I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, This Week In Blackness Radio, recently, and they were discussing a pilot program in 13 NYC public schools, in which school nurses and health professionals have begun dispensing hormonal birth control, including Plan B, to students. Long-term hormonal birth control normally needs a prescription, and nurse-practitioners and other health professionals are often the ones who prescribe it in clinics and doctor's offices. Plan B is available without a prescription to people 17 and older, and it was approved for young women of any age. However, the Department of Health and Human Services opted not to implement that approval and make Plan B available over the counter for people of any age, after a public outcry which featured, as always, a bunch of men hand-wringing over how soon young women in this country should be allowed to have sex.
I was surprised to hear that the concerns voiced by the hosts and most callers-in to the podcast focused on the rights of these high school students' parents. Questions ranged from how parents should be notified, whether the school should have allowed parents to opt-in rather than opt-out, and whether making contraception available in school undermined parents' ability to speak to their children about sex and about potentially harmful medication. This framing for the story is wrong. Instead, the story should center around whether school dispensing birth control to students who want it allows young women to access their own fundamental rights to privacy and bodily autonomy. With the Supreme Court's development of the fundamental right to privacy in personal intimate relationships, American society has diminished the public's right to legislate the sexual behavior of women and replaced it with increasing individual women's rights to decide for themselves the sexual trajectory of their lives. This change has been beneficial to public health by delaying motherhood, spacing births, and allowing women to have lives in which sexual intimacy and pleasure can play a beneficial role, since risks formerly associated with that pleasure are diminished. Allowing young women to access contraception in schools, especially ones in areas where such access is difficult or impossible, safeguards these students’ constitutionally-guaranteed rights over their bodies and their relationships. The rights of their parents to tell them what to do are essentially unimportant in comparison.
The young women who seek to access birth control at school do so while being protected by the constitutional right to privacy over their sexual decisions and relationships. The Supreme Court's jurisprudence has developed in this area over the decades since the 1960's. The Court has interpreted the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to guarantee rights that the Constitution does not list overtly, which the Court terms "substantive due process" rights. The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment states that no state shall deprive a citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The doctrine of substantive due process basically defines the kinds of things that fall into the definition of “life, liberty, or property”, the things that the government cannot take from you without a good reason. These rights include the right to travel freely among the states, the right to refuse medical treatment, the right to choose to have children as one sees fit, the right to raise your kids as you see fit, and the right to have the sexual relationships you want to have without interference from the government.
The fundamental right to privacy over sexual relationships was first recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) in a case that guaranteed married people the right to use birth control (which had been illegal in some states until that point). The Supreme Court further articulated the right to privacy, and in particular privacy regarding sexual relationships, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), which guaranteed the right to use birth control for people who were not married. This implicitly allowed unmarried people the right to have sex for non-procreative reasons. These two cases are the foundation for the privacy right that guarantees women's right to first-trimester abortion as articulated by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Finally, in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the Court struck down sodomy laws in Texas and several other states, holding that intimate sexual acts between adults, even adults of the same sex, are protected by the substantive due process guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. The substantive due process right guarantees to the individual the decisions that used to be dictated by “public morality”, usually dominated by Christian Protestant religious morality. Substantive due process takes the personal decisions of women and gays out of the public sphere: women can have sex and not get pregnant if they want. Gays can have sex without fear of criminal consequences. Substantive due process, for many, guarantees liberty regardless of the fact that their lives or choices are different from the dominant view of Christian morality.
Teenagers in this country have their own substantive due process rights, and parents have the right to custody of their own children, and the right to raise them as they see fit. These rights are inherently in tension: how could both a child and a parent have rights over the child's life, and decisions that child makes? First, the fundamental right guaranteed to parents is a right as against the government to raise their child as they see fit, not as against the child. Secondly, some balancing of rights between child and parent is natural in the growing-up process. It simply cannot be that people have no constitutional rights whatsoever until they reach age 18, at which point their parents' total dominion over them ends and their rights are conferred upon them by the government. Instead, as a child reaches sexual and social maturity, that "child's" right to a life of her own necessarily increases, while her parent's rights to determine her fate decrease. The entire point of fundamental rights is that they are fundamental: they guarantee activity that is essential to the human experience. They guarantee rights that allow people to live their lives as they see fit. Teenagers are not exempt from those experiences or goals, or those rights.
