I was 12. Out in a vacant lot playing baseball with friends. Looking for a surprise home run knocked out the "park" by the smallest kid playing, I got way in front of the pitch while swinging with all of the mini might I could possibly muster. I don't even think my eyes were open when I made contact. Toing! The aluminum bat sounded. And the foul ball screeched right over the fence which was the out of play boundary for obvious reasons. It made a bee line straight to and straight through Ms. Foster's second floor bathroom window. I never moved; I knew I was in trouble. I looked up and everyone took flight so fast they dropped the gloves and bats where they stood. Damn, I should have run too! But I hadn't and rather than let Ms. Foster find me, I went to find her. Knock, knock.
"Hi, Ms. Foster. I broke your window." My thought was that confessing would be enough. It's not like I had a job!
"I know. Your father is on his way." She very calmly stated. This scared me because Ms. Foster was NEVER calm! I did not know what my dad told her to bring her to a calm state, but I knew it was not good for me!
"Go home." Is all he said upon his arrival. At home it was not the firestorm I anticipated it would be. Just a lecture about being careful when playing baseball in the lot over there. He paid to have the window replaced. The good news was that breaking a window playing ball was a good problem to have considering all of the things I could have gotten into back on the inner city Philly streets. What I learned that day was even though I did something wrong, my father was ultimately responsible. Paying for a window, though the same in principle is a far cry from raising a child of but a child. Today, would be grandparents seek the means of escape using their own children as an excuse.
It's funny how the abortion issue seems to keep slipping its way back to the forefront. Brian posted a video this weekend that I could not help but share on my Facebook page. A 12 year old girl playing Monday morning quarterback on Obama's pro abortion position. (Make that "pro choice" before I offend the faint of heart).
It is one of those topics that just seems to generate a bunch of controversy as soon as the word the word is uttered. What's fortunate for me is that I am a guy and my input is actually limited. Let's face it, where the rubber meets the road, it is not my "choice" that really counts now is it? But then again, had the rubber met the road in the beginning, the topic would be all the more moot now wouldn't it?
Okay, the president is very pro choice, aggressively so and that is fine. Last I checked, he is allowed to be. He feels that his children should not be burdened with a child prematurely. Or is that a child or a pregnancy? There is a big difference and it is that difference that has caused the uproar.
Here's my contention on the issue. Let's use a word that we hear all too much now a days; "unsustainable." Everything we do anymore is unsustainable; our government spending, our deficit, social security system, health care reform... you name it. If America has gotten its hands on it, we have made it unsustainable. Believe it or not, this includes perpetuating life as Americans. Our birth rate has dropped to unsustainable levels. Yet, abortion and birth control are growing ever closer to synonymy.
Don't get me wrong, many mothers should not be! We see them every day, but they had the decency to become mothers, to be accountable for their actions and respect life. It is odd that we criticize them to the degrees that we do given the alternative.
What I can't figure out is why abortion supersedes adoption options. The parents perhaps. Maybe Obama is saying he does not want people to see him as the father of a pregnant teen daughter. No one wants to be the one with a 16 year old pregnant daughter. I know I don't. Out of our parental comfort (or lack thereof) we "force" them into having abortions and will the associative emotional scaring onto their unready shoulders and off of our own. Or so we think.
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of teens who have abortions before the age of 17 have a child before 19 anyway. Simply put, two lives for one. A significant amount of young mothers have more than one child before 20 after having an abortion prior to 17. I find this interesting because the abortion comes by "force" (parental influence) and is followed by choices of their own, choices that go directly against the previous wishes of their parents. Many move away from home, many marry, but as a standard, their choices seem to stand in direct resistance to their parents.
When I stop and think and think about it, I can't fathom the guilt associated with having an abortion. But I can imagine the level of rebellion that would result from being manipulated into having one by parents who did not want to deal with the situation. The way I see it, having one child far too soon with the support of the now new grandparents is better than having a child a little too soon with less support.
I do know that as children get older, the thought of a new baby is all but nightmarish. Here our child is all but ready to fly from the nest and we see our lives being relegated back in time to when it was most stressful. So rather than go back in support of our children (who after all, are our responsibility) we take the easy way out at their expense.
If we are at unsustainable rates of reproduction as a people, why would we foster an environment that only ensures our eventual demise? Each passing year we become more selfish and less altruistic. Since not every would be mother is not yet ready to be a mother other options abound. Options that are place out of sight because we insist upon ourselves over all else to the point we will eventually be no more; one child at a time - literally.
Abortion is not a very complicated issue when you stop and think about it. No, not everyone is ready or fit to become parents. Biology foils both socio-economics and personal responsibility, but biology is not something that can just be turned off and on. Instead we intermittently force it off to allow for personal comfort over personal responsibility. It is to suggest that the condition of pregnancy is not worth the life it brings forth; even if that life is better off in the hands of another for the long term. If nine months is too much to ask in the name of life itself; we are a lost people that deserves not the sustainability we fail to understand. What's worse is a great part of this is being perpetuated by the parents, not those in the demographics having the abortions performed. Those defining the standard are demanding the wrong standards. Something is wrong when it is okay to have an abortion when virtually no consideration is being given to adoption. Adoption is more difficult to deal with. Everything is real and tangible so we steer clear of it not wanting to fully acknowledge the gravity of the circumstances. We have become weak and cowardly.
