Hello from Bear and Curadh, a podcast from the Land of Awes Information Services.
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I love you, Bear.
This is episode 71 of the Bear and Curadh podcast.
We're going to talk about abortion.
Which do you think is more controversial?
K rights or abortion rights?
I think if you'd ask anyone, they're going to say abortion is a more controversial issue.
And I think the people who say that are going to say because abortion kills unborn babies.
Well, there is no such thing as an unborn baby.
That is not a legal concept.
That doesn't exist.
That's just something that they made up that people have started saying.
So baby isn't considered a baby until it's actually born?
Yeah.
Perhaps my judgment is a little tainted because I don't think that gay rights is a big deal.
Maybe some religious people feel differently.
But even among them, I can't imagine that they think that gay rights is more controversial
than abortion.
So, do you think abortion, do you think abortion, do you think abortion rights are more important?
More controversial.
More controversial?
Yeah.
Well, I think a lot of it has to do with them.
I think they're both equally controversial.
One's dealing with life and death and certain people's beliefs in mind.
But one deals with it.
They both deal with body autonomy, but on different levels.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Do we cover that actually?
Well, yeah, we can get to it.
You know, gay rights, basically, is I want to be treated just like straight people.
I want to have the same rights and pro.
So, for you, it's not privacy, it's equality.
I would say so.
And privacy too.
I mean, there's a pyramid of things, or a whole myriad of things, but I'm just trying
to talk about the highest priority, I guess.
Whereas, in portion, you're talking about competing individuals what they can and can't
do with their bodies.
You're telling them, no, whether you're not, you're going to have this ton or you're not
going to have this ton, you don't have the choice to have this ton.
But doesn't that, isn't the same argument used against gay people?
You can't express yourself here, your body, you can't love, you can't physically love.
Oh, yeah.
I guess so, okay.
Because we don't, we won't let you.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, well, I guess they had from the past, actually, for the rest of the people for
Sodomy and stuff like so.
Okay.
That discussion goes up the door.
I think you're saying, are both subjects about bodily autonomy, or is there something else
that makes them different?
I think that's where we were trying to go with the conversation.
Yeah.
Your right to privacy in your own bodily autonomy is something that's in law.
Whereas, to quote the Christians, killing unborn children is, there's no legal precedent
for that.
Because they're legally, they don't exist.
Yeah.
But to the religious zealots, they do, and that's where the argument comes down.
Yeah.
I don't know.
The ruling that the Supreme Court made, that overturned Rovers' Wade, I haven't read it
all, because it's a huge decision.
Our right to privacy actually isn't in the Constitution either.
There's no such thing.
It was a legal set of precedents that was established by the Supreme Court over the years.
And because it's not written in the Constitution, anything that the Supreme Court gives, they
can take away, which is pretty much how it happened.
Yeah.
They decided that the states have the right to control abortion.
Oh.
They have a right to decide what to do about it.
All right.
They can put it to a vote, and you know, ban it.
All right.
And they pretty much kick it back instead of it being a federal law, they made it a state,
it's up to each individual state, if they want to keep it or not.
Yes.
So, before it was federally allowed, so it was a big umbrella now down to a little umbrella.
And I don't know what that does to the full-face and credit clause, because the full-face
and credit means if you're, if you do something that's legal in your state, if you move to another
state, you can't be prosecuted for that, that you can't, you can't have a patchwork of
different laws for different states.
Okay.
In other words, another state can't come to you in this state and say, "You did something
illegal."
So, like since it's illegal, I think Alabama now, so if you have one done here in Kansas,
and then you decided to move to Alabama, it's not like Alabama could go after you for
having an abortion here in Kansas.
Right.
Okay.
They have to have full-face and credit, in other words, what's legal where you are is what's
legal and you can't be prosecuted.
I think it has more to do with bankruptcy laws than anything.