Schools that provide contraception to young women without involving parents (except to let them opt-out of the program) are respecting young women's rights to control their fertility, their ability to access their educational and career goals, and their own health care. Focusing the discussion over this pilot program on the parents' rights to their children's fertility or medical decisions is tantamount to arguing that 17 or 18 year old women in high school don't know what's good for their own lives and bodies. The only way this argument makes sense is if a 16 or 17 year old girl is too stupid to know what being pregnant means, or to weigh the costs and benefits to having sex, or to take medication with potential side effects. Obviously an attempt to access birth control by a 16 or 17 year old discredits this assumption: a young woman in that position has weighed the costs and benefits to hormonal birth control and to having sex, and to pregnancy, and decided that she wants to have sex but not get pregnant regardless of any side effects of the Pill. Since 1972, this country has recognized her Constitutional right to do just that. Young women are fundamentally entitled to the responsibility over their own bodies and lives that access to birth control gives them. They are also fundamentally entitled to privacy, which means they get to decide for themselves what people in their lives get to know their decisions. We should trust women with their own health as well as with their knowledge of their own family dynamics: the decision to talk about birth control is as much a young woman’s right as the decision to take it.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
The Good Old Days
The 1950's were better. Yeah, I said it.
I can hear my progressive and liberal friends now: how can you possibly say that? How can you want to go back to a time when gay sex was illegal, none of the equal pay or sexual harrassment initiatives of the 1970s had yet occurred, and separate but equal was the law of the land (til 1954)? Well, first, the clothes were reall really cute. I mean think about Dior's New Look, with that gorgeous full skirt. It celebrates the return of peace and prosperity and the rise of American hegemony with every switch of the wearer's hips! The clothes were super hot, it's a fact.
But here's what I miss about the 1950s:
1. High top marginal tax rates.
2. Infrastructure investment.
3. Strict regulations for financial markets.
4. A robust American manufacturing economy: I consider an American manufacturing economy to be a national security issue as well as an economic issue. One of the reasons we were able to respond so quickly in WWII was because of our immense manufacturing capability as a nation: we just switched over the auto manufacturers to producing war materials. Without a manufacturing economy in this country we're not ableto replicate that in the future if we need to. However, more importantly, a manufacturing economy in this country helps bolster the middle class. Trades and factory work can provide a sustainable living for workers and their families without demanding a college education.
Domestic manufacturing is good from a human rights standpoint and an environmental standpoint as well. Goods made by cheap labor in China currently for sale in the US are not priced correctly, since the prices do not reflect the true cost of the exploitation of the Chinese worker. Goods from overseas need to be shipped here, and are also usually made in lax regulatory environments where byproducts of production are disposed of cheaply in an environmentally unsustainable manner. If the Chinese goods were priced to reflect both that exploitation and the environmental impact of the lax regulations for waste disposal and the shipping impacts, those goods would not be anywhere near as cheap for the American consumer. We could choose to revive our manufacturing economy in this country by agreeing to pay what looks like more for our goods, since they are prices to reflect a living wage for the workers that make them, environmentally responsible waste disposal and production,
I can hear my progressive and liberal friends now: how can you possibly say that? How can you want to go back to a time when gay sex was illegal, none of the equal pay or sexual harrassment initiatives of the 1970s had yet occurred, and separate but equal was the law of the land (til 1954)? Well, first, the clothes were reall really cute. I mean think about Dior's New Look, with that gorgeous full skirt. It celebrates the return of peace and prosperity and the rise of American hegemony with every switch of the wearer's hips! The clothes were super hot, it's a fact.
But here's what I miss about the 1950s:
1. High top marginal tax rates.
2. Infrastructure investment.
3. Strict regulations for financial markets.
4. A robust American manufacturing economy: I consider an American manufacturing economy to be a national security issue as well as an economic issue. One of the reasons we were able to respond so quickly in WWII was because of our immense manufacturing capability as a nation: we just switched over the auto manufacturers to producing war materials. Without a manufacturing economy in this country we're not ableto replicate that in the future if we need to. However, more importantly, a manufacturing economy in this country helps bolster the middle class. Trades and factory work can provide a sustainable living for workers and their families without demanding a college education.
Domestic manufacturing is good from a human rights standpoint and an environmental standpoint as well. Goods made by cheap labor in China currently for sale in the US are not priced correctly, since the prices do not reflect the true cost of the exploitation of the Chinese worker. Goods from overseas need to be shipped here, and are also usually made in lax regulatory environments where byproducts of production are disposed of cheaply in an environmentally unsustainable manner. If the Chinese goods were priced to reflect both that exploitation and the environmental impact of the lax regulations for waste disposal and the shipping impacts, those goods would not be anywhere near as cheap for the American consumer. We could choose to revive our manufacturing economy in this country by agreeing to pay what looks like more for our goods, since they are prices to reflect a living wage for the workers that make them, environmentally responsible waste disposal and production,
Friday, September 7, 2012
Colorful DNC Audience
One day, my ex, who was born and raised in Iowa, asked me what the percentage of the American population is Latin@. I said, "I dunno, probably about 30%." He was dumbfounded, and estimated 11%, and he was right. But I was born in California, stayed there til I was 19, and then moved to Texas. And in those states, the proportion of Latin@s is 30% and growing.
