Y’all. I can’t. I just can’t. In the wake of what’s going on with the alt-Reicht and the inauguration and setting our clocks back 70 years, I’ve had enough. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs and beyond with the utter bullshit about abortion.
Let’s talk Planned Parenthood. Only 3% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions. 97% of what they do do is sexual health, regular contraceptive birth control, and general health care. They offer women pap smears and exams and safe places to get birth control when they have no other medical providers. To shut that down over abortion means that you’re shutting out care for MILLIONS of women, some who likely have the same stance on abortion as you.
Fine, abortion isn’t the choice for you. That’s OK. It wouldn’t be the choice for me, either. Of course, given that my husband has had a vasectomy, it’s not something I have to worry about any longer.
But I know how it could have been me that would have to sit there and think through this choice. In fact, I almost did once, when I realized I got accidentally pregnant while in a less-than-ideal situation. Birth control pills are not 100%. I didn’t realize I was pregnant. I had alcohol – a fair amount of it – because it was the holidays, after I was already, cluelessly, more than a month along.
In spite of continuing the pills until I realized something was awry and the alcohol, I kept him. I felt the risk was low. I was relatively ready to be a parent.
Some of you would say I should have had no choice in whether or not I should have kept him. He’s a life. My own life and what I care to do with it? It doesn’t matter. I’m just a walking vacancy sign. I’m just life support for whatever deposit a man might make there, whether I’m willing or not. If I’m not responsible enough to not get pregnant, I should be forced to carry it anyway.
Fucking stop for a minute. If you say I’m irresponsible for getting pregnant on the pill with my own husband, and drinking at a Christmas party when I had no idea I was pregnant? If you think I’m a slut who should have kept my legs closed because sex is somehow shameful? Fuck you. You’re an ignorant dillhole, and it shows. And you’re obviously not pro-life. You’re anti-woman. You’re not giving a shit about the child.
Not. One. Bit.
What happens if people were actually BEING responsible, but they can’t afford a child. Who cares for the child then and makes them fed and educated and cared for? Does the thought of a child being passed around to whoever can look after it, with absentee parents working 12 hour days on part time jobs not wrench your heart at all? Would it if you knew that maybe sometimes the child was left home alone?
What if the child is GENUINELY not wanted? Would it not hurt your heart to think that perhaps this life you forced to be born would be snuffed by abuse or neglect, and after there’s absolutely no question they’re thinking, reasoning beings?
Oh, but the foster system, you might say. Do you know how awful the system is? There’s so many people who want these kids but for the wrong reasons. And then what happens to them? Would it not hurt your heart to think that this child is only someone’s income and otherwise ignored? Would it not hurt your heart to think that someone might be sexually abusing them?
You say a it’s a child. But you mean it’s a punishment. A jail with a heart beat and feelings.
It’s not a child’s responsibility to pay for the sins of the parent, you say.
But that’s exactly what you’re doing, because whatever comes after they exit the womb might very well be punishment to them for merely existing. Why do you care so much less about the children who smile, walk, and talk… and look in your eyes?
When you say a child is a punishment, what you’re clearly doing is forgetting that this life you’re claiming you’re saving is a life you might be ruining. Can you imagine telling an unwanted child to their face that their unhappy existence is a punishment for the parents?
It’s fucking cruel.
A child – a caring, fragile life – should be something treasured and loved. Children should be fed well, clothed, and educated by people who want them. Who can care for them.
I wish elective abortion wasn’t a necessary thing. But to be Pro Life? Now? With poverty, and no guaranteed healthcare, and a fostering and adoption system in shambles? We put down pets “humanely” when there’s nothing to do for them, but we use our own young as punishment against one another? Without any regard at all for the children?
There’s nothing good about it, or kind, or moral, or humane about being pro life without backing it up by fighting for the care and happiness of the children after birth.
This makes me ashamed to be human.
