Our Little Geekling

You guys. I’m going to get political here for a minute. If you don’t care to hear my thoughts, please pass buy this post and continue on with your life. Comments will not be opened here, because I don’t want to argue. I get that you have an opinion and it’s not going to change. You just have to get that I have mine, too, and mine isn’t going to change. This post is primarily me venting, and since I pay for this domain I can do that here.

So.

A woman’s right to choose.

This is NOT a post about abortion, or when conception occurs. It’s about a woman’s right to choose. My personal thoughts about abortion or medicine take no place in this argument because I don’t believe that matters. It is a woman’s right to choose because it is HER body. Her body. HERS. Not the government’s. Just as women should have the ability to use birth control, decide if someone is going to have sex with her, when she will get pregnant if she decides that’s for her, and to make the decision not to (or to try not to) should she decide not to. It is not the government’s decision to mandate the proper age for a woman to have a child, to tell a woman how to raise her child, to decide if those children will go to private or public schools, how a mother should dress her children, or if a mother will use timeout to discipline her children. Just like the government doesn’t decide what you will be when you grow up, what college you will go to (or if you will go to college), whether or not you will get married, at what age of your adulthood you will get married, what kind of car you’ll drive, what job you’ll have, if you will stay-at-home instead of working, if your child will go to daycare, if you will hire a nanny, if you will read or play video games when you have downtime, where you will go on vacation, when/if you will exercise and how, or what you will wear each day. The government doesn’t get to decide if you will pursue radiation or chemo or surgical options if you have cancer, or where you will buy a house when you decide it’s time. Not all of the above-listed things are as big of a life decision as having a child, but some of them are. And some of them are about life or death. And some of them will make or break the rest of your life. And pregnancy can be life or death. Sometimes there is a decision to make about risking the life of a child or risking your own life. Sometimes you can do everything right in a pregnancy and still not have a baby to show for it. Sometimes people have ridiculously easy pregnancies and bounce back physically right away. Sometimes a woman throws up every single day for the eight months she’s aware of her pregnancy and then her baby weight hangs on for more than a year and a half.

I believe a woman should get to choose because it’s HER body that’s doing the work. It’s HER that will have to decide to give up a teeny, precious, wonderful child or keep it and maybe not have the money to eat, let alone feed her baby. And that’s if everything goes right and she doesn’t have a miscarriage or a stillbirth or preecclampsia or something that could put her own life at risk. Yes, I would lay down my life for my child. But a 28-year old, single working woman who never wanted a baby and always took her birth control AND used a condom but still got pregnant? A 14-year old who was raped by her uncle? A 21-year old student who has student health insurance that won’t cover her pregnancy because she didn’t know she was two weeks along when she signed up for student health insurance and she barely gets through each month of rent even though she works 30 hours a week and goes to school full-time and her parents have no money to help her out? They all have the right to choose, because give up the baby for adoption or not, HER LIFE IS GOING TO CHANGE. Even mothers who are happily married or in wonderful relationships or have a super great helper or amazing parents have days when they struggle with being a mother because it’s JUST TOO HARD. Why should the ones who didn’t ask for it or didn’t want it or didn’t plan for it or just weren’t ready for it have to face the challenge of a pregnancy? Just as women should get to choose everything else easy or hard in their lives, they should get to choose whether or not to try to carry a pregnancy to term.

I know some of you are still concerned about the things I posted above, the things that I said it’s not about. And that’s fine. I know someone is always going to bring up those things. (Although, please tell me how the Republican party believes in less government if the government is going to regulate the type of birth control insurance companies offer to certain corporations based on religious beliefs, when medications should be a part of HIPAA and not legally a concern of a company. And please tell me how personhood laws will make for less government when women (LIKE ME!) who suffer losses outside of her control could be prosecuted for murder. And please tell me how heading back to where the government regulates a woman’s decision to use birth control, try IVF, abort a child, etc. will lead to less government.) I’m just… I’m so very frustrated by this constant debate. I am a Christian. I am a mother. I have one miracle baby out of three pregnancies for whom I thank my God every single day. But I support a woman’s right to choose because IT IS A WOMAN’S BODY. This is not a religious debate (which, come on, separation of church and state is the hill I will die on when it comes to politics), and in my opinion it is not a place for you to decide I am a bad mother or a horrible person or a heathen Christian.

So I will stand on this soapbox. I’m voting with my vagina! Women will remember in November! NO politician should decide what I get to do with my body. I wouldn’t let them decide on anything else. So why let them decide on this? Democratic process FTW! FREEDOM IN AMERICA!

(Also, check out this article in which my amazing baby sister is quoted for standing up for women’s rights!)

If you’re pissed off at me now, look at this picture of my baby. My miracle, my wonderful, sweet, incredible child. I want her to be independent, to stand up for herself and her rights, and her beliefs. And I will fight now for her to have that right later.