On leaving a site I used to be a heavy participant on:

I posted a very personal post during a discussion of anti-Choice Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's policies on Plastic. It was responded to with a very snarky post which said that my views on abortion were the opposite pole to Operation Rescue, and that somehow I advocated baby killing.

Here is my response.

OK, I'll clarify further.

In a situation where it is a choice between the life and limb and health of a woman, and the "life" of a fetus, that it is, to use your turn of phrase, abhorrent and inhuman to force the woman to carry said pregnancy to term at her peril. The life of the already born and living human being trumps that of the potential life.

What absolutely drives me up a wall is the fact that a lot of the anti-Choice folks out there cannot see the life of the already born woman as more worthy of protection than that of "the poor unborn baby."

Also mark well: after the "unborn baby" actually is born, most of the anti-Choicers have no regard whatsoever for that new baby's life and welfare. The same people who protest most vigorously against Abortion are also people who believe that we should get rid of programs like WIC and Head Start and privatize the schools, etc. These are also the same people who are totally rah-rah about the Iraq War, believe in a strong and draconian Death Penalty, believe that the rights of fictional corporate "persons" trump those of real human beings, etc.

I think it is personally not right for a woman who is very far along in a pregnancy, say beyond the sixth month, who decides to get an abortion because she doesn't like the latest fashion in maternity wear. I think it's personally not right for a woman to abort a child because her husband wants sons and she is pregnant with a daughter. I think it's personally not right to get recreational abortions or use abortion as a form of birth control. However, I have never known anyone who has had an abortion in any context other than philosophical agony. It is not a decision that any woman arrives at lightly. It is a last resort.

I believe in Clinton's maxim about abortion: Safe, Legal, and RARE. I believe that contraception and real education about sexuality (not faith-based "abstinence education") is necessary to prevent abortion. I believe that research into making contraception more safe and more reliable is necessary...do you realize that there hasn't been a new type of birth control in decades? My primary reason to get my tubes tied has to do with concern about long-term side effects of being on Depo-Provera. The political aspect is only secondary. Nobody really understands the long-term side effects of being on hormones for extended periods of time.

The Religious Reich is not only targeting abortion in their initiatives, but contraception. Note well that the Griswold decision is in the sights of GW Bush and his fellows in the Faith as well as Roe.

In this environment, do you blame me for feeling how I do? Do you blame me for feeling under attack and under siege by people who have more power than I do?

I am not going to participate any further on this website. I have instructed Carl to remove my account. I shared something intensely personal and got called a baby killer for it. Thanks a lot, sons of bitches. I hope you get reincarnated as an Afghani, Iraqi or Iranian woman next time around so you can understand where I'm coming from.

Yeah, on August 10th I will be going under the knife and getting my tubes tied. There, I said it. I don't want to be in a situation where, as a 41-year-old woman going on 42 years old, I have to face the hobson's choice of continuing with a hormonal method of birth control I've been on for 11 years or going off the Shot and taking my chances on my fertility being naturally lower now than it was 11 years ago. I had horrible periods before my doctor put me on the Pill to control them at age 15, so something like an IUD would be a bad risk. I was taken off the Pill and put on the Shot because my blood pressure was spiking due to something resembling Gestational Preeclampsia. Other options are simply too prone to failure.

Basically it was this or nothing. I don't want to roll the dice anymore. If I could choose to get a hysterectomy I would, because it would be more final and more sure than a tubal ligation. I don't want to continue the hormones until I hit Menopause. I hate needles, I hate shots. I hate being a human pincushion. One shot every three months is too much.

I don't want to be put in a situation where I have any chance of being forced to be a human incubator for 9 months for a child I do not want and cannot afford. However, this is where I fear my country is headed. A rollback of Women's Rights to the point where we are reduced to being walking wombs rather than human beings entitled to equal protection under the law.

Unless someone takes control of the wheel and steers the Ship of State 180 degrees in the opposite direction than the tack we're on, I can only see the future of Women in America as being similar to our unhappy sisters in Afghanistan and Iran and increasingly in Iraq. One of the blogs I link to is called "Welcome To Gilead." Read "The Handmaid's Tale." It isn't Sci-Fi anymore. I suspect they'll ship me off with the rest of the Unwomen to clean up toxic waste. Halleluyah. :-P