http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/766462/santorum%3A_pregnant_rape_victims_should_%22make_the_best%22_of_it_as_gop_anti-choice_insanity_ramps_up/#paragraph4
This is where I draw a red line with "conservatives".
As long as Roe vs. Wade is law, abortion is legal.
When men (and women), and a hospital (more on this further down) condemn a woman for ending a pregnancy, they have never experienced the emotions, the guilt, the frustration, the fear, that goes along with it. It's a decision that is so difficult, no one can comprehend unless they have stood in a woman's shoes.
Does Mr. Santorum feel that incest is all right? Does the child keep the baby? The constant memory of that terrible episode in her life? That perhaps a gang rape, or date rape, or just plain violent rape is all right? What a horrible thought! There are too few homes for unwanted children to go around, and if a child goes from foster home to foster home, there is enough evidence to prove a case that many of those homes lives a pedophile.
My aunt, a staunch Italian Roman Catholic, had a terribly abusive husband. And of course, that drunken bastard got her pregnant many times. I remember my mother telling me that she used a wire coat hanger to abort her pregnancies because of the church. She didn't have money enough to get to a doctor...when you take in ironing and your husband sits in a bar most of the day and night, you have little to spare. We didn't have welfare in those days, and you stayed with your husband even if he beat you. But several of those DIY abortions resulted in infection, not to mention the STDs he gave her. It's a wonder she lived.
A friend in the '60s suddenly disappeared. I was so worried about her. This was before Roe vs. Wade. In a week she returned and we found out about the abortion, not even knowing she was pregnant. There was so much shame and mystery about it, and the search for a doctor or someone who would perform it was frightening in itself. The stigma of an illegitimate child was almost too much for some of us to bear. We didn't keep the babies in those days - we were "sent away to an aunt". Another friend did that - left her job, (her boss knew and it was waiting for her) but it was a horrible experience to let the baby go and be adopted. She went to a home for unwed mothers, the place of shame, packed off by her religious grandmother, who disapproved of abortions, and my friend was heartbroken. She was engaged to her high school sweetheart, and when she found she was pregnant, he dumped her. I have lost touch with her, a sweet, good-hearted girl with strawberry blond hair almost to her knees and I often think of her.
You walked the streets until you found a willing physician or some shady character who performed the deed for cash and without sterile instrument who could kill you in some motel room or cause infection or great harm so that you could never have another child.
In Panama City, FL, a state district hospital may be taken over by Sacred Heart Hospital (for profit), a Roman Catholic hospital. Discussion are ongoing. This hospital is a non-profit now, serving all in need. In the contract, it states that the tenets of the Church will be upheld - there will be no abortions for any reason, not even for ectopic pregnancies, a complication that very easily will result in a dead fetus and a dead mother, rape, or incest or any other reason. Archaic, cruel dogma. There will not even be birth control available.
This hospital, Bay Medical Center, is state-of-the-art, and serves all of us, with and without insurance - all strata of our population from the homeless infant to the elderly millionaire. That will all change with the Sacred Heart transfer.
We are a conservative community of "Christian" and nondemoninational, some fundamentalist churches. I know the members are not fans of pro-choice...but quietly, in their homes, would they allow a daughter, a wife, a sister to suffer rape or incest and carry that child, only to be given up or kept at the expense of the girl? I know a 12 year-old who became pregnant and kept the baby. She had no childhood and will never get off welfare. And now she has more children.
I am opposed to late-term abortion because it ends the life of a viable infant, but if we believe that God is merciful, he will show mercy to a woman who needs an abortion, not for birth control, mind you, but for reasons of spousal abuse, rape and incest.
That is why the name "Rick Santorum" is not even in my thoughts, unless he and his supporters start adopting these children. But no one mentions that. Ever.
Oh, and in case you're wondering - I am a proud, adoptive mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment