All writers in Op Ed are here to inform and acknowledge issues of importance to our communities, however these writings represent the views and opinions of the authors and not necessarily of The Advertiser.

By Blaney Pridgen

This article is about abortion and vaccination.  Wait a minute.  Take a deep breath.  You don’t need to take a side here and neither shall I.  These are merely random thoughts for us to ponder together.

Abortion is probably taking some kind of life.  We shall argue about when that potential life actually begins until the end of time, when a Creative Intelligence greater than our own will settle the matter once and for all.  In the meantime, I’d rather persons, mother and father, not have a child if they do not want it for whatever reason.  I suspect seriously unwanted children tend to have bad outcomes as adults.  Also, in the meantime, it would be intellectually honest if serious Right-To-Life folk adopted the unwanteds or became foster parents; they might limit their own reproductive urges in order to do so.  As to the Right-of-Choice folk, they might continue to politely remind us of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and democracy in general and the probability that a free society cannot effectively legislate morality, especially if it is motivated by religion.

Getting vaccinated probably saves lives.  So does wearing a mask and social distancing.  I say “probably”, all things considered.  This is a thousand times better gamble than playing the lottery or believing the promises of someone running for public office. Consider that the life saved is not just that of the vaccinated masked man, but possibly the life of someone else, maybe even someone he actually loves.  This is not only potentially true for the Covid(s) but also polio, smallpox, measles, flu, and pneumonia, just to name a few.  On the other hand, people have a right to die any way they want to like tobacco, alcohol, or sky diving.  People do not have the right to make someone else dead.  We have serious laws about that.  But freedom is good.  A business should heave the freedom to fire careless employees who threaten the bottom line with careless behaviors.  Democracy is good.  A majority of voters should have the right to exclude careless folks from public institutions like schools and interstate highways.  Let us ponder these matters. 

So many concerns in life seem to come down to “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” as well as “no good deed goes unpunished.”  Consider pulling out of Afghanistan or not in any number of ways agreed upon by any number of vociferous minorities.  Sometimes I feel sorry for professional politicians.  Sometimes I feel sorry for pastors who try to satisfy the musical tastes of their congregations.  Sometimes I vacillate between capitalism and socialism and wonder which mixture is best.  Sometimes, I suspect, that if you patronize and lie to people and bully and control them until they lose hope to better themselves or at least the lives of their children; then, they will probably, eventually make your life miserable and may even concluded in an unpeaceful way.  Consider that history has a way of paying no attention to affections and notions about how things ought to be.  The same can be said about Mother Nature, who may be having second thoughts about some of her offspring.  Consider.