Sadly, the issue is way more complicated than that...

[Edited to include the video and give the names of the people involved.]

Yesterday I saw a YouTube clip of some Congressguy Congressman Tim Ryan on some cable news show Hardball talking about President Obama's speech at Notre Dame, and his call to us to find common ground on the issue of abortion and provide access to birth control to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. The Congressdude Congressman Ryan was described as "against abortion rights" but he was working with, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a pro-choice legislator to make birth control more affordable and accessible to women, specifically low-income women, to reduce the need for abortions.

I'm all for that, but one thing the guy Congressman Ryan said bugged me. He also went on about adoption and social services, to encourage women to carry the pregnancy to term. As I write that I realize that this guy did a lot of things I like (I might have to go find the video now); he used the words "carry the pregnancy to term" instead of talking about babies or other words that make the issue more emotional. He also pointed out that not having the abortion means carrying the pregnancy to term and needing social services to care for the child, so we need to provide appropriate health care for the infant and welfare for the mother and child. (So often in the abortion debate the anti-choicers scream and holler about the "baby" but forget to add its post-partum existence into the equation.)

But back to what bugged me -- I know he had very little time to make his points and the interviewer dude kept interrupting him and asking stupid questions he'd already answered, but I got the impression the Congressman thought the only reason a woman chooses to abort instead of carrying the pregnancy to term is economic restrictions: if we provide more info and support for adoption services, women will be convinced to carry the pregnancy to term; if we provide them with proper welfare and social services programs to help them care for the child, women will carry the pregnancy to term instead of abort.

Again, the issue is not that simple. There are many, many reasons why a woman would choose to terminate a pregnancy. This is not a minor inconvenience, this is a life-changing event. Even if she does not intend to keep the child, the pregnancy itself will have a huge impact on her life (and take a huge toll on her body). Think about it. Think about, every day of those nine months.

Going to work, pregnant. Dealing with morning sickness (that lasts all day long). Fatigue, because your body is taking every available ounce of energy to form the fetus growing inside of you. Showing.

Buying new clothes to fit your new body -- bigger bras, because your breasts will get bigger (they're making milk, remember?) And, in case you don't know, bras are effin' expensive. Buying new pants. Buying new tops. Buying new shoes because your feet and ankles have swollen that much.

Think about doing your job every day, pregnant. FOR A CHILD YOU WILL NOT KEEP. Are you on your feet all day? Are you talking to people who will ask you about "the baby"? (Most low-income women -- who have difficulties affording birth control -- don't have cushy desk jobs; they have more physically-demanding jobs. Do you want to wait tables or scrub toilets or restock shelves in your third trimester? Or maybe you have a customer service job, where people will ask you all kinds of baby questions and insist on touching your stomach. What fun!)

Can you afford maternity leave? Even one weekend, to give birth and allow your body to recover? What if there are any complications with the pregnancy, and you need bedrest? Can you afford the pre-natal care? Can you afford the time off from work for the pre-natal care doctor's visits? If you suffer post-partum depression, will you be able to afford more time off to go see a psychiatrist or psychologist? What about anti-depressants, will you be able to afford those?

How are you going to face all those people you interact with on a daily basis after the baby is born, and you don't have it? How are you going to deal with their questions?

And even that is not even scratching the surface of the reasons why a woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy.

This is a deeply personal issue. The reasons I had for choosing to terminate my pregnancy are totally different from the reasons any other woman in the waiting room with me in the clinic that morning had. For some, the economic factor is a big deal. For others, money is not the problem -- the problem is much bigger than that.

This is why we need to leave the option open.

We need to do everything in our power to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place (birth control, comprehensive sex ed), but we need to leave the option open, for all the other reasons that your average Congressman can't even fathom.

Yesterday I used obesity as an analogy for the reproductive rights debate. I felt a little uneasy writing about it, because I am rather ignorant on the topic. Today, I read Julie Neumann's post on Change.org's Women's Rights blog, and I felt even more unqualified to have written what I did. Eating disorders are an extremely complex issue and the reasons why a person develops an eating disorder are very personal (unique to each person, there is not one easy answer); yesterday I reduced it to the stereotyped, simplified version (in my defense, I was not discussion the issue itself in depth, I was mentioning it as an example, but still).

Julie shares quotes from several people with eating disorders saying what their eating disorder is "all about" -- the reasons why they do what they do. I felt extremely narrow-minded and ignorant as I read; there is so much more to this issue that we don't even realize, because we are not there. (It's an excellent post, please read it.)

