Choices

Today I had this fantasy/vision of me moving to SB and working for abortion rights, lobbying for Planned Parenthood and living with you and being really, really happy. I will also admit that my vision has in it something like my house there in SB. I have a really nice house here.

There's a job at Westmont College that I can and will apply for. I'm actually over-qualified for it, and that could be a problem. I will have to somehow tell them or convince them that I am not as scary as I will look to some of them. Weird, isn't it? But there's this huge division between teaching and research jobs, and I have a research job, and people at teaching colleges are usually intimidated by people like me, because they think I'm going to come in and lord it over them. It's actually hard to explain the dynamic of the academic world to outsiders. We're as snobbish and arrogant and power-hunger as anyone.

So, I was listening to NPR "NOW" during my run this evening and thinking:

that I'd really like to something to protect women's choice। I mean, i had three abortions... or maybe just two। I can't remember. I was extremely young and obviously very fertile (still am, goddammit) and I have no regrets. There's a new campaign in the anti-choice movement to convince people that abortion causes depression, which is the most ridiculous thing. Have you seen the film or read the book, THE HANDMAID'S TALE? Great movie. Better book. I'm teaching it next semester (this is why I love my job). At any rate, the new campaign is religious and aimed at convincing women and policy makers that having abortions harms women's health because women feel so guilty about having done it. The truth is that the people behind this campaign are the ones making women feel guilty. The reason they had the operation in the first place is because they were depressed, indigent, drug-abusing, alcoholic, what-have-you, and totally unprepared to bring children into the world.

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I get actually quite exercised about this. Because I'm so glad I was able to have those abortions, because I believe so strongly in women's ability to make decisions for themselves, and am so virilently opposed to people who want to take that agency away from women.

Plus now these anti-choice people are trying, and succeeding, in making women feel really bad about themselves for having had the abortions. They're convincing women, a la The Handmaid's Tale, that they are murderers. They've broken these already quite damaged women down not because they want to help them, but rather because they want to use them to push their political agenda, which would take away from women the control over their bodies which, to me, is fundamental, basic.

There are eight states now in which there is legistation for FORCE women to view ultrasounds of the fetuses that they want to abort. Most women would of course look and say, FINE. Let's just get if over with . But the distress caused by this action. And isn't it ironic that the very same people who claim to be protecting babies are against national health insurance for children, against economic programs to help the indigent, to help children living in poverty.

As I said, I get quite exercised about this.

And I have this fantasy of living in SB, with my dearest friend, a physician, and working for women's health and freedom.

Doesn't that sound great? Women's Health and Freedom? These awful anti-choice people claim to be working for women's health. But they could never convince people that they're working for women's freedom. That's what they ultimately oppose.