odd dream night...

so my dad came over yesterday, and like the knight in shining armor he is, he cleaned my kitchen, walked my dog, bought me nukeable groceries and sick food and got me one or two things he knows i love to eat for when i'm feeling better.

yea, dad! you rock the house!

i had some really bizarre dreams last night. they're a little too personal for blogging the events, but some of the themes are probably worth discussing here. back to the nature of attraction: the star character in my dream was someone i admire deeply. she has the courage of her convictions in spite of a hostile environment and a stark lack of support in those convictions from most of the people around her. she and i were roommates in the air force academy, and i only wish we could have kept in closer contact since then. we catch up periodically, but i would love to know more about her and how her life is going. i was about to say that, ironically, in spite of my admiration for her, i've never desired her romantically. thinking on it, though, i don't think that's so ironic. i've got a pretty well-honed gaydar, and i have never yet set my sights on someone who was straight. if i admire someone that much, and still don't have any romantic inclinations toward her, it's because she's absolutely 100% straight. so, it's not ironic that i've never wanted more from her than friendship, it's telling.

that said, in my dream, she did something i really don't admire: she had an abortion. i know for some people, in some situations, it's the only thing to do. i know sometimes, it's the right thing to do. i know it's rarely an easy decision. but in my dream, she (very uncharacteristically) treated the abortion as a joking matter. she talked about using the "social cache" of motherhood to get special treatment from people, to manipulate people, and then aborted the pregnancy and played it up as a miscarriage for more sympathy and special treatment. the woman i roomed with would never behave like that, but dreaming about it has put the issue at the forefront of my processor today.

i support, politically speaking, every woman's right to control her own reproductive processes and to terminate a pregnancy if she is not prepared to see it through. i don't want any desperate 15-year old girl dying in a back alley under a dirty knife because she had no legal recourse to a clean, safe procedure she was going to have anyway. i feel the same way i do about this as i do about HIV -- i don't want anyone to have to die because they were ill-informed about prevention.

i know that means that i am supporting every woman's ability to have an abortion in any way and with whatever attitude she happens to have. i just wish i could impress upon each and every woman the significance i impart to motherhood, and the way other women like me wish for it. my sister risked her life, literally, to have children. her delivery required some 30 people attending to ensure her safety and that of her girls... she has a complicated medical history and we were all terrifically relieved to see them all survive, let alone thrive as they have. i wish that every woman who can't keep her own baby would be selfless enough to carry that baby to term and see it into the hands of a family who wants it desperately.

so, politically, and realistically, i understand that because i support a woman's ability to safely and legally abort a pregnancy i am also allowing abortion to be taken as seriously or as lightly as the woman in question takes it. i can't impose my point of view on anyone and i usually don't want to, but some days, i wish i could.