While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020 and accounts for nearly half the officers killed this year.
Such an attack apparently struck Wednesday in Bristol, Connecticut, where the state police said Bristol Police Sgt. Dustin Demonte and Officer Alex Hamzy were killed and Officer Alec Iurato was wounded when they responded to a 911 call that appears to have been “a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.”
At least 11 police officers were shot around the country this week, including one fatally in Greenville, Mississippi, and another in Las Vegas.
Chicagoans swear an average of 17 times per day, well behind the nation’s most foul-mouthed city. That would be, darn it, Columbus, Ohio, where residents curse 36 times a day, according to the survey, which was conducted by the language learning app Preply using data from 1,500 residents in 30 cities.
Chicago’s ranking didn’t sit well with Roberta “Poochie” Jackson, a longtime employee of the Weiners Circle hot dog stand and perhaps the city’s most prolific swearsmith since former Mayor Rahm Emanuel left town to serve as ambassador to Japan.
“Not sure what f—ing suburb they surveyed, but we all know Chicago is No. 1,” she said.
Kopp’s Frozen Custard has issued an apology after linking “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” to one of their Flavor of the Day offerings this month, according to a statement the business shared on social media Monday afternoon.
The iconic Milwaukee purveyor of flavors became the subject of online buzz Monday morning when it posted a calendar of upcoming holiday-themed flavors for October. It included “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” on Oct. 9, featuring the flavor “Hey Cupcake.”
In the statement, Kopp’s said linking “National Pro-Life Cupcake Day” with its long-running flavor “Hey Cupcake” was an “oversight” and “an honest mistake.”
We found a positive association between the prevalence of depressive episodes and a meatless diet. Meat non-consumers experienced approximately twice the frequency of depressive episodes of meat consumers, PRs ranging from 2.05 (95%CI 1.00–4.18) in the crude model to 2.37 (95%CI 1.24–4.51) in the fully adjusted model.
Limitations.
The cross-sectional design precluded the investigation of causal relationships.
Conclusions
Depressive episodes are more prevalent in individuals who do not eat meat, independently of socioeconomic and lifestyle factors. Nutrient deficiencies do not explain this association. The nature of the association remains unclear, and longitudinal data are needed to clarify causal relationship.
Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic — a 37-foot RV that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.
The announcement came 100 days after the Supreme Court ruling that stripped away constitutional protections for abortions, allowing states to ban the procedure. Illinois didn’t institute an abortion ban, but neighboring Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee did, along with several other states in the South and Midwest.
I seem to remember another time and place where vans went around the country executing people.
Denver is set to provide 140 homeless transgender and non-binary people with $12,000 in no-strings-attached cash to help lift them out of destitution – and combat the squalid encampments and soaring crime rates plaguing the Mile-High City.
The city has allocated $2million from the American Rescue Plan Act to fund the program, which will be run by the Denver Basic Income Project to mainly get women, transgender and non-binary people housed.
The total program, which will cost up to $9million, is seeking to help around 820 people, but the $2million provided by the city will fund around 140 people.
[…]
The participants – which will mainly be women, transgender and gender non-confirming individuals – will be chosen at random after applying and will more than likely begin receiving payments starting in November, according to ABC 7 Denver.
(Reuters) – Yeshiva University, ordered by a judge to formally recognize an LGBT student group even as the Jewish school in New York City argues that doing so would violate its religious values, on Friday announced that it has halted the activities of all its undergraduate student clubs as it plans its next steps.
Yeshiva’s announcement came two days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block New York state judge Lynn Kotler’s June ruling that the university is subject to a city anti-discrimination law and must recognize the club called Y.U. Pride Alliance.
Citing upcoming Jewish holidays, Yeshiva said in an email to students that “the university will hold off on all undergraduate club activities while it immediately takes steps to follow the roadmap provided by the US Supreme Court to protect YU’s religious freedom.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for an LGBTQ group to gain official recognition from a Jewish university in New York, though that may not last.
