Safe, Legal & Common

I'm pro-choice, but that label has gotten so muddled, so dampened, so infused with "I'm pro-choice BUT..." that I feel a need to clarify my position. I am PRO-CHOICE. I'm for your choice, and my choice, and my other choice. And I'm pro-abortion.
It's been two months since I had an abortion and chronicled the experience, and I haven't suffered any "post abortion syndrome" depression (because it's made up, unlike the very genuine post-partum depression,) nor have I tortured myself with fantasy visions of what my "baby" would have been like if only I'd been so "unselfish" as to bring an unwanted, unplanned, and quite probably special needs child into the world.

Every week I read stories about abortions and about abortions denied - Guess which ones makes me sadder? I was furious with the Brazilian Cardinal who excommunicated a 9-year-old girl's mother and the medical team who saved her life by performing an abortion. She was pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather (who, interestingly enough was not excommunicated. I guess raping children is more Catholic than saving them.) But at least she got to have an abortion. A 10-year-old girl in Mexico, also a rape victim, also by her stepfather, can't get an abortion because she is "too far" along - at 17.5 weeks. In the United States it wouldn't be legal for me to hire this girl as my babysitter. In Florida, it's illegal to leave a 10 year old unattended in their own home. Yet in Mexico, bastion of the Catholic faith dominated by men in dresses, she is being forced to endure pregnancy and childbirth, as surely as she was forced to endure a rapist's penis in her body.

There are two times in life when a girl or woman may choose abortion - when the pregnancy is unplanned and unwanted, or when the pregnancy is unsafe or inviable. THAT'S IT. Every other detail we want to go over from one woman's abortion story is a variation on these two themes.

Obviously, a girl who becomes pregnant due to rape is having an unplanned pregnancy. So is the girl who's condom breaks, or (properly or improperly taken) fills fail, or whose IUD falls out. So is the woman who thought she was post-menopausal, who was assured by her doctor she couldn't conceive, or who already had a tubal ligation. So is the girl who gives into pressure from her partner that "condoms don't feel good" or "I'll pull out." I don't need or have the right to know WHY your pregnancy is unplanned or unwanted. Knowing that it is is enough for me.

And what about the health of the woman? (Please, let's stop calling all potential mothers "mothers" or else we should label every baby girl ever born as a mother, and every baby boy as a father.) Nebraska is doing its part to further marginalize the health concerns of women.

Claiming that a fetus at 20 weeks can feel pain and therefore shouldn't be subject to an abortion (a claim which is not supported by science, by the way,) completely ignores the well-established fact that women can and do feel pain. Doesn't it logically follow that they therefore shouldn't be subject to a forced pregnancy and birth?

Under current law, the medical indications for late-term abortions include fetal abnormalities and the health, including the mental health, of the mother. The new law narrows the definition so that a doctor must be able to prove that the pregnancy could cause death or "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function." The law explicitly excludes the threat of suicide as a reasonable threat of death or substantial impairment.

Women's health matters. Mental health matters. Going to college, being in a stable situation, and actually wanting to be pregnant MATTER.

I've been accused of a lot of things over the past two months. I've been accused of not actually being pregnant (by a Catholic Monseigneur who will certainly never have to undergo female reproduction himself,) to getting pregnant on purpose in order to stage a publicity stunt (yeah right!) to somehow being culpable for my son's special needs. I know it must drive you bonkers that I actually was pregnant, actually did try to prevent it, and actually am not a "crackwhore" (as one commenter on CafeMom intimated, in reference to my son having a genetic disorder which causes developmental delays.)

When I stated that, for my part, health considerations played a huge role in my decision to abort, people demanded to see my charts. Complete strangers wanted to know, "What's your reason? How can I discount you? What can I do to cause you guilt over exercising your legal right to bodily autonomy? How can I minimize the pain, suffering, and probable death you may experience if you don't abort?" And I wouldn't tell them my exact medical reasons - because I didn't think it mattered. My doctors told me not to get pregnant again, and that carrying to term could kill me. That should be more than enough. But, oh Nebraska, you're making me upset people even more. I had an abortion because not having one would've killed me, and I would've been the one to do it.

