I just wanted to address you personally about the comment you made on a recent Huffington Post article about Heidi Fleiss and her comments on abortion.

First of all, I appreciate that you signed the comment with your name and included a link to this site. It frustrates me when people hide behind the anonymity that the internet (and comment boxes) offer. It takes real courage to state your opinions and do so with your name behind it.

With that being said, I can tell that you've never been the proud owner of a uterus nor have you ever had to bear the responsibility of preventing a pregnancy. Sure, as a man, you have probably had to buy condoms, but that's as far as "prevention" goes for men. And how do you obtain condoms? Without a prescription, at any age, at any drug store/convenience store/men's bathroom, and at a fairly reasonable price. And if that condom breaks that you've purchased? Well, it's no longer your problem, is it? You've done your part. You were responsible.

Now, if I am a woman, and I am responsible and have my partner wear a condom and it breaks, it is now my problem.

Morning after pill, you say? Well, here's hoping that I'm over the age of 17, and have a drug store around that isn't staffed by fundamentalist Christians who can "legally" refuse to sell the drug to me even though it is over the counter. Otherwise, I'm screwed.

Maybe I should have been on the pill/ring/shot/iud as a back-up, right? Well, most women do use those methods as back-up . . . if they have health insurance and/or have a planned parenthood clinic nearby that isn't surrounded by fundamentalist nutcase groups that murder doctors that perform legal procedures. Unfortunately, if you live in the midwest, going to PP is REALLY f-ing scary because of this and because of the healthcare debate we know that 46.3 million people are without health insurance right now. (US Census Bureau, Sept. 10, 2009)

Let's just be SUPER conservative and say that 1/3 of that 46.3 million uninsured people are female (even though logic suggests that because health insurance depends largely on the occupations, region, sex, and age that there is a much higher percentage of women and children that are uninsured due to our societal norms and values), that is still 15.43 MILLION women without insurance. Are you familiar with how much the pill costs when you do not have insurance? I can tell you from personal experience that it can range from around $50/28-day pack for a generic brand to almost $75/28-day pack for name brands. If you go with a generic, that is roughly $650/year for adequate birth control. And the price of a doctor's visit to get that prescription for that generic pill for a calendar year? That's roughly $100, without insurance. Maybe I live in the city and there's a free clinic, but I will still need to have the time off work to go to said clinic which is costing me money by my having to schedule my work around it instead of the other way around (which would be the case if I had insurance). If I'm a woman in the suburbs or in a rural area, I hope I have adequate transportation to get me to the "free clinic". . . and this is all without the price of the condoms, if we are being truly safe and responsible.

Plus, all of this relies on the fact that I am a legal adult with no moral/religious issues with modern birth control methods, have the resources to obtain said birth control, and that I'm not currently taking medications that can interfere with oral contraceptives, the ring, or the patch.

Wanna know what can effect that? Glad you asked!
Antibiotics
Anti-HIV Protease Inhibitors
Anti-Seizure medications
Antidepressants
Anti-Fungal medications
Diabetes medications
Anxiety treatments
Natural supplements like St. Johns Wart
. . . and, of course, grapefruit. :)

So, if I'm underage? Screwed.
If I've asked to be on birth control and have had parents refuse? Screwed.
Have a religious family? Screwed.
Be socio/economically destitute? Screwed.
Have a fundamentalist pharmacist? Screwed.
On ANY of the medications that can alter the effectiveness of the birth control that I'm being responsible and taking? Screwed.
Have nutcases outside my Planned Parenthood? Screwed.

Are you starting to see a trend here? So, in short, even if women are being truly super-responsible and are using TWO methods of birth control, there are MANY MANY MANY obstacles to clear before we are socially sanctioned to have "the sex".

THAT is how you can be actively trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies and still end up knocked up. I would dare to say that being uninsured and not being able to shell out the cash necessary for a back up contraceptive isn't exactly TRYING to get pregnant.

Plus, according to the American Pregnancy Association, 47% of the unplanned pregnancies in the U.S. are due to not using birth control. That means that the other 53%, the majority, are conceived while using birth control methods.

And we both know that telling people who are in any of the numerous situations that can hinder your ability to obtain birth control methods to just not have sex is ridiculous and completely unrealistic.

Birth control? Covered it. Now on to "child-birth as a means to a way" as you so eloquently put it. You may want to get some lube for this part.

If you can name for me 5 women that you know personally that have gotten pregnant to keep a man around, I will give you this category. In all of my years, in all of my experiences with women in desperate situations, I have yet to meet a single woman who has "trapped" a man (or tried to) by having his child. Never once. Why?

Well, it's not exactly foolproof. A man can either leave or stay. He's not legally obliged to stay, and if he doesn't he's not even all that responsible for child support. Do you know how many men owe back child support? Please!

Granted, if there is that situation and the man stays, then that makes the woman a bit of a monster . . . and a bit of a sociopath, doesn't it? Not exactly someone you want bringing up a child.

