And they have successfully made sure that reproductive freedom is debated using their biased, inflammatory language. "Pro-life?" Don't get me started...

Who exactly is "anti-life," and why doesn't the mainstream media EVER mention, let alone hammer away at, this logical disconnect? As a writer and journalist, I don't know what's worse: the right's abuse of language, or the mainstream's idle acceptance of it. Our idle acceptance.

Actually, I do. Casually using the terms your enemy has crafted is worse. Because the language is integral to the right's trap, in which every aspect of women's reproductive freedom is part the librul baby killin' conspiracy. Language has contributed to the backward slide from where we were 37 years ago. Look at the Monty Python-esque level of absurdity represented by abstinence-only sex education. Despite the President's desire to kill the useless programs (based on hard science-y stuff like research and facts), the Senate restored $50 million of funding to them as part of Health Care Reform.

Well, every sperm is NOT sacred. But "right-to-life" language has framed the debate for so long now that it has become ingrained. What realistic chance do we have to change it? We start by NEVER using the language ourselves, of course. And standing up for using accurate terms whenever we can.

One quick example. The 1998 murder of Buffalo doctor Barnett Slepian received extensive coverage in Vermont's local news because the killer briefly lived here. The newscasts routinely referred to Slepian as an "abortion doctor." I used to watch the same station regularly, and as soon as that phrase left the newscaster's lips, I dialed the newsroom. While they were still on the air, I would patiently explain to whomever picked up the phone that there is no such thing. That Dr. Slepian was an obstretician, a gynecologist...but that calling him an "abortion doctor" was like calling him a "PAP smear doctor." A "breast exam doctor."

I called over, and over, and over. I think they just got sick of the calls. And so they stopped, and finally started using accurate descriptions. Such as "the Buffalo obstetrician who also provided abortions."

We can create positive change. We can protect Roe. But it's work. Hard--and sometimes incredibly tedious--work.

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One Man's Shift from Anti-choice to Pro-choice

by droogie6655321

There was a point in my life when, despite my rapid slide toward the liberal way of thinking, my anti-choice stance was one of the last lingering threads still tying me to my past conservatism. It was actually the woman who is now my wife who talked me out of it. She was patient, and wonderful about it, too.

I came to realize I'd had it all wrong. When it came to the issue, I really didn't know what I was talking about.

First of all, there were abortions performed before Roe. And if Roe were repealed, that wouldn't stop abortions from happening. It would just make them more dangerous, and potentially deadly or crippling to women.

Believe it or not, this actually isn't something that gets a lot of acknowledgments from the "pro-life" side. I definitely hadn't considered it. It was as though Roe had created the problem of unwanted or crisis pregnancies, or made it worse somehow. This was not the case.

Secondly, I came to realize what the reality of abortion was for women. I had only ever thought about it from one side. This made it easy for me to buy into the myth of these imaginary women who just can't wait to get another abortion. This is what some conservatives really believe -- that women want abortions.

It sounds crazy, but if you think about it, this is the straw man (straw woman?) they have created. But the truth is that it's a more difficult moment, a much rougher situation for a woman to be in. It's not that abortions are ever wanted, so much that they are needed.

Something else happened later on that re-affirmed my stance, and it came from my wife's grandfather. This man is a former Dallas police officer. He has had very little formal education (and he calls this his life's greatest regret). He's worked with his hands his whole life, and got his first job at about age 15, tying steel for bridge and highway projects -- he had to lie about his age to get it.

The subject of abortion and choice had come up, and this man was getting ready to sound off. Now like me, he's had a very conservative background. But he's also changed his way of thinking. Still, I wasn't sure what he was going to say about this topic, and I prepared myself to hear something that I would find pretty offensive.

What he said was this: When you talk about abortion and whether or not women should be allowed to have them, you're talking about coming in between a woman and her doctor when she needs that doctor the most. Now, when I was on the police force I saw some terrible things that I still don't much like to talk about. One of the worse what when I saw what was left over from an illegal abortion. I'm not going to tell you about that, but I can't forget it. And we can't go back to that.

I can't speak with the level of authority or experience that my wife's grandpa spoke that day, but I do know that as a person, I'll never go backwards in my way of thinking. And as a country, we can never go backwards on this issue.

