Have We Met?

It's all about labels. People feel more comfortable with labels, even if the label says generic and inside there is nothing of value. It's labeled. It's known. And so too with people.

I was taught that in a group of people at a party, or anywhere people are gathered, there are three subjects you never discuss: religion, sex, and politics. As I have lately come to realize, politics is the most volatile of the three subjects.

In the short space of a few sentences or a couple of short paragraphs, while discussing the current situation in this country (that would be America), I have been labeled. Republican. Liberal. Wealthy. Privileged. Uncaring. Cheap. Of no consequence. Usually after reading a couple of sentences I have written in a comment on a post. I have learned that people don't really read everything written. They tend to pick out a few words and decide they know the person. As if we had met and had exchanged ideas about politics, poverty, etc. in long discussions into the night. But they haven't read what I wrote, not all of it, and that snippet of information is not indicative of my philosophy, experience, or all of what I believe. It's not even a drop in the ocean that is my life after 58 years, a life I have actually lived.

Europeans and Canadians decry America's lack of universal health care, point to our capitalist society and, with that look usually reserved for the illiterate, unwashed, and uninformed of the world, deem me a greedy capitalist who cares nothing for the plight of the poor, and all because I mentioned socialist in a 30-word comment. They know me. I have money and look down my nose at those less forunate than I. More than likely, I oppress the poor, kick bleeding dogs, and drown sacks of cats on the weekends all while driving around in my BMW or Hummer talking on my iPhone while cursing at slower drivers, honking at pedestrians, and breezing past the huddle masses trying queueing for mass transportation on my way to a front row seat at a seal clubbing so I can get first dibs on a new sealskin coat.

It is amazing to me how people go from 0 to outrage in 3 seconds or less. If only my car had that kind of speed.

The only way to know me is to talk to me. That means leaving outrage and preconceptions outside the conversation until they are needed. Such hair trigger emotion and ideas that my character is defined by a few random words you think I wrote -- as opposed to what I actually wrote -- is a waste of my time and yours.

Someone I know from high school, although I didn't know him well in high school since we didn't travel in the same social circles, asked me what I thought about limiting abortion to 12 weeks. Although the hope that I wasn't an idiot or a murderer were obvious in the tone of his voice, I answered his question honestly. I believe that all women should have the right to choose whether or not they should get an abortion. I do not believe that abortion is the answer for being careless or should be used like the Morning After pill or a condom, or just because you don't want a child by that person (then why were you having unprotected sex with them?). I believe in allowing women to choose because it is not my right or my job to tell them what they should do if they find themselves pregnant and unwilling or unable to care for a child.

That does not, however, mean that I believe aborting a pregnant in the 20th week -- or partial birth abortion -- is right or an answer. I don't have the right to judge them, but I do think that is murder. My personal opinion and of value nowhere else but with me. I think an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is ample time to decide whether or not carrying that fetus to full term. Anything after that, especially at 20 weeks,, at least in my mind, is tantamount to murder because at 20 weeks, that fetus has a change of living outside the mother's womb.

This view doesn't make me popular with the far right religious conservative political crowd, nor does it make me popular with the far left liberal crowd. I don't care. It is what I believe.

Short version, directly from me to you, abortion should be limited to 12 weeks. If it takes you longer than that to choose, go ahead and have the baby and give it up for adoption, but an 11th hour choice is not an option.

I am used to taking flack. I get it all the time from my family, mostly because I'm a writer and I write about my own life, and my family is part of my life. I have had a lot of grief and recriminations from my family because they didn't read exactly what I wrote. They read a piece and weren't familiar with my personal definitions and decided they knew what I meant -- even though that is not what I wrote. Angry emails followed from siblings who haven't taken the time to answer letters or call or visit in the past decades. It was like being at the middle of an angry hive of wasps with only one intention -- kill. Reason was not part of the equation. The need to destroy me was the intention and nothing would stop them, certainly not the calm, cool voice of reason. That would be me. It's as if they had never met me.