I live in hormonal hell. I have one of the worst cycles of any woman I know, and the two times I was hospitalized for suicide attempts during my teens were during the days leading up to a period. Even in our faith-healing home, my mother made an exception and required me to take Pamprin (against my own brainwashed no-medicine religious beliefs) to manage my PMS. Hormonal forms of birth control have nearly killed me. I went on Depo-Provera when my son was 2 and I had access to student health services at university, to try to get rid of my horrible periods. Instead it made me suicidal (kinda like Prozac.)

I sat in my car, crying out to the god I still believed in, "Please don't let me kill myself. Please don't let me kill myself. Please don't let me kill myself" - over and over, for hours on end, for months. I figured it out fairly quickly, but had to wait 80+ days for the hormones to ebb out of my system before the fog lifted and it was one of the darkest periods of my life. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, not even my cult-leading grandmother.

Even though I was excited to be pregnant, desperately wanted my son, and am glad to be his mother now, there is NO WAY I would go through with another pregnancy, in part because there's no assurance I'd survive it. I tried to kill myself three separate times during my pregnancy with Little Man, and I contemplated it every day, even before I knew I was pregnant. The fact that I was about to become a mother had nothing to do with my suicidal depression; the fact that I was pregnant had everything to do with it.

Those of you who read my blog regularly may have noticed things started to go bad in January. I was writing less, and more and more of what I was writing about was depression, thoughts of self-harm, and how crazy I felt. Even at the time I suspected pregnancy was the culprit because nothing has made me feel so horribly bad in my life as that. I went through four pregnancy tests to get one that would read positive, because I knew pregnancy might well be the cause of my sudden and severe suicidal depression, and if it WAS the cause, there was something I could do about it.

Someone left a comment on my Abortion video last night. It read "Girls who are considering an abortion please read this message. Don't kill your baby. Go another route. Abortion wont solve your problems. If a baby is growing in your womb God put it there its yours. If you kill your baby not only will abortion be painful for you but youll feel grief and later on in life realize how you MISS your baby and wish you never killed him or her. You'll live your life in sorrow and pain and guilt... This video should not influence u. Babies have rights to!!!!!"

But here's the thing - if your problem is an unplanned, unwanted, unhealthy, or inviable pregnancy, an abortion absolutely WILL solve that problem. Brace yourselves, I'm about to say something controversial: I wish there were more abortions.

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Angie on TV & Radio

I've done several podcast appearances lately, and haven't provided any of the links (oops!) so let me amend that now.

I was on the ThinkAtheist radio show hosted by my good Twitter buddy @Synthaetica (or Synth for short) a couple of times. The February 28th episode on "The Week in Review" is here. I was also on the March 7th episode.

I was invited on Third Wave Radio and Infidel Guy, but neither show has put up the audio yet. (Sad face goes here.)

Issues for Your Tissues, hosted by Katie Vitale, did two episodes on the #livetweetingabortion issue. For the first episode, Mary Ann Sorrentino (whose slut-shaming "abortion is irresponsible but I'm a pro-choice warrior, really!" piece appeared on Salon.com) came on to explain her viewpoint and reveal her ignorance of how Twitter works. Yesterday, I was able to respond and Katie has already uploaded that audio. (Thanks Katie!)

As for mainstream media, here are my TV spots for ABC News and CNN (stupid embedding disabled by request!)

That's all for now folks!

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Pregnancy

Image via Wikipedia

As a child, I knew I'd give birth at home. I knew home birth was safer than hospital birth - why go to a hospital, full of germs and disease and people, when I could have my baby at home, delivered by my own grandmother who delivered me and my siblings and cousins? I felt quite a lot of pride at having been born at home myself, although it always bothered me a bit that no one knew exactly when I was born (especially once I hit teen years and became interested in astrology. How on earth was I going to make a star chart when all my mother knew was that I'd been born "sometime in the afternoon, between 2 and 6 probably"?)

When I found at I was pregnant at 22, I had a lot of hard decisions to make. Would I get back together with my exboyfriend I'd broken up with the day before, father of my fetus? Would we just date or would we get married? Where would I get money? How on earth was I going to tell my mother? The extra question I had was, where would my baby be born?

I knew I wasn't healthy. I'd been doing drugs with my boyfriend (which was why I left him) and I'd been suffering a particularly bad bout of anorexia. I also knew there was a good chance I was fairly far along in my pregnancy. While my periods had changed, and for the last two months even stopped, I'd assumed it was amorrhea caused by my low weight. I decided to go see a doctor, to at least see how far along I was and whether or not the fetus was healthy.

