Roe v. Wade – Case Brief Summary

"Roe (P), a pregnant single woman, brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas abortion laws. These laws made it a crime to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother." and "The Does, a married couple with no children, who sought an injunction against enforcement of the laws on the grounds that they were unconstitutional." Roe won the district court is affirmed while the Does lost the district court is affirmed. "The Due Process Clause protects the right to privacy, including a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, against state action."

Every Saturday, a couple of Christian men and women stands outside Planned Parenthood with signs to end abortions. I use to think that it was a women's right, whether they wanted to get an abortion or not. Then I started thinking about how a child is a blessing and that it is best to give a child up for adoption than aborting them. It is a sin when you kill someone and aborting a child is killing. Some women get abortions because they do not have the money to take care of a child or because they have been raped. I do understand that someone's situation can prevent them from keeping their child, if that is the case then they should give the child up for adoption. I also understand that they won't want to do that too, so then they would have to seek for help. Some may say that I am not experiencing the same as others and that I won't understand, what I do understand is that the U.S.A provides a lot of help for those in need. There's food stamps, section 8, there's people to people, there's planned parent hood and great insurances like Fedelis. 

President Obama- Yes we Can


     We often connect more to the people who understands what we have been through or experienced the same situations as us. In Obama's speech about fathers, he mentioned how important it is for fathers to be in their children's lives. He did not stop there, but he shared with us how his mother was living as a single mother. Hearing about what his mother had to go through in order to give him and his siblings a good life, reminds me of single moms now. I am sure that brought a connection between him and the single mothers in the country. They see that he indeed understand their struggles, since he has seen his mother experience the single mom life. Being the man that he is right now, would we have known that he knew how it felt like to be poor? The fact that he mentioned it, brought a lot of people closer to him because he was sharing something personal with us.

     During the president's victory speech, I noticed that many people were tearing in the crowd. I too started to tear as he spoke, after the elections. I didn't tear because I was upset, but because It made me believe that anything is possible. The most amazing part about his speech was the 106 years old African American woman named Ann Nixon Cooper. She was there when women and people of colored skin couldn't vote. He acknowledge the fact that this woman has seen the different events that have taken place in the United States. The biggest one of it all, was for her to see that a black man, could become the president of the United States of America. We didn't think that this could be possible, who knew that Obama would win the election? He did say "yes we can" and so he could and he won.

        When Obama won the election, it made me believe that perhaps the United States is starting to view blacks in a different way. I remember the night I stayed up and waited for the winner of the election to be announced. After waiting for too long, I ended falling asleep. Then all of a sudden I heard all of these noises in my neighborhood, cars honking and people shouting Obama. Right there and then I got up to find out that the president of the United States was now black. I did not expect him to change the ways that African Americans gets treated in the United States, it was just a proud moment  for me and my family. I am sure that other blacks weren't happy about his win, but then again everyone have their right to chose. Being able to sit down and listen to these speeches by Obama, brought an energy in me. Yes he was trained to be a great speaker just like any other politician, but it is best when their situations can relate to yours.

                                                        "Yes we can"

America's Most Gerrymandered Congressional Districts

   "This election year expect to hear a lot about Congressional district gerrymandering, which is when political parties redraw district boundaries to give themselves an electoral advantage. Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably. Considering this dynamic, John Sides of The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog has argued convincingly that gerrymandering is not what's behind the rising polarization in Congress."

    "The point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a safe seat but to put your opponents in safe seats by cramming all of their supporters into a small number of districts. This lets you spread your own supporters over a larger number of districts." I think that this is a great way of making your opponent feel comfortable, that way they won't try hard enough to win. They'll be so focused on the small district that they have, while you're out there influencing a larger group of people to vote for you.

