The Texas Abortion Ban, Vigilante Justice and Frankie Valli's Love for Human Connection

-Susan Cook-

"Jersey Boys", the emotionally sensuous, tender musical journey of the 1960's-era Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons is now the one remaining 2021 production of Maine State Musical Theater shown to vaccination proving/ masked audiences only.

Opening night coincided with the US Supreme Court 5-4 decision to not review the Texas abortion law which appoints and allows citizens to seek vigilante justice against a medical provider or insurance company who is "suspected" to have supported or enabled a woman to terminate a pregnancy. A Vigilante Justice mindset toward women who support or act on Reproductive Choice is not new. Social media "shaming", "outing" if not outright harassment have become commonplace, fostered by Vigilante Justice -types- those who have seized on anti-abortion stands as a chance to fan the moral crevices of their narcissism through anonymous Facebook or other social media posts. That has yet to become a prosecutable crime so it is not surprising that women's privacy again is seen as fair game for assault if not rape.

The music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons was and is a mirror for the moral narcissism of their time. The libido-driven romance of – yes- men and women (adolescents and adults) reckoning with the quest for deep human connection- heterosexually- it seemed- carrying on the myth of "The One" while the fifties and sixties culture around them minimized any of the psychological or physical trauma of the time. The unwanted pregnancies, some terminated by inner city abortionists, the deaths that followed from physical consequences or suicide, the closeted men and women invisible in the cultural edification of heterosexuality, the dismissiveness toward date rape, incest, domestic violence, wife and child battering, the lack of any safe and sound child care options so latch-key children were left as caretakers, 9 years old left to caretake  5 year olds.

The Four Season's second big hit, "Big Girls Don't Cry" perfectly mirrors the time's trivilialzation of deep emotional pain:

"...told my girl we had to break up

...maybe I was cru-you-el...

Shame on you, your Mama said...

Shame on you you're crying in your bed...

Shame on you you told me lies...

Big Girls Do Cry...

Any number of teenage women whose disclosure of an unwanted pregnancy or incest or rape or sexual intercourse were met with (still often are) physical assault, face slapping, shunned exile or abandonment by mothers, fathers, relatives, the circles they might have reached toward. Collectively, the woman's emotional pain became invisible. The shame that Facebook and other social media now profit from in their anonymous posting options allow the Vigilante Justice-types a new means for public shaming through privacy rape. Many Frankie Valli-era teenagers and young women died from the shaming that fueled their drug or alcohol addiction or promiscuity or suicidality. Big girls don't cry.

Shame is precisely the emotion that the Senior Legislative Aide of Texas Right to Life, Rebecca Parma attempts to generate in an NPR interview when she offers the false equivalence that terminating the pregnancy of a zygote, embryo or fetus which is non-viable outside of the mother's uterus is equivalent to killing a child that even rape or incest do not justify.The 30 or 40-something Rebecca Parma now endorsing Privacy rape by forcing providers to disclose private medical information is as exploitive as the Frankie Valli-era exploitation of privacy then dismissing as "private" incest, date rape, domestic violence and in the case of unidentified paternity, fathers whose signatures and names were left off birth certificates of infants born to single mothers, later left and ignored in foster homes, foundling homes or orphanages. Ancestry.com has now filled in many of those blank signatures. Ms. Parma may not know of any suicided pregnant women or backroom abortion recipients or incested or physically assaulted children. The Texas Abortion law renders them as invisible to her as the privacy rape victims the law targets. A case in point is the non-acknowledgement to her Republican colleagues of the profound impact being born into poverty carries. As early as 1980, the Maine Children's Death Study documented the strongest correlate of child death before the age of 18 as the child's household's eligibility for Food Stamps.

Tragedy came Frankie Valli's way, too. His 22 year old daughter Francie died of a drug overdose, alcoholism ended his marriage , likely more human suffering than Jersey Boys reveals. But his lyricists and songwriters brought their creative longings to the moral underpinnings of true love: that it could be good, whole and true. In 1967 "You're Just Too Good to Be True" came just six years before Roe Vs. Wade began to unpack the cultural truth around him, in all its human suffering, walkup abortionists and suiciding 20- somethings. Roe vs. Wade began to prevent what had always belonged to women to bear: the ignored suffering of children after birth . Frankie Valli's devoted musical reverence for the deep nourishment of a healthy life-enhancing human connection did not and could not succeed in bringing those to fruition in the ways that Roe vs. Wade has- in far far more ways than Ms. Parma could ever know, despite the Texas license giving her and anyone else permission to invade privacy at whatever cost.

Science is continually under attack from science deniers.  What is the best way to talk about science with a science denier?  On this episode, Dr. Lee McIntyre discussed his book, How to Talk to a Science Denier.

September 2021  Pulse of the Planet  CUE SHEET

01      Bullfrogs - Reducing        Leopard frogs        06-Sep-21

02      High Holy Days               This week             07-Sep-21

03      A Blast of the Ram's Horn We're listening      08-Sep-21

04      Casting Off Our Misdeeds   This week           09-Sep-21

05      Kuarup- Reunion             This month           10-Sep-21

06      Kuarup- Ritual                We're listening      13-Sep-21

07      Kuarup- Remembrance    In a ceremony       14-Sep-21

08      Gabra - Night Music         Picture                  15-Sep-21

09      Gabra - Small Dry           On a rocky            16-Sep-21

10      Gabra - Order and Disorder In one of            17-Sep-21

11      Gabra - Out is Out          In Eastern             20-Sep-21

12      Gabra - Dikhir                 We're listening      21-Sep-21

13      Gabra - Well Songs          The Gabra are       22-Sep-21

14      Statues of Wonderland    The thing               23-Sep-21

15      Vegas Was a Blast          If you're                 24-Sep-21

16      Launch at the Cape         Two, one               27-Sep-21

17      Festival of St. Lazarus     This time               28-Sep-21

18      Ancient Time Capsule      This week             29-Sep-21

19      Marriage, Berber Style     Every September    30-Sep-21

20      Stellar Sea Lions Prepare  Autumn is             01-Oct-21

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