In Bad Faith

By Jessica Shepherd

Each summer, I struggle to find the time and enthusiasm to write when gardening, bike rides, and dog walks through magenta fields of fireweed are so much more enticing. This year is no exception, but ideas and words build like thunderclouds in my mind, so on this luminous evening, I put my fingers to the keys to share these thoughts.

Photo by Jessica Shepherd

I worry that the average Joe or Jane, weary of news about the latest bombing in Kyiv, the ongoing January 6thcommittee hearings, the growing tally of restrictive abortion laws, and the perpetual litany of climate-related wildfires, floods, and heatwaves, will fail to defend democracy just as the religious alt-right slips a noose around her neck. I worry that, come November, when the polls close, we will find ourselves not just reckoning with a 50-year setback in women’s reproductive rights, but at the mercy of angry decenters intent on turning back the clock on a litany of hard-won civil rights, from legal access to contraceptives to a repeal of the laws that trust us to make our own choices about whom we love and marry.

Earlier in the day, As I thinned the carrots so they don’t crowd one another and end up spindly and stunted, I considered the impact state anti-abortion laws and restrictions on contraceptives would have on our over-populated planet. The population clock will hit the eight-billion mark before the end of the year.  More people means more forests burned in the Amazon for crops and cattle, more carbon and methane released into the atmosphere, more garbage swirling in the ocean, more demands on shrinking aquafers, and more conflict at international borders as people who have nothing vie for a chance to have something.

My husband Hal says the Republicans didn’t think through the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe. They clearly didn’t factor in the horror facing a 10-year-old who had to travel across state lines to obtain an abortion after her violation. According to Google, the average 10-year-old weighs 70.2 pounds and is 4’10” tall. What might carrying a child to term do to such a small, fragile body? And why, please tell me, would anyone force a 10-year-old to deliver a baby when she is still a child herself? I should think the needs and rights of a child already struggling to make her way in the world supersede the rights of an embryo.

Subjecting women and girls to carry unintended pregnancies to term will have any number of ramifications. Statistically, these women will find it harder to pursue higher education and advance their careers, while their children will be more likely to enter our broken foster care system and grow up to engage in criminal activities. The acute lack of childcare for working mothers will be exacerbated, and all of us will pay higher taxes to provide public assistance as more families fall below the poverty level. Our schools, already struggling to hire qualified teachers, will swell with an increase in students. And then there are the birth defects. Get used to seeing more children with Downs syndrome (approximately 92% of Downs pregnancies are currently terminated) and congenital malformities such as heart defects and spina bifida.

These are the things I stewed about as I pinched the suckers from the tomatoes so they have room for air to circulate, reducing the likelihood of blight and allowing the plants to grow upright and produce larger fruit, a good gardening practice.

As I watered the pumpkins, which swell on the vine, and harvested spinach bolting in the heat, I lamented the lack of meaningful climate action at the federal level. The recent ruling by the Supreme Court handcuffs the Environmental Protection Agency in its attempts to regulate coal and gas-fired energy plants and expedites climate collapse. Thanks to Joe Manchin’s late-to-the-table support, a watered-down climate action bill (if it passes), we will concede to bringing new oil and gas projects online. It’s like getting a heavy smoker to agree to chew Nicorette gum while watching them buy their next carton of cigarettes.

Every day brings reports of triple-digit temperatures in unlikely places like the Pacific north-west, British Columbia, and regions of England and France. Additionally, large fires are burning in 12 states as I write this, including Alaska, Southern California, Colorado, and Idaho, because of exceptionally hot, dry weather.

Here in Homer, we’ve suffered days on end of dense smoke from fires burning hundreds of miles away. In my neighborhood, our creek, the source of water for my garden beds when there’s no rain, has dried up and the lawn is turning brown because I have no water to spare. I worry that our well, the source of our drinking and wash water, will be next. And all of this is occurring during a La Nina year – when lower-than-normal sea temperatures are supposed to deliver rain and cooler air masses over land. And still, the climate deniers, contrary to common sense, accept no responsibility for climate change if they acknowledge it at all.

Later, as I roasted cauliflower and shredded lettuce for dinner, I listened to the news from Ukraine. I urgently want to see this nascent democracy escape from under Russia’s oppressive thumb. Globally, democracies, and the personal freedoms they protect, are on the decline. My concern is that congress, and the general public, will tire of doling out more funds in addition to the $7.6 billion provided to date. Already, in mid-June, 68 congressional republicans voted against the next $40 billion infusion. With rising inflation and the threat of a recession in the US, it seems unlikely that we will continue to fund a war that now appears to have no end in sight.

I ask myself how we, as a nation, are ever going to make headway when one side of the bargaining table continually acts in bad faith. By refusing to acknowledge the will of the majority, the unified voice of scientists, and the dire ramifications of upending our civil liberties, they destabilize the hard-won foundation of this country.  I truly believe that most people mean well and want only to secure a better future for themselves. To that end, I try to understand the thinking and emotions driving those on the far right. I want to uncover a common denominator that will resonate with conservative family members and neighbors. If only we, collectively, can find the words to bridge this divide that seems to grow wider with each passing news cycle, perhaps we can resuscitate this dream we call democracy.