Posts Written by Melanie

I Never Wanted to Be Pro-Choice

It’s true. I NEVER wanted to be pro-choice. NEVER. I was raised Catholic, by very conservative parents, and even as I grew older and increasingly left the teachings of the Church and my parents behind, I still held fast to my pro-life beliefs. Even as my latent feminism finally stopped being latent, I continued to be vehemently and steadfastly against abortion, in all cases, without exception. It has been one of my core beliefs, a truth as universal and real to me as the sun rising each morning.

Until now.

Do I still hate abortion? Certainly, I do. I don’t think anyone “likes” abortion, despite the media-fueled stereotype of the bra-burning, man-hating bitch who delights in the idea of reckless, consequence-free sex that culminates in the destruction of an unborn child. The fact is 35% of women will have an abortion during their reproductive years. Do all these women hate children? Are all these women “loose?” Are all these women evil?

The answer is emphatically, unequivocally, NO. The fact that over a third of women will have an abortion during their lifetimes shows that this issue crosses all religious, racial, socioeconomic, political, and cultural lines. Rich women, poor women, educated women, illiterate women; women of faith and agnostic women, they all have abortions. We have abortions to save our lives and to save our families. We have them to maintain our autonomy, to exercise responsibility. No woman I know who has had an abortion came to the decision capriciously. To suggest otherwise is an vile lie.

Reading a Magazine on my Lunch Break

Sacrifice your dignity on the altar of
eternal beauty,
one more treatment and you’ll be just perfect, darling.
Lose a couple pounds and then you’ll be just right.
All the beauty clichés your mother whispered in your
baby ears
about skin deep beauty in the eye of the beholder;
the beholder is a man
and you don’t look as young as you used to, baby.
Your hair and skin are chemically smoothed to
a synthetic shine
but your eyes in sunken sockets
glitter like a hungry cat’s.
Your enemy’s arsenal is powerful.
Its weapons are sharp and bright
and they tear you to pieces in broad daylight.
Shock and awe and desperation
to attain the unattainable
Perfection.

Sacrifice your dignity on the altar of
eternal beauty,
one more treatment and you’ll be just perfect, darling.
Lose a couple pounds and then you’ll be just right.
All the beauty clichés your mother whispered in your

You didn’t ask, but here are my thoughts on attachment parenting anyway

Attachment parenting. The term is everywhere, right? Time magazine’s awful cover story “Are You Mom Enough” seemed to bring the whole debate to a (tasteless, judgemental) head. Can I just tell you how that cover infuriated me? I breastfed my two sons for a year each (due to her illness at birth I was unable to successfully establish breastfeeding with my daughter) and I’m certainly a proponent of it the practice. However, the cover’s question itself, which clearly implies that if you don’t do this-and-such you are NOT “mom enough” is absolutely reprehensible. On the heels of generations of slut-shaming women for their sexual choices, now a new way to divide, belittle, and demean women has been found: if she ...

Attachment parenting. The term is everywhere, right? Time magazine’s awful cover story “Are You Mom Enough” seemed to bring the whole debate to a (tasteless, judgemental) head. Can I just tell you how that cover infuriated me? ...