Lets see

G'day Mates!

Well, lets see. What should todays topic be. I could pick something and rant..... Well, the topic of my sociology project will work marvelously.

Can you guess what Alex the Amused might be so furiously passionate about he is eager to do a 10 page report and 50 miniute presentation on? Can you?

Il give you a hint: Look down.

Still no idea?

Your Body. Specifically, your right to owning it.

Seems rather silly doesnt it? Wouldnt one think that you had the first and last word on what happens to it? Wouldnt you think that you are the complete owner of it? Makes sense doesnt it? Unfortunately, you dont.

As a side note, i dont nessesairally approve of some of the things one may do to ones own body, but i sure as hell think that isnt up to me. And once you take a bit of a look at the issue, i think you may too.

So, heres one installment on my rant about Bodily Domain.

So, where to start... It seems that a epic journey needs an epic start, though perhaps a quiet start will only put forward a better contrast between the opening and ending. Well, im not writing a bloody epic here, so i suppose some literary goals will have to play second fiddle to my more direct thoughts.

Well, lets start with one of my main points; Its a rather controversial topic, and to be honest justification of it either way just wont happen. The opposition to it is a purely moral one, and while thats hardly a bad thing, one cant really prove it very well, though the socratic method is a somewhat valid way to do so. However, there are certain principles that over ride others, and i consider bodily domain to be one hell of a principle.

Have you guessed yet? No, well then il just type it out.

Abortion: I hardly enjoy this procedure existing, but it can be an important thing at times. This, along with all other birth control related issues are excellent examples of bodily domain being infringed upon, no matter if its viewed as such or not.

Now, the worst problem with having it illegal is two fold: A, Illegal abortions or "Backalley abortions" are insanely huge medical health risks done in horrid conditions, with varying methods, none safe. Even the normal method of abortion, if not followed up with harsh anti-biotics and follow ups is prone to lethal infections, hemmroging, and all other sorts of dangerous side effects. B, the negative connontation of this not only infringes on ones right to bodily domain, but is likely to cause a larger amount of psychological damage to those who undertake the procedure then the actual effects, and stigmatizing it makes those who are confronted with the option feel dirty and hopeless, trapped in a horrible situation with no clean way out.

Heres a little story clarifying some of the consequences of making abortion, and also other birth control methods illegal. (http://www.geocities.com/realitywithbite/illegalabortion.htm) ((While this story is from 4 decades ago and many things have changed, the same principles apply)

ESTELLE
I have had lots of babies and abortions because I could never get birth control. I had my first baby in 1957. I was twenty- one. Then I had a second baby in 1958 and a third baby in 1959. I wasn’t married. My third baby died just fifteen after her birth. They called it “crib death” but I never know anything more than that. In 1961 I had my first attempted abortion.

When I got pregnant for the fourth time in five years, I knew I didn’t want any more children. I had just lost a child, and I had two little babies. I just couldn’t handle any more children. Because I wasn’t married, I couldn’t get birth control. I had tried to get birth control after my first bay, but they wouldn’t let me have it, so I just kept having babies. Black women living in the Hill at that time couldn’t get birth control from the clinic unless they had the consent of their husbands, and there was no place on the forms for women who didn’t have husbands.

I called my sister and told her I was pregnant and wanted an abortion. My sister asked around and found out that there were lots of women in the Hill who did abortions. The black community I grew up was like that. It was a close community, and someone always knew someone, so it was pretty easy to get names.

I never really knew the woman’s full name. When I asked, she told me to call her Mary. She came to my house and brought all kinds of instruments and things with her. She really seem to know her business. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t do the abortion. She told me I was too far along. I figured she was right and that no one else was going to do it either, so I gave up and had the baby.

My next experience was just a year later. I had gotten married a few months after the baby was born, and my husband refused to sign for the birth control pills. This was like a bad dream. First I couldn’t get birth control because I wasn’t married, and then, the way things turned out, I couldn’t get birth control because I was! I got pregnant just a few months after I got married. I had had my fourth baby in May of 1961. I got married in August, and by November I was pregnant again.

This time I contacted Mary right away. I couldn’t contact her directly. I had to call someone else who would take my name and number and have her call me – just like the year before. Again she came to the house and examined me. Since I was very early, she could do the abortion. She told me to buy a catheter and penicillin pills. She told me what drugstore to go to and who to ask for. I don’t remember his name. He wasn’t a pharmacist. I called him and told him what I wanted. He told me to bring twenty-five dollars in cash and to ask for him. When I got home I looked in the bag, and there were twelve penicillin tablets and a catheter. The catheter was about twelve inches long. It was red and looked like it had a wire or something inside of it.

