I was looking at the buttons on the backpack of the person in front of me on my walk to work this morning, and thinking I agreed with most of them. One of them said “she, her, hers” preferred pronouns so I guess I am safe to call the person a woman. Other buttons said things like TAA – the organization that represents teaching assistants on the UW-Madison campus – and Planned Parenthood, and there was a rainbow diversity button. One of the buttons, though, said “abortion is normal”, and I spent awhile turning that one over in my head. I guess abortion could be called biologically normal – a miscarriage could be called a type of aborted pregnancy. But, I’ve terminated more than one pregnancy myself, and I somehow can’t call abortion normal. It’s a hard choice, and sometimes the best choice. I firmly believe that abortion is an absolutely necessary option, and should be safe and legal. It’s the true irony of the pro-life movement that they call themselves pro-life, but in reality are anti-child, since they do not advocate for healthcare and education for the children who would be brought into the world by parents who cannot support them. I wish her button had said “abortion is a routine medical procedure” or my favorite “if you think abortion is wrong, don’t have one”.
Then as I went a little further along, I found this embroidered patch fallen out of somebody’s pocket.
I picked it up and put it into my pocket
Words for the day.