"Amurrica" was founded on...

Yesterday I was at a red light behind a truck proudly displaying a bumper sticker that read:

America was founded on 

IN GOD WE TRUST.

Um, NO. It wasn't, you ignorant cow.

You know what "America" -- the United States of, to which I assume your ignorant sticker is referring, not the continent of America (though your claim would be closer to accurate if you were referring to the continent of America, you know, with the whole "God, gold, and glory" thing... but I am giving you way too much credit, aren't I?) -- was actually founded on?

Well, there was that whole, "We don't want the King to force us to join his church and follow his religion" thing, for one. And then there was that whole "Taxation without representation" thing.

Hmm... speaking of passing laws that affect a specific group of people without letting that specific group of people have a say in the matter...

I'm sorry, what was that you were saying, about getting back to the values this country was founded on?

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Abortion: Totally Just Like A Spare Tire

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Birthing Rights ARE Reproductive Rights

So now that I'm a momma, I'm all into the online birthing communities, too. Birthing rights and all that jazz... which is really just a subset of reproductive rights. My body, my choice: I get to choose how to birth my baby. I have a right to birth in a hospital, or a birthing center, or at home. I have a right to have a midwife, and a doula, if I want them. Makes sense, no?


Women need to be informed about their choices, what options they have when they birth. They need to know the risks of epidurals, episiotomies, and whether or not these are actually necessary (or desirable). They have a right to have an IBCLC available to help with any breastfeeding issues.


As I saw tweeted the other day, "Pro-choice" and "Trust Women" doesn't just apply to abortion -- it damn well applies to birth, too. The problem is that the conversation is so often derailed into "UR A MURDERERRR!!!" by the pro-"life" side so we don't get to talk about any real issues, we just spend our time pointing out their lies and fallacies.


Most women who have had an abortion either already have children or will have them in the future (when they're ready). "Women who have an abortion" and "women who have a baby" are not two separate groups. They're a Venn diagram, with a huge overlap in the middle.


We want the same thing: respect for women when it comes to their bodies. When and how to be pregnant. When and how to birth. When and how to feed their children.


Yesterday I saw the Ronald Reagan quote about how "everyone who is for abortion has already been born." I've seen it before, and ignored it, because it's a stupid quote pretending to be "clever." Unborn entities don't have opinions, so they can't be "for" (or against) anything. Plenty of people who have "already been born" wish they had not. Oftentimes they commit suicide. Or they turn to drugs or alcohol to dull the pain of living.

And plenty more of us would not have cared if we'd been aborted. You know why? BECAUSE FETUSES DON'T HAVE COGNITIVE PROCESSES OR THE ABILITY TO CARE.


The quote was not blog-post-worthy. What was, was where I saw it: I saw this quote on a birthing rights community page.


Those same women who are appalled that a doctor would force a C-section on a woman... are saying it's okay to force an entire pregnancy on her??


Here's my (first) response:


I'm surprised to see an anti-abortion statement posted today, when yesterday there was a question from a mom about doing a D&C for a molar pregnancy. I still don't know what a molar pregnancy is (haven't had time to Google it), but I know what a D&C is. It's one method of terminating a pregnancy (usually done in the second trimester, if I recall correctly). I had one, when I was faced with an unwanted pregnancy, just over a decade ago. 

I have seen other posts (don't think it was on this page, but on another parenting/birthing-rights page) about moms seeking advice about a D&C after a miscarriage or stillbirth (to make sure all the tissue is actually out of the body, to prevent infection and/or other complications).

There are a bazillion different reasons why a woman may need to terminate a pregnancy. Sometimes it's because she's not ready to be a mother. Sometimes it's because she's not capable of being a mother -- financially, or mentally/emotionally, or physically. Sometimes it's because something is wrong with the pregnancy or the fetus -- like an ectopic or molar pregnancy. Sometimes it's because the fetus is already dead, but her body hasn't miscarried properly and removed all the tissue. I'm not and obstetrician, so I can't even begin to list all the medical reasons for an abortion.

Whatever that woman's reason is, SHE knows what's best for her. It's her body. She also knows what is best for that potential child -- deciding whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term is the first parenting decision a woman makes. Please respect her choice.

Just like a doctor doesn't have the right to force a woman to have a c-section if she doesn't want one, no one has a right to force a woman to have a pregnancy if she doesn't -- or can't -- want it.

One of the reasons the women who posted here and on other pages asking for advice on whether they should have a D&C for a doomed (or already terminated) pregnancy is because abortion has been so demonized in our society. It's a medical procedure. A necessary one. No woman makes the decision to abort a pregnancy lightly -- and any woman who would, is not apt for or perhaps capable of motherhood. Motherhood begins with pregnancy.

If you want to reduce the number of abortions that happen because of unwanted pregnancies, call your legislators and tell them to fund Planned Parenthood. Tell them to make birth control fully covered by insurance. Tell them to make hospitals stock emergency contraception in the ER for rape victims. Call your school board and your legislators and make comprehensive sex ed mandatory curriculum starting in middle school.

