So it's come down to something ridiculous. A friend of mine posted today that she is upset that her daughter, who is a Girl Scout, might get rejected for cookie selling because of the Girl Scout Organizations politics. You see *gasp* the GS supports Planned Parenthood, sort of, by supporting a politician named Wendy Davis. Remember her? She campaigned for women's rights in Texas by filibustering for hours on end in pink sneakers without even stopping to go to the bathroom.
So don't buy cookies because the Girl Scouts is pro-choice.
What?? Leave those scrumptious, delicious cookies alone and break a small girl's heart because you think, in a roundabout way, that the organization she is selling for somehow rips babies from wombs? And this little girl has something to do with it? My friend phrased it best: she doesn't support abortion, she loves her daughter, who is more important than Planned Parenthood.
So that wouldn't have been my first reaction. See, I support Planned Parenthood. You know why? Because when my ex-husband cheated on me with who knows how many other women, I didn't have very good health care and I had no one to turn to for testing. For STDS. That he could have given me. It wasn't enough that I was humiliated and brought low by his actions, I had to possibly suffer long-term consequences. So I went to PP and I asked for a test. The women there were understanding - they held my hand while I wept on the exam table, they made the tests as painless as possible, and they gave me timely (thankfully positive) results and they do this everyday. For anyone who asks.
But they perform abortions!!
Yes, they do. For the women who come in and need help. Do you think these women undertake such a procedure lightly? Do you think they think "Hey, I'm preggers - better go abort it." It's possible that some think that way, but a vast majority do not make this decision like it's changing their underwear. It's a long process, agonizing, heart-wrenching, and nothing anyone else can understand without walking miles in their shoes.
For all you folks out there that are pissed off about Obama making healthcare decision for you because of the Affordable Healthcare Act (which gives us free birth control), I call foul. Shame on you for wanting to prevent me from making my own health care decisions about an abortion when you rant and rave at Obama for making you change your plan. I tell you what - I'll vote against the Affordable Health Care Act if you keep your sanctimonious hands out of my uterus.
For the record, I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-choice. I believe that abortion is wrong - FOR ME. That doesn't mean it's wrong for someone else, and it's certainly not my place to tell another woman what she can and can't do with her body. If she feels this is her only recourse, then it should be an option that is available to her. It hurts no one but her, when it comes right down to it, and the father if he even cares. It doesn't hurt you down the street. It doesn't hurt the man protesting outside. It hurts her. The baby is a cluster of cells, unable to live apart from her. Without her good-will, it has no future. We are a culture that wants to bring babies into the world, but we don't want to care for them, as is evidenced by the protests against the ACA and the incredible education cuts that have been occurring. We don't pay our teachers beans compared to CEOs of companies that make trillions of dollars off the backs of the working poor, but we value the life inside a uterus when it can't survive on its own? We have our priorities backwards.
So don't judge, folks. God will do that himself, it's not our place. You can protest and say "It's murder" and then turn around and murder the abortion doctor instead, or vilify the woman who has the abortion, but do you think that's what Jesus would do? No. Jesus would hold her hand while she wept in her silent grief and help her recover, so that in the future she could choose a different road and save her soul. But he will do that, not you. Hurtful words and epithets do nothing to advance the cause of Christianity. Please keep that in mind the next time you tell a woman that it's her fault that she got pregnant (even in the case of rape) and it doesn't matter how she feels, she has to have that baby. Nice. Really Christ-like of you.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go buy a box of Tagalongs from the nice little girl, who has her innocence intact and her whole life ahead of her, who is standing at my door. Because of PP and women like Wendy Davis, she will start to believe she can do anything she wants to do with her life. She could be an astronaut, a home-maker, a teacher, or a politician and she could change the world.
Enjoy your cookies.
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