Character Bio: Maria

Maria is the daughter of Italian immigrants. She is devoutly Catholic and the oldest daughter in a large family.

Small town is mostly Baptist. Maria's family is the only Catholic family in town. They travel to nearby ??? for Mass every Sunday. Most of the Catholics in the area are Chicano migrant workers. So the view of Small Town is that Maria's family is strange and different. This makes her a target.

Martha's crew is tolerant and somewhat curious as to Maria's religion. They see it as one of the facets of Maria's personality but don't ever hope to understand it. Martha's parents are not too happy about Martha's association with this immigrant Catholic. But they trust Martha to not do anything rash.

Ethnically, Small Town is not used to immigration from anywhere but south of the border. They are predominantly a wasp community of families who "go all the way back to the frontier days if not to the revolution itself." A bunch of good 'ole boys, they don't give Maria's father much chance at business, so he ends up working at a factory.

Maria has a strong tie to her family. She sees her parents working hard and wants to do well by them. She is motherly to her brothers and sisters even though her brothers are older than she is. Maria would do anything to protect her family and keep them together. Because of her ties to her family, she doesn't have as much time to hang around with Martha and her friends. But when she is with them, she is fiercly protective, energetic, and full of life. She is the most likely of the group to go along with April's plans, defend April when she gets in trouble, and hold a crying friend. She also has a way with the adults. Whenever suspicions arise about the girl's activities, Maria always knows just what to say to smooth things over and divert suspicions.

Friday's Feast

Appetizer
Which keys do you have on your key chain?
House (3), car (2), father's house, 5 membership cards and a Mobile credit key

Soup
What is the most spontaneous thing you've ever done?
Signed up for Tae Kwon Do.

Salad
Who is the best cook in your family?
My sister Patti.

Main Course
If you were to write a "how-to" book, what would the title be?
A three part series.

The art of Humor: How to survive Toddlerhood
How to Survive the School Years
How to Survive the Teen Years

Dessert
Name a recent fad you've tried.

Um. Blogging?

Character Bio: April

April is a rich girl. Her father owns the feed store in town and is also on the town council. He pulls great influence in the town and uses his influence to get April out of trouble often.

April is not like the other well-off girls in town. She doesn't like people hanging around her for her money and influence and she scoffs at convention in hopes to drive people away from her. She hangs with Martha's gang because they ask nothing of her and are always there when she needs them.

April wants the attention of her mother, but her mother is involved in herself. She belongs to a women's organization in nearby ??? and spends her time at the hairdresser getting ready for the next social engagement. April was very close to her nanny growing up, but the nanny was dismissed when April turned 14. She really misses the nanny and writes to her often. In some ways, losing the nanny was like losing a mother since her mother was never actually involved in her life.

April engages in many risky behaviors in an attempt to get her parent's attention. In a way, her brash behavior is what attracts Martha's group to April. She is the perfect entertainment in a sleepy small town. They know she will survive the blows and they watch in admiration as she performs her stunts.

While April seems like a rock to her friends, she thinks of herself as weak. She needs her circle of friends to keep her going. Her mood swings are often dramatic but somewhat predictable. April seems larger than life, the goddess of the group. She's creative and comes up with all the ideas. And because she needs the group so badly, she is the one who will keep them together even after they all go their own way.

Character Bio: Sally

Sally is the oldest of 5 children. Her father has a hard time keeping jobs. He is unskilled and not very ambitious. The result is that Sally has little money. She is quiet and seems to flit around the periphery of Martha's group. She often can't leave the house to hang around the girls because she must help her sickly mother. Of the group, Sally is closest to Martha. She knows Martha can keep a secret and she has many secrets to keep.

Sally's one goal in life is to get out of her house, but she worries about the well being of her mother and younger siblings. She want's desperately to go to school and leave "small town," but knows she probably never will. Because her family life is in such upheaval, she does not do well in school. She is often absent and rarely gets to complete her homework assignments.

Sally has very little money for clothing. Her mother shops at the Salvation Army in nearby ??? to put clothes on her kids. But Sally is always careful not to look too shabby. She doesn't want to stand out in the crowd.

Character Bio: Martha

Martha Jameson

Enters college in 1969, so she was born in 1951 in a suburb of ?????I still haven't decided. Martha is an observer. She is not one to take many chances. She is a follower of a group of dynamic teens. She likes to surround herself with lots of colorful, intense personalities. Not the most popular girls. The most popular girls are just not interesting enough for Martha.

