As I was preparing this morning
for facilitating a values clarification re abortion session in a couple of weeks with
the incoming WashU Ob/Gyn interns, I found myself thinking about the millions
of women in the US whose healthcare self-determination and well-being are being
assaulted by the backward looking/longing part of the population aligned with
the Trump administration. I began assisting with these values
clarification sessions at least a decade ago. An article Dr. Wall (then the
chief of the Ob/Gyn Department’s uro-gynecologic surgery division and now on
faculty with the university’s Department of Anthropology) and I had published
in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
(Vol. 49, No. 4, Autumn 2006, pp. 602-110) – provides the framework for the
values clarification session by challenging the scientific (in)accuracy and the
public policy (ir)rationality of initiatives such as are currently spreading
across the US. A recent conversation I had with a well-educated and
thoughtful man in his late 50s without personal experience either in Roman
Catholic circles or in Protestant evangelical/fundamentalist circles reminded
me that many among us lack a nuanced grasp of their objectives, given that
Jewish scripture and Christian scripture are silent on the subject of
abortion. He seemed surprised by my observations (1) that the Roman
Catholic final/ultimate objective is the reversal of the 1965 Griswold v.
Connecticut Supreme Court decision (that decriminalized the use of
contraception) and (2) that the Protestant evangelical/fundamentalist
final/ultimate objective is the reversal of equal civil/human rights for women
(I remember so many adults in my childhood fervently opposing the Equal Rights
Amendment that was approved in 1971 by the US House of Representatives and by
the US Senate in 1972 and then submitted to state legislatures for
ratification). Underneath both constituencies is a hostile/adversarial
stance against the exercise of the radical (i.e., ‘to the root’ and, therefore,
without restriction) inquiry characteristic of a modern worldview. Bottom
line – Trump is in my judgment the tip of a very damaging and destructive
iceberg that abandons/obstructs every effort toward being mindful, modest,
humane, gentle, fair. We must remain attentive, strong, resilient – i.e.,
‘encouraged’ (in the sense of infused with courage).
