OK, so I know I said today would be back to normal, but I lied. Time for a brief political discussion. Well, not so brief, definitely not PC, but here you go.

I firmly believe in the idea that every person of eligible voting age should exercise their right to vote. I also believe that with that power comes the responsibility for educating yourself about all of your options. I may completely disagree with your choice of candidate for any given race, but if you have a well-reasoned argument to support your position, I can respect that. Every person should decide what issues are most important to them and what issues are deal breakers. Me?

I am a woman. I am a woman who has carried a baby through an unexpected pregnancy that required me to put my dreams on hold for a while. I am a woman who thinks that abortion should be banned in the United States.

I will never, ever, ever vote for a candidate who supports abortion in any form. I believe that a woman has the right to choose- the right to choose to use contraception or not. Once a pregnancy starts, the woman is no longer the only factor in the equation, and the worst case scenario is that she's going to have to handle the consequences for nine months. Pregnancies resulting from rape are a hard thing to contemplate- but they are also extremely rare. Speaking as a mom, I can't imagine penalizing that little thing inside for the actions of an awful person. If I became pregnant as the result of rape, it would be a great comfort to know that something good came out of an unimaginably horrible experience- a baby that would be raised by an adoptive family that desperately wanted a child. I know that many women who get abortions are scared, have inadequate support systems, and do not know what else to do. There are SO many resources that are available. There are homes in which you can live, agencies and adoptive parents who are lined up to pay for your medical bills and expenses, and safe places for your baby to go after you give birth if you aren't in a place where you can take care of a little one. We have done such a poor job of taking care of these moms. It is no wonder that many feel they have no option but to "get rid" of an unwanted pregnancy. So, there's something to work on.

This is one of the things that worries me about Barack Obama. He is a wonderful speaker. He is very charismatic. He speaks of things that are appealing- who doesn't want hope and an improved future? However, he also is a supporter of partial-birth abortion. This is a procedure were a baby is delivered feet first, then when the back of the head is showing the skull is punctured and the baby's brain's are vacummed out to kill it. If that baby made it four more inches into the world and the same procedure was performed, the law would call it murder. Any person who supports such a procedure cannot possibly have respect for human life. I do not know how you can call yourself "Christian" and think that this is OK.

I know that different people have different issues that are their focus. The economy obviously looms large in many people's minds. $100 at the grocery store gets you 75% of the groceries it would have bought you a year ago. Gas has gone up like crazy. The job market is shaky, house values are decreasing...I worry about all of these things too. It's just that the fact that this last year was the first year since Roe v. Wade that fewer than one million abortions were performed in the U.S. For those who aren't Constitution nerds, Roe was decided in 1973. So, for the last 35 years, at least one million abortions per year have happened. In high school, we were told that Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and 5 million others in the Holocaust, not to mention war casualties. So we've got Hitler beat over 3 to 1, and it's all legal. This bothers me a lot more than paying $3.25 a gallon for gas or the probabilty that I will be unemployed in a few months.