Well see what's crazy about that though is, I know in other states, in the ones where it's
banned, if you go, they're trying to pass laws where if you go to another state and have
it done, and then they say, "Okay, say like here in Kansas, it's illegal."
But you live in it and say to Alabama, and you leave Alabama and come to Kansas and have
done, when you go back to Alabama, they can prosecute you for having the abortion.
I don't think under the full-face and credit clause in the Constitution, I think.
I thought there was things where they were trying to write that in the law.
People get turned in for doing it.
But they can try to write anything they want in the law, but they don't make a constitution.
Yeah.
Well, I think that if they did do that thing, they're going to be big up for it.
And really, what row versus way did when it was first decided is it made it so you didn't
have this patchwork of laws and you didn't have to worry about it.
If you were breaking the law, if you were in one state or another, it's a big legal mess.
Yeah, that's a good one for it.
Your gay rights and abortion rights come from a common legal principle.
Yes, our right to privacy, but as I said before, that is not in the Constitution.
That is something that has been built up by the Supreme Court over the, and they can take
it away just as easy.
It really needs to be written into our Constitution so they can't touch it.
Yeah.
Do you think that they'll ever come?
When was the last time the Constitution was?
I don't think it's over.
Oh, there's been amendments for 100 to 200 years.
I have no idea when the last amendment was written.
I think it was 1972.
Were those civil rights?
No.
That was the, I don't know what the formal name of it was, but it was written that the Congress
cannot raise their salary.
Okay.
The Congress cannot say we're going to give ourselves a million dollars a year salary.
Okay.
They can only do that for the next Congress.
Okay.
The idea was to make it less, less subject to corruption.
Okay.
Come on, you don't think it actually accomplished that.
No, because then you do.
I mean, right now, how many people are sitting in Congress for years, and years, and years,
and years?
That I'll never get voted out.
And probably because they've built up a big network of contributors and politicians.
Good old boys got that way.
Yeah.
Anyway.
And since the equal rights amendment was due to be the next update to the Constitution,
and because so many people have such crazy ideas that they want to take it to such extremes,
it's never passed.
Oh, really?
And even after, I think it has something like two thirds, three fourths of Congress has
to approve it, and then it has to go to each state, and each state has to vote on it.
Okay.
And it's just gotten so difficult to change the Constitution today.
If they can't pass equal rights, I don't think they can give us privacy.
Yeah.
It's just convocated.
The other way it's set up.
What do you think that's good or bad?
I think it's bad, because as I keep saying, the Supreme Court can give, and they can take
away it.
But if it was in the Constitution, they would not be able to take that away from us.
Oh, so once it's in the Constitution, it can't be taken away.
Right.
Okay.
Well, we're in now with the way that the Supreme Court is.
I'm afraid for everybody, if they're able to put things in the Constitution for how corrupt
I believe the Supreme Court is right now, I would have mocked them in the Constitution.
I'm putting tongue in cheek.
I think right now, I don't think we have an honorable court.
I don't think anybody thinks that now, especially just as Thomas, take 38 vacations by billionaires.
Yeah.
I think right now, the court is not impartial.
There's a sitting judge, I think, their page spoke people right now for clinical parties.
The idea that the Supreme Court, members of the Supreme Court, have a lifetime office.
In other words, they either have to die or say, "I don't want to do this."
The purpose of having it as a lifetime thing was to put them beyond political parties.
In other words, I've got this job for the rest of my life.
I don't have to worry about doing what the president says or what the Republicans say or what the
Democrats say.
The idea is they were above the law, but putting them above the law, they're not as accountable
either.
It's coming.
It's going against what ultimately it was supposed to be.
The good of it was supposed to be for us is no longer a good of the court.
I think maybe Trump contributed to that, because before him, any president who had any kind
of business, like Jimmy Carter had a huge farm and peanut business, he divested himself
of that business so that when he was president, there wouldn't even be any hint of, yeah, trying
to do things to improve his status.
Well, Trump did not do that.
He did not give up any of Trump enterprises.
