each day an adventure in alaska: a few thoughts on abortion rights....

the potential abortion ruling was leaked. not sure exactly what to make of the leak and who may have done it. so much politics in our supreme court these days. they are specifically asked about Roe when they are questioned and they all these past many years have just said it's the law. they have flubbed their way around it. McConnel pretty much put the nail the in the coffin by not allowing Obama to have his pick.

so here we are.

it's been crazy the past 24 hours. there is talk of a woman's strike. not sure it will actually happen. people are pretty rev'd up. most do not want a total ban on abortion.

it will be the states rights and many states have already got laws waiting for this day. back to states rights argument. so your rights to your uterus can vary by state. they are also looking to cut rights to birth control and of course, gay marriage. many are connected to the ideals of Roe Vs Wade. of course, generally the states that scream states rights the loudest are the same ones that take as much federal money as they can because they are incapable of existing without the money from the more Democratic states.

the usual arguments are always present. when does life start. it really doesn't matter. it should be the womans choice in my opinion. if you don't want an abortion, don't get one.

this idea of life being the same as an embryo as it is as a full term baby...not the same at all. i mean if you were in a fertility clinic and it was on fire, would you save a container of embryos or the 6th month old baby. i'd guess most would save the actual baby no matter how pro-birth they are and how often they say life begins at conception. that would go out the window in that choice. clearly an embryo is just not the same as an actual living breathing baby. should all embryo's created by an infertile family be forced to be implanted because they created them all.

there are many reasons why women end up choosing an abortion. that is their personal journey and they will be the ones living with the consequences of their choices, be it abortion or birth.

these pro-birthers are only concerned with the fetus until it takes it's first breath and then they excuse any assistance as now being someone else's concern. their votes in general go to the GOP and the GOP doesn't vote for things that help single moms, young families. they vote down sex education, they vote against access to birth control. they vote against healthcare, prenatal care, day care, extended maternity leave. the person who is pregnant can't just think about the 9 months they carry, they must also plan for the lifetime of care for this small human.

was reading about Romania. there was an overabundance of orphans in the '80's i think it was. back in 1966 the communist leader, Ceausesu, made a ruling to stop all abortions and access to birth control. they wanted to boost the population numbers. in 1985 they took it a step further and all women of a certain age would be forced to have frequent exams to see if they had become pregnant. in the end, many babies ended up unwanted and abandoned. there were so many orphans that the facilities were overcrowded. conditions were often dirty, kids were beaten or neglected. many ended up with delays, emotional issues. it was a mess.

i understand that Handmaids Tale, the book, was written with some of this in mind.

we already have too many kids in this country that do not have homes. medical fosters or kids that just get run through the system. the right are not willing to help these kids and yet they just want more and more kids. we also have an abundance of special needs kids. not that i'm anti special needs but it is expensive and if you are forcing people to break their budget to take on kids with special needs but not offering them the financial and medical support they need, i really do not think you should force them to carry on with the pregnancy. personally, i think a DNR for some of these very debilitated kids is a kindness that the parents are not always allowed to have until the situation is really horrible for the kid.

race has played an issue in abortion since the late 19th century. anglo-saxon females were the ones with the most access to safer abortions and this curtailed the volume of anglo-saxon kids entering our world. the white supremacists saw that abortion was occurring in predominantly white populations. this did not please them. they, like many who didn't claim to be white supremacists but still had their own levels of racism, didn't like that the population in the US was going to change from predominantly white to predominantly brown and black. the white supremacists joined forces with anti- abortion groups. though those anti abortion groups wanted to keep this shady side of their team in the background. they claimed the providers of abortions were Jewish providers, they claimed Planned Parenthood was a Jewish organization. now the anti abortion folks strive for lovely white women to be in the forefront of their fight over white supremacists.

most normal folks do support at least some exceptions. the far right want zero exceptions...for some they do not even want an ectopic pregnancy ended. this will kill both the fetus and the mother. the stupidity and ignorance is at times incredibly frustrating in these arguments.

