I just sat here 5 min deciding what to open with, because I was taught in school that a good writer needs to have a good opening. For this post there isn’t one, so I will just dive in.
A person I have known for most of my life told me today that I don’t deserve the air that I breathe, much less the right to live.
This was in response to a post I made on a site. I reposted a story about a woman who last week was denied emergency contraception. You might want to read the story before reading the rest of the post so you have an understanding of the situation. You can find it here.
I wish I could change the way I am. I wish I could be happy with interior design or architect, but I can’t. I don’t have a choice in what I will do the rest of my life. You may think that sounds strange, but the only way I can describe it is a calling. It is very similar to what super religious people have. I just don’t have a choice.
I will spend the rest of my life working towards a society where only people who want to get pregnant have children. I will spend the rest of my life banging my head against a wall of religious morals and beating myself with the Bible belt. I will spend the rest of my life talking to as many people as I can and teaching them about their bodies and how to control them. I will spend the rest of my life making posts like this every time my non-choice career causes me to loose a person I called friend.
I CANNOT IGNORE THIS CALLING AND IT CAUSES ME SO MUCH HURT AND PAIN!
but I
don’t
have
a
choice
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
I think I know what you mean. There are people in my world that I just have to give up on ever considering really “friends”, because I know their world view is just so radically opposed to mine — what is really important to me, they just can’t understand or feel very differently about. And it’s definitely a sad experience to realize kind of late in the game, when someone is already a friend or loved one, that he or she is just not “your kind of person” in that sense. But Kaston, when you are a growing, learning person, the sad fact is that sometimes, there will be people from your past who just get left behind. You can still feel compassion for them, but it can just become impossible to have a relationship with someone who can’t respect your values, and vice versa.
September 24th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Sad part is that I know that many of my own family members (Dean’s side included) that feel the same way. They would never come out and say it because they care about me, but “those” topics are never discussed around me. They know where I stand and they want to be no where near me.
Sometimes I just want to scream.
September 24th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Yep, that’s a fact. There are some pretty conservative folks among your in-laws. They were that way before Dean was born, and they’re NOT likely to change because Dean or his wife think differently. Or if they DO change one day, it won’t be because you tried to talk them into a different point of view. Even the best educator can’t educate their in-laws, and shouldn’t try. Kind of like the conventional wisdom that it’s a bad idea for a doctor to practice on his own family. Here’s my advice about being around certain members of your own and Dean’s family peaceably: Avoid certain subjects; understand that having different world views does NOT mean they are bad people; and try not to take it as a personal attack if it seems they can’t respect your strongly-held views. I mean, after all — can you truly respect their views? Would you really want to listen to them trying to “convert” you to their world view? All you can do is be who you are, and don’t be defensive about who you are. If they perceive you are defensive and argumentative about your perspective, it will seem it’s “about Kaston” or about “she thinks we’re bad people”, not about larger principles.
September 24th, 2006 at 8:50 am
I would never try to convert anyone. I know it does not work.
I just wish that there was not obvious discomfort on the part of some towards me.
September 24th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Kaston … do not feel that you have to be swayed by those who disagree with you. You\’re right, you are in for a lifetime of headbanging frustration. Don\’t allow it to get to you … you have made your choice and if people whom you thought of as friends walk away from you … let them go because they weren\’t really friends in the first place. I know what it feels like because I have had a few people walk away from me due to my mental illness. Repeat after me Kaston … fuck them.
I am originally from Montreal and there is a doctor there name of Dr. Henry Morgenthaler who has the same thinking that you do. He performed abortions when abortions were only ever done in a hospital for religious, rape or unsavoury reasons. He was persecuted for years. His clinic was firebombed a few times, he was attacked, he was arrested, he was vilified in churches and some of the press. But he never gave up. He is now known in Canada as the leading pro-choice advocate in the country and the father of current day abortion freedom.
Don\’t ever give up or give in!
September 24th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
The thing that bothers me most is that anti-choice advocates think that pro-choice advocates LIKE abortion. I hate it with all my heart, but it is a symptom of a larger problem: women getting pregnant when they don\’t want to.
And that is what I want to fix.
September 24th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
I think it was Bill Clinton who had a good way of describing that view of abortion rights. He said that abortion should be safe, legal, and RARE. I’ve also heard Jimmy Carter interviewed on the subject. His religious beliefs cause him to believe abortion is a bad thing, but he said as president, he felt his job was to uphold the law (meaning Roe v. Wade), but he also knew the research showed many unplanned pregnancies would NOT end in abortion if financial hardship were not such an issue for low-income women. So instead of fighting against abortion rights, he tried to find ways the government could make an unplanned pregnancy less difficult on low-income women. For example, he started the WIC program. I can respect that kind of constructive approach on the part of people who are opposed to abortion.
September 24th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Perhaps the Chinese may have the solution … limit the number of children you can have to 1 and you had better not get pregnant again … so you use condoms, birth control pills, female condoms, IUD and delinitely not the kids method … withdrawal.
September 25th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Unfortunately, a side effect of that rule in China has been a lot of female infanticide among families that want their one child to be a boy.
September 25th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Sorry, I didn’t know that and it’s really sad if that happens.
September 25th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
I think it happens mostly in rural areas. In the urban centers, I understand it takes the form of using abortion for sex selection — the kind of thing that gives abortion a bad name!
September 27th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
I love the new layout guys. A lot more modern. It’s great.