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Mar. 2nd, 2006 11:24 amDear God, please don't let this degenerate into a flame war. But I really feel like I'm missing an important point somewhere, so here it goes.
Okay, call me an anti-feminist if you absolutely believe that you must (it's not true, but what am I going to do? send a cream pie through the monitor?), but I have to admit to a profound confusion regarding some of the reactions to the new law in South Dakota banning most abortions.
First of all, I've never been raped and I've never been pregnant, so I can't speak to the emotional trauma of gestating the product of such a profound violation. Can't speak to it, so I won't attempt to. Nobody would be happy with what came forth, least of all me.
However, I'm noticing a lot of people talking about how women will have to raise children they don't want, and how their lives will be ruined, and they'll be forever held back. Not all those pregnancies are the result of rape or incest.
The root of my confusion is this: When did adoption become a dirty word?
Seriously. I'm really, truly puzzled by this. I've known so many infertile couples who have literally traveled the world and waited for years in their search for a baby to adopt. You think they won't take a 7 hour plane ride to Pierre? Will a pregnant 20 year old know how to get in touch with a couple in Los Angeles or Providence? Probably not. But who's to say an agency can't reach out to the 20 year old and at least offer her the option?
What am I missing?
No, I don't think the government should be able to tell me what I should or should not be able to do with my body, but I don't think that the current trend of publicizing information on the option or possibility of overdosing oneself on birth control or various herbs to terminate a pregnancy is a good idea either. The liability alone makes my head hurt, and, oh, yeah, there's the nifty little detail that they're dangerous. Because, you know, the young women who are the primary target of all this helpful advice are so good at following the directions on their social studies midterm, let alone a close, careful reading of something they found in a book or on the internet.
I don't know how many people who read this are from or have ever lived in economically depressed, rural areas. Trust me when I tell you that these young women have been watching dreams die for a long time before they got pregnant: their mothers', their fathers', their older siblings', not to mention their own, probably before they were 14. An attempt to alleviate the despair may have been part of the reason some of them got pregnant. Maybe the underlying problems of the entire community are as important as those of its young women. Maybe all the problems are interconnected. No one exists in a vacuum. Not even a teenaged girl.
I don't know. I know I'm seeing a lot of angry people on all sides of this issue, and I don't know that any of them are getting a picture of what's going on that's any more accurate than what I'm currently struggling with. But they sure seem far more certain than I feel, and that makes me really nervous.
Okay, call me an anti-feminist if you absolutely believe that you must (it's not true, but what am I going to do? send a cream pie through the monitor?), but I have to admit to a profound confusion regarding some of the reactions to the new law in South Dakota banning most abortions.
First of all, I've never been raped and I've never been pregnant, so I can't speak to the emotional trauma of gestating the product of such a profound violation. Can't speak to it, so I won't attempt to. Nobody would be happy with what came forth, least of all me.
However, I'm noticing a lot of people talking about how women will have to raise children they don't want, and how their lives will be ruined, and they'll be forever held back. Not all those pregnancies are the result of rape or incest.
The root of my confusion is this: When did adoption become a dirty word?
Seriously. I'm really, truly puzzled by this. I've known so many infertile couples who have literally traveled the world and waited for years in their search for a baby to adopt. You think they won't take a 7 hour plane ride to Pierre? Will a pregnant 20 year old know how to get in touch with a couple in Los Angeles or Providence? Probably not. But who's to say an agency can't reach out to the 20 year old and at least offer her the option?
What am I missing?
No, I don't think the government should be able to tell me what I should or should not be able to do with my body, but I don't think that the current trend of publicizing information on the option or possibility of overdosing oneself on birth control or various herbs to terminate a pregnancy is a good idea either. The liability alone makes my head hurt, and, oh, yeah, there's the nifty little detail that they're dangerous. Because, you know, the young women who are the primary target of all this helpful advice are so good at following the directions on their social studies midterm, let alone a close, careful reading of something they found in a book or on the internet.
I don't know how many people who read this are from or have ever lived in economically depressed, rural areas. Trust me when I tell you that these young women have been watching dreams die for a long time before they got pregnant: their mothers', their fathers', their older siblings', not to mention their own, probably before they were 14. An attempt to alleviate the despair may have been part of the reason some of them got pregnant. Maybe the underlying problems of the entire community are as important as those of its young women. Maybe all the problems are interconnected. No one exists in a vacuum. Not even a teenaged girl.
I don't know. I know I'm seeing a lot of angry people on all sides of this issue, and I don't know that any of them are getting a picture of what's going on that's any more accurate than what I'm currently struggling with. But they sure seem far more certain than I feel, and that makes me really nervous.
