Stuck In The Middle

Years ago, my husband, our kids, and I were the last ones arriving at an extended family party. When we walked in, the rest of the relatives were in the middle of an argument. Both sides pounced on us, expecting us to be the tiebreaker. The argument was about kids walking to and from school. There were two distinct camps.

One side believed that it was good for kids. Kids need exercise and independence, they said. Especially with childhood obesity rates soaring, kids need the exercise. They also needed to learn responsibility, and make sure that they got themselves to school on time.

The other side believed that it was profoundly dangerous to leave kids unsupervised in public. Letting kids walk by themselves was just asking for them to be molested, or abducted and murdered. No responsible parent would allow it, they said.

Knowing that we had school aged kids, both sides demanded, "What do YOU do?"

"We drive them to school, and they walk home," I said.

Everyone stared, puzzled. They were sure that this was an either/or situation, and we'd given them an "and." They all wanted to know, "Why?"

"We're not really morning people, so nobody would be ready in time to walk to school. But after school, they can dawdle on the way home."

The argument petered out, as no one seemed to be able to process the idea of doing both - and every school day, not even just occasionally.

That certainly wasn't the first, or last, time that I have puzzled or angered people by "taking both sides." I've come to believe that many people see most things as an either/or scenario, and I just don't. I'm not trying to be difficult or controversial. My analyses just often don't match those of other people.

Recently, in our women's meeting at church, the teacher asked how we all personally felt about abortion as part of our class discussion. Most times, when this subject comes up, whether in person or online, there are two sides who are convinced that theirs is the only moral and reasonable opinion. They break into two camps - abortion is murder, and women's choices are noone else's business. I think that both arguments have truth, and falsehoods, in them.

In class, I shared my opinions, and the personal experiences that I think back those opinions up.

Years ago, I watched video footage of some kind of meeting - I think it was a campaign event, but I no longer remember. The (male) speaker on the stage was opposed to abortions, for any reason. A (female) audience member challenged him - "What if the woman is young, and has no support from the baby's father? What if she has no parental support? What if she has no money? What if having this baby means that she will never finish college?"

Even before I met my oldest brother, I had opinions about abortion, but after I met him, I had even stronger opinions. When I heard the woman on the screen asking those questions, I cried, because she was describing my mother. 

The year after my mother graduated from high school, she was dating a man that she was serious about; we even have a certificate indicating that she changed religions at the time, so I think that they may have been engaged. Apparently very abruptly, they broke up, she burned every photo with him in it, and she moved 2000 miles away. We always knew this, and knew that she didn't like to discuss it. What we didn't know is that she was pregnant at the time, and just before she turned 20, she placed my brother for adoption.

Despite being brilliant, she never went to college. She obviously was no longer in a relationship, or even in contact, with my brother's father. I don't know what her family knew or didn't know, but I do know that she made the choice to move across the country from both of her parents, any of her friends, and from her extended family. 

And yet - my mother died at 84. My brother died at 74. We don't need to imagine what kid of lives they led; we know. I can state absolutely categorically that noone's life was ruined. My mother had a career that she loved and at which she excelled. She married, twice, and raised four children. She had grandchildren that she loved. She traveled, she gardened, she read - she had a great life. My brother describes his forever parents as "perfect." He went to college, served a church mission, married, raised nine children, traveled extensively, had not one but multiple careers that he loved and that he did well, had grandchildren that he loved. He had a great life.

Adoption was the best choice for my brother, his family, my mom. There's no question at all. I know that pregnancy and delivery can be dangerous; three of my childrens' births would have killed me and them a century earlier. That makes me admire women like my mother more. She gave joy to my brother, his parents, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren - and that's without even considering anyone outside of my brother's immediate family.

So, hearing someone opine that such a woman's life will automatically ruined if they carry an unplanned baby upsets me.

Sometimes when I share this story, people assume that I'm a "no abortion ever" kind of person. That's inaccurate. Yes, I think that many women should choose to place babies for adoption. I know too many adoptive families to think otherwise. But I don't think that abortion should be outlawed for a simple reason - when that happens, women and babies are at risk. They die. It's documented, over and over.

Plus, do you want someone who does NOT want to be a parent to be raising children?

