Thursday, July 03, 2014

Rant. Possibly a tirade. And not one bit funny.

This is a rant. Possibly a tirade.There may be factual or legal errors. There may be errors in thought or logic. And it's not my best piece of writing. I don't care. I am too tired and angry to care right now. 

This little headline stopped me cold: "Abortion clinic buffer zones hold back love." I didn't feel any better as I continued on to read on: "It’s naive to believe that women walk into abortion clinics knowing all their options."

The kindest response I can muster to this author is to toss her words back: "It's naive to believe that women walk into abortion clinics NOT knowing all their options." And the more truthful response? How incredibly insulting, to assume most women seeking an abortion need to receive the "advice" proffered on a sidewalk by a total stranger who knows nothing, NOTHING, about that woman or her life.  

Yes, there are a few wonderful people in the world who would help support a woman and her child, should she choose to keep that child rather than have an abortion, just as the author notes. And there are families who would love to adopt adorable newborns. 

(Of course, do note that there is a small but continuous rise in US children being adopted out of the country, as apparently US parents prefer white infants to children of color. So I guess that rescue offer only applies to lighter pigmented little ones.) 

In the end, however, that mother will be solely response for this child. Not the kind, grandmotherly buffer zone advice profferer, not the Republicans who continuously vote to take away social safety nets that might otherwise support a mother, not the father who at most will be required to give his statutory duty--give money, rather than time or homework assistance. 

How dare you, ANYONE, tell her a woman cannot or should not avail herself of a legally offered medical procedure? How dare you think that you know better than she whether or not being a mother at this particular junction of her life is the best option for her--or her baby? How dare you suggest that carrying her baby to full term and giving birth is more important than her life? 

A woman's life is just as important as the life of the child (fetus, embryo, egg) within her. She should be encouraged to use all of the safe and legal tools we now have available to us in developed countries to determine when--and if--she wants to have a child. And then, if she decides to raise that child, she damn well better put that child's well-being in front of her own--as should the child's other parent, society and government! 

When are we going to stop punishing women for the horrible crime of having sex and accidentally getting pregnant with the life sentence of being charged with raising of a child that they do not want or are not capable of raising or emotionally equipped to give up for adoption? 

I am very tired of the world thinking that it knows better than me, as a woman, what I should do with my body and my life. 

I am very tired of the United States government and rich people who run corporations knowing that certain types of birth control are wrong for me, my body and my daughter's body. 

I am very tired of the constant double standard imposed by the above entities, allowing old men to take little blue pills paid for by conservative corporations to keep poking women who then can't get a simple birth control method like an IUD to prevent pregnancy. 

Stop it.