Abortion, and why I'm not allowed to vote Republican
So I promised you all a well-thought-out treatise on my thoughts on the pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy.
Choice has such a nice ring to it. So does Life. They both stand for such positive things. However, the pro-choice and pro-life camps are fighting over an enormous battleground: the bodies 1/2 of the world's population. What is portrayed is that pro-choice proponents are baby-killing hate-mongers, and that pro-life people are conservative wackos who want to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. I am solidly pro-choice. In that if you don't want an abortion, don't get one. It's a CHOICE. The pro-choice lobby isn't going to force women to abort their babies. It gives a woman the option to have one if she wants/needs to. If you don't believe in abortion, if you believe it's wrong, that's fine. Just don't prevent me from having one if I decide that's what's right for me. If I had gotten pregnant 6 years ago I would have gotten an abortion, pretty much automatically. I was in no way ready to have a kid, and I had more to do with my life at that point. Now, the decision would not be as easy. But what I value is the choice to do what is right for me.
What a lot of people forget is that abortion is a bad thing. Women don't generally go "tra la la, I'm going to go have an abortion! fun!" You are preventing a child from being born, and technically, you are killing a life form. It is traumatic, it's painful, and repeated abortions will destroy a woman's ability to have children. They are something to be avoided, they are a last-ditch way to end a pregnancy. It's a fix for when something went wrong ie "hoshit the condom broke!" or "oh shit I was raped!!" It's a fix for that .1% of the time that the Pill does not work. It is not a method of birth control. I think some of the conservatives see it like that. I have serious issues with women who use abortion as birth control. I think it's horrifically irresponsible of them. However, they are not me, and I am not their doctor, so I can disapprove all I want, but I have no right to tell them what to do with their bodies.
That being said, there is a lot of incendiary language being thrown around about abortion. Does life start at conception? Only if you count conception as the day the fertilized egg implants in the uterus and tells the body "hey, you're preggers." (Which I think is what Science considers conception, I may be wrong here though.) The body does not consider itself pregnant before that. Fertilization does not equal conception. And birth control methods that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting are not methods of abortion. Period. Abortion means aborting, prematurely ending a pregnancy. You're not pregnant until the egg attaches to your uterus. Therefore the Pill is not an abortifacient. Neither is the Morning After Pill. Pharmacists who refuse to prescribe hormonal forms of birth control had better clear their shelves of condoms as well, because either way you're preventing pregnancy.
Let's look at development shall we? A human fetus in the first 6 weeks of gestation looks like a peanut. It is basically indistinguishable from the fetus of a frog. Backbone, head, heart, that's about it. It's not a viable human by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn't even look human. (Hell, most newborns barely look human, I've heard the term "space alien" describe many newborns.) Also, a woman may not even realize that she's pregnant until at least 4 weeks into a pregnancy.
My personal view is that if you find out you're pregnant you need to decide right quick whether or not you want this kid. Because it's a shrinking window of time in which it's "easy" to get an abortion. Most should (and do) happen within the first trimester. It's a hard decision, and it sucks, but it's got to be done. Dragging one's feet on it makes it harder in the long run for everyone. There are a whopping two people that get to make the decision about an abortion, and that is the pregnant woman and her doctor. There are others who may have input (ie the woman's partner or her parents) but the final decision is hers and hers alone. The doctor's role is to determine if she's medically ok for it, and to let her know the risks associated with the procedure.
Abortion gets exponentially more dangerous and politically fraught with every passing month. First trimester is generally considered acceptable, second trimester is getting iffy, because it's a larger mass of tissue, and by 5 months or so the fetus is starting to move and be a being on its own. Second trimester is where you get into the dreaded "partial birth abortion". At that point it is a recognizable human, but is not usually viable outside the womb. In the third trimester a fetus is usually viable outside the womb. It can be a person. There are babies that are born 2 months premie and live. During the third trimester the only reason to abort is if there is a threat to a mother's health. The only reason.
My thought on this is that if you don't want a kid, and you waited until you're 7 months along to go "wtf! no I don't want a kid!" it's a bit late to make that decision. You need to suck it up and have the kid, then give it up for adoption if you don't want it. Because really? if you've waited that long, you deserve to have to deal with the last 2 or 3 months of pregnancy. I disagree with straight-out bans on third term abortions if they don't have a clause for the mother's health. Women can have more kids only if they're alive.