I usually explain it this way; I don't drink alcohol. I don't think that anyone should. I can back that opinion up with study after study. There's the physical effects of alcohol - cirrhosis, addiction, and more. It's a depressant. There's all the deaths and mayhem from driving while drunk. There's the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in prison, whether they're there for white collar crime or violent crime, admit to being intoxicated during their crimes. Domestic violence is linked to alcohol consumption. Then there are all the ordinary "I wish I wouldn't have" moments when someone's been drinking, especially too much. There's so many reasons to avoid alcohol.

Yet, we know from experience that when alcohol is outlawed, bad things happen. People don't stop drinking, it just becomes entangled with crime, often violent crime. We, the country, tried it, and it doesn't work. People should make the decision to avoid it (or not) on their own.

Whether or not to have a baby follows the same pattern. People should be allowed to make their own choices. Otherwise, bad things happen. 

My religion tells me that free will is the most sacred gift that God gave us.

As with adoption, I have had personal experience that has solidified for me that my opinion on abortion is the correct one.

Between the births of my younger two children, I had what I usually describe as a miscarriage. It was actually an ectopic pregnancy, one where the embryo implants in the Fallopian tube instead of in the uterus.

I was in a play at the time, and we had a fairly extensive stretching routine as part of our warmups. I grumbled a bit, since I'm not very flexible. When I woke up on a Sunday with a sore lower back, I figured that I'd pulled a muscle. It was the last day of my period, so I was already uncomfortable. All through church, the pain got worse. Medicine didn't seem to touch it. 

Through the day, it got steadily worse. By evening, I was lying on the couch, unable to concentrate. My husband fed the kids and put them to bed. I tried to watch TV, but I couldn't. The pain just kept getting worse.

I went to bed at bedtime, but I couldn't sleep. It hurt too much. Even more worrisome, the pain moved from my lower back to my abdomen. It occurred to me that pulled muscles don't move. Just after midnight, a lightbulb went off in my head. I remembered one of my best friends describing his wife's ectopic pregnancy, and how she almost died on a camping trip.

At that point, I woke my husband, and said, "We need to go to the ER."

The hospital asked if I was pregnant, and I answered truthfully, "My period just ended yesterday," but I was not surprised at all when the pregnancy test came back positive. They did a scan and told me that the pregnancy was ectopic. I found out in a single hour both that I was pregnant, and that I could not have the baby. "We can't handle your treatment here," I was told. "We can't touch you if you're pregnant." They sent me by ambulance to a hospital across town, while my husband followed in our car.

Once there, they impressed upon me the seriousness of my condition. "If this ruptures, you will bleed to death before we can get you to the OR," they told me. This was a Catholic hospital, and there was no hesitation or discussion about what needed to happen. They informed me, not asked me. I would be having surgery. The entire Fallopian tube would be removed. And this, they impressed upon me, had to happen quickly.

I feel the need to point out that detail again. A Catholic hospital did not hesitate to perform my surgery, surgery that meant the death of the embryo. They also told me that the other Fallopian tube was almost completely clogged with scar tissue, so even with only one, my chances of having this happen again was astronomical. "Do NOT try to get pregnant again," they said. When I asked if they could "tie off' the remaining tube during the surgery, they recoiled and assurred me that that was not possible. "That's birth control, and we do not perform that procedure here." Yet with the ectopic pregnancy, there was no question. It had to be done, or I would die.

If a Catholic hospital had no question or hesitation, then there really isn't much reason for anyone else to be unclear. I have occasionally heard people say that the "life of the mother" consideration is a smokescreen argument instead of an actual reality. This is wrong even in healthy pregnancies, but it's not only wrong but deeply insensitive to say to someone like me who has lost a pregnancy. 

I was placed on the maternity ward after my surgery since I had "female issues," the only woman in the ward who did not have a new baby. They wheeled me past the waiting room where an OB was giving the news of a birth to the waiting relatives, who whooped and cheered. Even one of the doctors who checked on me while making his rounds started his conversation with me by saying, "How's the baby?" If you haven't experienced that, especially experienced that after having fertility problems, you have no idea what it feels like. And telling me that I should have accepted dying, and leaving the three children that I already had, strikes me as deeply immoral.

I told these two stories in my church meeting. Occasionally in moments like that, I'm told that I'm trying "to play both sides," or avoiding "taking a stand," which is so annoying. I'm actually analyzing situations on their own merit, instead of indulging in the groupthink of assuming that all I need is one piece of information, and all choices after that will be made for me. I'm used to making both "sides" angry. I have no patience for being told that I have to adhere to either a "liberal" or "conservative" philosophy. None of the women in that room said anything of the kind, or criticized me, at all. That was refreshing and appreciated.

