As a political activist, February 21st always brought to mind the assassination of Malcolm X and his historical legacy.  On February 21, 1989 all that changed for me when that date assumed a double meaning with the birth of my second child.

My wife was told that she would need to have a caesarian delivery due to the circumstances of the birth of our first child (a child who did not survive).  They scheduled it for February 21, 1989 at 8am.  When the doctor mentioned the date I immediately thought of Malcolm X and the irony - for lack of a better term - of my daughter (I did not know her gender prior to her birth) being born on that day, twenty-four years after Malcolm’s death.

At 3:55am on the morning of February 21, 1989 my wife woke me and told me that it was time to go to the hospital.  At 6am my beautiful daughter was born and I entered a new life.  Perhaps the irony of her birth is that February 21^st came to be a day for me of both sorrow and joy, integrally linked.

Reflecting on my daughter’s birth I frequently find myself thinking about the words of the great philosopher George Carlin, particularly when he said:  "Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers." 

On this February 21st (2012) we find ourselves engrossed in yet another round of discussions about what women should be doing with their bodies, a discussion that is never matched with what should happen during the lives of those who are, under whatever circumstances, born into this world.  The hypocrisy from the political Right has never ceased to amaze me.  It was up to me and my wife to do what we could to make the best for our daughter with very little help from the state.  Well, we have been fortunate to have been able to do that.  But the political Right could not have given a damn whether we were capable of taking care of our daughter or not.  In fact, they seem to be quite comfortable watching the lives of millions collapse into nothingness, just as long as those millions have the alleged right to be born.

When my daughter was born all that concerned me was ensuring that my wife’s physical condition was excellent and that my daughter had a peaceful, healthy and productive life ahead of her.  That is about all that any of us can ever ask.  Something else that I wanted and continue to want is that no politician or political force ever has the power and ability to tell my baby girl what she can do should she become pregnant.  The fact that we even have to argue this out decades after the Roe v Wade decision reminds us of not only the winds of politics but the utter disconnect that exists for so many people between an alleged right to be born, on the one hand, and a legitimate right to live a healthy, secure and productive life on the other.

Yes, I am for the right to life, but a right to a good life where women have control over their bodies, not a “right” that life is determined by political opportunists who know about as much about science as I know about the dark side of the moon.

Indeed, February 21st has many meanings for me.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.