Today I join hundreds of other bloggers around the nation to share why I am pro-choice.  Please forgive if this does not flow as well as I would like - I'm not feeling 100% today.

Blog for Choice Day is a chance to raise the profile of reproductive rights issues in the blogosphere and the media, and to let everyone know that a woman's right to choose is nonnegotiable.

Why do I support a woman's right to choose?

I believe that our society has been structured on principals of men exerting ownership over women, but that is not necessarily how the law has been structured.  Thus I believe that much of dialogue around choice/life is about women being free to make their own choices, not about unborn children.  Choice is about power and control, something our
society does not easily impart to women.  Thankfully, not all men fall into this trap and, sadly, too many women do.

I also believe that most people who are pro-life REALLY are anti-choice if you look at the sum total of their political stances and personal actions to "protect life."  Displaying a bumper sticker is not the same thing as becoming a foster parent or donating to child abuse prevention organizations.  Waving a dead fetus is not the same thing as cradeling a
baby born addicted to cocaine or holding the hand of a 14 year pregnant girl facing her rapist in court. Confronting clients at women's health clinics is not the same thing as
teaching young men to value and respect women (and themselves) or
speaking up when they don't.

Perhaps I focus to much on what the other side does or fails to do.  The hypocrisy around respecting life saddens me and sickens me, especially given that I work every day with children that are not being cared and tended for as they should.  Children who need society to step up and provide their families with adequate resources to parent effectively and children who sometimes need someone to step in and parent them directly.

Choice is about power and control.  I am in control of my body and my reproductive decisions.  I will not willingly relinquish that power. 

In another stunning effort to spin negative publicity, City Councilwoman Darlene Harris claims that she did not order a smoke eater machine to de-stuffify her office.  Ms. Harris simply wanted some box fans and now she is outraged, outraged I tell you, that someone mistakenly spent $1200 on the smoke eater.

"I wanted a little square box" with a ventilation fan, she said. Gesturing at the 2-foot-by-4-foot Trion Eliminator Series SE 800E mounted in the ceiling above her desk, she said, "When I came in and saw that thing, I couldn't believe it."

Harris, along with Student Body President Doug Shields, was featured in a recent Post-Gazette article about illicit smoking in the City-County Building.  Both admitted that they smoke in spite of a smoke prohibition rule going back before our new county-wide ban.  Neither seemed the least bit penitent which doesn't bode well for them to follow the new law. 

To summarize thus far, Harris has completely missed the point that this is about SMOKING not a smoke eating machine.  Her umbrage is matched only by her ridiculousness.  Not only is she refusing to take responsibility for breaking the law, but she's now pointing fingers at her political enemies whoever they may be:

She said she has asked Public Works Director Guy Costa why the device was ordered and installed when she only wanted a ceiling fan.

"I'm still trying to find that out, and I don't know if I ever will," she said. "I'd like to know, is this politics, or what?"

Yes, Darlene, it is politics at its most sad when an elected city leader openly violates the law because she's too lazy/proud/arrogant to go outside like the rest of the city employees.  It is politics at its lowest when an elected city leader shifts responsibility for her own stupid choices onto the shoulders of said city employees.  Public Works gets enough guff without having to ante up for your mistakes.

It is politics at its most disgusting when an elected city leader assumes we are foolish enough to be distracted from her illegal activities by other issues.

Ms. Harris said she has occasionally smoked in the office on nights when she was working late. She said she's been working hard to get more plainclothes police in North Side neighborhoods, catalog abandoned houses, identify drug and prostitution hot spots and write legislation to govern absentee landlords.

Let me get this straight --- according to her logic, if we want a more lawful community, she's going to have to break a few laws.  If we want healthier communities for our families and children, she's going to have to compromise the health of her staffers and others who visit the building.  If we want absentee landlords to take responsibility for their property, she's going to need the freedom to place responsibility on others.

She should have left well enough alone after the last article.  Doug Shields came off like a giggling schoolboy with a big man-crush on Luke, but that's nothing to the political harridan that is Darlene Harris.

Back in March, we reported on the West Virigina Sheriff who denied CPR to a dying gay man under the pretext that the man was HIV+.  The man, Claude Greene, died later that evening at a local hospital.  Greene's friend was present at the scene but was physically prevented from performing CPR by Robert K. Bowman, Sheriff of Welch, West Virginia.  Greene's mother filed a federal lawsuit claiming her son's civil rights had been violated along with a myriad of other chages, including a violation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In late December, the federal court ruled that the case could move forward:

Significant issues remain to be sorted out in this litigation, but at this initial stage, Faber's ruling permits the case to go forward on the basis that the estate may have a valid federal civil rights claim against the city and Bowman for the way in which Green was treated on the day of his fatal heart attack.

It is a complicated situation and far more legalistic than I can pretend to understand.  Bowman's folks claimed that since Greene was dead, there was no reason for a civil rights case. Bowman's folks also seem to claim that he prevented bystanders from performing CPR out of concerns about HIV transmission.  The federal judge noted that there is no record that performing CPR on an HIV+ person would present a transmission risk. 

The bastard was willing to let the wrongful death move forward.   Fortunately, the judge cleared the way for the whole kit and kaboodle.

Did I mention that Greene was not HIV+?  Nope, he was just gay. And, thankfully, the idiot responsible for his death could pay the price for his bigotry and hate. 

Sadly, Claude Greene has already paid the ultimate price for it.