Monday, June 19, 2006

POINTS TO PONDER

I was doing my favorite thing today. I read articles sent to me by friends and various groups that I am in. Since Louisiana has placed a ban on abortions dependent upon the overturn of Roe VS. Wade, I have been reading many articles since then. I was told about an Ohio bill that is absolutely horrifying. It outlaws all abortion to include cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother. It also criminalizes anyone who assists an Ohio woman trying to get an abortion in another state. This includes airlines, cab drivers, bus companies, husbands, and family members. It fortunately didn't pass. It is my understanding that another bill very similiar is on the way. The article below was sent to me via one of my groups. I will get to it momentarily. I don't understand this battle over a woman's womb. Everyone assumes that women have an antagonistic view about their bodies and giving birth. There is no middle ground. It is also assumed that women want to have sex all the time. Gee Whiz I wish I had the time and the energy. I have a full time job, umpteen pets, two kids, and a husband to think about. I don't know about other women but I just don't have time to have all this sex every living minute of the day. Even the single women in my life don't have time for that much sex.

What also alarms me the most is that women's medical records will be accessed to find out if they have had an abortion. Any female from the age of newborn to 99 years of age will have their medical records analyzed. I thought we owned our medical records. I know that this will inhibit women from getting adequate health care. Why go to the doctor when the courts and law enforcement will be reading everything that a woman has done for her entire life? There will also be a good chance that all these medical records will also be made public. I guess us women need to be humiliated and put in our place. Yea right.

I believe in choice. I believe in offering all options. One option that has failed to make it to the surface of this battle is allowing a woman to keep and raise her own child. In fact, many a birthmother makes this very same comment. Another comment that is also made. No one ever mentions providing adequate medical and sexual education. No one ever mentions providing adequate birth control. In the book, The Girls That Went Away, none of the women in this book had good information or good access to birth control. The Right Wingers would like to see access to birth control removed completely. They are pushing to allow pharmacists to be conscientious objectors in providing birth control, morning after medication, and abortion medication. I watched a news show here recently that many hospitals and pharmacies where a young woman was raped. They did not provide any of these to this woman. Her mother was irate about it. Because these facilities didn't believe in abortion or inhibiting a pregnancy, they would force a young woman to have a child that she didn't give her consent on having. The choice was taken from her by the fact that she was raped. They are basically saying that it is okay for aman to rape a woman and make her pay the price. That sets me on fire.

I recently read a book by Margaret Atwood. Its called "The Handmaid's Tale. It is fiction but it was a story that could be all too real. The government takes out love and intimacy out of relationship. Sex becomes government act that only certain people are allowed to do. Women are either wives, cooks, servants or birthers ( sorry no disrespect toward the birthmothers in my blog ring or among my email friends). The birthers get three chances to get pregnant. If they don't they are eliminated. Everyone in the story are held captive. I see this book as being a strong possibility. I see our government beginning to regulate our sexual health.

Now to this story. I do think that this is going in the right direction. One thing that I and many others have a problem with. Not once is there any mention of allowing a woman to raise her own child. Of course that means the occasionally allowing a woman to go on Medicaid, WIC, and foodstamps. What I don't understand is that everyone complains about women having a ton of children and being on welfare. Yet no one complains about the companies that get corporate welfare. Yet no on complains about the millions to billions of dollars given to companies such as McDonalds. There are many others just like them.
No one is willing to provide a way to help these women get an education or get a job opportunity that help her actually provide for her family. Something that actually allows her to live her life not just live hand to mouth. This article is from the Indianapolis Star. Like I said, its good but we need more

An abortion clinic will share space with an adoption agency at a new location, a first for Indianapolis and a highly unusual collaboration anywhere in the United States.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana closed its Eastside clinic near 21st Street and Ritter Avenue on Saturday, relocating to 86th Street and Georgetown Road on the Northwestside in a building previously used for unrelated medical purposes.

Beginning in July, a counselor from Independent Adoption Centers, which arranges open adoptions and has operated in Indiana for about 11 years, will be at the clinic two or three days a week, probably on days when abortions are not being performed.

Executives from the agencies said the arrangement benefits both and is expected to be a good fit.
"We're about supporting whatever choice a woman wants to make, and adoption is one of those choices," said Liz Carroll, Planned Parenthood's vice president for patient services.

The concept has been percolating for several years, but Carroll made it a priority when she joined Planned Parenthood about a year ago, said President and Chief Executive Officer Betty Cockrum.

"We're making certain that every woman knows her entire spectrum of choices,'' Cockrum said.
Internally, there was no resistance to the move, she said. "It's in that category of: Sometimes you just know it's the right thing to do.''
Kathy Wilkerson, Midwest branch director of Independent Adoption Centers, said the organization also has no reservations about the arrangement. It does not take a political position on abortion, she said.
"We're actually very excited about it,'' she said. "It's a great opportunity for all involved.''

Planned Parenthood in Chicago has collaborated with an Evanston, Ill.-based adoption agency for about six years, and another Planned Parenthood affiliate in Virginia has a similar relationship.

An independent abortion clinic in St. Louis briefly operated its own adoption agency in the early 1990s, and a former director of an Indiana Planned Parenthood had her own agency and arranged a handful of adoptions in the 1990s.

Those were the only such collaborations Cockrum and Carroll are aware of, and Wilkerson said her agency, which also has offices in California and North Carolina, has no other experience with an on-site relationship.
Abortion providers in Indiana are required to inform women that adoption is an option, and Independent Adoption Centers has been among the agencies included in Planned Parenthood referrals.

Wilkerson and Planned Parenthood officials said they have no idea how many women might consider or choose adoption under the new arrangement.

At least one Indiana opponent of abortion rights said Saturday that he was dubious about Planned Parenthood's motives.

Eric Miller, founder of Advance America and long a conservative voice in Indiana, questioned "whether or not it is a legitimate effort or whether we're seeing a smokescreen to make them seem to be something that they're not."
Cockrum said the organization wanted to leave the 21st and Ritter neighborhood, where an anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Center operated in the same small retail center, which also has a liquor store.

The new site, a 7,000-square-foot building, was bought by Planned Parenthood and renovated with private funds, whereas it had rented the old facility. The new building, on 1.6 acres, is near I-465.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, I was thinking: If we just had more aborton, we wouldn't need to be talking about adoption.

Anonymous said...

Just for a point of reference, in New South Wales, in Australia, we used to have huge numbers of adoptions in the 1960s and 1970s.

Then from the early 1970s a lot of things happened that enabled women to keep their babies (sole parent's pension, greater community / family acceptance) to prevent unplanned pregnancies (the pill / better sex education) or to terminate an unwanted pregnancy safely and legally (abortion).

As of last year, there were 6 domestic adoptions in NSW. Six! It makes it pretty clear that when women have all the options open to them very very few will chose to relinquish their child. My mum was one of those women who had no other option but adoption back in 1970 and it was an awful, sorrowful choice which had huge repercussions on her life, our lives as her children, and I am sure, my half-sister's life. I'm so glad that women now have a much freer choice - but sad that many women in the US doesn't seem to have the same breadth of choices.