At the DNC last night, I looked at the crowd of people and though how it looks like the America I think of. The camera flitted around the crowd, first showing people of color, then people wearing hats reading "Veteran", then to people draped in beads and waving rainbow flags. They intercut these images while our biracial president spoke, weaving both male and female pronouns into his anecdotes, once showing a woman in hijab. I love the bet that the Democrats made at the DNC: show the spectrum of Americans to Americans, and they will see that you speak on their behalf.
I can see why, to the world, Obama's ascendance to the Presidency is so healing.
America has both a history as a colony, and a history of colonialism. Even as white Americans were sending the Bill of Rights wrapped in a big bow of "fuck you" to King George III, they kept black slaves. It can't be ignored that the US, Australia, and Canada, the "white" former British colonies, are closer allies of Britain's than Iran, Iraq, India, or Pakistan. Something about whiteness, perhaps that old "common Anglo-Saxon heritage" (never mind native peoples or Quebecois) keeps us close. So, having a black man, someone married to a woman from a history of enslaved people, represent the country, must feel amazing to brown and black people all over the world. This American symbol is no longer a visual reminder of white imperialism (even if his foreign policy programs and history of deportations is just as bad as any white president's). I love the symbol that Barack Obama and his family are for this country. I saw the way that the President's brown face reflected those of the people of color in the audience. It made me happy to see so many different people together, mentioning their differences explicitly, and talking about their shared citizenship of a country that continues to struggle to see its brown people as wholly American. I hope more scenes like this make our colors less divisive, but no less important.
America has both a history as a colony, and a history of colonialism. Even as white Americans were sending the Bill of Rights wrapped in a big bow of "fuck you" to King George III, they kept black slaves. It can't be ignored that the US, Australia, and Canada, the "white" former British colonies, are closer allies of Britain's than Iran, Iraq, India, or Pakistan. Something about whiteness, perhaps that old "common Anglo-Saxon heritage" (never mind native peoples or Quebecois) keeps us close. So, having a black man, someone married to a woman from a history of enslaved people, represent the country, must feel amazing to brown and black people all over the world. This American symbol is no longer a visual reminder of white imperialism (even if his foreign policy programs and history of deportations is just as bad as any white president's). I love the symbol that Barack Obama and his family are for this country. I saw the way that the President's brown face reflected those of the people of color in the audience. It made me happy to see so many different people together, mentioning their differences explicitly, and talking about their shared citizenship of a country that continues to struggle to see its brown people as wholly American. I hope more scenes like this make our colors less divisive, but no less important.
Monday, October 25, 2010
What if you're wrong?
What if you're wrong? What if enriching the top few percent of earners is a path toward economic devastation? What if the way we all get a better life is by raising the standard of living for the poorest among us? It seems to me that we've never really tried to impose a minimum standard of living, by which I mean the institutions of this country haven't come together and agreed that nobody should be without certain necessities and figured out what they were willing to do to get us there. The narrative in the US is strongly pro-capitalist, and the justification for this narrative seems to be a combination of the desire for a merit-based economy and the desire to inspire and support innovation.
A capitalist society is not a meritocracy. It is untrue that if work is important, it will be valued accordingly by market forces. For example, we undervalue caretaking work in the capitalist market, but without motherhood, child care, and elder care, it would be impossible to imagine the family unit or for people to survive past infancy or into old age. It seems to me that the people in a family who work outside the home, in the market, are dependent upon the caretakers to make sure that home life continues. Is anybody really suggesting that those who do caretaking work are without merit? And yet they don't get paid much, if at all, for arguably the only truly necessary, life-sustaining work that exists in ths world. Capitalism's idea that the truly important work will be valued appropriately in the market is flat wrong when it comes to caretaking work. Not coincidentally, this caretaking work has traditionally been done by women. Could it be, then, that the magical, unbiased hand of the market is skewed after all, since it actually just reflects the biases of its human participants, but on a macro scale?
I attack the idea that capitalism is a meritocracy because I think that assumption contributes to the notion that the poor deserve to be poor. Without interrogating and ultimately defeating the idea that there are people in society who do not deserve a minimum standard of living that includes food, shelter, education, and a chance at upward mobility, it will be very difficult to argue for the reversal of the trickle-down narrative.