By a 5-4 vote Wednesday, the justices lifted a temporary hold on a court order that requires Yeshiva University to recognize the group, the YU Pride Alliance, even as a legal fight continues in New York courts.
Two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the court’s three liberal justices to form a majority.
The disagreement among the justices appears to be mostly about procedure, with the majority writing in a brief unsigned order that Yeshiva should return to state court to seek quick review and temporary relief while the case continues.
If it gets neither from state courts, the school can return to the Supreme Court, the majority wrote.
Here is a very long and very interesting article about the disparity between the racial diversity of teachers compared to students. The data and challenges are interesting, but this part troubles me:
Students benefit when they have teachers who look like them
[…]
When she got to middle school, Lor noticed teachers who looked like her for the first time. She wasn’t placed in their classrooms, but she wished she would have been; wished she would have had teachers she could relate to in that way.
[…]
“Having a diverse teacher in your classroom helps you realize that you can also become a teacher, you can become a doctor, you can do whatever you want,” she said.
I do think that diversity in teaching is important. I wish that we would take a more expansive approach to diversity to include things like ideology, sex, and background instead of just race. As a boy, I rarely – RARELY – had a teacher that “looked like me.” Since I went to school in Texas and Saudi, my teachers were overwhelmingly women, but were more racially diverse than in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, teachers are overwhelmingly white, middle class, liberal, and female.
BUT, while diversity is an important and laudable goal, we must purge this notion that kids can only learn, or learn best, from teachers that “look like them.” We are reinforcing that expectation in our kids, and it is damaging their ability to learn. If it is wrong to say that I learn better from white men (it is), then it is wrong to tell an Asian girl that she would learn better from Asian women. Teachers are individuals and should be treated as such.
Instead, we should be reinforcing the ethics of acceptance and respect for authority with our kids. We should be teaching them that they can learn just as much irrespective of the physical appearance of the teacher. By telling kids that they need teachers to look like them in order to learn, we are teaching them racism and bigotry.
Let’s continue to encourage racial minorities, conservatives, and men to join the ranks of teachers so that our kids will benefit from a broad experience, but let’s stop teaching kids that they should judge the quality of their teacher by the color of their skin.
We continue to see the expansion of corporate/government collusion to implement an invasive surveillance and coercion state. I will be making my purchases with cash.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) approved creation of the merchant code on Friday following pressure from gun-control activists who say it will help track suspicious weapons purchases.
“Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules,” Visa said in a statement.
Mastercard said on Friday that following ISO’s approval, “we now turn our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.”
American Express said when ISO develops a new code, the company will work with third-party processors and partners on implementation.
The code will show where an individual spends money but not what items were purchased.
It is worth point out, again, that this is yet another anti-2nd Amendment effort that will no stem crime. Crooks don’t buy their guns with a credit card.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last Saturday.
There he was. The president of the United States of America. Standing in front of our Independence Hall bathed in blood-red light of Soviet imagery and flanked by two uniformed Marines. With two fists raised, Joe Biden declared that millions of Americans who disagree with him are not only wrong, but they are angry extremists who they must be suppressed.
Like so many authoritarians before him, Biden and his administration have launched a concerted effort to other anyone who disagrees with the regime’s political and cultural orthodoxy. Biden and his leftist supporters are going well beyond simple argument in their attempt to dehumanize and delegitimize anyone who disagrees with them. We have crossed another mile marker on the path to tyranny.
Biden said, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He went on to say, “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution, do not believe in the rule of law,” and, “I agree Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”
By Biden’s rhetoric, it would be irresponsible and dangerous to let such people govern. If true, then such people should never be allowed to hold the reins of power because they lack the legitimacy to govern, right? Lest you think that Biden is only talking about a small sliver of the Republican Party, his administration has made it clear that “MAGA Republicans” is a distinction with an amorphous definition that is stretched to include anyone who disagrees with the regime.
