...and I just have some questions for my fellow abortioneers.
Is this how it usually goes down for you?
Sub-questions:
Which one of you avoids bringing it up -- you or the relative(s)?
Which one of you subtly changes the subject?
Which one of you decides to end the conversation?
Which one of you lets the other person have the last word, and/or decides to leave it at "agreeing to disagree"?
...Or do you just have an all-out fight?
...Or is everything hunky-dory with all your relatives? (Congratulations!)
These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm just curious about the whole spectrum of experiences (from people I know personally, it's already quite broad). So tell me how it is for you.
This only really appealed to me because I generally identify as an atheist, or at least a Humanist if I'm feeling Vonnegutian. Just reading the abstract I learned that other people, particularly steadfast Christians, aren't so much disgusted by me (as they are by homosexuals) as they are distrustful of me. Turns out I'm about as trustworthy as your everyday rapist.
Flattered.
I'm not going into the many, many, many reasons why this is illogical, or how you can believe that a godless life is necessarily an immoral one. I just have a lot of questions about how this affects the lives of Abortioneers. It seems like a lot of the prejudice against non-religious folks stems from the really religious folks, as does the prejudice towards abortion and Abortioneers. Does that mean, then, that:
1. A religious Abortioneer is more trustworthy than an atheist one? 2. Antis will target atheist Abortioneers more than religious ones? 3. It is more "sinful" to abortioneer if you are religious than if you are not?
For example. I mean, my overall impression is that antis suck and won't really give you the benefit of the doubt just because you go to church. (Dr. Tiller much?) And when the majority of anti sentiments are religious ones, it's clear that they think we all have topsy-turvy moral codes. So maybe it doesn't make a difference.
But still, I can't help but feel doubly judged. These people hate my guts because I'm an Abortioneer, but also because I don't share their general philosophies on what happens when you die and what you should be doing with your weekends. And every time I'm handed a rosary or prayed for by an anti, I just feel so angry. I know there is nothing wrong with me, and yet these folks are convinced that there's a major bug in my system.
I have to say, I can't help but feel a little bit "off the hook". I'm spared all the debates about whether or not religion is accepting of abortion because all I can contribute is
And more importantly, to the people I serve, I am trustworthy. My views may certainly clash with theirs, but I'll escort them through the hellfire and brimstone if that's what it takes. And they thanks me for it every time.
I would guess Karen Handel’s about to go tell breast cancer’s secrets downstream where they don’t cry because they’re sociopathic; and live lies; and worship poppas, but their toilets do flush.
In week’s review, it’s endearing to watch people stand for accessible health care. Hundreds of thousands of patients remembered their roots and paid forward. Facebook blew up with hot pink everything. Top news lines questioned the scape-goating of Planned Parenthood health centers*. Mayor Bloomberg wrote a fatty check.
Meanwhile, most Abortioneers just kept working. Their donations made daily, care of their modest paychecks and additional hoops they navigate to stay safe (see also: last week's Staying Afloat ). It’s nice to know we have Planned Parenthood Federation of America to rally the country and collect the support, but victories and non-victories aside, we’re still hoping for the love for abortion.
Bright Light of Hope: On Prop 8 Decision, we love when people are seen as people
Anti-choicers get a lot of attention and often credit for being strong mobilizers for their agenda. They are able to get effectively get their fellow antis to spread the word about a campaign, a candidate, a protest etc. I always find it frustrating, annoying, you name it. Now the pro-choicers have shown that we are just as, if not more effective.
Recently, two high profile issues have come about and forced response and change from major corporations/organizations. First we had the issue with Siri, which was brought to light on this blog by Abortioneer Mr. Banana Grabber. Through social media, the pro-choice movement was able to get out the word, mobilize big-name organizations, and get the attention of national media. We didn't give up and were able to get a response from the CEO of Apple (and hopefully a solution).
