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Archive for the ‘The USA from the outside in’ Category

Rambling ’round the brain

Posted in Children, Elections USA, England, Expat Living, Family, Fun, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, The USA from the outside in, World politics, Younger men, tagged , , , , , , , on November 6, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Magnar and me

Magnar and me

This morning’s post is bound to ramble, as I’m foggier than San Francisco in a November due to a spontaneous Magnar-induced party that invaded my veranda at about 10 last night, then left him here … three sheets to the wind, maybe four … and wanting to show me photos of his dad’s sheep and read to me in Norwegian after the six people he brought along (Who were those guys?) moved on to their next venue.

I never complain about Magnar, and never will, as he kept me going through months of sheer torture and terror, and because there’s actually nothing to complain about … he is truly Mr. Wonderful in every way … plus I LOVE to hear the world news in his native language. (Stan fell asleep in a chair … but that was no problem. His snoring … he saws logs, while I simply purr when I sleep … was great background music.)

But … I was just getting ready to hit the sack, being well worn out from a full day in town, and all the happy dancing I did all day to the tune of President Elect Barak Obama, when he and a gaggle of Brits arrived equipped with wine and beers and great conversation. (One even bought a copy of my book, so it was an evening of fun AND profit.)

The kids were well asleep, and once they’re out, they’re out, so undisturbed by the hilarity created when perfect strangers meet and find they get on like a house afire.

One thing in the long list of things I love about island life is the tendency people develop here to not let personal connections pass without notice and appreciation for kindred souls casually encountered.

Mark has the kids this weekend, and now we have a party to attend tomorrow night … and that’s how the social calendar fills so very fast in such a small place.

On the election topic, my daughter, Jenn, forwarded an email this morning from one of her coworkers that offers a symmetry that deserves thought:

1. The modern conservative movement began with the crushing defeat of Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential race. The modern conservative movement ends with the crushing defeat of Arizona Sen. John McCain — who took Goldwater’s Senate seat upon his retirement — in the 2008 presidential race.

2. Modern liberalism began its implosion with riots in Chicago’sGrant Park at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Tonight, modern liberalism is reborn at Chicago’s Grant Park, where a black Chicago Democrat will celebrate winning the presidency.

Got out of my morning drive today thanks to another great friend. Andy was flying to Praslin today … another island about 15 minutes away by flying soapbox … and the timing worked out that dropping the kids at school was a favor he could provide. Yipee.

I was up at 5, as usual, but had only to walk Sam and Cj up the hill to catch their lift with him; then was back in bed by 6:30 and caught another couple of hours. What a treat!

I’m loving life these days, and so happy to be. Turns out, I’m a lucky bunny after all. Wow.

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A take on Obama’s win from the other side of the planet

Posted in American thoughts, Elections USA, Expat Living, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged on November 5, 2008| 5 Comments »

As most long-time readers know, I’m 12 time zones away from my home state of California … that’s exactly halfway around the globe … so I was well into Wednesday when election results started coming in. I caught a few of the early ones on CNN before leaving for the long haul to town in my daily trek taking the kids to school, and was sorry to leave the TV.

By the time I arrived, I’d had text messages updating me, and those set me on a search for a functioning television, but seeing that it was not yet 9am, that was fruitless. I tried the British High Commission, but being British and all no TV was to be found. I then hit the American Consular Office, but Travis, the guy who mans the place was not yet in.

A bit more wandering managed to kill off an hour, so we popped into the Pirate’s Arms … a local hangout, for a cup of tea, and … lo and behold … were greeted by President Elect Obama delivering his speech on the 5′ plasma screen!

Wow. The crowd! The speech! The tears! The smiles! I did the happy dance right then and there.

Throughout the rest of the day, as we spent the whole of it in Victoria, I had people stopping me every few yards to congratulate me … I’m fairly well known here, you see … all of whom were almost as happy as I am with the outcome.

Even on this remote island in this far-flung country the population is taking hope from this amazing and historic turn of events, and are now looking toward America for the sort of leadership … albeit not until the 20th of January … to begin to lead us all out of the mess 8 years of living under the idiot bush has created.

Although I carry two passports, today I am SO proud to be an American … and after living abroad for so many years I have to admit that it’s been quite a while since I’ve felt right in holding my head up high and shouting my roots to the rooftops.

We really aren’t as stupid as we’ve been looking, and the rest of the world is heaving a sigh of relief over that.

