As the mother of two coming-of-age daughters, I am concerned about their futures and wonder if they will have the same choices that I have.

“What exactly is abortion, mommy?” my youngest asked as I buried my face in my hands during the VP debate.

“We’ll talk about it this weekend,” I fibbed, as I have no idea how I will explain this delicate and now extremely upsetting issue.

As a woman, I am one of the lucky ones.

I have never had to make the intensely complex and emotional decision as to whether or not I might have an abortion, although I know many women who have.

And of these women, not a single one has taken that decision lightly, but rather with deep soul-searching, with religious faith, grit, and deep-seated family conversations.

And always, the decision is followed with continuous soul-searching about whether she made the right decision, forever and always.

One woman I know who suffers an abusive marriage said, “I can’t have a child right now. I have a painful medical condition and my husband will kill me if if I tell him I’m pregnant again; just don’t want to bring another baby into this unhappy home.”

Another said, “We have no healthcare and the two kids we already have are mentally challenged. How can we afford another baby?”

But the reasons women choose to terminate or keep their pregnancies is really none of my business; not any of your business, or the business of the government.

And it is a painful choice always and one I hope I will never have to make as my business.

While Biden clearly told the American people that women will continue to have the right to make choices about their own bodies as to abortion under the current administration, Ryan lied.

The Republican party for months has stood on a platform that abortion would be “all but outlawed.”

But as the GOP found this wasn’t the most popular idea even amongst some hard core Republicans, they are now changing their tune.

What was particularly disturbing and insulting to my intelligence as a woman and a human being, is that Ryan did not really answer the question regarding abortion.

He looked nervous, rattled and also weirdly calm all at the same time, and once again repeated the mantra that he believes that “life begins at inception.”

We all know that under a Romney-Ryan ticket, that abortion and Roe vs. Wade would become illegal and overturned.

This is from the same party that will drastically cut education across the board, head start programs, and health insurance including prenatal care.

So, let me get this right: poor women and families who are already financially and emotionally overburdened will be forced to have children they cannot afford.

And under the Republican party, millions of new children will now be born to parents who knew they could not afford to support them in the first place.

This makes sense doesn’t it?

How does the Romney-Ryan ticket plan to support these kids?

Under their plan, these women won’t even be able to afford prenatal vitamins, ultrasounds, hospital care, let alone regular “well baby care” visits and immunizations after their children are born.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney and Ryan will make “being a woman” as a pre-existing condition as we are the ones who have breasts, periods, give birth to children and cause a whole host of financial and unfortunate problems for society.

They will also make life tougher economically for the middle class and the poor;  push more families out of homes they are upside-down on, and do away with many college loan programs and social programs that are safety nets for millions of families.

But my life under Biden would be much different.

I will be able to continue to look at my own body as my own, as well as tell my daughters that they can one day make choices about tough decisions that they don’t yet even understand.

This is my right as a woman and as a citizen of this free country.

I had a relative whose husband drove her across the border of Mexico to have an abortion before it was legal.

She already had four children, and had just delivered twins a year earlier, one of whom died at at home at the age of six months old. She was about 90 pounds after becoming seriously ill as well as  grieving over the baby she lost. Giving birth to another baby would have killed her.

I don’t want to hear stories like that ever again.

Not to mention the thousands of stories we will hear about young girls and women dying from back alley and home abortions.

We live in a supposed civilized Western country where were are supposed to be able to compromise, debate and be thoughtful and democratic about major decisions that will forever effect the lives of people.

We do not live in Pakistan, in Syria or Afghanistan, places that both Biden and Ryan debated.

These are countries where women have virtually no rights at all. One of which has a Terrorist Group known as The Taliban who just critically shot a 14-year-old girl “in the name of religion” for speaking her mind, and has vowed to finish the job.

Is that where we’re heading?

Under Ryan’s plan, my parents will not have enough money to live well for the last of their golden years. They will not have the basic and humane rights of healthcare, and they will not be able to take joy in seeing their grandchildren attend colleges before they die.

Under Biden’s plan, my parents will be able to enjoy their September moments; they will have proactive and reactive healthcare; and they will be able to see their grandchildren fulfill their dreams which will mean receiving educations without going into eternal debt.

An elderly friend had a double mastectomy and is thankfully eligible for a full round of chemotherapy as most of her cancer was caught. But according to Ryan’s arithmetic, she would not be covered under his medical plan.

I was fortunate to be born and raised in a Middle Class community in sunny California. We didn’t have a lot as the middle class during the 1970s was not defined by the models of the cars we drove, the price tags and zip codes of our homes, or even the amounts of zeros on our father’s paychecks.

Rather, we all worked together, and we weren’t really concerned much at all about whether other people had a lot more than we did in the way of material things.

But we did care about the poor, the indigent, the hungry, the uninsured, the unemployed and the deployed soldiers who were coming home from Vietnam in body bags, or in bodies with brains that were plagued with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But Biden cares about those issues, including soldiers he has vowed to bring home from Afghanistan by 2014 while Ryan could not give a clear answer.

I am part of the 47 percent that Biden, thank god, mentioned during this debate.

Ever since the Presidential Debate, I was really waiting for that one.

No one I know who is part of that strange “new percentage group” thinks of themselves as a victim, and no one wants to be unemployed, uninsured, on the dole, or having to ever ask for help.

In closing, I am sure you know full-well what candidate I want to have in control of my body and lay under, and it is not just because of his movie-star smile or Alpha Male delivery.

The Bidenator can tell this woman what to do whenever he wants.

And I have a feeling that if I give both my life and my body over to Scranton Joe . . . that things will be just fine.

Under Ryan, I would be a smothered, unhealthy, impregnated, unemployed, uninsured homeless bag lady with no rights.

Maybe that’s his type?

Editor: Edith Lazenby

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