My Canadian hero

Dr. Henry Morgentaler is an abortion provider who has survived two attempts on his life. Thank the universe for brave men and woman like him.

I can take an anxious woman, who is in the biggest trouble she has ever experiences in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life.

You can read more about Dr Morgentaler here.

Blog for Choice 2008

This year's Blog for Choice topic is "Why is it important to vote pro-choice?"

Um. Ok. That's kind of a dopey topic, isn't it? I mean, I don't know about anyone else but I know that I vote pro-choice because I am pro-choice. Kind of a no-brainer there.

If I go a little deeper into that I would have to make the following confession: Most of the time I'm too cynical to be political. I think the government is too big and too screwed up for it to ever really matter who gets elected to what anymore. I can't get too into throwing my support behind any one candidate because I don't think any one candidate is going to be able to fix or change things for the better.

I also find myself unable to align with any certain political party. I'm a little too conservative to be a liberal and way to liberal to be a conservative. Independent parties leave me frightened and confused.

There is never a candidate that I agree all the way with on every issue so in the end I just have to pick one issue that's important to me and vote according to that. So I chose to vote based on the issue of reproductive rights. In America one in five pregnancies end in abortion and half of all pregnancies are unintended. With stats like that it just seems wrong for me to vote any way but pro-choice.

It's not just about abortion either. Of course I think every woman deserves access to a safe and legal abortion if that's her choice. But I think the changes we need to see in this area are more wide spread than just that. I think all women (and men for that matter) deserve access to safe and reliable birth control regardless of income or insurance status. I think our schools need to offer age appropriate, medically accurate sex education. Sex ed that is not based on lies and fear tactics *coughabstinenceonlysexedcough*.

As woman and as an American I think we deserve all these things and that is why I vote pro-choice.

Average just isn't good enough

Naral has released a report on the status of women's reproductive rights in the United States. The report gives a state-by-state breakdown of the laws affecting women’s ability to choose abortion, access emergency contraception, get insurance coverage for reproductive health services and several other other things. They give each state a grade that corresponds to these issues.

Minnesota somehow managed to score an C+ in spite of the fact that 95% of Minnesota counties have no abortion providers. That's kind of mind boggling to me.

As a full grown adult I take for granted that I have control over my own body and the decisions concerning my own medical care. I assume that if I ever find myself facing an unwanted pregnancy I would have access to a full range of choices. After reading this report I find myself feeling a little less secure about those rights. It disturbs me to think of women losing their right to safe and legal abortions. If it disturbs you too and this is an issue that's important to you I urge you to look at Naral's state by state profile and find out how your state ranks. You might be suprised by what you find. I hope that you'll also take the time to check out what you can do in your area to help ensure that all women have the right to make whatever choice is right for them.

We need to do a lot better than just average.

Blog for Choice

The topic for this year's Blog for Choice is "Why I'm pro-choice". I could talk about this for a long time and go into a lot more detail than is probably needed. So to make it short I'll just say that for me it's about trust.

I am pro choice because I have enough faith in women to to think choose what is right when it comes to abortion. Not every woman who has an abotion has it for the same reasons. Not everyone who chooses that comes to that decision the same way. I don't think there's a woman out there who had an abotion because it was something she wanted to do. I think there are many, many women who choose abortion because it's the responsible thing to do. It's the logical thing to do. It's the (as crazy as it may sound) loving thing to do. It's the right thing to do.

Look at the women in your life, the ones that you know and love and respect. Ask yourself if you trust them to make major life decisions for themselves. With abortion rates in the US being 1 out of 50 women having an abortion every year chances are you already know someone who made that choice. And I'm willing to bet it was the right choice.

Some people are lame

Jesse drives by our town's Planned Parenthood clinic every day on his way to work. He told me that every Friday there are protestors out there picketting. Here's the thing, that clinic doesn't even do abortions. They do lots of other good stuff like give women access to free or low cost birth control. They educate and inform women about their health and reproductive choices. They do pap smears and provide other health services. But some anti-choice group has decided to march around the clinc every Friday to try to stop women from even going into the place. The place that helps women avoid getting pregnant and having to choose if they should have an abortion or not. Tell me how that makes any sense at all.