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My Body, My Life: Two Decisions, 15 Years Apart

by Elise, SheKos editor

I spent 15 years of my life trying NOT to get pregnant. I didn't want to have children after helping to raise my four younger sisters. I felt like I already raised one set of kids. A combination of things made me change my mind. I won't go into detail here, because it's really a long story. The important thing is that I did change my mind. I felt this was a personal decision. I didn't talk much about it - other than with my husband, of course. Only a few family members and very close friends knew of our decision to try and get pregnant.

Let me just say here that this was a strange experience. I had been on the pill a long time and the changes to my body were...annoying. Migraines, cramps, screwed up cycle, etc. It really does take an adjustment, but after a few months of trying, we had a positive test in October. We were both very excited. We told a few people, but not many.

At this point, the Stupak debate was occurring. I was getting emails from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Feminist Majority, etc. asking me to contact my Representatives to make sure that Stupak was excluded from the final House bill.

On November 3rd, we had a sonogram and saw it - it looked like a pulsing piece of rice. We couldn't help but get a little excited by that. We spent the week talking about how excited we were, our plans, how we would need to fix up the third bedroom, whether we should stay in the place we're renting or find somewhere else (and what it would be like to move while pregnant - yikes!), etc.

And then on November 10th, we went back for another sonogram just to make sure things were moving along normally (there was some question about the timing and hormones), and the little grain of rice wasn't pulsing anymore. Miscarriage. The doctor sent us for a second opinion. I was supposed to drink 16 ounces of water and hold it until after this sonogram. So I hopped around the waiting room hoping that I'd make it until the sonogram was over. We laughed about this because it really was funny. The funeral of the Fort Hood soldiers was on TV and the FOX news anchor read the President's address without telling anyone it was the President's address (basically implying that these were his own words). I asked the receptionist to change the channel because if I was going to be tortured one way, I shouldn't have to deal with FOX News on top of it all.

They finally called us back and started the sonogram. I finally peed (seriously, that was terrible), and then she did more looking around. She looked very solemn, which pretty much confirmed that it was a miscarriage. I asked, "So, no pulsing, that means a miscarriage, right?" - and she actually got tears in her eyes. She said she'd have the doctor look at the photos and that they'd send them back to our doctor and we should go back to that office and wait.

The doctor confirmed what we all already knew and then gave us options.

Option 1: Wait it out and let the miscarriage happen naturally.

Option 2: D&C.

I chose the D&C. I wasn't waiting for anything. My thoughts were, the faster it's gone, the faster we can try again. I knew we would likely have to wait a few months for things to get back to normal and I wanted to start asap.

I didn't cry. My husband never cries. We knew this was a possibility and we were ready for it. The doctor suggested that the emotions would hit after the D&C. We scheduled that appointment for the 13th.

I don't like having my blood taken, and I was a little nervous about pain, but I was ready to get it over with. I went to the hospital for registration and they asked me 100 questions - including whether or not I wanted to keep it and have a funeral. This prompted me to wonder, "Who does that?!" I told the registration nurse that I wasn't worried about having a funeral for something that looked like a grain of rice. She asked what my religious affiliation was (because apparently some people like to have religious leaders visit them?), and I said "none."

I arrived at the hospital early that morning for the D&C and we waited around for a while. The anesthesiologist came in and we talked about how things would work. I went to sleep and woke up in recovery. My husband came in after a short time. I watched another man in the recovery room who was struggling a bit and I hoped he'd be okay. I decided I was hungry. They brought me a turkey sandwich. Everyone came in to check on me and remind me of my follow up appointment with my doctor and then we left.

I sat on the couch for a few days and watched TV. I calculated out how long we'd have to wait and when we'd be likely to get pregnant again. I got an email from my insurance company letting me know they'd received the claims and processed them. The amount I owed? $0.

The D&C is the same procedure I had when I was 19 - when I had an abortion. What a contrast. When I was 19, I had to scrape together $350 - borrowing from a sister and some friends. I arrived at the clinic near St. Louis and had to be escorted from the car to the door by a security guard while protesters chanted and yelled at me - demanding that I change my mind. I had to have counseling before the procedure because apparently my mental state was in question. I left the building feeling like I wanted to throw up - and did. My friend drove me back to Carbondale and I slept for most of the weekend. One of my friends at the time found out I'd had an abortion and decided that she couldn't be my friend anymore. No real loss there, as she apparently wasn't my friend to begin with.

Same procedure. Exact same procedure. This time around every nurse, every receptionist, every ultrasound tech, everyone said they were sorry. Everyone wanted to be sure I was okay. Everyone expected me to cry. Everyone assumed I would be distraught. No one questioned my choice to have a D&C. No one defriended me. I didn't need a security guard to guide me from the car to the door and back. I didn't have to drive two hours out of my way to go to a special clinic. No one wanted to submit me to counseling to make sure my mental state was what they thought it should be. And because I'm lucky to have good insurance, I didn't have to worry about how I would scrape together the money for the procedure.

