The Shotgun Amendment

 

Image courtesy tvtropes.

Maybe, in light of the recent SCOTUS decision, it's time for the US to consider a 28th amendment to their constitution.

After all, they regard their constitution as sacred, and those celebrating the recent decision claim the preservation of human life as their major rationale. 

They use the same logic to justify access to firearms through the second amendment. The most common justification is that possession of a firearm guarantees the individual protection against attack from somebody or something evil. That evil could be construed as a lifetime of poverty and suffering for mother and child as the consequence of this Roe v. Wade reversal.

The SCOTUS decision, as well as protecting the rights of the unborn child, also impinges on the rights of the mother. Unless immaculate conception is possible in the US, that unborn child will always have a father.

That father, in a moral world, has the same responsibility for the life of his child as does the mother who will, under this decision, be forced to bear that child. One very simple question should be asked. Why should the total responsibility for the well being of that child be vested only in the mother? 

Currently in the US, maternity leave, public support for single mothers, and services such as child care, kindergarten and preschool are patchy at best, and in some neighbourhoods, almost non-existent. These are the neighbourhoods where access to contraception for the disadvantaged segments of the population is also difficult. It's a self-perpetuating problem and this decision will ensure it continues.

The upshot of this situation is that the mother's life is fundamentally changed, her access to an income jeopardised, and when the child is born, she assumes total responsibility. 

By any measure, this is simply unfair, and now that the state has decided that abortion is no longer an option, the situation has changed utterly.

If the state can decide what happens to a woman's body, it would seem only reasonable and just that some kind of caveat be placed over the conduct of the other partner in the creation of that baby, its father.

The amendment (hereafter called the Shotgun Amendment) would go something like this -

Once paternity is established (and that is not difficult) the father would be compelled to contribute to the support of the child. This could be organised at a local level through paternity courts which would be established for the purpose. There would be debate about how the nature and duration of the support would be established, but working that out would not be rocket science. A contribution code could be established.

And of course, it would be called The Shotgun Amendment.

With the introduction of a firearm metaphor into the title, the NRA would love it....

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A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

This is a very informative image, and it does indeed say a thousand words.

It shows the rapidly widening gap between profits and wages in Australia.

It also reflects the structural changes that have occured in the nation's economy during the last ten years. There changes are the culmination of a comprehensive and enduring power shift between organised labour and the corporate sector.

There are many reasons for this. Domestically, they include government policy across the last ten years directed towards weakening the power of trade unions and their capacity to use bargaining power.

Globalisation, with its investment in technology, its capacity to export jobs to low paying nations and its facility to exploit a pool of low-paid, often imported labour all contribute.

The conventional wisdom that worker's pay will increase in line with productivity has also begun to fail, as can be seen on the graph below.

This is US data, but the Australian trend is similar.

These are very dangerous trends which if history is any guide, will lead to unrest, and quite likely violence. Or, to be hopeful, the correction may occur as the result of government led reform. 

 

In the meantime, all any of us can do is to encourage our millennial offspring to join a union. At least that evens up the power balance a little, and ensures that wage theft (which for some industries now constitutes a business model) is unlikely.

When I've done this, I've also advised my children not to tell their employer that they've joined a union. In some sectors this will be a bad career move. 

That's pretty sad.

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