All Christly Souls Are One in Him Throughout the Whole Wide Earth

last post i wrote about the intolerant tone of the current republican primary contest. today i write about the sexist character of the candidates seeking the republican nomination. first, let me say that i find the use of abortion as a method of birth control morally reprehensible, but my view is not what is important. i will never have to bear a child, i can never know what the effect of being pregnant will have on my body. for that reason, i find it impossible to support any interference by the state in the control of what a woman does with her body. women must have the last word in this matter, and no man has the right to tell a woman what she may or may not do in this regard.

if we take the position that no fetus can be conceived unless God wills it and use this proposition to argue that abortion ignores the will of God, we must also accept that such a god wishes children to be born with horrible, painful birth defects, that this god wishes children to be born unwanted and unloved to parents who are unable to provide for them physically and emotionally. this is not the God that i worship. i cannot believe that God would ever wish for any child to suffer, and the decision to end a pregnancy is a decision between the mother and God, not between the mother and the state.

the desire to control women's lives and to make women subservient to men is dangerous and wrong, and, from where i sit, the current positions of those seeking the republican nomination is more about men exerting authority over women than one that has a true moral foundation. the use of coercive laws that places the state in the middle of the relationship between a woman and her healthcare provider like those adopted in texas and virginia, the restrictive measures taken to deny contraception coverage through employee insurance plans, and other tactics in the name of "religious freedom" and the "right to life," have more to do with men who wish to maintain power over women than with theological positions.

my prayer today is that we see each other as fellow humans, not as threats to our positions of power that insist on others' positions of subservience. shalom.