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$15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Joyce Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 June, 2011 |
The Voice of
Sanity
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at:
e-mail: uscshgvl@yahoo.com |
Calendar
The June brunch will be on June 11th 10:30 a.m., at Denny’s Restaurant, 2521 Wade Hampton Blvd, Greenville.
There will be NO dinner meeting in June or July. There will be no July Voice of Sanity.
There will be a brunch on July 9th at Denny’s Restaurant, 2521 Wade Hampton, for those wanting to go.
Our Annual picnic will be on August 28th. Details about the picnic will be in the August Voice of Sanity.
There is a movement underway to not only prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funds for family planning, but also to curtail funding for family planning services of any kind.
I understand that some people are vehemently opposed to abortion, but to also do away with funding facilities like the Health Department’s family planning services as well is insane!
Not every woman or family can afford visits to private Gynecologists, so many women turn to facilities that have a sliding scale fee schedule. Services provided are annual gynecological check-ups, breast exams, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, health education, and prescribing appropriate birth control methods.
The status of women’s health issues in this country is a hot topic politically.
We need to clarify a great misconception: Planned Parenthood provides many health services in addition to abortions. As a matter of fact, only 3% of people who go to Planned Parenthood facilities for services go for abortions. (Some Planned Parenthood offices do not have ANY abortion services.) The rest of the patients go for exams, health education, STD testing, and birth control. Where would the 97% of Planned Parenthood patients go if Planned Parenthood offices and other facilities like the Health Department Family Planning Department were no longer funded?
Personally speaking, I would love to see a large decrease in the number of abortions in this country, but how would that happen if the legislatures in Washington AND in Columbia vote against both abortion AND birth control?
This legislative session in Columbia produced a bill entitled the Freedom of Conscious Act. Now, any health care provider, whether that person is a doctor, nurse, pharmacist or other medical personnel, can refuse to provide a medical service or medicine if it against their personal philosophy. Let me give you an example to clarify this.
If a rape victim comes to a hospital for treatment after the assault, the nurse or doctor is not required to inform the patient about emergency contraceptives, pills that can prevent the pregnancy, if that person erroneously believes that emergency contraception is the same as abortion.
If a woman goes to a doctor and gets a prescription for regular birth control pills, she then anticipates that she would go to a pharmacy to get the prescription filled. What happens when the pharmacist who waits on her is opposed to any type of contraception? The prescription does NOT get filled. The SC legislature refused to insert a statement that the patient is entitled to be taken care of by a different pharmacist.
Even though emergency contraceptives are available for sale without a prescription, a pharmacy owner can refuse to carry them.
At the present time, many insurance companies refuse to cover contraceptives, but have no trouble covering Viagra (or similar product). This means that they will cover medicines to allow more men to have sex, while fewer women will have access to contraceptives.
The legislatures in both SC and Washington do not want any insurance company to cover abortions, even if there was such a thing as a separate policy for abortions. Most women do NOT plan on having an abortion.
The end result of this insanity will be a large increase in the number of unwanted pregnancies, an increase in the demand for abortions, and most likely, a return to back alley abortions. This will all be happening when the elected officials are cutting health care, Head Start and other pre-school programs and services for those living in poverty.
What a disaster this will be for this country!
COMMENTS ON THE CORNWALL DECLARATION
The Cornwall Declaration was put out by the Cornwall Alliance which is a coalition of religious leaders, scientists, academics and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issue of environment and development. The italics below are excerpts from the declaration. Comments by the author (J. Bates) are in regular type.
We aspire to a world in which human beings care wisely
and humbly for all creatures, first and foremost for their fellow human beings,
recognizing their proper place in the created order.
Even though most of us think we are most important in the order of living things, we still are dependent, on not only other forms of life, but on the non-living environment of the earth on which we live. We can care for domesticated animals and plants well enough to provide ourselves the food, clothing and shelter we need, but when it comes to other species we don’t know enough to assume care for them. Also, we know very little about how life forms interact with one another and the water and mineral resources in a common environment, and that environment includes humans. We can’t even decide how many kingdoms there are. Seventy years ago there were only the plant and animal kingdoms, then there were five kingdoms. Recently, new organisms have been discovered that only loosely resemble fungi and might require another kingdom. In short, we haven’t even discovered all the species on our environment yet.
We aspire to a world in which objective moral
principles-not personal prejudices- guide moral action.
