Girl Friday #5: Pregnant Pause

Well, what a week this has been. Seems everyone I know has been a little riled up, tired, maybe even under the weather. And, I'm guessin' that if you live in South Dakota, you're probably pregnant, too!

Governor Rounds, evidently with the support of a good many South Dakotans, rustled up one heckuva bill. What an asshat. The notion that he, or any man, frankly, thinks he knows more about what to do with my reproductive organs than I do absolutely takes the cake. Although I have met a man or two who has evolved a bit beyond this, Governor Rounds proves that the man difference between men and dogs is that the human male has opposable thumbs.

I've never seen the dull masses that comprise The Culture Of Life lining up outside America's delivery rooms to catch all those babies they saved. That to me is the ultimate cop-out. They bust their sorry Jesus-lovin' asses to make sure you don't get rid of that baby, but once it gets here, you're on your own.

I was always fortunate. I chose the children I have. I also had a couple of miscarriages between my son and my daughter, and I'm sorry I won't know what those children might have looked like, how they might have sounded, who they might have become. I had hoped there still might be time for one more, but as I look at my life and my age, what I still hope to accomplish, and the fact that I have no partner, I'm slowly putting that dream to rest and enjoying the last moments of my "baby's" littlesthood.

How dare Governor Rounds, or any man alive on earth, presume to make those decisions for me or anyone else? How dare they? And where are the men and women who oppose this? How did this happen?

This song is for all the women who didn't have a choice, or who didn't feel they did. Where I grew up, this story was not all that uncommon. It was written by Grammy-winner John Prine, who is a much-loved oddball of Americana. His songs are delicacies of a different sort.

If you can spare a donation, or if you are a regular consumer of reproductive health services, support your local Planned Parenthood and consider using them to meet your health care needs.

Unwed Fathers

In an Appalachian, Greyhound station
She sits there waiting, in a family way
"Goodbye brother, Tell Mom I love her
Tell all the others, I'll write someday"

Chorus:
From an teenage lover, to an unwed mother
Kept undercover, like some bad dream
While unwed fathers, they can't be bothered
They run like water, through a mountain stream

In a cold and gray town, a nurse says,
"Lay down, This ain't no playground, and this ain't home"
Someone's children, out having children
In a gray stone building, all alone

On somewhere else bound, Smokey Mountain Greyhound
She bows her head down, hummin' lullabies'
Your daddy never, meant to hurt you ever
He just don't live here, but you've got his eyes

Repeat Chorus:

Well, they run like water,
Through a mountain stream