Critters and International Women's Day

 "For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment." This is International Women's Day.

 

First to share my critters:

Dear old friend "The Duke" and puppy "Brandy" get along well on a warm Saturday afternoon a week ago. Residents sit around on the deck and chat, and I joined them while my laundry was tossing around in machines in the nearby laundry room.

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WOMEN'S DAY

Here it is again, while I'm honoring 30 women throughout March over on my other blog "Open Yesterday's Pages" there's one day set aside for all women! Actually I made a list of those I have learned from, and those others have proposed that I need to learn more about....over on that blog today.

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Recently posted when considering the attempt for kinghood in Washington, by Virginians, perhaps of French descent (hailing to the Victory picture from French independence.)

Various 'Venus' figures, all made before the mythology of Venus came along, belonging instead to early goddess/matriarchal cultures which probably venerated a female source as life giver.

As a second wave Feminist, from the 1960s to present, I am well aware of all the disparities that still exist for women. And I celebrate all those who have worked to further the rights of women.

From the first wave of Feminism, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and so many women who started a movement leading to suffragists who won women the vote finally in the US in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

2017 when women (and men and children) of the world marched for women's freedoms and rights. All the pink hats were pussy hats worn to combat the masochistic attitudes of then president Trump who said he could "grab them by the pussy".

For all of us to consider - this is what almost all of our mothers had to accomplish when we were born through their birth canals (also known crassly as pussies!) except for those who had a Cesarian Section surgery. This shows 10 cm. dilation of a woman's cervix of her uterus during birth.

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Today's quote:

Instructions in Magic

You don’t need candles,
only the small slim flame in yourself,
the unrevealed passion
that drives you to rise on winter mornings
remembering summer nights.

You don’t need incense,

only the lingering fragrance

of the life that has gone before,

stew cooking on an open fire,

the good stars, the clean breeze,

the warmth of animals breathing in the dark.

You don’t need a cauldron,

only your woman’s body,

where so many of men’s fine ideas

are translated into life.

You don’t need a wand, hazelwood or oak,

only to follow the subtle and impish

leafy green fellow

who beckons you into the forest,

the one who goes dancing

and playing his flute

through imperial trees.

And you don’t need the salt of earth.

You will taste that soon enough.

These things are the trappings,

the tortoise shell, the wolf skin, the blazoned shield.

It’s what’s inside, the star of becoming.

With that ablaze, you have everything you need

to conjure up new worlds.

Dolores Stewart, from The Nature of Things

Thanks to: Beyond the Fields blog

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Today's art:

By Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

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Today's quote:

Kindness expands the light within us and reaches out to touch the light in others as well.

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Today's art:

by Emily Carr Forest, British Columbia (1932). It’s interesting that much of her style was defined by portraying foliage as sheets of cloth with folds and wrinkles.

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Family album sharing:

Middle son Russ, on left, oldest son Marty on r, 2023.

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Sharing with  Saturday's Critters.

And then there are abortion laws

 "Vice President Kamala Harris was in Jacksonville, Florida, today [May 1] to talk about reproductive rights. She put the fight over abortion in the larger context of the discriminatory state laws that have, historically, constructed a world in which some people have more rights than others. 

“This is a fight for freedom,” she said, “the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do.” 

On May 1 "...Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks—earlier than most women know they’re pregnant—went into effect. The Florida legislature passed the law and Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed it a little more than a year ago, on April 13, 2023, but the new law was on hold while the Florida Supreme Court reviewed it. On April 1 the court permitted the law to go into operation today. 

The new Florida law is possible because two years ago, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court  overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the modern court decided that the right to determine abortion rights must be returned “to the people’s elected representatives” at the state level. 

Immediately, Republican-dominated states began to restrict abortion rights. Now, one out of three American women of childbearing age lives in one of the more than 20 states with abortion bans. This means, as Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, put it in The Daily Beast today, “child rape victims forced to give birth, miscarrying patients turned away from emergency rooms and told to return when they’re in sepsis.” It means recognizing that the state has claimed the right to make a person’s most personal health decisions. 

Until today, Florida’s law was less stringent than that of other southern states, making it a destination for women of other states to obtain the abortions they could not get at home. In the Washington Post today, Caroline Kitchener noted that in the past, more than 80,000 women a year obtained abortions in Florida. Now, receiving that reproductive care will mean a trip to Virginia, Illinois, or North Carolina, where the procedure is still legal, putting it out of reach for many women. 

This November, voters in Florida will weigh in on a proposed amendment to the Florida constitution to establish the right to abortion. The proposed amendment reads: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” Even if the amendment receives the 60% support it will need to be added to the constitution, it will come too late for tens of thousands of women."

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Thanks Heather Cox Richardson of Letters from an American

My opinion echoes Vice-President Harris completely. Whether state of federal laws, none should determine any decisions of personal medical care.

Just imagine if states or countries could determine who was eligible to even have children? Remember China's one child rule? 

And how about organ donors? Already there's a black market of organs where they are taken perhaps forcefully from those who need money or drugs, just for richer people to continue their lives. What if the governments started determining who should or shouldn't give their organs to others?

This is why men should also be supporting the laws that allow all of us freedom to choose our own medical decisions.