I am Pro Life

It’s the last day of 2021, a year that has seen too many needless deaths, and too much needless suffering. I am not pro-death – I am Pro-Life. Have a Happy New Year!!!

I am Pro Life.

So I believe in universal health insurance.  That’s so every baby can get the pre-natal and birth care they need – and every child can get the medical care they require to be healthy.  And every teenager, and twenty-something, and (whatever we call thirty and forty year olds), and middle agers and senior citizens can all get the health benefits they need for a good life, regardless of their financial status.  The right to health should not be controlled by income. 

I am Pro Life.

So I believe in child tax credits so parents can raise their children with good nutrition, warm clothes and homes, and a comfortable life.  Every kid doesn’t get to be “Richie Rich”, but every kid needs to have the basics of life.

I am Pro Life.

Education shouldn’t be a matter of money, residence, race, gender, or identity.  Education is the key to lifetime success, to our originally Declared “pursuit of happiness”.   Everyone has the right to that key.  So we should be paying not just for a free high school education, but for free (community) college education or vocational training.  And we should support those who don’t have the foundation at home that enhances that education.  

I am Pro Life.

Everyone should have the right to vote, to determine who governs us.  Just because one political party seems unable to appeal to a majority of the nation, doesn’t mean they get to change the rules to protect their power. Pro Life means pro-empowering everyone to vote.

I am Pro Life.

Folks should live the lives of their “real” selves, not ones enforced by artificial societal standards.  We need to accept that our “binary” life, isn’t.  We know, as a fact, that sexual identity is a spectrum, not necessarily determined by anatomy.  So let people live as who they are, not what society says they “should” be.

I am Pro Life.

Prisons ought to only be for violent criminals.   Non-violent crimes require non-prison solutions, and our prisons need to be places for real reform and re-entry to public life, not penitentiaries for punishment and profit-making.  Only the truly violent dangers to our society need to be restrained, and then only to the extent necessary to protect others.

I am Pro Life.

I am glad that American soldiers, my former students, are no longer at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq.  And while there remain reasons that might require us to fight, those reasons need to be held to the highest standards.  By the way, we were right to go there, but we were wrong to stay.

I am Pro Life.

So I don’t believe the state should take a life as punishment:  ever.

I am Pro Life.

Quality of life means more than quantity of life. Sufferers of fatal illnesses and injuries should not be required to live a life without quality.  Society doesn’t have a place in determining their choice, just an obligation to protect the integrity of the decision making process.

I am Pro Life.

As I believe we as a society should provide for our youngest, we should take care of our elderly as well.  Living in silence because hearing aids are too expensive, living in darkness because vision is not a “right”, being unable to eat because dental care is “extra”, is not Pro-Life.  It is, in fact, anti-life.  It values money over living.

I am Pro Life.

Our society needs to save our climate, and save our planet.  That is a role for government, one where the good of the many should out-weigh the profits of the few.  

I am Pro-Life.

It infuriates me that the politics of our times are leading people to die from a disease that can be prevented. The “fruits” of modern science should be and are available. That there are those who are using “the politics” to their own advantage, and killing people in the process, is literally “pro-death”.

I am Pro-Life.

And yes, I believe it is NOT a right of anyone to impose their moral or religious beliefs on another. The term “pro-life” has been mis-appropriated to mean anti-abortion. But it means so much more than that, and so much of the “pro-life” movement is so neglectful of life after birth. So yes, I am pro-choice, because, as a man, abortion is clearly not MY decision. And as humans, we cannot enforce our moral or religious view on others. We can only try to live up to them ourselves. So next time you think about pro-life, think about more than just abortions. Because that’s not pro-life, that’s simply pro-birth.

And for my friends who are truly pro-life – really pro-lifetimes, not just pro-gestation – remember this. We have so much more in common than we have differences. Let’s work from the “middle ground” where we can agree. Because we are all in favor of a better lifetime for everyone.