Texas

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the Texas anti-abortion bill (Texas SB 8), signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday, is the one that allows private citizens to sue abortion providers – and anyone else – who helps a woman get an abortion.

We're talking about taxi cab drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, persons who offer financial assistance to help pay for an abortion, or even someone talking about getting an abortion in the privacy of a whispered conversation with a supposedly trusted listener. It doesn't matter if the person seeking an abortion was raped or was the victim of incest, the resulting pregnancy, by this law, cannot be aborted.

If a plaintiff successfully wins such a lawsuit, said plaintiff can receive up to $10,000.

A person could make a decent living turning in friends or total strangers via anonymous tips on a Texas Right to Life "whistleblower" hotline. While some Texas legislators claim SB 8 will not devolve into spying on your neighbor because the law does not directly challenge the established law and constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, that's exactly what will happen. I mean, who's going to ignore the lure of a $10,000 bounty?

And this rat-on-your-neighbor policy smacks of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or Communist Russia of the 1930s. Is that what we've become?

Actually, we've already been there. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 also depended on citizen participation in the return of fugitive slaves to their supposedly rightful owners. Sometimes, bounties were paid for the surveillance and capture of people who wanted nothing more than personal liberty and autonomy.

It feels strangely familiar, doesn't it?

Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act was a precursor to the Dred Scott decision, which declared slaves to be little more than property. The Dred Scott decision, under Chief Justice Roger Taney, was one of the emotional touchstones leading to the Civil War.

SB 8 continues the slow-boiling war on women in this country in another effort to take away rights they clearly won with the landmark Roe decision nearly 50 years ago. Not only will abortion issues be put at risk, so will women's healthcare in general, I believe. Think birth control. Think uterine, ovarian and breast cancer screening, especially for the poor. This law, I think, will result in horrible collateral damage.

It's a law designed to set the country back at least 50 years, maybe more. Abortions will never go away, no matter how many laws you pass. They will be performed illegally. Or they will be self-administered with chemicals or medications, if not coat hangers.

And women will die.

And SB 8 is hardly representative of its constituency. Of the 150 members of the Texas Senate, 83 are Republicans. Of those 83 Republicans, only seven are women, and only three are persons of color. Meanwhile, 31 of the 67 Democrats are women, many women of color. So basically, it's white men telling women what to do with their own bodies. Again. As usual.

And why is this all focused on women? There is a male involved with every abortion.

Keep in mind that nationally, polling shows nearly 70 percent of the country favors Roe. Consequently, we may be watching the efforts of a decided minority to challenge, if not bring down, the will of the people.

SB 8 last week got tacit approval from the Supreme Court when five of the nine justices allowed the law to go into effect without a ruling. Thus, SB 8 opens the door and provides a road map for other states so inclined to abolish abortion.

Instead of penalizing women who are already devastated over making a difficult decision, the abortion discussion should also include subjects like sex education, free birth control, adoption and severe sentencing for rape and incest.

Then maybe we can make real progress within the 21st century.

Transforming moment

Years ago — decades ago, in fact, when I was probably about 12 years old — we were living in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Bethlehem is a fiercely proud Moravian town. It was founded on Christmas Eve, 1741, a full 12 years before that other fiercely proud Moravian settlement, Bethabara, which soon would grow to become Winston-Salem. 

Dad, at that time all those decades ago, was a middle-aged student at Moravian Theological Seminary, which is situated on the campus of Moravian College, and not far from the church we attended: College Hill Moravian Church.

Are you getting the picture?

At any rate, one of dad's good friends and classmates, who was a native of Winston-Salem, invited our family to visit his North Carolina home over the Easter break. This had to be in the early 1960s.

I don't remember much about the trip. What I vaguely recall is attending the Easter sunrise service at God's Acre Cemetery and being impressed by the hills on which the remarkably quaint graveyard is located. Little could I foresee that this initial visit to Winston-Salem ironically would herald my own lengthy career in Lexington, less than 25 miles and 13 years away.

Fast-forward through time. It is the early 1980s, I am living in Lexington now and I am married. I haven't shaken off my Moravian roots, but neither have I nourished them. An Easter arrives, and so does my brother and his wife for a visit from Wisconsin. We take them to the sunrise service at God's Acre and it opens a floodgate of ... not memories, exactly, because my memories are fuzzy and incomplete. It's more like emotions: humility, inspiration, contrition.

Sunrise creeps over the trees at God's Acre Cemetery in Winston-Salem.

 More time passes. Several years later, my wife and I attend another sunrise service on a cold and damp April morning. I don't believe there even was a sunrise that year. At least, I don't remember one.

But there was one today. It was glorious. Even though we were late for the start of the service, we made it in time to make the thought-provoking procession up Church Street, from Home Moravian Church to God's Acre. Along the way we — and perhaps 10,000 others — were serenaded by several Moravian brass bands, stationed at various points along the route. One band would play a familiar hymn's refrain, answered in kind by another band at an unseen location, until the hymn traveled around the cemetery from point to point. It served to swell the heart and dampen the eyes.

Morning light etched into the clear sky. Songbirds seemed to be everywhere.

I think this was the 239th sunrise service at God's Acre. My memories are still a little uncertain, but the emotions have ripened and matured with age. There are definite connections with various stages in my life that once were and perhaps with those that are yet to be. One thing is certain: it's clearly a transforming moment.