Let's chat.

I'm sitting here trying to find words to type and I don't have any.  So I went to read the words my friends wrote, and Notie Kari said "Let's Chat", so, okay, let's do:

I went to bed before dark last night.  Before 9 p.m.  I took a sleeping pill (to help me stay asleep), and off I went.  The plan was to be up at 5 and to work by 6, but it's after 7 and I'm here typing, so that's not really working out as planned.

Rick Santorum is a cockbag.  Please don't vote for him.  "Blah blah blah, abortion is wrong in every circumstance, even in the instance of rape or molestation or if the pregnant person is eleven years old - unless it's my wife, in which case it was medically necessary and if she hadn't done it it would've left her children without a mother."  Um.  Well.  See?  That's why we need to keep in place laws that allow each individual woman to make those decisions - because circumstances that lead to abortion do not all fit into neat little boxes of "didn't practice safe sex" and "had it coming to her", as Rick would have us believe.  I wonder if he really feels that a girl who is raped and impregnated should be forced to carry that pregnancy to term?  I wonder if he would feel that way if he had a daughter in that situation?  If so, he's heartless.  At best, he's a hypocrite.

Honestly?  I won't vote for anyone who makes abortion a strong part of their platform in an election.  Allowing abortion rights to become part of the discussion as if the topic is anywhere close to being one of the major threats to our nation today, well, I think it's all a bunch of smoke and mirrors and nothing more than a way to get the devoutly religious to vote for you.  Kat, my former BFF of yore, she told me once, in the midst of her Mormon years, that she could never vote for a candidate that supported legalized abortion.  People, that scared me.  It scared me because she's smart, and she could see and freely admit her candidate had some nasty flaws, but the abortion issue trumped all others - even if it meant war and reductions in our freedoms.

What I don't understand is why people worry so much about abortion, when there are real live people next door who need food and help paying their electric bills?  That lady you're yelling at on the sidewalk while she makes her way to the clinic?  She's aborting because she can't afford to feed the kids she already has, and you already say horrible things about her because she survives with the help of WIC and food stamps - now you're saying "Let us help you!  We can help your baby!"  You don't care about her baby - you won't help her with midnight feedings and 2 a.m. diaperings.  You won't be around to explain to the other kids why they're having cereal for dinner again tonight, or why the lights got turned off for a week last month.

I've got an idea.  I suggest we take all the money and effort and man-hours the devoutly religious put into anti-abortion protests and legislation - let's take all that money and put it toward public service programs that educate women about reproductive health and safety.  Hand out condoms.  Offer low-cost birth-control options for women.  Set up food banks that feed local needy families.  Set up neighborhood volunteer child-care programs to give people who can't afford day-care an opportunity to find outside-the-home work and maybe start to make better lives for themselves and their children.  I propose that if we, as a people, put our efforts into lifting up the people in our communities that need help, we'd see abortion numbers drop.  Not go away completely, that will never happen so long as women are getting pregnant.  But the "i can't afford to have this kid" or "i didn't know i could get pregnant when i was on my period" abortions would decline.  I'll bet ya five dollars.

Well, so much for a chat.  Fucking soapbox - excuse me, I'm going to go put this away now.