Pray to end abortion, the road side sign says 🙏

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Pray to end abortion, the road side sign says 🙏

You sometimes see that sign nailed to telephone poles or strapped on the porches of rundown rural homesteads way out in the country. Liberals like to dismiss these folks as brain washed “fundies”, they American Taliban. But when you hear these folks talk, they are deeply held in their convictions.

While my views have evolved, I support safe and legal abortions as it’s a relatively low cost medical procedure and it can make a women’s life better by having the choice between carrying a pregnancy to term or not.

Now I don’t approve of recreational sexual activities or one night stands. The risk of sexually transmitted diseases that can have life altering consequences like HIV remains high even if many are very mitigable. I don’t like how television promotes casual sexual activities or sex for fun or reasons other than having a child. Contraception isn’t perfect.

Any society with the creation of life is going to have the destruction of life. But a child yet born is going to have none of the experiences of life, none of the colors, the smells or the tastes of life. They might have the beating of a heart but it’s the meaningless contraction of muscle cells, much like a recently slaughtered chicken might flap around after his or her head is chopped off. But those contractions are meaningless.

NYS “Independent” Redistricting Commission Maps are Anything But – The BenCen Blog

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NYS “Independent” Redistricting Commission Maps are Anything But – The BenCen Blog

At this point, it is plain as day that partisanship trumped consensus and that the commission is willing, in the form of these first released set of maps, to demonstrate the party actors are very much viewing and operating with a partisan lens, despite the commission’s charge to be independent (it is in the body’s name, afterall). So, two sets of plans were released – one Democrat and one Republican – each for redistricting the State Assembly, State Senate, and our Congressional districts. At best, this reflects the bipartisan nature of the commission, but bipartisanship is not independence from the political process, and a bipartisan commission is only advantageous when compromises are struck and a consensus is built. Since the Democrat supermajority in the Assembly and the Senate will have the final say on how the lines are drawn, it is troubling then that partisans on the commission released separate maps in opposition to each other. It demonstrates the challenge of having this redistricting task completed by vested interests; that is, incumbents and a party that would like to stay in power.