No phone calls, please...

Ordinarily, I will not entertain phone calls from organizations looking to solicit. Whether they want me to buy something, donate something or just complete a survey; I generally tell them within the first five seconds that I don't want them to call me again. This happens just before I hang up on them. I don't like to be pestered with that stuff, especially night after night. I shit you not, in one night, I received three calls from various deputy's associations asking me to support their causes, one recorded message from John McCain(I have no idea how he got my number), and another call from some magazine wanting me to renew my subscription. Jesus, people, enough is enough.

On the rare occasion that I allow telemarketers to speak to me, I have been known to tell them that I don't have enough money to buy a gallon of gas, much less contribute to funding a cause I don't believe in. That's always a fun conversation. Tonight, however, I was feeling rather charitable. No pun intended. I received a call from an organization which I fully support, asking me to sign a petition regarding the availability of medication to end pregnancies. I've been struggling alot with this issue. As you may or may not know, I have had some difficulty maintaining pregnancies over the years. In fact, I'm coming up on what was to be the due date of our second daughter in just a few weeks and I've been having some trouble with it. It didn't seem like the best time for them to have approached me with this topic, but I stopped myself from snapping at the poor girl on the other end of the line because I realized that my personal feelings about this issue were also affected by another challenge I faced many years ago. When the girl asked me if I would allow them to e-mail me a petition to sign, I was surprised to hear myself saying, "Yes."

Torn between my feelings about not being able to have another child and having also been the victim of a sexual assault during my early twenties, I found that I had no choice but to say, "Send me the e-mail." I realized as I thought about her question that as difficult as it has been for me to have a child, I'm not sure I could have lived with becoming pregnant as the result of a rape. I was lucky. Although it has been over fifteen years, if I let myself think too much about what happened I still feel as victimized as if it were happening today. To put it mildly, it's a terrible thing to have gone through and I sympathize with any woman who has had to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy that was the result of such an attack.

I do not, however, look at terminating pregnancy as an issue to be taken lightly. I have strong opinions, due to my own struggles, about whether or not this is a good idea. It only makes sense that every woman would have her own opinions and concerns about the matter. Depending upon your experience with sex, pregnancy, relationships, children, etc., you're going to see this issue differently than the woman sitting next to you. The point is, you can't make this topic fit neatly into anyone's idea of what is right and wrong. That's why I let the girl speak and that's why I ultimately agreed that I would sign this petition. Any woman who has to make this choice, has enough to worry about. They certainly don't need me working against them on the basis of some standard of morality that I set for myself. That standard simply doesn't apply to anyone but me. It is my idea of what's right, of what I could live with.

This post is alot touchier than those I usually put up. After weeks of blogging about the election and our choices in candidates, I was a little worried that readers might think I was getting too mouthy or too politically involved. Well, sorry if that's your take. I simply believe that it is very important for women to talk about these issues and to take an active role in making the big decisions in their lives. While I enjoy blogging about my writing, I can't do that honestly without writing about these kinds of topics. They are the types of things that influence and motivate me to write. Without them, it wouldn't matter.

I still don't want to be called by solicitors during dinnertime and I definitely don't want to be pestered to death by recorded phone calls from political candidates. I do however, want to make decisions based on what is best for most people and what makes the most sense outside of what are basically my own personal preferences. I don't want to be part of a problem that stems mainly from people who are more concerned with protecting their egos than acting in the best interest of people in need. So, now you know. If I'm on your list of people to call, keep this in mind.

Until next time...


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