Something we should all do, not some of the time, but all the time. It is also something we, learn in nursing school. You have to step outside of your sense of morality and what you perceive as human needs, because they are your own, and understand that not everyone's world is like yours. This is especially true if you are a nurse because you are an adult, you have an education, and you have access to great medical care because you can advocate for yourself. There is a lot about the crappiness in life that is passing you over.
Something else you also see in nursing is family dysfunction. You know from, at least, your peds rotation that families can suck. You know children enter the pedi ICU because they were beaten to a pulp: children of all ages. You know from talking to you teenage patients, that many parents do not remember or understand what it is like to have an almost adult body, adult bodily needs, a burgeoning but not yet complete understanding of life, and parents who "just don't understand."
I cant really understand what it is like to be in that "my parents just don't understand... at all" situation because while I had normal developmental conflict with my parents, I also knew that no matter what happened my parents would stand by and love me.
But while with parents like that, my mom made birth control acquiring easy, but she didn't want to know about it. She understands abortion as a necessary thing in our society, but she would never want to know I had one. If I told her she would handle it with the same grace she has handled everything hard life has thrown my way, but really she would rather not be notified and she would also rather I didn't have a child at 17.
But I can step outside of my bubble. I can take my empathy as a human and my training as a nurse and understand how wrong prop 85 is.
The quote from the state that really sticks out to me is, " Permits minor to obtain court order waiving notice based on clear and convincing evidence of minor's maturity or best interests."
So um... if you aren't mature enough to be waived from the parental notification, you get to have a baby, because you are too scared to talk to your parents. Maybe then you will hide your pregnancy under baggy clothes, give birth in a school bathroom, and put the baby in a garbage can.
Besides all the global implications of chipping away at abortion rights, which is so important and really matter to me. But each individual human girl, who does not have rights to make decisions about her own body, no matter what her awful social situation, makes me tear up.
It also drives me nuts that an RN is the proponent of this bill. Does he work ER? Has he ever seen a self induced abortion come in, get septic, and die? Maybe he hasn't. In fact I have to have faith that he hasn't, because which self respecting nurse cant understand the need for abortion and rights to it, no matter what your morality.
So please on Tuesday, step out of your bubble, imagine someone else's and vote