Oh, but he didn't collect his salary for four years.
I'm being very sarcastic while I'm saying that.
The Supreme Court justices are very similar in some ways.
That's a shame.
Because I think, I think it bothers people who are trying to be nowhere where it was going
on.
I mean, the judicial branch holds a lot of power, and the power that they have last lifetimes,
the decisions they make affect generations ahead of just now.
That should mean that they're free to make decisions like Roe vs. Wade.
But it seems pretty obvious they're beholden to their party.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of the benefits of what it is meant to be her actually turning around
and biting us in the ass to get her back on better terms, you know.
So possibly the only way to fix that would be diluted by having more justices on the Supreme
Court.
Yeah.
Well, Biden said that he wouldn't do that, right?
Probably because you don't know.
It could start a flood.
It could.
Well, you just never know how long your party is going to be in power.
And, you know, it's right now, it's obviously right wing.
But if diluted, next thing, you know, there are publics that aren't getting what they want,
you know, in case you say that Biden decides to dilute the court, he puts in five, we left
one, you know, left wing, more liberal judges, and next thing, you know, whoever wins against
the next Republican goes, we'll screw that.
We're going to put six in and next thing, you know, we have 30 Supreme Court judges, kind
of maybe opens Pandora's box.
Well, and Democrats are less likely to gain the books like that because of a sense of fairness
and I don't think Republicans know that way, no, they'll do whatever they take.
They can.
Well, the last Supreme Court justice that went in, it's when Barack Obama is trying to point
out, and they for two years, they snubbed them.
And then when it was coming down to Trump leaving, it was, let's get this person in and within
three months, we had a new, a new judge and, you know, I mean, it was, and the, the argument
was basically everything they were arguing against when Obama was trying to point a judge.
So, it's good for the goose, isn't good for the gander, which pisses me off again about that
F and party.
I have thought for quite a long time that there should be something in our laws that you
can't have just two parties, that they have to be at least three parties because you could
have one who's on the extreme left and one who's on the extreme right, and then you could
have another one in the middle, because I think most people are in the middle.
I think so too.
I think, you know, the right thing that everyone on the left is far, far left and everyone
who's on the left thinks they're on the far So, right, but I think the majority of Americans
are in the middle.
If they're not to the extreme on both sides, I think most people are in the middle.
And I agree with you.
I think there does need to be a third party.
And that might be of benefit to us as far as marriage goes because if the Supreme Court
messes with our marriage, you know, they nullify our marriage of something like 70% of
the people in the United States believe that marriage is good and should be kept.
Which is drastically different than it was 30 years ago.
Yeah.
So, the Supreme Court will get a lot of fallbacks from that, but you've even tried to do it.
Good.
How would you feel if they actually took our right away?
Would you be devastated?
I would hope that those who are married could continue to be married, gosh, that's such
a big thought.
I can't even express it.
Sorry.
I mean, that you dropped that on you.
That would just be terrible.
It would.
I mean, it wouldn't change the way I love you.
You know, I think our bond is strong enough, but I think a lot of people don't realize.
How much you lose, you know, it's just not a perk.
There are close to 2,000 responsibilities and benefits of marriage to come automatic.
Imagine if you had to go to a lawyer and have 2,000 documents made to tell the world what
your wishes are.
People couldn't do it.
Yeah.
Well, you're always going to be my husband and you're going to be mine.
Yeah.
All right.
Now that the right to abortion is gone, do you think the same thing will happen to gay
rights?
Well, we've been kind of we've got to come very towards that.
It can't be an overnight thing.
It just can't be.
There has to be due process.
Perhaps if we're going to go that way, maybe we wouldn't live long enough to see it.
Yeah.
That's terrible for future generations, but that's my only thought on it.
Yeah.
Senior.
How is the right of a woman to access a medical procedure related to transgender people?
It's exactly the same.
Yeah.
I don't think people think of it that way, though.