I tried applying for Medicaid for Pregnancy, but there was a funny hitch in the process: You had to have "proof of pregnancy" and apparently the stick test I'd peed on didn't count. I had to have something signed by an MD saying I was pregnant in order to get the insurance help and food stamps. Fortunately, a wonderful man by the name of Dr. Arkin was running the Peace of Mind Clinic within the local Catholic Charities office at the time. The sole purpose of that clinic was to help girls and women get their proof of pregnancy and to assist them with the Medicaid application process.

I sat in a terrible waiting room - full of posters reminding me that "When a pregnant woman drinks, she never drinks alone" and copies of What to Expect When You're Expecting. I waited in the ripped leather chair while two girls before me went into the ultrasound room. When it was my turn, Dr. Arkin's wife cum ultrasound technician cheerfully told me, "It's been a twin day today. The last two girls were having twins!* Let's see if you are, too!" This was already a dread and fear. My boyfriend's father had been born a twin (although his twin had died sometime in childhood, and he was now an only child.)

I walked into the exam room, full of trepidation. She bustled around and chatted amiably, as I stripped and put on that horrid paper gown. Her husband came in and asked me to scoot down to the edge of the of the exam table. Feet in stirrups, completely alone, and with this bubbly woman going on about the miracle of twins, I bit my bottom lip and waited.

"Oh, look," Dr. Arkin told me, "You're having a boy." I turned my head and wept for joy, relieved to only be carrying one, and already in love with the tiny life in my womb. Wow. I stared, mesmerized by the ultrasound image. There he was - head and body, limbs and even sex organs. There was nothing obviously wrong with him, and somehow he'd survived the first 4 and a half months of my ignorance and negligence. He was *beautiful*. Dr. Arkin let me know that I was 21 weeks pregnant, and that my boy would be due on August 30th, just five days after his father's birthday.

I put my pants back on and collected the ultrasound pictures, including the one where Mrs. Arkin had rather gleefully circled the image of his penis, with a label "It's a boy!" She told me, "The daddies are always proud of these" which threw me a bit. (Are mothers "proud" of the size of their daughters' labia?) We sat down in a conference room down the hall, and Dr. Arkin helped me fill out my Medicaid and Food Stamp application.

"You need to gain weight," he told me, looking at my 5'3" 104 lbs frame. "You need to gain 50 pounds, and you need to do it yesterday." That was my battle for the next four months, trying to put on and keep on enough weight to make sure the fetus' brain developed properly.

I quit smoking pot, and mostly quit smoking cigarettes. (Yeah, I snuck a few here and there, most memorably on my wedding day, early in my third trimester.) I laid off the diet sodas, energy drinks, and diet pills I'd relied on to get me through school, and dropped out of college. I changed everything about my body, from what I put into my body, to how long I kept it there (no bulimia for me, as the electrolyte imbalance that would cause could be extremely damaging to the fetus), to what size I tried to be. I dropped bad habits, bad friends, but regretfully, picked up again the bad relationship I had with my ex-boyfriend. We fought constantly, and he did all he could to punish me. Secretly, I think he was thrilled. What better way to get me back, to trap me for good, than a baby?

I tried to put off the wedding. "Let's wait till he's born and old enough to be our ring-bearer! Then it will be our whole family," I said, knowing in the hidden honest parts of myself that Ronnie was in no way prepared to be a father, and not sure how much I wanted him for a husband. But he pushed. His mother pushed. My family (except my mother) pushed. I caved.

We were married during my 7th month of pregnancy, and I felt like a walrus, waddling down the aisle in my sister's borrowed and altered wedding dress, in one inch heels that were absolutely killing my feet.** We said the vows, tied the knot (literally, the priest's sash), and I threw the bouquet. We took pictures with both our wedding ring hands resting on my domed belly, featuring our future child as an unbodied member of the wedding party.

People have this week how I could feel so differently about these two pregnancies, but really they had nothing in common. If anything, my life conditions were exponentially worse for bringing a child into the world back then than they are today. I was poor, unemployed, single, unhappy, and underweight. Yet I knew I wanted him. Also, frankly, I was so far along by the time I learned I was pregnant, optional abortion wasn't really on the table anymore.