Mary came to my house the next day. I paid her fifty dollars. She spread newspaper on my bed and put those pads they put under you in hospitals on top of the newspaper. Then she had me lie down on the pads. She told me I could just feel a little pinch, and that was exactly what it felt like. She inserted the catheter in me and pulled out the wire. When she was finished, she told me to start taking the penicillin pills right away, even though it would be several hours before anything happened…

The next year, 1962, I was pregnant all over again. Again I tried to get an abortion. I didn’t go back to Mary because I didn’t have seventy-five dollars. I got the name of different, cheaper abortionist. She only charged fifteen dollars. I was told that she would give you a shot and some pills (probably Ergotrate) and you would miscarry. I called and went over that Thursday for my shot and pills. Well, nothing happened.

Then someone told me about an oblong purple pill (probably potassium permanganate). I remember that two or three pills cost five dollars. You didn’t swallow these pills, you inserted them, and they were supposed to cause an abortion. I inserted the pills and they did make me bleed. The flow was so heavy that blood ran down my legs, but it was kind of thick and funny looking. Anyway, in spite of all the bleeding, the pills didn’t cause an abortion. I was weak and nauseated and bled for about two days, but nothing else happened. I was still pregnant. By this time I was too scared to go and see a doctor to see if I was all right, and there really didn’t seem to be anything else to try, so I just gave up and had another baby. She was born in 1962.

After that I tried to get a hysterectomy or get my tubes tied so I wouldn’t be at risk every time my husband came after me, but they wouldn’t do it. They asked me why I wanted one. Why? Why couldn’t they understand? I was tired. My body was tired. It is hard on your body, being pregnant every year. My marriage was going bad. My husband wasn’t working. He had been laid off from the steel mill. We were on welfare. I was depressed, desperate, and frantic. I felt that I really couldn’t survive another pregnancy. How many reasons did I need? Well they didn’t think my reasons were good enough, and they refused to sterilize me, so I was stuck again.

I had to do something, so I forged my husband’s signature on a consent form and did get a diaphragm. If he found it, he would tear it or throw it away, and sometimes he would hit me.

In 1963 I got pregnant again, but it was a tubal pregnancy and they had to operate. They removed one tube and one ovary, but they still wouldn’t sterilize me. I begged them to just take out both tubes while they were there, but they wouldn’t do it. They would say things like, “What if all your babies burned up in a fire?” Isn’t that crazy? I wouldn’t have been willing to get pregnant if the whole country burned up in a fire! But I couldn’t make them understand that. If God put me on earth to have babies, I had done that. I had done more than my share…

In 1964, I got pregnant again, even though I had only one ovary. My husband was an ass and the marriage wasn’t good, but he was working at the mill again. We were off welfare, I could feed the kids. Things seemed better, so I had that baby. After that my marriage just fell apart. My husband was physically abusive, and he would throw away my birth control if he had ever found it. He refused to leave, and there was no place for me to go with all those kids.

One hot day in August 1965, when I was seven months pregnant, my husband came home after being out all night drinking. He came into the living room and said, “Is that baby mine?” I laughed. I figured it had to be a joke. Well, he grabbed me and threw me down on the floor. Then he sat on my chest, holding my arms down with his knees, and he beat me. It was bad. He had a big ring on his finger, and it cut my face and his hand when he hit me. My youngest boy, hit him with a chair. That stopped him, and he left the house.

That day I drifted in and out of consciousness at home. One of my children called my sister, who came and got me and took me to the hospital. I had a concussion, and my face was all swollen and cut. My doctor, who had delivered my last baby, came to see me, and he was really upset. He said, “Don’t you tell me you fell downstairs or walked into a door, because I know what happened to you, and if you lose this baby, I’m going to press charges against him if you don’t!”

My daughter was born two months prematurely three days after the beating. She only weighted one and a quarter pounds. My husband came to see me in the hospital and begged me not to press charges against him. My doctor told me that I really shouldn’t have any more babies and that I ought to get away from my husband.

In spite of what my doctor told me, the hospital sent me home with no birth control, and my husband was still in the house. Well, I knew I could not survive another pregnancy, so I forged my husband’s consent again, went to the clinic in the Hill, and told them I had to have birth control pills. They wanted to give me a diaphragm, but I had enough of that, I said, “ I don’t want no diaphragm. I want the pill.” Maybe the desperation I felt got conveyed to them, because somehow, for the first time in my life, I got the pill. It was wonderful. I went home and told my husband, “If you touch me or my pills, I’ll kill you!” I started taking birth control pills. I took them for the next five years and I never got pregnant. Since I grew up I had a pregnancy almost every year, so this was a real miracle.

My daddy left my mother when I was only two, and I always felt like I got cheated out of a father. But I tell you, I never had to run out of the house because my daddy was beating up on my mama. When I look back on it, I realized that my childhood was better than my children’s childhood.

