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You have your diagnosis.� What now?� Controlling Type II Diabetes is challenging and stressful.� Many of the changes you have to make will not fit with your current lifestyle or those of your friends and family.� However, if you want to control your diabetes and avoid complications, change is mandatory.� This article will walk you through the major changes you must make in order to lead a longer, happier life with diabetes.

A few warnings

You will see claims being bandied about by people who say they have the secret to curing diabetes.� These are scams.� Diabetes is not just incurable at present, it is irreversible.� Anyone who offers a cure is only after your money.� Listening to them will place you at extreme risk for blindness, neuropathy, circulatory failure, kidney failure, stroke, and heart disease.� You are the one who will suffer, not the snake-oil peddler.

Many alternative treatments and dietary supplements are being promoted as treatments for diabetes.� The supplements include chromium picolinate, alpha lipoic acid, cinnamon, garlic, and magnesium.� Be aware that the claims that these substances help control blood sugar have not been proven in clinical trials.� Also, the large amounts of these supplements that are recommended can sometimes be harmful in and of themselves.� Be sure to discuss any alternative treatments you are considering with your primary care doctor.

Finally, do not ignore your diabetes.� Being diagnosed is shocking, sometimes overwhelming.� Denial is easy; compliance is hard.� You must realize that diabetes is a progressive disease.� The earlier you can arrest it and control it, the better your chances of avoiding complications altogether.� Every day you let your blood sugar soar takes time off your life.� Please listen to your medical team and make these lifestyle changes.� A longer, happier life will be your reward.

Monitoring your health

As a diabetic, it is up to you to put together a medical team, determine your treatment plan, and monitor your health.� Because diabetics are prone to health problems and are slow to recover from injuries and disease, you must watch carefully in order to catch problems either before they occur or before they become severe.� There are several key observations that you must make on a regular basis, daily or even more often.

Blood glucose monitoring is probably the most well known self-test that diabetics take.� Testing and recording your blood glucose levels is vital if you are going to prevent present and future problems.� Blood glucose monitors are very easy to use, and most of them require such a small blood sample that the pain is minimal, usually about the same as a mosquito bite.� You and your doctor should work out a plan to determine how often you show monitor your blood glucose level.� Recommended levels are 80 to 120 milligrams glucose per decaliter of blood for a fasting test and 100 to 140 mg/dl for a random test.� You should make these levels your goal and concentrate on meeting them as often as possible.

Foot inspection is a very important aspect of health monitoring for diabetics.� As diabetes progresses, hands and feet become numb.� It is easy to injure your feet and not know it.� It is especially important to use a mirror to inspect the soles of your feet every day.� Blisters can rise, break, and become infected in a short time if not detected and treated immediately.� As with blood glucose monitoring, you must make a habit of inspecting your hands and feet every day.

There are two blood test that your doctor should schedule regularly, usually every three months: a cholesterol measurement and an HbA1C.� The A1C, short for glycosylated hemoglobin A1C, measures average blood glucose levels over a long period of time.� Your A1C level should be below 7, below 6 if possible.� High cholesterol, or hypercholesterolemia, is a common adjunct to diabetes.� You should monitor cholesterol levels carefully and take action immediately if they begin to rise.

Diet

The three legs that compose a diabetes treatment plan are diet, exercise, and medication.� Of these three, diet usually causes the most change in a diabetic's lifestyle.� In developed countries, our diets have become far too heavy on simple carbohydrates like sugar and refined flour, far too low in fiber, and far too high in fat.� Aside from these considerations, the proportions of carbohydrates, protein and fat that we eat are out of whack, as are portion sizes and distribution of meals through the day.� It is vital for you, as a diabetic, to become diet-conscious and to make possibly radical changes in what you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat.

First, I want to dispel the Great Sugar Myth.� Sugar is not poison for diabetics, neither is it forbidden.� Sugar is simply a carbohydrate just like bread or potatoes.� The problem with sugar is two-fold.� First, it is highly concentrated calories.� In order to have sugar in your diet, you must make room somewhere else.� Second, the calories are empty of any nutrition.� Sugar contains no vitamins or minerals and, thus, has no benefit.� With the advent of artificial sweeteners such as Equal and Splenda, sugar has become very much a non-essential.