I found out I was pregnant back then because for some reason, my weight loss platued and my goal of getting below 100 pounds suddenly seemed impossible. But the real moment of truth came, not when I took the home pregnancy test, but a day before then, when I felt something odd and firm beneath my skin (that'd be my uterus). Within 48 hours of taking the test, I felt the first kicks. Even still, I knew he wasn't a baby *yet* and that there was a good chance he might never become one.

I struggled to stay healthy, while planning a wedding (on an extremely lean budget), fighting with my fiancee, fighting with my mother, and moving three times. I didn't always win that fight, and I spent days and days in the maternity ward emergency room, on IV drips and supplements. My iron levels were low, but the prenatal vitamins with iron in them made me throw up. I was living off pizza, ice cream, and Subway sandwiches, but I couldn't keep weight on to save my life (or my fetus'). A week after my honeymoon, I went into the ER with a fever and a stomach flu, and over the course of that week I lost 10 pounds through vomit and diarrhea. I wondered if either one of us would make it out alive.

At 41 weeks, 2 days, at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Thursday, I started having contractions. We timed them at about eight minutes apart, and waited till the doctor's office was open to give her a call. Once my Medicaid was approved, I was able to start going to regular prenatal visits, and found a fantastic former-nurse OB/GYN and mother to deliver my baby. We'd picked her because she was near the hospital, and we'd picked that hospital (about half an hour away) because it had the best neonatal intensive care unit in the region. Her nurse told me they couldn't make recommendations on whether or not it was time to go to the hospital until they'd examined me, so I woke up my husband and had him ride with me to the doctor. (He had multiple DUIs from before meeting me, and didn't have a license at any point during our relationship, a secret he had me keep from my family.)

[Okay folks, sorry, but I've gotta go make dinner and do those other mommy things. My total labor took 98 hours, so I imagine writing it will take at least a few pages. I'll try to pick this up tomorrow or on Tuesday. Be sure to keep an eye out for my live appearance on CNN this Monday, 3/8/2010 at 10 am EST.]








*Clearly, HIPPA was not her primary concern that day.

** I routinely wear 4" heels without incident. Heck, I used to have a pair of 7" platforms I only wore when going out with a gay friend who was 6'9".

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Family Choices

Back in the 1960s, my Giggy fell pregnant for the fifth time. She had been married before to the father of her first four daughters, but when the last one died of a congenital heart defect as a baby, she left him because she couldn't bear the pain of being in that house or with him anymore. It all reminded her of her dead little baby.

Early during this fifth pregnancy, Giggy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her doctors recommended a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion, and her friends and family largely agreed. "Stay alive for the three daughters you already have - don't risk everything!" But she did. At 6 months pregnant, my grandmother had an emergency cesarean and hysterectomy, or as she likes to say, "I lost 20 pounds that day!"

My aunt Kelly spent the first few months of her life in an incubator, but grew up to be healthy and strong (and built like Barbie). She's a mother of three and grandmother of two now, and has been the worship leader at each church she's attended for years and years. Two years ago she started training for a triathlon and competed so well she won a super-expensive racing bike.

She is one of my favorite people, and has always been my favorite aunt. Her first child is my cousin Jason, who was practically my twin growing up. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without them. My strong love for my aunt shaped my pro-life views as an asexual child. Even though I had seen horrible pregnancies and deliveries, I believed somehow that God would make sure each baby born would be healthy and happy and in a good home.

I also somehow thought that the person my aunt was had been determined before she was born; that she was somehow the "same person" she'd been as a zygote, embryo, and fetus. And of course, I thought maternal mortality only happened when people had C-sections or gave birth in hospitals. If people would just have their babies at home under God's supervision like they were *supposed* to, clearly nothing would go wrong.

I didn't have any sort of "life begins at conception" idea, because frankly I didn't know what conception was, or very much at all about how people *became* pregnant. I don't think I was even aware of women who were pregnant in early stages: almost every pregnant woman I saw was either in or about to be in labor, so it was unquestionable to me that pregnant women had babies in their tummies (somewhere).

