tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36219318.post8506116237049072852..comments2023-11-05T01:57:07.162-07:00Comments on Jesus Drives an SUV: Canada's Ridiculous New Abortion DebateSixth Estatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192110046214949228noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36219318.post-43636791942854290102008-08-14T10:15:00.000-07:002008-08-14T10:15:00.000-07:00I'm an American woman, a lawyer, and Jewish. I've ...I'm an American woman, a lawyer, and Jewish. I've been enjoying your analyses of "our" Bible because you've made the lives of the ancient Israelites come alive for me. I was born at the end of WWII. Jewish education for people my age was so bad (for reasons I can explain, but I suspect you understand) that most of us have had to become autodidacts if we wanted to know anything about our own heritage. It's better today, although I'm not all that optimistic about the survival of the Jewish people or our ideas. My brother says perhaps our ideas weren't so great to begin with, and he doesn't care; perhaps you don't either. What concerns me is that "bien-pensant" people seem to believe that EVERY cultural group, no matter how it treats its weaker members (especially girls and women) and no matter how it relates to other groups, deserves to survive, EXCEPT the Jews, who actually come off pretty well on both scores. <BR/>But I digress. I'm writing to note that we need to be extremely careful, when discussing the activities and motivations of Jews--collectively and individually--to do so in a way that doesn't hold them to a different standard than that applied to everyone else. What spurred me to write is the statement in your otherwise excellent (and for an American, most informative) discussion of abortion in Canada. I agree with you that we need to steer clear of "great man" analyses when looking at women's issues--this is correct,and the insight has no particular relevance to Jews. However, you take pains to point out that Dr. Morgenthaler "profited handsomely" from his medical practice. Re-read the sentence; to me, it bears a whiff of antisemitism. Why should Morgenthaler be different from anyone else in a capitalist society? Most physicians make pretty good money, even in your system, which is far less generous to them than ours. He got paid for his services, as most people are and should be. And (though it may be unseemly to point this out) those who provide a service at some risk to their property or reputation usually try to exact even higher payments if they have the leverage to do so. Jews have often been forced into such riskier occupations, or have engaged in them because (being less invested in the powers-that-be) they like the risk/reward odds. I also don't want to be too picky in looking at the lives of the (pitifully few) survivors of the murder of the European Jews by the Germans (and their many accomplices and enablers, including U.S. and Canada; read None is Too Many.) <BR/>Most of these people went on to live surprisingly productive lives, often displaying great sensitivity to the needs of others.<BR/>So,keep me in mind as one of your readers. My principal political interest (besides what appears to be a vain effort to stop the degradation of my country's vaunted Constitution by the most wanton and reckless administration in our history) is in bringing about sensible, universal health care in the U.S. I've learned a lot from living in a medical family; my brother, husband, and one of my sons are all MD/PhDs and even my brother's wife and one of my daughters-in-law (married to another son, a lawyer like me) are practicing physicians. But I learned even more when I began studying the U.S. nonsystem after being knocked off my feet by cancer. I, of course, got Cadillac care (tho' I feel a bit "unpersonned," having no breasts, colon, uterus, or ovaries.) However, nearly ANY American family (even the affluent) can be bankrupted by a serious illness. Who gets struck by such an illness usually is essentially a matter of bad luck; in my case, I inherited an especially bad DNA profile--they won't even implant an embryo like me at IVF clinics--but who knew? There is simply no way to protect oneself from most of this.<BR/>Keep up the good work!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com