• From the Leader - Keep Your Laws Off My Body
• Community Call - Monday, April 2, 2012 -  Womb Raiders

From the Leader
Keep Your Laws Off My Body
Susan Rose writes about women's reproductive rights, a subject that is surprisingly prominent in the news these days.

ESWoW Community Call with Catherine Bordeau
Catherine Bordeau joins our ESWoW Community Call to share her knowledge and expertise about women's reproductive rights.

"First, an understanding of reproductive rights includes that women should have the right to her own reproductive decision-making, including voluntary choice in marriage, family formation and determination of the number, timing and spacing of her children and the right to have access to the information and means needed to exercise voluntary choice.

Second, a more specific priority includes the right to sexual and reproductive security, including freedom from sexual violence and coercion, and the right to privacy. Read more »

Women's reproductive rights in America.  We thought the books had all been written.  That's how it seemed when I was at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR.  (How's that for subtle name-dropping?) a few days ago looking in the Women's Reproductive Rights section (yes, they are that big that they have a special section - 3 shelves worth).  The most current book I found dealing with reproductive rights and women's bodies was from 2004 -  The Boundaris of Her Body.

Contraception in all forms became legal in the US decads ago  and abortion was legalized in 1973.  Don't want to use contraception?  Don't.  Happen to be lesbian or gay - don't even need to think about contraception.  Against abortion? Don't have one,  as the bumper sticker says.  

Sure there's been backlash over the years, people saying that abortion is taking lives.  Interesting that so many of those who are against abortion are for the death penalty, for war.  A bit of hypocrysy here?  You bet.  I have more respect and understanding of people who say that all taking of life is wrong, but I disagree with them saying that other people can't make their own choices.
I thought we had settled that no one is really pro-abortion, and that the important aspect is a woman's ability to be able to make her own choices about her own body.
 
And then there are so many who are both against using contraception and against abortion - does that baffle you as much as it does me?   Read more »

ESWoW Community Call with Catherine Bordeau Read more »

Opening Words
First let me say that I saw as the immediate goal of women in Ethical Culture to work< toward the achievement of full equality for women, inside the Society, not by becoming more like men, but by securing an equal valuingof those qualities which in our culture have been called feminine and denigrated:  greater sensitivity to people - greater empathy, compassion, warmth, nutururance; greater awareness of and response to physical surround;greater openness to the immediately felt quality of life, to what is immediately apprehended rather than logically comprehended, i.e., mediated by the intellect.  In short, greater valuing and incorporation of intuition, emotionality, human heartedness.

I am not saying women should bow to men intellectually any more than I would deny that there are men who are gifted with these "feminine" attributes. Read more »

"Admit You're an Atheist" is part of the title of a piece by John Shook that Randy Best is sharing with us in preparation for the ESWoW Community Call on March 4, 2012.  Shook tells us, "don't believe in God? Just say you're an atheist."

Well I don't believe in God or gods.  Never have, don't expect I ever will.  And if someone else needs to stick the atheist label on me, I don't much mind.  But not believing in god is only one small thing about me, and I choose not to use it as a primary identifier.  Just as I don't go around telling folks that my blood type A+, that yellow is my favorite color, or that I'm from Brooklyn.  OK - I do go around telling people I'm from Brooklyn, and proud of it, but you get the idea.

If I'm going to label myself with my beliefs - I want to tell you something about what I do believe in, not what I don't believe in.  So I start with I'm an Ethical Culturist and that I'm a Humanist.  Those both work for me because I believe in creating a more ethical world and I do believe in humans and the human ability to create a more ethical world.

Also, I prefer terms which are not created in reaction to concepts others developed and many assume to be the norm.  For a while I liked the term non-theist to describe my beliefs about a deity or supernatural power.  By non-theist I meant that the concept of a god had no place in my life, except when interacting with others for whom God is a significant concept.  Yet now, even non-theist strikes me as defining myself in contrast to a concept that has no place in my life.  I feel no more need to define myself as atheist or non-theist than I do to label myself as an a-trollist or non-unicornist. Read more »

Darwin Day is a holiday that celebrates science and reason, logic and nature and human beings.  The Darwin Day website Darwin Day tells us: "Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity."

