Last presidential election I was very
vocal, very active and very passionate.
With this current election I was just
as passionate but without the stamina of my younger self.
Last presidential election I was an
intern for a pro-choice organization (which has since, apparently,
lost it's funding in the state of NM). I was just coming out of a
major depression, just beginning to feel optimistic about the
financial risk of earning a college degree, just living with my
parents again and generally just trying as hard as I could to grasp
onto some hope.
Generically I could say I had been
looking for some change.
I was in a new space with an assault of
distractions that I could not delegate away this year. Having years
ago learned (ish) to deal with depression, attained a degree since,
and living on my own (and then not)-- Change had happened. Had been
happening. In a universe that offers no constancy I had learned to
make fewer plans and hope for the best.
So this year I had not taken my opinion
and hopes to the streets which might be why I was so nervous. What if
my ounces of efforts in a sea of campaigning in the community is what
would cost me my comfort and safety in this nation?
A hope for the best turned to a sigh of
relief for my values.
And I never mean to impose my values on
others.
I live in a country that is, with more
hard work, moving towards marriage equality. Ideally, I'll get
married one day. But I don't think I could do so happily when I know
that people I love (and people in my nation) were being deprived of
the same emotional, spiritual, and LAWFUL bliss. How can any American
fall in love, look their love in the eyes and say “I do.” when so
many others are being denied that preciously elemental moment?
Think about how your heart would swell
in that moment.
And how so many hearts are breaking and
waiting to feel the same.
I live in a country that, with little
effort, is going to protect the reproductive rights of women. As a
woman who has suffered a miscarriage, had an illegal abortion as well
as having experience with the legal and medical aspects of
abortion... I can honestly say, from all ends of a spectrum... there
is no singular circumstance that can dictate right from wrong when it
comes to these choices. Legitimacy can not be defined by “God's”
intent.
I do not believe that God ever intended
for me to be raped when I was young. I believe that I came across a
person that did not intend to act humanely towards me. I do not
believe that God ever intended for me to lose a child that I intended
to keep. Or that I was being punished for the mistakes I'd made. I
believe that environment and biology created a situation in which
prevented me from carrying to term. I do not believe that God no
longer loves me because I could not (and elected to NOT) have
children with men who did not love me. I think God, for whatever
“God” is, doesn't really give a flip about that sort of thing but
if “God” did care... it wouldn't be unforgiving. I think God
would say something like, “Good call. Because having a child with
someone who does not love you/ respect you and/or likes to punch you
in the face/ emotionally abuse you... is not what I intended.”
Obviously the reproductive choice thing
is a HUGE issue for me. Even as I get older. And especially because
I'm older and faced with the reproductive challenges of being exposed
to the wrong type of HPV.
Which brings me to another thing.
Stop slut shaming young women over an
HPV vaccine. SERIOUSLY. On any occasion that science is capable of
staving off a plague of STI... just stop making it about how no one
has any business having sex and start making it about how everyone
has a communal obligation to protect themselves and others. Stop
lying about the numbers. Stop lying about saving yourself for someone
that is coming along. And stop lying about how it's “not that big
of a deal.”
It is a really big deal.
Universal healthcare? A big deal.
Totally worth it when we calculate how much we're wasting on treating
those with preventable problems that have turned south... or
terminal. Or, you know, the emotional calculation of how many men,
women and CHILDREN go without treatment because of an unbearable cost
to families.
You can start to see why I'd been
silent. No one wants to hear this from me on a daily basis.
Decriminalizing a basic drug that is
contributing to violence in a national neighbor? Also a big deal. The
American need to consume an “illegal” substance has devastated
the sociological stability of a nation. No. A few nations. Americans
lack the dignity to accept responsibility for their addiction to
consumption.
Not just to drugs. We also like to
criminalize women and men in the sex trade, despite the fact that
their actions are often coerced. We let the johns off with a slap to
the wrist without offering any sort of rehabilitation for
prostitutes. It's in and out of the “corrections” system for
them.
I can go on like this. Forever.
We like to shield ourselves with
personal “values” without taking into account that.... the
singular value does not serve the masses.
Our quality of life can't be improved
by trying to cater to one set of ideals and circumstance.