Plus, having a kid to keep a man around is like buying a whole farm to get a glass of milk . . . buying a McDonalds franchise to get a Big Mac . . . bringing a shotgun to a squirrel hunt . . . it's complete and total overkill, and just completely stupid. Nobody with any notion of a cost/benefit trade-off, which would be all rational people as economics taught me, would make that deal. If you are not rational, you probably shouldn't be raising children.

Now on to the excuse of getting pregnant to escape a religiously fanatical family. I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one too. If anything, I have seen more girls get sucked deeper into religiously fanatical families because of this. "You need to beg for God's forgiveness," kind of mentality.

Sure, I've seen plenty of girls get out from under the thumb of a deeply oppressive religion or family, go a little wild, and end up pregnant, but never the other way around . . . then again, I'm not all that close to many devoutly Mormon families or Scientologists, both religions that (from my understanding, which is limited) will kick you out of the church for such things.

But, again, it's kind of like buying the whole farm just to get a glass of milk.

*Sigh* And now on to the "governmental monetary gains" that you spoke of . . . and this is kind of my specialty.

You know when Reagan came out and said that he was going to hire folks to do social research to find these “welfare queens” that just keep having kids so that they can keep getting government handouts so that they live like queens without having to lift a finger? Yeah, well, the research is in. Do you know what they found? There were none of these “welfare queens”, but rather a community of impoverished women who were (and still are) blamed for their situations.

Aside from the fact that this whole idea is rooted in a whole field of awful stereotypes about women (and their uncontrolled sexuality, which is a problem in a puritanical society) and especially minorities (laziness), it completely bastardizes programs like WIC and TANF.

Monetary gains? Yeah, right.

To be eligible for most government programs (save for TANF, section-8 housing, and Medicaid), your family’s yearly income must be between 100% of the poverty level and 180% of the poverty level. That looks like this:

The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the
48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia
Persons in family Poverty guideline
1 $10,830
2 14,570
3 18,310
4 22,050
5 25,790
6 29,530
7 33,270
8 37,010
For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.

So yes, the bigger your family is, the higher the poverty guideline . . . thus easier to get those monetary gains in the form of government assistance, right? Umm, except for the fact that in order to make $40,000 a year and get those benefits, you will need a family of 7 . . . and that means that when you get those benefits, you still have to house, feed, clothe, provide heat/electricity, bathe, transport, and generally support 7 people. These aren’t Chia pets, they are people, and (believe it or not) it costs a LOT to provide for all those people.

Do you know how the poverty line was created? In 1965, the government adopted the Orchansky model of taking the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s economy food plan for a family of 4 and multiplying that number by 3 . . . during that time, it was found that a family of 4 will spend 1/3 of its income after taxes on food, thus 3 times the bare minimum, economy family food plan would create the poverty guideline. Anyone who fell below that line (made less money than 3 times the amount of money that is the bare minimum for keeping a family fed) was in poverty, anyone above that line was fine.

Do you know that this is still the same model that we use today? Thus, the $33,000 you make in your family of 7 that qualifies you for the programs means that the government assumes that you will spend $11,000/year just to feed your family. That may or may not be a fair estimate, depending on where you live, but then the assumption is that a family of 7 with $33,000 annually will only spend $22,000 on EVERYTHING ELSE. Rent. Electricity. Clothes. School supplies. Hygiene products. Blankets. Toilet paper. Beds. EVERYTHING.

If you do the math, that means that in order to reap these “monetary gains” you have to live like a rat. Again, going back to the rationality model I used several times earlier. . . IT MAKES NO SENSE!!

Try to think this to yourself: “I’m going to have a pack of kids and live at the poverty line so that I can get government assistance, but just barely enough to get by.” Is it worth it?

Remember that this is without the hospital bills from having said pack of kids, without the bills from prenatal care for said pack of kids, and without the time/effort/knowledge of the government programs needed to really get everything you can get out of these programs.

For a small percentage of these women in these situations where they have a lot of kids and are on assistance programs, did it ever occur to you that maybe these children are the only thing that brings any joy to the lives of the women? If you had grown up in poverty, were uneducated, working a dead-end job or unemployed, where would you get true joy?

For an even smaller, miniscule percentage of these women, the idea is that with every kid she has, the chances that one will grow up, be successful, and pull them all out of poverty increases. The only problem with this idea is that the woman has not taken into account that it is statistically unlikely that any of her children will rise any further up the socio/economic chain than she is . . . it is unlikely for anyone to do significantly better than their parents. Generational wealth rarely changes.

Lastly, on the issue of abortion: As someone who does not have a uterus, and will never have to face the decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy or not: I feel that you shouldn’t have a voice in the debate. Nobody is telling you what you can and cannot do with your reproductive organs, it’s bullshit that anyone should stand around and tell me what I can and cannot do with mine.

