#plannedparenhood

Kid Impossible, eyes like sharkskin, makes her first visit to the aquarium memorable. She fills the touch-tank attendant’s head with so many questions. When he turns to look something up, Kid Impossible snatches up a starfish, hides it in her bag. She frees it, later, on the pier at her parents’ insistence.

Kid Impossible has emerald green eyes, and she will only act once. She plays Betsy Ross, forgets her lines, stammers into silence, and runs into the wings.

Kid Impossible has eyes like ice chips. He taught himself rhythm, and he won’t stop dancing until, on a cruise ship stage, he breaks his ankle and turns to the beat of pills.

Kid Impossible has eyes like a storm wall. She knows without thinking, ingrained in her bones, that the first time her husband lays hands on her, it is time to leave. She is gone by Tuesday, after she spends the weekend “cleaning the garage,” sneaking her belongings into the Christmas storage containers she was quietly dumping behind the shed.

Kid impossible, eyes like printer toner, grew into his quiet. He does his work quietly, never leaves the company he starts at. His parents taught him loyalty above all. One day, snow falling, he leaves a note, leaves work, he steps from the bridge, punches a clean hole into the ice below. He never learned to swim.

Kid Impossible was him, was her, was her, Kid Impossible was him, was her, was him.

After the procedure, I started to think of what we, it, the world, lost. Kid Impossible missed some things, and escaped others. Kid for the girl or boy it could have grown to become. Impossible for the way her body around it would have cracked, burst, ruined, died in the very act of Kid’s becoming.

Kid Impossible was everyone. Kid Impossible was everything. Except possible.

The Planned Parenthood sting videos garnered a lot of attention initially, but as more have come out, I’m seeing less and less coverage. Let me start by addressing the videos themselves.

Are they edited? Almost certainly. Edited to only contain content the organization that shot them wants you to see? Likely, but to me, that’s beside the point. Organ harvesting is just a secondary stomach twist to the gut wrenching horror that goes on regularly in our country.

We love euphemisms in this country. Euphemisms mean we don’t have to think about what is actually going on. “Fetal tissue” is a much safer word than “baby”. “Evacuating the uterus” is much more comfortable than “sucking out the baby”. “Donating fetal tissue” is preferable to “cutting up the body for parts for scientific research”.

A straight up outlaw of abortions will not win the kind of victory needed here. A percentage of women will turn to back alley, unsanitary procedures which will endanger their own lives as well. That’s not what we should be going for.

We need to ask important questions. Why are women seeking abortions? Are they in abusive situations? Do they have access to contraceptives? How do we help women, and prevent them from getting to the point where they want an abortion?

We need straight talk. If a woman wants an abortion, she needs to know several things. How developed is her baby? Describe the abortion procedure step by step in real terms. Is the baby sucked out of the womb with a vacuum? Is the head crushed and then the body extracted? This is not going to be an easy conversation. Some women have been brought to this point by a trauma in their lives, and it may again be traumatic to discuss. But the choice she is making will be traumatic on the baby, and a life deserves at least an uncomfortable talk.

If, at the end, an abortion is still elected, then so be it. It would be my hope that these steps would dissuade some women from the procedure. But let’s be truthful. You may support abortion because you don’t think women should have to carry babies if they don’t want to. Fine. But don’t tell me it’s about a right to do whatever you want with your body. It’s about a right to kill babies if we don’t want them.

Pretending that some magical transition happens when a baby is born that transforms a “fetus” into a real person is absurd. As medical advances are made, babies are surviving outside the womb at much younger gestational ages than before. This is going to continue to eat away at the claim that a fetus is a body part of the mother. All body parts of a person have that person’s DNA in them. A fetus has its own DNA. It is its own living organism.

I read a blog that demonized anyone pro-choice in the United States as being backwards and a hypocrite. It’s not the first time. I’ll take it.But maybe it’s time for more thoughts rather than pointing of fingers or polarizing.

Maybe Planned Parenthood started as a group that wanted to legitimate the legal opportunities for women to enter the workforce and literally plan out family life, their motherhood, and try (ahem, try. Women are still working on the glass ceiling of getting paid as much as men and receiving benefits as often as men AND are simultaneously admitted at four-year institutions at a rate higher than some of their male peers.) And all women are no lesser of women no matter what, end of story. Yes, I just leveled the playing field. In fact, women are right up there with men. Men are great and women are great. Let’s help our political, social, and economic sectors figure that out. Okay?

So let’s get started. I am pro-life, and pro-contraception. I am pro-family and anti-poverty. I am liberal and independent. And I grew up in a conservative neighborhood. Oh, and I am a Christian. That becomes important to people when claiming identity. I am a woman and I hope to have children someday. But it’s okay to not want children as a woman (You’re still fierce and strong and noble and loved, promise.), and God’s okay with it too. I hope to see abortions standardized someday so that women feel confident with their doctors and health-care providers to talk about their bodies, their babies, their pregnancies, and motherhood safely. And with prosperity and hope for positive child-outlook. For too many women becoming pregnant may be scary because they do not have the economic stability or even the economic freedom -that’s right, choice, to think they could raise a child well. But when one claims they are pro-life...shouldn’t we be pro-family, pro-support, pro-equal access to healthcare, pro-good education, pro-safety...pro-let’s do all we can to raise all children we want to see live and thrive so they can go to college and have friends, and family, and knowledge, and supporting faith, and opportunities to chase the world? YES.

I think babies should have the right to life. I think cats and dogs should too. I think women should have the right to speak up against politicians who may have for so long talked about sex, sexual immorality, getting knocked up, single parenthood, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, affairs, the moral decline (Yeesh. Do we really think morals are decreasing and were at their highest and best point in the last 50 years?!), etc. as the ugliest spot in American society. Nope. I want women to know their options in healthcare, family, business, economics, sociability, religion. I want it all for everyone. So to those who are pro-life but not rallying or making calls on behalf of pet brutality. The babies thank you but the pro-choice, in support of women’s reproductive choices, population should still be listened to. There’s a reason for every cry.

I believe in the right to life for all. I believe women’s voice and health in reproduction needs a calm, refreshed focus. I think families need to be supported in many more public sectors. Don’t hate women for knowing it’s going to cost a frick-ton of money just to have a baby, and then two or three weeks later no one may be there to help her raise her child. Cause I’ve heard that narrative more than I have heard that adoption and foster care is the best thing for a child. Being in favor of women’s rights mean actually recreating a sense of security for the children coming into the world and a beautiful opportunity around the corner that comes with caring for children. 

And yes people want to still come here undocumented because they see internet pictures of the resourceful American life, come here just like my European grandparents did, and then get here to realize that the same politics are making it hard as ever and cracking down in ways that America’s European immigrant chapters of history never saw in their piece of America.