This is the experience every woman should have. Everyone deserves to have their privacy respected. Everyone deserves to have their choice honored. Everyone deserves to have their relationship with their doctor respected. Everyone deserves to have health insurance that covers their medical procedures (whatever those procedures may be). Everyone deserves to feel secure when they go in for a procedure.

Everyone deserves to have the same experience I did. And I know I will likely spend my entire life fighting to make that a reality.

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PROMISES, PROMISES: Pounding the Glass Platform

by LeanneB, SheKos editor

I have noted in the past that, when it comes to defending women's reproductive freedom, the Democratic party talks a good game but frequently fails to deliver what it promises. But I suppose even that could be considered a kind of progress, because in the beginning, they didn't even talk a very good game.

For instance, here's the language touching on reproductive freedom in the 1976 Democratic platform, three years after the Roe v. Wade decision:

We fully recognize the religious and ethical nature of the concerns which many Americans have on the subject of abortion. We feel, however, that it is undesirable to attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court decision in this area.

Hard-hitting, huh? Fortunately, the platform of 1980 offered a more committed statement about a woman's right to choose, with only a hint of apology at the beginning:

We fully recognize the religious and ethical concerns which many Americans have about abortion. We also recognize the belief of many Americans that a woman has a right to choose whether and when to have a child. The Democratic Party supports the 1973 Supreme Court decision on abortion rights as the law of the land and opposes any constitutional amendment to restrict or overturn that decision.

So in just four years, we've gone from "It's the Supreme Court's fault!" to "This is the law of the land and we oppose efforts to alter that." There is also a welcome acknowledgment that women are in control of their own reproductive decisions.

Unfortunately, we lost that presidential election. And then, of course, Ronald Reagan proceeded to do his best to stamp out the fledgling flame of female reproductive uppity-ness--in between deregulating every industry in sight and making America safe for greater poverty. The Democrats seem positively morose in the 1984 platform. This is reflected in a section entitled, The Future if Reagan is Reelected:

There can be little doubt that a Supreme Court chosen by Ronald Reagan would radically restrict constitutional rights and drastically reinterpret existing laws. Today, the fundamental right of a woman to reproductive freedom rests on the votes of six members of the Supreme Court—five of whom are over 75. That right could easily disappear during a second Reagan term.

I might've gone with a forceful statement about what Democrats planned to do to protect reproductive freedom, but that's just me. Anyway, Reagan won and did, indeed, get a chance to appoint some conservative Justices, just as the Cassandra-like Dem platform said he would.

The platform of 1988 is a bit of an anomaly in various respects. The reproductive choice language is buried in the middle of a dense hodge-podge of civil rights promises:

We further believe that we must work for the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution; the fundamental right of reproductive choice should be guaranteed regardless of ability to pay; [emphasis mine]

Yes, blink and you might miss it, but it's worth noting that this is the first time the Democratic platform included the words "regardless of ability to pay." So despite the anemic treatment of the topic of choice, this platform did manage to set one important precedent. Well, two precedents, unfortunately; the inclusion of this language made many Democrats in Congress official traitors to pro-choice constituents every year when they re-approved the Hyde Amendment.

Beginning with the Clinton campaigns, reproductive rights receive an entire section in the platform entitled Choice:

[1992]

Democrats stand behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, regardless of ability to pay, and support a national law to protect that right. It is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans—not government—can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction. The goal of our nation must be to make abortion less necessary, not more difficult or more dangerous. We pledge to support contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education, and policies that support healthy childbearing and enable parents to care most effectively for their children.

The 1996 includes all the same elements, plus a lot of extra verbiage insisting that the party supports doing everything possible to make abortions unnecessary. It also includes this first-time addition:

The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party.

I think we've found that smelly place where Democratic betrayals such as the Stupak Amendment are spawned. The above statement also made its way into the 2000 platform, with significant expansion:

The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party. This is why we are proud to put into our platform the very words which Republicans refused to let Bob Dole put into their 1996 platform and which they refused to even consider putting in their platform in 2000: "While the party remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing its historic principles and ideals, we also recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing views on issues of personal conscience like abortion and capital punishment. We view this diversity of views as a source of strength, not as a sign of weakness, and we welcome into our ranks all Americans who may hold differing positions on these and other issues. Recognizing that tolerance is a virtue, we are committed to resolving our differences in a spirit of civility, hope and mutual respect."

