Beanie is 10 weeks old. I can't believe it. It feels like I had her years ago already, but everything is still super new. I bet that feeling never goes away, even when she's 18.
One of my group list serves was discussing a prop for the special election here in CA on Tuesday. It had to do with abortion, and minors being forced to give parental notification if they are 13 years old (or younger, I guess.) I have a problem with ANY surgery being performed on my daughter without my explicit consent or knowledge, but I wouldn't STOP a procedure like an abortion. I can't imagine what would cause my 13 year old to require an abortion, and it's weird thinking about her little sex organs being pummeled by other sex organs (it's totally unconceivable, actually), so it's hard for me to relate. But as a woman, I know I want access to abortion if I need it. I want it safe, legal, and private. I don't want anyone who desires one to be denied one. It's not like liposuction or tonsilectomy. It's completely different than any of those things because it terminates a potential life. Frankly, I'm okay with that. Not all pregnancies need to come to fruition. Maybe I will go to hell for thinking that abortion is unpleasant but necessary and capital punishment is always wrong, but that's really okay too. I am ethically and morally all right with a woman making her own decision about baby making. The problem is, of course, that a child is not a woman. But again, what would make a 13 year old pregnant? Ignorance? Rape? Incest? Fear? All of these things are avoidable in a better society. Until that proposition says "Parent: your daughter has requested an abortion. If you deny her that option, she will be protected by the courts and put in protective custody", I will be against it. And I firmly believe that any crimes committed by a parent against their pregnant child should be punished to the full extent of the law. This includes abandonment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and any other fun things crazy parents do to their poor kids to make them afraid. And I'm okay with kids who want to be parents, but I'm a little sketchy about why a little girl would want to be a mommy before she's fully developed herself. Maybe little girls who WANT to get pregnant haven't been mommied properly?? Or daddied properly? Maybe I read too much into the movie Palindromes.
Having a baby should be a joyous, remarkable, beautiful, wonderful, totally wanted, experience. It's not something you can completely enjoy when you haven't finished school, haven't traveled, haven't fallen in love with life and your own self yet. Having a baby is not completing the circle of life, it's continuing it. When you are a child yourself, it's impossible to give everything you are to a baby.
Then again, babies were born to young girls since time began. Only recently in history has it been "normal" to wait until the 20s and 30s to have a first child. Jesus was born to a 13 year old. Not that I'm advocating religion or anything. But I wonder, if abortion was available to Mary, if she'd been smart enough to ask for the right herbs, would she have? She was barely saved a stoning for god's sake, thanks to Joseph, who raised this kid as his own. It probably was, but that's just blasphemy. Right? Right.
Anyway.
Abortion always opens up rhetoric for debate on religion and I hate that. It's a physical thing, not a metaphysical thing, unless you are talking souls and I ain't. Cells are not souls. Wanted babies conceived during baby making sessions are a WHOLE different ballgame than a baby who is conceived during sexual intercourse, and there are no accidents. If you're having sex and you ovulate, barring all infertility issues, you can get pregnant. What it boils down to is what you're comfortable with. If you can live with an abortion, fine. If you can't, fine. But a 13 year old shouldn't have to carry a baby to term just because her parents are creepy fucks who thing a child should be forced to give birth. The reason so many girls had babies over history?? Because so many women died in childbirth, the marriage pool got younger and younger. Now that we live longer and have more value to society beyong dying during birth, we should be able to make more decisions about our own body's validity as well, and that DOESN'T end at the beginning of the uterine cervix.
Man.
My poor baby girl. I'm going to have to fight for her right to avoid being raped, molested, disabused, gawked at, laughed at, snubbed, AND abortion. That's right, I want my kid to avoid an abortion by having all the tools available to her, including kung fu. Crazy, non? I know. I'm crazy.
So I voted no. No, because I want her always to be safe, even if she ends up being secretive and possibly breaking my heart. And that's okay. Because I love her more than I ever thought possible. And nothing, nothing, nothing would ever change that.
