SCOTUS..I have some questions..

Today, SCOTUS decided in favor of free speech over the safety of women walking into abortion clinics in Massachusetts. Wow..the highest court in the land has sent the message that it's okay if women are bullied and harassed. So I guess I have some questions:

When the verbal turns physical, am I protected then? Or will I need to stand there and take the physical punishment? Because I don't know the answer to that now. If someone puts his/her hands on me, can I defend myself? I'm a martial artist, after all. Yes, my illness prevented me from working out for a long time, but I'm better now. I'm sure I could effectively stop someone from preventing me from entering an abortion clinic. Will I be arrested though? Because I figure, if someone touches me, how do I know it will stop with a simple touch? Is grabbing me allowed? Or is that too far? What if they just surround me and prevent me from moving forward? Am I safe then? Should I trust them to do nothing else? How far will they go to prevent me from seeking medical care? Regardless of their opinions, that's why women go to these places. To seek care. Not to seek bullying, harassment or physical assault. 

When they take my license plate number down and then find out where I live, do I have any rights then? What if they come to my home? What if they also express their 2nd amendment rights and bring a weapon? If I call the police, will they even bother to come? Or will they cite freedom of speech?

When they obtain my phone number and call me to say whatever disgusting thing they want to say, can I change my phone number? Or do I have to live without a phone? Or am I required to have one so that their right to free speech is preserved?

35 feet. That's all the buffer zone was. SCOTUS has their own buffer zone, I've read. Is that constitutional? What about the protest zones created when Bush was in office? Were they constitutional? He came to the Redmond Fairgrounds to discuss his Healthy Forest Initiative after we had a major fire in the area. A small group of protesters was there ranging from 5 years old to a woman in her 80's. They never even got close to the President. They stood there quietly with their signs, while expensive, out of state vehicles sped by them, middle fingers raised, yelling all kinds of curse words while the children stood there, bewildered. Bush supporters.

Years ago, I worked at a charter school which was housed in the same building as Planned Parenthood. Parents dropping their children off for school were prevented from entering the parking lot by anti-abortion protesters blocking the driveway. There was only one way in. The kids were subjected to all the disgusting signs that these people held up. Finally, we were able to make them move down the street a bit. That city had an ordinance that prevented anyone or anything impeding sight. Parents complained that they couldn't see to drive out of the parking lot, assuming they made it in to begin with. So we won that day. The protesters continued to protest 20 feet further down the street, and the kids could begin their day without drama. Eventually, the protesters went home.

If anti-abortion folks have a right to their free speech as a constitutionally protected right, then so do women entering an abortion clinic. We shouldn't fear abusive comments and physical violence, but evidently our illustrious Supreme Court doesn't care about us. It's sad we need boundaries from each other. It's sad SCOTUS doesn't get that, but then they think corporations are people and have the same rights as individuals. The problem with that is, few of us have the money these corporations have to buy influence. Because that's what they do. It's not about living by a set of principles or values, it's about what the almighty dollar can buy. They also seem to side with the voter-suppression crowd. Somehow they think that racism is in the past. Right.

We need a new court. This one is broken. It doesn't serve the American people anymore. Some day, we'll find out just who it is they do serve. But clearly, it's not us. Just as anti-abortion protesters have the right to protest abortion, women have the right to safely pursue one. Protest on public sidewalks, then it is what it is. I actually support your right to do that. But come within my personal space, now we have a new problem. Apparently, SCOTUS decided a 35 foot buffer zone for our safety is too much to ask. Today, instead of clarifying the issue, in my opinion SCOTUS has created a whole host of new ones.

Thanks so much..like we don't have enough to deal with.

Putting Our Collective Foot Down..

When I attended a lecture by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in May, he emphasized the role of mothers in creating a better world. He said that mothers had a special responsibility to make their children feel loved. Boys, in particular, need this. As a mother of two boys, now men, I've thought about that counsel almost daily since then. Both of my guys turned out to be intelligent, responsible men. So I think I did an okay job. I respected and welcomed their opinions. I let them know their feelings mattered...that they mattered. Kids need to be treated with dignity and respect so that they in turn do that for others. They were my focus and it was my responsibility to make sure they understood how to navigate through life in a respectful and honest manner. This isn't to say that I was one of those mothers who related to my kids as a friend. I saw that happen in some families and it was a recipe for disaster. How do children learn to respect authority if their parents won't assume that role?

But none of this matters if some crazy person with a gun can come out and kill my boys whenever he feels like they're up to no good. Apparently our kids aren't safe anywhere - not in school, not at the mall, not walking home from the store. And yet, some of us go insane at the notion of not having access to military style assault weapons and extended clips. Why on earth would we set ourselves up for such disaster? Why on earth would we create laws that seem to go a little too far into personal choice when defining our right to defend ourselves from harm? Using a weapon to stop an attack is acceptable. Chasing someone down who did nothing to you and using the weapon when the person decides to defend himself against your actions defies all sensibility in the first place. To think a guy like that was found not guilty of such an act should scare the hell out of all of us.

There's a meanness out there now. Everything seems like an assault on one group or another. SCOTUS gave personhood to corporations, so the rest of us are inconsequential. They gutted the Voting Rights Act, just in case we didn't understand what they did to all of us with Citizen's United. How many ways can the highest court in the land tell the citizens of this country that they don't matter? Texas just made it more difficult for women to seek health care, particularly in the case of abortion, with another new bill introduced which prevents abortion after 6 weeks. For the love of God, we don't always know we're pregnant at 6 weeks. Why come after women this way? When we respond, and we will, you won't like it. I promise. 

Women want peace. We want calm. We want to go about our lives feeling safe and want everyone we love to feel the same way. We don't want to be disrespected - not by our partners, children, employers, friends, communities, governors, Congress.. We're tired of seeing news reports of our children being riddled with bullets at school. We're tired of our hearts breaking and knowing that doesn't matter so much anymore. 

Sybrina Fulton didn't want to be a role model for every mother out there who has lost a child to violence. She's far more noble than I would have been if one of my sons had been murdered. Particularly if the murderer got away with it as in the case of her son, Trayvon. 

My mother used to "put her foot down" about one thing or another, and I knew at that point that whatever I wanted was about to fly right out the window. That woman was so effective that although I entered college at 16, I continued to ask permission to do things until long after I moved out at 18. Maybe that's what all of us need to do. Maybe we need to put our "collective foot" down and say we've had enough. We've had enough of laws that protect the bad guys. Doesn't matter if it's a gangster or a bankster, we've had enough of other people destroying lives with impunity.

Who doesn't agree with that? Because the outrage is growing.