Now, we have just had the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle. Thanks to PP for outing the problem, pro-choicers again took to social media, got national media to write news articles and opinion pieces, and even got the attention of 26 US Senators who agreed that a "women's health organization" should care about women's health over politics. Very quickly Komen realized what a grave mistake they made and reversed their decision.
I am proud of my fellow pro-choicers for being strong, vocal, and persistent. Watch out antis. A new generation of pro-choicers are active, and we will fight every day, every campaign for the rights of women to choose for themselves what type of contraception is right for them, and whether abortion is right for them. The anti-choice lobby may have always been a strong one, but the pro-choicers are showing just how powerful we can be.
I love the Super Bowl. Really, I do. While the general population curls up to watch larger-than-average men in tights pile-up on a field somewhere, there is a stillness outdoors, a vacancy on the streets, an unlikely but pleasant solitude.
I do also enjoy the rude, anti-abortion controversies that threaten everyone’s chip-dip and light-beer, good times. And by enjoy, I do mean, loath.
No doubt, Abortioneers can appreciate an aggressive, even extreme campaign for change. To prove this, we’ll share an extreme campaign that aims to change the state of pregnancy, motherhood, and (imagine this) working conditions around the world: Mispolis, Abortions for Successful Living.
While the content may be shocking, it is a parody designed to bring light to alllllll kinds of labor injustices. Alternatively, the shocking anti-abortion commercials desecrate a motherly sacrifice and exploit the loss of human life.
The biggest difference between anti-abortion Super Bowl commercials and Misopolis, however, is that you have a choice whether or not you wish to view our recommendation. It won’t appear without warning and it’s aimed at helping women, real women living and breathing on this round earth. Also, working their asses off. Also, having desire.
We know Randall Terry is a deprived man deeply afraid of sensual, assertive women. Just a tad psychotic, just a tad. We know he threatens the lives of every single Abortioneer. A godly devil, if you will, with way too much money and an army of dummies.
We’re wary of such sad beings, such losers, such beasts. But we’re not afraid. We know the world is getting smart.
The recall affects Lo/Ovral®-28 (norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol) oral contraceptive pills. If you are a user, talk to your provider and use a backup method!
Seriously, this Susan G. Komen stuff is offensive and crazy. So many of us have dealt with breast cancer first hand. My grandmother died from breast cancer. Even had a double mastectomy, but that ugly cancer spread to her lungs. A friend from high school, in her 20's, died from breast cancer. I'm sure most of you can relate.
Why the fuck Susan G. Komen would ever try to defund any organization that helps detect breast cancer, is beyond me. Beyond all of us. And we all know there is no correlation between breast cancer risk and abortion. Even the CDC and WHO...oh, and the National Cancer Institute have said so. RH Reality Check's Editor-in-Chief, Jodi Jacobson, wrote a great piece here. What's uber scary about this, is that she points out that they've hired individuals who are blatantly anti-abortion and politicize abortion themselves. Like their new VP who was quoted writing on her campaign blog (oh, and she was endorsed by fucking Sarah fucking Palin), "I will be a pro-life governor who will work tirelessly to promote a culture of life in Georgia.... I believe that each and every unborn child has inherent dignity, that every abortion is a tragedy, and that government has a role, along with the faith community, in encouraging women to choose life in even the most difficult of circumstances.... since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood." Her name is Karen Handel and is the former pro-life gubernatorial candidate for Georgia. Seriously? Read more here.
I'm so frustrated by all this fucked-up bullshit, that I can hardly write straight about it. There will be better articles than mine. And Vegan Vagina wrote a very good one yesterday. I used to feel good when I'd buy products that went to support the Susan G. Komen foundation. Fuck that shit now. I will refuse to support them in any way.