Well, in effect, outside of a few holidays we were forced into each other's company once we left home and went our separate ways, they really hadn't met me. Their only knowledge of me was from what I have written -- and they didn't even take the time to read every word or understand what it was I wrote.  Sarcasm and satire are lost on them.

"That was private," they moaned, screamed, and spat at me.

"Did you tell me it was private?"

"I shouldn't have to," was the inevitable response.

"Have we actually met before?" I ask with my tongue firmly in my cheek. "If you didn't say it was private, then it isn't private."

"It was private."

"Well, thank you for telling me after the fact." I pause for effect. "If you will notice, your name was not used and I sincerely doubt that anyone who happens to read this will connect us. We do have different last names and most people, though aware I have siblings, don't know who those siblings are." I wait for the next scripted remark.

"Well, they might and then they'll know all my business."

"Not actually," I say with infinite patience finally wearing thing after this umpteenth discussion on the same topic. The inevitable phone slamming (a lot less effective with a cell phone) is the next move and I am cut off. That sibling won't talk to me for a long time, which won't be a huge loss since they haven't talked to me in years before they happened to read what I wrote.

They know that I was homeless when I was left stranded in New Orleans. They know that I worked for an escort agency for a while. They know I've been married and divorced twice, that I have given birth to 4 sons. They know those facts because I have mentioned them, but they do not know me. They know me about as well as the average reader who comes across one of my books or read something I wrote for Chicken Soup or Cup of Comfort or they knew someone who knew me and had nothing good -- or bad -- to say about me. They haven't actually met me before.

Reading about someone or reading their comments is not the same as sitting down and having a discussion with that person. It's also not the same as having a relationship with that person or having been with them as they laughed, cried, raged, and fell into a depression over a broken heart or devastating loss. The best the can be achieved is an inkling of a shadow of a faint idea of who and what that person is. Labeling them won't change that.

Label me as you will -- because you will do so anyway. If you're really interested, here's a thumbnail sketch. I was a Republican until I could no longer agree with the party line. I became an Independent and remain an independent. I believe that welfare is a trap unless coupled with more than good intentions. There should be a program to educate those on welfare by training or retraining to find a job, manage a budget, and learn that just because you want something doesn't mean you should have it. Spending all your food stamps or money in the first week of the month will leave you like the poor man allowed in to sit at the feast -- sated for a while but then starving when the food has been digested.

I know whereof I speak -- and write -- but you will never know that or understand what is behind my comment, the one you didn't take time to read fully and understand completely, unless you get to know me and discuss these issues with me. It is the only way to know me.

Behind Bars

It has been 1 year since I self-published Among Women and I decided, in honor of that anniversary, to offer the book for free download this weekend. From today, Friday, May 4th, to midnight Sunday, May 6th, Pacific Time, Among Women is available on Amazon and Smashwords for free.

The book is about a young woman who finds herself homeless in New Orleans and, just as she has worked herself into a position where she can move back into the regular world, is arrested and thrown in jail on a bogus charge. The woman they're looking for had been committing her crimes for years and Pearl Caldwell has only been in New Orleans for 6 weeks. She is sure she will be out in a few days, once the mistake is cleared up, but finds herself stuck in jail without a lawyer or visitors or anyone who knows she is there. She has to make the best of a bad situation, and it doesn't get much worse than being locked in with more than 50 criminals. She has to find a way out, but first she has to survive.  There are worse things that living among criminals, like having someone trying to kill you.

The book is based on fact with a healthy dose of fiction. So far, the reviews have been favorable with 4/5 stars, and for that I am grateful, but no one can review or even read the book if they don't know it exists, and that is what this weekend's promotion is all about -- getting the news out.

As I watched the numbers change and books being "sold" in the UK and Denmark, I thought about all the women behind bars, the ones I got to know and the ones currently either behind bars or in an oppressive society that counts them as nothing.

