Let me be an attention ho for a moment….I’ve been working out regularly for nearly a month now and I’m starting to see some results. I’m up to about 45-50 minutes of cardio per session and I’m doing strength exercises about 2 or 3 days a week (weights or yoga). Places that were flabby in late December are much less so, although I have a ways to go, trust me. I’ve been doing kickboxing, bellydancing, yoga, cardio (mostly elliptical trainer) and weights (upper body and back). If I keep this up for a few more months I am going to be in the best shape I’ve been in in years.
I was doing some errands Saturday morning and the usual coalition of right-wing nutcases were protesting at the local abortion clinic. It always provokes a good deal of eyerolling and disgust from me, but I really started thinking about it this past weekend. I’m really angry at these people. Not because they hold a viewpoint drastically different from mine, but because they don’t think about what their views really mean. Rather than spend hours on a Saturday morning holding up signs and harrassing people, why don’t they go and do things that would make abortion unnecessary in the first place? Why don’t they help poor people or go volunteer at a home for abused/neglected/abandoned children? Why don’t they invest their time and money in programs that teach young people about how to prevent STDs and pregnancy? Or how about teaching young people that there are other ways to get love and attention besides sex? For that matter, I wonder why they don’t do more to support public health and education. If they want to protest and get angry at something, they should get angry at the social conditions that drive people to obtain abortions in the first place. Better yet, why don’t they mind their own business? There’s a severe shortage of MYOB in these times.
My boss is gone today, so I have 8 hours of uninterrupted time to box up my stuff for next week’s move. Should be interesting. I’ve got about 75% of my stuff packed, which is more than I can say for most people around here (laaaaazy). I have class at 3, which I am dreading since annoying-dude-in-my-program is in that class. I’ve never met a more idiotic, socially inept and talkative person in my life. Even Dr. Thoma doesn’t seem to like him and that’s saying something. It is kind of funny when the rest of us look at each other and roll our eyes when he goes on one of his little diatribes, which always include the phrase “and what have you” at least 3 times. Grrrr….
Race for the Cure is such a good cause
I have several friends who have done it before, and they said the people in the race are incredible. Good luck!
Oh, you should do it! I volunteered one year at the Komen in Seattle and it was a lot of fun.
I had to laugh at the mention of your annoying classmate. We had a couple of those in my grad program but one really sticks out in my mind. He ALWAYS had a question to ask and somehow he always managed to work in The Leapfrog Group (quality reporting group) into a question or classroom discussion. It got to the point where we started calling him “Leapfrog Dom” behind his back. hehe The good ol’ days
There’s one in every group. This guy sat next to me last week and kicked the table about every 3 minutes. I was ready to kill by 5:30.
Has anyone inquired with him if something else is going on beyond social ineptitude? We had a similar student in my literary criticism class and he was annoying the hell out of us. When we found out he was had Asperger’s, it helped us put everything in perspective and he actually appreciated us helping him figure out when he was talking too long, etc.
We’re all human, so there were still times he annoyed us greatly, and still times when he didn’t understand why we were annoyed, but it made the whole class more pleasant.
If he’s just a jerk, I’d call him out on it. No reason the rest of you should have to put up with it, and, unless he’s the professor’s pet, you’ll probably get the prof’s support!
I totally agree with you, even though I’m pro-Life.
I think that far too many of the pro-lifers wear the badge like a chip on thier shoulder and waste a lot of good air shouting about how wrong abortion is without DOING anything to prevent the rampant problems in society that bring a woman to the decision of whether or not to have an abortion in the first place.
There’s little to no effort given by pro-lifers toward sexual education programs, self-defense courses (to prevent rape), funding for unwed mothers, etc.
The most glaring problem that I see is that Sex ed is heavily imbalanced. Typically girls are separated from boys at age 12 and taught all about thier bodies and puberty and whatnot while the boys learn nothing. When is our society going to get off it’s collective ass and teach boys about the RESPONSIBILITY of sexual activity?
Would even half of these women/girls still opt for an abortion if the men/boys involved showed an ounce of responsibility for thier actions? I think not.
It’s like the seminar I went to in DC where they wanted to solve the AIDS crisis in developing nations by focusing sex education on adolescent girls. Um… hello? what about the boys too??
STDs and babies don’t spontaniously pop out of women, it takes a penis to do the infection at some stage!
*headdesk* ad infinum!
