Like this:

I normally keep my politics to myself. I usually work from a position that arguments are to change someone’s mind and there are a good many things I don’t wish to discuss because I respect the opinions of others, but know that not everyone will show me the same respect. A good many people can’t discuss without arguing.

I recently posted some support for Planned Parenthood on my Facebook page. A friend who happens to be a conservative male sent me some opposing opinions and asked what I thought. I had a great deal to say.

I’m really appalled by what is going on and how the facts are being spun, so I’ve decided to go ahead and share my real opinion. Here’s most of what I sent my friend:

 
I did definitely look at the links you sent, and I do most definitely refute them. Those articles are all about propaganda and spinning the facts to suit a particular agenda rather than presenting facts for consideration. What passes for news these days.

If your operating budget is 1,000,000,000, then 83,000,000 left over is a sign of aggressive fiscal responsibility, not ‘profit’. If you cut off a few zeros I think you might agree that if your budget was 1000 and you had 83 left at the end of the month, you’d consider that responsible spending. It isn’t profit either, it would be ‘profit’ if it were then redistributed to the people who work for the organization or shareholders, but instead it represents a savings cushion for reinvestment this year. Because you know, a lot of republicans got elected last year and they would rather mess with social issues than deal with multiple war zones, responsible health care, and a seriously messed up economy.

Have you ever been to a Planned Parenthood? Probably not, since you’ve never been a teenage girl with unavailable parents, or a young woman who couldn’t afford any other kind of health care. I’ve been both. I have never had an abortion, because Planned Parenthood was there and easily accessible *and affordable* when I needed to make choices, so I made better ones instead of worse ones.

Sure, maybe abstinence would have been the best solution before I was married, but abstinence only education hasn’t worked as a strategy since the beginning of time, so I don’t feel badly that it didn’t work for me either.

I’ve known 2 women (and only 2) who used PP for an abortion. One because of birth control failure and one because of a date rape. Both of them had to go to another state, because contrary to the negative propaganda, not all branches even conduct abortions, must less encourage them. Because its too dangerous. Clinics that perform abortions get bombed. Because the right to possibly save the life of an unborn, not yet viable child is more important the the right to life of adults making hard choices, and innocent young women who just want access to information and health care. Who want to avoid STDs and getting pregnant in the first place.

If I had my way, everyone who pickets and lobbies aggressively for an end to abortion in this country should be required to adopt an unwanted child. But no, they want to end an option without providing any better solutions and definitely without dirtying their hands or inconveniencing their comfortable lives. I grew up in the south, and the number of aggressively pro-Life parents who sent their daughters to private clinics to have ‘accidents’ taken care of quietly is depressing, if unverifiable. You can’t stop hormones with platitudes and if kids had any sense they wouldn’t need parents.

I feel very, very strongly in my body, my choice. My choice to have sex, my choice to decide what to do about any possible consequences. The only *man* who should be allowed any opinion whatsoever in a woman’s choice on how to handle a pregnancy is the man who helped create that child in the first place. Certainly not a bunch of old guys who are desperately out of touch with the pressures placed on teens in our society who are only out for the political capital.

I also feel very, very strongly that federal regulation and prohibition of abortion violates the separation of church and state. Freedom of religion requires freedom *from* religion.

 

 

I realize that there are some concerns that my opinions don’t address. That’s the nature of opinions. But that’s what I think. If anyone wants to nitpick something I didn’t address, you’re entirely welcome to do so, but I probably won’t participate.

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