my disappointment about the defeat of this proposition has little to do with that. I actually agree with one of the primary arguments used by the supporters of the measure.
When I was in elementary school, I was amazed at how much trouble it took to get an aspirin, a dose of Tylenol, or even some antibiotic for a scraped knee. In most cases you needed a parental note giving specific permission for a particular drug/treatment, and even then you had to go to the nurse's office, wait for 3-30 minutes, and
then you could get your medicine. You couldn't be caught carrying aspiring, even with a parental note. Don't get me wrong; protecting children is well and good. But come on;
aspirin. If you can't trust the school nurse, much less the teachers, to give the kids
aspirin, I'm not sure the kids should be around the nurse and teachers to begin with.
Now, as I understand it, an abortion is a fairly major surgery (I've never had one myself and I'm not a doctor, so I guess I can't be considered an expert on the subject). Maybe it's just me, but it seems silly that a child can't get an aspirin without parental permission and five yards of red tape but can have major surgery virtually at will.
Moral issues aside, there's a logical disconnect here: If something as simple and comparitively harmless as an over-the-counter drug requires permission and supervision, why doesn't surgery require the same level of protection? Conversely, if we trust children (and their doctors) to make decisions about something as major as surgery, why don't we trust children (and their doctors/nurses) to make decisions about simple drugs? If the parents must be involved in the administering of common drugs, why don't they need to be involved in decisions about surgery?
Throw in the controversial and powerfully psycho-emotional (neologism alert!) nature of abortive surgery, and I think parents should only be kept "out of the loop" in extreme cases. Since Prop 85 made provisions for such cases, I think it would have been a good thing if it had passed.
But then, I could be wrong. In any case, the majority of voters has spoken. Let's see what happens, shall we?