The goal of diet in your diabetic treatment plan is three-fold: to keep your blood sugar levels within recommended ranges, to keep your blood sugar levels as steady as possible, and to manage your weight.� By managing your diet responsibly, you can take control of these three factors and live a much healthier and longer life.

A good diabetic diet involves balancing calorie intake and managing the proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats consumed.� An ideal diet requires eating six equal meals every day, one approximately every three hours.� This is not always possible, given the way our modern lifestyles revolve so tightly around three meals a day.� The best compromise is three small meals and two or three snacks.� I try to stay on an 1800-calorie-a-day diet by eating approximately 300 calories six time each day.

This diet plan has two goals: to keep blood sugar levels steady through the day and to keep you from getting so hungry that you overeat at meal times.� Some good ideas to keep in mind are to eat a high-fiber diet with lots of whole grains, fresh vegetable, and fresh fruit.� Raw vegetables – leafy salads, cut broccoli or cauliflower, carrots, and celery, for instance – are ideal.� This kind of diet runs counter to modern customs, and you can expect to take some teasing about it.

You should limit simple carbohydrates like processed flours, sugars, and potatoes.� Simple carbohydrates have a high glycemic index, a measure of how fast they cause blood sugar levels to rise, and cause your blood sugar to spike and then fall precipitously.� This not only causes stress for your body in dealing with the excess glucose, but can also lead to hypoglycemia.� Try to always choose complex carbohydrates like vegetable and whole grains and always add a little protein and fat to the meal or snack to moderate the rate of digestion and the variation in blood glucose levels.

Also essential to blood sugar and weight management are controlling the proportions of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in your diet.� A good mix is 70% carbohydrates, 20% protein, and 10% fat.� You do not have to mess around with complicated food exchange systems to achieve this.� I do just fine by paying attention to package labeling and thinking a little bit ahead.

Protein is essential to a healthy diet, but only in moderation.� High-protein diets are very much not recommended for diabetics.� The reason is that large amounts of protein place a major burden on the kidneys.� Kidney disease is a high-risk complication of diabetes, and you should avoid placing any undue strain on an already stressed organ.� Another reason for limiting protein intake to reasonable levels is that proteins contain more calories per gram (nine) than carbohydrates (four).

Good sources of protein in your diet include meat, especially poultry and fish, beans, and milk and dairy products (watch out for fat).� Approximately four ounces of meat make a good serving size.� This is a piece of meat about the size of a deck of playing cards.� Be sure to choose lean meats and skinless poultry to limit your fat intake.

Avoid the temptation to eliminate fat from your diet altogether.� A proper amount of fat is essential for the proper functioning of your body.� Fat helps lubricate joints, among other things, which will help you in maintaining your exercise program.� The trick is to choose the proper kinds of fats and eat them in the proper amounts.

There are four main types of fats that you must be aware of: saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fats.� To avoid getting technical, I will just say that you should avoid saturated and trans fats in favor of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.� Again, reading the nutrition information on food labels will help you make this decision.� Though trans fats are being listed more often, scanning the ingredients list for any hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats, will be helpful to you.� Also, any solid fat like butter, meat fats, or cheese should be highly suspect.

Good sources of the unsaturated fats include fatty cold-water fish like salmon, trout, and tuna, and vegetable oils like canola and olive oils.� These should be your fist choices for providing fat in your diet.� The wrong fats or too much fat in your diet can lead to heart disease or stroke, both very high-risk complications for diabetics.� Again, prevention is vital, since cure is impossible.

Good diet for diabetics is all about balance.� A proper mix of vegetables, whole grains, fruits, lean meats, and unsaturated fat will contribute to a healthier life with fewer complications.

Exercise

A balanced exercise program serves the same purpose as a balanced diet: blood sugar management and weight management.� A good exercise program will do this in two ways.� First, a 20-minute aerobic workout at least three times per week will help with short-term glucose control.� Second, a weight training or other muscle-building program helps keep blood sugar levels stable over the long term.

Aerobic exercise is essential to a healthy lifestyle.� By exercising your heart, you make it stronger, fight plaque buildup in your arteries and oxygenate your blood.� Working muscles use more glucose for energy, lowering the amount in the bloodstream.� This also encourages the liver to release glucose into the blood, depleting its supply.� This helps control blood sugar levels later by delegating more glucose to the liver to replenish its stores.� You must be careful to monitor your blood glucose carefully before and after exercise, since a good workout can use glucose at a rate that might cause the level to fall too low, leading to hypoglycemia.� If your blood glucose level is within recommended range, you might want to eat some carbohydrates before beginning your program.

