the progressive liberal movement typically views a fetus as a fetus, not a child. before they are fetuses, they are embryos. before that, they are an egg and a sperm.

we can all agree that life starts somewhere, but it is at an arbitrary point in time. why decide it is at fertilization? the little sperm swim. aren't they life? isn't every sperm a potential child? why not make non-procreative sex, or jerking off, a crime? millions of sperm--potential children, are being killed! won't you think of the children? the children! OH MY GOD THE SPERM COULD BE CHILDREN! EVERYONE STOP JERKING OFF RIGHT NOW!

they aren't children. neither are embryos. they are cells. ok but i'll give it to you with a fetus: at some arbitrary point, a fetus is a baby, sure.

the thing is, at all points, a woman is a person. possibly with other living children to take care of and think of. if you'd die in childbirth to give birth to another baby and leave your current children motherless, go for it. i wouldn't. if you'd have a child at the expense of functioning kidneys, go for it. i wouldn't. and if you'd raise the child of your rapist, have at it. i wouldn't.

apparently, one in three women in this country feel like i do. one in three american women have an abortion at one point or another.

i can tell you that the budget cut is putting higher education through the wringer. and not just "useless" courses of study, like twelfth century french fairy tales and irish travel literature. for example, i study critical need languages like arabic and persian. languages that you'd THINK would be prioritized given that we recently got rid of 50 gay arabic linguists. but cuts have traumatized our language departments.

there are few, if any, opportunities to TA. undergraduates are then stuck in gigantic lecture halls with no discussion sections and no one to turn to but the professor if the material is unclear. the professor, by the way, offers two office hours per week per class, whether that class has 10 students or 210.

meanwhile, i hear we're going to break ground on a new multi-million dollar athletic center. yay?

if she is the cheerleader with the brown hair, with the blond mom and the darker skinned dad, i'm pretty sure she is half latina. one half-latina, one mixed race african american, and four white girls do not necessarily make the show diverse...but i'm just sayin is all.

but, LW, i see in your letter to cary a lot that reminds me of him and so i remain at my friends' house, thinking things over, while he remains at our house, pining for me and what he may have lost.

the thing is, when things were good for him, he wasn't there for me. much like you and your fancy corporate job and your girlfriend that for some reason, wasn't good enough for you at the time. when things were bad for him and he was going through a Rough Time, like you and your fancy job turned cubicle prison, he would need me like there was no tomorrow.

your letter betrays you for what's important to you: you. this girl, who, by the way, is your EX girlfriend, is not as important to you as your own feelings, and it doesn't seem like she will be. when times were good, you didn't want her. when they were bad, you didn't think about her, just about you. you you you. you.

you're so sad, you miss her, you want her back. what did she want? did you give it to her? what does she want now? can you give it to her? if you really did love her, you'd not only know the answer the both, but you'd care.

ah but amy, ideally, in a show wherein the protagonist chooses abortion, no. there would not be a whole lot of action.

but for a woman living in south dakota, where there is one abortion clinic, or in mississippi, where there is also one abortion clinic and a small army of quran-burning protestors often stationed outside, there would certainly be drama and action. so too would there be drama and action with any state that required parental consent from both parents, particularly in cases wherein one of the parents is estranged, or in cases where the minor chooses to go before a judge. there's also the added burden of the 24 hour waiting period, and the lecture about a fetus being a "unique, separate, whole, living human being", and the forced sonogram, and the fact that to a sixteen year old, the five hundred dollar price tag of an abortion seem impossibly out of reach.

there are plenty of hoops to jump through for women seeking abortions, be they legislative, temporal, geographic, or financial. and that can make for plenty of "drama" and "action".

covering it responsibly and safely, of course, is an issue deserving of consideration. but to say that there is little or no drama involved when a woman, particularly a teenager from a conservative community, gets an abortion...well it would be nice, considering that abortion remains a legal health service. but it's simply not true.