You all read the news yesterday, right? It was all over facebook and the blogs and I even received a "personal" email from Cecile Richards about it. Well, in case you don't know what I'm talking about, you can get caught up here at Slate or here at Planned Parenthood
I have felt for years that Komen is one of the worst offenders when it comes to Pink Washing. They seem to be willing to slap a pink ribbon on just about any marketable product, regardless of its health benefits. I have seen cookies, makeup, Mikes Hard Lemonade, propane trucks, etc etc the list goes on and on. I remember a few years ago when the Komen KFC chicken bucket came out. I am still so disgusted every time I see that image (hence, I did not post it here...but feel free to google "komen KFC"). I'm over Komen's bullshit pinkwashing and their bullshit politics. If you want to help women then help women. It is that simple. Now leave us alone and let us figure out how to deal with this gaping hole in preventative services that you have created.
Please please please consider donating to support Planned Parenthood and the great work they do. This is from Planned Parenthood:
Over the past five years, Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation funds have enabled Planned Parenthood health centers to provide nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and referrals for more than 6,400 mammograms. These cancer detection and prevention programs saved the lives of women who often had nowhere else to turn for care.
Now, after facing criticism from anti-choice, anti-women's health groups, the Komen Foundation has decided to stop supporting women seeking care at Planned Parenthood health centers. We are determined to make sure that these women can continue to get the care they need — and, as always, that means we are counting on you.
Please make your emergency contribution today to help us defend access to care and continue to protect and promote women's health.
I work in an abortion clinic, I'm over worked, underpaid, and generally just sort of trying to stay afloat in a backwater madhouse. I have worked at my job for nearly 2 years and I have not had a raise or any paid time off, yet my responsibilities have quadroopled. I'm tired and burned out. The administration at my job feels the business is struggling so much they just can't afford employee incentives, so instead they have good employees who get burned out in short periods of time and leave.
When I consider trying to write about my job and the experiences I have in providing abortion care I just want to scream and curse out everyone.
The anti-abortion movement is clearly really well organized. They have created websites that list abortion providers names and addresses, they terrorize suppliers, and physicians who have any professional relationships with abortion providers even if they aren't providing. Its really sick. They have successfully infiltrated the department of health and hospitals and thus inhibited women's access to abortion in the state where I live and work. I feel like I'm telling them they are winning because I know some sick radical anti is probably reading this now.
I may work longer hours and feel overwhelmed but women who don't want to be pregnant are still finding ways to terminate even given all the obstacles anti-abortion nuts are trying to create. Clinics are still staying open and finding ways to stay in business. I guess I try to operate with a certain level of faith that because abortion should be available and accessible it will continue to be even if access isn't exactly accessible.
I pray to live in a world where abortion is a medical procedure that someone may opt to have. People will some how finally realize someone else's pregnancy and the outcome of their pregnancy is just none of anyone's damn business.
I want to talk about sexual health. Abortion. Yes, abortion is a part of the sexual health spectrum but I want to talk about something else my clinic offers.
Cancer screenings, STD screenings, contraceptive consultations. Yes, we offer these too and they are a part of the sexual health spectrum as well.
But I want to talk about how not every man who walks through the clinic doors is a man involved with a doomed pregnancy. We offers services for men.
In fact, men have sexual health, too.
An integral part of Abortioneers’ work involves normalizing functions of the body and discussing best practices for a best life. Is the scent odorous or just human? Are the size, texture, color, and frequency desirable, creepy, animalistic? Yes, all of the above.
Stinging, burning, itching, round sores, and flesh-tone skin tags probably not normal, but treatable. Everything is treatable. Some things are curable. But only when people know they have them.
An integral part of my work as an Abortioneer involves discussing sex lives namely with women—identities, preferences, mishaps, cycles, outcomes, rape, and abuse. Fluids. In turn, I regard life with awe. We are such wondrous beings. So much inside us still to come.
This week, I met with a man in his mid-twenties seeking a routine screening for sexually transmitted diseases. He had no symptoms but had never been tested despite several sex partners. A partner three years past informed him of a longstanding Chlamydia infection so he was catching up. Chlamydia can have no symptoms.
