Oh. My. God. For the first time in a long time, I read something and thought I was going to be truly sick.
South Dakota has passed a bill to ban abortions, except if the life of the mother is in danger . This will mean that abortion, even in the case of incest and rape, will be illegal. According to the South Dakota bill, becauses of medical advances in the last 30 years, life now begins at conception.In our so-called democracy, the voters don't count as the decision to let South Dakotans make up their minds was vetoed. You can read more about it here.
http://news.yahoo.com/...
I don't get overly emotional about anything. But I am on the verge of tears just now. My fingers are doing that thing where the go ice cold because I am so angry; as I sit here typing this, my fingernail beds are blue.
I want to cry for the girls and women of South Dakota that will have to travel to Minnesota to have an abortion. The decision is hard enough to make, without having to travel hundreds of miles to go through with it.This may sound naive, but how, why, can they do this to us? There is one Planned Parenthood in South Dakota. That is more than my college town had.
I was lucky enough to get pregnant by my asshole boyfriend when I was 21. I did want to go through with the pregnancy but my ex told me in these words "You know what you have to do." Charming, isn't it? We had been together since we were 17, I thought we loved each other, I thought he'd understand. I was wrong. I knew in that having an abortion was the best thing to do because we were still in college and neither one of us could have handled a kid. Oh and we were using protection, but it failed.
So, I went searching for a clinic. There was one listed about 90 miles from us, but they didn't put you to sleep. I figured, if I was going to do this, I wanted no recollection of what happened. The nearest place was 300 miles away.
Well, a long bus trip and a day later, we went. The clinc was on a bad side of town and from the outside, you had no idea what went on in there. The sign said podiatry, out patient surgery, whatever. Inside, there were loads of women, some with teenage girls with their mothers, young college girls like me and older women, who probably had more kids than money. The staff were mainly Black and Hispanic women, who were some of the nicest and caring people I've met. I had it done and have lived a productive life afterwards. I have a 2 year old son. My life would have been shit if I had no access to abortion. I would have been lumbered with a kid I really didn't want, no father (you wouldn't have seen him for dust)and no job.
I am sick to the back teeth of the debate of when life starts. I am no doctor, scientist, whatever. I do NOT believe life starts at conception. I believe that life starts when the baby takes its first gasp of air. I 've read that some embryos are absorbed into the body before they can develop into fetuses. A woman could be pregnant, then not pregnant and never even know. This may sound controversial and frankly horrible, but I think medical hubris plays a role in this South Dakota decision. I don't think these medical miracles of babies being born at 22 weeks and surviving is great. Some of these kids go on to have health problems. Every time one of these fetuses is saved, it gives the argument against abortion more support. "See, they are babies!" the anti-choice cry."It doesn't matter that they are brain damaged, have impaired breathing and will suffer for a long time, they are alive."
So well done South Dakota. You have decided that a woman't body belongs to the courts, not her. You have condemned your so-called babies and their mothers to rotten lives. You will have the fate of babies drowned in toilets, left in trash dumps and the bodies of dead women on your conscience. You will have a legacy of abused and neglected children. May their souls haunt yours for the rest of your lives.
I am really sorry this was posted before. I was away from my desk yesterday, seeing "Brokeback Mountain." I also live in Scotland, so news travels slowly. Please don't flame me!