I am aware that my medical chart says "medical abortion" (as opposed to "spontaneous abortion," the medical term for a miscarriage). As I said, in my head I classify the event as a miscarriage. The exception is when someone tells me that there's no excuse to end a pregnancy, ever. Then I have a lot to say. 

My middle daughter is even more blunt. "So, you're OK with my mom dying?" she asks.

I'm bracing myself for the chance that I'll be inundated with people telling me how wrong I am, in one situation or another, because I'm putting this out on the Internet. I hope that I'm wrong about that.

But I still think that I'm right about there being two valid sides to this issue, not just one.

To Every Thing There Is A Season

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I'm always willing to have respectful conversations about differences. Especially given that I try very hard to extend respect, though, it's really exhausting how many people phrase their questions to me or people like me in truly confrontational terms - "What kind of idiot believes..." and, "How could you possibly..." and "How can you ignore..." That last one is especially annoying when it's wielded by people who define "ignore" as, "You didn't change your mind after I told you that you were wrong!" Folks, that is not what "ignore" means. Ignoring you would be not responding at all or pretending that you hadn't spoken. It does not mean hearing what you have to say and simply maintaining one's own opinion (even when you think that opinion is wrong or "stupid"). I don't tell you that you're "ignoring" me because you continue to have opinions and beliefs that I do not share. Let's try to extend each other the same courtesies, shall we?

Anyway, there's been a whole lot of interpersonal and online questions aimed at people of my religion lately, because we 1. (gasp!) Believe things that others do not, and 2. My church leaders have made quite a few procedural changes in recent years. People who know that they do not agree with my religion are apparently continually astonished that they still don't agree with us - like that should be a surprise, to them or to me. There's lots of, "Can you believe that someone said/did..." like it's just amazing - which puzzles me, because I don't spend any time being surprised by the fact that I don't agree with religions to which I do not belong. I certainly don't post on social media about it, or engage people who are members in conversations about why I'm not a member.

Anyway. I digress.

So, I'm going to explain 1. why changes don't bother me, and 2. why not everything will, or should, change. I don't think I'll change any minds, but I assume that others really do want to understand, not just to insist on agreement. (Call me crazy...) You will definitely not agree with me if you think that all religion is superstitious nonsense, but please save us time by not being surprised or outraged by that. You also won't agree if you don't view Jesus as the Messiah; don't be surprised by that, either. It'll just save us both time and frustration.

To demonstate my points, I'm going way back - back to the Old Testament. For centuries, people followed the Law of Moses. A significant part of that was the law of sacrifice. Dating back to the time Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, people had been commanded to sacrifice the first and best of their crops, livestock, etc. in the temple. There were all kinds of associated laws - what was acceptable, when to sacrifice it, how to sacrifice it, where to sprinkle or spread the blood of the sacrificed animals. It was part of what separated God's Chosen People from the "heathen."

Following me? OK.

Now, it's New Testament time. Here comes Jesus. He declares that there should be no more "burnt offerings," no more animal sacrifices, no more crop sacrifices. This law had run its course; it had been "fulfilled."

Theologically, the sacrifice was supposed to remind people of the Messiah, the Savior. Now that the Savior had come, those were no longer needed. Christ asked them to offer "a contrite spirit" instead of animal sacrifice.

Were the people thrilled about this? Did they say, "Wow, this is great! Not only has the Messiah come, but this frees up time and food that my family can use!"? No; they accused Jesus of trying "to destroy the law and the prophets."

Some of what they said is recorded in the Bible, and I'm pretty sure that I can imagine how a lot of conversations not recorded went. People were furious and scandalized. This was, after all, The Way Things Have Always Been Done, it was the Word of God, it was how one earned salvation, generations had followed these precepts - and now they were being asked to discard it. This made no sense to the vast majority of believers.

The problem was in thinking the same way many people today think. "Were you wrong before, or are you wrong now?" Because, people assume, if you've changed something, something has to be wrong. People don't seem to be able to understand that both ways can be right, for their time and circumstances.

Of course, not everything is fulfillment of prophesy, like the arrival of the Messiah, but the idea of different behaviors for different circumstances shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who's been younger than they are now (which is all of us), and especially for parents. Do you treat your toddlers the same way you treat your teens? Of course not. Does that mean that you were wrong to treat them differently, that "different" automatically equals "not fair?" Of course not.