Before the speech, the president’s press secretary said, “what the president said … was that when it comes to MAGA Republicans, when it comes to the extreme ultra wing of Republicans, they are attacking democracy. Right? They are attacking, taking away rights and freedoms,” and, “When you are not with where a majority of Americans are, then you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.’
By the Biden administration’s own words, anyone who supported Trump or anyone who has views that are not whatever the Biden administration declares to be the majority opinion is now “extreme.” It does not seem to occur to them that with an approval rating hovering below 40%, Biden’s own supporters would be considered “extreme” by that definition.
This attack from the Biden White House is no idle threat. We have seen how the Biden administration, like the Obama administration before it, has weaponized the federal bureaucracy against opponents. The FBI has now been caught interfering in multiple federal elections by colluding with Big Tech, suppressing information that would be damaging to leftists, and targeting conservatives. The IRS was forced to apologize for targeting conservative groups. If you think that the 87,000 new IRS employees that were just authorized by Biden will not be used to target conservatives even more, you are naive.
Days before Biden’s Blood Speech, he mocked supporters of the Second Amendment, saying, “for those brave right-wing Americans … if you want to fight against the country, you need a F15.” As commander of the Armed Forces, the cavalier suggestion that he would unleash the military on Americans is chilling.
This is not about Trump. The same rhetoric is happening right here in Wisconsin. The state’s largest newspaper published a scathing attack piece against Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels for donating large sums of his personal wealth to Catholic and Protestant churches. Because those churches do not agree with the leftist orthodoxy, Michels’ support was demonized, and Governor Evers has labeled Michels an extremist. If you attend a mainstream church and put a few bucks in the collection plate, are you an extremist? Biden and Evers think you are.
This is not about whether you supported Trump or not. This is about an America where we are allowed to have and express different viewpoints and values, and when we win elections, we are allowed to govern according to those values. Biden and the leftist regime are attempting to redefine all political opponents as extremists who lack legitimacy to have their voices heard or to govern. This othering of the American right by Biden creates a justification for Biden and other leftists to silence, suppress, and oppress political opponents with the full force of the government under the banner of “saving democracy.” It is un-American.
We must not let this stand. Vote. Vote as if our republic depends on it.
The Kentucky native specifically mentioned the issues her father’s Trump support have caused, ‘I just worked so hard in the last five years to forgive my dad and my family and try to understand: It’s different. The information they are getting is different. Their life is different,’ referencing the information conveyed by the top news host to her parents and those like them.
The new mom said to the publication, ‘I’ve tried to get over it and I really can’t. I can’t.’
But not being political is also a deal-breaker for the Oscar winner.
‘I can’t f— with people who aren’t political anymore. You live in the United States of America. You have to be political,’ she said, indicating that she has left her family with the choice of being political in a way she agrees with, or not f—ing with her, and no third option.
‘It’s too dire. Politics are killing people,’ the actress known for dramatic turns said.
[…]
She says she periodically broaches the subject with her family, but realistically isn’t convincing anyone.
‘I broach the subject in the sense that I unleash text messages. Just: Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. They don’t respond. And then I’ll feel bad and send a picture of the baby,’ she told Vogue
I expect there are a lot of folks like Lawrence who have allowed their political views to so saturate their lives that they have lost the ability to have human connections with people of opposing views. I also expect that they are a minority. We all have some people like this in our families.
There are also millions and millions of Americans who can care passionately about public or cultural issues, but still control themselves enough to relate to people on all of the other parts of life. There’s just a lot more to life than politics. Yes, it is important, but there is so much more to the human condition.
I pity Lawrence. I hope she finds balance enough to reconnect with her family as people and family instead of as political enemies.
Herbert V. Kohler Jr., a business titan who fortified his family’s namesake manufacturing firm and put Wisconsin on the world golf stage with the creation of a course named Whistling Straits, has died.
“His zest for life, adventure and impact inspires all of us,” his family said in a statement Sunday. “We traveled together, celebrated together, and worked together. He was all in, all the time, leaving an indelible mark on how we live our lives today and carry on his legacy.”
