DO WE HAVE COURAGE?

By Ruth A. Sheets

I was just watching a program on MSNBC that brought up an issue related to banned abortion states that I had not thought of before, and I am sure the ignorant state legislators who voted so quickly to ban abortions didn’t either.  

Many women have chronic medical conditions that require drugs that could either cause miscarriage or birth defects.  Doctors are now telling women on these drugs they have to be on birth control because if they get pregnant, the doctor couldn’t help them for fear of losing their job or being arrested.  What!

Yep, we’ve entered the age when ignorant, mostly white men, can decide if people live or die due to laws Republican legislators passed and were signed by Republican governors with no consideration for what that would do to real women, not the fantasy women they imagine controlling through their laws.  

I suggest that the doctors of those states, and there are a bunch of those states now, should refuse to treat any member of the state legislature and governor who voted for those laws, and their families too.  Make them have to go elsewhere for care.  Tell them “you wouldn’t want a potential criminal treating you, so you will have to move on.  Maybe when you vote to give women back their bodily autonomy and stop seeing me as a potential criminal, you can come back.  Until then, someone somewhere else can help you.”  Hey, a kind of “strike!”  Oh yes, the “strike” would have to be all doctors even in hospitals and urgent care places unless it is a life-or-death emergency, just like the situation they are consigning the women of their state to.

Some doctors just love these anti-woman laws, so those legislators, et al can find those guys. I suspect it won’t be long before some misogynists who claim to love fetuses more than the women who host them will start making some changes to their laws.  They may pass laws to force doctors to treat everyone, but then, they will have to treat folks who can’t afford their services and the state will have to provide the funds.  Can’t have that!  Maybe they’ll pass laws to arrest any doctor who won’t treat them.  I’m sure ALEC and Republican lawyers will come up with something despicable.  One thing I know, you can’t force someone to care, e.g. the Republican legislators.  

The problem, is there courage to actually do anything?  Without a public push, doctors just won’t.  Their fear in some ways is legitimate because right- wingers are scary, running around with guns and words like “murderer,” shouted into a huge megaphone.  Maybe a well-publicized doctors’ strike would be powerful and not what the Right expects.  Doctors are supposed to follow any law to the letter, aren’t they?  I’m thinking one or two states to start with, then . . . .

I have been thinking about the recent US visit of Victor Orban, Hungary’s autocratic leader and remember the lack of courage of the Republicans at the big Texas gathering.  They did not stand up for this country and our freedom.  They spent time listening to, cheering for, and admiring a leader who has stolen power in his country by disrupting the judicial system and slyly taking away people’s rights while telling them how wonderful they are and how awful the invaders are, tainting the blood of “real Europeans” by intermixing.  That sounds so much like the propaganda of the 1930s Nazis it made me shiver, and it should have made everyone in the room in Houston shiver too.  It didn’t.  They were caught up in the euphoria of imagining a “white America where they would rule and everyone else would either be gone or in some way enslaved to them.  I could tell by their cheering, almost screaming, they were practically orgasmic.  I have heard nothing since the event that indicated any Republican protest of having an autocrat getting more cheers than our own president (I mean Biden), a man who helped keep COVID from being even worse than losing well over a million people, financially supported families during the pandemic, got infrastructure passed that will help everyone, pushed Congress to pass some kind of sensible gun safety regulation, worked to get drug prices down for Medicare users (it would have been for more folks but too few Republicans cared enough to vote for it), pushed for measures to stop global warming, and more.  For them, Biden doesn’t deserve as much appreciation as a foreign dictator. 

Liz Cheyney has a lot of guts.  She identified Donald Trump for the con artist he is and refused to go along with Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Ron DiSantis, and the rest of the Republican joy of dictatorship club, particularly since she took an oath to uphold and defend our Constitution (which those others did too).  I do not agree with her positions on most things, but I recognize courage when I see it, and she has it.  Yet, she is about to be voted off the island by Republicans in Wyoming.  She helped them to get stuff they need for their decaying infrastructure and older citizens, but she didn’t fawn and drool over Trump as she was supposed to.  The person likely to replace her is not nearly as strong and has little courage as far as I can tell, but “gotta get that traitor Cheyney out.”

I used to think we the people were living in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  Well, maybe not as much as we would like.  Our freedoms are gushing away each time our Supreme Court drops a decision and one political party can’t find courage to stand up to would-be dictators.  Fortunately, there are people who do want us to continue working to become “a more perfect union.”  

We all need to remember that we have a lot of courage floating around and all kinds of people have it.  However, a bunch of scared folks are fearmongering, threatening, and otherwise making life difficult for a lot of people, and it is time more of us locate our courage and stand up to it.

Here are some of the most courageous people I know about.  They put their values, even their lives on the line for others and take an ordinary salary home for it, or just have the knowledge they are making a difference. 

- the front-line workers who cared for people with COVID when Trump and Kump didn’t get protective gear to them.  They stuck with it until they got sick or burned out, then when they recovered, most went right back at it.  

- the firefighters all over the country who are trying to hold the line on the massive wildfires that global warming is igniting.  Those dealing with the massive floods are pretty brave too.

- teachers who did their best to be sure that children were able to learn what was required despite being at home while COVID raged.  Every day, they are working with our kids, but teaching online has challenges most teachers had not previously faced.

- workers who care for people who face mental illnesses of all kinds and the challenges of aging, despite being overworked and understaffed, show up for their shift every day and do their best.   

- people who live with serious chronic illnesses, yet just keep on moving, caring for others, raising their children or grandchildren, and keeping the world turning

- workers who accompany abortion-seekers through the angry protesters who have no clue what the women they are maligning are going through as they wrap themselves in some warped sense of righteousness.

- children who stand up to bullies on behalf of a classmate, friend, or stranger.

- And more!

See what I mean, there is a lot of courage, it’s just ignored when the fearful, the conservatives trying to conserve a time and conditions that never existed constantly have the spotlight on them and their bad behavior. 

Maybe each of us needs to pledge to be more courageous, make our voice heard when we see a wrong, even if it is a risk.  Think of the kids in Birmingham, AL who faced police dogs and fire hoses aimed at them.  Think of the students who protested until a terrible, unjust war was stopped.  Think of the people who came here to this country looking for a better, safer life who faced all kinds of struggles and discrimination.  Consider the Capitol police who held off January 6th insurrectionists until help could get to them, saving the lives of our elected officials.  Those were ordinary people like us.  Their efforts can show us the way.  

Letting poorly informed elected officials decide what our rights will be and who can have them is unacceptable and should be for every American.  We can start with courage in little things, like informed voting in every election, not accepting sexual or any other kind of harassment in the workplace, calling on our religious institutions to live their faith, etc., then branch out.  Let’s foster courage when our kids are young.  It’s a good habit, and we are going to need it throughout the next few decades.