In other words, here is our "policy," but you can vote however you're comfortable and we'll still call you a Democrat. This verbiage was purged, however, from the 2004[pdf] platform:

We will defend the dignity of all Americans against those who would undermine it. Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

And finally, we come to the current platform, ratified in 2008:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

We have definitely come a long way from where we started. The platform now clearly states that women have a right to make their own reproductive choices in accordance with Roe v. Wade and regardless of financial circumstances. But we're seeing more extra conditions being added to reassure the more conservative members of the party that we're not "pro-abortion"--lots of talk about reducing the need for abortions and supporting adoption programs and so forth. None of which I would mind if there was also an understanding within the party that you vote according to the platform and not according to your religion.

And without such a stipulation, I have to wonder how much progress supporters of reproductive freedom can honestly claim.

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OUT OF THE SILENCE: It Is About Life

by rb137

The arguments against abortion strip the discussion of all complexity. In the end, those arguments leave women with few solutions to the dire problems that they face in their private lives.

The life of the child dogma polarizes the debate. Any conversation that starts with one side accusing the other of murder does not have resolution as a primary goal. The dogma is a bludgeon, designed to build a movement by keeping the two camps from talking with one another.

And this simplicity is essential to the anti-abortion crusade. It forces pro-choice advocates to assume a defensive position or start with apologetics.

The secondary arguments then become a form of "blaming the victim," something that already happens to women far too often. It's her fault. She was irresponsible. The only reason that she finds herself in this unfortunate position is that she acted badly. And if she gets an abortion, she is a horrible person. This finger pointing makes the propaganda easy to sell.

The anti-abortion crusade depends on vilifying the opposition. It cannot embrace the path of least suffering, even in cases where circumstances find a pregnancy tragically complicated, where termination is the kindest answer. The need to engage the path of least suffering gets swept away by the will of God, which means there is still controversy over cases of rape, incest, and threats to the life of the mother.

The truth is that real life rarely seems complicated until it happens. Nobody knows what they will do until they are put to the test. When it happens to their own delicate flower. Before Roe v. Wade, young girls were forced to the back alley by their parents and boyfriends. Abortion wasn't always the woman's choice. It still isn't today.

Criminalizing abortion does not stop it from happening. It only guarantees that women will be in danger.

Reproductive rights are under threat today, by a worldview that quickly falls like a house of cards when applied to real people and real events. Unless we speak out and challenge that simplistic way of thinking--and talk to the people who maintain it--that house will remain standing.

It is up to us to tell the stories.

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THIS WEEK IN WOMEN'S HISTORY: A Rocky Road to Reproductive Freedom

by joedemocrat

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to have an abortion. One hundred years earlier, the 1873 Comstock law made it illegal to send any contraceptive device or information through the mail. Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) successfully challenged this law, promoted the use of birth control and founded Planned Parenthood.

Countless state and local statutes restricted access to birth control. In the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court overturned the 1879 Connecticut law that made the use of contraceptives--even by married couples--a criminal act. This established a constitutional right to reproductive privacy, and set an important precedent for Roe v. Wade.

Unfortunately, the struggle for reproductive freedom has remained difficult since Roe. Opponents have sought to place as many legal, practical and financial restrictions as possible to limit access to abortion. In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortions, by a 207-167 vote. The Hyde Amendment was challenged as unconstitutional in Harris v. McRae (1980) but the court upheld the amendment. Congress votes annually to renew Hyde.

Despite Hyde's firm prohibition on public funding, opponents of choice injected the inflammatory issue into the 2009 health care reform debate. The House passed the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which causes onerous complications for women getting insurance for comprehensive reproductive care under any of the new proposed plans.

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WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE: How Employers Can Limit Your Rights

by pat of butter in a sea of grits

Reproductive freedom in America may also be constrained by a woman's employer. For those who are lucky enough to have a) a job in 2010 and b) employer sponsored health insurance as part of their benefits package, about 86 percent of those plans cover contraception. According to recent reporting by The American Prospect magazine, 90 percent of private insurance plans cover abortion today--a number that would undoubtedly decline if the Stupak Amendment became law. Over 70 percent of Americans support the inclusion of women's reproductive health services in health care coverage.

