Leadership

I meant to blog about this in March, and never got around to it.  Now I’m all nervous after my last post!  Anyway..  A couple of months ago I was trucking along as usual, when I came a cross a link on one of my favorite blogs to a story about this.  The link goes to a current story, but I only heard one kernel of it back in March..It’s about the South Dakota abortion ban that’s coming through the works now.  The chief of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota said that if the abortion ban goes into effect, she will have an abortion clinic opened on tribal land.  In the state boundaries, but outside state jurisdiction.  I was in awe..here, finally, was a leader taking a strong and brave stand on something important!  She was in a unique position, and used it to stand up for women’s reproductive rights while thumbing her nose at the state government.  This was no photo-op-based maverick macho posturing, but the real thing..

Now, there are movements fighting the abortion ban every step of the way, and maybe the challenges will work, and/or maybe a court will strike the ban down…  But I remember what it felt like to read her words..and to see someone with the power and the capability to stand up to the anti-choice movement actually doing so, straightforward and unabashedly saying NO.  And I think I had a taste of what an actual leader does.

May 15, 2006. General.