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The US Presidential elections: a family thang …

Posted in American thoughts, Celebrities, Celebs, Elections USA, Expat Living, Family, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Seychelles, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged , , , , , , , on November 4, 2008| 4 Comments »

It’s only been election day in the States for a little under an hour now, but on this side of the world the morning is heading toward afternoon and that has me thinking I should be sitting in front of the TV and listening to Wolf Blitzer yammer on about exit polls.

This is certain to be one of those days that I resent the hell out of whoever has yet to get around to inventing the beamy-uppy thing, as I would LOVE to be in the US for all of this particular Tuesday in this particular November.

I’ve not minded at all missing out on the hoopla of the last two Presidential elections … in fact I casually contemplated passing myself off as Canadian (or a Kiwi like Sis, but I can’t do the accent) … but this one brings such promise that I’m sorry to be missing the party … Democrat, of course.

My beautiful and bright daughter, Jenn, has been stumping for Obama in North Carolina, and I would love to be sitting with her as the results come in. Not that I’m counting unhatched chickens from way over here in the Indian Ocean … no way! I’ve been out of America long enough now to harbor no illusions about the potential of pinheads to rise like over-yeasty bread and take over the world, reminding me in no little way of the creature introduced in Michael Landon’s first film, “The Blob”.

Could it be, though, that this time around intelligence counts? Could smart and honorable and vital and committed and fresh and fill-in-a-positive-adjective-here carry the day?

Do the world a favor, and get out and vote today, and if you’re still undecided and of the mindset that a movie star should tell you what box to tick, feel free to let my brother influence you. After all, he’s a smart guy, too.

I’ll be over here waiting with fish on my tongue (baited breath … a groaner, I know, but it’s an inside joke aimed at a few) for the results to start coming in on CNN’s website … Anderson Cooper is cute, isn’t he just, and isn’t that what TV news is all about? … and hoping for the promise of a new and brighter world.

We all sure could use that.

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Missing the Politics of America

Posted in American thoughts, Elections USA, Island life, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged , on August 29, 2008| 11 Comments »

The title of this post is not one I expected to ever write nor an emotion I would experience, but this morning I am most certainly missing being in the loop of the US political scene.

My measly one hour of CNN consisted of commentary of Obama’s speech at the convention, and although it was conducted with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen from some of the folks at the network than usual, I get the sense that an historical moment passed me by … one that I would have enjoyed a whole heck of a lot, too.

As mentioned in my previous post, my daughter is stumping for Obama in North Carolina and thrilled to be doing so. Having not seen her jazzed about national affairs like this ever before, my 1960’s protesting soul is thrilled at her passion, and her choice of direction for aiming that passion pleases me.

I recently read “The Audacity of Hope”, my first introduction into Barack beyond soundbites, and found only one topic to disagree with in the entire book. (I’m not a fan of bio fuels, ethanol especially, and consider them an unacceptable compromise over fossil fuels that’s going to bite the world in the butt big time.)

For the past eight years, I’ve been living as an embarrassed expat apologizing for GW Bush and wondering how in hell such a stupid man got the job of President … TWICE … which caused no end of worry over what the hell my fellow Americans could possibly be thinking.

Finally, finally, there’s something I can understand happening, a process and a conclusion (so far) that makes sense on many levels, and a hopefulness in the air that’s not been detectable, much less breathable, in a very long time.

So, yes, I find myself missing the politics of today’s America, the hype, the groove, the zeal and wholehearted and hopeful commitment that has grabbed a generation with little example in living memory of happy days being here again.

I will, of course, be voting, as every vote DOES count, and following the campaign as I can from here with my limited TV and painfully slow Internet, and while doing so I’ll be envying all of you there the national frisson that’s taken hold, shaken things up and has so many so hopeful.

Enjoy the ride, and keep up the good work!

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Getting it wrong on AIDS in Africa

Posted in Adoption, Children, International Adoption, orphans, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2008| 2 Comments »

I’ve just read the most confounding bit of news I’ve seen in a while, and in a source that usually delivers it straight up, making it even more confusing.

It’s this article in the Washington Post that sent me scurrying all over the Internet in search of corroboration and reason.

The story is about George W. Bush’s Africa trip from the angle of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, where it has succeeded and where it has fallen short. It makes sense, for the most part, as it explains how $15 billion has increased the availability of treatment, but with the rate of infections going up faster than meds can be handed out, that the big picture is not rosy.