All this is to say - I get it. I was a fiercely pro-life little girl. I wrote a letter to President Bush Sr. as a child, begging him to overturn abortion before the election. (That whole "Supreme Court" thing was still a mystery.) By the time I got a response form letter and signed photograph, Bush had lost and Clinton was in office. I remember sitting in the backyard tearing that picture into tiny, tiny pieces. It was obvious he had never read my letter, and I was being dismissed.

I just wanted babies to be okay, and to not be killed. Since I lived in a vagina cult*, it seemed perfectly normal to me that women would want lots of pregnancies and babies. And of course, by the time I was 8, I'd heard I could never bear children of my own. The idea of someone throwing away a life, when I couldn't make one, tore me up, and I must admit a lot of my original anti-choice stance was founded on either ignorance or jealousy. I've since come to realize it is not the obligation of fertile women to provide children for the infertile.

Nothing monumental here. I'm just saying that ignorance of biology, ignoring the women, and jealousy at their ability to bear children in the face of my (supposed) inability were my reasons. I know more about the early trimesters of pregnancy now, and how few of those early zygotes and embryos even make it to the fetus stage. As a Christian, when I first became pro-choice, I theorized that the soul didn't enter the child until birth or quickening or until the brain was developed (neurology was already changing my views on the soul). Of course, I don't believe in anything like a soul these days, but I also don't believe a zygote has a personality or a guaranteed personality. So much of who we are is influenced by our brains and our environments; even with a genetic predisposition, I might never have developed OCD if I'd lived in a less hellacious home.

So, to the pro-life advocates who really are concerned about the teeny tiny babies, I can sympathize - some. But I'm not so ignorant now about pregnancy and birth. I know a lot more about the toll it can take on even the healthiest woman, and I don't think my ideology gives me the right to tell another person what to do with her own body. Yes, you can go on and on about whether or not the embryo/fetus has its own body (debateable) or what rights we have to harm another, but the fact of the matter is, pregnancy occurs within a *woman's* body. And so I think no one but that woman can say what risks she "should" be willing to take.

I support my grandmother's right to risk everything and bring my aunt Kelly into the world. I support my right to risk little, and not bring another child into the world. That's pretty much what pro-choice means: I'm for the right of women to make their *own* choices.

* Kelly's a made-up name. What? Only cult leaders don't get a say in whether I talk about them on the blog with a real name or not.

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I love my sister

I called my prolife evangelical Christian sister yesterday, to tell her about the whole "public abortion" thing before she saw it on the news. Frankly, since we're Facebook friends I thought she might already know, but somehow the *entire* thing had escaped her attention. (To give credit where it's due, she has a thriving small business, loving husband, and adorable daughter to care for, so maybe Facebook isn't where she spends all her time.) Here's what she said to me.

"Well, you know I am prolife and I'll probably cry when I get off the phone, but I love you and I'll always support you."

Go show her some love and browse the sexy costumes, wedding gowns, corsets, and custom-fit bras she's known for!

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Media Circus

Um, is it me or did the world just kinda flip its lid? Every other email calls me a whore* or a hero. An ABC News team was here a couple days ago, and the piece should air on tomorrow night's news (2/28/2010). I've done interviews, plural. A guy from the St. Pete Times talked to me for over an hour yesterday, and I'll be the lead in a larger piece on the TMI question regarding social media. (If you don't wanna read it, don't read it. Just like the rest of the internet. Why is this so hard to grasp?)

I don't think it's right to call me a hero. I think there was a lot more naivety than heroism in my initial decision to tweet this. It wasn't even that conscious of a choice - I tweet everything. I write about everything. The rewards of honesty, in terms of a personal sense of "wholeness", can't be adequately described. No one can hurt me because, everything they know is something I chose to reveal about myself. No matter what they do with that (including writing a so-far 7 post long series decrying me as an evil mentally disturbed skank, ala Jill Staneck, she in desperate need of a good lay) it's not... real.


Once I realized that taking the advice of a bunch of middle-aged unhappy divorced women (ahem, "family") on whether or not I should get married at 23 was a really stupid thing to do, I started to consider the source of feedback more seriously. There are some people in this world who's good opinion I desire - they are my son, my boyfriend, my friends (Christian, atheist, Muslim, Wiccan or Satanist). Even there, my two closest girlfriends are both somewhat troubled by my decision to abort - one because she is pregnant herself right now, and has decided to give her life a complete makeover to prepare for a child she never planned on having; the other because she is an orphan, and has always craved family. I can't fault either of them for their discomfort with my decision, and both have remained supportive to me personally, if perhaps a little distant right now.

