It's My Choice and No One Else's!!

I was having a discussion the other night with a friend of mine regarding our views on abortion.  In case any of you have missed any of my previous blog postings...I'm a huge left leaning liberal.  My friend on the other hand describes herself as more traditional.  After our discussion, I thought back on how I came to decide that I was Pro-Choice.

I went to St. Gregory High School in Dorchester.  An all girls Catholic high school, where the ideals and teachings of the Catholic church were rammed down my throat repeatedly in hopes that I would become a good Catholic.  And we all see how well that turned out.  Oh, the price I paid for a decent education....

St. Greg's had a rival school, Cardinal Cushing High School in South Boston.  They would call us St. Pregs and we would in turn call them Cardinal Conception.  Unlike other Catholic high schools in the Boston area, we did not hide our pregnant teens by scurrying them off to a special school where they could continue their education behind closed doors protecting their shame.  I don't think we had any more pregnancies than any other Catholic high school, we just didn't hide it.

I think the Sisters at school decided that in light of teen pregnancies they would show us a very special film to deter us from choosing abortion in the event of a pregnancy.  This very special film showed us an actual abortion.  Some girls chose to walk out or just flat out not watch the film.  I stayed and I watched it.

Some girls cried and took up their torches, they became Pro-Life.

I watched that film and saw the harshness of the procedure that even seemed violent to me.  It was horrible and shocking.

The movie was over and I too picked up my torch.  And to the surprise of Sr. Katherine...my torch was Pro-Choice.  Even after seeing the film, I still chose the right to choose....

I had a friend growing up, lets call her G.  She was a couple of years younger than me, but we were still close.  Her mom was the younger sister of family friend.  She was always regarded with suspicion as she didn't live a "traditional latina" kind of lifestyle.  She would go out to parties and OMG...she would date.  Since she was a single mom, my mother and the other family ladies believed she should only live to raise her daughter and have no needs or desires of her own. 

She eventually found a man.  He moved in.  And everyone thought that he was a stable guy who would put this woman on the straight and narrow.  Her paryting stopped and she was no longer "being a loose" woman.  Well, "loose" as my  mom and the other women saw it.  The years went on.

At the age of 11, G finds out that she is pregnant.  Her mother's boyfriend had been raping her since she was 6 years old.  And now she was pregnant with his child. 

After it all blew over, we couldn't help but notice that G never had the baby.  We were told that  the test was wrong and she was never pregnant.  I was much more innocent then and now I know, the pregnancy was terminated.

While some people will say that she should have had the baby (and I know people who do feel that way), I think for once her mother did the right thing.  G was 11 years old and carrying a baby.  And she was expected to carry that baby to term when she wasn't much more than a baby herself?  I think that is cruel.  She was raped repeatedly from the time she was 5 years old, hadn't she suffered enough?

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret.  I lost my virginity at 17.  Soon after the loss of said virginity, I was convinced I was pregnant.  However, I used Fort Knox level birthcontol.  I used everything...condoms, birthcontrol pills and the Today Sponge.  But as a guilt ridden Catholic, I had convinced myself that one sneaky sperm had managed so bypass all that security to fertilize my hypothetical egg.  Luckily I was not pregnant.

Fast forward 12 years... 

I wasn't feeling well.  I was so tired all the time.  I had heart burn that would not go away.  And the very sight of chicken made me nauseaus.  Turns out I was pregnant. However, I was married, I had a college degree, a job I loved and a medical insurance. If not now, then when? 
So I made my choice.

Had I gotten pregnant when I was 17, with no job, no boyfriend, no education and no medical insurance, my choice to continue with the pregnancy might have been much different.

When a woman, like the woman in the film, chooses to have an abortion, she does not come to this decision lightly. I figured that the woman in the film must have thought long and hard about the procedure.  It must have been described to her and she must have been told what she was in for.  And she still chose to go through with it.  She must have agonized over this decision and then she made her choice.

No one in the Pro-Choice movement thinks that having an abortion is great.  And no one in the Pro-Choice movement thinks that ALL pregnancies should be terminated.  But we do believe that it should be a choice available to women.

