Sunday, February 23, 2014

When Did the Definition of Pro-choice Change?

Sometimes i have things to say that aren't about writing, but that are a practice of my skills, i find myself needing a venue to post to.  so here is another.  one i think about often...

When did pro-choice come to mean (at least to pro-lifers) "pro-abortion"

I am pro-choice.  Does this mean i am pro-abortion. No. absolutely not.  And you know what?  When i enter into a discussion on the topic, rest assured that i know exactly what the process entails.  I know how horrible, and horrifying, and sad the procedure is.  I know what happens.  I know.  There is no need to try to shock me with graphic details or guilt me with talk of a baby's beating heart.  I know.  I'm not pro-abortion.  I am pro-choice.

Me?  I don't think i would or could ever have an abortion, but that's the me, happy in my marriage, my new house, trying for a new baby, no problems that threaten, no scandals that scare.  Should my situation change, i would be forced to assess the change in my own soul and decide what needs to be done.  Part of abortion that the rabid pro-lifers never give themselves time to think about seems to be the torment of the mothers who are forced to face such a decision, or those who have had to make it.  I hear too often that they are murderers.

No, they're not.

I don't believe that a baby in utero is a person.  a pending person, sure, but mostly just a parasite.  I thought that for much of my own pregnancy.  This little creature attached to my insides, eating my food, weakening my bones, draining my energy, taking up my space.  I loved her dearly, once she came out, but a big part of why i love her is because she came out.

These pending people, of course, deserve love, and good care, and attention to their needs, but their rights should never EVER supercede those of the woman who is giving her everything to allow them life.  And even when that pending person has reached a stage where it is potentially viable to survive without mother, albeit with medical intervention, they should not have more rights than mother.  At that point, yes, the same amount of rights, but no more.

I do not want there to be abortion.  I do not want this procedure to be in the back of every sexually active woman's mind as the final stop-gap between being a mother and not being a mother. 

What do I want?

I want nonsecular, scientific, useful sexual and reproductive education taught to our children in schools at the appropriate age.  If you balk at this, you better be giving your children the education yourselves.  The right education, with the right terms, the correct consequences, and more options than just abstinence.  Because children don't abstain from the things they're not supposed to do.  Ask my Gator whether she's allowed to touch the TV and she'll say "No touchy TV."  But you may find her, an hour later, with her sticky fingers all over the screen.

I want affordable and accesible family planning (and the term "Family Planning" seems to also become a psudenym to the opposed for abortion as well.  No.) in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies for those too young, or unwilling for children at this moment.

I want afforadable and accesible prenatal care for every pregnancy for every pending human so we know they are safe and healthy and we are able to provide for their needs.

A bottom-up approach, not top down.  Banning all abortion will not stop abortion, look at drugs.  look at prohibition.  If we take these steps from the beginning of a child's life, we can change the way the child looks at the world.  Education in order to phase abortion out, so that it still exists for rare instances, but is never pondered lightly, because there is never an unplanned pregnancy.  You don't get that by standing in an abortion clinic parking lot throwing doll parts at heartbroken women.  You get that by going into the schools and doing what's right.

But, for now, I do want there to be a ban on abortion after a certain point, and for a time I was opposed to most pro-choicers when they were fighting the 20-week ban.  But then i read this article.  I'm pretty sure i cried all the way through, in sadness and in relief.   The final paragraph killed me and it changed my mind.  There needs to be a limit, there needs to be a certain-week ban, but placing it at the ultrasound, where most birth defects are found, is wrong.  Yes, there will be a loss of pending people with Down Syndrom, which is both challening and beautiful, or with spina bifida, scary but not debilitating.  But that 20-week ban would also be sentencing severely deformed babies, like the one in the article and others, and their parents to a traumatic and painful birth, an agonizing life, a too-soon death.  Abortion as end of life care, because the quality of that pending person's life, after birth, would have contained only pain, and torment and fear.  You wouldn't wish that on your ailing grandfather, so you bring hospice in, and he gets morphine.  Why do you wish that upon the soon-to-be-born?

I am not pro-abortion, i am pro-choice.  Meaning that everyone has a choice to make for themselves and the welfare of their own mind and soul and family.  The only abortion I need to concern myself is the one that I would have.  The only abortion you need to concern yourself is the one you would have.  And have you no uterus?  Well, as the wise Rachel Green stated, you have no opinion. 

How about take the time out of trying to shock the pro-choicers, and go into your nearby school to fight for sexual education.  Educate away the idea from the minds of the girls and boys there, before they even have it.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Catastrophic Failure

That's what i'm calling it because that's what it was.   the loss of everything.  every. thing.

but what i actually lost?  3 hours of audio.  Some music that can be redownloaded.  four paragraphs of revisions, maybe a handful of pictures.

i am very fucking lucky i had decided to back up all of my writing, and dump all of my necessary files onto usb drives in the very recent past.  My dad has fixed it, given me a new hard drive.  I must begin the process of rebuilding my comfy computer space.  my shortcuts and my bookmarks...

In other, more depressing news, i suddenly realize that i don't know Edonith.  Anka's true love and greatest annoyance.  He saves her and he lets her go over and over again.  He is tall and pale and good with plants.  And he is quiet and friendly and welcoming.

These are the things i know about him, but he is so flat, so cardboard.  I realized it as i sat down and tried to force myself to write his Children story.  Because they are all moving forward but for his and Daniel's.  I can't figure out how to write it.  I can't figure out what to write that will show us what makes up Edonith, because Edonith is made up of nothing.

blah.

how do i even fucking fix that?

and what could he possibly be thinking about me for saying that??

...

you know what?  probably nothing.  because i never gave him a brain with which to think.