This entire reaction has been so out-of-proportion and insane. I've written about illegal drug use, sex, spousal abuse, child abuse, crazy cult stories, personal foibles and failings, and most of all, I've talked smack about Baby Jesus. Yet the reaction was minimal. People might tell me I was misunderstanding the Bible, or else that I was going to hell, but no one suggested I should be physically hurt for my views.

Maybe coming out as an atheist, and longer ago as bisexual, set me up for false expectations. I didn't see this as being more controversial. I know several pro-choice Christians, and I assumed more people were pro-choice than atheist, for example. Abortions are really common, right? And a first trimester abortion, to save the life of the mother, that's supposed to be the kind that every reasonable person supports, right?

Wrong. Apparently I'm a murderer, a killer, a Nazi, Hitler (also, from another "prolife" advocate, I'm apparently a "dirty jew"[stet].) I've been told I made my choice when I "opened my legs", "dint giv him the brown hole[stet]" or "have dude cum on youre ugly face". People threatened my son, insulted him, called me a child abuser and told me I don't love my kid. (One threatened to call child services, under the mistaken impression, one supposes, that abortion is illegal, or child abuse.)

When people say I'm a hero for talking about this, I think they assume I knew what I was getting into. I didn't. Maybe it's because I only really started watching the news during the presidential campaign, and since the election ended, I've only watched sporadically, but I didn't expect this. I knew some people would call me a baby killer, sure. But for the first two days, before I put up my Abortion YouTube video**, I didn't think I was talking to anybody I didn't always talk to.

The media attention has been somewhat overwhelming. I'm just doing something women do everyday. Abortions aren't rare, and when they're legal, they're safe. Maybe it's because I'd spent the days leading up to my clinic visit reading ImNotSorry.net, but I honestly didn't realize that *no one* talks about their abortions. It's been pretty baffling to me, considering how many illegal things people can and do talk about every day.

I've been compared to an antebellum slave owner, a Nazi soldier, a pedophile, and a god. All because I said, "Hey, I don't wanna be pregnant anymore. I'm gonna have a (legal) abortion."

Maybe I'm naive or maybe I just can't tap into black-and-white thinking anymore like I used to. I still can't completely get my head around why people flipped their lids like this. The media are acting like what makes this story interesting is the setting, Twitter. They're missing the point. If women talked about their abortions - on TV and in books and in women's magazines and with each other, and with our significant others and friends and children - then tweeting one wouldn't be a big deal. When people say, "You shouldn't tweet about an abortion" I can't help but feel what they really mean is, "You shouldn't talk about abortion."



















* Well, actually they usually write it WHORE!!
** Since I posted this video 5 days ago, it's had over 49,000 views. What is going on with the world? 1/3 American women have abortions.

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Brief Update

Image by clockworknate via Flickr

I'm doing fine so far. I took the first pill at Planned Parenthood yesterday (with the oldest doctor I've ever seen. He must have been well into his 60s - we need more younger doctors training in this!) I can start the next pills at home (swallow 2 and let 2 dissolve in my cheeks for half an hour) as early as 3:30 pm today and as late as 3:30 pm tomorrow. I'll be doing it once Kid is in bed.

Here are a whole bunch of abortion stories, both medical (chemical) and surgical.

I'll be posting more about my story, and the other people in the clinic (with permission & changed names) later this weekend or early next week. One young couple's story was.. impressive? Horrible.

He's from Honduras, but goes to university here in Florida. She's from Guatemala. They met over winter break and fell in love (so adorable together in the waiting room.) She had to let him know by Facebook message that she was pregnant. Abortion is 100% illegal in both Honduras and Guatemala because they are Catholic countries. She tried to buy RU486 by bribing a doctor. Whatever he gave her, it wasn't what she asked for. She made herself violently sick taking all these pills, and still two weeks later hadn't bleed and still felt pregnant.

So they had to fly her to the US to get a surgical abortion. Just think about that for a minute, and think of how lucky they are that he goes to school here and that they were able to come up with the money for first the bad doctor and the bad drugs, and then for a plane ticket and a $480 abortion in the States. It absolutely horrifies me and I just looked at him straight in the eye as he was telling me this, while his girlfriend was being vacumed in the other room, and I said, "I want to find the Pope and go personally kick him in the nads."

