Blaska Policy Werkes

Smell the incense!

Blaska’s response to objections over Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health posted by his friendly liberal acquaintances.

This poor sinner attended Catholic grade school (where he was an unsuccessful altar boy) and weekly Chi Rho religious classes outside of Sun Prairie public high school. The Lovely Lisa is a graduate of Pius XI high school in Milwaukee. (The girls’ sport teams were called the Lady Popes! 🤪)

Neither of us recall ever hearing the word “abortion” during our religious education. It went without saying, apparently. So no, I don’t need Jesus to append abortion to his Sermon on the Mount. My challenge to you is to quote where Jesus condemns murder (or insider stock trading, for that matter). The New Testament does not replace the Old Testament, where Thou Shalt Not Kill is enumerated among the first “10 amendments,” but builds upon it.

Both Testaments celebrate childbirth, from Abraham and the supposedly barren Sarah (at age 90!) to the angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to Mary the Virgin. If you want to believe Jesus ignored, tolerated, or sanctified abortion, have at it!

Imposing views?

As for imposing my “personal views,” those are the only ones I have! (Barry Goldwater wrote Conscience of a Conservative, proving we do have one! I personally believe storming the Capitol to prevent the orderly transfer of power is wrong but that’s just me! 🤪) Did Justice Blackmun impose HIS personal views, given that the Constitution — like Jesus — is silent on the subject? He found the right in the “penumbra” of the Constitution.* (Talk about virgin birth!) (* formulated by Justice Douglas in Griswold 1965.)

Reaffirming Roe in Planned Parenthood v Casey 1992, the court implored “the contending sides” in the controversy “to end their national division.” Obviously, that entreaty failed; 26 states petitioned the court in Dobbs to overturn Roe. That is the major difference between abortion and same-sex marriage, miscegenation, and contraception, [the last three between consenting adults]. After 49 years, Roe has not been well tolerated. 

Even Bill Clinton wanted abortion to be legal, safe, and rare. To which Bill Buckley rejoined, “Why rare?” (We don’t say that about tonsillectomies.)

I have a poll up asking if Dobbs will hurt Republicans come November. I believe it will. At some point, it sez here, Wisconsin will compromise with something akin to Mississippi’s law. How one enforces 15 weeks or 18 etc., I don’t know. It would help if the City of Madison were not so hostile to those who choose life. (Read & weep.)

Blaska’s 1st Bottom Line: The Supreme Court has NOT outlawed abortion! It put the matter to the people!

Missive #2

[Self-professed atheist friend], your treatise arrived as the magic genies were delivering my response to [Friend #1]. I will only say that you impose an unconstitutional religious test on the justices. If you blame [their Catholic] religion; you may as well fault morality, conscience, and values. You demand that the Justices repudiate all — in essence, become content-free. [For, what is religion?]

You may believe Blaska thinks abortion a grievous wrong because he is/was Catholic. But it is possible to reverse your equation: that one is Catholic because he finds abortion abhorrent. [Just as you are a Democrat because you are pro-abortion.] In any event, I trace my own position to the previously recounted episode in college where the Lovely Lisa, having returned from accompanying a friend who aborted, exclaimed: “David, it was a BABY” (Not a toe nail or “a collection of cells,” as you aver.) Trying to tease out when does life begin, I had to conclude: at the beginning. (Must I really defend innocent life in the womb from murderers like Stalin and Pol Pot?)

Blaska’s 2nd Bottom Line: And yes, I like my holy ghosts along with an occasional whiff of incense! Our cathedrals are so much prettier, too.

Do you hate Catholics, too?

Who really cares about children?

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade, desperate abortion apologists will attempt to mitigate the immorality of their cause by accusing pro-life folk of not caring about babies after birth. As if red states and counties are awash in ragged waifs wailing for another spoonful of porridge while Mumsy and Pops play nine at the country club.

An example is this recent headline out of the progressive on-line publication Salon:  “Republicans don’t care about kids — just imaginary children.”

The author of this imaginative fiction is one Amanda Marcotte, defined as “a senior politics writer at Salon and the author of “Troll Nation: How the Right became Trump-worshipping monsters set on rat-f*cking liberals, America, and truth Itself.” Now THERE is a citation for Justice Alito!

Abortion-only need apply

Then how does one explain Madison’s progressive city government? Some nine years ago the pro-life CareNet Pregnancy Center of Dane County sought a low-interest loan of $550,000 from Madison’s federally funded affordable housing trust to help finance a 36-unit apartment building to house impoverished single mothers bringing their pregnancies to term.

A city committee rebuffed the request by a 5-2 vote on 01-17-13. Alders overrode the civil servants who supported the project and ignored a tongue-lashing from then-legal counsel Michael May. The attorney reminded that “federal regulations provide that religious or faith-based organizations are eligible to receive [these] funds like any other entity and bar the city from discriminating against such organizations.”

“I must state it is difficult to determine the basis on which the CDBG committee determined not to support the application.” (Attorney May’s 01-28-13 letter.)

“We’re disappointed the decision was made not on the merits but on ideology,” CareNet Center Director Julie Bennett told this blogger at the time.

UPDATED: Alds. Tim Bruer and Matt Phair (who is back on the Common Council) cast the two alders’ no votes on the committee plus citizen members Monya Choudhury, Liz Dannenbaum, and Russ Whitesel. (Citation here.)

We reported then that Lisa Subeck (then an alder and now a Democrat in the state legislature) charged that pregnancy counseling centers engaged in bait and switch, gulling unsuspecting abortion customers into having unwanted babies. Subeck was the former director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. Ironic for one who professes to be pro-choice! Another alder at the time, Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, moved to deep-six the request at the Council’s Board of Estimates. She now earns six figures operating the racial justice stand at one of the UW’s schools.

Real concern for the pre-born 

[The] Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision  … offers the Catholic Church in the United States, and all those of good will who stand with us in upholding the sanctity of human life, the opportunity and privilege to redouble our efforts to accompany women and couples facing unexpected or difficult pregnancies, as well as supporting parents in their care for their sons and daughters.

We will continue to welcome all those in need of assistance and offer to them the best we have to give, with sensitivity and compassion, so that children born in crisis situations have what they need to truly grow and flourish. …

A brief list of institutions and programs in the immediate area for individuals or couples struggling with an unexpected or difficult pregnancy, those struggling with caring for their children, as well those suffering the pain and loss of abortion include: CareNet, Elizabeth House, Our Lady of Hope Clinic, Pregnancy Helpline, Project Rachel, Rachel’s Vineyard, Saint Vincent de Paul Societies, Walking with Moms in Need, and the Women’s Care Center, as well as many others throughout the diocese and state.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Now THERE is some real health care!

Is there something self-centered about the abortion movement?