In completing his routine screening, we discussed another matter. Discharge. He wanted to know if it was normal to have discharge during initial erection when aroused. I suppose he could have asked his friends. Instead, he was asking me. Yes, yes that is normal pending it’s clearish, non-odorous, non-irritating, and normal for him. He had been wondering that for a loooooooong time.
I suppose he could have asked his friends or any one of his past partners. But we live in a strange world where body fluid is rarely addressed despite so much of it. They’ve probably watched porn together and discussed tits and cunts. But then there is actual desire and inherent need. Not just vessels of god’s creation, bloody, wet animals.
Rick Santorum is awful for a number of reasons, many of them excusable. (hey, he can't help being a TOTAL MORON.) But one thing I can't stomach is this culture of rape acceptance. It's maddening.
I used to be a rape acceptor. I used to be one of the people who thought:
"Of course you're going to get harassed with your tits hanging out!" "If the guy was bothering you why didn't you just get up and leave?" "Sure it's tough, but it's just a part of being a woman. You have to expect that kind of behavior from men."
I also made jokes about rape, laughed at jokes about rape, didn't think too much when I heard about rape. Then I realized I was nuts. I don't care how common sexual assault is. I don't care how short someone's skirt is, or how out her tits are hanging. We should never have reached a point at which we simply don't care that a person has been raped. I actually reached this epiphany one night when two of my closest friends jumped down my throat. I had been with a guy who used me for sex, never talked to me again, and left me with a nice little reminder of the occasion for which he never expressed concern. It was not assault/rape by any means, but the blame barrage that followed from these two friends was plain hurtful:
"He didn't even like you. I tried to tell you that." "You knew what he was like and you still went after him." "Maybe he never said anything because he was too ashamed. You should have confronted him first."
After that, I could only imagine how terrible I'd have felt had I been assaulted. What if I hadn't chosen it? What if it had been forced upon me, and I still had it thrown in my face? What if, on top of all that, I became pregnant and were forced to bear a child and potentially parent it?
What so many fail to realize is that rape hurts. It's frightening, it's disgusting, and makes you feel like a pile of shit. It can affect the rest of your life. Moreover, it is a crime. Remember that part? Nobody seems to care about this anymore. Why are people more upset about an aborted rape pregnancy than about the rape itself? Rape is fundamentally wrong, and before we can even have intelligent discussions about how to deal with rape pregnancies people like Santorum need to first get on board with the fact that something illegal happened. (Referring to the rape, of course. People also seem to forget that abortion is legal.)
While pondering this matter I discovered "Project Unbreakable". The brains behind P.U. is a young woman who wanted to provide a way for sexual assault victims to heal. That is, by using the words of their assailants to regain their strength after the event(s). Rick Santorum needs to see these. He needs to know exactly what happens to people during rape, the kinds of hateful words they endure. In any case it's a powerful movement and I encourage you all to have a look. You can even participate if you feel so inclined, and bless all your hearts for being in the right place.
How does one ruin the Superbowl for everyone? Run anti-abortion commercials!
Randall Terry, everyone's favorite anti to hate, is running for President. He has no chance and knows that. So why would he run you ask? Part of the FCC Telecommunications Act says that candidates' ads must be run and can't be altered if aired within 45 days of a Presidential primary. As long as Terry can get the money together (and apparently has in 13 television markets), he can run whatever he wants. If you live in these areas, you can prepare to see some graphic fetus porn. Because I refuse to link directly to Randall Terry's website, I will link to a CNN article. While these ads could be worse, I still don't know too many people who want to see this while they have family and friends gathered for food and football (pro- or anti-choice).
I did go to his website to view the ads, and I saw that he's raising money to air the ads. Undoubtedly there are many misguided people out there who are ok with this crap airing on TV. I wish I could do something to prevent people from donating to this nut job. While I may not be able to do that, I can try to do something to encourage people to donate to his opposition. Below I've listed some fabulous pro-choice options for donations.
Roe Day is a celebration of a woman's right to choose. It's a day when we should reflect on the sacrifices made by those who came before us. Remember those who died or risked their lives to have control over their bodies and to ensure that the generations that came after would have the same right.