But don't criminalize or demonize abortion. You don't know that woman's story. You can't imagine what SHE is going through, because you are not her and you have not lived her life or survived the trauma that may be leading her to make that decision -- even for a very wanted pregnancy.


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I went back and wrote some more comments (in response to one particularly rabid anti-choicer), which I may post here as their own mini-blogs, or I may dump in the comments here. Haven't decided yet.

But right now, my baby's calling me.


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"Where your money is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

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Toilet Training: A film by Tara Mateik and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project

For more info on the movie, go here. For more info on the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, go here.

Please DON'T thank me for menstruating, thankyouverymuch.

Have you seen this? Josh wants to "thank me" for menstruating.

I was, shall we say, a little miffed that a cis man, who does not and will not ever menstruate, felt it was "cute" to tell me what to do with my body and my periods. But then I read the comments, and was appalled at the number of (cis) women who were THANKING him for it, praising his "bravery," and who thought it was so "great" that a cis man was telling them this...

The post has a line or two about how great human bodies are because of all the wonderful things they do, but it does not praise cis women's bodies -- nor does it ever thank cis women for doing the job of menstruating (and everything that comes along with/results from it: pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding). Instead, it just tells us that we should menstruate regularly, because in this dude's opinion that's the way things out to be.

There's no medical reason for me to shave my armpits, either -- should I stop doing that?

Actually, since the author of the post chose to equate menstruation with defecation (it would be more convenient for if you only "took a crap" once a month), let's follow that line of thought... you do realize that once-a-month crap is a 24-hour drip for five to seven days, right? How convenient would that be for you, Josh?

I have very easy periods, for the most part. I hardly get cramps, unless it's really cold. I'm paranoid about using tampons, because every box of tampons comes with the little paper with the warnings on toxic shock syndrome, and especially when I was teaching I had a hard time finding the time to change my tampon during the school day, so I often kept the tampon in longer than "recommended," making me sure I was going to drop dead from TSS any day now. (Once, when I got back to my classroom a few seconds after the bell, one of the assistant principals was outside my door, announcing to his walkie-talkie that I was MIA. I really, really wanted to explain to him exactly why I was late.) I'm not a big fan of pads, because after the second or third straight day the dry-weave starts to irritate your skin, y'know?

Now that I'm older and wiser I'm probably going to invest in a Diva Cup once "Aunt Flo" returns, so my minor inconveniences will be even less of an issue. But, you see, I know how lucky I am.

Some women have irregular periods, and take hormonal birth control to help them regulate their bodies, to help them take control of their bodies. The best thing about being on birth control was knowing when I was going to start bleeding -- because, you know, it's nice to know when bodily fluids are going to start oozing out of you. It gets messy if you don't take proper precautions, you see...

Now, notice how, sometime between two and four years of age, we learn how to control the sphincter that releases crap? And you learn how to keep it closed, holding the crap in, until you can get to a toilet, to take your crap? I don't know how up you are on biology and how uteri and cervixes and stuff work, but we don't have a handy-dandy contraption like that one in our vagina. The blood just comes out; we can't control it. So it's nice to know when it's going to start coming out, so we can wear a diaper, or plug up the hole.

And then there's those cis women's (and trans men's) bodies that work differently than, say, your wife's. Some cis women's and trans men's bodies don't do well with the whole menstruating thing... I know, I know, hard to believe, since we cis women are put on this Earth for the sole purpose of being impregnated by lovely cis men such as yourself. The idea of a cis woman's body not being 100% ready and willing to get pregnant and bear children for you is, well, preposterous!

Absurd as it may be, it happens to be true.

For those people, who have to call in sick to work because of what menstruating does to their body, the idea of fewer periods probably makes a heck of a whole lotta sense.

But you know what makes even more sense? Letting, like, doctors and other medical professionals decide what is and is not "safe." Oh, yeah -- and letting the person in question decide what ze wants to do with hir body, and which hormones ze does and does not want to put in it.

Yes, some people have bad reactions to the pill or other forms of hormonal birth control. I dare you to find a medication that doesn't have a bad reaction for somebody. And for every story you can give me of a person who had a terrible experience with hormonal birth control, I can find a person who had a terrible experience with menstruation, and who needs those hormones to "fix" the problem. I can probably also find you ten people who took those same hormones and had wonderful experiences.

We put tons of chemicals and hormones into our bodies every day, the vast majority of them not medically or biologically necessary. Maybe the author of the post above does not eat any meat or fish, or if he does he raises it himself, and grows all of his food in his own backyard, watering it with collected rainwater or water pumped from his own private, not-flouride-inated well... if so, bully for him. He still has no business telling me what I should or should not do with or to my reproductive organs, or how happy I should be about the things they do on a monthly basis.

Now, if he wanted to write a post actually thanking me for menstruating, instead of telling me how grateful I should be for it, then that's something I'd gladly read. (No, I won't hold my breath.)