Martha is fiercely loyal to her friends. It hurts her very much when some of them move on. Yet, Martha is not the type to make the first move when things go quiet. As a result, she finds herself left out for a while until a crisis hits one of her original band of merry women.

As a teen, Martha, an only child, is given every advantage her small town parents can provide. They aren't rich, but they make sacrifices so that Martha can end up in college some day. She takes piano lessons. She took dance for years, but now, as a high-school student, it's not so important.

Martha is involved in student government, but she never runs for office. That would be too gutsy for our protagonist.

The thing that keeps Martha out of trouble in her teens is the strong vision for her future. Martha knows that most of her peers will not go on to college. Most of them will end up being married and remain in Small Town. Martha has dreams of doing more. She wants to move to a bigger city. She wants to have her own apartment, her own job and her own bank accounts. Martha's friends respect her seriousness, but pick on her for it at the same time.

Martha's high school is very small. In fact, there is only one elementary school in Small Town, one middle school, and one high school. Her graduating class is 27. They started in high school with 35, but 8 didn't make it through. Graduation from high school in Small Town doesn't guarantee a job either. Some of the jocks barely met the already low academic requirements. But they were ensured good jobs on graduation because of their charisma and the connections they were able to make with local businessmen in their high school years. The girls on the other hand, were able to do very little with their lives. A few married service men from nearby ???. That might be marriage in another form, but at least they got out of Small Town. Most of Martha's class was married within a year of graduation.

They were trying to battle a tough time though. Women were beginning to develop their own opinions and divorce was becoming more common.

Character Names

This baby name wizard is great for finding out the popularity of older names. And it just looks cool too. Thanks to Rachel for finding it.

humor?

OK, so this post has nothing to do with choice, unless you count the Unitarian view of the whole thing. I just found the article and these resultant name generators, hilarious. Way high up there on the list was My Unitarian Jihad Name: Sibling Neutron Bomb of Quiet Reflection. Get yours. I truly identify with that.

So, ganked from http://beancounters.blogs.com/, the article by Jon Carrol on the Unitarian Jihad: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/08/DDG27BCFLG1.DTL

And a second Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother/Sister Burning Cudgel of Humanitarianism. What's yours?

Chomping at the bit.

At this point, I'm just fighting furiously to keep from jumping into the novel. I might not need to wait till November. I do hope that whenever I begin the novel that I use the NaNoWriMo method of a writing quantity goal and no rewrites till it's all done. That's why I'm trying to do all the research now.

But while I do the research, little plotletts keep bubbling up in the back recesses of my mind. Characters as well. Do I begin to write character bios on my blog? Will that be giving too much away? I rather feel like character bios would be more like the characters people develop via fantasy role-playing games. They might be of great use to another player who wants to steal them, but really it's all in the play. No two of us would play our fantasy characters the same. No two of us would write the same character into the same plot.

Along with the ideas come the doubts. If I am ever to be able to pull this novel off, will I be able to birth another after that? All my life, I have dreamed of being a novelist. I love to read. I have plenty of fantasies. But do I have what it takes? It wasn't until I heard Jodi Picoult speak at our local library that I realized that there are other minds that think like mine. That people might even want to read an "ethical novel." That's my own term. I like it. It describes many of Jodi Picoult's novels. Wrapped around a plot that is seemingly just a generic novel is a deep ethical question. She doesn't necessarily give you a conclusion, but you certainly have a lot to think about when she is done. Her books are challenging, but not to the point where you are put off by the work.

Can I do that? Well, if I don't try, I'll never know. DH tells me that I might be biting off more than I can chew. Don't most novelists start with short stories? Why don't you write this as a short story? Why go for a novel first?

This? A short story? You know, now that I think of it, I don't see as many short fiction pieces in magazines as I used to? Is the art of short stories being lost or is the audience not captured? What gives?

Anyway, this is a novel. My last nanowrimo might have been usable as a short story, but not this one. Maybe some day I will revisit the last one and see if I can shorten it. Probably not. More than likely, my whole problem is that I'm way too verbose.

