Moving backwards

I guess I've officially taken a paleo break. I'm not happy about it. Paleo worked for me in so many ways. And it will work again, I'm sure of it.

This horrible winter and the dead refrigerator have conspired against me, sending me to the easiest and most comforting sustenance available: saltines and either butter or peanut butter.

Pretty much the opposite of a clean diet.

I'm dizzy this morning, lightheaded and shaky. I've had a banana and the aforementioned crackers. And, probably, too much coffee.

I'm back up a pound this week. At the beginning of the year I needed to lose 12 pounds to reach that magical "normal" BMI. Now it's 17. And that's definitely discouraging.

I'm the only one who can turn it around, though. And I will. I'm confident that lack of daily exercise + not-so-clean eating = crappy mood, extra pounds and, yes, a return of that nagging hip pain.

ALSO moving backwards: the state of West Virginia, where a bill passed the House of Delegates last night that would make it a felony to perform an abortion after 20 weeks. The bill now goes to the state Senate. I've written my Senators, urging them to keep the government out of women's health care.

It's not going to have a big impact on the number of procedures performed here in the Mountain State. It's pretty hard to have an abortion at any time, since we have just two clinics and West Virginia isn't the easiest state in which to get from place to place.

More importantly, women who learn at 20 weeks that there is something wrong with their health or the health of the fetus need to have the option. Women who's carried a fetus that long WANT that baby. They and their families are looking forward to the new addition to the family. They are making a heartbreaking and agonizing decision. It's not the state's business to interfere.

Imagine learning, on the 20th week plus third day, that the child you're carrying has died in utero. Should this bill become law, you would be required to deliver your stillborn child at term.

I've said all this before. I think. Sorry to repeat myself.

Today the House of Delegates will be voting on a bill that will allow security personnel in schools to carry weapons.

Gun rights: AYE!

Women's rights: NAY!

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.

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?