Roe v. Wade

I want to live in a country where my children have equal access to education and opportunity regardless of their gender, their sexual proclivites, their race, their class, their religion (or lack thereof), or any other traditional or innovative marker of identity. I want to live in a country where women have strong reproductive rights with meaningful reproductive choices.

I believe that these two guarantees—education and reproductive control—will continue to make ours a stronger and more democratic nation. Not since the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion has the threat to reproductive rights in the United States felt so dramatic. If not in terms of literal limitations governing a woman’s options (of which there are many), than in terms of actual access to physicians and facilities willing and qualified to offer those options.

Regardless of outcomes, it is a rare individual who has not been directly or indirectly affected by unintended pregnancy. Let’s try not to presume that we know what is right or wrong or reasonable or feasible in the lives of others, and let’s simply try to be supportive of each other as human beings. And let’s try not to go backwards in the building of our freedoms and independence.

Shh, what was that your life was saying?

Here’s a phrase to ponder:

“a suicide bomber detonated in a crowded marketplace today”

The phrase strikes me as odd, because it wasn’t the bomb that detonated. It wasn’t that the bomber detonated the bomb. I have an image of a person with no explosive materials strapped to his body, walking into a crowd of people and just… Boom. I’m not trying to be funny here either. In order for a person to willingly kill oneself as a suicide bomber, to kill oneself while trying to takea bunch of other people along for the ride, well, it seems to me that such a person might actually have to detonate inside in some way.

I have to work on this one, and verify the phrasing of the article.

In a completely unrelated context, I heard the phrase “Let your life speak.” It was identified as a Quaker saying. I have pondered it all day, marvelling at the lovely simplicity of it. Wondering how my life speaks for me. Paired with the suicide bomber, the phrase is really rather different. When he detonated, was that his life speaking? Or was that his death speaking? Are they separate?

Did the boy in Omaha today detonate too, with a gun instead of a bomb?

Random things

Not a deep blog. Too busy nanoing. Day 5 total: 18046.

Things that have been on my mind (in no particular order):

o Birthday gifts for seven year old girls
o “hip” (gag) mamaness and post-child sexual expression
o “human capital” —related to recent references on NPR in China, and in Mothering Magazine about human care
o Marathon training for the sedentary hausfrau
o Grace and Jeremy. Heartbreaking. The latter is too close in oh so many ways.

Polish This

If I am ever accused or convicted or a crime, especially something as serious as allowing a child in my care to die, feel free to defend or condemn me as you find appropriate. I hope that you use sound judgement and rational reasoning in your opinions, but it’s really your right to think what you wish however you wish. Yell if you feel like it. Write if you think it’s appropriate. But please. Please. Save the shoe polish for Saturdays at the sports complex. This is not a soccer match or football game. This is the death of a child and the destruction of a family.