For 39 years we have had the right to choose. Many of us have grown up only ever knowing what this is like. It's pretty amazing to have grown up with this right, but let's not be complacent. All across the country, state legislatures are slowly chipping away at this right. The Republican contenders for President salivate at the opportunity to get rid of Roe.
We can't allow that to happen. We can't allow the sacrifices made by our predecessors to be in vain. Celebrate Roe today and continue the fight for future generations.
Happy Friday, dear readers! We all need a bit of cheer sometimes, so thought we'd try to brighten up your almost weekend by sharing some of our favorite abortion funnies. A huge thanks to someecards which just rocks. So, for starters, we think those of you who get stuck in traffic will enjoy this one!
Sadly, this one seems to sum up our government at the moment!
OMG! Honetly, an Abortioneer must've come up with this one...
An Abortioneer might've made this ecard, too. Might actually be a great blog post sometime!
Because that would happen...(sarcasm)
Feel a bit unsure about whether to post this one or not since I don't agree that there are people who "should" have abortions; however, I love the point that this makes...(15 year olds are able to get on the pill, but can't get Plan B OTC? Puuhhhhlleeeaaaz.)
Ha! (my favorite funny of the day!)
Hope these made you laugh! This isn't an exhaustive list for us...and feel free to share some of your own favs, too!
Sunday is Roe v Wade. For abortioneers, it is a holiday sort-of. The big celebration of gaining our federal right to decide when - or if - we want to become mothers. Doing direct service work, we see women on a daily basis benefitting this historic decision; yet it feels like many of our patients are unaware of the political climate we find ourselves in currently, always fighting just to keep clinic doors open.
Sometimes, I want to tell patients (especially on Roe v Wade day) that without that decision, they wouldn't be in our clinic. They may be trying to obtain an unsafe, illegal abortion. Or maybe the 15 year old girl who was raped, would be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.
Sometimes I think there is more we could do to raise awareness of the importance of Roe v Wade to our patients on this day. I mean, I know a lot of clinics won't be working on Sunday, but maybe there is something we could do on Monday. Or Saturday. Maybe your clinic can make Roe v Wade ribbons that all the staff wear and give out to patients. Maybe you can leave colorful flyers in the waiting room for support people to read about how their loved one wouldn't be having an abortion without Roe v Wade and how this very sacred right is currently threatened.
I think this starts with staff, though, too. Employers need to really recognize Roe v Wade as a special day so that the staff can be educated, too...and then, hopefully, pass that onto the patients they see or speak with.
In the very least....without Roe v Wade, none of us would even be working as abortioneers. At least not legally.
We at Abortioneers are supporting the online blackout today and will keep this brief. If you have no idea what I am talking about read here and here.
So, why do the Abortioneers care about this?
Any efforts to increase internet censorship or infringe on free speech will impact us. That simple.
The Abortioneers started because there was a hunger for information straight from the source itself--something that wasn't happening in the "real" world. We gather on the internet to fuel this blog and thus disseminate information about a highly stigmatized and already censored topic. It is a human right for people to have information on abortion, and yes, I personally believe that includes information on controlling ones own reproductive functions however they choose--and for many people that information can only come from the internet.
As the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade approaches, it feels a bit (or a ton) like there’s little to celebrate.
Honestly, according to Guttmacher Institute, 92 anti-abortion provisions passed in 24 states in 2011. Ho Hum.
But supposing 2011 is inconsequential and everything of 2012 is new and either headed for a new world or truly doomed...
Eloquently, Whole Woman’s Health issued a press release over a new sonogram law passed in Texas, including this fine gem: “We know that every day, good women have abortions.”