The statement that “nearly half of today’s 15-year-olds in South Africa, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program, will contract the virus in their lifetimes at current infection rates,” jars gratingly against the claim of 157,000 cases of pediatric HIV prevented through providing antiretrovirals to pregnant women, and research that says 40% of those given the lifesaving drugs drop out of the loop, stop taking their meds and most likely die takes some of the gloss off the 1.3 million PEPFAR supports treatment for.

The political motivation combining with whatever portion of the PEPFAR dollar comes from pure benevolence puts an interesting point on the quill, as well:

Studies have shown that family planning could avert far more infections than antiretroviral drugs because many women, especially those with HIV, want fewer children. Critics say the restriction, along with PEPFAR’s emphasis on untested abstinence programs, exists mainly to win support from conservative congressional Republicans, undermining the full potential of a program that the White House bills as one of the biggest humanitarian ventures in history.

Yes, that’s confounding to me, as medical issues should not be cross-contaminated by moral judgement as far as I’m concerned.

Not nearly as confounding, however, as what wraps up the piece:

Yet the past five years have also shown that the AIDS epidemic can be contained by forces other than U.S. money and political will. Africa’s biggest declines in HIV rates during Bush’s AIDS initiative have come in Zimbabwe, where economic collapse has coincided with fundamental social change, including a shift toward monogamy and away from more-costly multiple relationships, research there shows.

Yep … Sandra reads those words, and goes scuttering in search of something that has THAT make any sense.

Zimbabwe put forth as an example of something going right? Hmmmmm. Me thinks there’s something rotten in Harare.

A quick search of “AIDS in Zimbabwe” comes up with 604,000 links on Google and not one I opened made any grand statements about a drop in the HIV infection rates.

Curious.

AidsPortal.Org has something about an increase in the number of people on antiretrovirals, but also mentions the “daunting task of breaking the vicious cycle of new infections,” which doesn’t sound like a big drop in infections is happening.

HIVInSite, a project of the University of California, doesn’t give any indication of a letup in infections, either. It does, however, give one tiny clue that moved me along … under “New HIV infections, 2005” the entry was “nd”: no data.

Hmmmmm.

Eventually coming across Avert.org’s page on AIDS in Zimbabwe, the true picture emerged.

In many cases, as one Zimbabwean doctor explained to reporters, the reality is that AIDS can now be counted amongst such concerns: “Put simply, people are dying of AIDS before they can starve to death.”

The situation in Zimbabwe is now so bad that:

Between 2002 and 2006, the population is estimated to have decreased by four million people.

Infant mortality has doubled since 1990.

Average life expectancy for women, who are particularly affected by Zimbabwe’s AIDS epidemic, is 34 – the lowest anywhere in the world. Officials from the World Health Organisation have admitted that since this figure is based on data collected two years ago, the real number may be as low as 30.

Zimbabwe has a higher number of orphans, in proportion to its population, than any other country in the world, according to UNICEF. Most of these cases are a result of parents dying from AIDS.

So, there’s the reason AIDS numbers are down in Zimbabwe … more people are already dead than they were last year and the year before, and the deaths are happening just that much faster than new infections are being reported. (We don’t even need to start in on the accuracy of reporting in the country.)

For the WaPo to suggest that Mugabe’s masterwork of horror that is modern-day Zimbabwe proves that “the AIDS epidemic can be contained by forces other than U.S. money and political will,” but rather through, “fundamental social change, including a shift toward monogamy and away from more-costly multiple relationships,” is irresponsible at best, and shows an inclination to accept “research” generated by tyranny in attempts to provide positive spin to genocidal maniacs.

I have come to expect much better from the publication.

Confounding, indeed.

This is x-posted to Adoption Under One Roof because it fits in both places.

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What’s comic about racism?

Posted in Adoption, American thoughts, International Adoption, The USA from the outside in, tagged , on February 7, 2008| 2 Comments »

According to this article in the Washington Post, not a lot.

It would be nice to claim that comic strips are the last bastion of racism in American media, but that really would be funny. It’s simply one more example of carte blanche being lily white in the realm that exerts influence over the thinking of millions of people every day, and most people don’t even bother to notice that it happening.

After all, who knows what the person drawing a strip looks like?

(I have friends who vacationed in Mexico a number of years ago and didn’t realize that the Gary Larson who was their beach buddy of a couple buddy of a few weeks, who shared many a meal with them was actually THE Gary Larson of “Far Side” fame.

Yes, he was a fun guy and his name did ring bells, but no connection was made until he signed the hotel’s guest book as he checked out and drew a little cartoon as a memento of his stay.)

