January 23, 2002 I found it disheartening, overall. One of the things that was said that in the confirmation of justices to various courts, is that during the confirmation process, a judge wouldn't be considered if s/he wouldn't uphold something like Brown v. The Board of Education. Yet, here a judge is considered even if s/he would overturn a 30 year old piece of judiciary history, i.e., Roe v. Wade. I find it depressing that guys old enough to be my grandparents are attempting to make a decision for me about whether I or my daughter can choose to have children or not. I am not pro-abortion. I think abortions are terrible terrible things. I've had two. I can testify to this. I do think that women should be able to choose. I mean what if my diabetes had been so bad that there was no chance that the fetus would survive or that continuing with the pregnancy would kill me? I was lucky, I could continue with the pregnancy and now, I have Genny. What if I wasn't lucky? What about all the unlucky people who did something stupid and woke up pregnant? I don't think that that's a good choice, mind you, but being that I had that happen, I'm sure I'm not the only one. The problem is that because pro-choice laws have been on the books for so very long, that the current generation doesn't know the horror stories of illegal abortions. Because regardless of the legality of abortions, they seem to still happen. At a pro-choice rally in Washington DC in 1988, there was a wall erected of women who died from illegal abortions. I remember walking the wall in abject horror -- those were someone's daughters, mothers, sisters, and aunties. Making abortion illegal doesn't make women stop getting them, it merely seems to make them more dangerous. Some of the stories were heart wrenching. A teenager who had douched with something like bleach and died quietly upstairs in her room paled in comparison to the woman who'd paid $200 to a guy who tore her up so badly she went into shock and died in the alley outside his door from blood loss. I often wonder about the two children I didn't have. I know it's not very Episcopalian, but I had a strong sense of my children's spirits with me until I had them. I knew their genders before they were born and before I was told. I imagine that it's because their spirits stayed with me until I was ready to give them their bodies. Someone asked about religion and pro-choice and a minister said that a choice like this should be left between a woman and her God. I agree.
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