Children and an Adult on County Council

I attended my first Clark County Council meeting Wednesday – and came away with admiration for Councilor Temple Lenz, as well as new-found scorn for Medvigy.  

Medvigy used his time to scold Councilor Lenz for 'giggling like a schoolgirl'.  His comments directed toward Councilor Lenz were an unacceptable breach of protocol in any governing body. Worse - he used demeaning sexist language, in an attempt to diminish her status - but only succeeded in diminishing himself.  This kind of scolding, sexist language is not only inappropriate for a public governing body, it is unbecoming an adult male—or even a well-behaved teenage boy—in the Twenty-First Century.  

Worse still was the chair’s behavior.  Rather than admonishing Medvigy for his attack, to regain some measure of decorum in the meeting, she remained silent until Councilor Lenz objected, then responded as an enabler of Medvigy’s bullying, by suggesting that Councilor Lenz had provoked him with her facial expression.    

Councilor Lenz did the adult thing, apologizing for a facial expression that may have set off Medvigy.  But Medvigy, whose transgression was much worse, said nothing.  

There was only one adult in that three-way interaction.  Councilor Lenz’s composure and dignity will be sorely missed when she leaves at the end of her term.  

Pro Choice

I don't think I know anybody who is 'pro-abortion'.  

Roe v. Wade was not about being pro-abortion.  It was about being pro-privacy - the right of a woman facing possibly the most heart-rending difficult choice of her life, to follow the dictates of her heart and conscience, without some jackass shoving the long arm of the law up her uterus to decide for her.  

This fundamental right has been settled law for nearly fifty years.  It is ironic that most of the opposition to this right comes from within a political party which gives lip service to individual rights, and privacy.  The leadership of that party asserts that there is 'no constitutional right to privacy' for women, as they make lifelong reproductive decisions.  Then, without any visible awareness of the irony, claim there is a right of privacy for wealthy members of the plutocracy to conceal their identities as they buy our elections.  

As is so often the case with so-called 'conservative' policy, those driving the change will be the least affected by it.  If a wealthy woman, who happens to live in a repressive state, finds herself pregnant, she can simply travel for a few days to a state where individual rights are still respected, have her abortion, then return at her leisure.  She will still have to endure the personal conflict of the choice to terminate her pregnancy, and of the procedure itself.  But she will still have the privacy, and freedom of choice that is the foundation of Roe v. Wade.  

Those who will be most devastated by this are poor women—single mothers and the working poor—for whom taking time away from her responsibilities, financing the travel to a more advanced state may be out of reach.  She will be left without choice from which her wealthier counterpart still benefits.  

The campaign behind this repeal is complex, and of long standing.  The Republican Party—once the drapes are pulled—doesn't give a damn about unborn children, any more than they do about kids after they are born.  

Knights of Columbus, jack-booted thugs intimidating those seeking care, or using bounty-hunting spies to clinics