Politics: A new beginning

[Atticus Grinch]

Two weblog entries.

One. 4:14pm 12/03/03

Overnight our lives have turned into some sort of science fiction/horror show. Last night I psyched myself up to expect the worst, but that didn't make it any easier when the bad news came. Though it took a while. No one wanted to take the responsibility to confirm our worst fears. Everyone we encountered did their best to dodge the bullet. It was terrible when it finally happened, but a relief that someone was being straight with us. It turns out that our baby, with the odds at about one or two in a thousand, has a neural tube disorder called anencephaly. It's fatal. As a former Catholic I can't help but feel I'm being punished for something...perhaps for my arrogance. I mistakenly assumed this pregnancy would be a piece of cake, as my first went off without a hitch. . . . For some reason I expected the same ease this time around. Instead I now find myself faced with two gruesome options, as outlined by the genetic counselor we met with (that job title sounds like it's straight out of Gattaca). One, I could have labor induced...to deliver a baby who will die shortly afterward. Or two, I could undergo a two day dilation and evacuation procedure, where the fetus will not come out intact. I feel numb.

Two. 8:58am 12/05/03

These are indeed strange times for us. Right about now I'm wishing we lived in Norway...or Canada...or Iceland, or any number of more civilized countries. For some time now I've been disgusted with the way Minnesota, and the U.S. as a whole, have been speeding down the slippery slope. Our civil rights have steadily been chipped away at, with this country becoming a place I can hardly recognize...and one I'm not sure I want to live in anymore. But now it's hitting even closer to home. It's bad enough that we now have a conceal-and-carry law in Minnesota, and that Pawlenty wants to bring back the death penalty. But in April the Minnesota Senate passed a bill, and our lousy Governor quickly signed it into law. I recall being disgusted at the time, but now it's become impossibly painful. The husband and I very much wanted to have this baby together. But, due to circumstances beyond our control, the baby has no chance of living after birth. So next week I need to go to the hospital to terminate our much-wanted pregnancy. But only after I sit out an imposed 24 hour waiting period. And only after I have not one, but two very apologetic medical professionals read to me from a script. A script that was designed to coerce young women into keeping unwanted pregnancies, and to me feels like a slap in the face. You'd think there would be some sort of exclusion for our situation. Even more disturbing...I discovered that if I were just a few weeks further along, medical providers in Minnesota would be unable to assist me. In fact, the closest medical providers who could are in, get this, Wichita, Kansas. This nightmare gets more surreal all the time.

Here's the lowdown for people too lazy to read the links. This woman's baby is developing in her womb without a brain. Minnesota will let her have an abortion, but it required her to listen, two days after learning this news, to a statutory script about the evils of abortion. Anyone who's ever known a woman with an anencephalic pregnancy should be vomiting onto their keyboards with rage and disgust.

Fuck the red states. I'll live with billions in deficit for a few years to avoid having to deal with neighbors who think they've done any kind of right by this woman and her family.