Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Differences of Opinion

Before I talk about today I want to draw your attention to this great article in the Ottawa Citizen about sex-selective abortion. It's a topic that I've been thinking, hearing and reading a lot about lately and I do intend to blog about it soon.

That said, I was back at the clinic and escorting this week for the first time in what seems like a million years. It was great to be back, to catch up with my escorts and all the news regarding their various academic and career pursuits. We definitely had an interesting conversation about relationships, and where you draw the line in terms of ideological differences. As in, could someone like me successfully date a Catholic? And I'm not just talking someone who was raised Catholic but is kind of lapsed; I mean a full on, church-going, rosary-praying type. And it's not the difference in spiritual paths that would bother me so much as the ideological differences and political differences. Abortion is an obvious one. Because I could date someone who was opposed to some other political issue, but abortion could become so personal. As in, if I got pregnant and my decision was an abortion, could he get behind that and respect my choice? Or, in the case that we were discussing, if she decided to be an abortion provider, could he step back and respect that? And so on. It raises all kinds of interesting questions.

It was good to be out now that the weather is getting warmer. The protesters hardly gave us any trouble today. The Holy Ghost slips in to talk to a patient any time we're not paying close enough attention, but she's so ineffective it doesn't really matter.

One funny/irritating thing did happen. One of the other escorts was walking a patient and her partner up the ramp. The partner was drinking a coffee, and the escort, TH, said something along the lines of, oh, I bet you wish you could have a coffee (as the patients are only allowed to drink water). And the partner said, well it's her fault. Or something along those lines. Can you imagine? If I were getting an abortion, the dude involved would be taking me there, keeping his mouth shut, and taking me out for lunch afterwards. I mean really, it takes two to tango, there, smarty-pants.

I thought I might do some shameless cross-promotion here and mention that I am organizing a protest on May 3rd against Bill C-484, in solidarity with the protest taking place in Ottawa the same day. For details, you can email me or check out the Facebook event.

1 comment:

Desembarazarme said...

I work at an abortion clinic in Atlanta, and I adore your blog. It's one of the only journals I can completely identify with, and you say a lot of the things I want to, but can't quite articulate...especially after a draining day at the clinic!

Thank you so much for everything you do.