For long-term effect, your exercise program should include some form of muscle-building and toning routine.� I prefer weight training using low weights and lots of repetitions, but you doctor can advise you on a program that fits your unique needs.� You do not need to try to bulk up and become muscle-bound, just convert some of your excess fat into muscle.� Fat tissue uses no calories and, thus, no glucose.� Muscle fiber uses glucose, even when it is at rest, helping to regulate the level of glucose in your blood.� This helps you avoid the spikes and dips that cause diabetics so many problems.

Medication

The third leg of your treatment program may include medications.� Not all Type II diabetics need medication, at least at first.� Many never need medication and can control their diabetes through diet and exercise alone.� However, for those of us who do need extra help, medications are indispensable.� It really helps to know about your options in this area.

Diabetes medications, sometimes known as hypoglycemic medications, aim at controlling blood sugar levels through three fundamental means: raising insulin levels, increasing cells' sensitivity to insulin, which enhances their ability to use glucose, and blocking starch digestion.� The different medications use different methods to accomplish these goals, but that subject is far too technical for this article.� Instead, I want to point out some of the major types of medications and how they work in general terms.

The major groups of medications that raise insulin levels are injectable insulin, the meglitinides, the D-phenylalanine derivatives, and the sulfonylureas.� Besides injectable insulin, the sulfonylureas are the most commonly prescribed of these drugs.� This group includes such common brands as Glucotrol, Glucotrol XL, and Glucovance.

Of the medications that help your body make better use of the insulin that is available, the most widely used are the biguanides, including GlucoPhage, and the thiazolidinediones, which include Actos and Avandia.� Both groups of drugs work by increasing insulin sensitivity and by lowering sugar production in the liver.

Less widely used are the Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, such as Precose and Glyset.� This class of drugs slows absorption of carbohydrates in the intestines, which helps reduce the rapid rise in blood sugar after a meal or snack.

These medications are most often used in combination to achieve maximum benefit.� Most commonly, a sulfonylurea will be used in combination with either a biguanide or a thiazolidinedione.� This combination gives a one-two punch that increases insulin production and increases cells' sensitivity to that insulin at the same time.� This combination can lead to hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, so exercise caution until the proper dosages can be determined.

Commitment

The harsh fact is that diabetes is presently an incurable disease.� The good news is that by making a commitment to your health, you can manage your diabetes and, in many cases, arrest its development.� It is not easy.� Managing diabetes requires significant lifestyle changes and the ability to resist the temptation to continue to live just like “normal” people.

Your health is more important than other people's opinions of your lifestyle.� Your commitment to proper diet, a good exercise plan, taking your medications every day, and keeping close tabs on your blood sugar and your health will pay off.� By committing yourself to intelligent changes now, you can give yourself the chance for a long, healthy, complication-free life.

My husband and I were only going out for a year when he began speaking about moving in together. He is three years older than me and back then he was 25 and I was 22. I knew I wanted to but as women, we always have a doubt in the back of our minds if this would be the right move. So I compromised and said to him we need to discuss his plans of us cohabitating together for a few months and if I feel comfortable, then we will take the next step. Some background information, I was in college full time and working two part-time jobs, one was running my own tutoring service. My husband was working as a Network Engineer and finally was making real money and felt it was time to take our relationship to the next level.

Since I was not making the salary even close to his, we discussed the financial situation and he was extremely supportive and said, “Well if we get married, one of us should have a college degree and since you have one year left, I nominate you.” Very sweet, right? But in his “guy” language he was saying he saw a future with us and that when we decided to get married and begin our own family, he felt it was important for one of us to be college educated. Since there was no way he was going to give college another try, it was up to me and that was all he wanted me to worry about. Not the financials and not working two part time jobs, just school.A year and half of us going out we moved in together in a nice one bedroom apartment. I suggest if you take this step, don't go for a studio apartment, sometimes you need a little space to yourself. Eventually, quite quickly, I found out that spending time together was a lot different than living together. When you are going back and forth to each other's homes, you tend to make yourself stay awake and show some enthusiasm in seeing your significant other. Well, I wasn't aware that when the excitement wears away, the relationship becomes harder. Where I would stay up till 1 am to spend the time with Aaron, NOW I was in bed, asleep by 10 pm!