She's 19. They are both college students, and they live on different continents. They get to decide that's not a good time to be parents, and since she doesn't *like* children, or ever want any, I think it's a good choice for them to make.

More later. Love you all. Oh, by the way, I was only 4 weeks. Which means the firs test I took that said "No" was when I was only 1 week. I'm glad I caught this so early.

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Choices

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or who I've emailed or called already know, but for the rest of you: My birth control failed, and I am pregnant. I have been in physical pain for days, and I think a certain amount of the emotional distress (read: suicidal depression & panic attacks) I've been under has been caused by hormone fluxes and my body being taken over. I can't *afford* to have all nutritional resources diverted elsewhere, and I'm not ready to be the mom of two kids.

Hell, I'll never be ready for that. I decided about ten minutes after my son was born that he was the only one in the world for me. As it became clear he had special needs, this decision cemented. I honestly believe that being an only child will be the best thing for HIM, in no small part because I feel at least somewhat capable of being a good mom to him, but not of being a good mom (certainly not a great mom) to two special needs children.

There's a list of reasons from personal (I don't want two special needs kids, sorry), to financial (remember how I already lived in a car with one kid? Imagine doing that with no car and two kids. I know I already have!), and health (I don't wanna die.) But you know what? "I don't want to be pregnant" is a *good enough* reason to get an abortion! Really & truly. "I don't want to give you a kidney" is a good enough reason not to be forced into an organ donation that would save another person's life. This is not different, and shouldn't treated as such.

This isn't a secret and this isn't something I'm ashamed of. I'm getting an abortion. It's the right move for me and for my family. And honestly, I can't wait to get it over with and get back to being the writer, speaker, activist, silly, fun, girlfriend, mom I'd like to be, instead of the pissed off incubator I currently am. This is not a child; this is a squatter which could potentially become a child. Or kill me. Maybe even both. None of those are outcomes I'm frankly interested in.

This may sound... cold? At the moment, it's hard to care what anyone else thinks. I know this is the right thing to do in this circumstance, and I won't be regretting this later. I love my son & I'm glad I have him. When I was pregnant before, I *felt* like I was carrying a baby, the little boy I had always wanted. Right now I feel like I have a tapeworm or some kind of horrible infection. Maybe the hormones aren't working right yet or maybe I'm practical.

Whatever last minute doubts I may have had were squashed by spending yesterday in a crowded room (church auditorium, actually) with 600 special needs children, during my son's school field trip. Holy crap, am I glad I'm getting an abortion!

And, just in case it needs to be stated more clearly, you guys know I'm glib but that doesn't mean I don't till feel this stuff. Put on a happy face, right? I'm not giddy about it or anything, but I'm not going to get emotionally manipulated into feeling bad that in the case of Me vs. It, I choose me.

And in case you needed to have it more thoroughly explained to you, this is what I am not willing to go through again. (And not a single pro-life man would either. They just don't have the *ovaries* for that kind of pain.)

p.s. At 6 weeks, a fetus has an eye spot, but no eye. It has the first cells which will become the heart, but no heart. It has no brain or even the beginnings of a brain. It does, however, have a tail. Tell me, is this a person? Does that 2% uniquely human DNA really make a difference in this? Also, please note the size of the scale in this picture (from BabyCenter.com) Am I really going to sacrifice my health and life, my sanity and my body for a cluster of cells (with human DNA, and the potential to grow into human life) about the size of a pinto bean? Answer: No.

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Planned Parenthood: Charity of the Month

I'm sure all my regular readers are by now aware that I grew up in a faith healing cult led by my grandmother, Carol Balizet. I was born at home, never went to the pediatrician, and never received vaccinations as a child (though I'm catching up on them now.) But when I was a teenager, and sexually active, Planned Parenthood was there for me. My parents chose to deprive me of medical care, but thanks to Planned Parenthood's Teen Clinic program, I was able to get free annual PAP smears, comprehensive and confidential STD testing, and birth control. When I was 17 and had a miscarriage, they helped me deal with it, physically and emotionally. Last year I went back to get the 12-year non-hormonal IUD (because pregnancy is no fun.)

