Cluster!

Ok. So. Arizona is run by a bunch of old, white people who stick their noses in everyone's business. There are two issues that I HATE with every fiber of my being. One, there is no protection for homosexuals. In this state you are not allowed to be discriminated against based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Sexual orientation is not included. You can get fired for being gay, a lawyer can choose not to defend you because you're gay, you can be denied service because you're gay, etc. Recently this has been brought up again in the news, the paper, etc. There is a new Governor, a Mrs. Jan Brewer who is a conservative. Anyway. This is not what this entry is about, although it is something that I am very actively (quietly, oh so quietly, but very actively) working against, along with a couple of groups of people. I am lucky to work in a place that values me as a person, and doesn't base my job on who I'm dating. There are many people who don't have that benefit.

This entry is about women. This entry is about the bone-deep absolute RIGHT that women have to make decisions regarding their bodies. That's right everyone, ABORTION! Now, to be clear, abortion is legal here. In the town I live in, surgical abortion is not an option. But it is in Phoenix. While it's legal, though, there are a LOT of people who are very upset about it and fight it all the time.

The old Governor, Janet Napolitano, who moved to be the United States Secretary of Homeland Security vetoed every abortion paper that came to her desk. Thankfully. However, Governor Brewer is conservative and the people in Arizona have started jumping up and down and throwing bills and laws and ideas at her, in hopes of gaining her conservative signature.Jan Brewer is 80 million years old and is an active member of Life in Christ Lutheran Church in Peoria. There is nothing wrong with that, and I've read some things that Brewer has done that aren't half bad. But as a woman, I have no respect for her.

I used to work at an abortion clinic in Chicago. A regular Saturday was 60-70 patients. In one clinic, in one city, on one day. There were always protesters outside, protesters that would spit on women walking in (regardless of the fact that they could have been there for any number of things), protesters that would throw bibles and call fourteen year old girls cunts. There was one protester that I got along with. We both obviously knew the other's point of view, but instead of him hurling ugly words and judgement and me ducking and covering my head, we would talk on my breaks. He protested because he was against it. But he protested the act, not the woman.

The House today passed HB2564. (click here to read.) This states that a woman has a twenty-four hour waiting period before she can get an abortion. In that twenty-four hour period, she has to, if she's a minor, get a parental consent form notarized and then she has to be told, in person that the father of the child is liable for support, that medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and postnatal care if they decide against the abortion, that public and private agencies can assist the woman before and after she has the child, and she has to be told the "probable anatomical and physiological characteristics" of the "unborn child."

As for the things that they are forced to be told, I will comment on the "probable anatomical blah blah blah" in a moment. But the first part? This right here is why, even had McCain won me over in other areas, I could not ever have voted for him. His little speech on the "courage of the woman and the compassion of society" regarding women who keep their children, well, hi. I'm Melissa, and I kept my daughter. Am I courageous? To keep a child at eighteen, to stop drinking on my own, with no help or medical assistance, to move across the country to escape the violent and scary atmosphere her father provided, to move away from everything I know and love to give her a chance at a better life, to risk having a baby with FAS, to go to college and pay for it by myself, and everything else. It's not often that I get on any high horse about my life, because I think I have no place to be there. But. When it comes to this, I will absolutely speak out. Was i courageous? Or was I stupid but hopeful? I think it was the latter, personally.

This compassion of society that McCain spoke so passionately about? Where the fuck is it? Is it on the faces of the people at the grocery store? How about in the "care" provided by the hospitals? Or the looks from the other parents? Or the social conservatives who look down on my bicycle, from their nice cars? Or is that passion in the medical care that is provided for my daught- oh, wait! She doesn't have health insurance! I work a full-time job and am in the working poor class, the class that doesn't qualify for assistance but can't afford private insurance or bills. I'm a full-time student who is guaranteed not to get pregnant again, who is not abusing the system, is not receiving welfare, and is working her ASS off every single day to give her baby girl the best that she can, and to improve my own life, and to reach out to others, and I can't afford health insurance for my three-year-old. So is that were that compassion is? Or wait, is it the compassion coming from the child support department? The one that, despite several addresses, phone numbers, and other various methods of contact, just couldn't locate Emily's father? The system that, after forty-seven calls in one week STILL did not get back to me? That must be the compassion. Yeah, that must be it. Right?