A transgendered person wants to present a gender that's different from what they were
born with, and there's all kinds of people who think that's an abomination, that they're
evil for trying to be themselves, and they're basically saying, "You can't.
You can't."
I put that in your true self.
Yeah.
If you can't have surgery to look more like yourself, I mean, that's the same as telling
women that they can't get an abortion.
It comes back to body autonomy.
Yes.
And I really think there's a lot of people who would like to take away anybody's right to
do anything and everything has to be approved by the government.
Yeah.
And that's what kills me, too, is because people on the right believe that this government
is better.
But yet, they're the ones that are pushing for the government to put their noses into things
like that.
She's exactly against their party policy.
Exactly.
But we've already established that it's a party of hypocrites.
So do you think that gay rights and abortion rights are fundamental human rights that should
be protected?
I do.
I do too.
But we've got to get more people than just us to decide that.
Well, when you're viewed as less than human, that's the argument.
You know, the US is fundamental human rights are, again, there's no legal precedent.
There's no law anywhere that says this is a human right.
Those things have to be decided by society.
Yeah.
Well, seeing, I think a lot of the people on the right will sit there and say, well, abortion,
the baby, the quote unquote, baby air quotes, has rights.
But it's not an establishment of the baby, but that's going to be their argument.
What about the baby rights?
They could create one if they wanted it.
They could do that.
They could say, you know, an unborn fetus is a human.
It almost seems to me like they want to have religion, religious laws, be secular laws.
And that's just exactly the opposite of what reason our country was established.
Yeah.
I mean, it's you.
Well, so do you remember at 9-1-1, there was a lot of, a lot of states, I think Kansas was
one of them, that put in their laws that we would not allow Sharia law to take effect.
In other words, they did not want Muslim law to be the law of the land.
Okay.
Well, that's very hypocritical because they want Christian law to be the law of the land.
Yeah.
Why is that okay and not Muslim law?
Well, because it's a minority.
There shouldn't be any religion in charge.
No, there shouldn't be.
I mean, like you said, that's the reason this country was established.
And one of the reasons.
People say we have freedom of religion, we weren't established on freedom of religion,
we were established on freedom from religion.
We're in exactly, but right now the country is trying to go into religious.
That's not a new thing.
Yeah.
We remember the moral majority back in the '70s.
There was a movement to get religion into politics and it's never quit.
Yeah.
It's never quit.
Now, like, I'm back to the abortion thing.
Do you believe there should be limits, term limits on it, like so many weeks into the pregnancy?
When Roe vs. Wade was first discussed, they were wanting to put in the law that abortion
was not allowed when the fetus was viable, outside the womb, in the words, if the fetus could
bring it on its own.
Yeah.
And I think that was the determination that they made.
But the problem with that is medical technology advances to the point were immediate laughter
conception, theoretically, the fetus could be viable.
So that's, and I know that there are limits to any technology, but if that's going to
be the deciding factor, it's going to get more and more narrow.
Yeah.
Now, some of these abortion laws are when the fetus is 12 weeks, a lot of women don't
even know their pregnant yet.
Yeah.
Even shorter than that, they don't even.
I think that was just something I wanted to get your ideas on.
Should people who have a religious opposition to homosexuality be forced to interact with
us?
In some ways, yes, in some ways, no.
In general society, if they don't want to get around gay people, they can go lipid
cave somewhere and they don't kick rocks in my opinion.
But legally, people are required to interact with us.
If you have a business that is like a retail business where you're interacting with the public,
they're going to have to interact with gay people, it's just a fact of life.
And they should not be allowed to base their interaction on their religious proclivities.
In other words, you should not be able to say, "Well, that person is gay.
I'm not going to talk to them.
I'm not going to do any business with them."
Those are called a public accommodation laws and a lot of states have them.
Really?
Yeah.
I go think hard as this one, but there are a lot of states where you cannot say, "I won't
do business with you because you're gay."
And you go, "Okay."
