Thursday, February 09, 2012

Who wins?

Let's pretend for a minute.

Start with a few facts.  I'm a menopausal fifty-something woman who has been in love with the same man since the early 1980s. Unfortunately, we never married, never had children together, blah blah blah...  you've heard the sad story a million times before, about the road not taken.    Well, now let's take it back.

Let us suppose that, due to some bizarre confluence of events, it became possible -- this year --  for him to be with me and me with him, to be his one true love and helpmeet, to marry and live happily ever after.  Let us also suppose that (and this should not be much of a stretch) we can not easily support ourselves -- we can just barely scrape by on what he earns by hard labor and I through the occasional sale of written or painted works.  Still, as we marry, I promise to respect his faith and to raise our children in his church.

So far so good, right?  After all, he's nearing 60 and I'm menopausal.  Except, now, because I love him and want to give him everything possible, I decide to follow through on the "be fruitful and multiply" part of his teachings.  I want to give him the babies we were going to have when we first fell in love.

Now, you know I have no insurance to cover this, but, hey, I just read how the POTUS and his supporters are all for reproductive rights, so I'm going to head right down to the Planned Parenthood and demand that they help me exercise my right to reproduce.   Yes, that's right, I want you to help me have lots and lots of babies, even though I'm a little past my prime.  If Sarah could do this for Abraham, why shouldn't I be allowed this same covenant?

Oh, by the way, the reason I'm not going to the local church-run hospital is because I understand they have enough financial burdens already, so I'm coming to the people who swear up-and-down that their only goal is to see to it that all women have their reproductive rights protected and respected.  You guys get billions of dollars from government funding (call it involuntary taxpayer support), and the occasional strong-arming of other private organizations, so you can support me in my endeavor.

I'm not asking you to help me raise these youngsters , but I am going to require your financial help to reverse the damage done to my "womanly parts" by the passing years.  Granted, there's a very good risk that whatever children we have might have some form of disability, due to the lateness of their arrival in my life, but we have a lot of love, and that should suffice.  And, with my disabilities (both physical and mental) I'll probably need a lot of support from my community in raising them -- if, indeed, I live long enough.   I know you probably think that using money and science to bring a child into such uncertainty is supremely immoral, but, as I said, I'm following instructions from my beloved's faith, to multiply.  So, I'm telling you to shut up and pay up, because I want full protection of my reproductive rights, because they are my reproductive rights, after all.   You who support the POTUS in his abortion/birth control/abortifacient mandate should be right there beside me, strong-arming any reproduction clinic which refuses  me, won't you?

If not, (and I'm assuming there is no mob of would-be Susan B. Anthonys flocking to my side and singing hymns of solidarity) how is this any different from your demanding that every Catholic (or other member of any faith which demands we protect those who cannot defend themselves) pay for killing the unborn?  It's all about a woman's freedom to choose, right?

Or do you fancy a pathetic version of "morality", where forcing people to finance murder is good, but helping people bring forth new life to be loved is evil?  Don't bother to answer -- your actions have already answered the question.

1 comment:

kpwells said...

I haven't answered the question but now that you ask I would be glad to. My step mother (evil) worked for Planned Parenthood for many years and never once did she talk about anyone helping anyone start a family, only prevent them. If the people who endorse this kind of behavior are so proud of it why don't they just own up and call it 'planning to prevent parenthood'?