I am really late to the event here but today is Blog for Choice Day and so I am writing about why I feel a woman’s right to choose whether or not to maintain a pregnancy through birth is so important. It isn’t going to be very well written because I’m in a hurry but this, in a nutshell, is how I see this issue.

To those of you who are anti-choice I would ask this question. If you or your daughter or your wife or your sister or a good female friend was jumped one day or night while leaving the movies, the shopping mall, school or just sitting at home; and if that unwanted assault resulted in a pregnancy, do you really, really believe that that woman who never wanted that man’s penis in her body – who never asked to have his seed deposited where it could reach one of her eggs – should have to endure 9 months of pregnancy and then give birth to this unwanted alien? Do you really think that it is a woman’s burden to bear any baby she might conceive regardless of the conditions under which conception was initiated?

And what if it happens because her Daddy gets in her bed at night while Mommy is asleep and tells her he loves her and while sliding down her panties whispers, “don’t cry honey, daddy loves you – this is okay but it’s our little secret” while he forces his penis in her vagina? Or maybe it isn’t her Daddy – maybe it’s her Uncle Bob who is visiting for Christmas or maybe it’s just a friend of her parents. Is she supposed to be forced to have that baby? What if she is only a teenager of 13 or 14?

And what if a woman learns that her baby has an enlarged head and that the size of the baby’s head will kill the mother and the child will never have a fighting chance at any sort of life and will be dead within days of birth? Does that mother have to see it through and hope she lives to tell the tale?

Now try writing legislation that says it’s okay to have an abortion or to take the morning after pill if any of the things listed above happen but not for any other reason. Attempt to write legislation that protects women from having babies that were forced upon them or that will kill them but will make any other kind illegal.

You can’t do it. It isn’t even possible. Even if you could word the legislation correctly how do you enforce that? How can you ever really know? If rape or incest are the only legally allowed pre-conditions for abortion how many false reports of rape do you suppose will be filed? Most rapes go unreported so going to a doctor after the fact and claiming rape and making up a credible story woudn’t be that hard – and to what end?

No – the reason we must forever give women the right to choose is because it is the woman who is having the baby. You can feel horrible about terminated pregnancies. You can see it as an act against God but you who are not the woman effected by the pregnancy have no right to tell her that it is her burden as a woman to endure under any circumstance. The choice must always be hers just as it is today by order of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

I am really late to the event here but today is Blog for Choice Day and so I am writing about why I feel a woman’s right to choose whether or not to maintain a pregnancy through birth is so important. It isn’t going to be very well written because I’m in a hurry but this, in a nutshell, is how I see this issue.

To those of you who are anti-choice I would ask this question. If you or your daughter or your wife or your sister or a good female friend was jumped one day or night while leaving the movies, the shopping mall, school or just sitting at home; and if that unwanted assault resulted in a pregnancy, do you really, really believe that that woman who never wanted that man’s penis in her body – who never asked to have his seed deposited where it could reach one of her eggs – should have to endure 9 months of pregnancy and then give birth to this unwanted alien? Do you really think that it is a woman’s burden to bear any baby she might conceive regardless of the conditions under which conception was initiated?

And what if it happens because her Daddy gets in her bed at night while Mommy is asleep and tells her he loves her and while sliding down her panties whispers, “don’t cry honey, daddy loves you – this is okay but it’s our little secret” while he forces his penis in her vagina? Or maybe it isn’t her Daddy – maybe it’s her Uncle Bob who is visiting for Christmas or maybe it’s just a friend of her parents. Is she supposed to be forced to have that baby? What if she is only a teenager of 13 or 14?

And what if a woman learns that her baby has an enlarged head and that the size of the baby’s head will kill the mother and the child will never have a fighting chance at any sort of life and will be dead within days of birth? Does that mother have to see it through and hope she lives to tell the tale?

Now try writing legislation that says it’s okay to have an abortion or to take the morning after pill if any of the things listed above happen but not for any other reason. Attempt to write legislation that protects women from having babies that were forced upon them or that will kill them but will make any other kind illegal.