We're not going to fix it with a Band-Aid (eating disorders or reproductive rights). We need to do everything we can to fix the known causes and fix the stuff that we can fix (health care, access to birth control, comprehensive sex ed), but we're never going to make it go away completely. Which is why we need to allow each woman to make the choice for herself.

Some thoughts to share on Mother's Day

First of all, happy Mother's Day to all the women out there doing the hardest and most important job out there.

A special mention goes to all the non-biological moms: adoptive and foster moms, and all those other women who don't hold an official title other than friend or family member but who have seen the need and stepped in to the mother's role, for whatever reason.

But I also want to take today to say thanks to all the women who have taken pains to not become mothers -- either just yet or ever. Motherhood is the hardest thing you or your body will ever do; it demands everything from you. It is not for everyone, not matter what society or religious fundamentalists try to feed you.

No woman should ever be forced or shamed into motherhood. She doesn't deserve it and neither does her potential child.

Thank you to all the doctors and scientists who have developed medications and medical procedures to allow women to take control of if and when they want to become mothers. Thank you to President Obama for cutting funding for abstinence-only programs, so our young women can have the facts they will need to make choices about their bodies, and to take control of when or if they want to become mothers.

Thank you to all the women who came before us and fought the hard fights to win our right to make our own decisions about when or if to become mothers. Thank you to the women who keep fighting, so we can keep those rights.

And thank you to the women who have had to make an unpopular choice, because that choice was the right thing for them and their potential child.

Motherhood is not a job to be entered lightly. Motherhood is a big deal. It's not mandatory and it should never be a punishment. Our women don't deserve that, and our children certainly don't.

To all the mothers out there, raising our future generations, thank you.

But I have to also send a shout-out to all those women who know they're not ready for the job at this point in time, or who know they're not interested in the job at all, and have to deal with a society that looks upon them as three-headed lepers. 'Cuz that kind of sucks too.

On Parenting Licenses (and Hypocrisy)

or

"The One Where Criss Is A Hypocrite."

I postponed this blog last night because I was scared -- I censored myself on my own blog, because I'm so proud that Planned Parenthood of North Texas has linked to my blog on its Facebook page. And that NARAL sent me a DM on Twitter saying I was writing "some great stuff" on my blog. And I don't want to make them mad.

Oh, and I reveal that I am, deep down, a hypocrite. Remember all that "choice" and reproductive rights stuff I was spewing a few days ago? I'm about to contradict it.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this post are Criss's and hers alone. She does not speak for the pro-choice/reproductive rights movement in any way, shape, or form. She speaks only for own, opinionated herself.

Because today I'm going to talk about Parenting Licenses.

Look, if you think about it, this isn't THAT radical. What do you think we do to parents who want to adopt?

How come they have to go through all this crap, all these background checks, and tests, and evaluations, and waiting, but nobody else does?

We already have a system in place to decide who is a "fit" parent and who isn't. All I'm saying is that we be fair, and apply this to everyone who wants to be a parent.

The biggest problem is how to stop people (who are not infertile) from having children without "permission." Psst! I have an idea... but don't tell anyone, this is a pretty new, radical thought... birth control.

I've given this quite a bit of thought. Because I've seen too much p!ss-poor parenting at my job. I've seen too many kids suffering under incompetent, uncaring, or flat-out stupid parents. When you stew as much as I do, well, turns out you find time to polish your hare-brained, borderline-communist plans.

(PS - remember, I grew up in a Latin American dictatorship. Maybe borderline-communist isn't that big a deal to me... I dunno. Either way, here goes.)

Just like you have to have your measles shot to go to school, girls ages 12 and older (we might have to start earlier, thanks to all the hormones and other crap we're eating these days) would have to have their IUD.* That stays in for either 5 or 10 years (if 5, they have to get a new one at 17 -- if not, no school and no driver's license), and at 22 they have another review.

Now, if I were Queen of the World, at 22 we'd stick another IUD in there, until the woman applied for a parenting license and was approved. Since I'm not Queen of the World, I probably will have to comprimise a little. If the review/evaluation at 22 brings up severe red flags, maybe she'd get another mandatory IUD. If not, she'd have the birth control of her choice. And, yes, all this would be paid for by the government.

Think about it -- what would you rather do, fork over $200-$500 for the IUD, or the thousands it would take to raise a child through welfare?

