Pro-choice & Uncomfortably Angry....

My feelings about abortion are complicated.

Basically, I believe it’s a personal choice for the woman involved and the only other people she needs to take into account in reaching her decision might be her significant other and support network. I don’t think the state should have the right to force anyone to carry a pregnancy they don’t want, for whatever reason they don’t want to continue the pregnancy.

However, when I say pro-choice, I mean choice, yea or nay. My personal decision was to see that the service was available, but not to preform them myself. I had the option and the opportunity to learn how to do the procedure while I was in my training. I declined. Just as I am uncomfortable with anyone making a choice for the woman/couple involved, I’m uncomfortable with having to provide that service myself.

All that said, I’m so bloody angry with conservative lawmakers who’re bending over backwards to force women to continue with pregnancies no matter what. Angry enough, that for a moment I regretted my personal decision not to provide that service myself. Georgia just became another state to pass and sign a ‘heartbeat’ bill. No abortions permitted after 6 weeks.

I’ve been thinking much about a good friend in the Pacific Northwest and his difficult family situation.

In his late 20s, “Ed” partnered with a man who had partial custody of his young daughter. Ed’s partner eventually became his husband and with that Ed officially became a stepfather. At 13, they became “Anna’s” primary custodial parents, when Anna’s mom’s living situation became untenable for her to be the custodial parent. Anna has had some major mental health issues, including several bouts of self harming and her participation in school has been less than sterling.

Several months ago the child entered a boarding vocational program that would give her a high school diploma. Within the month she was pregnant. She’s stopped her psychiatric meds, and is determined to continue the pregnancy. Did I mention she’s still a dependent minor? And the boy in question is younger than she?

To me this sounds like a recipe for disaster. Both Ed and his hubby are now working full time; they have to. Neither are particularly well paid. Neither of them are in a position to become a full time parent, nor is Anna’s mother. This young woman isn’t prepared to take care of herself, let alone an infant. Ed and his husband did what they could to get the girl onto contraception, and despite it all, they’re now likely to be faced with becoming the primary caretakers of an infant around Xmas. Ed had been pushing for a long term contraceptive method, but since the girl is needlephobic, neither depoprovera nor an implant got prescribed. Ed felt particularly discounted as a parent by the healthcare providers, when decisions were being made as to what method they were going to give her. He was told it’s her body. His thought was, “yeah, but she’s our kid!” And now he and her father are going to face parenting an infant if or more likely, when their daughter, the child’s mother, falls on her face yet again.

Should this young woman come to her senses change her mind, where they are, she will be able to legally and easily terminate the pregnancy. In a third of the country, not so much and it’s soon to be even worse.

A lack of diversity.....

I went to the hardware store today. I had 2 screen doors to repair and paint to pick up.

On arrival, there were just 2 cars I think in the section of the lot I parked in. Thirty minutes later, hardware and paint in hand, I came out to a gaggle of white cars. That section of the lot, not far from the entrance by the way, had 19 cars in it, all white. WTF?

I drive a white Prius V. I started walking towards a white Toyota Highlander, then realized I was in the next row over. I would have shot a pic, but I’d left my phone in the car. By the time I got to my Prius, two cars had pulled in, one red, the other grey.

Integration.