Reproductive freedom includes the choice to use contraception, use abortion services, or to give birth. As we discussed in an earlier column, the United States lags far behind the rest of the world on family leave policy, including maternity leave. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world that does not mandate paid maternity leave for employees. The others? Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea. In any other country, new moms are assured of keeping their job and being paid for at least six weeks, often up to a year, after giving birth. Many countries also require paid paternity leave, to allow dads the time to bond with their little ones as well.

Breastfeeding accomodation policies in the workplace vary from state to state. Much progress on this issue has been made in the past decade, but we still have a ways to go. 43 states allow women to breastfeed in any public or private location, but only 24 states have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace. Women who are pumping milk at work need a clean, private location with a lockable door. (A bathroom stall isn't good enough, folks! Would you eat on the toilet?) Also necessary: an outlet where they can plug in their pump; and a fridge where they can store their bagged milk. I was fortunate enough when my first child was born to work in a place that had a designated breastfeeding room with a hospital grade pump, locking door and refrigerator. Many women can't even get break time, let alone a private spot, to pump milk for their infants.

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RECOMMENDED READING: Perspectives on Choice

by dirkster42

In keeping with the focus on Roe v. Wade, I've selected three books for this week's recommended reading.

The most powerful treatment of the subject that I've read is Beverly Wildung Harrison's Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion. Harrison shifts the ethical question away from the usual one, which pits fetal "rights" versus women's rights (although she does have a chapter on this). Instead, she focuses on the question that shows how political--and explosive--the stakes are: "Who Shall Control the Power to Reproduce the Species."

Rather than grounding the right to choose in notions of privacy, Harrison's perspective raises a broad political question about a fundamental social act--how society continues. Harrison is a Presbyterian ethicist, and her book includes chapters on theology and church history. This book has been out of print for some time, so it may be difficult to acquire.

I'm going out on a limb and recommending a book I've only skimmed, but it looks indispensible from what I've seen: Abortion and Woman's Choice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom by Rosalind Petchetsky.

Finally, for a more historical view, see Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America.

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GLBT NEWS THE KAT DRAGGED IN: Reproductive Rights Are For Same-Sex Couples Too

by KentuckyKat



When many people think of reproductive freedom, they think of abortion... maybe birth control. Not everyone immediately thinks of GLBTs. The reproductive challenges that we face are in many ways different, but are the same in the ways that matter. We face the abrogation of our free will by politicians and those who would impose their morals upon us. Because my knowledge and experience lies in this direction, I will focus on female couples. This is not because gay couples and couples including a transgendered individual do not face equal challenges, but because I do not feel qualified to opine on the particular issues faced by them.

In Ireland, the Supreme Court recently granted de facto parental rights to a lesbian couple's sperm donor.

At the time of his contribution, he apparently did not express any desire to retain parental rights. Instead, he was to be a favored "uncle" -- without any formal privileges or responsibilities. Later, after his friendship with the child's mothers deteriorated, he changed his mind. When the women attempted to move to Australia with their now three-year-old son, the sperm donor sued and obtained an injunction to keep the child in the country while he fought for his alleged rights as a biological parent.

Given that lesbians (and female bisexuals in relationships with another woman) cannot have the biological child of either woman without the use of a sperm donor, such a decision is immensely troubling. But, lest you think that America is far safer for same-sex parents, one need only look to the Texas case of Ward v. Ward [pdf]. In that case, a child was taken away from a single lesbian mother and placed in the custody of the father, a man convicted of second degree murder in the death of his first wife. In explaining the ruling, the judge stated that it was important that the child grow up in a "non-lesbian world."

Despite that horrid ruling, there have been key victories in the United States. The California Supreme Court has held that doctors illegally discriminated against a lesbian plaintiff when they refused to provide her with artificial insemination based on the religious views of her "lifestyle." Those of us who do not live in California may face a bleaker legal landscape, however. President Obama has indicated that we should expect a robust conscience clause from his administration. (A conscience clause allows medical providers not to provide care if it conflicts with their personal religious beliefs.) I hope and trust that President Obama will protect the rights of GLBTs to be treated equally to their straight counterparts. But I would be lying if I pretended that that comment did not frighten me.