You can’t do it. It isn’t even possible. Even if you could word the legislation correctly how do you enforce that? How can you ever really know? If rape or incest are the only legally allowed pre-conditions for abortion how many false reports of rape do you suppose will be filed? Most rapes go unreported so going to a doctor after the fact and claiming rape and making up a credible story woudn’t be that hard – and to what end?

No – the reason we must forever give women the right to choose is because it is the woman who is having the baby. You can feel horrible about terminated pregnancies. You can see it as an act against God but you who are not the woman effected by the pregnancy have no right to tell her that it is her burden as a woman to endure under any circumstance. The choice must always be hers just as it is today by order of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

And I don’t mean me or you. My new renter is Jeremy C. Shipp of Haunted House Dressing. I invite you to go read his stories. He has an amazing way of taking the simple truths in life and repackaging them wrapped up in a fantasy. Here is a great example from his story Parsnip the Artist:

Every night before his mother could go to bed, she scrubbed his everything (but the paintings) until everything (but the paintings) returned to their original form. The boy, at the time, didn’t feel guilty about putting his mother to work, because cleaning was part of what made his mother his mother.

If you are a Mother you know that this is precisely how children think no matter how many times we yell “Why do you leave this place such a mess!” The whole story is quite remarkable. I kept expecting that it would turn out to be a shaggy dog story but no – it is not. It is simply a story that tells a truth with which we are all too familiar. Nice work Jeremy and welcome!

I have been doing a little running lately. On January 10 I ran 4 miles in 41:27 and today I ran 3 in 30:22. That’s a very respectable time for me. Of more significance is the fact that I had planned to go running, then I forgot about it and then when I saw that it was 5 o’clock I jumped up, pulled on the running clothes as fast as I could and ran out the door. It was in that moment that I felt like a real runner – like a person who actually goes for the run she thought about. That is, a runner with a commitment and not just a passing fancy. That’s a good place to be when you are gearing up to start marathon training.

Ken Lay has a new website. Ken Lay wants you to know what a great guy he is. Ken Lay has a long, long list of awards including ‘Father of the Year’. Oh wow. A man with more money than God gives some of it away and gets awards – how moving. A man who ran a company that left a lot of people who would otherwise be comfortably retired but now have to work and who didn’t even make good on its severance packages is innocent I tell you – innocent! It was all of the creepy lackies under him. He know nothing – nothing! He was too busy tossing a ball with his boy to have even the slightest inkling as to the mendacity and treachery of his entire staff. And it’s all a government plot to prove he is guilty. The are putting the squeeze on former employees to get them to testify and that’s just UnAmerican! Yeah right, that’s it.

This is supposes to make us feel bad:

Only those who have seen its teeth truly grasp the arbitrary power of the Enron Task Force to threaten, browbeat and intimidate those witnesses it may select. Should one of them dare to defend himself he is faced with intolerable legal expenses and the ultimate uncertainty of litigation which, if successful, exposes him to a life sentence in prison without parole and the probable forfeiture of all his assets. If successful, he is left with astronomical legal expenses and untold emotional damage.

Do you feel bad? Neither do I.

Ken Lay has a new website. Ken Lay wants you to know what a great guy he is. Ken Lay has a long, long list of awards including ‘Father of the Year’. Oh wow. A man with more money than God gives some of it away and gets awards – how moving. A man who ran a company that left a lot of people who would otherwise be comfortably retired but now have to work and who didn’t even make good on its severance packages is innocent I tell you – innocent! It was all of the creepy lackies under him. He know nothing – nothing! He was too busy tossing a ball with his boy to have even the slightest inkling as to the mendacity and treachery of his entire staff. And it’s all a government plot to prove he is guilty. The are putting the squeeze on former employees to get them to testify and that’s just UnAmerican! Yeah right, that’s it.

This is supposes to make us feel bad:

Only those who have seen its teeth truly grasp the arbitrary power of the Enron Task Force to threaten, browbeat and intimidate those witnesses it may select. Should one of them dare to defend himself he is faced with intolerable legal expenses and the ultimate uncertainty of litigation which, if successful, exposes him to a life sentence in prison without parole and the probable forfeiture of all his assets. If successful, he is left with astronomical legal expenses and untold emotional damage.

