Today is the day we give babies away...

[lydy]

My grandfather was a sailor, and he used to sing my mother the clean parts of sailor songs as lullabyes. Barnacle Bill, as you might guess, was severely truncated. He would also say, "Today is the day we give babies away, with a half a pound of tea," but he never followed it up with the next line, "So if you know any ladies that need any babies, just send them all to me."

God knows why that's on my mind at 3:30 a.m.

They haven't called Ohio, yet, but I am pretty sure it will go to Bush. Minnesota went to Kerry, so I guess I did my part. As for the rest of it, I have either too much or too little to say. I wonder...will abortion be legal in 4 years? I do wonder. And there is the too much and too little, all in one sentence.

"It's all over now, Baby Blue."

Comments

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

Abortion will be legal in 4 years, and in forty.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

I would have thought that the ability to sign a power of attorney document with one's partner would stay legal too, but this is now in question in Ohio.

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

It's bad that it's in question, of course, but it's vanishingly unlikely to stay that way. Imagine the argument that the person interposing would have to make -- basically, that Al can give a power of attorney to just about any person in the world except Bob and/or Cathy, because he's in love with one or both of them and they live together. ("So, let me understand this, Counselor -- you're telling that it would be okay if they were total strangers, okay if they were close friends, okay if they were roommates who liked each other a lot but weren't in love with each other, okay if Al hated Bob's guts and thinks that Cathy is Satan incarnate, but that the power of attorney's invalid because exactly why?" Or, "Yes, your honor, we've carefully investigated, and we can prove that not only are Al and Bob good friends, not only are they roommates, and not only that they've upon occasion had sex with each other, but are, in fact, life partners.")

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But I think the m-word is much more of a magical word than that for many of the people involved. The argument would not use the words "life partners." They would use the words "effectively married." Which shouldn't make a bit of difference, but apparently makes a good deal of difference to thousands of Ohioans.

It's not as though gay marriage was previously legal in Ohio. Thousands of Ohioans turned out to make it this specific kind of illegal. This specific, cruel, illogical kind of illegal. I'm not willing to bet that they'll suddenly come to their senses, or that they haven't managed to get any judges appointed who agree with their views.

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that they won't suddenly come to their senses; I think the only hope is for them to slowly, gratingly come to their senses with a lot of fits and starts.

Remember how the civil rights movement worked. It wasn't overnight; it was a matter of, quite literally, generations, where careful, considered strategy was used, repeatedly, for any advance, no matter how small. It wasn't an accident, for example, that it was Rosa Parks -- a small, quiet, unthreatening black woman -- who was the focus of the bus desegregation campaign, nor that young, unscary, black girls were the plaintiffs in Brown vs. Board of Education.

I'm rather not unsympathetic on the issue -- see "The Lesbian of Darkness" -- but this battle is going to be won slowly, in the court of public opinion.

Where, by and large, it is being won, just agonizingly slowly. Shortcuts -- whether it's the MA Supreme Court ruling in this, or Silviera in the gun-rights movement -- don't work. That isn't fair, I think -- but it's true.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

You're awfully sanguine for a man with two daughters. I hope you're right. However, Roe v Wade has been hanging by its fingertips for many years, now, and when Bush replaces another Supreme Court justice (or two) I think that we might lose that compromise. Given that in the 40 years since that ruling we have never been able to solidify that right, I'm not sure that the Congress will rush in to save us if the Judiciary fails. From the Executive branch, we already know what we'll get.

Wanna bet on first and second trimester abortions being legal in four years. I'll bet good money that second trimester abortions are illegal, and that first trimester abortions are considered part of "states rights", and that more than half of the states pass laws against it. $10?

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'll take that bet. I think that there is, in the collective mind, a fair amount of wiggle room on 2nd trimester abortions -- and far more than I'd like to see on ugly-sounding procedures, like "partial birth abortion" -- but it's not 1972 anymore. RU486 and other "morning after" stuff aside, legal first trimester abortions have become part of the set expectations of this society.

I know that there are folks who would like to roll those back, just as there are people who would like to outlaw birth control (other than "Natural Family Planning"). I just don't see them succeeding, and the folks I know in the anti-abortion movement (they don't call it that) despair of that ever happening. (In fact, some of them sound a lot like Michael Moore -- every defeat, they unpersuasively argue, no matter how humiliating, is merely the prequel to eventual victory.)

I'm not at all eager to legislate it -- in fact, I'm opposed to legislate it -- but in addition to wanting abortions to be rare, I'd strongly prefer that all elective ones happen as early as possible in the first term.

Part of the problem abortion opponents have is that they don't believe their own dogma. If a fertilized egg is a human being, and to terminate a pregnancy is therefore murder (I reject both of those, of course), it's just as much murder in the case of rape and incest -- and the mainstream view even in anti-abortion circles is that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape and incest.

Given that, it's really just a matter of drawing legal lines. (Again: I'm opposed to drawing legal lines, because I don't think that they can be done well enough. That said, I've no sympathy at all for the desire of a woman to have an abortion at, say, 8.5 months because it's inconvenient for her to have a baby at that time -- and that said, elective, "I don't feel like it" late term abortion decisions are pretty much although not entirely mythical.)

I'm sure that the lines, if they're ever drawn (and they may be, if and when Roe v. Wade goes away) will be drawn to your liking, or to mine. But I think the idea of them being drawn to prevent first trimester abortions is a nonstarter.

[mschilepepper.livejournal.com]

Ahem! I found this post via Google, so here I go, resurrecting an ooooold post of yours to give you a second verse to that song! ;)

Today is the day we give babies away
With a half a pound of tea
You just open the lid, and out pops the kid
With a twelve-month guarantee.

Song

[(Anonymous)]

The way my Grandma sang it, was--
"This is the day they give babies away with a half a pound of tea.
Lift up the lid and take out the kid, with a written guarantee---"
And I don't remember the rest but it left off in the song like there was more. I'm very sure my grandmother wouldn't have sung any questionable lyrics.

That Bet

[(Anonymous)]

So did Lydy ever pay that $10 to Joel?

Beth from New Zealand

[(Anonymous)]

My mom sang it as
"This is the day they babies away with a half a pound of tea,
So if you know any ladies what wants any babies- just send them round to me.