Diatribune

This is a difficult question for me really. On the one hand it really is none of my business to interfere with decisions made by a woman and her doctor. Late term abortions bother me. It seems unnecessary. As a step father to a teen aged daughter I would like for my wife and I to have an opportunity to discuss options openly with our daughter before she made a decision of this magnitude so I understand the rationale for parental notification laws, but I do respect her right to make her own decision.

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change -- Andre Gide

where the procedure may be as safe as possible. Restrictions should be just like hospital providers. Not on the woman. Her body, her choice. No reservations. No regulations.

I, too, have a teen in the house. Female. We talk about things like this. I'd like her to make her own choice and to have that choice without legal restrictions. At 16 she and her physician can make health decisions without a need for parental consent for the most part.

Never In Our Names "All you have to do to qualify for human rights is to be human."

There is a spider that lives in the tropics. This spider is a wonder, it is revered by a certain group of dedicated entymologists for it is a rare and wondrous species of spider.

It has developed a method of propogation that is unusual and this further endears this spider to this group of entymologists, who are a vocal minority in the scientific community.

This spider female inserts eggs using an ovidepositor, which is common in the insect world, but it is uncommon in that it prefers to deposit these "hatchlings" under the skin of mammals that wander by it's web.

Cows, monkeys, squirrels, etc. - any furry critter will do.

The baby spiders are nourished by the blood supply, kept warm and safe by the regulated body temperature of mammals. When they emerge, there is considerable pain, but rarely does this process result in anything lethal for the "host". Some loss of blood and considerable pain is the norm.

In some instances, humans become the unwitting host for this spider mom. When this happens, this group of dedicated and fervent entymologists go to great lengths to convince the human host to bring these insects to term, as they are precious and valuable to them. They argue that the host need not "raise" these newly hatched lives, they can simply give them away after the "birth".

Have I made my point?

Dear Mr. Bush: "To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

How many of you are familiar with the Patient Bill of Rights? It’s posted (or supposed to be) in every place that provides health care. Anyway, the big deal about this Bill of Rights is that you have the right to be informed of your medical condition and have the right to accept or deny treatment of this condition. Now I’m a firm believer that pregnancy is a medical condition. I’m also a believer that a woman has the right to progress with this condition of pregnancy or have it terminated. Not all pregnancies have happy endings with a cherubic child as a result. Many things can go wrong with a pregnancy and some actually kill or brain damage women. That’s not the stories you hear from the pro-lifers, now is it? But it’s the truth. However, there will always be those people who want Roe V. Wade reversed. They will continue to try and try. Our best defense is to educate ourselves about the Patient Bill of Rights and test to see if it will legally hold up a womans right to choose.