ESWoW will be recognizing Darwin Day this year on our Community Call on Feb. 19, 2012.  We'll be joined by Dr. Anne Klaeysen, Leader of the NY Society for Ethical Culture.  Anne presented the Platform Address at the NY Society on 2/12/12 on "Inherit the Wind" Revisited: An Update on the Evolution Wars.   Read more »

Presidential candidates who don't believe in evolution. School districts trying to give equal weight to teaching "intelligent design."  Why is science important to Ethical Culturists?  Are there connections between science and poetry?

Please join the ESWoW Community call with guest Dr. Anne Klaeysen to discuss these questions. Anne Klaeysen is one of the Leaders of the NY Society for Ethical Culture and presented a Platform there on Feb. 5, 2012 on "Inherit the Wind" Revisited: An Update on the Evolution Wars   in honor of Darwin Day (Feb. 12).  She will join us to discuss these current day concerns about science, evolution and public policy. I just listened to the Platform address she gave and appreciated Anne's combination of good science, clear analysis and poetry. 

Please join us on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012, 5pm PT, 6pm MT, 7pm CT, 8pm ET.

The number to join the call is 866-740-1260, access code 5766842#. This call will last one hour.

For safety reasons we ask that you not drive while participating in ESWoW calls.

Know someone who might be interested in this discussion? Please invite her or him, or them!

Interested in this topic, but can't make the call? Please let me know - susan.rose@eswow.org.

• From The Leader - Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture Call and Opportunity
• About Lois Kellerman
• Community Call - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - Lois Kellerman, Eight Commitments of Ethical  Culture

From The Leader 
Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture has been an important part of the thinking of Ethical Culture, bringing together some of the most important concepts of Ethical Culture.  Here is the short form of Eight Commitments:

1. Ethics is central.

2. Ethics Begins with choice.

3. We choose to treat each other as ends, not means.

4. We seek to act with integrity.

5. We are committed to educate ourselved.

6. Self-reflection and our social nature require us to shape a more humane world.

7. Democratic process is essential to our task.

8. Life itself inspires a "religious" response.

Lois Kellerman was the developer of this document, and will be joining the ESWoW Community Call (see details below) to give an introduction to Eight Commitments and to explore the possibility of creating a course to go deeper in this exploration.

About Lois Kellerman Read more »

• From The Leader - Occupy the Courts
• From Around the Movement - Anne Klaeysen - Occupy Wall Stree is Alive and Well!
• Ethical Action - What are you doing for MLK Day this year?
• Community Call - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - Lois Kellerman, Eight Commitments of Ethical  Culture

From The Leader
Susan Rose writes about Move to Amend - Occupying the Courts.

From Around the Movement
To celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, Anne Klaeysen, Leader of the NY Society for Ethical Culture invited participants in Occupy Wall Street for a panel discussion at the NY Society.  As Anne tells us in the introduction, the Occupy movement is alive and well, and we in Ethical Culture can find a variety of ways to "occupy."

ESWoW Community Call 
Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture with Lois Kellerman  This call needed to be rescheduled and now will take place on February 5, 2012. 5pm PT, 6pm MT, 7pm CT, and 8pm ET.  866-740-1260  access code 5766842#.  

Join us to explore these important concepts of Ethical Culture with the developer of Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture, Leader Lois Kellerman.  Please let others know about this special opportunity.

Ethical Action 
Maintain U. S. Opposition to Torture

(from the AEU Ethical Action Report)

There are two disturbing signs that torture is creeping back into U. S. military and security affairs. Lawmakers are considering an  Read more »

It will be two years since the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission.  I started to write that it is the second anniversary of this decision, but that sounds too celebratory to me.

I realized that while I understood the key concept of this decision, I wasn't clear on the details. Reading a summary from Cornell Law School reminded me that Citizens United was a non-profit group wanting to use funds from its general treasury to cablecast a movie about Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primaries. 

Other reading I did identified Citizens United, not surprisingly, as a conservative group.  What a reminder that how we name organizations and concepts is so important, because on first glance, who would think that Citizens United would be more supportive of corporations than actual citizens. 

The most illuminating source I checked was the website of the Citizens United organization.  This organization has a video posted on its website one year after the decision.  The focus is on free speech, promoting how the CU vs. FEC decision promotes unlimited free speech.  I highly recommend that you watch this video that includes clips from Newt Gingrich and decide what you think about it. 

Given that I don't think corporations should have all the rights that human beings do, I'm more inclined to agree with the viewpoints expressed by organizations that oppose the Citizens United decision and are working to change it. Read more »