Kohler, 83, who died Saturday, was the CEO of Kohler Company for 43 years before he handed the role off to his son, David Kohler, in 2015. Since then, he continued in the company as its executive chairman.
There he was. The president of the United States of America. Standing in front of our Independence Hall bathed in blood-red light of Soviet imagery and flanked by two uniformed Marines. With two fists raised, Joe Biden declared that millions of Americans who disagree with him are not only wrong, but they are angry extremists who they must be suppressed.
Like so many authoritarians before him, Biden and his administration have launched a concerted effort to other anyone who disagrees with the regime’s political and cultural orthodoxy. Biden and his leftist supporters are going well beyond simple argument in their attempt to dehumanize and delegitimize anyone who disagrees with them. We have crossed another mile marker on the path to tyranny.
Biden said, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He went on to say, “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution, do not believe in the rule of law,” and, “I agree Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”
By Biden’s rhetoric, it would be irresponsible and dangerous to let such people govern. If true, then such people should never be allowed to hold the reins of power because they lack the legitimacy to govern, right? Lest you think that Biden is only talking about a small sliver of the Republican Party, his administration has made it clear that “MAGA Republicans” is a distinction with an amorphous definition that is stretched to include anyone who disagrees with the regime.
[…]
This is not about whether you supported Trump or not. This is about an America where we are allowed to have and express different viewpoints and values, and when we win elections, we are allowed to govern according to those values. Biden and the leftist regime are attempting to redefine all political opponents as extremists who lack legitimacy to have their voices heard or to govern. This othering of the American right by Biden creates a justification for Biden and other leftists to silence, suppress, and oppress political opponents with the full force of the government under the banner of “saving democracy.” It is un-American.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.
“A man who has lived in many different places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village.”– C.S. Lewis
Last weekend my wife and I cruised our boat into the welcoming harbor in Port Washington. We had been gone for 379 days cruising America’s Great Loop. We traveled 6,425.9 miles through 17 states and three countries at an average speed of 9.05 miles per hour. We anchored in remote tidal creeks and behind the Statue of Liberty. We listened to the dolphins breathe as we celebrated the dawn of the new year behind Sanibel Island. We dodged the bustling tow boats in the Port of St. Louis on the Mighty Mississippi. We met thousands of people from all walks of life in hundreds of places. Along the way, I learned, or relearned, a few things.
Throughout our travels, we discussed politics with other people exactly zero times. It just does not come up that often in regular life. Instead, we talked about weather, family, traveling, local events, the rising price of everything, work, boats, jokes, and a hundred other things, but not politics. As someone who spends probably too much time involved with politics, it was revealing how few other people were interested. People are busy living and concerned with the things that impact their lives. Politicians would do well to remember that.
People are generally good. They are friendly, earnest, helpful, generous, curious, honest, and caring. In times of trouble, most people are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to help. They are tolerant and welcoming. Outside of the cities, much of the business of America is still done with a handshake. Observing America through our news and social media filters is to miss how much of real America lies beyond the horizon of those lenses. Americans work hard. Very hard. To travel the inland rivers of our nation is to see an older, more industrial side. The rivers are where great, heavy things are moved about and where the mines, quarries, and farms drain into the arteries of our economy. The knowledge economy is important, but it exists because of the muscle and sweat of hard people who do hard things.
Because many of the businesses we visited were generally declared “nonessential” during the national psychotic episode of COVID, we were witness to the devastating impact of those political decisions. Marina, restaurant, and shop workers gleefully welcomed us as their businesses struggled to groan back to life. We found many places closed forever, and all because some politician whose paychecks never stopped coming deemed some people’s livelihoods to be nonessential.
Our world is truly a diverse and beautiful place. From the Canadian fjords to the Great Dismal Swamp to the Big Muddy to the turquoise waters of the Bahamas, God created a truly wonderful place for us to live. As humans, we have a responsibility to conserve and protect our planet. From a public policy perspective, we must do so with common sense and a balance for the necessities of human progress. From an individual perspective, we must take personal responsibility to ensure that we do not unnecessarily damage our wonderful planet.
