There are things that we (and by "we" I mean the American people as a whole) have been pushing for and supporting without really realizing the full ramifications of our decisions.
Certain choices seem really good right now; they satisfy our desires or put a band-aid on the owee or shift the blame to someone besides ourselves, but they have really yucky long-term consequences.
What's funny is, shortly after I was thinking about this two days ago, two news stories came to my attention on Facebook that made me say "Yep. That's exactly what I was talking about."
This story about public schools taking away parents visiting rights and this story about a wrongful death suit.
Now let me explain myself.
For years we have been pushing the school systems to move way beyond their natural boundaries--- it has been a long time since school was simply supplemental teaching to enrich what children learn at home, or even specialized teaching to focus on subjects the parents were not able to teach. School is now the place where children are "socialized"--- where they are taught how to function and behave in a normal society. Where they are taught manners, social graces, and obedience. Now, schools are stepping in and taking more rights away from the parents--- telling them when they can and cannot see their children, what they can pack for lunch... and parents are angry because they think the school is trying to take their place.
Isn't that exactly what we've asked them to do? We are angry about it now because they've crossed some sort of invisible line, but the second we put a government-run agency in charge of deciding how our children behave, we made them the parents. They're not taking our jobs, we've given them away.
On to the second article...
To sum it up for you, a husband/father is suing a Catholic Hospital for wrongful death of his twin babies. They died at 7 months gestation when their mother (pregnant with them) went into the hospital and the OB/GYN on call failed to answer a page. The father's argument is that if the OB answered the page, he could have performed an emergency C-Section and saved the babies. The Catholic company is claiming they aren't at fault because the babies were NOT "people," and their lawyers are arguing against changing the state's laws to call babies in the womb "persons."
Now let me explain myself again: Since Roe V. Wade, our society has pursued "the right to choose" by accepting and promoting the idea that a baby in the womb is not a person. Now, suddenly, when medical doctors are accepting our assertions, it is inconvienient. We want it to be a fetus when it's a bother and a person once we want it.
I can see the day coming very soon when insurance companies refuse to cover pre-natal care that only helps the baby. Why would they? In a state where the fetus is not a person, why would an insurance company shell out thousands of dollars on extra ultrasounds, extra drugs, or extra medical procedures such as peri-natal surgery to save something they don't consider a baby?
And what will our society do then? When we realize that the ramifications of our decisions have come back to curse us? When we realize that our right to choose now has left us without the right to life when we actually want it?
What will women do when they need a procedure to help them save their pregnancy and can't receive it because insurance companies don't feel there's anything to save? Or when her employer refuses to put her on "light duty" or "bedrest" because the risk is to the pregnancy and not a "person?" Does that sound extreme? It shouldn't--- if we say long and loud enough that a fetus is not a person, people are going to start listening. One day a woman is going to walk into a hospital needing an emergency c-section and, far from malpractice, it will be regular practice to hear "Oh, your fetus isn't technically a person at 25 weeks, so we're gonna let this just work itself out." There's no risk of harm to a person, after all...
My point is this: we, as a society, have to start looking beyond our own immediate gratification and towards the ramifications of our decisions.
If we tell schools its their fault our kids are the way they are; that its their responsibility to make them smarter, better behaved, prepared for the world because we don't have the time/energy/desire to do it (or maybe because we know something's wrong and we need someone to blame) we can't get mad when they take the responsibility we've given them and raise our kids the way they want them raised. If we tell the world that our right to choose is more important than what is growing inside us, we can't get mad when they tell us that their right to choose is more important as well.
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