Affect of Roe v. Wade on Adoption

Blogger Rachel questioned the affect of Roe v. Wade on the availability of white infants in the adoption pool. We all know the pool of white infants in the US has not kept up with the demand. What we aren't hearing is the range of possible reasons. We do hear that the demand for adoptive infants has increased. We do hear that more single mothers are keeping their infants and that this might have an effect on the availability of infants whereas those same infants might be more available as older children, ruined by the system and no longer moldable by prospective parents (not sure I totally agree with the sentiment or all it implies, but it is the prevailing sentiment).

But it is interesting that religious groups don't outright blame Roe v. Wade for the lack of adoptive white infants. Why? Well on the surface, it would seem that if more women have access to abortion it would dwindle the pool of adoptive infants overall. We have countless women going to foreign countries to adopt. They are not all adopting white infants though. Many countries bog down the paperwork so that the only availability is at least 6 months of age and often older.

Certainly the instability of the law around adoption has had something to do with American's reluctance to adopt locally. The media's constant harping on the problems of inner city youth drug culture has also done a great deal to scare adoptive parents off the local adoption trail. We all heard the reports on crack babies and their long-term prognosis. We heard very little when the crack-baby theories were discounted though.

What we are not hearing is the effect of coercion on the availability of infants. Of course, there was very little coercion of black crisis mothers because there was a belief that no one would adopt interracially and we had done a great job of economically stifling African American families so that few could economically afford to add a few children to their family. (Ah, yet another thing to look into. Just what did black women do when faced with a crisis pregnancy? How did that become part of the African American culture and their view of family/family planning?)

The truth is that many of the babies available for adoption pre Roe v. Wade might have been retained and raised by the mothers if a choice was provided. Think about that any of you adoptees who wondered why your mother ever gave you up in the first place. It wasn't her rejection. Maybe it was coercion by a group who felt that this was the only thing a young girl could do. Maybe that same group was somehow economically motivated as well. I do know that the attitude of adoption and secrecy is the only way persisted well past Roe v. Wade.

So how about some statistics. According to: http://statistics.adoption.com/information/adoption-statistics-numbers-trends.html

(Interjected comments in blue.)

"The estimated total number of adoptions has ranged from a low of 50,000 in 1944 to a high of 175,000 in 1970 (Roe v. Wade was being argued at this time and decided in 1972) . (Maza, 1994) The number of adoptions by unrelated petitioners declined from a high of 89,200 in 1970 to 47,700 in 1975, while the number of adoptions by related petitioners remained constant between 81,000 and 89,000 during this period. (Maza, 1984)"

Unrelated adoptions are really the ones we are interested in. Interesting the high was in 1970 for both adoptions overall and for unrelated adoptions.

Another page (http://statistics.adoption.com/information/adoption-statistics-placing-children.html) goes on to say:
The percentage of premarital births placed for adoption has decreased since the 1970s. Analyses of three cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth show the following trend:
From 1952 to 1972, 8.7% of all premarital births were placed for adoption.
From 1973 to 1981, this percentage fell to 4.1%.
From 1982 to 1988, it fell further to 2%. (Bachrach, Stolley, London, 1992)

So lets look at statistics on interracial adoptions. One would expect the numbers to start rising post 197x. Was there coercion of African American women post Roe v. Wade?

The numbers do not significantly rise. This excerpt states some of the reasons and numbers:

What are influences on the number of children available for adoption?
Declining numbers of women placing children for adoption
The decline in the number of women placing their children for adoption is primarily due to the declining numbers of white women placing their children for adoption; rates for minority women who place their children have remained relatively stable. (Bachrach, Stolley, London, 1992)
The initial drop in placement rates among white women reflected the increase in abortion rates after the legalization of abortion in 1973. (Bachrach, Stolley, London, 1992)
Declining stigma of unwed motherhood
The continuing decline in placement rates reflects the diminishing stigma attached to unwed parenthood. (Bachrach, Stolley, London, 1992)
Declining numbers of teens placing children for adoption
The proportion of teens placing their children for adoption has declined sharply over recent decades. (ChildTrends, 1995)
When they become pregnant, very few teens choose to place their children for adoption. In a 1995 survey, 51% of teens that become pregnant give birth; 35% seek abortions; 14% miscarry. Less than 1% choose to place their children for adoption. (ChildTrends, 1995)
The age of unmarried mothers has increased with time. In 1970, half of nonmarital births were to teens; by 1993, the highest proportion of unmarried mothers were women in their twenties, a significant change. The birth rate for unmarried teens declined in 1995. Teen mothers, however continued to make up the largest single group of all first births to unmarried women.(Freundlich, 1998)
Declining pregnancy rate
Pregnancy rates declined by 1 percent for white women and by 5 percent for women of all other races between 1980 to 1991. (NCHS, 1995)
Increasing use of contraceptives
4% of never-married women relied on their partners to use condoms in 1982; this number increased to 8% in 1988, and to 14% in 1995 - a more than three-fold increase. (NCHS, 1997)
In 1995, 10.7 million women were using female sterilization, 10.4 million were using the birth control pill, 7.9 million used condoms, and 4.2 million were using male sterilization as a contraceptive technique. (NCHS, 1997)
Declining abortion rate
There has been no research showing that women are choosing to abort their children rather than place these children for adoption. Although the adoption rate has remained relatively steady, nationwide abortion rates have continued to decline since 1990. (Freundlich, 1998) (if only I could make that text flash!!!)

