SYRF Summit
I've spent the past four days at the Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom Summit in Washington D.C., making friends and hopefully change. We lobbied our representatives and senators on the Real Education About Life Act, a bipartisan bill that would create a separate stream of funding grants for comprehensive sexual education. We had mostly pretty positive reception, and the trip itself was a very self-educational one for me, too.
I took a lot of notes this weekend, jotting down anything that someone said that caught my mind, or that I found myself thinking - here are a few of them:
* Who speaks to me? Who speaks for me? Who in our government represents my ideas and beliefs?
* Ten Arguments for Reproductive Choice (from one of our clergy staff)
1. The covenant between parent and child is one that is so basic and sacred that, if the promise between parent and child cannot be fulifilled, the parent should not have a child (and should not be forced to bear children).
2. Natural theology suggests that if one looks at the world and sees G-d's actions, and the number of natural abortion that occurs in the womb pre-birth, it appears that G-d has defined a natural order, and abortion of fetuses is not a sin against G-d.
3. A certain authority is granted from a partnership between our Creator and ourselves, one that yields control over our bodies from the Creator to the individual.
4. In the Bible, Exodus 21 demonstrates a lack of moral equivalency of a mother and a fetus.
5. Taking care of the Earth, and thus fulfilling G-d's covenant, requires that we do not populate the Earth to such a degree that we cannot care for it.
6. Women should have justice, and they are more affected by unintended pregnancies than men.
7. G-d wants us to have good lives, and that includes good, worry-free sex, as influenced by our anatomical features.
8. In the fall of Eden, G-d granted us choice and free will.
9. "G-d alone is the Lord of the conscience." Tolerance necessitates that we be accepting of the consciences of all, even and especially those whose choices differ from our own.
10. DNA is not innately involved in the attribution of spiritual value.
* "The fetus is not morally trivial; neither is the woman." - Mary Hunt
* Sex doesn't need to be forbidden. It needs to be taught as an adult choice.
* In the public sector, there are no permanent friends. There are no permanent enemies. There are only permanent issues.
* Tirdof tzedek.
* If others are hurting, if others are facing injustice, then I cannot be truly free.
* Most people would rather see a sermon than hear a sermon.
* Circles become unbroken once they become a part of you.
There will probably be a post coming soon that speaks to the need to change the language that we as pro-choice individuals use to describe ourselves. I'm working very, very hard on it!
I took a lot of notes this weekend, jotting down anything that someone said that caught my mind, or that I found myself thinking - here are a few of them:
* Who speaks to me? Who speaks for me? Who in our government represents my ideas and beliefs?
* Ten Arguments for Reproductive Choice (from one of our clergy staff)
1. The covenant between parent and child is one that is so basic and sacred that, if the promise between parent and child cannot be fulifilled, the parent should not have a child (and should not be forced to bear children).
2. Natural theology suggests that if one looks at the world and sees G-d's actions, and the number of natural abortion that occurs in the womb pre-birth, it appears that G-d has defined a natural order, and abortion of fetuses is not a sin against G-d.
3. A certain authority is granted from a partnership between our Creator and ourselves, one that yields control over our bodies from the Creator to the individual.
4. In the Bible, Exodus 21 demonstrates a lack of moral equivalency of a mother and a fetus.
5. Taking care of the Earth, and thus fulfilling G-d's covenant, requires that we do not populate the Earth to such a degree that we cannot care for it.
6. Women should have justice, and they are more affected by unintended pregnancies than men.
7. G-d wants us to have good lives, and that includes good, worry-free sex, as influenced by our anatomical features.
8. In the fall of Eden, G-d granted us choice and free will.
9. "G-d alone is the Lord of the conscience." Tolerance necessitates that we be accepting of the consciences of all, even and especially those whose choices differ from our own.
10. DNA is not innately involved in the attribution of spiritual value.
* "The fetus is not morally trivial; neither is the woman." - Mary Hunt
* Sex doesn't need to be forbidden. It needs to be taught as an adult choice.
* In the public sector, there are no permanent friends. There are no permanent enemies. There are only permanent issues.
* Tirdof tzedek.
* If others are hurting, if others are facing injustice, then I cannot be truly free.
* Most people would rather see a sermon than hear a sermon.
* Circles become unbroken once they become a part of you.
There will probably be a post coming soon that speaks to the need to change the language that we as pro-choice individuals use to describe ourselves. I'm working very, very hard on it!