Reply #273: I have no idea what "we" believe. I know what I believe. [View All]

First, I'll say that I'm a woman. I'm a woman who had an abortion, and gave birth and raised children as a single blue-collar working mom. I'm a woman raised by a woman who did the same, before Roe V Wade. I am not exactly unfamiliar with all sides of this question.

I'm also a human who has spent most of her life dealing personally and professionally with children born to emotionally unstable mothers, addicts, abusers, and the mentally ill. I have spent way too much time trying to "fix" the damage done to children by people who never should have had the "right" to bring children into their diseased, dysfunctional environment. Our system of laws and consequences do not prevent children from the life-long harm they sustain growing up like that.

If you love people, and love children, you can have empathy and compassion for the women who need help. You can also feel fury and a need to change things when you see what they do to their children.

Do I think that women have supreme reproductive rights? No. I don't know where and am not willing to draw that line in the sand, but I think that there are too many people having children who just plain shouldn't. I don't know what to do about it. For me, it goes beyond what the woman does with her reproductive system. It's irrevocably connected to what happens to the children she chooses to bear.