I have trouble with a lot of the parental-notification laws. If a girl is over the age of consent in her state (usually 16), and needs an abortion, than she should be able to sign as an emancipated minor. Reproductive rights have a different schedule than the rest of the rights of society. It gets trickier for younger girls, because they're not of the legal age of consent, and yet I don't think that age should be dropped. That's a case by case basis I think. If a 14 year old needs an abortion, there are bigger issues at stake. I would certainly encourage a girl to talk to her parents, but if that would put her in a more dangerous situation, (ie fear of abuse if she's pregnant) then it's really murky. The trouble with asking a 14 or 15 year old to sign informed-consent forms for an abortion is that they're not cognitively there yet to completely understand what will happen in the procedure. Even if they're really bright, it's a developmental issue.
So that's my essay on abortion. Epic no?
As for my other topic, why I'm not allowed to vote Republican, more than being queer or being female, it comes down to my career choice. I'm in the social services field. When you cut tax revenues, you have to cut spending somewhere. Guess where it's going to come out of first? That's right: education and social services. Everyone who's on "welfare" and anyone associated with Departments of Social Services, Mental Health, and Mental Retardation. My job hasn't renewed it's contract with DMH in 10 years. Almost all counseling/mental health jobs require an MA of some sort. That's a lot of school. And we don't make any money anyway. But if you keep cutting, our jobs are the first to go. Managed care is already going the way of "medicate more, counsel less" which means that hospital stays are days instead of weeks and consumers are shunted back to community mental health centers when they're barely stable.
I don't have my LMHC yet, that's the non-social worker master's level mental health counselor license in MA. I can't get it until November of 2009 at the earliest. Until I get that, I can only take public health insurance. If you cut tax revenues, and you cut MassHealth, then you cut my job.
Massachusetts has a ballot initiative this year to do away with the Mass. income tax. The proponents' reasoning is that government is too big and if you cut off their supply, then they will by nature have to reduce the size of government and therefore reduce waste. Governments waste. It's what they do. Cutting income tax will only reduce the amount of money going to those that need it most, those dependent on social programming to stay healthy and out of harm's way. They won't cut infrastructure, they won't cut emergency services, they won't cut much other than budgets for the schools, the environmental initiatives and for social services. Cut social services and I lose my job. It's as simple as that. Therefore I'm not allowed to vote Republican or for this ballot initiative.
Choice has such a nice ring to it. So does Life. They both stand for such positive things. However, the pro-choice and pro-life camps are fighting over an enormous battleground: the bodies 1/2 of the world's population. What is portrayed is that pro-choice proponents are baby-killing hate-mongers, and that pro-life people are conservative wackos who want to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. I am solidly pro-choice. In that if you don't want an abortion, don't get one. It's a CHOICE. The pro-choice lobby isn't going to force women to abort their babies. It gives a woman the option to have one if she wants/needs to. If you don't believe in abortion, if you believe it's wrong, that's fine. Just don't prevent me from having one if I decide that's what's right for me. If I had gotten pregnant 6 years ago I would have gotten an abortion, pretty much automatically. I was in no way ready to have a kid, and I had more to do with my life at that point. Now, the decision would not be as easy. But what I value is the choice to do what is right for me.
What a lot of people forget is that abortion is a bad thing. Women don't generally go "tra la la, I'm going to go have an abortion! fun!" You are preventing a child from being born, and technically, you are killing a life form. It is traumatic, it's painful, and repeated abortions will destroy a woman's ability to have children. They are something to be avoided, they are a last-ditch way to end a pregnancy. It's a fix for when something went wrong ie "hoshit the condom broke!" or "oh shit I was raped!!" It's a fix for that .1% of the time that the Pill does not work. It is not a method of birth control. I think some of the conservatives see it like that. I have serious issues with women who use abortion as birth control. I think it's horrifically irresponsible of them. However, they are not me, and I am not their doctor, so I can disapprove all I want, but I have no right to tell them what to do with their bodies.
That being said, there is a lot of incendiary language being thrown around about abortion. Does life start at conception? Only if you count conception as the day the fertilized egg implants in the uterus and tells the body "hey, you're preggers." (Which I think is what Science considers conception, I may be wrong here though.) The body does not consider itself pregnant before that. Fertilization does not equal conception. And birth control methods that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting are not methods of abortion. Period. Abortion means aborting, prematurely ending a pregnancy. You're not pregnant until the egg attaches to your uterus. Therefore the Pill is not an abortifacient. Neither is the Morning After Pill. Pharmacists who refuse to prescribe hormonal forms of birth control had better clear their shelves of condoms as well, because either way you're preventing pregnancy.