It's interesting to me that every time I go out and find an answer to a question, I also find three more to research. This whole ethical question is like peeling away the layers of an onion. That's why I find it so necessary to ignore the theological arguments. They seem to want to simplify the problem. It is not simple. It affects so many different social and economic areas of our country.

I definitely want to interview some mothers who were coerced into adoption pre roe v. Wade. It seems like that would be such an important sub plot to my story.

The end of an Era. The Beginning of a New One?

Yesterday evening, the Pope died as I'm sure you all know.

He has been an important player in the abortion debate since he took office. Many hoped that John Paul II would lead the church to a more liberal stance regarding women. Vatican II had been the beginning people dreamed of. They now hoped that the new pontiff would continue the progress.

But they were disappointed. In a trip to S. America, he was bold enough to speak out against birth control despite being presented with evidence of devastation brought onto women and children by the uncontrolled rate of pregnancy resultant in a society where men get what they want even if it means the death of their partner in childbirth or the death of their children from malnutrition.

The pope continued to speak out against birth control and abortion as well as refusing to allow women to be ordained or to allow priests to be married. The latter two are important to the future of the church even if taken separate from the issues of reproductive rights. Their importance to the question of reproductive rights, though, is that they present a picture of a person who is, for whatever reason, totally clueless about women.

Why did John Paul II get away with this in the 80s? Because he was a really nice guy. I truly believe that many Catholics thought, "he means well." He doesn't understand the true plight, but he means well. And deep down, I agree. I don't think he understood the big picture. I think he really believed that in the end, women would be taken care of. So the burdens of childbearing would be eased by supportive family and loving society. And indeed, he had seen so much death and devastation that it would be natural for him to take a stance of the "importance of life."

Those Catholics who did not agree, just went ahead following their beliefs. And thus began the erosion of the idea that the Pope is divinely inspired. That's pretty dangerous to the Catholic church. If the Pope isn't always right, how can he lead?

Now that the far right has figured out how to manipulate the media, they are quickly infiltrating the Catholic church and manipulating this fear as well. They are creating a deep divide between Catholics on this issue. Very few Catholic women use the rhythm method as is evidenced by the size of the typical Catholic family of today. But the few who do eschew birth control are very vocal. In that, "See? I did it. Why can't you be as holy as me?" way they repeat John Paul IIs injunction against birth control. Every egg or sperm is a potential life. Life is sacred. Following that line of reasoning, they should be having sex every month and getting pregnant whenever physically possible. I doubt that would happen.

In reality, life in the Catholic church is only sacred when the men are deciding it is sacred. I eagerly awaited the life-is-sacred talk when we prepared to go off to war in Afghanistan. It never came. Instead, we heard some drivel about how it was OK to defend your country. How can women believe this. OK, I need to be careful what I say here.

So who will come next. For years, I stayed with the Catholic church as a believer because I believed that John Paul was trying but that he was too naive to know what he was talking about. I believed that some day he would step down, or pass on and be replaced by someone more liberal in their thinking. I never expected that abortion would be acceptable to the church in my lifetime, but that maybe the stance on some forms of birth control would be backed off, or that at least priests would be allowed to marry.

