Getting political today

I have made it a point to not get political here.  I don't really want any dischord in my life or my cyber-life. But I am going to step a bit, just a big toe dipping into this political pool, so please bear with me.

I am a birth doula.  I am also a post-partum doula.  And I am a massage therapist who specializes in prenatal and infant massage.  I am also a mother.  And I hope one day to be a grandmother.  So you might tend to pigeon-hole me into the group of people who like to call themselves Pro-Life.  Who would not want to consider themselves Pro-Life?  Are we ever Anti-Life?

Groups have ways of finding innocuous-sounding names to bring in people who might never darken their doors had they really known the group's agenda.

Because of all that mentioned above, I am firmly encamped in the Pro-Choice side of this debate.  One thing that is sacred to me as a woman mentoring other women is choice.  I tell every. single. one. of my clients over and over again

If you don't know your choices, you have none.


It's true.  It is true about childbirth, about parenting, about making food choices, about budgeting, whatever. If you only know one way, that's what you do.  If you only have one viable choice, you go along.  Even if there is a niggling little feeling in the back of your heart telling you "there must be another way".

So, today I am here to say that this is absolute bullshit being put out there that funding must be cut to Planned Parenthood.  Please go check out Planned Parenthood and see just exactly what kind of work they do. There is so much need for the kind of education they provide, the testing of HIV they do, the pregnancy testing, just everything.

If the Pink Bus is coming to a city near you, please go and support them.  Go and find out.  Go and educate yourself about the need to educate.

Just don't do nothing while they get their funding slashed and the rights of women get trampled and thrown back to the 1940's.

I work with pregnant teenagers, some who have homes, some who do not.  I work with some at the juvenile detention center.  And I work with some who believe they are in a committed relationship and have the rose-colored view that everything will be the way they are picturing it in their head as opposed to reality.  The numbers of my actual clients who end up staying together with their boyfriend, keeping their babies, and living as a family unit are dismal.  This never happens.  It does not matter what the ecomonic level of the family is, this is such a ridiculously hard way to start out, that most of these girls can not find their way through it with this dream intact.

What they need is more support from the community.  From people like me who have lists and lists of organizations, agencies and such that can provide education, support groups for the young moms and dads, access to birth control so that they can cope with what they have before adding to it.

What they don't need is to be treated like children who have done wrong and now have to be punished. "You made this bed, now you have to lie in it".  Really?  That's how you want them to approach parenting?  As a consequence of being bad?  How does that translate to their feelings about this baby?  Are you able to love a baby that is a daily reminder of your transgressions and your failings?

It's a thorny issue this one.  I just thought I would go ahead and let you know my stance on this.  I will be standing outside my closest Planned Parenthood clinic tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. in solidarity with others.

Please do some research and arm yourself with facts.  If you don't know your choices, you have none.