N.D. CITIZENS: 1 vs. LEGISLATORS: 0
In the 31 years since we moved back into the Red River Valley (specifically the Fargo/Moorhead area) I have never been more proud to say I live here than on Monday night when standing among the hundreds of men and women carrying signs and standing strong and united for what they believe.
My seventy-three year old sister-in-law and I attended the STAND UP FOR WOMEN rally in front of the Fargo Civic Center Monday night for well over an hour in the freezing cold, proud to be there to hear the guest speakers and lend our support.
The speeches given by Robin Nelson, a self-professed Republican who believes “the government has no business in my personal affairs, much less my doctor’s office” made her stance perfectly clear. Retired Judge Tom Davies (a Democrat who makes no bones about how he feels on any given topic, and Monday night was no exception) told the crowd “as my father, Ronald Norwood Davies (the now infamous 8th Circuit Judge who made the continued unacceptable practice of segregation in 1957 America to be acceptable with his landmark decision mandating the Supreme Court Rulings of desegregation be affirmed and followed), said in Arkansas, he did what he did because it’s the law and that’s all that there is to it.” Judge Davies, like his father before him, believes in the Constitution and following the law of the land. Roe vs. Wade, the landmark decision of the 1973 Supreme Court, made the decision about abortions and a legal right for women to obtain them – regardless of their reason or whether a gaggle of fuzzy-brained right-wing religious zealots in the North Dakota Legislature agree with the law or not.
Among other speakers was Molly Secor-Turner, a researcher at NDSU who recently won a $1.2 million FEDERAL grant (not a N.D. state grant) for a sex education program to be partnered with Planned Parenthood to educate young women how to PREVENT unwanted pregnancies, as well as many health-related issues young women need to be aware of and often are never taught at home or anywhere else until they become pregnant or find themselves plagued with sexually transmitted diseases. And Dr. Stephanie Dahl, a Fargo obstetrician-gynecologist who specializes in reproductive medicine, spoke against the ill-advised N.D. legislation because it would threaten N.D. families by prohibiting her from performing fertility treatments now ongoing for future patients hoping to have children via IVF.
This was not a rally for women only, by women only, or attended by women only. This was a rally primarily for those who believe in women owning their own bodies and being able to do or not do what they will with their bodies and standing against a governmental tyrant attempting to dismantle women’s rights and the choices they alone should be able to make for themselves. One proposed North Dakota bill is the “personhood” law, which the N.D. Medical Association has voiced loud opposition to. Language in that bill would essentially prohibit abortions by adding the language “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” Such language would affect women with ectopic pregnancies; this is when a fertilized egg moving up the mother’s Fallopian tube becomes ‘stuck’ but continues to grow. If not aborted, in all likelihood both mother and fetus will die. In today’s world of modern medicine, there is absolutely no reason any woman should ever die from an ectopic pregnancy.
I have railed and squawked about North Dakota from the first year I placed a foot in the state, way back in 1971. Not against the friendliness of N.D.’s people, the hard-working ethics they hold, the staunch religious beliefs, the educational opportunities provided by school districts and top grade teachers, or the values they live by. What I could never understand or get beyond was the laissez-faire attitude so many took regarding the state government that dictated some of the most outdated laws in the whole United States. The attitude “if it was good enough for grandpa and grandma, it’s good enough for you and me” made it clear, not much would change in North Dakota from within. Not as long as the bubbas holding seats in the state legislature continued to be re-elected.
Slowly North Dakota has made changes. In many respects instead of a slow methodical change, North Dakota has taken giant steps regarding how we view the world we all share today, and much of that has happened in the last twenty-five years due to a major mix of world and national politics and the influx of immigrants, both foreign and national, who have moved to the larger cities within North Dakota. Cable television and its twenty-four-hour cycle of updated news from across the globe, and the advancements of the internet providing a window into the world that has expanded our minds and broadened our imaginations above all else has made a huge impact on the thinking and personal beliefs of everyone. And more recently, Facebook. I’m admit to not being a devoted fan, I do participate some, and often what I read from many who participate is an enlightening experience, just in learning something about the person writing their opinion that I did not know or had not given much consideration to before.
North Dakota is not the same as it was. Nor are the people who want to live in North Dakota. Why? One reason it and they have changed is because they want and expect more from their government leaders and when they don’t get it, they are no longer willing to accept less than what they know to be honest and fair. Today, North Dakotans are willing to stand up, be counted and fight for what they believe needs to be changed, or reject proposals that will not be in the best interest of the majority simply to satisfy the selfish agendas of the few. Governor Jack Dalrymple, I hope you enjoyed your term in office. Because unless Martians come down and wipe clean the memories of those who will vote in the next election, I really doubt many will forget how you have turned your back on the women in North Dakota, and by that I mean totally ignored and obliterated their rights as individuals. Then there will be the Feds who you and your battalion of religious fanatics will have to deal with in the coming months. How do you think the citizens of North Dakota will feel about their state revenues being wasted in Federal court, or feel about you when that bill is finally tallied? No, the Bette Grande’s, Al Carlson’s, Jo Millers and Jim Kasper’s – to name a few—your days of playing the hypocritical “tell them one thing and do the opposite” public shell game are over. The public you managed to commandeer in the past has changed. Today the lights are all on and beaming brightly in North Dakota. On the other hand, your lights are dimming down to total burnout.
Who knows what might be just around the corner with new leaders who won’t go back to the days of “the way we were” but insist on moving forward to what we can do and be in the modern North Dakota?
Questions and comments for Soo can be sent to: sooasheim@aol.com or to PO Box 123, Fargo, ND, 58107. All editorial letters can be sent to: Tammy Finney at: tfinney@ncppub.com.