The movies like to portray women behind bars as sex hungry animals ready to stick a shiv in someone's back or hump the nearest cellmate or amoral guard to get a few privileges. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mostly, being in jail is boring and regimented and without much in the way of joy, outside of playing cards or just surviving from day to day. The worst part is that our own representatives are currently on a witch hunt here in the United States to minimalize and marginalize women even further. We might as well be wearing bourkahs and veils as Congress and legislators look for ways to take away our rights and control over our own bodies.

From the beginning of human existence, there have been women helping women to abort an unwanted child and to take care of each other. It was a woman's world where few men ever ventured because it was none of their business. Wise women, medicine women, helped women prone to miscarriage and giving birth to stillborn children to keep from getting pregnant. It was steeped in magic because they didn't understand how children were created and born, but it was also steeped in care and love for each other.

As civilization came into being and people began living in towns and cities, and men took over ruling everything, they looked at women and decided women were evil and must be controlled. After all, what is a women good for if she doesn't cook and take care of the home and hearth, and if she is unable to bear children, preferably sons? Women found ways around the strictures by ministering to each other, by talking and sharing their knowledge, giving aid and comfort wherever possible. But we live in an enlightened age where spouses and partners go into the delivery room to see and participate in the birth of their children. Men couldn't possibly underrate women. And yet they do.

In China, women are allowed to have 1 child. If the child is a girl, she is either killed or sent to an orphanage. Male children are valued, except how many males would be born if there were no females?

Here in the United States, legislation has been talked about and is going through the process to become law so that life begins at conception. A woman who has an abortion will be branded a murderer and I'm not sure what the law will say about stillborn children. Who will be to blame for that? Women, probably.

Women will be forced to carry children they don't want to full term with the excuse that there are thousands of families who can't have children ready to adopt those unwanted children. Can you say, baby factory? Sounds like a new twist on an old Johnathan Swift screed, A Modest Proposal. Women's bodies have now become the property of state and federal legislators high on organized religion and certain of their inalienable rights to determine the fate of another human being -- a female human being. They would never do this to a man. Men are far more valuable than women, in spite of the fact that men cannot procreate by themselves or give birth. They need women for that and they haven't figured out how to make the Ixian Axlotl tanks work, which are basically brain dead females that nothing more than mindless wombs. Sometimes it feels like that is how some men feel, that we are mindless wombs.

When women speak, men muzzle them, as they do in the Middle East and other countries where sharia law and strict Islam is taught. It doesn't matter that beneath their shapeless black prisons women are dressed as flamboyantly and beautifully as any model on a high fashion couture runway. They are still imprisoned and throwing them crumbs is not a substitute for equality and the right to speak their minds without fear of retribution -- and prison.

While I am not on board with feminism, except where it pertains to equal rights and equal pay, I do understand how being oppressed can make a woman mad enough to want to marginalize men as they have marginalized women for centuries -- for millennia. No one should be marginalized and no one should be forced into silence or imprisoned behind bars, no matter how comfortable and safe it seems.

And no one, man or woman, has to right to determine what a woman does with her own body, even if she decides to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. There is no way to save the unborn child without holding the unwilling mother hostage. It should be free will and free choice and yet the only ones exercising free will and free choice are determined to imprison those that stand against them, those that speak against them, those that choose a different path. 

Here I am, once again on my soapbox, off topic and into real world issues when all I wanted to do was let you know about a free book. A free ebook at least. A story of a woman imprisoned for something she had not done and forced to face herself and women she marginalized in her own mind because they were different, because they were criminals.

Pearl Caldwell was a prisoner of her upbringing made a prisoner by circumstance who found freedom in the company of criminals. That is the story behind Among Women and one I hope you will at least take a look at, read, and offer your comments and reviews. You can pick up a free copy of Among Women this weekend at Amazon.com for Kindle and Smashwords (use coupon CJ84D during checkout) for other e-readers. Find out what it's really like behind bars and meet Pearl Caldwell, a woman much stronger and more resilient that she knew.

You can also purchase print copies for $9.95.

Roe v. Wade

I was 17 when Roe v. Wade was passed on January 22, 1973.

I was a senior in high school and had just become engaged on my birthday less than a month later when I knew the worst had happened. I was pregnant. I had to decide whether or not to keep the child I was carrying and fear was definitely a factor. I didn't have the money, so I kept the child.

