All right, I wrote a post that I labeled as offensive. That means that yes, I knew that what I was saying was offensive. Don't fool yourself, though, if I wanted to be really offensive, I would have used the dirty words that women aren't supposed to use. So now you know that.
Why did I resort to offensive manners, if not speech? Why did I go for the one-liner mean thing to say instead of a detailed essay explaining my point laboriously, as I am doing now? Because I was angry, and I expected people to get that.
I get angry at women who think that pro-choice laws should be taken off the books. I get angry when someone with the reproductive organs of her own that might have at some point in her life necessitated a choice tries to tell people that this choice should not be ours to make.
I will once again explain what I think that choice means - it means that you have a minimum of two options - two. If we are specifically talking about the choice to have an abortion or not have an abortion, then those are the two choices. If you find yourself newly but unwantedly pregnant, but you have religious beliefs that would prevent you from ever aborting the baby, then you may choose not to. If, say, religion doesn't play into it, but you find that suddenly you can't choose to terminate what may be a wonderful child, then you also may choose not to have an abortion. That is your business. If, however, there is a woman who finds herself expecting when she knows that she does not want a baby, for any reason at all, and she also finds that she is all right with the idea of pregnancy termination, then it is her right to choose to do so. Too poor, too young, too selfish, too tired, too sick, too single, too scared, I don't care - a woman's body is her own, and she should be able to make the choice about whether or not it bears a child.
Abortion is a serious matter, and either of the two choices will have serious consequences. I understand feeling strongly about it one way or the other. I understand having religious beliefs regarding this manner. I hit Google for the official United Methodist Church's (of which I believe Harriet Miers is a member) stance on abortion because I didn't know. I'm not a Christian, and I admit that I'm not familiar with what all the different factions believe. Well, it turns out that the UMC seems to be all right with the concept of choice, although very aware of how important a choice it is. Huh. So I guess it's not strict religious beliefs that have influenced Ms. Miers' stated position.
Well *now* I'm confused. I was all set to talk about how church and state are separated in this country, and that even if your religion is against something, someone else's may allow it, and it's at that time that we turn to the Constitution, and try and work out a way that people who live in the U.S. can choose what's right for them. The wind has completely been taken out of my sails on that one. If it's not the UMC that has Harriet Miers saying what she has said about abortion, then it must be personal choice, influenced by other factors in her life in addition to her relationship with god. Her personal choice as a citizen of the U.S., and as a woman.
When other women don't agree with me that it's a choice that someone should be allowed to make, it makes me angry. It's as if they're saying, "We, as women and human beings, are not important on our own. We must reproduce to be worth anything". It makes me feel as if they have been brain-washed into thinking that they're second class citizens. This kind of statement from someone who has supposedly been such a supporter of women's rights! It makes me even angrier if a woman past her child-bearing years says it, because it's no longer an issue that she'll ever have to wrestle with. When a woman who has no children, past her reproducing years... argh. When people try to take away the rights of other people to make choices about something they don't have to worry about, I find that extremely selfish and morally reprehensible. When I find something morally reprehensible, often times my temper gets the best of me, and I can become offensive.
Thus, we come full circle, where I feel I've given a pretty complete explanation of my previous post, and why I chose to insult the private parts of another person rather than go into detail. Insults convey anger better than this kind of wordy post ever can, plus people make it all the way to the end of an insult post.
Update: It has been pointed out to me that Ms. Miers is not a member of the UMC, she merely attended Southern Methodist University. Ms Miers, while in D.C., attends St. John's Episcopal Church.
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