Our first year of living together was not an easy one. Yes, it was nice to be living with the person you love and starting a life together but what a difference the relationship takes. Looking back, I now understand why many couples who marry get divorced in the first year, it is not easy! I enjoyed the fact that I had no engagement ring on my finger so if I really couldn't do it, I could walk out with no strings attached. My husband didn't like when I said that but mentally, that was how I felt. There were compromises we both had to make and habits we both found out about each other which we didn't know prior to our moving. For example, somehow I was left dishes in the sink, regardless if I cooked or not. I made a rule that whoever cooks, the other cleans the dishes. That rule obviously didn't apply to my husband and every morning I would wake up to a sink of dirty dishes. The best would be, and still to this day, he says he will clean the kitchen and when I go to look, all he has done is put things in the sink neatly piled. I know we all have our pet peeves and everyone's is different and obviously this is mine.

Another incident I need to speak about is the soon-to-be in-laws and friends. DO NOT GIVE THEM A KEY TO YOUR APARTMENT NO MATTER WHAT! Somehow in the three years we lived in our apartment, it became an open door policy? I would be home studying during the day and my door would open and it wasn't my husband! Unless you set boundaries and let the boundaries be known from day one, do not give keys out to people who don't respect your boundaries. Let's just say by the third year, we had already gotten married and I put my foot down but those two years prior were not fun. Many disagreements occurred because of this as well.

My suggestion when cohabitating together is before you make the big move set some ground rules up. I wish I did and the first few years would have been an easier transition. I feel living together before marriage is a great way to know if this is the person you want to be with the rest of your life. When you involve yourself so deeply with another person's life, it becomes your life as well. My husband got laid off right after we got engaged and we were making plans for our wedding. The six months of him not working was very difficult for both of us, but we helped each other through it and the incident made our relationship stronger. I feel if I didn't make the decision to live together before marriage, my first year of marriage would have been a huge shock, instead of a gradual process. No, I didn't take my husband's name and yes, I hear about it all the time, but our relationship has survived illness and unemployment. If we didn't continually support each other, mentally, physically, and emotionally, then we wouldn't have made it through nine years of being together.

The last very important step in a relationship, living together or not is communication. If you do not communicate with your partner, then just say goodbye to the relationship now. No one is a mind reader and if you think you are, you are dead wrong! Most arguments begin because there is no communication between both partners. Just remember, love and relationships are a two way street, and for it to work, both partners need to be working together and not blaming one another.

My suggestion is if you want to know how it feels to be married to your partner, then take the leap into cohabitation. The amount of time you wait to do this is dependent on the couple since everyone is different. I feel if I didn't take the step, I would have been in for a deep shock. After most of the kinks are worked out, it's a great feeling to know you are making a new life with your best friend and your love.

Tightened security levels at US Air Force bases means that anyone who wants to get onto an Air Force Base, who is not in possession of a military ID card, will require sponsorship by a friend or relative. The sponsor must be either an active duty member, retired from active duty or a dependent of an active duty member or retiree. If you have been sponsored onto a US Air Force Base by a friend or relative, there are certain rules you must follow to avoid offending anyone on base and being asked to leave.

Carry a Valid Form of Photo ID

When you approach the visitor centre on the Air Force Base, you and your sponsor will both need to provide photo ID's. Your sponsor will show their military ID card as proof of their eligibility as a sponsor and you will need to show proof of your name, that will appear on your visitor pass. Valid forms of photo ID include an unexpired passport or a driving licence. But if you do not have any form of photo ID on you, then you will not be able to get onto the base.

Visitor Pass

Once you have verified your identity, you will have you picture taken and this will appear on your visitor pass. You must keep the visitor pass with you at all times while you are on base and produce it if asked to do so by security police or any other authority who has a right to know why you are on base.

Politics

It is best to avoid discussing your views on politics while you are on base. While you may find a listening audience in certain circles, a lot of people on base will not take kindly to hearing comments about the Middle East conflicts that are going on and about how “troops need to be brought home.” You must remember where you are. The woman sitting across from you in the food court may have a husband deployed to the Middle East. Or the man across the BX from you might become suspicious of what you are saying and consider you a threat to base security and call the police, and arrange for you to be escorted off base.

