The one-issue voter

First things first, though. To respond to Vickie's climate question, North Carolina summers can be BRUTAL. I remember visiting one year in August and I could barely breathe the air was so thick. So yes, the humidity will be a problem. To you and to MadAnne, the community garden suggestion is one I'd thought of as well. I'll have to train myself to actually go to it and work in it, kind of like a gym. On the other hand, it could be years before we get there and I might not be able to work in a garden. People do slow down as they age – I certainly have!

Now, on to the subject of this post. Here in southern West Virginia I hear of a lot of Democrats who will vote against President Obama because of King Coal. There is a small subset, however, whose major issue is abortion. To them, if you're pro-choice, you're pro-abortion, period. Nothing could be further from the truth.

NO ONE IS PRO-ABORTION.

I was in the audience when Candidate Obama campaigned in Beckley, West Virginia, in 2008, and he bravely tackled the topic. He called for a meeting of the minds back then, when he was a bit more starry-eyed (so was I!) and hopey-changey. He felt there was a place where we could meet in the middle. He spoke about adoption, education and contraception.

Ah, contraception. Somehow being against abortion has morphed into also being against contraception. How did that happen? I blame the Tea Party takeover, a bunch of ultra-conservative white men who claim to be Christians and who have led their followers down a most destructive path. (You're not surprised I feel this way, are you?)

I grew up in a time when abortion was legal in only a few states. It was expensive to get there and expensive to have one, but they were available. If you couldn't afford to travel, you could find someone who would attempt to take care of you, or you could have the baby and give it up for adoption or you could marry the guy. (If you hadn't been raped.) Birth control pills became available in the U.S. when I was in junior high school. Unplanned pregnancies were, I presume, a bit more common prior to the early '60s.

We have, thankfully, progressed to a period of time where abortion is a safe, legal medical procedure. Should you want one, that is your decision to make. The risks associated with legal abortion are minimal. Thank the Supreme Court for that.

Reducing the availability of free or low-cost contraception (by defunding Planned Parenthood, as conservatives have vowed to do) would most certainly increase the number of unplanned pregnancies. That's just simple logic. An increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies would result in either an increase in the number of abortions performed (assuming abortions are still legal) OR an increase in the number of children to be cared for.

At the same time conservatives want to defund Planned Parenthood, they want to turn Medicaid over to already-strapped states. They want to reduce aid to dependent children. They want to reduce educational spending. Smaller government is better government!, they shout and rail and yell.

Unless you happen to be poor. And pregnant. And unable to care for a child who didn't ask to be born. A fertilized egg is not a child. It is, as the young folks says, what it is: a fertilized egg.

My personal opinion on the abortion issue doesn't matter. You can correctly deduce that I'm pro-choice. But I most definitely am also pro-life.

I am PRO the life of the mother. I am PRO health care for all. I am PRO education. I am PRO the availability of healthful food and enough of it.

Don't tell me you're pro-life if you also believe in gutting Medicaid and Planned Parenthood. In doing so you prove to me that you're really only pro-birth.

What we've got here is failure to communicate

(I can't even type that subject line without hearing the Captain's slow drawl from Cool Hand Luke.)

Thanks so much for commenting yesterday. Your input reinforces my core belief that there are some savvy women out there who could whip this country into shape in a heartbeat, if only you were in charge.

©someecards.com

I could barely tear myself away from Facebook yesterday, where the comments continued to mount up regarding what I am now calling The Limbaugh Incident. The amount of misinformation, beginning with El Rushbo himself, is staggering.

For instance, he apparently thinks birth control works like the little blue pill – you need to take one every time you have sex.

Many, many Facebook comments went along these lines:

I don't care if you take birth control, but don't make me pay for it!

No one is saying birth control should be free, or paid for using taxpayers' funds. The issue is, as LG commented, whether insurance should cover it. As someone who has not used birth control for 37 years, I didn't even realize contraception was not covered. (Can you believe my doctor agreed to perform a tubal ligation when I was 24 years old? Would a doctor do that now?)

If you don't have a prescription plan as part of your health insurance coverage, you will be paying out of pocket. But if you don't have a prescription plan, you're paying for all your prescribed medication with your own money.

This is the lastest of many (every) health care issues that leads me back to the idea that single-payer should be the law of the land. PPACA doesn't even come close to guaranteeing universal coverage.

My problem now is that I pretty much surround myself with like-minded people who agree with me. I've no one to convince that I'm right. Those with whom I associate and interact already know I'm right, because they're right as well. Heh. And honestly? I don't like to fight, or even cajole.

I like to be a good example. If I can state my case simply, calmly and clearly, and if I can back it up with credible sources, then I'm done. If one doesn't wish to listen to reason or if one would rather make up the facts, I might as well move on to someone with a more open mind.

Which is why I won't be calling in to talk to Rush today.

Question du jour: DIscuss

If you're against abortion, how can you also be against contraception?

I just read a Facebook comment and subsequent conversation which began with a woman saying she's suffered guilt and shame because abortion was "too easily accessible" when she was "young and vulnerable."

Well, I remember when abortions were illegal. You had to go undercover to a shady practitioner to get one, or travel long distances and spend a ton of money to find a reputable doctor willing to perform the procedure. You risked your future fertility and your life when abortion was not accessible.

No one is in favor of abortion. It's a gut-wrenching decision. Preventing abortions is a good idea, so should we encourage drug companies to develop "treatments" for raging hormones? Should we spend more research money to develop cures for the conditions that drive couples to terminate wanted, planned-for pregnancies?

Adoption is a good idea, too. I know several couples who have adopted children but they all traveled long distances and spent a ton of money to bring their children back from foreign countries. Where, apparently, abortions aren't performed. (Here's a rundown of abortion policy around the world.) If U.S. law prohibited abortion, would there be more adoptions here? Or would there be more back-alley, coat-hanger abortions?

Doesn't it make more sense to make contraception accessible? Of course it does.

This whole political storm about women's rights comes down to this: It's a man's world. Still. After two generations of fighting for our rights, and a Supreme Court decision, men still want to be in charge of our bodies. They want to say who, when and how to have sex, and they want us to shut up and like it.

Okay, it's not just men. There's Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter. And the woman who wrote that Facebook comment.

So. Now you know where I stand. How about you?