Unfortunately, the press lately has been full of cardinals and bishops who have taken very conservative stances in times when they weren't even called for. A bishop in France making a strong statement about Catholic politicians who did not actively fight abortion rights being unfit to take communion? Another US bishop saying he would withhold communion from politicians who did not vote against abortion rights bills or who voted against restrictions on abortions? What happened to voting conscience? Did these bishops and cardinals review the legislation? Did they know without a question the reasoning behind the votes? Probably not. Their temerity in speaking out on these issues worries me.

Next came the strong message relayed in all Catholic churches that we were supposed to vote our Catholic conscience in the 2004 election. In other words, vote against the "pro-abortion" candidate. Since when does the Catholic church have a right to tell American voters who to vote for.

Then there was the new Boston bishop O'Malley who announced in one of his first speeches in the area that the problem with the Boston Diocese was that the people had lost their moral compass. We needed to return to the basic moral teachings of the Catholic church. No abortion, no gay marriage, no reproductive control for couples. Frankly, I thought the problem with the Boston Diocese was that many priests had been sexually molesting young boys and their superiors had been covering up for them. The moral compass of the people was not the problem as far as I was concerned.

I'm not hearing anyone stand up and say "Wait a minute! I don't agree with you guys. Where are the liberals in the Catholic church? Is there no more room for us?"

When the white smoke rises in the coming months, we will see what room there is for the liberal majority of Catholics. And we will see where it leaves the Catholic church.

Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

The other choice

It has always been my contention that Roe v. Wade did more than allow women to have abortions. It has been the impetus for the opening of many humane homes for pregnant women. For example, in our neighborhood, there is a home that not only supports women through their pregnancies, but also supports women in getting pre-natal care, basic education, parenting education and in fixing the familial relationships that will be so important as they raise their child. They provide a transitional living arrangement for the women once their child is born and they are economically independent. Not a small task.

But it never existed before Roe v. Wade. Before Roe v. Wade the only homes for pregnant women were places where you were eventually going to give up the baby. Mothers to be were criticized for getting into the situation. Most of the tenant's of these houses were sent from somewhere else in the country to spare their family the embarrassment of their "situation." What happened to the fathers? Nothing. They continued their lives as if they had done nothing to contribute to the problem.

So I did some searching on the web:

The Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Tuscan (I might use AZ as a setting for the novel)
"In 1980, the Tucson Chapter of the Christian Action Council was formed under the leadership of Jerry Peyton, a pastor at the Vineyard Christian Community. He believed that the time had come for the Christian community to act out its faith in ministering to unborn children and their mothers in Tucson."
http://www.cpctucson.com/about_cpc/cpc_history.htm

Heartbeat International:
"The roots of Heartbeat were established in Toledo, Ohio by the late Dr. John Hillabrand, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, who brought together a group of “pioneer” pro-life pregnancy service providers.In 1971, the organization formally incorporated as Alternatives to Abortion. The name was soon changed to Alternatives to Abortion International (AAI). For more than 20 years, AAI operated with volunteer consultants and one part-time paid staff member, providing education, training, consultation, and support to affiliated centers on an as-requested basis."
http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/history.htm

Birthright International:
"Birthright began in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1968, when Louise Summerhill, a busy housewife and mother of seven children, felt something should be done to help women through an unplanned pregnancy. The grassroots response to her idea was overwhelming, and the Toronto chapter quickly grew into Birthright International, the world's first international crisis pregnancy service. In 2003, Birthright International celebrated its 35th anniversary with over 400 chapters worldwide, including Canada, the United States, and others in South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Colombia. Birthright is a fully independent organization, not affiliated with any church or public agency. Its name and logo are trademarks. An estimated 28,000 women make their first visit to a Birthright chapter every month. "
http://www.birthright.org/htmpages/about.htm

And many more. Notice the dates.


So in Roe v. Wade came not only the choice to abort, but also the choice to adopt or to keep a baby. In a way, Roe v. Wade has done more to save babies (and mothers) than to kill them.

The think that irks me so much is where were these homes before Roe v. Wade? If saving babies is so important, where were you before a woman had a choice? Why weren't you saving these moms from illegal abortions? Why weren't you giving moms the choice (both socially and economically) to keep their babies? Why weren't you making it socially unacceptable to chastise a woman for a crisis pregnancy while ignoring the man's part in the whole thing?

The way to end abortion as a Christian is to make it legal, but make the other choices far more palatable than the abortion choice.