The first post

I feel that after outlining what I going to be writing about on this blog that need to pick my first subject carefully.

But before I do that, I want to be clear. I am not an investigative journalist. I do read a fair amount, especially when it comes to the news. If there is something I feel I don't understand then I do like to look it up and do a bit of basic fact checking. But this blog should be considered, as with most of the news these days, as an opinion and not absolute fact. I am not doing this to spread lies or bring people down.

I think this blog will reflect an average person’s view of the events going on in the world. I don't have the time to spend constantly researching every little thing about brexit or the full economic impact of the US-China trade dispute (what average person does?) I do the best I can with the time I have and knowledge that is at hand. Perception plays a bigger part in everyone’s life than they realise.

So back to choosing which subject to rant about first. There have been a few in the news this week. Brexit and the Tory leadership race is always kicking around these days, but I feel I have time for my rant about that to still be relevant soon.

The Jeremy Kyle Show and the guy who killed himself. The way people are paraded on "reality" TV and these low class talk shows is disgraceful and the people who make these shows should be utterly ashamed of themselves. I could rant about this for a while.

But I think I first want to talk about what has just happened in the US state of Alabama. They have just passed a law which makes it illegal to carry out an abortion procedure unless the pregnancy causes a serious risk of death to the mother. This includes not allowing it in cases of rape or incest. I feel so sorry for all the women that are and will be affected by this and there are so many who will be affected by this.

Let's list them shall we:

1. Most important of all the women who for whatever reason, and there are many reasonable and valid reasons, need or want an abortion. It is never an easy choice to make but in some circumstances it can be the best one. This is not a politician’s choice to make. It is no one’s choice to make except the woman who otherwise has to carry the unwanted or possibly dangerous pregnancy to term. They should be given care and help not be demonised and forced to scramble for help or worse take matters into their own hands.

2. The Doctors. They only want to help the women and families through what must be a really hard time. Do no harm. By being forced to do nothing the harm they will cause will haunt them. But what else can they do when they are faced with 99 years in jail for simply helping those in need. Do you realise that for help out a victim of a rape they face more time in jail than the rapist! What kind of a society thinks that is acceptable?!

3. Families. The obvious one I am talking about here is the marriages which will be affected by unwanted children or having to take care of children who are seriously disabled. Not everyone is up to that. Not everyone is capable of surviving as a couple after a child dies from a known complication that would otherwise have resulted in a termination. But the mental, financial and physical effects of this will be felt even wider than just couples. Those couples, if there is even a couple involved, single parents will be affected too, existing children, the couple’s siblings and parents and grandparents. It affects them all.

4. The child in question. If the child to be born will live only hours or days or even weeks and be in constant pain, is that right? Or is that torture? Would it not be more humane to have the abortion to ensure that the child never has to know pain? They will never understand what is happening or why? They will never feel like god, if you believe in such a thing, is watching over them. What right does anyone have to inflict such cruelty on another that you could have prevented. What about those who were simply unplanned or unwanted? It's not a pleasent thought but abortion does happen for these reasons. How would you cope if you grew up feeling like your family didn't want or love you or that having you brought them into destitution? Just to clarify that last statement I do not blame anyone for bringing their family into financial difficulty. The cold hard truth is having kids costs money and that money has to come from somewhere and by forcing couples or individuals to have kids they never intended to this can and does lead to major financial difficulty. The blame for this lies at the feet of those who forced this situation.

None of these are pleasant thoughts. None of these should be taken lightly. Having an abortion should be a difficult decision but it should be a decision for the couple and more importantly the woman who has to carry the pregnancy, it is after all her body. Once the decision is made support and care should then be given to those who need it, not judgement and demonisation. "Judge not least ye be judged.", is that not how is goes?

While I was writing this blog entry, I am taking my time to write these, another state passed a very similar law. I did consider starting this again however the points I'm making here are all still relevant and the scenario seems basically the same to me. It just spreads the problem even further.

So who made this law possible, and for the moment let's stick to Alabama. 25 rich white men who have no right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her own body. I bet most of these idiots don't even really care about abortion. They just care about getting the votes they need to keep their cushy jobs. I even read that one of them asked a lover, not his wife at the time, to get an abortion. None of these arseholes has any right to tell anyone what to do with their own bodies. For passing this evil, and I don't use that word lightly, I hope that whatever "God" they believe in judges them good and hard!

Sometimes the motivation for doing something is almost as important as the deed itself. They simply want to be re-elected. I bet that if any of these idiots ever got their mistress pregnant that they wouldn't hesitate to ship them off to some other state that still allows abortion.

But let's not kid ourselves, making something illegal has never stopped it from happening, it just drives it underground and makes it more dangerous. Drugs are widely illegal yet millions take drugs every day. Prostitution is illegal (well it is in a lot of places) yet people still buy and sell sex. Both of these things have been driven underground and are now run by criminals who care nothing for those affected by it. Society is simply left to clean up the mess and chase dangerous criminals.

Women who feel trapped, who have lost access to the regulated, caring and specialised help may not all simply give up. People in desperate situations do desperate things. This law doesn't save lives, it ruins and ends them. By applying religious bias and feeling to laws meant to govern many faiths and those of no faith you create laws which are immoral and prejudicial. Just because abortion is legal doesn't mean everyone is suddenly go and do it. If you believe that god will judge you for doing it then don't do it! But don't take that option away from others and don't bring "him" into it when creating laws.

Abortion is first and foremost a human rights issue not a religious one and it certainly should NOT be used to gain votes during elections. Everyone involved in these laws should be firmly ashamed of themselves and should be removed from office if not sent to jail.

Just to finish up, I read a tweet from Janie Haddad Tompkins

If 25 women had voted to make Viagra illegal you can bet there would be an uproar about how it's not a woman’s place to legislate for a man penis. Well in the same vein men should stay the fuck away from women’s uterus and any other organs for that matter.

RANT OVER!    For now......