For many low-income women, Planned Parenthood may be the only access to healthcare they have, and their distribution of low-cost and free birth control has undoubtedly helped to reduce the number of children born into poverty here in the United States. They are fierce advocates of abortion rights and access, and work to combat attacks on womens reproductive rights. They fight for comprehensive sex education in schools, and also often offer sex education classes at their clinics. (I fully intend on taking Little Man to Planned Parenthood for one of these classes when he reaches puberty.) Planned Parenthood fights for global access to reproductive health and choice for women around the world.

Especially for my male readers, who may not be as familiar with the great work Planned Parenthood does, you can learn more on their Issues page. To get involved with political action in the interests of womens health and reproductive freedoms, you can go here. Currently they are working on keeping the abortion rights ban out of the universal healthcare bill. You can also donate to Planned Parenthood online or by phone.

You can sign the petition to tell Pres. Obama and others you want abortion and reproductive health needs to be covered under health reform here. If you're unable to donate your money (like me! Poverty's no fun), please consider donating your time and your physical size. Men, especially, can help by being escorts at either Planned Parenthood or other abortion facilities. This is one of the most compassionate things you can do to protect the rights and health of women, as well as pissing off the fundamentalist Christians and Catholics. :)

After all, when we don't stop those who would take away reproductive choice, this is what they do to our sex education:

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Aiding and Abetting

I just talked with a young friend of mine, and gave her the number to the local not-for-profit abortion clinic. I don't even know whether or not to post an abortion topic because it'll just draw all the trolls out like chum for the sharks. And yet.

I've never had an abortion. By the time I found out I was pregnant with my son I was already past 24 weeks. Also, I have always wanted a son, and was told at an early age I'd never have children. I love my son completely, but I won't require any other woman to complete a pregnancy or raise a child. Just because some of us rise to the challenge, and have the requisite tools (mentally, personality-wise, community resources, friends, family, and finances) it does not mean that every unplanned pregnancy must be carried to term.

I'm with Obama on that the goal should be reducing unplanned pregnancies. Birth control, condoms, latex-free condoms, female condoms, sponges, spermicides, and foams, oh my! Can't remember to take a pill everyday? Get a patch once a week. Or a ring once a month. Or a shot once every three months. Hormonal birth control drives you crazy? Look into physical barriers like condoms. Or, my personal favorite, the 12-year non-hormonal IUD. It is the perfect birth control for the lazy, the crazy, or the one-night-standy (but in that case, you should double up with condoms also). Also, you don't have to worry about a fundagelical pharmacist refusing to fill your prescription. Tired of birth control always being the woman's issue? Have your guy get a vasectomy. Just prevent unwanted pregnancy while you're getting your happy, groovy freak on.

Abortions are legal and they should be. This girl is 18 years old, with more than one mental disorder diagnosis, a physically abusive father (he's a preacher), a physically abusive mother, a brother in jail for raping her (trial upcoming), and a boyfriend who just went away for a very long time. She periodically attempts to kill herself through drug overdose. She starts her senior year of high school next week. She has so many problems, and she's just starting to address them. She has a lot of healing and growing up to do before she should even think of having children. She's my friend and I care about her, but I think she would be a terrible mother at this point, regardless of her good intentions or emotions.

She called a "pregnancy and abortion info" number. She was trying to find out where she could schedule a procedure, but they told her she had to come in for counseling before they would give her the number of a clinic. "We want to talk you out of it first." Without knowing her or anything about her situation, her physical and quite serious mental problems, these people were going to advise her on the what could the biggest decision of her life? I took her in for over a month earlier this summer when she was hiding from her abusive, pastor father, immediately after her brother raped her. That doesn't give me ownership or a vote over what she does with her body, but it gives me a proven track record as being someone who actually cares about HER as a person, not as a vessel for someone else to be born of.

So, fundy trolls, tell me how evil I am and how your god says I should suffer. But first, please show me one single verse in the bible that actually says god doesn't like abortion. It's not in there, but god ordering abortion and infanticide is. So back off. Abortion is legal - we won. Get over it. And stop with the bloody violence.

And if you're pro-choice, really be pro-choice. Don't judge a friend if she makes a choice you wouldn't. Fight for poor womens' access to birth control and abortions, and volunteer your time or money to your local abortion clinic.

Planned Parenthood.org is a pretty good place to start.

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