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I thought that teaching girls that in the home and church sufficed. Then my youngest sister-in-law got pregnant by a black boy. My conservative, rural, Catholic "No fish on Friday" in-laws were all ready to have that baby aborted because it was truly inconvenient--'what would the neighbors think' was the principle priority going through their panicked heads. All they could see or think about was the father's race being introduced into the family--and they'd have denied being racist before this actually happened.

Our offer to adopt the baby saved her life, gave them all time to calm down, even though in the long run her mother kept her and had two more by the same high-school dropout who couldn't keep from stealing from an employer long enough to actually get a paycheck. (He isn't in jail right at the moment, and they actually got MARRIED. Of course my in-laws all hate him and blame him for their daughter not living so well--they're completely incapable of seeing that she too has made choices.)

Choices, choices, choices. Life goes on. That little family has a lot of strikes against it, but they're all alive. NO THANKS to the conviction my in-laws didn't show when the chips were actually down and an "Oreo baby" was on the way.

It's all well and good to preach against abortion. It's what you do when you're actually confronted with the reality of an unplanned pregnancy that really shows your values. The in-laws look down on us because we're not Catholic and tell us our babies are going to go to hell because of our choices. But when they were going to murder my niece, my husband told them, "That's my blood too. You want to shed it, I'm going to come stop you." That's what finally stopped the plan to suck my niece into a sink.

She's a pretty girl and maybe she'll overcome her screwed up beginnings. Many people do.

Glad your father is better. It sounded very serious.