People throughout our great nation are delightfully unique while being manifestly the same. People love their families, celebrate their community’s history, brag about their local ice cream shop (“it’s the best you’ll find”), gripe about the weather, and chortle at a good joke. While we may speak with different accents and eat different foods, Americans are unified in their decency and common sense.
The wanderlust has always been strong in my bloodline. I firmly believe in the value of travel for travel’s sake. One does not have to go anywhere fancy or expensive, but one does have to go where someone is not to see and do things that one has not seen or done. Appreciate and enjoy places and people for what and who they are and not what or who they are not. There is no greater teacher than experience.
Finally, while travel is good for the mind and the soul, there truly is no place like home. While we have seen many wonders over this last year, Wisconsin can hold its own with any of them. The towering, tasseled corn, the smell of fish frying on a Friday night, the spirited barroom predictions about the upcoming Packers season, the stoic bluffs of Lake Michigan, and, of course, the best local ice cream make Wisconsin a cherished home.
By all means, go see the world, but never stop appreciating where the good Lord planted you.
“A man who has lived in many different places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village.” – C.S. Lewis
Last weekend my wife and I cruised our boat into the welcoming harbor in Port Washington. We had been gone for 379 days cruising America’s Great Loop. We traveled 6,425.9 miles through 17 states and three countries at an average speed of 9.05 miles per hour. We anchored in remote tidal creeks and behind the Statue of Liberty. We listened to the dolphins breathe as we celebrated the dawn of the new year behind Sanibel Island. We dodged the bustling tow boats in the Port of St. Louis on the Mighty Mississippi. We met thousands of people from all walks of life in hundreds of places. Along the way, I learned, or relearned, a few things.
Throughout our travels, we discussed politics with other people exactly zero times. It just does not come up that often in regular life. Instead, we talked about weather, family, traveling, local events, the rising price of everything, work, boats, jokes, and a hundred other things, but not politics. As someone who spends probably too much time involved with politics, it was revealing how few other people were interested. People are busy living and concerned with the things that impact their lives. Politicians would do well to remember that.
People are generally good. They are friendly, earnest, helpful, generous, curious, honest, and caring. In times of trouble, most people are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to help. They are tolerant and welcoming. Outside of the cities, much of the business of America is still done with a handshake. Observing America through our news and social media filters is to miss how much of real America lies beyond the horizon of those lenses. Americans work hard. Very hard. To travel the inland rivers of our nation is to see an older, more industrial side. The rivers are where great, heavy things are moved about and where the mines, quarries, and farms drain into the arteries of our economy. The knowledge economy is important, but it exists because of the muscle and sweat of hard people who do hard things.
MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.
State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.
That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.
[…]
MADISON (WKOW) — The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has issued a public health advisory about fentanyl’s presence in overdose deaths.
State health officials said there were 651 fentanyl overdose deaths in Wisconsin in 2019. By 2021, that nearly doubled to 1,280.
That’s a stark reversal of a pre-pandemic trend, when Paul Krupski, DHS’s Director of Opioid Initiatives, said Wisconsin actually recorded a decrease in opioid deaths.
Minneapolis Public Schools is defending its deal with the teachers’ union to lay off white educators ahead of their less-senior minority colleagues, arguing that it is a necessary measure to remedy “the effects of past discrimination.”
The school district released a statement to the Washington Times on Tuesday, offering a full-throated defense of the groundbreaking deal with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, led by president Greta Callahan.
“To remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination, Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,” the district said in an email.
Abortions accounted for 40% of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia revenue, Quinonez said, adding that there would be no easy way to replace such a large a chunk of the clinic’s $1.6 million annual budget. (At least for now, the clinic can again provide abortions, since a lawsuit brought by the clinic days after the Dobbs decision has paused enforcement of the ban.)
“Being unable to provide abortion care absolutely puts us in a precarious financial position,” Quinonez said. “Our ability to keep our doors open very much depends on revenue from the services we provide, as well as grants and donations.”