To draw attention to the fact that the number of non-white cartoonists is an embarrassment in a country as racially diverse as America demographically is, this coming Sunday those sitting down to read the “funnies” will find a protest, of sorts.

11 cartoonists of color will be drawing essentially the same comic strip, using irony to literally illustrate that point. In each strip, the artists will portray a white reader grousing about a minority-drawn strip, complaining that it’s a “Boondocks” rip-off and blaming it on “tokenism.” “It’s the one-minority rule,” says Lalo Alcaraz (“La Cucaracha”). “We’ve got one black guy and we’ve got one Latino. There’s not room for anything else.”

Read along, smile if you are so inspired, but understand there is no little power in humor, and comic strips have long been both an indicator of and an influence over popular culture.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our kids could all spend their Sunday mornings hovering over a two-page spread that would represent them more fully and clearly? I’m not suggesting that every paper needs to have a special section for transracially or internationally adopted kids, but we’re a multicolored world, and the funnies haven’t been printed in black and white for many, many years. It’s time they caught up with themselves.

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Gay backlash and Presidential candidates

Posted in Adoption, Elections USA, The USA from the outside in, tagged , , on January 30, 2008| 16 Comments »

Back in the days when I was still working for Adoption dot com, when a new and enthusiastic editor carved out yet another blog for me after noting my news-houndyishness and created the “News” blog, word came down from On High that I should take on the task of examining Presidential candidates and their positions on adoption.

Having worked with politicos during my news days, this seemed an easy assignment; after all, who in a big race would turn down a chance for free press on a topic so much less loaded than weapons of mass destruction and genocide, and to shine with some merciful light radiating from some innocent child?

Turns out, all of them.

After researching who was who and where, I sent emails to the people in charge of getting press for their candidates, for answering questions and sending out miles of column inches of controlled blather in hopes that someone, somewhere, will pick it up and publish at least something, but to no avail.

Yes, I did get on everyone’s mailing list and spend too much time trashing rah-rah bandwagon mail, but any direct adoption-related contact or offers to send position papers my way?

Nope. Not a one.

I was puzzled, to say the least, and since I still have a few contacts in and around the US political scene, some of whom have moved up the power ladder in the years I’ve been away and now hang with hopeful Presidents, I asked around.

In America it’s a ten foot pole, while the Brits say barge pole which must be about that long, but whatever you call it no one was touching me.

I’d been instructed to play the Adoption dot com card … huge Web site, thousands of hits per month, blah, blah, blah … which, it happens, slammed the door faster than if I’d showed up in black leather and asked to give spankings.

Seems the lawsuit the company had recently lost to a gay couple they refused to do business with put the kibosh on getting cozy for anyone with an eye toward not being associated in any way with homophobes.

A representative from one of the company’s advertisers even started a boycott movement, so apparently enough attention had been focused to staple a big “keep away” sign on anything coming that might look like a tie.

This all happened some months ago, and the field of candidates has narrowed a bit, and because of my early attempt at contact … and all the mailing lists that plastered me to … I’ve been following bits from the campaign trail I wouldn’t normally be paying much attention to.

I will vote in the general election when it finally rolls around … You bet I will! … but all the run-up hoopla usually ebbs around me like creek water around a midstream boulder. I’ve not lived in the US since the year after Bill Clinton came into office, so too many of the early posers are so new to me that I’d rather wait until it looks like I really should know about them.

I don’t vote in the Primaries, so it’s all done but the shouting by the time I get to say my bit, so burning extra energy on losers isn’t a hobby I take on.

I did see a tiny bit of CNN this morning, however … a tiny bit is all I get before Chinese State TV in English takes over to spout the wonders of the regime and the overwhelming joy of the people of China … candidate-related, as Florida was just finishing the voting there.

It was Mitt Romney on, spouting to his cheering and oh-so-well-groomed crowd, and I was very surprised to hear that his whole theme was change.

Change to healthcare. Change to education. Change to taxation. Change to war … and on and on. Rousing chants of something like “They didn’t fix it” followed each proclamation of what had badly needed change, but hadn’t been addressed.

Excuse me … but haven’t we had a Republican President for the last almost 8 years? And wasn’t, until recently, Congress also dominated by the GOP? So, wouldn’t they be they?

What am I missing? Really. I would love someone to explain to me how a Republican candidate can be running on a platform of change. (Not why … that’s clear … but how.)

Because he’s never held office in the federal government? Because he’s been a governor and businessman his GOP connection has been without pull … just a regular Joe hanging at the club and demanding better education for the poor?

