My Platform

Looking at those photos this morning so upset me, I took a moment to write down my thoughts for what we as a society need to change, enlarge, add or amend.

1. Foster Care for women who choose to keep their baby but have no one to help them through the pregnancy, deliver and settling into parenthood.

2. Health care for the child and mother and prenatal care.

3. Job Training

4, Education so every mother can achieve at a minimum a GED.

5. Job Placement

6. Safe, loving daycare

7. Birth control education - graphic by high school –what is really involved in an abortion, in labor, in being a single parent, in being a father, in adoption.

8. Availability of birth control.I don't like handing it out to everyone, per se, many don’t need or want it yet. I do think it should be available with no questions asked. Better to never be pregnant in the first place than have to make weighty decisions later.

9. A backing off of the topic of sex in TV, movies and music. No, not legislated. But kids are inundated. Can we not write of something else? Things can be funny or dramatic without sex.

10. Protection of women, girls and children.This one is hard to express, but I feel passionate about it. Society used to protect its women. Men used to protect women. Fathers used to protect their daughters. Community used to protect their children.While we women don’t want to be put into some kind of box, the reality is we are prey. It does no good for the rabbit to say he is just as strong as the fox. He isn’t.Our daughters need to know that. There is nothing wrong with good men protection women. Or good women protecting other women. We need to do all we can to assure rapes don’t happen.

11. Self-defense, safety smarts.Girls and women need to learn to defend themselves. We also need to be aware of how predators work so we can guard against them.

12. Stiff penalties for rapists.I don’t know much about this. What would deter a rapist? Are they often able to be rehabilitated? Again, we need to do all we can to assure rape doesn’t happen.

13. Safe places for girls and women to report fears, to ask questions, to find birth control.
Hot lines and centers that aren’t affiliated with pro-abortion or anti-abortion places.

Feel free to add your own ideas.

I have this sense what we need to do is stop looking to government to cure our problems. That these programs might be more efficient if run outside the government. Perhaps funded by grants, not an actual budget item.

I have this old fashioned notion that a great deal of our modern ills come from having moved off the front porch. When people know their neighbors, they can look out for each other. Help when needed. So often now we look to government to be the safety net instead of neighbors or community. I don’t think government makes the best safety net.I think people fall through the cracks because government is so big we assume there must be some program to help them. After all we pay enough in taxes.

OK, shoot the soap box out from under me. Just don’t shoot me. :)