I hope I will never have to make that choice.  But I am glad that since I live in Massachusetts, I have the right to make that choice.  I get to decide. 

I am glad that that decision lies in my hands and not in the hands of a priest who has never walked a single step in my shoes, or that old lady with the rosary beads in front of Planned Parenthood who screams at you even if  you are just going in for a pap smear, or a politician who just wants to keep his congressional seat .  Its funny, these are also the same people who throw a fit when we suggest making birth control more readily available to prevent unwanted pregnancies...hence avoiding abortions.

So yes, I am a woman, I am a mother and I am Pro Choice.  I have never had an abortion, but if I ever find myself having to make that choice I believe that choice is between me and God... an no one else.

When I Chose Barack...

I remember I was having a hell of a time choosing between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  I was so torn.  On one hand, Hillary was a woman.  So we had that in common.  And at the time I was driving a Jeep and desperate to catch lightning in a bottle twice...namely the $.99 a gallon for gas from the Clinton administration.

Yes, I was not looking at the big picture, but I was hurting financially.

On the other hand, there was this young, dynamic candidate who caught my attention.  His name is Barack Obama.  His mom was a single parent.  He is a person of color.  And he kept throwing around these words....hope...together....we....change.

Wow.  Hope.  That was something I hadn't thought about for a while.  When was the last time I felt hope regarding a presidential election?  It was when Bill Clinton ran for president agains George Bush Sr.

I felt hope that things could be better.  Hope that we could turn things around.

When Bill Clinton ran for president the first time, he appeared on MTV and on the Arsenio Hall Show.  No other president did that.  And I felt like he was really trying to reach me.  He was talking about issues that affected me as a young person.  And I remember young people, like I was at that time, voted in larger numbers than before.

Now I was getting that feeling again.  Here was a new candidate with new ideas telling us that we all had to work together.  What a novel concept!  And we all sent in what ever funds we could to help his campaign along.  $5 here $10 there....maybe $25.....all of us...we were working together.

It was time to vote in the primary and I had no idea still who to vote for.

I took my ballot and just stood there...for 20 minutes...just staring at my ballot not knowing who to vote for.  Hillary or Barak?  Some old lady even asked me if I was confused by how to fill out the ballot....no I was just confused as to whom I would give my precious vote.

So, I finally filled in the bubble next to the name of my candidate....Barack Obama.   And I hoped I had made the right decision.

In my gas guzzling Jeep, on the way to work, I heard that the family of Ceasar Chavez endorsed Hillary Clinton...gulp....did I make the right choice?!?!?

I'm not sure when it was, but I saw a speech Barack Obama made.  I don't remember if it was a speech made after the primary, or if it was a clip recycled after having cast my ballot.  But Barak Obama made a statement about being appauled that a gallon of milk cost as much as a gallon of gas.

DING!!!

I knew at that second that I made the right choice.  While we are still in Iraq, while New Orleans is still in shambles, while houses are being forclosed left and right, Barack Obama made a statement that spoke to me.  I was strapped financially and milk is very expensive.  And my daughter drank it like it was going out of style.  You know things are bad when you go to the market and milk becomes a luxury purchase.

The cost of food is a huge concern for those of us raising children on a single income.  And he got it.  My issue is important to him.  Feeding my child is important to him.  And that's why he has my vote.

After he wins the election, and after he fixes the budget, and he ends our dependance on foreign oil, and saves the polar bears, and gets us the hell out of Iraq, I'd like to sit down with Barack Obama and have a nice tall glass of milk.

Guess Who's In the Suit!

Yep, somewhere deep in that suit is a 5 ft. tall Latina wondering why she had to be a good doobie and agree to put on the suit.

Some friends at work needed to shoot some video and they needed someone to wear the Leona costume.  The person wearing the Leona from Between the Lions suit couldn't be more than 5 ft. tall.  The suit could have been worn by my good friend Baby Bear (no names here) who is also short, but she was busy working a puppet chicken also appearing in the shoot.  (That's a sentence you don't hear very often.)

