More on abortion

As might be expected there's a lot of talk about abortion in the blogospere right now.

In a few places I have seen the perrenial question, "What about the man's rights to help make the decision?"

As I see it, he doesn't have any. It's a binary choice. This isn't deciding how much money goes on one credit card or the other, or which movie to see tonight.

It's an either or. Either she carries it to term, or she aborts it.

Only one person gets to make that call. There's no way to split the Solomonic Ideal.

But, goes the cry, if she decides to keep the baby, he has to pay for it!

Qu'elle horreur. Shit happens. There are risks to sex. Pregnancy is one of them. If he didn't want the risk of a pregnancy, he ought to get cut, or buy a doll. Yeah, the good one's cost five-grand, but that's cheaper than food, clothes, daycare and college.

And, goes the flipside, what if he wanted the kid and she didn't? Well, he can talk to her, try to arrange a deal where he gets sole-custody, and she owes him nothing, but if she doesn't want to do that, he's SOL.

The argument also gets made, "He ought to be allowed to opt out."

This is the one which probably irks me more than any other.

It usually goes, more or less, like this.

In exchange for offering to pay for an abortion, he gets to walk away. If she takes it, he's out the cost of the abortion and no more.

If she doesn't, he's scot free. He, you see, "did the right thing." He offered to clean up the mess. She refused his noble offer, so she gets nothing more.

Bullshit. That's extortion. Being a single parent is hard. It limits things (jobs, housing, committed relationships) and makes life harder. He gets, in that scenario, to hang that over her head, get the abortion or suffer.

Reprehensible.

I feel for those people who want to make things just; who think that as two people are affected by the decision, two people ought to be involved in making it, but this is that simple. If abortion is an option, the woman gets to choose.

Is it better for the principles to sit down and talk about it. Probably, emotionally they probably both feel better afterwards. But it can't be required.

In a properly run world, abortion wouldn't be a real issue. Single parents wouldn't be any worse off than dual parents. Birth control methods would make accidental pregnancy more rare (and education would make BC more effective because people would use it properly).

But this isn't a perfect world, which means one person has to make the call, and that one person is the woman; she's pregnant. She is going to get stuck if he walks away (in theory he'd have to pay child support, but "dead-beat dads" wouldn't be a recurring theme in Time, and on the evening news if that were the case). He will be seen as the victim when she tries to get that child-support. She will be cast as a tramp and a harlot, conniving to get pregnant so she can live the easy life of a single mom without a husband to clean up after and all his money letting her stay at home and waste her life away on booze and other men.

It's about responsibility. One engages in risky behaviour, and one accepts the results.

On a pinhead

I didn't do a lot of cooking when soldiergrrrl was in town, but I did make some hot chocolate.

It was perfect.

Yesterday I made some more.

It was flat.

I sat, reading a Robert Parker novel, drinking my cocoa and wondering what was wrong with it.

I'd made a ganache, put in the cinnamon, added a dash of sugar, the milk, stirred until it was done.

Ah... there is wasn't, no vanilla.

The balance was off.

A lot of my cooking is seat of the pants. A pinch of this, a dash of that, so much time in the hot pan, and then into the simmering pot. It's all about the balance. It smells right, tastes right and I stop messing with it.

Photography is the same way.

Are the lines right, is the light getting to all nooks and crannies (or have I managed to make the shadows dark enough). Sometimes it can be as simple as making sure the bird's eye is in focus. Get that right and the viewer will forgive almost everything else. Losing that balance can be easy too. A stray sprig of grass, or a bit of paper in the background, will ruin an otherwise perfect shot.

Aikido... balance. Catch it and the largest of partners will crash to the ground, and it will seem as if you did nothing. Don't catch it and you may manage it, but it's a lot more work (Photoshop can fix the background too, but it's easier to get it right before hand).

Writing... it's balance. The right word, phrase, idea, is needed. Get an idea, and find the illustrations. Get the illustrations, and find the sequencing of them. String it all together to a culmination. Do it right and it's like Beethoven, or a rollercoaster, once it starts the ending is inevitable, and irresistable.

Practice helps. Food changes as you cook it. Heat changes things (onions get sweeter), and they blend. Sometimes you have to stop when the flavor is wrong, because to add more oregeno to the sauce will make it right; now, but in an hour it will be too strong.

So it takes practice.

Romance... Balance. I was out of town for Valentine's Day. Money was tight this year, so getting Maia a power tool (for us, Valentine's Day means Maia gets a power tool) was out. Yesterday I went to Aikido, and slipped into See's Candy, selected a lb. of chews and creams. Picked her up from her committee meeting, stayed to chat with the Atlee's over a bowl of bean soup, and side dishes of pistachios and pepitas. While she was brushing her teeth I slipped the box out of my bag, onto her pillow and then went to feed the dogs.

She was sitting at the gate of the bed (we have a loft) waiting for me. Not quite teary eyed.

Balance.

Right now I have a cup of chocolate. No cinnamon, but there's some almond to go with the vanilla. It isn't perfect, but it's not flat.

It's got balance.