/Rantyness
Yeah, boys are often even more clueless about their bodies than girls (and I’ve heard some doozies). Our society is so stupid because they think that if we just don’t tell the young ‘uns about sex, contraception, etc. that they won’t do it. That obviously hasn’t worked. A girl I went to h.s. with that was in the top 20 in our class got preggers because she thought that you couldn’t get pregnant the first time you had sex. Boy, was she wrong. And she was intelligent and came from a good home. I shudder to think what happens to a lot of teenagers who don’t have those advantages.
I’m of the mindset that if a woman knows she’s unable to adequately care for a child that her decision ought to be respected. There are far too many abused and neglected children out there to begin with, and until we’re all ready to care for them as our own, we ought to stay out of others’ business and let them make personal decisions like that. (In that sense, I would almost identify as a Libertarian. Almost.)
I think one of my single biggest gripes with the pro-choice movement is that the choice of the male in the equation is never a factor.
What if the father of the baby actually WANTS to be a father?
What if he wants to take full responsibility for the child?
He’s never given that choice; if the mother wants to abort then he doesn’t get to put his voice in.
Yet, oddly enough, when a guy rapes a woman and the woman chooses to keep the baby then she also has to deal with the hassle of the man having parental rights over the child.
We can’t have it both ways; if the system recognizes the rights of a father in one instance then it should be recognized in ALL instances.
I’m also of the opinion that an abortion which was resultant from rape should be paid by the rapist as part of his sentence, as well as any follow-up medical treatments.
Of course, I’m also of the opinion that rapists should be castrated….
I don’t think that the rights of the father should outweigh the rights of the prospective mother, given that he does not have to risk his health and well-being for the sake of the child. The father has the option to leave at any time, and many do. The mother, on the other hand, has a much harder time leaving.
We won’t even mention the physical effects of pregnancy and birth on the body. It’s no walk in the park, and many women die or suffer from life-long problems because of it. If somebody isn’t able or willing to endure that, then why force her to?
I’m not saying that the rights of the father should outweigh the rights of the mother; but as things currently stand they have absolutely no weight at all until the child is actually born.
I just don’t think it is fair or just.
Yes, I understand that pregnancy and birth is an incredibly taxing process; but barring medical complications; this *IS* what women’s bodies are designed to do. It’s not like having cancer or something.
I do agree on abortion in the case of medical need; as statistics are evident that when a problem exists to cause risk for the mother then it causes equal risk (or greater) to the baby anyway. In this case it is a medical procedure, not a “choice” per se.
Personally I view all abortion as a medical procedure and this is why I have a problem with abortion in the political arena; it is a medical issue and should be dealt with as all medical issues are: between a doctor and the patients.
Like all pregnancy-related medical issues the patients are BOTH parents and the baby.
I agree that a woman should have more say in what goes on with her body than the father; but to kick him out of the room entirely in the case of abortion is a bit silly when he is expected to care for and maintain children born from the same act.
*sigh*
I’m sorry if I’m coming off as preachy… I’ve re-written this a few times to keep from doing that exact thing.
I just feel strongly about this issue and I also feel that I’m representing an oft-negleced middleground in the debate.
Bear in mind: my own sister had to go through this choice at age 15 when she was raped; so it’s not like I don’t have a face to go with the situations.
I know that you have a first-hand viewpoint of this issue. My only problem with your father’s rights issue is that (assuming that the father of the child/fetus/embyro had the right to intervene or weight in) I don’t trust a man who would force a woman to keep the child against her will. If he doesn’t care about her health and welfare, how do we know that he will care about the health and welfare of his child? It seems to me that he would just be pushing his own seed-spreading agenda rather than looking out for the best interest of the baby and its mother. Any decent man would respect the decision of a woman to terminate the pregnancy if she knew she was not able to be a good parent.
Any decent man would respect the decision of a woman to terminate the pregnancy if she knew she was not able to be a good parent.
However, I have seen instances where a man has attempted to pay for all the medical costs and wants to arrange to take care of the child himself as a single father.
Rarely do these cases go to court because the girl is then able to run off to a clinic and have the abortion.
I also think it is a little short-sighted to say that he doesn’t care about her health and welfare if he is wanting to step in and take responsibility for his actions.
One could also that any decent man would respect his responsibility in the creation of said child enough to take care of both the child and the mother throughout the course of the pregnancy.
There are so many dynamics that go into these situations that it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a rule that will cover even a third of them.
Ultimately I think more freedoms and liberties need to be given to both the mother and the father with regard to this issue.
I don’t want to see the return of back-alley abortions; but I also think there needs to be some control on the social order to prevent the mass-killing of unborn children for unnecessary reasons.
This is definitely not a black and white issue… though it is amazing how broad-spectrum the shades of grey can be.
I completely agree with you there.
No sort of psychological pathology. Just a jerk.