I don’t read the news because it makes me too mad. I get upset; I throw the newspaper, and usually I curse the heavens, the Republicans, and especially President Bush. Yes, it’s going to be that sort of blog so heed this warning before you continue.

Let’s start with abortion shall we? And why I’m more than a brood mare. I like that idea. The idea that we can pass a law that doesn’t take into account a woman’s health—I’m flabbergasted. Outraged doesn’t begin to describe me. We are so busy preserving the “sanctity of life” that a woman can be threatened and it’s only unfortunate, possibly tragic if she’s pretty. Being pro-choice does not mean I am thrilled by abortion; it doesn’t even mean I would have one necessarily—it means that I demand the choice. It means that I, as a functioning member of society demand my civil rights be upheld over a fetus that depends upon my body to grow. A fetus that has only the potential to be a functioning member of society. Once we begin to pass laws based on potential we enter a realm of ethics where there is no shallow end. The difference between infringing on a pedophile’s rights to molest children and a woman’s rights to an abortion is that a pedophile hurts a living, independent member of society. A fetus is neither self-sustaining nor independent and to deny abortion rights to women, especially without excepting for cases of health states specifically states that we are worth less than a clump of cells with nothing but “potential.”

I’ll be completely honest: I value women more than the babies they carry. Why? Because a woman is already alive. She is already here. A fetus is naught but a thing inside her until it is born. From a religious standpoint there are any number of reasons why a woman shouldn’t have an abortion. But from a legal one—there is none. We are supposed to protect a person’s right to control her body as she will. While that fetus grows inside her it is her body. That means she gets to decide what happens to it. If she can’t have an abortion, well then, what’s next? Should we control what she eats? How she lives? Whether she is exposed to second hand smoke? All of these things affect the “potential” of the fetus. And if we can do that—if we can decide what a woman wants to do with her body for her legally then we have reduced her to nothing but a brood mare. She is of no more value than her ability to carry a child to term. I refuse to accept that. I stand by anyone’s right to claim the immorality of abortion but I refuse to accept it from my government. A government should be based on ethics, not morals. And yes, there is a difference.

Why are we so very quick to fight for the “sanctity of life” until it’s actually here? Why are we willing to die for fetuses but we can’t manage to find a dime for the kids starving in ghettos and killing each other on the streets? Why is it fine to force a woman to carry a kid to term because it’s “for the child” but later, when that same child is born prematurely and has birth defects from all the crack she smoked we can casually hope it dies in the hospital? Or when it is incapable of being a contributing member of society we scoff at it and ask, “well why don’t you just pick yourself up and do what’s right? You have that choice to make.”

We’re so quick to judge. We just always need somebody to hate a little bit and fight a whole lot. For the babies. For the children of the future. We’ll do anything for our children and our children’s children. We will, in fact, give up all our civil liberties to make the world a better place. After all, it’s for our own good.