It would be wonderful if human beings could take stock of moral principles in all of the cultures on earth, and come up with an agreement on which principles are universally common in their importance for the future of all humans as a species, regardless of race, nationality, or culture. That is probably a long way in the future.
We aspire to a world in which right reason (including
sound theology and the careful use of scientific methods) guides the
stewardship of human and ecological relationships.
The definition of stewardship is: The careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. The stewardship of the environment is a noble pursuit, but since we are ignorant of many of the species and relationships in the environment, we have to admit our ignorance and be prepared to accept the consequences of mistakes we are sure to make. We must also leave as much natural environment as possible alone, so we can continue to study and understand it.
We aspire to a world in which liberty as a condition of
moral action is preferred over government-initiated management of the
environment as a means to common goals.
Liberty is defined primarily as freedom from despotic government rule, as opposed to democratic rule. And liberty as a condition of moral action means that there are social responsibilities that govern that liberty. For the environment, it means a person is free to do as he pleases with his property so long as he doesn’t contaminate his neighbor’s property. That would require thinking before burning rubbish, using fertilizer carefully, not driving more than necessary, cutting down on the use of plastic materials, and recycling as much as possible. Many individuals do this already and private industry is following along. Though government may pass laws and provide departments to manage the environment, there has to be social pressure to enable environmental action to succeed, such as there was in the movement to curtail smoking.
We aspire to a world in which the relationships between
stewardship and private property are fully appreciated, allowing people’s
natural incentive to care for their own property to reduce the need for
collective ownership and control of resources and enterprises, and in which
collective action, when deemed necessary, take place at the most local level
possible.
Industry has made some strides in repairing the environmental damage it does. Scrubbers have been installed on coal power plants that have been effective in keeping acid producing products out of the air. CFC’s such as freon are no longer produced. Organic gardening products are becoming less expensive. There is a long way to go, but manufacturers are beginning to realize that the public will not tolerate environmental carelessness forever. People are beginning to care for their property in a way that is healthier for the water they drink and the food they eat, but there is excessive commercial and social pressure not to, which must be overcome.
We aspire to a world in which widespread economic
freedom-which is integral to private, market economies-makes sound ecological
stewardship available to ever greater numbers.
In the United States there is some question as to whether private enterprise can truly be free if laws are passed to control its focus on profit. The environmental question is: Do we really want companies to behave with complete freedom from legal restraint if in enlarging profit they destroy a natural resource? The fishing industry is an example of what can happen when no rules or enforcement are in place. In the last fifty years we have seen the cod industry in eastern North America collapse because of over-fishing. The argument back in the ‘60s against restraint was that it would cost jobs for many individuals. Now the cod industry is gone, there is no profit, there are no jobs, and although a ban on cod fishing is in place, the cod populations are not coming back. Presently, tuna, orange roughy, salmon, swordfish, shark, and a host of other species are threatened worldwide.
We aspire to a world in which advancements in
agriculture, industry, and commerce not only minimize pollution and transform
most waste products into efficiently used resources but also improve the
material conditions of life for people everywhere.
Right now we are beginning to see there must be limits to environmental exploitation. Careful use of new resources and recycling of used products have begun, but the waste we produce is huge, and our energy consumption is inefficient. We need to understand why our way of maintaining human civilization (especially in the US) is undermining the earth’s ability to support us. Civilizations have come and gone in the past for various reasons. Some have died off because of climate change (the Anasazi, the Greenland settlements), others because they impoverished the environment to the point of collapse (Easter Islanders). The aforesaid were isolated from other parts of the world with little opportunities for emigration, but the Mayans were not. They suffered a more complex disintegration from drought, environmental abuse, a nearly constant state of war between factions, and the erection of too many monuments glorifying powerful dynasties. We have to rethink agriculture, industry, commerce, and defense as to how they fit into the environment’s ability to keep our civilization going. JB
Einstein’s Dilemma.
Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a
train when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger.
When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his
vest pocket. He couldn’t find his ticket, so he searched in his trouser
pockets. It wasn’t there, so he looked in his briefcase but couldn’t find it.
Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still
couldn’t find it.
The conductor said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you
are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about
it.”
Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor
continued down the aisle punching tickets.
As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned
around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under
his seat for his ticket.
The conductor rushed back and said, “Dr. Einstein,
Dr. Einstein, don’t worry. I know who you are. No problem. You don’t need
a ticket. I’m
sure you bought one”.
Einstein looked at him and said, “Young man, I too,
know who I am.
What I don’t know is where I’m going.''