Another typical Tuesday in these parts. Happy to report that my weekly ATM visit provided the required bounty without incident. The usual mediocre darts were somehow good enough to make it to the finals.

After darts, Kevin, Alan, and I went to Mango’s for some dinner. We all wound up ordering the pork chops.

The big news from back home is the leaking of a draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Kevin Kim has a lengthy and thorough post covering the abortion debate from pretty much every angle. I highly recommend giving it a read. Although I strive to avoid politics here at LTG, I do have my own viewpoints on this topic that I’ll share for whatever they are worth.

I’m opposed to abortion and I’m also opposed to the government intruding on the moral choice of whether or not to have one. I do draw the line here though: when the fetus/child is capable of surviving outside the womb, the mother no longer has the choice to terminate what is undeniably a life. If you are going to get an abortion, make up your mind to do so within the first trimester. Or better yet, take the “morning-after pill” and don’t conceive in the first place. These people advocating for the right to choose to abort right up to the moment of birth are arguing for infanticide–there is no moral justification for that action.

When I was in high school I got my girlfriend pregnant. Why we weren’t using readily available birth control is something I can’t explain. A toxic combination of lust and ignorance I suppose. I was 17, she was 16. The state of California had recently passed a law where a minor could choose to have an abortion without parental consent. That’s the route we chose. I went to the clinic with her and stayed with her after the procedure. I remember growing impatient because it took so long for her to be released when the abortion was done. I was am such a jerk. The next day at school she started bleeding, I especially remember the white slacks she was wearing looked like she had pissed blood. Her mother was a nurse so I surmise she figured out what happened, but she never confronted me about it. Our lives went on, she moved away, and the relationship ended. But I still sometimes wonder what that life I helped prevent may have turned out to be.

When I was 19 and my girlfriend was 17, she told me she was pregnant. In my defense, she was supposed to be taking birth control pills, but apparently, she was often forgetful. She was Catholic and abortion was off the table for her, so we decided to give the baby up for adoption. She moved in with me during the pregnancy and when the baby was born and I saw my helpless little girl laying in the hospital crib I knew I could never give her up. We got married instead and I became a father.

When I was 25 and divorced, my girlfriend was attending grad school in Idaho and I was living in Arizona. One weekend I was unable to reach her by phone (this was before email and text messages). I finally got in touch with one of her friends who told me my girlfriend was unavailable to speak with me. I said bullshit, either she calls me now or I’m getting in my car and driving up there to find her. She called and told me she was in the hospital getting an abortion. I said, wait a minute, don’t I have something to say about that too? She replied, No, you are not the father. Damn, that memory still hurts.

When I was 35, I was remarried to a Baptist woman and living in Columbia, SC. We would attend church with the kids every Sunday. In Sunday school class one week the lesson was all about how God gave mankind free will. After class was finished, there was an announcement that there was going to be a march on the South Carolina statehouse in support of legislation banning abortion. I raised my hand and asked, “if God gave man free will, why would you support passing a law to take away that free will?” The teacher responded simply, “It’s a matter of faith”. That was the day I quit the church for good.

So, my position was then and remains, if you oppose abortion try to change minds, not laws. But a human being has the right to life and your “choice” doesn’t change that. Once the fetus becomes viable, it is not abortion, it is murder.

Anyway, that’s how I see it.

Coincidentally, today is Mother’s Day in the Philippines. I was reminded of this song that my nephew sang at my mom’s wake in Enid, Oklahoma more than 11 years ago. You never forget the love of your mother.

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying always over the mountain