Holistically, there is also this historical perspective from a professor and advocate, Dr. Jeannie Ludlow: "I propose that we look again at illegal, extralegal, and legal abortion and reshape our understanding to focus on the difference between harmful, exploitive practices and safe, compassionate care. "
(Pleasantly) surprisingly, Forbes magazine features the National Network of Abortion Funds: "In short, requiring women to carry every pregnancy to term would plunge a far greater number of women and children into poverty than are already there.
Those Privileged Among Us Who Continue to Have Choice Have an Obligation to Our Sisters Who Do Not..."
However lightly, for those who follow football: Should You Fuck Tim Tebow?Have I mentioned my new year's solution is to convert TIm Tebow? Mountain man...
I once volunteered for an organization that helped women afford safe abortions regardless of their income. I still do work for an organization that helps women afford abortions regardless of their income but it’s a different organization. There are many of us but never enough. There is never enough money in the right hands to make the world so safe for everyone.
I once worked with a woman who made too much money to qualify for the organization’s modest fund. She lived paycheck to paycheck but within comfortable means. Because my organization, as well as several other organizations, could not afford to assist her, she chose to obtain surgery at one of Steve Brigham’s clinics in Maryland—one of the cheapest clinics in the region.
She delayed her surgery to accrue the money on her own and spoke with me throughout the process because she intended to tell no one. Our conversations were completely centered on the expertise I could provide but there were limits to my services and I could offer little beyond confidential abortion information and referrals over the phone.
The conversations were brief but serious. At times, I felt her calls were taking over my life: on lunch, at the laundromat, making dinner, late night. She called me after her second trimester procedure. She was driving and pulled over to vomit. She had been sedated and released from the clinic without an escort to drive her home.
Avoiding and counter-referring the cheapest clinics in the Mid-Atlantic region is difficult and bothersome at best. Demoralizing, confounding, heart breaking that this is how the system works.
The existence of terrible abortion providers—those who make a business out of the desperation women feel when they know they cannot carry a pregnancy to term—creates an ultimate conundrum for Abortioneers—those who believe abortion helps society because they see how often it does. Abortioneers spend free time helping women navigate barriers to obtaining safe abortion care.
Case managers and patients alike desired abortions from Steve Brigham’s clinics because they needed to end pregnancies that were not meant to be but also feed children, pay rent, pay for school, pay bills. In a field so terrorized by anti-abortion monsters, there is urgency in the fight for women’s proper destiny that transcends the demand for safe health care. In other words, history has proven over and over that women will risk their lives to end doomed pregnancies.
An abortion at a shady clinic that’s not a back alley kitchen table seems somewhat more promising—the only option for some of your neighbors and you're okay with that as long as you don’t have to really talk about abortion, the abortions women are actually having, not the political weapon invented by the GOP.
My dear colleague and I visited one of Steve Brigham’s clinics soon after the case of the woman who drove home quasi-sedated. I took a pregnancy test. The medical assistants were kind and accommodating but the atmosphere was unsettling. My dear colleague and I resolved to find the money to help women get to the good clinics, the slightly higher-priced clinics—licensed and certified to provide safe, legal abortions.
In other words, as a non-medical, grassroots organization, we were not obligated to care whether the women we assisted received licensed and certified surgeries but we did care because we’re Abortioneers. The United States of America was founded under the governing principle that all people are inherently free, equal, and due justice. I would add that most people are just trying to get by. Laws have been implemented to protect the general good from the (rare) deviant.
Placing further limitations on the abortion procedure and tighter regulations on abortion facilities in the state of Maryland will not necessarily catch the rare and deviant Brigham-types any sooner in the grand pile of paperwork. However, caring about women having abortions will.
Most to the point, how about cracking down on New Jersey for failing to provide adequate health care? Often, abortion restrictions involve room measurements, time periods and additional hoops for abortioneers and pregnant women to meander through, or just plain prohibit necessary health care all together. I’m all for each state getting to know its abortion providers. Many abortion clinics in this country are quite stellar, but damn if a congressperson or state official ever walked through the doors just to say hello and thank you/ how can I help?