Let's look at development shall we? A human fetus in the first 6 weeks of gestation looks like a peanut. It is basically indistinguishable from the fetus of a frog. Backbone, head, heart, that's about it. It's not a viable human by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn't even look human. (Hell, most newborns barely look human, I've heard the term "space alien" describe many newborns.) Also, a woman may not even realize that she's pregnant until at least 4 weeks into a pregnancy.
My personal view is that if you find out you're pregnant you need to decide right quick whether or not you want this kid. Because it's a shrinking window of time in which it's "easy" to get an abortion. Most should (and do) happen within the first trimester. It's a hard decision, and it sucks, but it's got to be done. Dragging one's feet on it makes it harder in the long run for everyone. There are a whopping two people that get to make the decision about an abortion, and that is the pregnant woman and her doctor. There are others who may have input (ie the woman's partner or her parents) but the final decision is hers and hers alone. The doctor's role is to determine if she's medically ok for it, and to let her know the risks associated with the procedure.
Abortion gets exponentially more dangerous and politically fraught with every passing month. First trimester is generally considered acceptable, second trimester is getting iffy, because it's a larger mass of tissue, and by 5 months or so the fetus is starting to move and be a being on its own. Second trimester is where you get into the dreaded "partial birth abortion". At that point it is a recognizable human, but is not usually viable outside the womb. In the third trimester a fetus is usually viable outside the womb. It can be a person. There are babies that are born 2 months premie and live. During the third trimester the only reason to abort is if there is a threat to a mother's health. The only reason.
My thought on this is that if you don't want a kid, and you waited until you're 7 months along to go "wtf! no I don't want a kid!" it's a bit late to make that decision. You need to suck it up and have the kid, then give it up for adoption if you don't want it. Because really? if you've waited that long, you deserve to have to deal with the last 2 or 3 months of pregnancy. I disagree with straight-out bans on third term abortions if they don't have a clause for the mother's health. Women can have more kids only if they're alive.
I have trouble with a lot of the parental-notification laws. If a girl is over the age of consent in her state (usually 16), and needs an abortion, than she should be able to sign as an emancipated minor. Reproductive rights have a different schedule than the rest of the rights of society. It gets trickier for younger girls, because they're not of the legal age of consent, and yet I don't think that age should be dropped. That's a case by case basis I think. If a 14 year old needs an abortion, there are bigger issues at stake. I would certainly encourage a girl to talk to her parents, but if that would put her in a more dangerous situation, (ie fear of abuse if she's pregnant) then it's really murky. The trouble with asking a 14 or 15 year old to sign informed-consent forms for an abortion is that they're not cognitively there yet to completely understand what will happen in the procedure. Even if they're really bright, it's a developmental issue.
So that's my essay on abortion. Epic no?
As for my other topic, why I'm not allowed to vote Republican, more than being queer or being female, it comes down to my career choice. I'm in the social services field. When you cut tax revenues, you have to cut spending somewhere. Guess where it's going to come out of first? That's right: education and social services. Everyone who's on "welfare" and anyone associated with Departments of Social Services, Mental Health, and Mental Retardation. My job hasn't renewed it's contract with DMH in 10 years. Almost all counseling/mental health jobs require an MA of some sort. That's a lot of school. And we don't make any money anyway. But if you keep cutting, our jobs are the first to go. Managed care is already going the way of "medicate more, counsel less" which means that hospital stays are days instead of weeks and consumers are shunted back to community mental health centers when they're barely stable.
I don't have my LMHC yet, that's the non-social worker master's level mental health counselor license in MA. I can't get it until November of 2009 at the earliest. Until I get that, I can only take public health insurance. If you cut tax revenues, and you cut MassHealth, then you cut my job.
Massachusetts has a ballot initiative this year to do away with the Mass. income tax. The proponents' reasoning is that government is too big and if you cut off their supply, then they will by nature have to reduce the size of government and therefore reduce waste. Governments waste. It's what they do. Cutting income tax will only reduce the amount of money going to those that need it most, those dependent on social programming to stay healthy and out of harm's way. They won't cut infrastructure, they won't cut emergency services, they won't cut much other than budgets for the schools, the environmental initiatives and for social services. Cut social services and I lose my job. It's as simple as that. Therefore I'm not allowed to vote Republican or for this ballot initiative.