The other reason people insist that capitalism is necessary for the success of the country is that it supports innovation. The argument goes that great rewards must be available to those with new ideas, because new ideas make great technology and commodities for all of us to use, and people will flee the US if those great rewards are not available here. Sometimes this goes into the argument that the rewards for innovation must be hugely disproportionate to the income of those around the inventor: people will never invent things if they can't be assured that they'll be much more fabulously wealthy than even other rich people, otherwise, why would they bother? That might be true, but I don't think so. Look at the Global Innovation Index: the US is first, then Germany, then Sweden, then the UK. Which of these things is not like the other? Sure, the US is first, but it seems that Germany, Sweden, and the UK are doing just fine. And they're doing fine while being social welfare democracies. The difference between the poor and the rich in the US is staggering: Americans in the top quintile of our wealth hierarchy control 84 percent of the nation's wealth. The bottom 20 percent of Americans control 0.1 percent. In contrast, in Sweden, the top quintile controls 59% of the wealth, where the bottom quintile controls 32%. And the best part is, Sweden's actual economic distribution is what Americans overwhelmingly say they want! . FYI, nobody asked the Americans in that poll anything about Sweden, nobody even mentioned Sweden. Americans just liked the idea of those distribution numbers, and they happen to be near the numbers in Sweden. And of course, as everyone knows, Sweden's quality of life is very high.
So, market economists, libertarians, and capitalists, what if you're wrong? What if there is no justification for keeping the majority of this country poor so that the tiny percentage of people on top can be fabulously wealthy? What if it would make us all better off, and more of us richer in terms of the real value of our money and what we get from our government, if we focused on making the poor better off? Wouldn't it be weird to hear people say "redistribution of wealth" and mean that the real wages and income of the poor and middle class have been consistently reallocated to the top of the economic scale for the past 30 years? I think at least it's worth looking into.
A capitalist society is not a meritocracy. It is untrue that if work is important, it will be valued accordingly by market forces. For example, we undervalue caretaking work in the capitalist market, but without motherhood, child care, and elder care, it would be impossible to imagine the family unit or for people to survive past infancy or into old age. It seems to me that the people in a family who work outside the home, in the market, are dependent upon the caretakers to make sure that home life continues. Is anybody really suggesting that those who do caretaking work are without merit? And yet they don't get paid much, if at all, for arguably the only truly necessary, life-sustaining work that exists in ths world. Capitalism's idea that the truly important work will be valued appropriately in the market is flat wrong when it comes to caretaking work. Not coincidentally, this caretaking work has traditionally been done by women. Could it be, then, that the magical, unbiased hand of the market is skewed after all, since it actually just reflects the biases of its human participants, but on a macro scale?
I attack the idea that capitalism is a meritocracy because I think that assumption contributes to the notion that the poor deserve to be poor. Without interrogating and ultimately defeating the idea that there are people in society who do not deserve a minimum standard of living that includes food, shelter, education, and a chance at upward mobility, it will be very difficult to argue for the reversal of the trickle-down narrative.
The other reason people insist that capitalism is necessary for the success of the country is that it supports innovation. The argument goes that great rewards must be available to those with new ideas, because new ideas make great technology and commodities for all of us to use, and people will flee the US if those great rewards are not available here. Sometimes this goes into the argument that the rewards for innovation must be hugely disproportionate to the income of those around the inventor: people will never invent things if they can't be assured that they'll be much more fabulously wealthy than even other rich people, otherwise, why would they bother? That might be true, but I don't think so. Look at the Global Innovation Index: the US is first, then Germany, then Sweden, then the UK. Which of these things is not like the other? Sure, the US is first, but it seems that Germany, Sweden, and the UK are doing just fine. And they're doing fine while being social welfare democracies. The difference between the poor and the rich in the US is staggering: Americans in the top quintile of our wealth hierarchy control 84 percent of the nation's wealth. The bottom 20 percent of Americans control 0.1 percent. In contrast, in Sweden, the top quintile controls 59% of the wealth, where the bottom quintile controls 32%. And the best part is, Sweden's actual economic distribution is what Americans overwhelmingly say they want! . FYI, nobody asked the Americans in that poll anything about Sweden, nobody even mentioned Sweden. Americans just liked the idea of those distribution numbers, and they happen to be near the numbers in Sweden. And of course, as everyone knows, Sweden's quality of life is very high.
So, market economists, libertarians, and capitalists, what if you're wrong? What if there is no justification for keeping the majority of this country poor so that the tiny percentage of people on top can be fabulously wealthy? What if it would make us all better off, and more of us richer in terms of the real value of our money and what we get from our government, if we focused on making the poor better off? Wouldn't it be weird to hear people say "redistribution of wealth" and mean that the real wages and income of the poor and middle class have been consistently reallocated to the top of the economic scale for the past 30 years? I think at least it's worth looking into.
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