What does "choice" really mean?"

Like every other moral and thinking person in North Carolina, I was horrified to read this profile of a local sheriff who was recently the president of our state sheriff's association:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/immigration/story/1209646.html

The story is wrong on multiple levels, but the thing that stuck out most to me is how this man, who is vested with his community's power, looks at the Latino children in his county. He looks at his county's children, counts them, and sees "trash" and "tax burdens."

And he crystallizes precisely why I consider myself pro-choice. I might not be morally comfortable with abortion but I'm extremely against giving the government control over when and how many children women are allowed to have. Choice isn't just about not having children, it's also about having as many as you want.

He's right -- the Spanish-speaking population, mostly Mexican, in North Carolina is growing fast. I volunteer in my local hospital visiting new parents and most weeks, 7 out of 10 of the mothers and fathers are Spanish-speaking. I walk into hospital rooms overflowing with siblings, cousins and friends -- all brimming with joy.

But many Carolinians, (obviously he wouldn't be in power if he didn't have like-minded constituents) despite professing to be evangelical and pro-life, look at these family's babies and wish they weren't born.

There's a long history in North Carolina of the public's sense of who should and shouldn't have children translating into policy. Between 1929 and 1974, 7,600 people in North Carolina were sterilized -- most of them against their will. Mind you, many states had these programs but after 1945, when the horrors of Nazi Germany were exposed, ended the practice of eugenics. North Carolina continued for another 30 years.

http://againsttheirwill.journalnow.com/

There's also a long tradition of self-proclaimed Christian people de-humanizing other peoples' children. From Quakers who saw Native American kids and thought if they'd just cut their hair and speak English they could stop being "savage" (old-timey speak for what Sheriff Bizell calls "trash") to Catholics and Protestants in Rwanda and Nazi Germany thinking it was acceptable to murder Tutsi and Jewish children.

Anti-choice people talk a good game gushing about Trig, Sarah Palin's Down syndrome baby. But privately you often hear something different.

I remember a couple years ago an anti-choice, evangelical relative around a holiday dinner table said "what a blessing it is" that there are so few babies with Downs being born anymore. Earlier this year, while talking about the ethics of genetic testing, a pro-Sarah Palin friend of mine made a mocking toilet flushing sound, laughed, and said the decision to abort a pregnancy if the baby tested for Downs would be a "no-brainer." If the far-right is comfortable with eliminating children born with Downs, just how far away are we from women being forced to abort pregnancies that turn up genetic abnormalities?

Scratch below the surface of those who profess to want a "culture of life" and too often you find what they mean is white, non-disabled, looks-just-like-me- and - goes - to - my - specific - brand- of- church life.

Sheriff Bizell is the tip of the iceberg (read the comments at the end of the story.)

Joe Biden did a fantastic job yesterday on Meet the Press of explaining how he balances being pro-choice and a practicing Roman Catholic:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608

For those of us on both sides of the choice issue, it's instructive. If you want to cut the rate of abortion, why not create a serious, authentic culture of life where *every* child born in America, not just the perfect and the white and the rich, has the right to education, food, shelter, and health care? If you're really, really serious -- how about quality daycare for women who need to work or finish their education?

Let's look at every child, born in every country, and instead of seeing a "burden" see "The Future."