They can't say, "I won't rent to you because you're gay."
They cannot.
They can't.
I think in states where they have public accommodation laws.
Well, then there's ways around that I imagine.
Imagine, "Well, no, I'm not going to rent to you because I just don't want to rent to
you."
It's kind of like firing somebody if they really want to find some reason they can't find
some reason they can't.
I think we talked last week about businesses who, like the woman who said she wouldn't do
a gay website.
I think I would like to know that she doesn't want to do that because I wouldn't want to
give her my business.
Exactly.
That's my thoughts.
You know, why would I want to give my harder money to you if you're not going to appreciate
my business?
You know, I'm feeding you, I'm helping you keep a room from your head.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I think that just comes down to due diligence of the consumer, then, too, of
I suppose, if she was forced to make a website for them, it would probably not be very good
to be just the bare minimum.
Exactly.
And I'd rather give my money to someone that wants to help me, that wants to put the effort
forth.
And we can't use that as a justification, just because it would be convenient for us.
It's a really big legal gray area.
Well, you infant your primary care doctor primarily, well, you wanted a gay doctor, did you?
And well, at that time, I believe I was still running the gay information line in town,
so, I had a list of gay doctors.
Okay.
In fact, I remember at the time, I called them up and said, I'd like to be a new patient.
So, they called me back a day later saying, we're not taking any new patients.
And I said, could he please give me a referral to another gay doctor, and they called back
the next day.
So, we've decided to take you as a patient.
Well, it's good.
It's good.
Yeah.
Well, I remember when, about a year and a half ago, when we got the insurance, I went online
and was looking for gay doctors, and I needed to get in relatively soon.
And the options that I had, there was like two known gay doctors in town, but the other
ones had like a six-month waiting period to get in to see them.
So, I just went with them, and so far, I've been pretty happy with my, you know, I think
the one they did get you was a religiously based organization.
Yeah, but he doesn't seem to, you know, follow that.
He seems pretty cool.
Yeah, he seems really cool.
For some reason, he's too young to be a hippie, but you know what I mean, but, you know,
he's got that tattoo on the back of his neck and stuff like that, but he's, he's pretty
laid back straight, he's pretty straightforward, and anytime I call him for a referral, he just
does it.
So, I mean, we haven't had any problems with, so I was, I'm pretty happy.
And I think there are more of a charity medical thing, so anybody who has insurance, I'm
sure, they just love it.
Oh, I'm gold.
I'm considered gold to him, so, yeah.
There's no sliding scale on payment and all that stuff, so okay, did you know that the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not mention abortion or gay rights?
Yes, I knew that, I did, but that thing was written first, it first came out in 1942.
I was going to say that would be pretty good.
The concepts of gay rights or abortion were unthinkable at that time.
I know they've added things, and I know they have tried to put abortion as one of the humans
rights that are a fundamental human right, and the United States was actually the country
that objected to that.
Really?
The United Nations has five countries that can veto anything for no reason, and the United
States is one of them.
Yeah, figures.
Hmm.
So, there is no authority on what is a human right, it's just whatever society thinks.
Okay.
Whatever the majority will, I guess.
Okay.
All right, well, it's the end of this episode for this week, so, you know, Donald, I don't
know, what is your favorite joke right now?
A programmer's wife has a baby.
The doctor immediately hands the newborn to the programmer.
The wife says, is it a boy or a girl?
The programmer says, yes.
Okay.
It took me a second, all right.
So okay, my jokes haven't been so good lately.
That's all right.
And he never runs all the time.
I tried to make it related to the topic sort of.
Yeah.
All right.
We hope you've enjoyed episode 71 of the Bear and Curadh Podcast.
This is Bear.
I'm the Curadh.
Goodbye.
You have been listening to the Bear and Curadh Podcast, a production of the Land of Awes
Information Services.
We can be contacted via email using the address podcast at oz.com and oz is spelled A-W-E-S.
This show is part of the Pride 48 Network.
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