IT IS ABOUT LIVING WITH THE CHOICES WE'VE MADE AND CARVING A LIFE OUT OF THEM

I was two weeks shy of my 16th birthday when our daughter was born. It was three years before Roe vs Wade but after confirming my pregnancy the OB assured my mother things could be done. Shortly after, I had my first Crohn's attack. When I saw my OB the next day he was quite upset. He told my mother it was a shame I hadn't lost the baby, but not to worry, things could still be done. ​They spoke to each other and never to me as if my opinions didn't count. I soon left home and thankfully a friend's family took me in until my mother agreed to let me have the baby. Back then I was told it wasn't my decision to make. That I wasn't old enough to know what was right for me. Perhaps that was true, but nevertheless Dennis and I were going to have a baby and raise it as our own.   ​

​After 46 years of marriage we are not sorry for the choices we made because they were the right choices for us. This does not mean it is the right choice for everyone. All choices should be respected just as all women should be respected. While I may be pro-life I am not anti-abortion. This is a choice that is made within each woman and no one has the right to tell her what to do with her body. I have friends that chose termination. That is their right and their choice and it should NEVER be taken from them.

​I am writing this because our story is not everyone's story. It was hard to own up to the responsibility of raising a new life, but it would have been just as hard or harder to abort my pregnancy or give our baby up for adoption. There would be pain no matter the choice and that's what I want people to know. I also want people to know that my daughter's life has value. She has brought beauty, grace and love into this world.   

As the world moves on, I want my granddaughter's to honor and cherish who they are and what they can do and to not rely on someone else to tell them what that may be. I also want them to know they are not nasty girls nor will they grow into nasty women. They do not need to wear pink pussy hats to show Donald Trump what's what. I would prefer them to educate themselves on the issues and to fight their fights using respect, decency and the rule of law.  Protesting is our right but to demean ourselves as women by lowering ourselves to the adversary's level is  ludicrous. We are better than that.

​I found Madonna's words offensive. You do not need to strip naked or to put on pink hats or swear to make yourself heard. Not in today's world. I hated much of what I saw last Saturday because it degraded women instead of uplifting them.  There were some speakers who spoke of inclusion and education and women's rights but most, sadly, did not. I can't help but wonder what they were trying to prove because I really don't know. If they were protesting an ignorant man's inappropriate talk about women they sold themselves short.

​​Choices are a part of life as is the way we speak and present ourselves. We can chose to be dignified or not and know that with choice comes power and pain. That is life. One choice is not better or worse than the other as it is all about perception. It is also about living with the choices we've made and carving a life out of them.