SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 ABORTION

 SEPTEMBER 20, 2024 - ABORTION (???)

If there is one issue dividing America this election year, it is abortion.

Scenario 1  (year 1989)

Paula and Neil were in high school.  Paula is 17, and Neil is 18. Paula was an honor student, one of the top students in the senior class, and already had scholarship opportunities at three colleges.  Neil is a good student but also a star basketball player and was actively being recruited by several colleges.  

They have been dating for a year and a half.  They have kissed, petted, and done almost everything - except intercourse.  Their future as a couple and as students is uncertain, the parents their parents like them.  

They've been to a movie in September of their senior year and are returning to Paula’s house.  Her parents are gone for the weekend to the funeral of her great-uncle George in Wisconsin.  As they sit on the sofa making out, without any forethought, Paula is down to her bra and panties, and Neil is down to his underwear.  They just can’t stop there.  They both are so excited sexually, and, well, one thing leads to another, and they are having intercourse.  

[Aside - this story might be once or multiple times].  The result is that after a month, Paula realizes she is pregnant.  What to do - they have their future ahead of them.  They don’t know what to do.

Paula has heard of a free clinic and gets an appointment for after school on Wednesday.  She (and Neil) went to the appointment, and yes, she was pregnant.  

She CAN’T be pregnant—she can’t have a baby at 17!! It would ruin everything—her scholarships and her dreams of becoming an engineer or architect.  

It isn’t so dire for Neil.  He can still play basketball and have his life.  They agonize over their choices, and they arrange for Paula to get an abortion in eight days when she turns 18. They have the funds. 

*****

It is tough on Paula.  Her family is strongly pro-life.  Her church is pro-life.  How can she get an abortion? But having a baby would affect everything.  

Paula gets the abortion - but almost every day of her life, she thinks of the baby she didn’t have.

(And, in college, they both fall in love with others, and they split up)

*****

Scenario 2: (2024)

After leaving her second job at Taco Bell, Suzanne was walking home to her cheap apartment when she was stopped on the streets. She’s a black woman working to support her two children by working two jobs. She’s almost done with her associate degree in nursing and can soon quit her Taco Bell job to become an LVN and make more than her two jobs combined. It is three black men. She thinks she might have seen one or two at Taco Bell before.  

Before she knows it, she is pushed onto the back seat of a car, and one of the men is pumping her full of his sperm.  She tried to fight, to scream, but the knives they carried stopped her.  And, adding insult to injury, the other two also “have her.”  

She is pregnant.  She has terrible morning sickness, misses her morning job at an IHOP restaurant - and gets fired.  She misses classes and doesn’t graduate on time.  She can’t get an abortion - the laws in Texas wouldn’t allow it.  (Laws made by white men wearing suits in the state legislature).  She can’t afford a trip to Colorado where she could get a legal abortion, and soon, with almost no money left, she has three children, one low-paying job at Taco Bell, and no future.  

*****

Scenario 3 (1955)

Tammy’s one goal in life is to “catch” a husband.  She keeps playing up to Tommy in her college class.  She gets Tommy a little drunk (two beers?) and gets Tommy to have intercourse with her - hoping she will get pregnant.  When she is, she tells Tommy he has to marry her.  Six years later, she wishes she hadn’t done that.  Tommy is a lousy husband, abusive to her and their child (or children).  She got her “MRS” degree - but it wasn’t what she wanted.

*****

Discussion (2024)

I guess that NO woman knowingly has sex - hoping she can get pregnant and hoping she can have an abortion.   

Heidi is excited - she is pregnant, and oh boy, she can get another abortion!!!  

*****

There is a joke that a woman should carry an aspirin with her - and put it between her knees - AND KEEP IT THERE.  

Maybe all unmarried women should get free birth control pills (or vaccination).  Maybe all unmarried men should get reversible vasectomies. 

Sex education tried to focus on abstinence - and intercourse still happened.  It is a passion that males and females enjoy.  A couple is failing in love, and <zip> before either really stops and counts to one hundred and has an intellectual discussion about it, it has happened.  

Okay - unsubstantiated folly.  Men will brag in the locker room - that they had sex with their girlfriends.  I don’t know if that happens in women’s locker rooms - I doubt it.   Men will brag about their conquests - I <vulgar term> Susie.  And, men get off free - they don’t get pregnant.  

*****

Yes, the discussion is on morality - and we all seem to have slightly different morality.  It is “killing” an unborn child, but going to war and killing an enemy soldier is somehow acceptable.  

There are other arguments - that access to abortion is generally decided by white men in state legislatures making rules and regulations. Let women have the ability to decide for themselves if they want an abortion - it is her life - and her womb.  

Maybe we can take a “Brave New World” approach, collecting and fertilizing eggs in extensive medical facilities. Then, we can deny oxygen to embryos for a period of time to create people with lower intelligence to be janitors and laborers and give extra nutrients to other embryos to make them smarter.

*****

I've heard a clergyman (and it was an unmarried man) say in a religious service that the only issue in this election is abortion - and urged (told/instructed) people to vote only for pro-life candidates. 

*****

Karen adds: I don’t know the best solution - but I know this issue is tearing us apart as a society.  The pro-life groups HATES the abortion group, and the abortion group HATES the pro-life group.  We don’t talk to each other, we have forgotten how to love, how to love, and how to love.  

I wish couples who are not ready for children to take appropriate birth control measures and couples that are ready for children to be open to the gift of children.  

*****

Eventually . . . 

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

Karen Anne White, September 20, 2024

(At age 77 and a transgender woman, I will not be having any more children.  I love my two children and five grandchildren dearly.  I want children born to be loved, cherished, educated, and appreciated and to have stable environments. But, somehow, legislating morality doesn’t work.)