Say What You Mean, and Mean What You say... (Or: Thorne Gets Honest)
I know, I know; I just can’t seem to come up with a simple title. Always “this... or: that” (What can I say; I’m a complex person) Not feelin’ too jokey right now. Actually may be trying a little to avoid facing my real topic today. It’s a tough one.
Well, they don’t call me “Cleopatra” for nothin’, so I’ll just work my way into this one slowly. Let’s start with how awesome it is that Rosie’s moving on from The View. It was a great year, and I feel certain that Ro reached a demographic that wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity to have their minds and hearts opened a little, namely stay at home moms who got to discover that lesbian moms aren’t much different than them. I can’t wait to see what she has up her sleeve next, but I hope she’ll continue speaking her truth.
Oh, I simply don’t have the heart for babble with this huge issue so much in my heart and mind.
Here goes.
If you’ve been reading you know that my daughter has just recently given birth to my beautiful grandson. I don’t know that I’ve said much about the recent abortion legislation here, but I’ve been addressing it almost continuously since it passed in other places, like this thread at Clipmarks entitled
Aborted “Fetus” Speaks Out, and this thread,
Supremes Counter Women's Rights where I waded through a sludge of ignorant dogma and attacks (and stooped to a few, myself) along with a few other rational folks and a number of idiots.
The whole while I’m fuming and freaking about the fact that this
right wing religious fundamentalist government has managed to sneak this piece of
VERY strategic legislation through in order to chip away at the small rights we’ve so tenuously held on to since Roe v Wade, that they have managed not only to insinuate themselves into my body, but into my OB/Gyn’s office and legislate how/if and under what circumstances s/he may treat me...
(damn, take a breath Thorne! That’s a long sentance. They don’t call me the comma queen fer nuthin’! And on we go!)
... I am also living in hope and fear and anticipation and worry about my daughter’s difficult pregnancy. ( A lil backstory) A couple of health professionals had previously told my girl that she would find it difficult to conceive and carry. Unbeknown to us, she is Rh negative. This presents a number of health hazards for both mother and baby. Further, she lost 15 lbs in the first trimester, was sick and often unable to eat during the pregnancy, and her weight went up and down over 10 lbs. from month to month. There were scheduling messups at the OB, she didn’t receive her rogam (sp?) shot until a month after the time it was due, and she wasn’t healthy enough to have blood banked for her in case of an emergency.
Anyway, you get the picture, right? Worry. Fear.
I’m a MOM! She is my only child. Mama bear!!! Protect my child!!
Get it? Okay. Enough backstory; let’s get down to it.
Every day in the last weeks that I face this issue of religious legislation, every day that I read the thoughts of those religious fanatics that would impost their biblical “morality” on the rest of us, every word of their dogma, their unwillingness to answer to the fact that their so called “pro-life” stance is NOT “pro-life”, it’s “pro-fetus” and thereby “anti-woman”... every moment, all this while, I am facing the possibility that we may have to choose between the potential life of this precious child... this fetus which has become our precious Bishop... and the life of my daughter.
And ugly as it is, the thought that growled out of me with a violence and passion and vehemence the likes of which I have ever only experienced when my daughter has been in danger, the thought that practically screams from me each time I let my guard down, is:
“ I would tear that fetus limb by limb from my daughter with my bare hands to save her life”.
I am a MOM! She is my only child. I must protect my child!!
I have to admit that in my own heart I was at peace with my feelings. I accepted them as a perfectly normal response for me. I have always known that I would kill or die for my child. I prayed I wouldn't have to make this choice, but was firm in what my decision would be, were I forced to make it.
What I was unable to do as I faced this blog every day, was admit it here. At the time I wasn’t sure if that was a result of the fact that this is a public diary, a public venue in which I share myself, and my fear that I would alienate even friendly readers by voicing aloud, so to speak, a thought so horrendous; or if it was a simple result of my unwillingness to write my biggest fear and somehow make it real by doing so.
Then yesterday I read
this honest and courageous post by a man who did indeed have to make the decision to save the life of his wife over the potential life- the wanted, awaited, life of the fetus within his wife’s body.
I read his story and I felt awe, respect, and some shame. His honesty and ability to share his personal heart, his interior demons and pain so openly and with the deserved relevance to others and this very important issue of a woman's right to choose seemed to challenge me to speak this truth of mine; unpalatable as it may be to many. To speak of a mother’s love and fierce protectiveness and to a woman’s right to choose what happens in her own body as she is able. Or for those who might have to make this choice for her, (be they spouse, mother or Doctor) to be able to do so based on their own deepest hearts truth, rather than have it legislated for them.
This man's writing gave me the courage to admit that I still feel the same. This man. This wonderful feminist male. This thinking, caring, being who loves his wife and respects the rights of all women, gave me the courage I needed to write this truth. The truth that even now as I see this incredible baby, our beautiful Bishop Alexander, now that he is here and in this world, a living, breathing being whom I would die or kill for as I would for my daughter...
Even now I know that before he was born, in that time when he was yet “potential”,
still would I have chosen (were it up to me), to sacrifice that potential life for the life of my daughter.
Thankfully, I was not called upon to make that choice. Thankfully, neither was my daughter, or her husband nor her Doctor. Thankfully, my daughter is healthy and whole and healing. Thankfully, we have a beautiful baby boy who was wanted and planned and who was born healthy and whole and is wanted and loved.
I will close this post the way I close near every argument I make anywhere on this topic of women’s reproductive rights:
My Body. My Choice.
Labels: abortion legislation, baby, choice, fetus, mother, women