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EAR ON CULTURE: Michelle Obama's First Year: She Did It HER Way

by Muzikal203



Michelle Obama’s first year as First Lady of the United States of America has come and gone, and I think it was an amazing first year. I freely admit that I haven’t been paying attention to politics my entire life, at least not as closely as I have in the last year. I also freely admit that I’m more than a little biased when it comes to Michelle Obama. I can honestly say that in the last year I have seen Michelle Obama do things that I never imagined I’d see a First Lady do. I think perhaps the biggest impact she will have is on the young men and women in the Washington D.C. area. In the past year I have seen and heard countless accounts of her going to schools and talking to teens or stopping in an elementary school to visit a class and read them a book. She's even invited some famous friends to start a mentoring program with a group of 10th and 11th graders. She invited those children and youth to essentially become a part of the Obamas’ extended family. She has gone to soup kitchens without a lot of fanfare and donated her time. Imagine how you’d feel if you were down on your luck and you had to go in to a soup kitchen, and you walked in and there was the First Lady of the United States smiling and joking with you and serving you food. That’s not something I could imagine any other First Lady (in my admittedly short lifetime of only 26 years) doing. She started a White House Garden an instead of simply hiring gardeners to come in and do the work, she did the work and she had children from a local school come in and help her. When the garden was ready to harvest, she then took them into the White House kitchens and showed them what they can do with the food. Again, something I couldn’t imagine any other First Lady doing. The garden has produced over 1,000 pounds of food, and some of that food has been donated to Miriam's Kitchen a local soup kitchen where Michelle volunteered. She even hula hooped and played double dutch, I definitely can’t see any other First Lady doing that. Maybe it’s because she’s one of the youngest First Ladies ever, or maybe it’s just that she cares that much. The White House is once again "the People’s House" mostly because Michelle Obama wanted to open it back up. Even something like the White House Blue Room Christmas tree became a symbol for how she wants to bring the country together and walk the walk instead of simply talking the talk.

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Sure, she hasn’t been doing the DC social scene, but she reached out to the people who mattered most. Not the ones who could afford to have exclusive parties where the President and First Lady show up, but the ones who probably never thought they’d ever get to hang out with the President and First Lady. You were more likely to see Barack and Michelle Obama if you were just a regular person than you were if instead you were a part of the DC social scene. I’m sure that really pissed a lot of people off, but Michelle Obama still continued to do things her way.

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To top it all off, she still remains first and foremost Sasha and Malia’s mother. Her daughters are clearly her life. Even with all she’s doing as First Lady she has not once compromised being a good mother. This is something that everyday women do all the time. They have careers and they still take care of their families. Sure they have their support systems, but no one can take the place of a mother’s care and attention. Heck, she even had time to walk the dog regularly (something I think I recall her saying she wouldn’t do before they got him). I recently read an article where she commented that he daughters are still the same kids they were when they left Chicago. I think that's not only a testament to Sasha and Malia for being the level headed young women they are, but it's also a testament to Michelle Obama for making sure that her daughters continued to be raised as normal children, or at least as normal as possible given the circumstances. She even told the staff that the girls have to make their own beds in the morning and do chores.

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I think what Michelle Obama has shown America is that it’s perfectly okay to just be a Mom. It’s perfectly okay to be who you were before you "arrived", and if anyone has "arrived" it’s definitely the Obamas. She has shown future First Ladies that there are more important things than merely smiling for the cameras, it’s important to walk the walk. It’s important to not lose sight of who you are outside of your position. I can’t even imagine how many lives she’s personally touched in the DC area by simply being who she is. And I can’t fail to note that she’s happy with who she is, even going so far as to check in with her older friends to make sure she hasn’t changed after being in the bubble that is Washington DC.

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I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't mention her husband in all of this. The last year has certainly been a challenging one for our President. He's had to make some really hard decisions, a lot of which were unpopular not just on DKos but in the "real world" as well. We all know that he keeps a cool head, he's just a cool guy. Personally, I think it helps that he's surrounded by a family he loves when he goes home. He never looks quite as happy as he does when he's with his wife and children. The Obamas are always quick to tell people that their marriage isn't perfect, and of course every relationship has its issues, but they are an excellent example of how a husband and wife could and should work together. She is his rock, and he's not afraid to admit that. I'll even go so far as to say he wouldn't be where he is today if Michelle Obama wasn't who she is. They called her "The Closer" on the campaign trail, and anyone who listened to Michelle Obama speak about her husband and his vision for America couldn't help but at least give the man a second look if not vote for him.

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Through this year Michelle Obama has been criticized for just about everything from touching the Queen of England (who was also touching her at the time) to wearing shorts when it was hot outside. What she wore was criticized as if she was supposed to be dressing to please us. Even a new haircut is somehow news. Through it all she’s kept her head up, she’s stayed true to herself, and she did it all HER way.

