Tell The Truth is still down, so why am I depressed?

It's midnight, I've been running around all day on four hours sleep and now I'm trying to relax. Why then, am I reading the stuff that causes me the most depression? (The Victorian Abortion Bill coverage.) Possibly because I am depressed.

Why? Who knows? The two people who have read my thesis really like it, I've got a good offer for a Masters candidature investigating consciousness at the nexus of philosophy of mind and neuroscience (a huge dream come true), I've been head hunted by a malaria lab back in biochemistry (very flattering) and I've agreed to interim work with them that should knock our big debt on the head. Also, my Indonesian student got on a plane last week, so that particular irritation is gone, and I finally had a conversation with a woman who's been avoiding me for years for reasons I never quite understood so was able to show that I'm not scary really. My Aunts have kindly told me that they will worry about my mother for me, which is a huge relief, my kids are gorgeous, my husband is a hairs breadth from finishing his PhD, and, I'm having a week off. So why all the symptoms? Bursting into tears at random, sleeplessness, grumpiness and general apathy?

Maybe because I'm not having a week off? I'm now busying myself attempting to market a documentary film called "Orgasmic Birth" (blog post about it coming on Friday I reckon), helping out at my son's school and integrating my daughter into her new childcare room. Add hunting for second hand clothes to fit the new figure and that's my holiday over :-(

Apart from buying clothes, which is a necessity really, there's no me time in there, so I'm grabbing it late at night by blogging a little and adding to any discourse on abortion that crops up in the Victorian public sphere (or what passes for discourse, it's usually a lot of name calling). Here is my contribution to a commentary at the Herald Sun, most of you will have heard this one before I think...

I don't regret my abortion. I have never met anyone who has, and I talk about my abortion a lot, as I believe in reducing the stigma. Those who do regret tend to make the news though, don't they? They are over represented because the rest of us are getting on with our lives.

Most arguments from the pro-life camp, though they do not mention it, are arguments from POTENTIAL. "Give the baby a chance at life." "It's a separate person from the mother." That sort of plaintive mewing is based on the idea that the embryo or foetus has the potential to live a fulfilling life. My beautiful son was a potential life, I mean, he must have been, because he's here, right? But if I had carried my first pregnancy to term I would have been a single mother (I would never have considered the scarring experience of adoption for either of us). If I had been a single mother the father of my son would not have looked at me twice, thus, my son, in all his genetic uniqueness, would not have been born. Are you following this, pro-lifers? It's not terribly complex, you see, if I had continued the first pregnancy, my son would not have come to be. We already agree that he was a potential life, don't we? Because he's here and alive and all. So, by having the first child I would have snuffed out his potential for life. According to you I'm a murderer whether I had that abortion or not.

The upshot is, that if you force a girl to carry her first pregnancy to term, you are possibly preventing other babies from being born. Retrospective analysis of the idea of potential can be tricky for some people. Take your time pro-lifers.

That's it. Off to bed, perchance to sleep....