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:
We are already seeing some states move to change their abortion laws after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Indiana legislature is on the cusp of making abortion illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. In Kansas, the citizens voted to keep language in their state Constitution that keeps abortion legal before twenty weeks. In Wisconsin, abortion is already illegal except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life and there does not appear to be any legislative appetite to change the law.
When the federal Supreme Court usurped the power of the states to regulate abortion, the public debate devolved into a robotic caricature of a discussion. Now that we, the People, will need to put in the heavy effort of deciding what our abortion laws should be through the rigorous legislative process, that debate should be joined in good faith with respect for our fellow citizens’ perspective. Herein I give explanation for why I oppose abortion in almost every circumstance and believe it to be the duty of government to protect people irrespective of their size or dependency.
Our nation’s Declaration of Independence set forth that we are all created equal and, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.” Our United States Constitution went on to protect people from being deprived of life without the due process of law in the fifth and fourteenth amendments. Both documents are based on a fundamental understanding of Natural Rights.
Natural rights are universal and inalienable. They are not dependent on government, laws, customs, traditions, or societal norms. They are rights that are embedded in the very essence of humanity and are enjoyed by each individual irrespective of age, color, creed, nationality, gender, or station. The just duty of government is to protect those rights from being infringed upon by others and to regulate the outcome of when two rights collide.
The most precious Natural Right is the right to live. Life is the right from which all other Natural Rights flow. The only real question regarding abortion, then, is to determine when life begins, for once we have determined that a life has begun, it is incumbent on us to protect that life through the power of government.
Fortunately, here in the 22nd century, the mysteries of reproduction and gestation have been largely solved. Once an egg is fertilized, a unique DNA is created and cells begin to multiply until they form a human that we would recognize. Some would pinpoint the start of life at when the heartbeat starts, or when brain activity begins, or when the baby would be viable outside of the womb. Some would allow abortion even in the moments after birth under the argument that the baby is still woefully dependent on the mother. That is the same argument that could be made for infanticide well into the toddler years.
For me, the most ethical and logical point at which to mark the start of life is when that unique DNA is created. That is when there is a unique life. There is clearly nothing separate from the parents before that moment and there is someone unique after it. While one could argue that life begins at a more viable state, each of those benchmarks seem arbitrary. Our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to protect life should make us err, if we are to err, on the side of prudence. It is better to accidentally protect people’s pre-lives than it is to intentionally kill them.
With life beginning at fertilization, we must structure our laws to protect those lives. In the case of a mother not wanting a baby, we come into a conflict of the rights of two individuals. The baby has a right to life. The mother has a right to bodily autonomy. In such cases of conflict, we make laws to decide the best, least harmful, outcome. In no other area of law do we permit the killing of one individual to protect the bodily autonomy of another. Neither should we in this case. The consequences for the mother are significant, but the consequences for the baby are cataclysmic. In such cases, we must protect the life of the baby even though its very existence imposes obligations and consequences on the mother.
We must also remember that creating a new life is a joyous event — even when it is unplanned. A great many of us were not planned and we, and our mothers, went on to enjoy full, wonderful lives. If the mother does not want the baby after it is born, there are families ready to welcome a new baby and the mother can move on with her life. Any social stigmas of unplanned babies are largely extinct. Also, it must be added, that in an age of DNA, there is no excuse to not identify the father and ensure that he is equally accountable for the wellbeing of the child. Some of the best dads did not plan to be one. Both parents deserve to be treated with compassion.
The decision to have a child or not does not happen after conception. It happens before having sex. The decision to use birth control greatly diminishes the likelihood of creating another human, but there is still a chance. One must be willing to accept the consequences of that decision. Once another person is created, it is our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to protect that person.
I sincerely hope that Wisconsin leaves its current abortion law alone. It is correct. But if we are to debate changing the law, let us all engage with sincerity, respect, and reasoned positions. Wisconsin’s babies deserve as much.
