Just your light-hearted Friday rant

I was about to blog the other day on how much I love the job Barack Obama is doing at the moment.
I mean, sure we all expected him to try and fix some of George Bush's wrongs, but I for one didn't expect him to cut a swathe through some of them so soon.
One that caught my eye in particular was, in essence, a lifting of a ban Bush imposed on foreign aid going to clinics that perform abortions.
Kevin Rudd, to his credit, seems to be swiftly following suit.

And so it is with a slight sense of satisfaction that I open my work email the other day to find a press release from the Catholic Church crying foul.
Now, I've said this on here before, but I'm catholic. I was baptised, went to catholic schools my whole life and therefore identify as catholic. However that's pretty much where it ends for me. I disagree with many of the tenets of the catholic religion regarding birth control, sex before marriage, homosexuality and - you guessed it - abortion.

Now, people have very strong ideas as to whether abortion is right or wrong. I'm not really going to go into discussing the specifics, other than to say I have been through the process myself with a girlfriend at the time who fell pregnant.
To this day it was one of the most trying three hours of my life.
Since the experience I have not wavered in my stance that it is a woman's right to choose what she does with her body. But let me just say to the knobheads that put out this press release from the catholic church that there was not one person in that waiting room - mother, daughter, boyfriend, girlfriend - who did not completely understand the severity of the situation.

I have never been in a room filled with so much pain and angst. Boyfriends chain smoking outside (I was one of them), mothers crying and consoling their tearful daughters. It was horrible. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But at the same time I don't regret making the decision that was made. I would be a very different person today if I had not been allowed to make that decision. I might not be in the job I'm in right now, I certainly wouldn't have the freedom I do right now and financial security would be a very vague term I'm sure.

I'm not trying to tell you guys what's right and wrong. You can make your own decision up on that, and because it's your opinion it will be neither right nor wrong. But I won't sit here and let the catholic church tell me my opinion is wrong. Ever.