Church

We are currently discussing historical changes that have drastically affected the American family in Contemporary Social Issues. This past Friday we "discussed" birth control and Roe VS Wade.

Earlier this semester a young lady in this class asked her neighbor, "Why is abortion even necessary? I don't understand why you would need one." The other young woman responded, "Well, perhaps that child wasn't meant to be." [I cannot even begin to talk about the idiocy of that statement. Sadly, that's not even the kicker.] The first young lady then says, "How can that child not be meant to be if God made it?"

What do you even say to someone who wholeheartedly believes that babies are angels sent directly from heaven to bless mommies and daddies?

Let me tell you about abortions, baby girl, and why mommies and daddies make this difficult decision.

I'm sorry, honey, but the world is not a sunshiny type of place. Sometimes children are intended - mommy and daddy planned for them, they wanted that child. Sometimes children are the product of rape - a very mean man forces himself upon a mommy, and leaves behind an unwanted gift. Sometimes two individuals consensually make love and a baby is an accident either due to not using birth control, or contraceptive failure. [Holla! That's how I came to exist!]

Sometimes mommies and daddies decide together that they are not ready to be parents. Sometimes daddies run away, leaving the mommy by herself and then she decides that she simply cannot handle raising a child on her own. Sometimes mommies are still babies themselves [like my cousin Samantha - first abortion at the age of 14]. Sometimes doctors tell mommies that their bodies cannot give birth to a baby, that the mommy will die. Sometimes doctors tell mommies that their baby will be a special needs baby, and mommies decided that they cannot properly take care of that baby, and that they do not want that baby to suffer in life.

Sometimes mommies feel that they best thing they can do for their baby is to choose not to subject them to an unfair life.

All of this reminded me of a video that Eryn put on my Facebook wall a while ago.

Her name is Sonya Renee, and she is magnificent. Be prepared for goosebumps, it's magical. [Full text of the poem after the video.]




Culturally diversified biracial girl with a small diamond nose ring and pretty smile poses beside the words "women deserve better."
And I almost let her non-threatening grin begin infiltrate my psyche till I read the unlikely small print at the bottom of the ad:
"Sponsored by the US secretariat for pro-life activities and the Knights of Columbus."
On a bus in a city with a population of 563,000, four teenage mothers on the bus with me.
One latina woman with three children under three and no signs of a daddy.
One 16 year old black girl standing in 22 degree weather with only a sweater and a bookbag and a bassinet with an infant that ain't even 4 weeks yet,
Tell me that yes, women do deserve better.
Women deserve better than public transportation rhetoric from the same people who won't give that teenage mother a ride to the next transit,
Won't let you talk to their kids about safer sex,
Have never had to listen as door slams behind the man who adamantly says that shit ain't his, leaving her to wonder how she'll raise this kid.
Women deserve better than the 300 dollars TANIF and AFDC will provide that family of three,
Or the six dollar an hour job at KFC with no benefits for her new baby,
Or the college degree she'll never see because you can't have infants at the university.
Women deserve better than lip-service paid for by politicians who have no alternatives to abortion,
Though I'm sure right now one of their 17 year old daughters is sitting in a clinic lobby sobbing quietly and anonymously, praying parents don't find out,
Or is waiting for mom to pick her up because research shows that out of wedlock childbirth don't look good on political polls and Bush ain't having that.
Women deserve better than backward governmental policies that don't want to pay for welfare for kids, or health-care for kids, or childcare for kids,
Don't want to pay living wages to working mothers,
Don't want to make men who only want to be last night's lovers responsible for the semen they lay.
Just flat out don't want to pay for shit,
But want to control the woman who's having it.
Acting outraged at abortion.
Well I'm outraged that they want us to believe that they believe that women deserve better.
The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests,
But I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and it's condemnation for me?
These are the same people who won't support national condom distribution to prevent teenage pregnancy,
But women deserve better.
Women deserve better than back-alley surgeries that leave our wombs barren and empty.
Deserve better than organizations bearing the name of land-stealing racist rapists, funding million dollar campaigns on subway trains with no money to give these women,
While balding, middle-aged white men tell us what to do with our bodies while they wage wars and kill other people's babies.
So maybe women deserve better than propaganda and lies to get into office,
Propaganda and lies to get into panties,
To get out of court,
To get out of paying child support.
Get the fuck out of our decisions and give us back our voice.
Women do deserve better.
Women deserve choice.