Okay, you’ve probably gathered that I don’t usual vote the GOP ticket, although I am not a lock-step voter by any means, and I would be cutting him more slack if I thought more like he does, but even if that was the case, one line that got a huge and deliriously agreeable response stood out and had me suspecting that this guy hasn’t had an original thought in a very long time:

We will teach our kids that before they have babies they should get married!

.

Yeah. That’s new.

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Corporal punishment or murder: Too close to call?

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Family, The USA from the outside in on January 21, 2008| 8 Comments »

“You don’t know you’ve crossed the line until you get accused of crossing the line.”

That right there is a line crossed, as far as I’m concerned.

It came from the mouth of a guy named Jeffrey T. Schwartz in defense of one Cesar Rodriquez.

Whether Cesar Rodriguez, who is accused of beatings and abusive behavior that killed his 7-year-old stepdaughter, could not have known he had crossed a line is a matter for a jury to decide. He has admitted that he routinely beat Nixzmary with a belt, hit her with his hands using “all my force,” threw her on the floor. He has admitted duct-taping her emaciated 37-pound frame to a chair and binding her with bungee cords.

What he hasn’t admitted to isn’t reported.

The story in the NY Times points out that laws in that state, and all the rest of them for that matter, are “vague on corporal punishment.”

Hello?

On what planet, other than LegalBullshitWorld, is there dense cloudiness between grabbing a toddler and swatting her on the bum when she tries to run out in traffic and holding a kid’s head under water, beating her savagely, and forcing her to use a cat’s litter box for a toilet?

After all, that’s how Mr. Rodriguez was raised … at least according to Mr. Rodriquez and Jeffrey T. Schwartz … and look at what a fine specimen he turned out to be, so there’s a defense made in some version of legal heaven (which would by definition of ‘self-cancelling phrase’ have to indicate some pact with some devils).

Crossing a line? There is no case of crossing a line here. This is rappelling down a precipice (or repelling, actually), slogging across a vast Sahara of crushingly bone-dry nothingness, then pulling up ten miles of cliff face with nothing but fingernails. One can not possible be confused with the other, and the fact that, indeed, the two are confused, blurred, smudged, smeared, massaged, manipulated, into fitting under one banner is disgusting.

Another child is dead, and before she was dead she was tortured … for years … and those doing the torturing, her mother and her mother’s husband, got away with it right up until the time they snuffed the last of life from this little girl.

This is no special case, no rare occurrence, but just an example with a name of daily events.

And no wonder, when society deems torture “crossing a line” when it is perpetrated on a child.

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Naked Ugliness

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, International Adoption, The United Nations, The USA from the outside in, tagged , , , , , on January 20, 2008| 9 Comments »

How many mornings start off with a sense of despair as I open my computer to learn what has happened around the planet as I slept the night away peacefully in the bosom of my beautiful little family? Far too many.

The world is for more people than not a terrible place of unimaginable pain and suffering where each day brings yet another hurdle to jump or cross to bear … one after the other until there is no more jumping or bearing to do.

The headlines give indication of misery enough, but my mind always wanders a bit further down the road and often ends up dwelling on whatever impact the attention-grabbing event that leads a report has on the children caught somewhere way down the story and living the consequences of religious fanaticism, ethnic intolerance, political unrest, greed, corruption and all the other horrors self-imposed by the human race upon itself.

Occasionally, a news item addresses the effects on innocents directly, as was the case in this article. Although designed by the United Nations propaganda machine for self-perpetuation and circulated through IRIN, the UN’s “humanitarian news and analysis” branch of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the report does manage to pass along information without too blatant a tooting of its own horn … mainly because there is absolutely NO reason to credit the organization with anything positive under this circumstance … or make a begging plea for additions to its bulging coffers.

The story is on how the unrest in Kenya is impacting the vulnerable in the country, widows and orphans.

When the violence broke out immediately after the election, at least two of the people we support were killed by rowdy youths in their homes. One of our widows was attacked and her home was torn down to the ground; she was very lucky to escape alive. One child-headed household had their home invaded – they were chased away and when they came back everything had been stolen.

This, of course, is one tiny example in a country where millions are at risk any time the boat is even slightly rocked, so precarious is the semblance of stability.

Kenya has long been held up as a positive example of democracy in Africa, a model for other countries more obviously in danger of a rapid downward spiral into chaos. But Kenya has been corrupt as hell for years, and no one with the slightest knowledge of the place could pretend not to notice that the average Kenyan has been getting screwed by their government for decades while the powerful are creaming off the top and living like royalty.

