I've got a couple of topics to touch on today.

Got extra sleep last night thanks to Chowon's good self-control. We usually spend too long awake, and I'm terrible at caring about bed time. In addition, I got my haircut and I love it. Chowon's skills are improving regularly, and this time it seems like she got a little artistic without deviating from my typical style. It's good to see her expressing creativity that way; she's a real blessing.

We also got to see the baby jumping around in our most recent ultrasound today. At 12 weeks since conception, baby 믿음 is looking healthy and energetic in there. We got to see his little facial profile, and he looks like a regular person. Chowon and I both agreed that this last ultrasound made the whole pregnancy experience seem much more real. Seeing the baby touching his/her face humanized it in my mind somehow; not that I ever thought otherwise, but it's a different feeling.

On those lines, I wanted to approach the topic of abortion. I heard on the radio (KJZZ Phoenix, 2018/07/23 at around noon) that abortions have been on the decline lately due mostly to increased availability of contraceptives (I think the talk show host seemed to imply that contraceptives in this category were nonabortive by later referring to the "abortion pill" as a type of abortion), but also to decreased availability of abortion services in general. They cited that there are many people who end up giving birth because they didn't have reasonable access to an abortion clinic, and that the great majority of people seeking abortions did so for financial reasons. The radio show I listen to does their best to seem unbiased, but the reporters themselves seem to be personally left-leaning, and it shows occasionally. I tend to be suspicious of survey results which support the ideas held personally by the reporter, but when they delivered the results of a survey of existing statutes and political representation at the state level I felt inclined to believe them. The report was that 22 states have existing "trigger laws" which would cause abortion to become illegal immediately if Roe.v.Wade were overturned, the governments in 4 states are politically composed in such a way that they are likely to quickly pass laws making abortion illegal if Roe.v.Wade were overturned, and abortion is likely to remain legal in 19 states, with the remaining states on the fence.

Roe v. Wade, like the Scopes Monkey trial, was a legal victory for the minority in the U.S.. It had to be done through the supreme court, because it would be impossible to have passed such laws through the proper channels at the federal level; the majority of states are opposed to it. Likewise, when Scopes was finalized, schools seem to have suddenly began teaching children in ways which were contrary to the beliefs of the majority of adults at that time, and thus contrary to the beliefs of their parents (multiple studies confirm this; check out Gallup and Pew research, as they have some very interesting studies on the percentages of Americans who identify as Christian, and recent Gallup polls also include information such as the number of Americans who believe in a young earth, etc). In both cases I am convinced that the laws would not have been able to pass by via normal/legal use of the legislative process.

So let's talk a little about this "legislative process". If you have a moment, I recommend looking up the story of Joshua Glover. Relevant states rejected the supreme court on the grounds that their attempts to pass laws as "established precedent" were acts of "undelegated power". The states' statement to that effect was a deference to the tenth amendment, which implicitly forbids the federal government (including the Supreme Court) from making laws which are binding on states in areas which have not been expressly delegated to the Fed by the constitution elsewhere. And in general it is the role of the judiciary to interpret laws as they exist. So a trial which can be resolved by state law should not be passed on to the supreme court, and in the case where there is no law a defendant is considered innocent by default (because we do not penalize people either retroactively or in advance of a law being passed), but the legislature is then prompted to produce a law if there is need of one. This is stuff I learned in grade school.

The script of the Roe/Wade trial is available to the public. It's a lot of text, but the arguments are readily discernible to the extent that the rulings in Roe v. Wade were based on an antiquated understanding of the nature of a species (as well as some outright misinformation about the frequency of back-alley abortions, among other things). Even atheist scientists now acknowledge that a fetus, having all of the biological characteristics of a human, is fundamentally human, and there is no law other than the above noted precedent which maintains the ruling. So why are we in this place where we have 26 states desirous to make abortion illegal, but none of them do so? I suppose I know the answer second hand. I've watched some interviews with state legislature in certain states in the eastern U.S. (credit to Apologia Studios for the interviews). If those legislators are to be believed when they talk about their own inhibitions, (and if I remember the interviews correctly -- I hope I'm not messing this part up -- I'm open to a fact check on this question, but it should be noted that my preceding argument doesn't depend on the following information) then the precedent remains in-force in those states because the states fear that they will lose funding from the federal government as response to them rejecting it.

That last bit sounds like a conflict of interests to me. Here we have states which are financially dependent on a body which is exercising undelegated authority over them, and are thereby compelled to act against the consciences of the majority in those states. That is at least the case if the majority of representatives in a state is an accurate representation of the majority of voting persons in that state, which as I see it is the only assumption that the American governing entity has liberty to make (it is designed to be so, but it is admittedly not a perfect system).

So where does this funding come from? That's were my answers stop. I don't know what funding is in question. I'd love to find out, (and I'm pretty sure the same interviews discuss it), but then what can I do about it? Part of me wants to go "schedule a meeting to sit down and talk with my representative", but having moved around so much as a military kid growing up I don't feel attached enough to any state to really say "You're representing me". I've never voted in a local election. Furthermore, I have serious conscientious objections to the entire structure of our government at large. I guess the contents of this paragraph amount to personal issues that I should work through on my own.

Before I close this post, I had another topic I was thinking about going through in detail: it is Hinduism. I've had the pleasure of a few conversations with my two practicing Hindu friends, and I feel like my argument is solid, because they straight-forwardly explained to me that, at the level where we were discussing, their religion requires a rejection of logic. To save space, and to keep myself from wasting words, the argument is issued most eloquently and effectively by Isaiah in chapters 40 through 50 of his book (special attention to 40:19-24, 44:8-20, and 48:3-5). Having thought a bit about it, I really don't think I could explain it better, so read those 10 chapters.

"Tell them you'll put a lien on their rent until they come fix your sink"