Growing Up with Roe v. Wade

Being the child of two doctors, the dedicated kind, who bring their work home, and with my mother being a gynecologist, I often witnessed first hand the complexities that come with a decision to terminate a pregnancy. My mother, who was often asked to testify as an expert witness in court, regularly discussed those cases with my father, and I was privy to the deliberations for and against abortion. In a sense, I grew up with Roe v. Wade, as these cases were a part of my formative years. Because of it, I understand why the topic is so sensitive and so difficult to resolve.

Clinically, having an abortion is a simple procedure. However, it is a very emotional process. The emotional and mental consequences of it appear only after the fact, when the woman, and sometimes her family, has to live with her decision. This is why it is so important to allow women to make educated decisions, and this requires setting up an educational process that will see to it.

Through my background, I came to believe that at the end of the day, a woman should make her own choice about whether or not to have an abortion. However, I also believe that because people do not have sufficient knowledge about the consequences of such a decision, what it means for the mother, for the fetus, and for the people around the pregnant woman, how it might affect, or not affect her health, under what circumstances the woman conceived, and countless other considerations, it is very difficult to come to a wise and educated decision.

Needless to say, in extreme cases, such as in situations of sexual abuse or rape, as is happening today in Ukraine, there is no question that abortions should be permitted. Therefore, there should certainly not be an absolute ban on abortion.

But there is more to this issue than dealing with emergencies. Roe v. Wade was intended to give women the right to decide about their own bodies. This is a completely sensible decision. However, in order to come to a decision that truly helps her, a woman needs to have all the information before she decides what to do.

Currently, there is no system that provides that information. People are ignorant about the consequences of their actions and decisions. In other words, before we decide about the right to make an abortion, we must educate people about everything surrounding the whole process.

It is not only abortion that is discussed here. People have no knowledge about sex education, birth controls, parenthood, childbearing and child-rearing. A decision concerning the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion should be part of that entire complex, that complete education system, and not a separate issue.

Clinically, having an abortion is a simple procedure. However, it is a very emotional process. The emotional and mental consequences of it appear only after the fact, when the woman, and sometimes her family, has to live with her decision. This is why it is so important to allow women to make educated decisions, and this requires setting up an educational process that will see to it.

Additionally, the state should not leave women to deal with the consequences of their decisions on their own. The government should set up a mechanism for assisting women in going through with their decisions, whether it is to have the child or to abort the pregnancy, and to recover from it afterwards.

I can understand the uproar that the ruling of the Supreme Court has caused. Moreover, I am certain that people will go through with abortions despite the court’s ruling. The problem is that in states that ban abortions, women will do it illegally, which might expose them to inadequate sanitary conditions, treatment by unauthorized personnel, and prohibitive costs.

Therefore, the only solution that I can see is a systemic solution that takes into account the needs and views of all the people involved, provides comprehensive information and covers all the angles of the issue, and offers systems that assist in making the right decision and dealing with it afterwards. Once such a system is in place, I believe it will be natural to leave the choice in the hands of the women who must make the choices concerning their own lives and the lives of their unborn children.

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What If We Got It All Wrong about the Climate?

What if we got it all wrong about the climate? What would we do if we learned that aerosols that pollute the air also cool it and mitigate the greenhouse effect? Also, what if we were told that volcanic eruptions that emit CO2 and other greenhouse gases that heat up the atmosphere, also emit ash that blocks the sun's rays and cools the air more than the CO2 they emit, and which heats it? Recently published scientific papers claim just that.

To solve the climate crisis, humanity needs to have a round table discussion and collectively determine its priorities. We will have to decide what is necessary for everyone and what is not, and provide only what is necessary. We will have to learn to exist the way all of nature exists. If we do not learn it of our own accord, nature will force us to learn it the hard way.

A study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claims that “A 50% decrease in pollution particles and droplets in Europe and the U.S. is linked to a 33% increase in Atlantic storm formation in the past couple decades, while the opposite is happening in the Pacific with more pollution and fewer typhoons.”

If we add to this recent discovery the well-established fact that volcanic eruptions cool the Earth, it begs the question, how then do we deal with climate change? Do we clean the air and heat up the planet? Do we keep polluting the air in order to cool it? Or, do we try to somehow clean the air and reduce CO2 emissions in a way that does not accelerate the warming of the air?

If these questions seem unsolvable, it is because they are. They are unsolvable because they are the wrong questions; they aim to “cure” the symptoms rather than the illness. It does not work in medicine, and it does not work with the climate.

