as an expat, I’ve never felt further away from where I need to be. I want to take to the streets, and shout and protest. Yet my rage from 3000 miles away makes me feel so alone.

I know a lot of pro-choice women. In fact, the most vehemently pro-choice women I know are mothers. I’ve known a lot of women who’ve had abortions. I have NEVER in my entire life met a single woman who thought an abortion was a Good Idea.

But the minute they tell me I CANNOT control my uterus … that’s a *part of my body*. Whatever you may think about abortion in general, neither you, nor Bush, nor anyone gets to tell me what to do with *MY* body, because it is the only thing in this world i was born with and it is the only thing in this world I will die with, and it is the ONLY thing in this world that makes me ME.

I don’t think anyone can appreciate that until someone tells you what you can and cannot do with your penis, or your mouth, or your hands. The state didn’t give me a right to my body – only God or fate or whatever universal capricious force you believe in, gave me a right to inhabit my body. It is the only thing that I think with, breathe with, exist with.

I understand there are people who believe that unborn fetuses have those same rights.

What I don’t understand is at what point those rights take over *MY* rights, and, most importantly, why it’s not God or fate or whatever universal capricious force you believe in that’s deciding that, but the state. That’s what I don’t get.

I was up late thinking about this. Crying over this.

Men grow up with the given assumption that they have complete primacy over their bodies.

Women grow up with the idea that at some point, they will voluntarily cede control of that primacy to a baby’s needs.

The idea of having to *involuntarily* cede primacy of one’s body is pretty upsetting.

But do you know what happens to women who don’t have abortions? Who can’t/don’t care for the baby? Those children become foster kids.

Adoption? That happens to a small proportion of newborn white babies who are given up by healthy normal mothers.

The rest – the massive numbers of children who don’t get adopted, end up in the system. If they’re lucky, they end up there from birth. If they’re not lucky, they get taken away when they’re older because bad things have happened to them. Know what happens to them? Go visit a childrens home (yes, orphanages still exist in this day and age). Go talk to the 10 year old who’s lived in 12 different foster homes, and has exactly 4 pairs of pants and 3 photos to her name. Go talk to the little girl with cigarette burns on her back, who got raped at 3 years old. Go talk to the brain damaged kid with special needs who was born addicted to crack. Go talk to the child who was abandoned at age 2 by and found alone in the house after 3 days. Go talk to the HIV positive kid who might not live to see their 13th birthday. Go talk to the kid who’s been bounced back and forth 4 times to see if their mother can “get her act together”.

Think I’m exaggerating? I swear to you, I’m not. Go see for yourself. These are the children who are not wanted. If they’re not fucked up before they go into the system, they sure as hell are coming out. there are more than *half a million* children in the system.

What happens to these children? Who makes sure they don’t drop out of school at 16? Who helps them try to get into college? Who teaches them how to get a bank account, get a job, get a apartment? What happens to them at 18?

What happens to the children whom society treats like stray dogs? The ones who’ve never had anyone to love and guide them? Who don’t love themselves?

Unwanted pregnancy is about more than just the mother. It’s about the children.

There are people in this world who should never have had children. And we, as a society, only continue to desperately fail those children again and again. And then they grow up and the cycle begins again – lather, rinse, repeat.

3-4 million dogs and cats are adopted every year. We should feel utter shame at allowing a half million children to go unloved without families.

There are lots of people who try to make a difference, but it’s like sand against the wind. The foster care “system” is a massive, abysmal crime against children.

Until what’s broken can be fixed, I see legal abortion as an option which keeps more innocent kids from becoming part of that torturous, horrific cycle. I know others don’t agree – but that’s why *I* cannot and will not be dispassionate about it.

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abortion, pro-choice, south dakota, reproductive rights