Meanwhile, my best friend also got pregnant at about the same time. Her parents paid for an abortion while my parents allowed me to use my savings to pay for my wedding.

Roe v. Wade changed a lot of lives, and not always in a good way, but it hasn't been because of the decision to make abortion available. It has been because people do not understand what exactly Roe v. Wade means to women and what it is at its heart all about. Roe v. Wade is about upholding the right of choice, the choice to keep or terminate a pregnancy. It is a personal choice and one that no government, Supreme Court, church or individual has a right to contravene.

I've heard all the arguments for and against, and participated in more than one debate on this issue, but people still do not get it, especially not the people who bomb clinics where doctors perform abortions, kill doctors and nurses and even the mothers carrying unborn children, or people at the clinics for other reasons. These extremists are so certain of their right to end another's life to save an unborn fetus that they will destroy anyone who gets in their way. How is this respectful of life?

I will not get into the argument about when life begins; it is the equivalent of determining how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. When did people who were born and have lived less valuable and less worthy of life than a fetus that may or may not come to full term if not aborted? Where is the logic in that?

Women have for centuries aborted unwanted children and it has been no one's business but their own. Women who could not afford a child or carried a child of rape, incest or of a diseased sire went to a midwife or wise woman and aborted the fetus. There are many reasons for doing so, but it is no one's business but the woman carrying the child.

Adoption has not always been available and was made popular during the 1930s and 1940s when Georgia Tann made it popular to Hollywood actors and the wealthy and famous, often taking children from their parents by force and through deceit to make the adoptions possible. Today, adoption is much more accepted than it was before Georgia Tann's day and has provided a means to give homes to unwanted children from Russia, Eastern Europe, China and other countries where female children are often warehoused or killed outright, males being more valuable. But adoption is not the answer for everyone, and it still comes down to choice. Couples or singles unable to have their own children, for whatever reason, choose to adopt. That does not mean that women who wish to abort their children should be forced to carry a fetus to full term and give birth just to satisfy some religious belief that all life is sacred, except when that life is involved in offering and maintaining a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body and her own life.

I have a son because I could not afford an abortion and I'm not sure whether or not I would have been able to go through with an abortion; however, other than not being able to afford an abortion, I had a choice because Roe v. Wade made upheld my right to choose. My best friend had an abortion and she says she regrets it; maybe she does, but she had a choice.

It all comes down to choice in this as in every other aspect of life. We choose to steal or not to steal, murder or not to murder, but no one stops us from making the choice. There are always consequences, but first there is a choice. If you want to use a religious point, according to Christian beliefs, and the beliefs of many other religions, we are all born with Free Will -- the right to choose. What we do with that Free Will is up to us and as a god-given right, no man has the right to take it away. Men try all the time because, in their ignorance and pride, they believe they have the right to herd us like cattle or deny us like children unable or unintelligent enough to use our Free Will wisely. They do not have the right. We as individuals have the right to exercise our Free Will in whichever way we choose. No government, Supreme Court, man, church or individual has the right to take away anyone's Free Will, their choice. No one can live another man's -- or woman's -- life.

If I have cancer and choose not to go through chemotherapy or radiation therapy or surgery, do you have the right to force me to do what you would do in my place? If choose to have chemotherapy or radiation or surgery and it will endanger my life, do you have the right to choose differently for me? I could name a thousand different scenarios and come up with more when I'm done, but it all comes down to choice. My choice. Your choice. A woman's choice to decide what to do with her own body. From the beginning of time, women have chosen whether or not to bear or not to bear children. This time is no different just because we know more about the process and feel we know what is right or better for someone than they do for themselves. How much simpler and better life would be if I make my own choices and you make yours.

Let's make a pact. I won't deny you your right to choose the path your life will take and you do not deny me mine. It's a simple pact and one that works as long as everyone lets everyone else live their own lives.As for me, I have enough to do dealing with my own choices without making choices for everyone else.

That is all. Disperse.