{"id":31703,"date":"2019-05-13T10:38:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T14:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=31703"},"modified":"2019-05-13T10:38:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T14:38:34","slug":"spare-me-the-outrage-on-sims-abortion-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=31703","title":{"rendered":"Spare me the ‘outrage’ on Sims’ abortion comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So there it was, the screaming email this morning from someone named Marian Casillas declaring \u201cBully Brian Sims must RESIGN!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sims is a state legislator from Philly who got a little over the top when calling out anti-abortion protestors (they are decidedly not pro-life when they want to cut food stamps, slash health care, and fight against gun safety) they just want to force women to either not have sex (they oppose birth control, too) or essentially be breeding mares.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, Sims\u2019 rant was poorly advised. Were I his political consultant, I\u2019d be kicking his ass right now for giving the unwashed and under-informed new talking points to breathlessly rain spittle (literally or virtually on social media) as they pass judgment.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be clear: Sims has a First Amendment right to be an ass. The GOP legislators calling for some sort of legal sanction on Sims for expressing his opinion \u2014 I guess they ran out of books to burn \u2014 need to get their heads out of their posteriors and read the U.S. Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Sims used a flamethrower when he only needed a single candle to illuminate, he mostly had a point.<\/p>\n

This whole assault on women\u2019s rights to control their bodies is both morally wrong and politically stupid, which is sort of what Sims was trying to say in a ham-handed and excessively angry way.<\/span><\/p>\n

New and proposed laws, such as the new doozy in Alabama, ignore science and morals and attempt to enforce rigid Taliban-like religious standards on a larger body of people who, frankly, don\u2019t agree. <\/span><\/p>\n

And let\u2019s be clear, it\u2019s not about religion: it\u2019s about the power to control women, their bodies, their sex lives and their choices. Nothing more.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not pro-abortion \u2014 I know from personal history what a crushingly painful decision that can be \u2014 my own preference is through education, birth control and the like to make them safe, legal and rare<\/em>. I know of no one \u2014 no one<\/em> \u2014 who is pro abortion. It is, and should be, a worst-case, last-case scenario. But it must remain an option for women who need it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is, at the end the day, a choice made between a woman and her God, or her conscience. We \u2014 society \u2014 have no right to criticize a choice, solely based on what we, or you, or the guy down the street \u201cbelieve.\u201d Beliefs are just that, not facts. Feel free to live your life by them, but you have no right to expect me to live by your beliefs. <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not religious freedom, it\u2019s religious tyranny. <\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t expect others to live by my faith, don\u2019t expect me to live by yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Politically, this is idiotic, by the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

For more than a generation, even most Republicans have known to give lip service to overturning Roe v. Wade<\/em>, knowing that actually doing so would amount to political armageddon. But now, too many Republican \u201ctrue believers\u201d see this as some sort of political Rapture or End Times \u2014 but if they keep on this path, the only thing that will disappear will be the Republican Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Sims, I suspect he\u2019s learned a lesson about realpolitik, but it should hardly be a career ender.<\/span><\/p>\n

I dunno, maybe I\u2019d be more inclined to be sympathetic to those \u201coffended\u201d by Sims if the tens of thousands of people who have yelled invective, spit on and worse, young women (sometimes in their early teens) for daring to enter a Planned Parenthood clinic felt any remorse. They don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe these women were there for birth control, or medical exams or any number of women\u2019s health issues. And yes, maybe some were there to get information about or were having a pregnancy terminated. For that, they got harassed, or worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not that these foaming at the mouth, judgmental twits cared much \u2014 I have seen with my own eyes the furor, the ranting superiority that drives these folks and it is disgusting and sad. With their eyes fired by righteous hate (an epic oxymoron) they presume to tell others how they should live.<\/span><\/p>\n

So yeah, maybe Sims is a knucklehead. But honestly, some part of me \u2014 the part of me of me who is a husband and a father of a teen female \u2014 feels the same anger, the same frustration that Sims vented.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could have been handled better, but Sims is entitled to express his beliefs, too \u2014 one many of us share, even if we don\u2019t make it known in the same manner.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times So there it was, the screaming email this morning from someone named Marian Casillas declaring \u201cBully Brian Sims must RESIGN!\u201d Sims is a state legislator from Philly who got a little over the top when calling out anti-abortion protestors (they are decidedly not pro-life when they want to cut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1179,2768,6518,11201,11202,504,11041,1066,223],"class_list":["post-31703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-abortion","tag-brian-sims","tag-featured","tag-god","tag-healthy-care","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-republicans","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31704,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31703\/revisions\/31704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}