My husband kept living there. He wouldn’t move, and the kids and I couldn’t. My mother had moved into the projects, so she just had three rooms. She couldn’t take us in. No one really wants a woman with six children, let me tell you! I called the Salvation Army. They could take me and my girls, but they couldn’t take my boys. I wasn’t about to leave my boys behind, so I just stayed.

I bought a gun and practiced in my basement until I learned how to use it. I wasn’t going to have any more beatings or any more babies, and I figured having a gun gave me a better chance of making sure that those things didn’t happen to me anymore.

In 1966, when my last baby was six months old, I got a job. It was the first real job I’d ever had. It was part time and minimum wage – no health insurance or anything like that – but it was wonderful. I felt I had a little more control over my life and that I could do for my children. Then I got a second job working nights at the museum, and a third job doing cleaning three mornings a week. I worked three jobs for eight years until I finally got a real full-time job, with health insurance and everything, at the museum. I still work there.

I ruled my kids with an iron hand, and they did what they were supposed to do. They came rights home from school. They did their homework. The bigger ones watched out for the little ones. I ignored my husband and tried to save some of my money. He was really crazy jealous after I got the jobs.

Anyway, one day my husband was upstairs yelling at the kids- he never hit them, just me- and he yelled down, saying he was going to kill me. I grabbed my purse and ran out the door. He came running after me. I decided I couldn’t keep running, so I turned around and told him that if he took another step I’d shoot him. The gun was in my purse. Well, he laughed and kept coming. I took aim and shot him. I hit his arm. He looked amazed. I was amazed too…That man never hit me again – never!

By 1970 I had become a diabetic. I had been taking the pill for five years and they told me I had to quit, so they gave me an IUD. I had it for less than a year when I got a severe infection from it. I was in the hospital, and they took the IUD out and told me I couldn’t use it anymore, so I was back to nothing. I got pregnant, but by then it was 1971, and I got a legal abortion through the clinic. A year later I had a second legal abortion through the clinic. When I came back that second time, they asked me if I thought abortion was a form of birth control. I told them I didn’t but that if they wouldn’t do the abortion because I was a “repeater” , I would find someone who would. They did the abortion.

After that second legal abortion, I never got pregnant anymore. I kept working and saving money. That third job was my ticket out of this lousy marriage. I figured that if I never talked to him and never gave him any money, he might get tired of me and take up with another women, maybe even leave.

Well, it happened. One day I came home from work and he was gone, along with almost everything in the house. He left us six towels and washcloths – one for each kid, but none for me. He divorced me on December 31,1973. In February of 1974, I took all the money I had been secretly saving and I made a down payment on this house. This is mine. I pay my bills. My kids are all grown, and they all turned out fine.

In 1958 my best girlfriend Millie, called and told me she was going to have an abortion. She had a year-old child and an infant. Her husband had started fighting with her and had other women. I tried to talk her out of it but she was determined. She died from gangrene. She was only twenty-three. I was devastated. About six years ago I met her son, who had been a year old when his mother died. He wanted to know everything I could tell him about his mother. He didn’t have any memory of her at all.

Those years were awful, and I never want my daughter to go through what I went through. You know, I never really knew until today that the stuff that happened to me happened to white women too. I thought it just happened to me and Millie and other women in the Hill because we were poor and black. But it was not. This isn’t a black thing, this is a woman thing. Why was it that way? Why did it have to happen? Why did we let it happen?

~END STORY~

There are times where when we decide to make a law, that the consequences far out weigh any ideological thoughts. We are dealing with people, not numbers, and forcing people into corners will only break them and those around them. The right to ones own body is paramount to the pursuit of happyness.

As a side note to any who are reading this, some people may consider this woman a whore. I suppose those who may need to re-examine what has happened. Being stuck in an abusive relationship is not simple. We all have a will to be loved, a longing for attention and acceptance in the world. And in a sick way, being called shit can make you long for a persons acceptance even more.

In this womans case, she also had her children to worry about, furthur making just getting away a even more impossible option, in addition to cultural stigmas and legal issues.

A great example of some rather sick beliefs as far as relationships and sexuality goes, is a video we watched in sociology about 2 teens that killed them selves.

We have a girl named lanni, about 17. Well, shes allready tried to kill her self, has parents who do nothing but yell at her and send her to shrinks and dance lessons, and has pretty much 0 friends. Well, basicly, a person that cant find any acceptance or love in the world can become very desperate.

In her longing for attention, she basicly rushed into relationships blindly to find love, and ended up sleeping with about every member of the soccer team at one point or another.

I would like to remind us all of her mental state and her situation in the world. A decent portion of my class just referred to her as a whore and laughed. I cant say i agree.

And as far as the word whore goes, i think sexuality might just fall under bodily domain, and as far as descriminating or illegalizing sexual preferances or acts goes, i think that might just seem a bit opressive, and a tad detrimental to the pursuit of happyness. Anyway, thats the end of that note.


Please comment, thoughts are appreciated intensely.