Now that brings us to the flip side of that coin, people who assume that everything must unavoidably change; that, in fact, anything that doesn't change is wrong. To look at that idea, let's go back to the Old Testament again.

Let's look at the Ten Commandments. Most societies, religious or not, agree with at least some of those commandments, things like "don't murder each other" and "don't take things that don't belong to you." Let's agree that, even if you don't follow all of the ten, you recognize that these rules go back many centuries, and are accepted by people of differing religions as the basis of their moral code.

I'm going to take one of these as my example - "Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor." There are so many laws based on this concept - plagiarism, libel, false advertising, perjury, breach of contract, defamation, slander and more. Pretty much every system of government has laws against false witness.

If I come across a religion that tells me that these ideas are outdated, outmoded, unnecessary, embarassingly backward, I know that I do not want to practice that religion; I don't think anybody should practice that religion. (The same is true, actually, of a government.) That's because some things do not change, so our attitude toward them, and our observance of them, shouldn't change. Saying, "OK, it was accepted in the past, but we know better now" doesn't sway me.

In general (although this isn't a hard and fast rule), practices change; doctrine shouldn't.

Many practices will change, and those changes don't mean that anyone is, or was, wrong. But some things are wrong, and time, popular opinion and other societal changes don't make wrong things, like false witness, right.

Sometimes I hear from people who are waiting for changes that they think should come, or those who feel wounded by changes that have come, and they talk about how pained and unhappy and angry they feel. The entire church (or all humanity), they think, should so obviously be doing things the way that makes sense to them. I understand that their pain is real, but I don't think that's the fault of any religion or its adherents. It's a problem with unrealistic expectations. How many times were you in tears as a child, or have you watched your child be in tears, because you couldn't have a pony, had to take a bath, had to do homework? That's what that pain looks like to God. He's lived many centuries longer than we have, so He has perspective and experience that we don't. He hurts because we hurt and He loves us, but not because He's doing things wrong and we children would do it better.

So, in summary, change is inevitable - but not all change. Makes sense?

Legal Vices and Their Champions

I was recently asked to write sample newspaper columns, 700 words each or thereabouts, as a way of auditioning, if you will, for an opening at a local paper. They didn't hire me, which is OK - it turns out that they wanted someone well connected to the local political scene, and that's not me.

I've printed two of the sample columns below. The editor wanted my take on local issues. In light of the media coverage lately of Harry Reid's take on prostitution, and John Ensign's take on Harry's position (which, in my opinion, boiled down to "I won't take a stand, because then someone would disagree with me, and I'm trying to rebuild my credibility before I run for office again, hoping everyone will have forgotten the whole infidelity/bribery/misuse of funds and influence thing so I can return to office,") I thought I'd put my two cents out there.

Let's keep in mind, 700 words didn't give me enough space to address the whining about what the supposedly crushing loss of brothel revenue would mean. First and foremost, whenever anyone says that without the brothels and their fees, the rural economies would be crippled, the schools will close, there will be fewer police officers, firefighters, apple pie, baseball and everything good, I feel like saying, "You're so right. There are no rural counties anywhere else in the other 49 states and the District of Columbia that manage to function without brothel income." Give me a break. And for the rest of my feelings, see my take on legalized marijuana. The arguments are interchangeable.

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I have lived in Nevada for my entire life – I was born at St. Mary's Regional Medical Center. I can sing "Home Means Nevada" and mean it. I am not here by default; I am here because I choose to be. Still, I cannot shake the feeling that occasionally overwhelms me that Nevadans do a good job of embarrassing themselves and the rest of us. I'm not talking about John Ensign, although I admit that his latest fiasco had me fuming, "Oh, thanks so much for making the rest of us look wonderful!" I mean some of our laws and policies that make me cringe.

I swear, the ink wasn't dry on the law allowing brothels to advertise before the tops of every taxicab in town were covered with glowing ads, ads I had to explain to my youngest child. I do not want to discuss the offered services with small children.

It's bad enough to live somewhere where I've seen, for my entire life, things like Yellow Pages ads for brothels that screamed, "It's legal here!" and "Private airstrip and limousines!" but now I have to endure ridiculous and even misleading advertising campaigns. Mind you, I don't want to see sex acts described 40 feet high, but I was astonished by the choices of words on the brothel billboards. One of the first ones I saw advertised a brothel on the way to a popular boating spot as a "deli." Truly! Can you imagine a family on the way to the reservoir pulling over hoping to buy potato salad and ham sandwiches?

