Last stop before Pleasantville.

Crap.

I know I am not making your day any more pleasant with this one...but just bare with me.

I want to take this opportunity as a blogger with freedom to unleash some thoughts on a topic very dear to me…

The following is not meant to offend anyone, especially my beloved family and if you find that you disagree with my thoughts…GREAT! Let’s enlighten one another. Coffee…my treat.

So let us jump in…

adoption.

One fact about myself…is that I am, indeed, adopted. This adoption, however, was a very rare and unique one that fortunately led me to be raised in the same family that I was born into. My birth mom bravely chose to have her sister raise me as a daughter in place of herself.

This may seem negligible…as in..ok? so what’s the diff….you have the same aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents…you’re good to go.

Well yes, but my upbringing was DEFINITELY different …and far from “normal”…

Yes, I am BLESSED to have the same wonderful family and to not have the weird reality of trans-family relationships that several adopted children have to deal with…if they have an open adoption.

But the reality is… I was one decision away from being aborted.

Whoa..right? …I think I just got a hot flash.

No…no one has ever told me that this was a very real option 22 yrs ago. I don’t really think it’s healthy to dwell on that…so I won’t and never have. However, it’s reality. I am all about being hardcore deep and dirty real. Adoption and abortion are directly related. And I was one selfish decision away from being aborted.

My logic?... It was already decided that my very humble birth mom did not deem her present situation a healthy one to raise a child. Whether it was her economic situation, her age, a stable father…she came to the decision that all women must face when they become pregnant out of wedlock: ’Can I raise this baby?’.

She decided that she couldn’t. Praise the Lord for Humility! We need more...However, instead of erasing the child…she invested in finding a situation that WAS healthy.

HOW HUGE.

Once you come to the question: ‘Can I raise this baby?’…what if you come to the answer ‘No’?

Well in America…we have options…you can either get an abortion…which means removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus before it can reach a full term pregnancy…. (I say the definition not because I think anyone reading this is dumb…I just want to be real.)

…or you can give it up for another person to raise.

So, abort or adopt…

Why do we have options? Why are there so many things under our current legislation that we have no choice over…but for this we have an option. Because it’s “our” baby? Ok? But the money I make at my job is “my” money…but why does the government claim a percent of it? The car I drive is “my” car, but I do not get the option to not wear a seatbelt when I drive it…the government makes that decision for me…and of course of course…this law is in place to perhaps save my life!...but whose decision is it to say that my life …now a 22 yrs old maturation of cells is more valuable than it was when I was only a few months post conception.

It’s not even about when does life begin…it’s about the POTENTIAL life that is to be had…

I am here…I am living..I am in love with the most wonderful man I have ever met…I feel things…I have hurt people and I have helped people. Therefore, I have always had the potential for life…from the second cell biology did it’s thing…there was always a potential for life…because I have it!

That is why I think abortion is the termination of life. And it is very real to me.

What is also real…is the future legislation that will be passed in the next four years.

Several people are justifying their hunger for change by saying that their favorite candidate is “not for abortion”…he just doesn’t see how he can restrict a woman’s right to choose. Therefore, he voted against banning partial-birth abortion and trusts women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (This is directly off www.ontheissues.org)

However, in Texas:

It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.

It is illegal to dust any public building with a feather duster.

Urinating on the streets is illegal.

Beer may not be purchased after midnight on a Sunday, but it may be purchased on Monday.

In Mesquite, TX, it is illegal for children to have unusual haircuts.

In Minnesota:

It is illegal to stand around any building without a good reason to be there.

Red cars may not drive down Lake Street.

It is illegal to sleep naked.

It just doesn’t sit well with me that the government can tell us what to do and what not to do with our money, our behavior, our cars, our bodily functions, our hair…but doesn’t feel right about telling us not to terminate our pregnancies?

I may not be smitten with either candidate…nor how the state of our country is right now…but I won’t settle on an issue that could have meant I wasn’t brought to full term life.