With Zimbabwe just down the road a piece getting a complete pass from the “global community” on everything from its flagrant violations of human rights to blatant corruption, where could impetus possibly come for rising above?

Does the world care? Face it, folks, the answer to that is: Not really.

Pretending otherwise appears to be an unhelpful practice that works pretty well to keep the levels of hell stable for the majority while the minority takes expensive vacations.

Think about this …

At the moment, the population of the USA is somewhere around just over 300 million. Although numbers are hard to come by, USAID estimates that by 2010 25 million children in the world will have been orphaned by AIDS alone (Some suspect this number is a low guess, with estimates up to 200 million circulating.), and although that pandemic does take a hefty toll, added to numbers of children losing parents to other diseases, alcoholism and drug abuse, grinding poverty, famine, violent conflict, the total global population of children forced to fend for themselves could easily approach the number of people living in the United States in any given year.

Orphans, of course, aren’t the only people suffering … billions of children with parents suffer alongside their mothers and fathers … yet no small number of humans blithely go through their lives under the illusion that life is relatively fair … and is meant to be so … and that for the most part justice somehow prevails. Decisions on everything from product purchases to elected official to laws addressing adoption tend to be based on the false sense that happiness is a logical consequence of life for everyone finding the wherewithal their own bootstraps should provide, so consequences are slow to come to those living off the backs of the downtrodden … and that is often not only an expression, but a reality … and remedies too often have more to do with alleviating the little guilt that comes with plenty than actually addressing the real issues others face every day.

Forcing ourselves to wake up and smell the toast is a first step to taking the problems on full frontally, as we will never come to grips with something we have refused to see in all its naked ugliness.

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Abortion rate report

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Adoption News, Family, The USA from the outside in, tagged on January 19, 2008| 1 Comment »

The Guttmacher Institute released its latest report on abortion numbers in the US last week, and because they are down to the lowest rate since 1974, the report is getting press.

The latest figures are from 2005, and the study found a 25 percent drop from an all-time high of 1.6 million in 1990, although still adding up to more than one in five pregnancies being terminated.

A convoluted issue that has long been hijacked by various factions looking to provide traction for wider agendas, abortion is, to say the least, a contentious topic.

Having experienced an unplanned pregnancy in the days before Roe v. Wade, I feel I have more than a little right to my own take on abortion, and I have aimed some writing at it in the past, albeit in tandem with work on adoption.

I am always made very uncomfortable when a direct link is drawn between adoption and abortion, as the hot potato of the first can’t help but be backlit by flame throwers targeting the second, and adoption burning to a crisp in the crossfire is far too dangerous a potential to let the connection weld without comment.

The idea that adoption is a likely consequence of restraint against abortion feels intuitive to many, but is very shaky ground and seems unhelpful in the extreme when trotted out before someone in the dire circumstance of a crisis pregnancy.

Unlike the stereotypic picture of the clueless knocked-up teen … that was me in 1969, thankyouverymuch, when birth control was illegal for anyone under 18 … 61% of women who have abortions in the US are mothers, half have two or more children, and additional children may be considered a cause for compromising care for existing kids.

Without being asked directly, several of the women indicated that adoption is not a realistic option for them. They reported that the thought of one’s child being out in the world without knowing if it was being taken care of or by whom would induce more guilt than having an abortion.

I’m guessing that explaining a full term pregnancy not resulting in a new addition to the family would be an issue, as well.

Clearly, the answer is to prevent as many crisis pregnancies as possible, and education and availability of contraceptives are the keys to this goal.

For those interested, I freely admit that had abortion been a legal option for me in 1969 I would not have chosen it, just as I did not choose to relinquish my daughter. Both facts relate only to me personally and neither are laudatory, but rather simply a reflection the cumulative process that made me me at that given point in time.

If I had found myself pregnant in 1974, the last time the rate of abortions was as low as it was in 2005, I would have carefully considered and very possibly opted for an abortion. At that time I was a divorced 23-year-old struggling to raise two kids on my own, working three jobs to make ends meet, taking classes as I could. Luckily, I dodged that bullet.

I will not get into the abortion fray here, as I have more to address on this blog than leaves time for that endless loop, but I will mention a couple of niggles I can’t keep my mouth shut in front of …

Speaking authoritatively on abortion takes a uterus.

Beethoven was not the third or fifth or whatever offspring of a syphilitic tuberculin.

The more power women have, the better the world gets.

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