"Resort and spa!" says one description. I've stayed at resorts, but I've always done so with my kids, and I doubt that many of their activities and services are available at a brothel. I doubt that I could get a facial there.

Even when they attempt to be a bit more accurate, I resent having to explain terms like "cage dance" to my kids. Would it be possible to simply say, "Adult entertainment; must be 21"?

I used to look around Las Vegas and say, "At least Reno doesn't do that," but the distinction is getting smaller. Strip club ads used to be one of those things, but no more.

Visiting my daughter at college in Las Vegas and being treated to huge billboards with buttocks hanging out of thongs was one of those cringe inducing experiences. How can any reasonable human possibly be OK with that? Don't give me a lecture about the beauty of the human form and how sexuality is not shameful. I'm not going to discuss my personal life with you, but let me assure you that my opinion is not about shame. It's about appropriateness. Would you clip your nails at the dinner table, or discuss your finances with a department store clerk or have your postman make discipline decisions for your kids? Of course not. It's not appropriate. Plus, the fact that the body is beautiful, sacred and made by God is the very reason that your buttocks, or mine, should not be on display for everyone to see. Do we all remember the Biblical warning not to cast pearls before swine, and what that means?

Remember when The Men's Club opened downtown, and to appease those who opposed it, they promised that the words "girl" or "girls" would never be used in their ads? How long did that last? (Does anyone even remember that there was opposition?)

I'd rather live without these services nearby, but since that's unlikely, can we please have some decorum?

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There's a reason for the old adage, "Know your audience." It's applicable in politics, advertising, dinner table conversation – just about any situation you can imagine. Frequently I find that people are neglecting to consider their audience when speaking to me about recreational marijuana legalization. They invariably say, "It's no different than alcohol," leaving me having to remind them, "You do remember that I don't drink?"

By "don't drink," I mean never have. At age 12, I joined (without my parents, but with their consent) a religion that forbids alcohol. I went through my teen years without feeling a need to question that wisdom or push those boundaries. I cannot imagine a circumstance occurring in my adult years that would make me change my mind.

The number of people who say to me, "Not even wine?" staggers me - like I'll say, "Oh, of course I have WINE! I'm not a zealot!" I once truly offended a relative. We were eating dinner at her house, and she was splashing wine into the gravy. I asked if she could possibly set some aside without wine. She glared at me – she considers advising the cook to be a capital offense anyway – and snapped, "All the alcohol burns off in cooking. You can't even taste it." She was not prepared for my response, but she should have seen it coming: "If you can't even taste it, why put it in?" Whether you find alcohol to be unacceptable morally, like me, or are a recovering addict, like many of my friends, no alcohol means no alcohol.

For the record, even though I eat meat, I provide vegetarian entrees when I host vegetarians. When my son invited a Muslim classmate to his birthday party during Ramadan, I waited until after sunset to serve the (cheese) pizza. It's just common courtesy.

I did not grow up on a sheltered commune somewhere. I was born in Reno; I graduated from Reed High in Sparks. I've spent my life the same places everyone around me has. I just never indulged.

I'm not the only one. I can introduce you to dozens of people, older, younger and the same age as myself, with similar stories. A thirty-something friend just posted on his Facebook page, " So I was standing in a circle of 7-8 guys today and discovered that I was the only one in the group who had never done crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, hash, mushrooms, Ecstasy, marijuana, OxyContin, alcohol or cigarettes."

So, clearly, I am not your target audience for discussions of how marijuana is equal to alcohol – or nicotine or anything else legal.

Occasionally, I actually have to trot out statistics on alcohol related disease, crime, auto accidents and the like before people will concede that I may have a valid point. Let's not even discuss stupid, cringeworthy, wish-it-never happened moments and the societal costs of drinking.

The same goes for smoking. Do I honestly have to point out the disease quotient of smoking, the toll it takes on health and wellbeing? Please tell me I don't, that it's all understood. Telling me it will be "regulated" isn't a big plus. Alcohol and tobacco are regulated.

I have to resort to sarcasm when someone says, "tax revenue." Oh, there's MONEY to be made? Why didn't you say so? You know what else makes lots of money? Child porn! Heroin! We gotta jump on those opportunities! There's a world of unexplored possibilities!

Now, here's my dilemma. Even the history impaired should be aware of the violence and corruption of the Prohibition era. Humans don't handle being told "no" very well. Oh, what to do?