I can’t think of how this story might unfold in any other field of medicine because I do not know. But I can suggest that persecuting perfectly good abortion care providers—arguably some of the best in the country—detracts from a far more pertinent need: taking care of our pregnant citizens.
Steve Brigham was operating a business off the inevitability of abortion. He had a record. He was criminal, a rule-breaker who spotted a need and families willing to pay him for his supposed expertise.
Send him to jail but please do not hunt down the good clinics and treat them in the woods where no one not having an abortion cares to hear. There is a noble world ahead. One where Cheryl of Operation Rescue is not quoted in the Baltimore Sun like she’s some kind of reasonable and credible source.
When a woman resolves to have an abortion she has no choice. There is no world where some pregnant women will not have abortions. In exploring our disgust and misconceptions with abortion we find a real world—one where humans make complicated decisions and dying is a part of living—interwoven, like, death is happening right now inside and everywhere at the same time as life.
Your support starts with listening. Like, being able to hear the truth.
We frequently discuss how to talk to friends/acquaintances/family who are not abortioneers about being an abortioneer. Or even, simply, about abortion. Though I’ve been doing this work a long time, I find I go through stages. Sometimes it’s easier to discuss abortion and other times, it just isn’t easy at all. Probably some of it depends on how much is going on at work (if it’s stressful or we’re having a lot of protesters, I tend not to want to discuss work outside work as much. Especially with people who just won’t get it anyway).
It can feel isolating to have the people who are closest to you not understand your work, your commitment to it, and your passion for it. Only recently have I been able to have conversations with my dad about abortion after years of bitter silence. Sometimes, it’s still frustrating to even talk to my husband; for example, if I have a shit day, he is quick to tell me I should just leave the clinic. He reminds me that I already have to put up with protesters and the stigma that comes along with being an abortioneer. He asks why I should stick around if my boss is being…err…unappreciative. It’s hard for me to explain to him that I’m committed to something larger (the “work”) and can put up with a bunch of bullshit in order to feel like I’m making a difference in someone’s life…and I’m motivated by that…not quite as much by recognition from my employer.
It’s stigma that really makes it so difficult to talk about our work. I haven’t even discussed it with my son’s best friend’s mom (who I have become very good friends with). We do mommy things together all the time; we take our sons to soccer practice, to basketball practice. Over the summer, our kids did gymnastics and baseball. We see each other almost every day. Still, I am vague about my work and have never used the word “abortion.” She probably knows. I’ve mentioned asshole protesters before so hopefully she’s put it all together, but we’ve never talked about it: abortion. Not once. I have no idea how she feels about it, but obviously, I’m worried or else I’d speak more freely. The reality is, though I know she’s fairly liberal, I also know she’s a small town girl, a cowgirl at heart, who likes to ride horses and is from a conservative area. (Which does not mean she would be anti-abortion!)
...So I get nervous. And I feel like I need to grow the fuck up! LOL
Last night was the Iowa Caucus and I have Republicans on the brain. So, I pose this conundrum to my fellow abortioneers (who I presume to not identify/vote/align as anti-abortion Republicans):
Q. Would you rather have sex with Michele Bachmann OR Rick Santorum?
I mean, you could easily substitute "vote" for "sex" here. However, I really want to talk about sex! I think at this point in my life I would have to say I would rather die from a sex drought than have sex with an anti-abortion Republican. But then I think, can sex just be sex? What if they are amazing in bed??? I have thought about this a lot over the years, and I really don't think I could give one of these zealots the satisfactin of sleeping with a sex-positive birth control-using person such as myself. I mean what happens if that one-night stand with a Republican turns into a pregnancy??? You certainly can't ask them to help pay for the abortion (well, unless you can, which probably happens often...lots of those "anti-abortion until it happens to me" types are out there). But, what if you decide to have the baby? You potentially have an anti-abortion baby daddy on your hands who could be in your life FOREVER. Ugh. So, that is why I have established my embargo.
I would love to hear your "would you rather" scenarios...submit your ideas in the comments!