A Lecture On The Anti-Slavery Movement

 

 

                 There are four different types of anti-slavery principal divisions. The first one is the Garrisonians , or the American anti-slavery society. This division leaves it up to the slaves and their masters to fight their own battles. The second one is the anti-garrisonians, or the American and foreign anti-slavery society. "It does not aim to abolish the union, but aims to avail itself of the means afforded by the union to abolish slavery." The Anti-Slavery Movement: A Lecture by Frederick Douglass Before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society by Frederick Douglass (Rochester, NY: Lee, Mann, and Co., 1855), pp. 3–4, 28–40, 44. The third one is the free soil party, or the political abolitionist. "It aims to limit and denationalize slavery, and to relieve the Federal Government from all responsibility for slavery." It's motto which is "Slavery Local-Liberty National." The fourth one is The Liberty party, or Gerrit Smith School of abolitionists. " It makes a clean sweep of slavery everywhere. It denies that slavery is, or can be legalized. It denies that the Constitution of the United States is a pro-slavery instrument, and asserts the power and duty of the Federal Government to abolish slavery in every State of the Union. Strictly speaking, I say this is the only party in the country which is an abolition party.…The Liberty Party, by its position and doctrines, and by its antecedents, is pledged to continue the struggle while a bondman in his chains remains to weep." The Anti-Slavery Movement: A Lecture by Frederick Douglass Before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society by Frederick Douglass (Rochester, NY: Lee, Mann, and Co., 1855), pp. 3–4, 28–40, 44.

 

         From reading this article, I can tell that Frederick Douglas was a very smart man. He came from being a slave to an anti-slavery speaker. In this article he described the four different divisions of anti -slavery which I found very interesting. It is good to know that one of these divisions 'The liberty party' made the complete sweep of slavery everywhere. I was always taught that slavery was abolished in the North before it was abolished in the south. It seems like more people in the North had more sympathy for how these slaves were being treated by their masters than those in the South.

                                            The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription



          "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

                My understanding of this passage is that although all men are created equal, governments are institute among men. We are the ones who decides who we should place in the position of power. If there is ever a time where there's destruction, we have the right to replace the ones we place in power. I chose this passage because it was interesting to me to know that we the people have a lot of rights. Although we have a lot of  rights, these rights are often taken away from us. We live in a country that is suppose to make us feel safe and free, but that isn't always the case. They try to make us believe that we are indeed safe and free, showing us only part of the news on television. I believe that things would be a bit different if we were being told the full truth instead of part of the truth.

          

                    Trans-national America by Randolph Bourne. 

         This article is about the idea of the melting pot in the United States. Bourne speaks about how we are all foreign born or the defendants of foreign born. He mentioned that we all have a reason for coming to the United States. "The early colonist came over with motives no less colonial than the later." (P. 2 ph. 2 Bourne). "They came to get freedom and live as they wanted." The colonist also came so that they can escape the chaos going on in their own country. 

      I chose to write about this article because I am an immigrant. I was interested in learning a little bit more about how the whole idea of the melting pot started. I always thought that it was a great idea to call The United States a melting pot. As I got older, I noticed that others weren't too interested in learning about a culture different from there's. (p. 2 ph 2 Bourne) They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian." A lot of the times I see that people look at you differently once they hear you're an immigrant. I laugh at the thought of them thinking differently of me when they are too defendants of foreign-born. This article gave me a better understanding of why the colonist came here and also how the U.S is not much of a melting pot after all.  

Americans Name Government as No. 1 U.S. Problem by Justin McCarthy

       I don't believe anyone can truthfully say that the government isn't the number one problem in the United States. If you look at the graph on economy, government and unemployment from March 2014 and March 2015, you can see that there is a higher percentage for government than there is for economy and unemployment. Although the economy is one of our most problems, the government  will always be at the top. From 2000 to 2015, there's been a huge difference to how satisfied people were by the direction of the United States.

        When I hear the word politics, the first thing that comes to my mind is government. So when I saw that the title of the article had the word government, I just had to read it. I too believe that the government is the number one problem in the United States. I feel like they aren't completely honest about everything  that is going on. How can we make or try to make a change if there's a lot of things that we aren't aware of. The sentence that stood out to me the most, was "While dissatisfaction with government is by no means a new issue to the American people, it has not in recent months been as clearly the leading problem as it is now, given that fewer Americans mention the economy." More and more people are probably starting to see that the government isn't being truthful.