Dear Reader, It's 2006.

2006. How did that happen? I've been going back through this blog reading old posts and comments and trying to reflect on the blog phenomena and abortionclinicdays.com for a possible submission to an anthology. (I just published two articles that someone didn't actually get posted. sorry)

Well, dear reader, we haven't posted as much as we might have liked, particularly in more recent weeks. I can't chalk it up to Christmas, I mean HOLIDAY shopping.... It's just hard to do the work and report it and be circumspect about it all at the same time.

I notice that we have done a few rants but mostly we have told stories. Our work is mostly stories and the power of hearing them. Even if we didn't say a thing to women, and men, that would be enough help for them. But the more stories you hear, and the more you can listen to them both in the particular and in the aggregate, it turns out that there are helpful words you can pass from one person to another. Like a non wandering minstrel offering news that others are too isolated to hear. The patients are the wanderers and we just sit there, attentive and connecting where we can.

Two years ago, we had truthfully never even seen a blog much less written on one. We figured that we would give it a year and see what the medium was like, whether we had anything to say, whether anyone would read it. We didn't know what trackbacks and pings were, or how the comments would take on a life of their own.

Now it's 2006 and it seems that everyone is focused on whether abortion will continue to be legal. It's the question that everyone wants my opinion on but strangely, I don't have an opinion. I have always thought that Roe v Wade would not get struck down because of 30 + years of counting on reproductive freedom means that it is in the fabric of our lives to stay. Even Randy Terry, the irritating founder of Operation Rescue said that if abortion was not illegal by 2000 it would never be, because 25 years was too long to have something and then not have it. (Not that he has any inside track on anything.) Now I just don't know. Everything is so wacky.

Part of me would like to see it go down just to watch everyone scramble. All those mealy mouthed politicians would have to step up to the plate and really vote for what everyone knows we need. Of course, the part that knows the panic and misery even a few weeks of illegal abortion would bring wouldn't be worth watching any politician squirm.

Of course, I have that blue state feeling of insulation, but I also don't want to be much busier than we are because then we wouldn't be doing the work that we want to do. When abortion was legal in NY before it was legal in other parts of the country, there were 24 hour abortion clinics and it really was a "mill." Of course, women were less stigmatized and more sure of their decision. But what fascinates me is the experience of it--the complex decision making, how people make sense of inconsistencies and new situations, how people help each other out, or not. It could be about anything I suppose, but there is something about a decision about a pregnancy that brings it all together--life death sex the universe. If I couldn't take the time to consider all that with people I would probably quit.

I don't do New Year's Resolutions, so I can't say, "I will write more on this blog" but we will see where the energy takes us, won't we? Thanks, everyone for tuning in.
--bon

Comments

[Linda]

Dear blogmasters,

perhaps you could consider closing threads older than a certain time period (Salon and many other online sites do this) so as to discourage spammers? This is really quite frustrating.

[Influenza]

nice thanks

[Adipex]

Just after entering the cyberspace, you would come across words like http://www.adipexpower.com buy adipex, buy adipex online and a huge collection of other keywords. These words are scattered all over the web for the sole purpose of drawing traffic to various sites. It is unquestionably true the sites where you would gain entry through this way are not the authentic ones which further spell out the need of a customer friendly, easy-to follow method to http://www.adipexpower.com buy adipex online. Adipex http://www.adipexpower.com diet pills acts on the hypothalamus gland in the nervous system, affects the signals conveyed by the neurotransmitters and thus induce a feeling of satiation. A reduction in the feeling of hunger makes you eat less and http://www.adipexpower.com weight loss is the final outcome. The power of this simple theory generates an idea in you to http://www.adipexpower.com order adipex which you must do in order to buy http://www.adipexpower.com adipex.

[GalaD]

Darn! It's back to business skool for me then...

[Sara]

GalaD, I don't know how many gay couples have to deal with unplanned pregnancies...

[Just a question]

Slavery was legal and common practice for nearly 200 hundred years prior to the emancipation. It was the basis of an entire regional economic system and definitely the fabric of the lives of thousands. Should it have stayed legal for those reasons...?

[andre]

I stumbled upon this blog completely by accident. I worked in an abortion clinic for seven years, and count them among the most amazing years of my life. Reading your stories is often like reading my own experiences. Thanks for sharing them with us.

[manxome]

Thank you for telling the stories, and for the way you tell them. It flings open a window of knowledge and understanding that no number of slogans or signs ever could.

[GalaD]

Folks are watching things from Canada with a feeling similar to "blue-state insulation" (and the minor extra comfort of an international border). The idea that abortion tourism may become a reality is both scary and absurd.... I think i'll make my million: set up in a border town and offer a package discount on gay marriage and pregnancy termination ...

[trope]

Thank you for continuing to write.