~Beanie's Momma
One of my group list serves was discussing a prop for the special election here in CA on Tuesday. It had to do with abortion, and minors being forced to give parental notification if they are 13 years old (or younger, I guess.) I have a problem with ANY surgery being performed on my daughter without my explicit consent or knowledge, but I wouldn't STOP a procedure like an abortion. I can't imagine what would cause my 13 year old to require an abortion, and it's weird thinking about her little sex organs being pummeled by other sex organs (it's totally unconceivable, actually), so it's hard for me to relate. But as a woman, I know I want access to abortion if I need it. I want it safe, legal, and private. I don't want anyone who desires one to be denied one. It's not like liposuction or tonsilectomy. It's completely different than any of those things because it terminates a potential life. Frankly, I'm okay with that. Not all pregnancies need to come to fruition. Maybe I will go to hell for thinking that abortion is unpleasant but necessary and capital punishment is always wrong, but that's really okay too. I am ethically and morally all right with a woman making her own decision about baby making. The problem is, of course, that a child is not a woman. But again, what would make a 13 year old pregnant? Ignorance? Rape? Incest? Fear? All of these things are avoidable in a better society. Until that proposition says "Parent: your daughter has requested an abortion. If you deny her that option, she will be protected by the courts and put in protective custody", I will be against it. And I firmly believe that any crimes committed by a parent against their pregnant child should be punished to the full extent of the law. This includes abandonment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and any other fun things crazy parents do to their poor kids to make them afraid. And I'm okay with kids who want to be parents, but I'm a little sketchy about why a little girl would want to be a mommy before she's fully developed herself. Maybe little girls who WANT to get pregnant haven't been mommied properly?? Or daddied properly? Maybe I read too much into the movie Palindromes.
Having a baby should be a joyous, remarkable, beautiful, wonderful, totally wanted, experience. It's not something you can completely enjoy when you haven't finished school, haven't traveled, haven't fallen in love with life and your own self yet. Having a baby is not completing the circle of life, it's continuing it. When you are a child yourself, it's impossible to give everything you are to a baby.
Then again, babies were born to young girls since time began. Only recently in history has it been "normal" to wait until the 20s and 30s to have a first child. Jesus was born to a 13 year old. Not that I'm advocating religion or anything. But I wonder, if abortion was available to Mary, if she'd been smart enough to ask for the right herbs, would she have? She was barely saved a stoning for god's sake, thanks to Joseph, who raised this kid as his own. It probably was, but that's just blasphemy. Right? Right.
Anyway.
Abortion always opens up rhetoric for debate on religion and I hate that. It's a physical thing, not a metaphysical thing, unless you are talking souls and I ain't. Cells are not souls. Wanted babies conceived during baby making sessions are a WHOLE different ballgame than a baby who is conceived during sexual intercourse, and there are no accidents. If you're having sex and you ovulate, barring all infertility issues, you can get pregnant. What it boils down to is what you're comfortable with. If you can live with an abortion, fine. If you can't, fine. But a 13 year old shouldn't have to carry a baby to term just because her parents are creepy fucks who thing a child should be forced to give birth. The reason so many girls had babies over history?? Because so many women died in childbirth, the marriage pool got younger and younger. Now that we live longer and have more value to society beyong dying during birth, we should be able to make more decisions about our own body's validity as well, and that DOESN'T end at the beginning of the uterine cervix.
Man.
My poor baby girl. I'm going to have to fight for her right to avoid being raped, molested, disabused, gawked at, laughed at, snubbed, AND abortion. That's right, I want my kid to avoid an abortion by having all the tools available to her, including kung fu. Crazy, non? I know. I'm crazy.
So I voted no. No, because I want her always to be safe, even if she ends up being secretive and possibly breaking my heart. And that's okay. Because I love her more than I ever thought possible. And nothing, nothing, nothing would ever change that.
~Beanie's Momma
posted by A P M @ 10:39 AM
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