Plus, I find it really shady that women are made to seem like we are incapable of making the decision about what is best for our lives and bodies, but in the same breath told that we are responsible for birthing and raising these children. Usually alone.

*Deep breath in*

In short:
Please do not talk about birth control options for women and whether or not they are getting pregnant on purpose if you have no clue what obstacles women face in getting said birth control.

Please do not talk about women having children to trap men or to reap some monetary gain when you have no real working knowledge of the history of women in poverty, the welfare system, or what it means to truly live at the poverty level.

Please do not talk about the abortion debate, whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, since you are clearly ignorant of the issues facing women in our society. Once you have a working knowledge of such things, then you may join the conversation.



Sincerely yours,
Sarah

As a few of you might know, I did a short stint in the Peace Corps in southern Africa the summer of 2008. Since then, I have dreamed of and longed for the land I left and all the wonderful people I was just getting to know. Unfortunately, Mefloquin (an anti-malaria medicine) is the devil and caused me some intense anxiety attacks so I had to come back home.


This is the place I called home.

Even though Swaziland has English as one of their two official languages, I was going to be working in the country with country folks . . . thus, I needed to learn Siswati. The language is full of interesting sounds, but more importantly, it is full of really incredible phrases.

My favorite phrases are the ones used when parting with another. One is "sala kahle" meaning stay well . . . it's what you say if you are the one leaving a home/situation. The other is "hamba kahle" which means go well and is said to whomever is leaving.

Since returning back to the states, I have clung to the phrase "sala kahle". It was the last thing I said to my host family before being quickly whisked away to the capitol for preparations to go home. It was the last thing I said to the city of Mbabane before I boarded the small plane to Johannesburg . . . and it was the last thing I said to the country as I tearfully flew into South Africa.

Sala kahle. Stay well.

As beautiful as that phrase is, it's time for a new phrase for me. It's time for me to stop "staying" well, and move on in my life. It's time for me to start "going" well.

With the new year right around the corner, I am making a resolution to live life the way I once did: with courage and a sense of duty. To be more of a do-er. To embrace life and all that it throws at me.

To you, my friends, I have one thing to say:

Hamba kahle. :)

There are few things in this world that bother me as much as social inequalties. I've really been this way my entire life, and it astounds me that I didn't have the good sense to pursue a degree in sociology when I entered college instead of three years later.

I was the girl who, upon realizing that the middle school football team would not let me try out, circulated a petition around among my peers and teachers demanding that girls be given the opportunity to at least try out for the football team. I politely spoke up when the small-town white folk spoke negatively of others due to their race, sexual orientation, sex, nationality, or any other aspect that made them "different". I let friends know that I would not tolerate them describing something negatively as "gay" when I was in HS . . . and still have to do is now as a grown woman.

The long and the short of it is that I do not accept inequalities because, as an American citizen, I believe that all we need to know about how to govern ourselves as a country was given to us by our founding fathers in both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

This one, sweeping statement on human rights is one of my all-time favorite quotes. It embodies everything I believe in and hold dear, and is the basis for every argument about civil rights. :) This one declaration is what makes me proud of the country I call home.

What doesn't make me happy, though, is when politicians stray from this . . . when things like personal fears, religion, or bigotry get wedged in front of the most basic statement our country has on civil rights. Right now, our country is in a heated debate about whether or not our homosexual citizens should be able to be legally joined with their partners, and I fail to see how it is even a debate.

"all men are created equal" . . . thus, everyone has or should have the same rights under the law. Yes? It should be simple, shouldn't it?

But it's not, and mainly because of religion. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against religions per se . . . I just don't want any of them (Christian or otherwise) involved in my government.

Several times before, I've had some genius say to me, "Well, all moral and ethical codes are derived from some religious doctrine,' . . . or, as it would seem in this day and age, we have seen what works and does not work in society and have made rules that keep everyone safe and relatively happy. Yes, "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not steal" are both in the Bible among other religious texts, but they are also great guidelines to a functional society. If people are stealing, there is no economy . . . if people are murdering, well, that's just not good all around.

Even better is when people point out to me (like I've never seen it before) that the phrase, "In God We Trust" is on our money and that we are "one nation, under God" as the pledge of allegiance says. To that, I have this to say:

1. "In God We Trust" is our national motto. It has more to do with humility and duty than it does religion. Even the Supreme Court has ruled against cases where individuals have taken offense to the motto. According to the Supreme Court, that phrase has lost significant religious context over time and that a nation that recognizes "a supreme being" does not constitute a state church.

. . . plus, if you are reading this and consider yourself a "good" Christian, you should actually be really horribly offended that God is mentioned on our money at all.

2. The "under God" portion of the pledge was not inserted until the 1950s due to pressure from the Knights of Columbus . . . a Catholic group.

Furthermore, there is this little thing called "separation of church and state" as is outlined in our constitution.


....and seeing as how it is the wee hours of the morning now, I'm going to have to end this here and pick it up again tomorrow.