My favorite infuriating subject
What a treat — religion AND abortion are my subjects of the day so far! What next, my little chickadees? Do you not KNOW how much rage a menstruating woman is capable of spewing?!?!
Today’s fury is sponsored by the WaPo article, Antiabortion Proposals Advance in Va.: House Committee Backs Parental Consent Bill, Ban on Late-Term Procedure.
Tell me something, did the County of Allegheny, in the City of Pittsburgh, forget to brand it on my birth certificate, next to the “female” part, that my body is property of the U.S. government? You know, when I found myself at the crossroads in June 2001 whether or not to have an abortion, I didn’t hear any men — especially the one whose seed I was carrying — shouting and crying for me to keep the pregnancy intact for the full nine months. Oh, hell no. Yet the men in government and in anti-abortion groups keep on insisting that we serve the role of baby factories for society. And while, yes, I know I was/am blessed to have a healthy and fertile reproductive system, my decision was a difficult one that boiled down to not having the right financial and emotional supports.
I’d just started a brand-new job that was exceptionally demanding of my time and energy. And the daddy lived 350 miles away with his own two children. Tried the Depo-Provera route. That route failed. Tried the, “Hey, come out and live with me. I’ll work and you can start a new life out here,” thing. That failed. Then tried the “OK, so who’s paying for this?” route (He’d volunteered, “I’ll go halfsies.” Which he didn’t. Nor did I ever see him again, although we maintain a distant IMing relationship from time to time.) Disapointment again. I paid for it — financially, physically, emotionally. And for all the pain, I made the right decision … and I am glad that the decision was there for me to even make.
And as far as late-term procedures, while I certainly don’t favor them, it’s unavoidable. I have a friend who has a daughter with a terminal illness, and the illness was predicted to occur in any future female child she would bear. She went on — with great trepidation — to go through with two more pregnancies. Both were boys, which was a relief to that family. Because if it were a girl and it showed up during the late-natal stages that she would have this illness, there would have been a decision to make about bringing another sickly child into the world. And while their daughter is beautiful and spunky and sweet, she’s also dying. And would that family really want to lose two children that way? I don’t know, and thankfully, they won’t have to know, but again — they still would have had a choice on how to handle their situation.
On Pure as the Driven Slush, Heather wrote the most heartbreaking entry about abortion on Jan 22, and she is to be commended for her openness and honesty. She and I both would probably not choose that route again, but we acknowledge that we acted in everyone’s best interests the first time. I mean, sure I could have gone through with the pregnancy at the new job, and then given the child up for adoption, but does anyone have any idea what kind of stigma goes with women when they do that? That “there must be something wrong with her” or “she must’ve known she was knocked up when she interviewed, but didn’t tell anyone.” Or, worse, “How’s your baby? Oh, you don’t have it anymore? Ouch. Sorry!”
Not to mention the changes your body goes through. Even though I terminated early, at the six-week mark, my body felt different, as though I had stepped into someone else’s skin. I was fortunate to have no traces of morning sickness (although I’ve had friends who threw up four times a day, no matter what time of day it was). But I was so damned sleepy all the time, I had a perpetual nipple hard-on, and my mind was racing. And I was so friggin’ horny, I couldn’t stand myself. My body felt as though it were on hyper-alert — my skin was super-sensitive to light, heat, cold, etc. And it also felt like it had been beaten up — everything was so tender. If I were such a wimp for those initial weeks, could you see me in labor? Gaaah!
Add to the fact that I worked for a child welfare agency, where moms in the system were beating and neglecting their kids and where, in that same system, my tax dollars were going to pay for their sundries, when I couldn’t even afford a bag of diapers for my own potential child. Yeah. The system’s not fair, and unfortunately, idiots will continue to reproduce like rabbits, while more upright citizens like me will continue terminating pregnancies until we are financially and emotionally ready for the challenges of rearing a family. I wasn’t ready then. I still am not. But I will be. In the meantime, I will keep hoping that whatever protection I use doesn’t fail again.
Heather has learned how to perform an herbal abortion, for if/when our precious 30-year-old Roe v. Wade is overturned by these marauding assholes who claim to want to protect life (yeah, let’s look up how many of them are behind on their child support payments!). I think I may just have to remember this, because like her, while I would never outright encourage anyone to go through that procedure, if that’s what they feel they need to do, well, then, they deserve to have the choice that I was very grateful to have been able to make for myself. I remember when I did it, I sent a thank-you note to Planned Parenthood, stating, “And I did it when George W. Bush was in office! Wow! Who’d have thought that?!?!”
From the article. …“After the committee vote, a hopeful Black said “this is the first step. . . . This bill, if enacted and signed by the governor, will save more lives than any law that has ever been passed since 1619.”
Two thoughts:
1. This comes from people who look the other way every time an attack on a clinic or doctor occurs, and
2. This comes from the state that is behind only Texas in executions.
Not that I oppose executions — I’m totally in favor of offing the violent criminals who are kept alive by my tax monies. And likewise, although I do call myself a Democrat, I have some very anti-liberal stances, such as using that same tax money as an incentive for people to (ab)use the TANF (public welfare) system. And by bringing more unwanted children into this world, these folks who shouldn’t be parents are at risk for abusing their kids or are simply regaled to staying at home full-time to raise them, with no viable means of support except for federal programs that should be funnelled into our other domestic efforts (such as getting the homeless off the streets or improving care for the elderly or making the Veterans’ Hospitals less of a disgrace) or into torching bin Laden’s and Hussein’s asses once and for all.
This is a subject that should be battled out by women. Sure, you guys contribute the sperm, and you’re genetically programmed to sow your seed and to ensure that you have future generations. And if you’re ready to handle the commitment of being a father — or at least the commitment to the financial upbringing of any child you assist in creating — I would love to bestow the world’s highest honor upon you. Likewise, I have seen too many teen-agers carry a pregnancy to full-term because they were too ashamed to tell their parents about it before they started showing, which meant that they had passed the deadline to receive a safe and legal surgical abortion. So then they went on to squirt out one, two … up to seven munchkins (yes, I have seen this happen to a girl before she was 25), because in their societies, you are taught to take care of your own — that you don’t “give up” your child to another family. Particularly, as Heather pointed out, if the child isn’t “lily-white,” your chances of adopting them out isn’t all that good, anyway.
Furthermore, these scared young girls might be the products of abuse themselves, looking for love in the arms of a scrawny 14-year-old boy with braces and an erection. These are the girls who leave their babies in dumpsters and toilet stalls — they had nowhere they could turn, and couldn’t get the required consent from their parents or permission from a judge (a judge! would you have gone to a judge if you were a scared, knocked-up teen?). I’m not claiming that abortion should be a fundamental right, but it should be an accessible option for anyone who might need it.
At any rate, I am pro-choice and will always be. I am pro-firearms, even if I don’t choose to take advantage of my right to buy one. But I am still glad that the choice is there for me. Likewise, you don’t have to take advantage of a law or a right or a statute to appreciate it. While I will be the first to admit that abortion is the worst form of birth control available (especially for those who use it three or more times), I will also stand firmly beside my belief that everyone’s entitled to a “get out of jail free” card. And for many of us, abortion was that ticket to saving us from doing long-term damage … to ourselves, to taxpayers, to the fertilized egg itself.
And for the record, why don’t we get the assholes who bomb clinics (which, by the way, provide top-notch gynecological services and free contraceptives, in addition to the other surgical services — I had many a pap smear at my friendly neighborhood Planned Parenthood when I didn’t have health insurance) to make bombs to drop on Iraq? We’re spending too much money fighting what doesn’t appeal to us instead of turning the situation in our favor.