Building swimming pools was hard work. One of the Murray boys would operate the backhoe and dig the hole. The workers, like me, were involved in putting in gravel, pouring concrete, painting and any other job that required manual labor. I worked most of the summer, getting lean and mean with a great suntan. The only issue I had was: they assigned me the job of driving a large dump truck. I had driven a 1966 Mustang with a stick manual gear shifter, but I had never driven anything like the low and high range shifting required in a big truck. It was a miracle that I didn't flatten a small car trying to shift or stop the truckload of gravel. However, the only mishap that I had was making a substantial dent in a U-Haul trailer at the local gas station. I did not realize I had backed into the trailer until the service station owner contacted my employer. Oh well, the swimming pool building gig came to a halt about that time. I was reassigned, you can probably guess, as a helper riding shotgun on the Murray Boys Septic Tank Service honey wagon (septic tank pumping truck).
Bud, the driver and supervisor, had a ton of stories about the septic tank business. One of the funniest was when he forgot to fully close the valve on the pipe to the tank that contained the sewage pumped from the septic tank. He left the job and went through the entire length of Anniston's Quintard Avenue dispensing a steady stream of human fertilizer.
As I helped dig up and remove concrete septic tank lids, I did not suspect that I would have a story of my own. This story was not humorous, but has stayed with me as a vivid image my entire life.
It was a hot summer day in North Alabama. We had gotten an early start. My clothing was soaked with sweat. The T-shirt and shorts were clinging to my body and the red mud of Alabama had turned all the material to a bright earthy red. We took a lunch break and grabbed a barbecue sandwich at the Goal Post Barbecue in Anniston. The Goal Post was not hard to find, even at night. It had an animated neon sign picturing a football player kicking a ball through the uprights.
The last job of the day was in Oxford. Actually, it was out in the countryside just past the the historical marker placed on the site of the 1961 attack on a bus load of civil rights freedom riders. The landlord had evicted the last tenant of the house, a middle-aged lady, because of neighbor complaints about people going in and out of the residence.
While Bud sat in the shade drinking an RC Cola, the other helper and I started digging where Bud told us. It was deeper than most tanks, so it took a half-hour or more uncover the concrete top. When the top was exposed, Bud fetched a crowbar from the truck. He handed it down to us and we began to pry the lid off. As you can guess, the contents of a septic tank are not a pretty sight. But this one looked different. We called Bud over. "Good Gosh Ah-mighty", Bud said, "them is babies floating in there!" He called the Calhoun County Sheriff's Department.
After law enforcement interviewed the neighbors, the following story unraveled. The woman who had lived there was an untrained midwife. Since abortions were illegal and doctors refused to perform them, teenagers and other women who had unwanted pregnancies were forced to seek out alternative means to terminate the pregnancy. This often meant someone who gave them a dangerous concoction to drink or performed an unskilled operation. Based on what we saw, this woman must have performed hundreds of these abortions.
The mental picture of this experience is one that I hope to never see again.
It seems the solution to a big social issue creates yet another big issue for a different group in our society.
(excerpted from ProCon.org) The debate over whether or not abortion should be a legal option continues to divide Americans long after the US Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision on Roe v. Wade [49] declared the procedure a "fundamental right” on Jan. 22, 1973.
Proponents, identifying themselves as pro-choice, contend that abortion is a right that should not be limited by governmental or religious authority, and which outweighs any right claimed for an embryo or fetus. They argue that pregnant women will resort to unsafe illegal abortions if there is no legal option.
Opponents, identifying themselves as pro-life, assert that personhood begins at conception, and therefore abortion is the immoral killing of an innocent human being. They say abortion inflicts suffering on the unborn child, and that it is unfair to allow abortion when couples who cannot biologically conceive are waiting to adopt.
Variations exist in arguments on both sides of the debate. Some pro-choice proponents believe abortion should only be used as a last resort, while others advocate unrestricted access to abortion services under any circumstance. Pro-life positions range from opposing abortion under any circumstance to accepting it for situations of rape, incest, or when a woman's life is at risk.
The 2008 Democratic Party Platform [55] endorsed the pro-choice position, stating, "[We] strongly and unequivocally support Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right." However, approximately 35% of Democrats consider themselves pro-life.
[8]The 2008 Republican Party Platform [56] opposed abortion stating, "[A]t its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life." However, about 30% of Republicans are pro-choice. [7]
A May 2009 Gallup poll on abortion attitudes revealed that 51% of Americans consider themselves pro-life and 42% pro-choice. It was the first time since 1995, when the poll first started, that a majority of Americans identified as pro-life, and it was the first time since 2000 that more people were pro-life than pro-choice. [9]
In 1821, Connecticut became the first state to criminalize abortion. By 1965, all 50 states had outlawed abortion, with some exceptions varying by state. [42]
Federal action on abortion didn't occur until Roe v. Wade, which declared most state anti-abortion laws unconstitutional. The high court’s 7-2 decision established rules based on a pregnancy trimester framework, banning legislative interference in the first trimester of pregnancy, and allowing states to regulate abortion during the second trimester (weeks 13-28) and third trimester (weeks 29-40), but only when "related to maternal health."
The topic of abortion flared in the 2010 US Congress health care debate. Abortion opponents in both the House of Representatives and the Senate did not want recipients of insurance subsidies to use federal funding for abortions. Pro-choice proponents argued that abortion should not be treated differently than other health care services. The health care reform bill passed its final congressional vote (219-212) in the House of Representatives on Mar. 21, 2010 and on Mar. 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. [62] The following day, Mar. 24, 2010, the president signed an executive order [63] "to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services," re-affirming Hyde Amendment restrictions in the new health care legislation.
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