If your number one priority for the coming year is going to be making sure that women have to cross state lines for abortions, I just KNOW that you will also be making sure that there are laws and financial resources to do the following:
1. Make sure that ALL women have prenatal care.
2. Make sure that ALL women have long-term alcohol/drug addiction treatment.
3. Make sure that ALL women have food, clothing and shelter.
4. Make sure that ALL women are safe from abuse and crime, especially rape and incest.
5. Make effective birth control available to ALL sexually active women.
ALL women doesn’t allow the exclusion of anyone because of race, age, income, religion, sexual orientation or place of birth. In addition to caring for all women before, during and after a pregnancy, I am absolutely certain that you will also be making sure that there are laws and financial resources to do the following:
1. Make sure that EVERY child is fed, clothed and provided shelter.
2. Make sure that EVERY child has medical care.
3. Make sure that EVERY child is safe from abuse and crime.
4. Make sure that EVERY child is provided a public education.
3. Make sure that EVERY child has a home where they are loved and wanted.
EVERY child doesn’t allow the exclusion of anyone because of gender, race, age, income, religion, sexual orientation or place of birth. Of course, it shouldn’t need to be said that there will be employment available in TN for the parents of every child and eventually, for those children. I am relieved that our state has the financial resources to do all of these things simultaneously. I just need to convince all of my unemployed neighbors and friends that they are wrong about the what the priorities of this state should be right now. If you are going to make abortion illegal in TN, be sure you first make it unnecessary.
From a woman and a mother,
Cathy
Amen.
I would add one more “Make sure” to that list, this one is for the adults involved. You know, the people that are supposed to be ultimately responsible for the children they create (as opposed to the state):
Make sure that EVERY sexual encounter is approached with the possibility in mind that a child could result, and that will tie you to the person you are about to sleep with for at least the next 18 years.
Being that I had my son at the age of 14 I feel very strongly about this issue.
I wish those pro-lifers had come through with ANY of the support they promised me. But basically, they don’t care about the child or the mother past the 9th month. And they are the same one who complain about welfare mothers. And the same ones who don’t want single parents or gay couples adopting orphans because they seem to assume that every unwanted child is immediately adopted by infertile married couples. They don’t think about the drug addicted ones, the minority ones or the special needs babies. And then, when the children raised in state’s custody become criminals or welfare mothers, they will just blame someone else.
Plus, add to it that about 95 percent of all other teen mothers I knew either abused or neglected their children or their children were being raised by their grandparents.
Amen to everything you said here.
Clearly you are one of those anti-American socialists (like me).
maybe while they are at it recognize that while noble & such abstinence only education falls short
This reminds me of the old National Lampoon cover: “Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot this dog”.
Essentially, if the state doesn’t take care of every single viccisitude of life, and provide 100% safety against things that you cannot in any society prevent with a 100% success rate, then its off the abortion clinic. Good Lord, what a depressing view of humanity and personal responsibility.
James, that’s a strange reading of what she wrote. I don’t see a line in there that threatens, “Or else it’s off to the abortion clinic.” She’s saying that we have better priorities than yanking abortion rights for women, and that addressing some of those priorities would reduce the need for abortion clinics.
Fewer abortions = good. Prohibition does not equal fewer abortions. Better social services can equal fewer abortions. Many actions (not just those by the state) can reduce the number of abortions. Personal responsibility, for one.
Lawmakers have a responsibility to think bigger than “if we forbid them to use it, it will stop.” This is an age-old argument between progressives and right-wingers. Right wingers like to cite personal responsibility, then ask the state to legislate away the rights to that responsibility. You know, the “choice” of the matter.
Our time would be better spent taking responsibility and addressing the causes.
These sound like Individual responsiblites, not rights protected by government.
More examples of individual responsibilities:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.