We say life begins within the womb, but our woeful decisions declare we have little emotional connection to any such reality. Sadly, we place the burden on the same youth we declare are not ready to become parents and force them into life and death decisions while expecting no repercussions. The repercussions are there, we just refuse to look at them for what they are and accept who is actually to blame.
"Hi, Ms. Foster. I broke your window." My thought was that confessing would be enough. It's not like I had a job!
"I know. Your father is on his way." She very calmly stated. This scared me because Ms. Foster was NEVER calm! I did not know what my dad told her to bring her to a calm state, but I knew it was not good for me!
"Go home." Is all he said upon his arrival. At home it was not the firestorm I anticipated it would be. Just a lecture about being careful when playing baseball in the lot over there. He paid to have the window replaced. The good news was that breaking a window playing ball was a good problem to have considering all of the things I could have gotten into back on the inner city Philly streets. What I learned that day was even though I did something wrong, my father was ultimately responsible. Paying for a window, though the same in principle is a far cry from raising a child of but a child. Today, would be grandparents seek the means of escape using their own children as an excuse.
It's funny how the abortion issue seems to keep slipping its way back to the forefront. Brian posted a video this weekend that I could not help but share on my Facebook page. A 12 year old girl playing Monday morning quarterback on Obama's pro abortion position. (Make that "pro choice" before I offend the faint of heart).
It is one of those topics that just seems to generate a bunch of controversy as soon as the word the word is uttered. What's fortunate for me is that I am a guy and my input is actually limited. Let's face it, where the rubber meets the road, it is not my "choice" that really counts now is it? But then again, had the rubber met the road in the beginning, the topic would be all the more moot now wouldn't it?
Okay, the president is very pro choice, aggressively so and that is fine. Last I checked, he is allowed to be. He feels that his children should not be burdened with a child prematurely. Or is that a child or a pregnancy? There is a big difference and it is that difference that has caused the uproar.
Here's my contention on the issue. Let's use a word that we hear all too much now a days; "unsustainable." Everything we do anymore is unsustainable; our government spending, our deficit, social security system, health care reform... you name it. If America has gotten its hands on it, we have made it unsustainable. Believe it or not, this includes perpetuating life as Americans. Our birth rate has dropped to unsustainable levels. Yet, abortion and birth control are growing ever closer to synonymy.
Don't get me wrong, many mothers should not be! We see them every day, but they had the decency to become mothers, to be accountable for their actions and respect life. It is odd that we criticize them to the degrees that we do given the alternative.
What I can't figure out is why abortion supersedes adoption options. The parents perhaps. Maybe Obama is saying he does not want people to see him as the father of a pregnant teen daughter. No one wants to be the one with a 16 year old pregnant daughter. I know I don't. Out of our parental comfort (or lack thereof) we "force" them into having abortions and will the associative emotional scaring onto their unready shoulders and off of our own. Or so we think.
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of teens who have abortions before the age of 17 have a child before 19 anyway. Simply put, two lives for one. A significant amount of young mothers have more than one child before 20 after having an abortion prior to 17. I find this interesting because the abortion comes by "force" (parental influence) and is followed by choices of their own, choices that go directly against the previous wishes of their parents. Many move away from home, many marry, but as a standard, their choices seem to stand in direct resistance to their parents.
When I stop and think and think about it, I can't fathom the guilt associated with having an abortion. But I can imagine the level of rebellion that would result from being manipulated into having one by parents who did not want to deal with the situation. The way I see it, having one child far too soon with the support of the now new grandparents is better than having a child a little too soon with less support.
I do know that as children get older, the thought of a new baby is all but nightmarish. Here our child is all but ready to fly from the nest and we see our lives being relegated back in time to when it was most stressful. So rather than go back in support of our children (who after all, are our responsibility) we take the easy way out at their expense.
If we are at unsustainable rates of reproduction as a people, why would we foster an environment that only ensures our eventual demise? Each passing year we become more selfish and less altruistic. Since not every would be mother is not yet ready to be a mother other options abound. Options that are place out of sight because we insist upon ourselves over all else to the point we will eventually be no more; one child at a time - literally.
Abortion is not a very complicated issue when you stop and think about it. No, not everyone is ready or fit to become parents. Biology foils both socio-economics and personal responsibility, but biology is not something that can just be turned off and on. Instead we intermittently force it off to allow for personal comfort over personal responsibility. It is to suggest that the condition of pregnancy is not worth the life it brings forth; even if that life is better off in the hands of another for the long term. If nine months is too much to ask in the name of life itself; we are a lost people that deserves not the sustainability we fail to understand. What's worse is a great part of this is being perpetuated by the parents, not those in the demographics having the abortions performed. Those defining the standard are demanding the wrong standards. Something is wrong when it is okay to have an abortion when virtually no consideration is being given to adoption. Adoption is more difficult to deal with. Everything is real and tangible so we steer clear of it not wanting to fully acknowledge the gravity of the circumstances. We have become weak and cowardly.
We say life begins within the womb, but our woeful decisions declare we have little emotional connection to any such reality. Sadly, we place the burden on the same youth we declare are not ready to become parents and force them into life and death decisions while expecting no repercussions. The repercussions are there, we just refuse to look at them for what they are and accept who is actually to blame.
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