Since my friends were in a bind and short one shortie, I decided to take one for the team.  After all, how hard could it be?  Just put on the suit, move around a little according to the script, no big deal, right?  Wrong!

First, it was hot in the suit!  Really hot!  I started sweating and a drop of sweat rolled right into my eye and I couldn't take the head off to rub my eye.  Second, it smelled like feet inside that Leona costume!!  The costume had just come back from the dry cleaners and it still smelled like feet!  And then, the fumes!

After we finished shooting and I got out of the costume, the day seemed to go very slowly... kind of like in slow motion.  Was it because it was just a dull kind of a day?  NO!!!!  I was stoned off the dry cleaning fumes!!  And I smelled like feet!

So next time you go to a carnival or some kids event and you see some poor soul wandering around in one of these suits hugging kids, remember, he or she is hating life at that particular moment.

Regarding Pregnancy

I happened to see this on Youtube and it brought back a lot of memories and feelings for me regarding pregnancy.  I'm not sure how many of you know this, or if any at all, but my little Treenie was a preemie...that's funny...Treenie the Preemie.From the begining my pregnancy was deemed "high risk"  I nearly miscarried twice, early in my pregnancy.  When I was six months along, my water broke and I spent the next month on bed rest at Mass General Hospital.  I ended developing an infection in my uterus and had an emergency c-section.  Treenie was stuck and running out of time and I nearly bled to death.  But she was finally born and I lived to see her grow up into a smart, beautiful, precocious, smart alec 7 year old.  I consider this to be the greatest accomplishment of my life.  I can say that from the bottom of my heart, and with every fiber of my being, I fought to bring my child into the world!I guess that is why I take issues dealing with pregnancy very personally.  (i.e. the whole gloucester pregnancy scandal.)  Pregnancy is serious business and you better be damned ready to deal with a baby if you find yourself pregnant.

One memory that particularly stood out for me was about my ex husband.  At the time...my husband.  He could not understand why I was sooo tired, why I was sooo irritable, why I was soooo emotional.  He did not understand the toll that pregnancy takes on a woman's body.  And even though I was getting bigger, I don't think it became "REAL" to him until he felt his child kick for the first time.

He tried to feel the baby kick once, but I think she was too small.  I could feel her moving around, he couldn't feel anything when he had his hand on my belly.  A couple of weeks later I said, "Come feel the baby kick!"  He kind of rolled his eyes and whined that he couldn't feel her last time.  I insisted.  And he continued to whine while I put his hand on the spot she was kicking.  He was in mid whine when he stopped cold and said "Oh my God!"  And then the pregnancy was real.  He spent the rest of the afternoon with his head resting on what was left of my lap so he could feel the baby move around.

He cut me more slack for the rest of the pregnancy because he understood that I was sharing my body with another person.  I was, in essence, two people at the same time.

When I saw this video I remembered something.... pregnancy is not child's play!!

I LOVE THE OLYMPICS!

Today I am optimistic.  Today, representatives from all over the world gathered in Beijing in the spirit of goodwill to compete in the Olympic Games.    No one is there to compare the color of their skin.  No one is there to judge another because they don't speak the same language.  No one is there to fight, with the exception of the Judo athletes and the boxers.

I always look forward to the Parade of Nations, when the athletes walk into the main stadium.  Each one of them wearing something that represents their nation.  This year Venezuela wore white jump suits with gold, red and blue stripes across the front emblazoned with stars.  Lesotho wore beautiful African prints.  The British wore blazers, big surprise.

But I loved what team USA wore the most. I love that they wore blazers with white pants and white sneakers...and Kangol hats!  It was fun and casual, it was smart and hip.  I loved that the men and women wore the SAME outfit! 

I hate it when, in the Parade of Nations, the men wear something cool and the female athletes have to wear some stupid blazer and skirt combo or an even lamer dress, because their women and they need to wear skirts.  The American women wore the same as the men and they looked great.  And they wore the same as the men because they are ATHLETES just, like the men.

I'm looking forward to these Olympic Games.

Yes I know China has a dismal human rights record and their government is questionable at best.  But I am going to look the other way for now and I'm going to enjoy the Olympic Games.