There is no societal compassion. None. I love my life, but I would be lying if I said that it is an easy one, or a fun one, or a normal one. I am very fortunate in my friends, as I have found a group of people that make life better. I have met more courageous women in my time living in family housing than I could possibly name, and their stories are screaming in my head right now. I think we're all good women, doing our best. But what about the women that can't pull it off? Abortion was not the choice for me, but it is a necessary choice. I think that abortion is an inevitable thing in human life. It has been happening since the dawn of time and for that option to be so severely restricted, which in my opinion is a step towards making it illegal, is absurd.

Who do these lawmakers think they are? These old men with no womb, no understanding of the struggle that is associated with raising a child, more often alone than not, these men with no grasp on the realities of being young, alone, and pregnant. Who are they? Have they ever walked in to a public aid office on the southwest side of Chicago? I did. I was the only white girl there, and after a three hour wait, I got told that it's totally OK to keep smoking during pregnancy, even pot. Yeah. Quality care, huh?

Most women who have come to the conclusion that abortion is the way to go, for whatever reason, have not come to that decision easily. And for that woman who has made that choice, you know, the woman with four children and one job, or the girl that got raped by her boyfriend, or the girl whose condom broke, or how about the nine year old girl whose father raped her? Or what about a less drastic circumstance, the girl who partied a lot and made a mistake. How about that girl, the one addicted to alcohol that works at a hot dog stand? The girl who woke up from drunken stupors to realize, hey, you fucked me last night? How about that girl?

Those girls, those women should not be SHAMED in to keeping a baby. They should not, after all of the mental anguish and deliberation with their parents, their boyfriends and husbands, their sisters and their God, they should not have some pompous asshole telling her, well, ma'am, are you sure about this here abortion? Because that there BABY has toenails you know, and do you want ta' see it's head? Cuz it's damned cute. NO.

The goal is to lower abortion rates. But what about the suicide rates? The infanticide rates? The creation of welfare sluts, because the state will be TELLING women that they'll be taken care of as long as they keep their babies? What about depression and neglect?

There is so much wrong with this. The vocabulary in this state is the first thing (conception here begins when the sperm meets the egg, and it is considered a child, not a fetus), and then beyond that, forcing women to hear things that aren't true, telling a woman that she'll be OK, that she'll have help, that she'll be taken care of and so will her baby. And then when her child is eighteen months and she's staring at her fridge full of ketchup packages and oatmeal, she'll cry. Or when her child is two and cant get her vaccinations, she will feel like a failure and will hate the world, or when her child is three and she can't afford new shoes when her child cries about her feet hurting, she'll realize that EVERYONE FUCKING LIED TO HER. That woman is me. I have more experience than a lot of women my age, and I am the oldest of several children, so I had some clue. What about the women that don't? What is the state going to do with the women that they fucking create?

I love my daughter and I don't ever, for one second, ever regret my decision. Emily saved my life. I think we were meant for each other in a way I am hard pressed to explain. However, shame and misinformation is not the way to lower the abortion rate. Prevention should be the goal. education about safety, education about resources available in cases of rape, education about the importance of education, these are the things we should be focusing on. The state should be focusing on teaching responsibility for actions and should implement teaching techniques that prevent unsafe sex, to lower the PREGNANCY rate. The abortion rate will go down if the pregnancy rate goes down. How can the state expect the pregnancy rate to go down when they're telling women, hey! We'll take care of everything, and if we can't, well that's what your babydaddy is for!

For women that do make the decision to terminate a pregnancy, it is important that she has the resources to safely do it and the help and education to make sure it never happens again. She needs gentle and loving hands to guide her through one of the worst moments of her life, she needs to be told that it is OK to grieve and that her body will heal. It is not a good thing, and it should be avoided at all costs. But. It is necessary.

I think it's time for these people, whoever these people are behind their desks, need to get over thinking that my uterus is their business. I think they need to come see what it's like to be a young, single mom. I think that children need to mean more than a political platform, that they need to be more than an easy way to win votes and that these higher-ups need to remember the children after they're out of the womb.

I AM SO FRUSTRATED. I'm sorry for the rantiness of this. I'm sorry, because this is not a political blog, but this issue is so important to me. How can I raise my daughter to think she is free and privileged, when she can't even make a decision about her body without the law stepping in? How can I live in a country that doesn't understand this?