Monthly Archives: April 2024

Anti-Abortion Garbage

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(I actually wrote this years ago)

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I don’t generally let this stuff get to me too much, or even try to talk about it, but today I felt weak and got angry.

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I drove past the Planned Parenthood building, parking lot engulfed in Pro-Lifers, ready to pounce on anyone brave enough to enter. And it made me angry. It is so easy to take your stand and feel empowered by yelling at and berating women who are already feeling bad about themselves. But I wish you did a little more research and thinking before you do your yelling.


“If you don’t want a child then use a condom”? Tell that to the ones who used condoms and they failed.

Tell that to the young university student who got raped and received no help because people said, “she was asking for it”, “she shouldn’t have dressed like that”, “we can’t take away the future success of our star football players.” Does your pro-life organization fund the post trauma therapy for that rape victim? Or make up for the loss of education she will face because she is pregnant? Or make up for the lack of child support she will need without the child’s father?

“If you don’t want a child then just put it up for adoption”? Does your pro-life organization fund adoptee trauma therapy, which good, bad, or indifferent, is inevitable and 100% guranteed to happen? Does your pro-life organization fund the funeral costs that the 1 in 4 adoptee’s parents will be faced with when their adopted child commits suicide? Do you even care that that is in exact opposition to the argument of pro-life?

Does your pro-life organization pay for the added therapy this woman will need when she comes face-to-face with your mob yelling at her that she is a horrible person and that she needs to let the baby live, the one thing that is a glaring reminder of the horrible thing that happened to her? Are you going to help these women in the future to ensure that their babies are healthy and well provided for, because you didn’t seem to think that a woman who knows she can’t provide for a child is capable of making the best choice?


And don’t think I don’t understand the cost. My birth father wanted me aborted, and my mother chose not to. She had me, but was unable to provide for me, and put me up for adoption. And now she is happily married and I have a half brother, and none of her family even know I exist. And while I know that I am lucky to have lived and have a loving family, it does not negate the fact that I have a lot of adoption trauma that has effected me and my relationships for the greater part of my life.

I don’t necessarily think abortion is always right, but I whole heartedly believe that a woman should have the right to choose.  You don’t know her. You don’t know her story or her life. You don’t know where she comes from. You don’t even know her name. Who are you to think you have the right to tell her what to do.

The Devil You Know

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I have always been passionate about the idea of working with convicts. I have wanted to be someone who could give them a voice and prove their humanity beyond their life-long label. It is so easy to see the snapshot of a person’s situation and act as though you know it all. It is so easy to see someone thru the lens of their label. I bear the label “Asian” a fact for which I am generally very proud of. But that label has also brought me a lot of negativity. The time someone yelled at me and referring to me as “China”.  My name is not China and I am not Chinese. And, according to commercial dna tests, I have no Chinese blood in me.

Someone can bear the label “sex offender” but people don’t want to know the story. What about the two teenagers who believe themselves in love and have sex. If the girl is just underage and the boy is just over age, that boy could be deemed a sex offender if someone reported him. And he will have that label for the rest of his life, despite the fact that he and the girl go on to get married and have children. People don’t care about that story.

It is easy to see someone who is homeless and turn their nose up. Demand that someone do something, and yet not doing anything themselves. It is easier to just sneer and ask why they aren’t just TRYING. Without considering the mentally ill individual who can’t get their meds and thus can’t stabilize enough to maintain a job. How about fighting for more mental health funding. They don’t consider the huge percentage of veterans who make up the homeless population because they might be too damaged to make it all the way thru the process to get their benefits. We see them begging on the corner and we drive right by. Thank you for your service. Nor do people consider the fact that a lot of veterans feel more comfortable outside in that environment. It feels safer than a home and a bed. They are looked down on despite the fact that that is a life they chose. People don’t consider the young homeless female. They don’t think about how she may have run away from an abusive home, but has no resources outside of the home. Nor do they consider that she is then at a high likelihood of becoming further victimized. They are all just homeless individuals with no story or sympathy, and all the world knows is that they don’t want to see them. “Not in my backyard.”

And, as Angela Davis said in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete? prisons have become a dumping zone where individuals who society doesn’t want to acknowledge are put.

My point is, this book spoke to me on astounding levels. It touched my heart. It inspired me. It stoked my fire to keep moving in the direction I am going. Because I want to enter that windowless black hole where people are seen simply as “bad”, and I want to show that they have lives, circumstances, problems, and voices.