Loving Life

An Editorial I submitted to Pleasanton Weekly which seems to be timely again in light of California Legislature addressing the issue of legalizing assisted suicide:

Something is wrong with this picture: When Streetwise (Pleasanton Weekly)
asked passersby near Kaiser Permanente if they thought health care companies should be “required” to provide birth control. Not only did 4/5 people want 100%
“free” coverage, but they also had no qualms in sharing their views of
unexpected pregnancies:  “Unwanted children would be a burden for
everyone. Unwanted pregnancies are a problem”. 

I want to address this
stated concern about “unwanted” human beings being a burden, and
therefore not worthy of existing. I guess you could call me a “problem
for everyone” because I was an unexpected baby. My parents never
shared their wedding date with me and never celebrated an anniversary.
Was I conceived out of wedlock? Was I unwanted? A sudden burden? A
problem? Maybe to some minds I was. (Before "the pill", most children
were unplanned and unexpected). 

In any case,  I’m here and I love my unexpected life.  

I have been blessed to be a high school teacher in Australia and Pleasanton. 

I have been inspired to start fundraisers for brain injured children and
our nations wounded warriors, to start a cooking school, become a
dietitian and diabetes educator.  I’ve been married once and for 34
years to the most wise and generous man I have ever known. I’ve been
healthy enough to run thousands of miles and explore hundreds of
backcountry miles in the Sierra. 

In short, I have loved my life, unexpected as it was to my parents. 

I have never had to enroll for
food stamps, welfare, Medical or any other public monies which could
be defined as “burdensome” to society—which is evidently the expected
journey for unwanted pregnancy candidates. 

Unplanned though I was and again counter to expectations for the unplanned human, I have never been on drugs, in debt or arrested. It seems more than foolish for
others to automatically decide that any life that comes to life
“unplanned” is destined to be a burden, a problem, and ultimately a
life that should be ended before it begins. 

The slope is getting very slippery for those “unwanted” and inevitably
“burdensome” at the end of life’s spectrum. Thank God he DOES have a
plan, a plan for every child conceived, a better plan than any one of
us could ever dream or imagine.