if life begins at conception why doesn't child support begin at conception?

many of these far right are even advocating for the family of rapists to have a say or to sue the pregnant woman. they are having a similar issue at this time with these refugees crossing over from Ukraine. Poland has laws forbidding abortions from what i understand and many of these women are finding themselves pregnant following rapes by russian soldiers some of them were probably further traumatized by the murders that occurred at the same time as their rape. i can't imagine wanting to carry a rapists child after he had murdered people i loved. seems to extend the cruelty.

in truth the GOP needs these fetuses to die. it's where they have their most power. it's a huge source of power and votes for them. once they win this battle they have to find the next boogieman to blame for all of their shortcomings. they have zero platform. it's only a platform of hate and lies. clearly some of their other favorite victims are the LGBQT.

i'm not sure they will get as much power as they do from the "murdered babies" drama.

i have never had an abortion, nor have i been pregnant. i have had access to education, to birth control and if i was raped or had gotten pregnant i would have had to do some thinking about my options. i guess i should say, when i was raped, if i'd gotten pregnant....

i much prefer having universal access to birth control over having abortions be the means of birth control. just less involved and less messy i guess. the late term abortions that the right likes to scream about are generally nearly 100% wanted babies where something went horribly and sadly wrong. those are not people deciding at 8 months that they just don't want a baby.

pregnancy is also a high risk time for murder. abusive relationships and pregnancy can be a terrible combination.

i'm sure i have much more to say on the topic. a friend called and my writing rhythm got thrown off. the right screams freedom as it happily takes away freedom from others. really they seem set on making this a theocracy of sorts. their religious beliefs forced on the other members of society. they have a fit about being asked to wear masks and yet forcing women to continue a pregnancy they do not want to have is totally acceptable. one guy on one discussion today even said the old, "keep your legs together". i just said, hard to keep your legs together when they are being pried apart.

hit the beach today with friends and the pups. it was cloudy. it's been overcast but i haven't gotten my rain yet. i really am wanting a good down pour.

my friend came by with her husband and he was unable to get the cap off the flat tire so he just pulled the tire off and took it to a shop where he removed it and had to replace the entire valve. the tire is back on and so now i just have 2 tires with the metal caps. so unless one of those gets a flat i think i will just keep the old winter tires on for the summer and plan on buying new winter tires next season, they can deal with those last two caps then. in the meantime i tend to just drive that car around town with the dogs...at least that was the plan before the whole flat tire/stuck cap situation.

more than one hundred, i think, were able to finally reach safety after several months of hell at the Mariupol steelworks. many hadn't seen light at all for 2 months and have lived in terror. there are still many left behind. who knows if and/or when they will be able to escape or will be killed by russia.

otherwise, not much happening on this stretch off.

enjoying my time with my furs before i head back to work again. checked yesterday and didn't see any notice about dropping that one shift every other week. it would be nice.

also was looking at tile for my other two tile projects. texting back and forth with my tile guy.

these are in Valdez. these are from June and February, these photos

we camped out. we were pretty comfy out at the campground. no real good hotels and the in town campgrounds i used to stay at...too close to the main streets and too many rabbits. this was much better. will have to stay here again.

on that drive it went from blue skies to pouring rain and then back to blue skies.

lots of pretty flowers.

no paddle trips last summer, not even a day paddle. how sad.

did stop at the glacier for play time as usual.

found an opening today and was able to wrestle the sheets off the bed without the animals on there, haha. that can be tricky. for some reason the animals always have a strong interest in the bed when it's sheet changing day.

the boy is giving high fives fairly consistently. he did poorly being on leash heading down to the beach. there weren't many out there so i just let them off leash and had them pull to the side. on the way back he did fairly well, there were a lot of bikes coming and going which got him all excited though.

i'm getting kisses. break from writing.

still having an ongoing conversation with exmos about abortion. they are clinging to their old religious beliefs. some of the older dudes will never change some of their long held views. i get that. as an exmo myself i know that for many they are questioning much that they previously believed and are in a place where they can change view points.