this woman’s work

When it comes right down to it, I vote primarily on the issue of choice. I’m a pro-choice, pro-reproductive rights, pro-sex ed voter because I don’t see how I can be a woman who cares about women and vote otherwise. I don’t see how I can be an adoptive mother who cares about adoption reform without supporting abortion rights. I don’t see how I can be a mother by birth and not understand the toll that an unwanted, unplanned and unsupported pregnancy can take on a woman.

I care about the war and the environment and education and the economy (boy howdy) but the issue that is most important to me is choice period.

So it’s hard for me to understand women who feel otherwise. I just don’t get it. You want to stop abortion? Quit cutting social services. Stop eliminating support for single mothers and teen mothers and families who are struggling. Make birth control more effective and more available. (Remember McCain thinks vaigara should be covered by insurance but not birth control.) Work to bring better sex education to the schools and while you’re at it, set up a daycare there for the teens who get pregnant anyway. (Because it sure looks like whatever we do, some teens will get pregnant anyway.) 

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be against abortion but refuse to do the things that you need to do to make abortion less needed.

But even if all of those prorgrams were in place, I’d still vote on pro-choice issues because ultimately the decision about whether or not to be a parent needs to lie with the woman facing the positive pregnancy test. Only she knows whether or not she’s ready, willing and able to make the sacrifices it takes to be a parent. Anyone reading my blog knows that adoption isn’t the easy-out for any unhappily pregnant women. 

We deserve access to ALL of our options. We can have our own conversations with God (as we understand him/her/it). We don’t need the government intervening for us.

My rules (not your rules — my rules):

1. I only write about something for as long as it’s fun/interesting to write about. I reserve the right to stop at any time and ignore certain issues for the sake of my sanity.

2. Generally I don’t debate with folks on the other side of the aisle. It’s one thing to get into a friendly if heated discussion with someone who’s values are mostly mine but it’s quite another to get into it with someone who lives on another planet. It’s not worth the raised blood pressure for either of us so I reserve the right to skip it.

3. On this blog, I’m personally blogging. I’m not trying to share a level-headed, reasonable view of the issues — I’m writing what I think in a way that I wouldn’t if this were an official op-ed column or I was a talking head on television. My standards are lower; I reserve the right to go there.

I’m nervous/excited/terrified/hopeful about this election. My emotions are running pretty high so I’m going to try to not let my blog run away without me. I want Obama to win so bad I can taste it. I’m scared about the supreme court. I’m scared about losing my reproductive rights.

And this is why I think Bristol Palin’s personal life has become a part of the discussion and why I have issue with her mother riding on her back in her effort to get to the white house. It’s one thing for McCain to sell out a teenager; it’s another thing for that teenager’s parents to do it.

Compare the candidates’ positions on sexual education (ganked from Momocrats):

It is simple, Sarah Palin and John Mc Cain support only “abstinence based sex education programs”, while Barack Obama and Joe Biden support “sensible, community-driven education for children because, among other things, he believes it could help protect them from pedophiles. A child’s knowledge of the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching is crucial to keeping them safe from predators.” Get that folks, age appropriate science based information that keeps kids safe. Materials that have been created by public health educators are used all over the country and have been proven to work. When more than half of the STDs and HIV in this country is contracted by people under the age of 25, comprehensive sex education is a must…. More over, most sex education programs have opt-out options. If a parent is opposed, then they can pull their child from the program.

Conservative defined “morality” (i.e., sexual politics and not morality like I define it, which would be about helping the less fortunate) is a central issue of this election. If a 17-year old Chelsea Clinton showed up pregnant during her mom’s run or her dad’s run, the religious right would have eviscerated her even though she would also be living her parents’ “right to choose” values (as we can argue Bristol is living her parents’ “right to life” values). And I’d have just as many bad feelings about the Clintons if they ran knowing their daughter would be ripped apart by the public. It’s wrong to make Bristol live her private crisis publicly but it’s even more wrong to make her a martyr/hero for the cause.

I think that they chose Sarah Palin in part because of her son Trig and her daughter’s pregnancy. I think this is part of the campaign strategy. They are making them the poster family for anti-choice rhetoric. Look — they have right there in their family two of the pro-choice arguments in Trig’s presence and Bristol’s decision to marry her boyfriend and raise the baby. I’m glad the women both had choices. Contrary to popular belief, the pro-choice mindset isn’t that every “imperfect” pregnancy is a failure but that every woman has a right to consider her options and make the decision that best suits her values and her circumstances. I’m glad Trig is here. I congratulate Bristol and am happy she has her family’s support and that they haven’t shipped her off to the Crittenton home. I am angry that the Republican candidates don’t support my right to make different choices.

But the biggest issue for me is that there’s no way Sarah Palin is prepared to step into office if anything should happen to John McCain. NO WAY. And having her step away from the presidency scares the hell out of me.

I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next sixty-something days. My head may explode.

Now I’m off to all day meetings with no email breaks! (What?! No email breaks? My head really MAY explode!)

Attention people dropping by who haven’t read my blog. On this blog you will not find support for the following myths:

1. Adoptive parents aren’t more privileged — they’re just more deserving.
2.  First parents are by definition irresponsible.
3. Women who are too young, too old, too poor, or too single make bad parents.
4. There is no such thing as adoption loss.
5. The adoption industry is just, fair and equitable.

Got it? Comments that argue any of this will go through (I don’t moderate anything but spam and once I deleted some guy who had some ugly things to say about Jewish people) but you’re wasting your time if you think you’re going to be changing any minds.

I left this in response to an ignorant comment (scroll down at your own risk): Privilege is “a special advantage or immunity or benefit not enjoyed by all.” My privilege as an adoptive parent is unearned. I am not better than my daughter’s first mother; I am luckier.

If we had to “earn” babies based on the rules (as Andrea, the commenter, describes these socially constructed ideals) I would not have any. I had sex very young, fairly often, with a number of different men before I met my husband. I didn’t happen to get pregnant until after I was married but only because my birth control (when I used it) didn’t fail. Sheer luck. I was less responsible that my daughter’s first mother and frankly quite a bit sluttier. The difference? She is more fertile. It’s damn unfair that her reproductive life is open to censure when she was more responsible and more discerning than I was. Lucky me, I get to hang the “good woman” sign around my neck because people mistakenly believe that I earned her baby. Listen, that homestudy ain’t all that hard to pass. What — some fingerprinting? A doctor’s approval? Signed checks?

I didn’t work harder; I got luckier. LUCKIER. That’s it. (My infertility saved my ass because seriously — ask my mother. I was sleeping around.)

You can’t look at any woman who had an unexpected pregnancy and assume ANYTHING about her or her behavior except that at some point she had sex. You cannot assume she did it willingly. You cannot assume she did it unprotected. Besides which, so what if she did? It doesn’t say a damn thing about her ability to parent.

Let’s play fair on this blog. I will promise not to lump every adoptive parent in with the predatory pedophiles who use adoption as their own means of procuring children and commenters like misguided Andrea can promise to quit making out like any woman who placed a child got the grief that she deserves.