Monday, January 23, 2012

Why Are All Those Mexicans Marching?

A woman asked me that question on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco.

I had seen the huge throng of people with signs, but I had no idea what it was about. I thought it might have been an "Occupy" protest. Looking a little closer, I saw the "Pro-Life" signs.

The woman who approached me seemed a little agitated. I told her that I really didn't know. She followed up with a comment that "more white people should be having more children", and I just looked at her.

Of course, by this time I realized she was a little bit of a nut case. We ducked into a chocolate shop to avoid any further discussion with her. Chocolate seems to right the wrongs of the world in most cases.

There may have been a lot of Hispanic people marching that day. I would attribute some of that to the Catholic Church. I'm not sure though.

I sort of take exception with the words "Pro-Life". I mean, is anybody really "Anti-Life"? Even the opposite slogan "Pro-Choice" sort of annoys me. Don't we all want choices? Do we want to have choices made for us? I think not. If I could choose, I might want to live in Paris, drive a new Mercedes, and be 30 years old and married to Steve Jobs, and have Denzel as a lover. Is that an option? Of course not.

If one of my young teen granddaughters got pregnant by her daddy, her brother, her uncle, or a rapist, do I want her to have the choice to end the pregnancy? Yes, I do. Do I want to see the man who impregnated her in prison. Yeah, I do.

If a woman is carrying a child who has severe mental and/or physical disabilities, should she have the choice of terminating her pregnancy? I think she should have that choice. In the alternative, if a woman wants to have a baby that is the product of incest or rape, should she be forced to end a pregnancy? No, she should not.

Does that make me anti-life? I don't think so. It really is about individual rights, and perhaps the rights of a woman placed before the rights of a fetus.

Although I am Mexican, I wasn't marching that day.

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