Age-ism

I have a confession to make. I have a biased view of old people. Maybe in this case, it's also colored by ideology, but . . . it's age-ism, nevertheless.

Here's the situation. There's a Huffington Post article about a Kansas federal judge refusing to put a hold on a new Kansas law restricting insurance coverage for abortions, pending the trial of the ACLU's challenge to the law's constitutionality. The ACLU claims that the law's true intent is to impose an unconstitutional burden on abortion seekers. The judge claimed that they hadn't proved that or shown that they would likely prevail in proving the case at trial. However, he did not rule on the merits of the case.

What the law does is prevent insurance companies from including abortion as part of a general health insurance plan, except when a woman's life is at risk. Women who want abortion coverage must purchase a separate rider that covers only abortions.

Just how many women are likely to do that? To think ahead and acknowledge that they will likely get pregnant and want to have an abortion? Ha ! So with very few takers, insurance companies either won't offer it, or the rates will be extraordinarily high. It's clearly just another one of a thousand cuts made by the religious right to whittle away at Roe v Wade.

OK. So far, my opposition to this decision is ideological. And I found myself thinking -- all those Republican-appointed federal judges are really beginning to have an effect, way before things get to the far-right-leaning Supreme Court.

Then I got to the next to last paragraph and read this: "[Judge] Brown, who at age 104 is the nation's oldest sitting federal judge . ."

And I thought: NO WAY !!!!! What are they doing letting such an old man make decisions that affect so many women so negatively?

I admit it. I felt that his age made a difference. And I admit I have no evidence of that. The article didn't say which president nominated him, so I looked it up in Wikipedia. He was nominated for the federal bench by John Kennedy. Oh.

See? It can't be ideology then. It's got to be age.

I admit my prejudice when it comes to thinking about high level competence. Except in my own case of being almost 79, of course.

Ralph