Get 'Em While You Can by Tara Cullen

     The biggest divide between me and my boyfriend is his general stance on the government. He says he doesn't care for politics and who is in office. He believes that they will do what they want to do and what political party is in charge does not change the fact that he must wake each morning and get in his car, make money and treat me like a princess. Although he is not above making fun of the President, we do not have debates over governing and conversations about what's happening in D.C. I dare to think what would happen if I asked him to sign a petition. I don't think that his view is unforgivable; I just think that he fails to realize exactly what powers the government can exert over you.

     Of course, he lives in the land of milk and highway. He never had to fret over the dramatic changes that occurred when smoking was banned. He can still go to his favorite bars, while I haven't set foot in my very favorite one since the smoking ban. The window seats seem too open and exposed without a smoke cloud concealing Bess and me as we look out on the world. They never had Stella on tap anyhow.

     Since the smoking ban, my desire to go out in this city has plummeted even though, at the same time, my cigarette consumption has been severely curtailed. The idea of stepping outside for each and every cigarette, regardless of weather, ruins the heavenly combination of cigarette whilst drinking. Not only has it drastically changed how the debaucherous drinkers and smokers live, little talked about bans also went into effect in nursing homes, jails and other places. Anywhere that anyone works, smoking is gone, with the exception of outside. This is slightly prejudicial towards welfare-to-work street sweepers, parks department workers, prostitutes, and cops walking the beat. The city government led by a bitter ex-smoker decided that our smoking is bad and forcing us to stand out on the streets at 3 am while drunk to have a cigarette is decidedly better.

     For the two months before the smoking ban went into effect, I happily smoked my evenings away in fine drinking establishments throughout this city. When the non-smokers started to jump the gates and wave their hands at the smoke a little too vigorously, I stood my ground and smoked my cigarettes for as long as I was allowed to. While it was my right, while I still could make that choice, I smoked. Maybe I even had one when I didn't want one because I could. Maybe this happened more than once. And now that I cannot smoke my stinky cigarettes while sipping cold pints of delicious frothy beer, I have left the bars for those non-smokers to enjoy without the boisterous laughs and hacking coughs of smokers.

     While the absolute political importance of smoking bans may not be the most pressing issue of late, it is an illustration of the times and the power the government can exert. Recently, there has been a lot in the news about how great the new patients' rights medical forms are. You must sign these things that say you've been informed of under what circumstances your doctor will share your information (with insurance, with another doctor, when you approve that a family member should know, etc.) However, when I was reading one recently, I noticed that of the many circumstances a doctor will disclose my information, probably number 15 of 20, the word "terrorist" was included. I had to sign this paper or risk not getting my teeth cleaned. I had to agree that if, for whatever reason, my teeth revealed some sort of terrorist link and my dentist was approached by the F.B.I., he could let them know my filling definitely showed some anti-American sentiment. How this will work with therapists and delusional paranoids is potentially scary but could also work out to be a great movie with Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler.

     Things that we simply take for granted have been slipping away. I don't want to sound like a generalist anti-Republican, but it is no coincidence that the Republican dominated federal government passed the changes in medical rights and wars to rid countries of weapons of mass destruction whether or not said weapons ever materialize are happening simultaneously. Or that late-term (also called partial-birth) abortions are being debated in House and Congress regardless of the actual numbers or reasons for these abortions.

     The religious right has had a huge issue with these types of abortions for years, desperately trying to ban them because it just seems too horrible and wrong to them. I have followed this story for just as long, wearily watching the fanatics discuss the horrors of this method while rarely mentioning why and how often it is done. The why and how often always puzzled me. They make it sound like hundred of thousands of pregnant women are deciding in their seventh month that they are sick of being pregnant and are having late-term abortions. Giving us numbers doesn't seem to concern those in the religious right fervently against late-term abortions.

     The idea and mere existence of these types of abortions was enough for them. And year after year of trying to get the bill passed, those slimy Democrats would stand in the way. Those people who saw that any limiting of the right to abortion could push us down the slippery slope to gradual and continual limiting abortion until only dirty hangers and rat-infested alleys are legal, those people that didn't feel late-term abortion were so endemic something must be done to stop them now, those people who believe in the women's right to decide what goes on with their bodies had prevented the bill from ever reaching the president thus far. Until no one was watching closely enough, until terrorist attacks led people to find comfort in reactionary politicians and we wind up with a Republican dominated federal government.

     While only the House has passed this bill, the Senate can't be too far behind. The President, with his close-together eyes and mousy-teeth, is surely polishing his 24-kt gold Cross pen in anticipation of the bill coming across his rectangle desk in his oval office, contemplating getting a triangle coffee table since the geometry of his office seems to enrapture him each and every time. And once late-term abortions are illegal, we will all look around and wonder "what next?"

     And I wonder now, when will abortion become completely illegal? When will government make another decision about the way I live? Should I ever need an abortion, will I be able to have one, or will that right have been legislated so far away that I cannot? Should I treat this like the end of smoking and throw away the birth-control pills, pay Russian roulette in bed and have abortions whenever I happen to get pregnant? Because it is my right to decide if I do or do not want to carry something around for months and then give it loving guidance or at least shelter, nutrition and clothing for 18 to 30 years. And as long as it is my right, I want to be able to act on it regardless of what others might think. I want to be able to smoke my 4 daily cigarettes sitting at a bar with a beer in my hand. I want to be able to exercise my right to safe and sanitary abortions. If need be, I'll start getting them right now, regardless of whether I am pregnant.

     We don't like to think about dirty things like abortions. We know they happen but never celebrate the fact that we have the right to do so. Thirty years ago, you could never consider what it would be to have the right taken away; the right did not exist. Thirty years ago, it was illegal to make a choice but now I have that choice. Maybe soon, if we pretend that the happenings of the government have no bearing on our lives, we won't have that choice.