Do you feel bad? Neither do I.

firefox sucks. That is all….

When I started this blog I was thinking I would bestow my wisdom as a successful 21st Century Mom on all of you neophyte parents. After all, I knew! I had been there! I won! which is to say that my kids turned out very well. I was so full of myself and my innate understanding of contemporary issues and the pitfalls of 21st Century Teen angst that I wanted to take you gently by the hand and lead you to my font of light and wisdom.

Alas, I find that although I’m very much in step with what is happening, the times they are a changin’. For one thing, I had to raise my kids without benefit of a Boppy or a Bubmo seat and the baby sling thing, although ancient, is new to Western parenting (I had a snugli that required a 2 week intensive to figure out how to use and I damned near broke my kid’s arms getting them in and out. They don’t even make ’em like THAT any more – no link!) On the other hand our strollers did not cost $750, did not have latte holders and did not make it easy for us to park our kids in a plastic bucket and just carry them around (a practice I abhor). We were not tyrannized by the ‘Attachment Parenting’ brigade (I’m a natural born attchment parent but I support others in choosing whatever works for them) although the forceful La Leche Commandos could be a problem (note – I did NOT use the “N” word because the internets have taught me better), if you let them (I did nurse all 3 of my children but that was just my choice). Babies slept on their tummies because we were afraid they would choke to death in their own spit up if we put them on their backs. Little did we know we were setting them up for SIDS. 21stCentury parents have to be ever more vigilant to nocturnal death. Good thing they have those video baby monitors – we only had audio. We had far fewer vaccinations to deal with and there was nothing like the very questionable chickenpox vaccination on the market – they just got chickenpox and that was that. Certain medical/psychological issues that were known but uncommon in the late 20th Century are on the rise now. ADHD, ADD, Autism, fatal peanut allergies, just to name a few. I believe current statistics indicate that you can’t just dismiss some of these trends as being the result of new diagnostic practices although some seem to be possibly due to irresponsibly fervent labeling and over treatment.

As if all of that isn’t enough we have the Internet. Kids are serious Internet users and there is a whole new set of issues that goes with that. In the SF Chron there is a little back page piece called Public eavesdropping that had this entry the other day:

“Do you know your whole name?”
“Ethan.”
“That’s your first name. What’s your last name?”
Dot com.”
Conversation between toddler Ethan Swope and his proud eavesdropping dad, David.

Ah – those 21st Century Kids! They don’t know where the internet stops and their lives begin.

That same day the Zits comic looked like this:

And so it is – college bound kids are under tremendous pressure to perform. You would never know that from all of the bad press about how poorly the schools are preparing them and all of the “No Child Left Behind” BS. Where are those naysayers when parents are gifting their beach houses to the pre-school of their choice just so they can get on the waiting list? In any case, by the time they get to High School they know how to get help with their papers by going to Spark Notes, or even finding a suitable paper that has already been submitted for use. Teachers are forced to figure out how to keep up on the other side because if you stick with traditional learning methodologies in a technologically advanced world you just end of playing ‘who is the foxiest internet user’.

Social interactions between kids have been changed dramatically by the interent, most notably My Space and Instant messaging. There is a whole new, low risk way to test the waters of your casual acquaintances. There is a whole new way to find out that you have not been invited to parties given by people you thought were your friends. There are admissions of adoration the likes of which might have sent us to the nut house when we were high school. There are photos of our kids in various forms of undress and debauchery. There is sharing and camaraderie. There is a really easy way to nurture long distance relationships with camp buddies. Good and Bad and In Between the Internet is having a profound impact on kids lives.

So what do I really write about? Paris Hilton and my cooter. I think it might be time to get back to my original intentions.

When I said, “Set Your Cooter Free ”
I did not mean, For All The World To See

That’s as much poetry as I can ring out of this little skank

Special thanks to Lysie via C-8

When I said, “Set Your Cooter Free ”
I did not mean, For All The World To See

That’s as much poetry as I can ring out of this little skank

Special thanks to Lysie via C-8