abortion

I am as pro-choice as a human being is ever going to be.  Nobody can prove when life begins. No one.  Any human's right to control what goes on inside their own bodies -- what does a right to privacy possibly mean if we don't have a right to determine what happens inside our own bodies?!! No rights, that what it means if society can make women carry cells to childbirth in their bodies if they don't want to.

I also happen to think it is very possible to avoid almost all unwanted pregnancies, except in rape.  Having said that, I acknowledge a gal I used to swim with when I lived in Mountain View, CA. She solemnly told me that while she was on birth control pills, she got pregnant twice and the second time, she and her husband decided to abort. They already had four kids by then.  I believed her story, because she sure spoke convincingly. Now I am wondering if her ob/gyn might have prescribed a different birth control pill? there are different ones. I won't deny that woman the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Ideally, there should be no abortions  I was sexually active for ten years without using the pill and without getting pregnant.  It is possible.  It is possible for women to get to know their bodies, to consciously pay attention.  I got so I literally felt it when my body ovulated. I counted my cycles carefully. I knew when I was fertile and I didn't have sex, or I used a condom and spermicide -- mostly I just waited until my fertile flow days had passed. Yes, this blocked out a week to ten days a month when I could not fuck like a rabbit but, hey, I'm not a rabbit. and I dont fuck.   I make love.

I do not have sex these days, age 59 to procreate.  I have sex to express deep love and intimacy.

So.  Educate young people about sex, hand out condoms liberally , make birth control easy and affordable, and support young people to (1) not have sex without committed love and (2) if they are going to have sex without committed love, use contraception.  My plan won't prevent all unwanted pregnancies  See the above 'pregnant on birth control pills' story.

I sincerely believe thats of educatio about sex and preventing babies can prevent most unwanted pregnancies,

Now to the crazy drive to deny women abortions when raped, Bullshit, I say, No one has a right to make that call but the woman carrying an egg in her uterus that was fertilized by a rapist.  This is a black and white issue,

Now I want to tell you about a labor and delivery nurse I knew 30+ years ago. Denise. I did not know Denise very well.   Her husband had gone to prep school with my husband and we socialized in the same crowd of guys that had grown up together, gone to the same prep school and were all young marrieds having babies.  Denise had several babies by the time I met her and she worked full time so she did not have a lot of time to socialize with me.  I liked her. A lot. But we never really bonded,

Dennis did this thing that she never talked about.  She and her husband had bought an old, fixer-upper house that they seemed to pour endless money into and it still seemed like a dump. But she loved her house. And man, she loved kids. And, gosh, she loved being a labor and delivery nurse

I took my lamaze classes with her and wished she could have been my delivery nurse but I had my baby at another hospital, probably cause of health insurance.

 Anyway, Denise had a crowded house in perpetual renovation mode, three kids, a spacey husband and a very busy life. Still, most of the time, a young pregnant woman would live with her, have the baby, give it up for adoption and go back to her life in someo other town  Denise talked about these young women, all of whom had been raped and found out they were pregnant.  Denise never once suggested she opened her home to those women so they wouldn't have abortions. If Denise was anti-choice, and I believe she pretty much was, she never said so,

And our whole crowd was very Catholic. The prep school all our guys had attended was Jesuit I was raised Catholic, going to Catholic school K-12 but I was and forever shall be rabidly pro-choice.    I liked /denise back then but I love her more now.  She quietly took in women whohad been raped to suport their choice to give those babies life.  If someone is going to be anti-choice, be ati-choice like denise was. She loved those women, let them live with her for free, fed them if they needed food -- although she would take money if they could contribute to her household financing, which was alwys tight, I think, / Denise was often having those parties where the ostresss venefits if people buy stuff and all us gals would go to the parties with strict instructions from our husvands to spend,

I wish when the raging repugnuts like Paul Ryan talk about not allowing abortion even in the event of rape would talk aout what they might offer women who conceive in a rape. Would these popliticians open their homes to the pregnant women, giving them rooom and voard to save the baby? Would they provide for the baby after its born Help the forceed-into-motherhood mother back into the workforce, or back to her life? Do this anti-choice lunatics offer any help to women impregnated by rape?

Maybe Denise just let raped pregnant women live with her for free cause she was a good person. She was definitely a good person, but I suspect she was anti-abortion.  I have much respect for the quiet, humble way she did what she could to prevent abortions,  She helped humans in need, she did it humble and with no fanfare.  Somehow I don't see Paul /rayn r that Mourduck lunatic running for the senatae or thst looonie tunes Atkins opening their home to a pregnant rape victim.

love does not admit impediments

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
by William Shakespeare, of course

So, what do you think? Is this a homage to romantic love or 'love'? Waiting for the cross walk light to change as I headed to my farmers market, I experienced an embodied awareness of "loving beyond all impediments" that was thrilling. I slipped into the golden tunnel, which is the phrase I use to represent a state of love/bliss, when everything upon which my being lights is radiant with love. And I am pure love, a light being, floating. As I sailed down the sidewalk, through the market, and back home, I felt like I was floating a few inches above the ground, for I had undergone a shift into a lighter experience of being. I got it. I got that any impediments to loving other beings is entirely within me. I falter in being loving. When I falter, I look for what is wrong with the other person. There is never anything wrong with the other person.  I know, too well, that many (most?) slip into thinking there can be, there is, something wrong with the other but this is pure fallacy. Pure delusion.  Even a serial killer is a creature of love. It is not my work to find fault with a serial killer or, even, Hitler. It is my work to see the creature of love that exists in all beings. Every human is always love; sometimes humans are asking to be loved past the illusion that they are not lovable, and serial killers would fit that category. I get why people can say "I would love you even if you did despicable things". The despicable things are illusion, ego mired in physical reality.  I got that any time I do not see other beings as radiant loving energy, the failure to love is within me. The blocks to love are from within me and only within me.  When I fail to see other beings as creatures of love, I am failing to project love.

An old lesson I have learned before. An old lesson I need to keep learning. Any failure to see love is my failure and mine alone.