Mouthing Off

Mouthing Off will become a weekly installment here at Squidzaus. Content will include whatever I include, and sometimes (as is the case today) that might mean some harsh language. Be advised.

Today I was listening to NPR on my way to work. Terry Gross was doing an interview with the President of Planned Parenthood, Gloria Feldt. She just wrote a book called The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back. You can check out more about (or even listen to) the particular episode here.

I didn't get to hear the first part of the interview, with the senator, but the second part, with Ms. Feldt, really got me going. I am always baffled by how completely and committedly self-centered people can become. No offense to Ms. Feldt--she was just giving voice to an increasingly popular mindset. I don't know why I'm always surprised that I'm always surprised. Our American culture is becoming so saturated in the philosophy of Individualism that you'd think I'd catch on.

To start with, abortion rights is not something in which I am thoroughly versed. Meaning, I generally choose to abstain from debate or even discussion because this issue is so incredibly devisive. People get really mad, vreally fast. I know what I think, and it is well-thought out, but I will not shout it from the hilltops because (good lord!) it's only moderate, and not adamantly one-sided. And I desperately want to avoid a pep-talk or lecture.

To get to the point, the interview made me disappointed with the whole discussion. It became obvious to me that Ms. Feldt was not as concerned with "women's rights"--which I would identify as the rights of women compared to men or any other US citizen--as much as she was concerned with the rights of individuals to do as they choose without consequence or accountability. She was voicing an increasingly popular opinion that individuals (though she framed this in terms of women) should be allowed to do whatever they want with minimal personal responsibility. Maybe she thinks that "women's rights" means that women should be granted the same sense of sexual irresponsibility that men have assumed since the history of the earth.

No, my mind is changed. I am one-sided. Only I'm like an Ent: I am not on any side because no one is on my side. For me the most concerning thing about the debate is that no one is talking about the rampant individuality and disdain for natural consequence in the whole affair, whether it concerns women or men. After all, it ain't just the woman who made that abortion (or single parent or foster child or adoption) possible. Sometimes, when you have sex, you make a baby. Let's all remember--just in case we are distracted by the flurry of the continued sexual revolution for the individual--that baby's are made by people having sex. Whether you're a creationist or evolutionist, you have to agree that the drive is present for the purpose of reproduction of the species.

If there's a moral issue in all this, it is that we want to strip the consequence from the action. But let's ignore the separate debate about the morality of it. What about the responsibility of it? If you are going to play adult games, you have to be willing to accept adult consequences. And sometimes that means parenthood, even when it might be ill-timed, inconvenient, or unwanted.

Instead of bandying about poverty-stricken women and teens who don't have proper financial, social, or educational resources to raise and care for a child, maybe we should be getting just as pissed off that there are poverty-stricken women in this country to begin with. Or that there are men who get them pregnant, then walk away when the walking's good.

Instead of ranting about the corporate woman who is held back by the stigma and reality of pregnancy, she carrying the burden of it alone, maybe we should be questioning whether climbing the corporate solitary ladder to the negligence of family and friends and meaningful relationship is something anyone should be doing.

Why the flying hell are we looking for more ways to NOT care about each other, NOT be responsible for each other, NOT support each other? I'm sick of sugar-coating all this PC bullshit. This could have been an essay. The purpose of this weblog is dialogue. Please, post your heart out on the comment board.

[lighter fare is coming tomorrow, I promise]