So who does the evaluations? The same people who do them now. We just won't discriminate against infertiles anymore; we'll apply the rules to everybody.

I am fully aware that forcing women to get on birth control contradicts the whole idea of choice. But we have to draw the line somewhere: it's not fair to those potential children that we let any irresponsible twerp bring them into this world, when they never asked to be born and they especially didn't ask to be born by mistake (or as punishment).

A few days ago, someone Twittered: Also, World? Re the Octuplets Lady? HER BODY, HER CHOICE. Stop with the witch hunt and public castigation. PLEASE.

Once it's in her body, AND IT HAPPENED BY MISTAKE, then it's her choice.

But when she goes THAT FAR out of her way to GET IT in her body? No, this was a completely different situation. This is a woman having children for all the wrong reasons (hoping to get a $2 million deal with TLC = ALL THE WRONG REASONS), first of all, and endangering the potential children when doing so. Multiple births are extremely risky, for the mother and the children; stuffing that many embryos in her uterus at once was her first Grossly Irresponsible Parenting move. Wait -- or was Grossly Irresponsible Parenting Move #1 stuffing any embryos into her uterus when she already had six young children, one a special needs child, at home already, and couldn't manage to raise them as it was?

I don't want to get into the octuplet lady, because her case is so extreme and rare to apply to any conversation on parenting and/or reproductive rights. So we'll just leave her there (without her ad deals and endorsements.)

"My body, my choice" means that after the sh!t has hit the fan I get to control what happens to my body. It doesn't mean I get to bring children into the world just because I don't have anything better to do.

Before it's in her body, that's when we can hold up the potential child's rights. The right to only be conceived if it's going to be wanted and properly cared for. Hormonal birth control actually carries health benefits for the woman (yes, if you're over 35 and smoke it can be harmful, but my mandatory birth control plan is for girls ages 12-22, and if you smoke you're dumb and have chosen to not care about your health anyway), so it's not harming her or causing her any undue stress. (Any "stress" caused to the woman by the mandatory bc is probably much less than the stress of being abused, neglected, or abandoned would cause the potential child.)

Alright, that's about as far as my brain is going to take me tonight. Bring it on: call me a communist, call me a hypocrite. I still stand by my Parenting Licenses.

Some info on IUDs, by the way:



*I need to double-double check that women who have never been pregnant can use an IUD with no problems. I'm pretty sure NOW it's okay (it didn't use to be), but I'm not 100% definite. If IUDs won't work, we'll go back to the Norplant plan.

... the "RIGHT" to bear children (part 1.5): Biology does not a mother make.

I was going to hit the Big One today ("defining" life and all that), but yesterday morning I received this Direct Message on Twitter:

I'm really troubled by the idea that you need a "right" to be a mother. You are a mother, it's a biological fact.

When I replied with "Biology does not a mother make," the Twitterer wrote:

Yes it does. Check you biology text.

I think some of the links on yesterday's post (which was not up yet when this exchange took place) kind of prove my point.

But I see the root of the problem: we use one word to talk about two things that can be entirely different.

In Spanish, the word "aborto" refers to both an (elective) abortion and a miscarriage (spontaneous abortion). This infuriates me, because the two are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS. (If this is not inherently obvious to you, then I'll go into the details when I write about when "life" begins.) We have the same problem here, with the word "mother."

Having the necessary working parts and possessing the ability to pop a baby out doesn't make you a mother. Yes, it makes you a biological mother, but it doesn't make you a mother.

Loving and nurturing that baby makes you a mother.

The girls in those links had the necessary biology. Would you call them "mothers"?

Limiting "motherhood" to something as simple and vacant as biology is also horrendously insulting to mothers who adopt. I'd like to see anyone go up to an adoptive mother and tell her she's not a mother simply because the child didn't come out of her own vagina.

Motherhood is a huge undertaking. It is the most important job in the world. Seriously. It is the beginning of everything.

And, unfortunately, too many people out there are doing an amazing job of screwing it up.

The influence a parent has over her child is immeasurable. (And, in my opinion, underestimated.) I seriously believe we could solve all the problems of the world if we found a way to give everyone caring, loving, nurturing parents.

Motherhood (and fatherhood; don't want to leave them out) is a huge undertaking. It is a huge responsibility. One that should be entered into when one is ready to do so.

Not something that you're stuck with because the condom broke or you missed your pill one day. Because that's just not fair to the child.