I would like to preface the following politically charged opinion piece with this statement: I can’t wait for the election to be over.

 Not just because I hope that my locally tuned-in country radio station will cease playing Toby Kieth’s “Made in America” five times a day (enough already!), or that I can start Face-stalking again without getting angry at people for their unbalanced and uneducated views which only seems to prove that the louder you scream the smarter you are.  (I get angry at well-researched opinions, too).

I’ve been proud of myself for not responding in kind to many Facebook “friends,” or friends of friends, or real friends with whom I feel compelled to shake into clarity and then inform them. But this is only a compulsion; it is not my right to tell people that what they believe is wrong, that what they have posted in a very serious manner is obviously the result of hasty photoshop and paraphrasing, that what they are convinced will happen is really a fear tactic used on cattle and mass populations.

 
The world is not going to end, either way. But things will change, no matter what.

Having exercised all the self-restraint that I possess, and because I get paid by the word, I’m going to stand on my little Telegraph soap-box and give you an English major’s grasp of politics. Also, there is no comment section for people to call me an opinionated witch, and I think I’ll find a like-minded audience in Telegraph readers, which makes me feel safe from scorn.

Now, I’ve never actually taken an economics class or know anything “official” about international business, but I think I have a pretty good grasp on our global economy. Buy and sell, supply and demand, yada, yada.

 If we are in a global recession, the U.S. is going to feel it, no matter who sits in the White House. The fact that unemployment rates are down (according to one survey; according to another they are up) and that there are many jobs to be had, even in smalls-burg Durango, means that life isn’t as hard as some might believe. I think that Dickens would have balked at the word “recession” being used in reflection of how the majority of America lives – budgeting over-commercialized Halloween costumes isn’t exactly hardship. (How difficult is it to make a slutty pumpkin anyway?)
But I do have a literature major’s grasp of economics. To me the economy is like the national deficit, it exists because people tell me it exists – but whether the deficit is reduced or not, I don’t know if it will really effect me.  I understand the concept though, it’s like student loans for the entire country: you pay in, but the numbers never seem to get any smaller.

What is real to me, as a young woman who is counting the weeks until she is kicked off her parent’s health insurance, is health care, right behind a woman’s right to choose. The subject of choice is hotly debated and still challenged on a national level. To me, it is not an issue of morality but individuality.

To quote sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, abortion laws “do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather they center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.”  

Many women’s health issues are centered around this concept of autonomy and sexual responsibility. To understate the consequences of childbirth is to undervalue our role as life givers. Parenthood is a lifelong responsibility, even in the case of “legitimate” rape. But a woman’s right to choose should preempt the point of conception; a woman should have a right to choose affordable birth control so that she would never be faced with the decision she never wants to make.  

 Affordable women’s health care is supported by federally funded Planned Parenthood, which supplies birth control, STD screenings for men and women, health care information, and is a direct source for sexual education. President Obama’s Affordable Health Act includes birth control, mammograms and cancer screenings as preventative coverage. No person is excluded from medical treatment because of a pre-existing condition.
While my conception was desired – if not exactly planned – by my parents, they were both broke law school students without health insurance.

 

Pregnancy, at the time, was considered a “pre-existing condition” by insurance companies. My parents paid the hospital out-of-pocket for me without ever having an ultrasound and found out the old fashioned way whether I was going to be a “Luke” or a “Margaret.”  (I don’t think they could afford a baby name book).

 My reasons for supporting the president are extremely personal, I don’t expect anyone to feel as I feel, nor for the same reasons. I don’t know Gov. Romney or President Obama any more than I know most of the people I’m “friends” with on Facebook. I know what their profiles say, if they like donkeys or elephants, and what little truth I can gleam from the debates.  

 For me it comes down to respect. I cannot support the GOP because of its party stance on abortion and women’s rights. While President Obama was signing the Fair Pay Restoration Act in 2009, reinforcing a woman’s right to equal pay for equal work over a lifetime, Romney was meeting his quota by looking for women in binders.  

His rhetoric was patriarchal and demeaning, and having studied literature, I understand the importance of rhetoric. Phrases such as “legitimate rape” (U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Missouri, 2012); “honest rape” (U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, 2012), and my personal favorite, “… some girls, they rape so easy” (State Rep. Roger Rivard, R-Rice Lake, Wisc., 2011, endorsed by Paul Ryan  2012) have no place in a country that upholds equality for every citizen.

The world is not black and white, and friends keep telling me that there are about 50 shades of grey; just as I alone decide how to cast my ballot, everyone must decide on the issues that affect them personally and take a stand. But be grateful for your ability to vote, to care, and to post about it on Facebook.

– Maggie Casey