A Slight Departure

We have long proclaimed that adoption and abortion are two separate issues. Once a women chooses to terminate a pregnancy, then adoption is a moot issue. It is only when a baby is carried to term that adoption rears its ugly, eugenic head. So, here I go, breaking another one of my rules.

The "adoption, a loving option" inanity does not ring true to those of us who have been separated by this institution. It makes me wonder just what is behind these anti-choice protests. Is it a genuine belief that a zygote is life or is it a church/agency wanting to rake in some bucks while pushing its own eugenics program? I suspect the latter. Plus, I get very testy when some religious group tried to impose their dogma on the rest of the country via our national laws.

Separation of church and state is still a part of our constitution, Oh Self-Righteous Ones, and your rights end where mine begin.

This is an issue to which I had sworn I wouldn't give space or credence. But having had a loved one shouted at and called a murderer when she went into a women's clinic, it is hard not to enter the fray. Now, when our reproductive rights are being frantically, and, might I say, desperately challenged, it is time for those of us who really believe in reproductive rights to step forward and have our say.

The National Organization of Women lists adoption as a "reproductive choice." If any of these people have ever been pregnant and had the pressure and coercion laid on them that we mothers of adoption loss have had piled on our backs, they might re-think that word "choice." I should think that it would be a duty for NOW to protect a single and/or poor woman's choice to keep and raise her baby.

So, in its own way, the NOW is in bed with the anti-choicers. Either way, mothers are being guilted by one group into carrying a pregnancy to term, and given no support by the other when that full-term baby is grabbed by the agencies and social workers through coercion and emotional bullying.

It is to the industry's and to the Christian Right Wing's advantages to chip away at Roe v Wade. It is probably due to the adopters in their ranks that allows NOW to ignore the predation on women that occurs with adoption. This is why NOW's voice has no more power than it does and why we are having to scream at the top of our lungs. Women are becoming predator and prey..reproductive cannibals...and it is sick, sad and totally unethical.

We have a choice, next month. We can choose to carry on this madness or we can put someone in the White House who, at least, seems to have an open mind. We need to write our letters, we need to use our votes and we need to protect the right to choose whether or not we, our daughters and granddaughters can make our own decisions concerning our own bodies and our babies. It's not just Roe v Wade that is in peril, but also the right of women to safe, effective birth control regardless of age or marital status. That's a biggie and should not be ignored.

Right now, we still have a modicum of choice. While some states have eroded the right to choose, there is still the option to go to a more open state and have a procedure done there. If the adoption industry and the, so-called, "Moral" Majority have their way, we are back to the maternity homes, forced surrender and loss of acess to birth control.

Can we, as women, really afford a giant step backwards?

I might also note that important issues such as the economy and its effect on the middle class and the poor, healthcare and education are Jonahs, at risk of going down the gullets of the big business fish. So use your right and responsibility to vote. It is one of the few things we can do.