The “illness” that causes these problems is human behavior. We are ruthlessly exploiting the earth’s resources. We are competing over who will exploit the planet more effectively and more quickly, and we completely ignore the fact that by doing so, we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

To solve the climate crisis, humanity needs to have a round table discussion and collectively determine its priorities. We will have to decide what is necessary for everyone and what is not, and provide only what is necessary. We will have to learn to exist the way all of nature exists. If we do not learn it of our own accord, nature will force us to learn it the hard way.

This solution pertains not only to the climate crisis, but to all our problems. There is not a single problem today that does not affect the entire world. Look at the food shortage that the war in Ukraine has caused, look at the global supply disruptions, the soaring inflation around the world, the viruses that spread uncontrollably, the computer chip crisis, everything impacts everyone and there is nothing we can do to solve these crises because we are trying to save ourselves instead of trying to save everyone collectively.

If we start thinking collectively, we will find solutions to all our problems because they are not problems of pollution or inflation, or any of the other symptoms; they are problems in connection.

When we change the purpose of our connection from mutual exploitation to mutual correction, we will find that we have no problems whatsoever. We can cut the production of all our products and still have more than enough to provide everyone with all their needs. If we stop competing against each other, we will have no reason to deplete the earth. If we have no need to deplete the earth, we will be able to reduce CO2 and aerosol emissions all at the same time.

The bottom line is that we do not need to worry about reducing pollution; we need to worry about improving our connections. If we establish strong connections around the world, the rest of our problems will disappear as if they never existed.

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The Global Turbulence of the Travel Industry?

Remember the days when traveling was relaxing, exciting? Those memories have been challenged in recent weeks by the chaos experienced at airports around the world, particularly in North America and Europe. A surge of summer passengers, eager and waiting to travel since the onset of the pandemic, has been confronted with widespread understaffing due to Covid-19 layoffs which have put pressure on airports and airlines. ?

It is forbidden to disconnect between cause and effect. During the pandemic period people changed from within. Their desires and requirements have grown, so that today they demand more comfort and are unwilling to make large efforts without being paid appropriately. This is the evolving trend in human society, and it is an expression of continuing development that requires a new fulfillment.?

Once considered redundant, travel industry workers who were laid off are now reluctant to return to jobs due to low wages, job insecurity, and poor working conditions. As a result of the lack of human resources globally, thousands of passengers have missed boarding calls and flights while waiting in nightmare queues, and often their luggage has been delayed or lost. And if all this is not enough, many airline staff, including pilots, are protesting over fatigue, stress, and staff shortages. Due to the lack of manpower, airlines around the world have canceled thousands of flights and many more cancellations are expected throughout the holiday season.??

Whoever decided to initiate the wave of mass layoffs in the days of the pandemic should have also considered how to recruit and train new workers when they would again be needed. After all, the expectation was known well in advance since tens of thousands had already talked about a vacation abroad the day after the travel restrictions were lifted. So why didn’t they get organized in advance to provide services to the traveling public??

The coronavirus has accustomed us to a new quality of life–to working from home in comfortable conditions, to seeing that it is possible to get by with less, so now the low salaries offered in the industry provide little incentive to return to work. ?

In the short run, better wages for employees would spur recruitment, but in the long run, this will not truly satisfy employee desires. The very fact that this is a worldwide phenomenon suggests that it is a fundamental human problem that might even be called the "plague of laziness."?

It is forbidden to disconnect between cause and effect. During the pandemic period people changed from within. Their desires and requirements have grown, so that today they demand more comfort and are unwilling to make large efforts without being paid appropriately. This is the evolving trend in human society, and it is an expression of continuing development that requires a new fulfillment.?

In the end, the international chaos in the aviation industry reveals how unorganized we are on a social level. This is only a sample of the situation that exists in all the other industries in the economy. We are disorganized across the board, while the crisis has not yet reached its peak. As long as we do not settle the problems the suffering and frustration will intensify to the point that we will no longer contain them, then surely a comprehensive change will be forced upon us.?

The lack of connection between us, and the lack of awareness of our human nature particularly as a result of the pandemic, reveal the simple fact that we are no longer able to even enjoy even the short vacations which were taken for granted not long ago.

If we do not wake up, the situation will only get worse. Human nature does not freeze its yeast; the desire to receive pleasure will force people to demand more and more. At the same time, we naturally become more lazy, selfish, and greedy. In the same way that there are no flights now, tomorrow there will be no trains, hotels, restaurants and what not, so that we will have to acknowledge in our flesh that change is mandatory.?

Large companies in the economy need to implement an ongoing process of education to raise awareness of the fact that we live in one single interconnected natural system in which humanity is interdependent.

This very initial understanding from our education will develop within us a new attitude toward life, teaching us how to direct our egoistic nature to harmonize with conditions of interdependence and mutual guarantee. Out of the corrected and improved relationships between us we will be able to easily motivate workers and propel all the systems in the economy to avoid future bumpy rides in our society.?