Stay with Your Sponsor

Your sponsor will be responsible for you while you are on base. That means you must stay with your sponsor and avoid wandering off. If you get into trouble while you are on base, this will reflect badly on your sponsor.

It is important to be a respectful guest while on the base and to not act in a way that will draw attention to yourself and cause embarrassment to your sponsor. If you cause any problems, you will be asked to leave.

There are a lot of things lacking in the WWE today but one thing that doesn't get much attention is the lack of great wrestling finishers. John Cena's finisher is lame. Triple H's finisher takes way too long. Randy Orton's version of the Diamond Cutter is about as good as Britney Spears' version of the Rolling Stones' “Satisfaction”.

Once upon a time wrestlers had great finishers. Everything from complicated submission moves like Chris Benoit's Crippler Crossface and Charlie Haas' Haas of Pain to simple highflying moves like Jimmy Snuka's Splash and Randy Savage's Elbow Drop. Those don't quite make the top ten wrestling finishers of all time though.

Wrestling Finisher #10: Undertaker's Tombstone
The Undertaker was created at a time when the WWE was making some pretty lousy characters. The Undertaker was actually cool though and has now been going strong for almost 20 years. Over that span of time the Undertaker's Tombstone Piledriver has been one of the best wrestling finishers.

Wrestling Finisher #9: La Parka's Chair
La Parka's finishing move is classic. Here are three easy steps to La Parka's finisher. 1. Acquire a chair. 2. Hit opponent with chair. 3. Dance. It doesn't always work though, like when he faced Goldberg.

Wrestling Finisher #8: Kenta Kobashi's Burning Hammer
The Burning Hammer might not be a move you are familiar with because it's mainly used in Japan. The most famous wrestler with the Burning Hammer is probably Kenta Kobashi, who is basically as big as The Rock or Stone Cold in Japan.

Wrestling Finisher #7: Jake Roberts' DDT
These days everybody does a DDT or a variation of a DDT as a regular move. It's unfortunate because once upon a time Jake Roberts' DDT was one of the most feared moves in wrestling and now everyone else has watered it down. Raven also has a great DDT. Everybody else? Blah.

Wrestling Finisher #6: Stone Cold Stunner
Stone Cold Steve Austin's finisher was not only a quick and impactful move but the crowd went absolutely nuts for it. A few middle fingers and head waggin' from Austin didn't hurt either.

Wrestling Finisher #5: Hurricane's Verta-Breaker
For a short period of time the Hurricane, aka Shane Helms, aka Gregory Helms aka heck, I don't know his name anymore. Anyway, he had an awesome move called the Verta-Breaker for a short period of time but for whatever reason they told him to stop doing it.

Wrestling Finisher #4: Petey Williams' Canadian Destroyer
Petey Williams has been pretty much irrelevant in TNA for a long, long time. However, when they do book Petey Williams in a match he always does his finisher, even if he doesn't win the match, because it's just that popular.

Wrestling Finisher #3: Victoria's Widow's Peak
This just goes to show how much Victoria rocks. Victoria's finisher, the Widow's Peak, is the only move by a woman wrestler that is good enough to make the top ten finishers of all time.

Wrestling Finisher #2: Ric Flair's Figure Four Leglock
The Figure Four might not be the most complicated, original or new wrestling finisher but the Figure Four Leglock has reached legendary status simply because of how many times Ric Flair ended a classic match with it.

Wrestling Finisher #1: DDP's Diamond Cutter
A great finisher is something that does a lot of impact and can come out of nowhere at any time. That's why Diamond Dallas Page's Diamond Cutter is the best finisher of all time. During his time in the WCW DDP must have used 100 different variations of the Diamond Cutter. Every night DDP was coming up with a new way to use the Diamond Cutter on somebody.

Ms. magazine plans to release its controversial fall issue next week containing a “We Had Abortions” cover story listing names of 5,000 women – famous and non-famous – who signed a petition stating that they've had abortions.

Fearful of the momentum growing against abortion-on-demand services and any South Dakotans who choose to vote yes on the Referred Law 6 abortion ban on their state's ballot on Nov. 7, Ms. magazine has coincided the release of its controversial fall issue with names of woman who've had abortions in hopes of ceasing the pro-life movement.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'
It's the same tactic Ms. successfully used back in 1972, when its debut issue included a manifesto signed by 53 women stating that they had undergone illegal abortions. The following pivotal year, the Supreme Court enacted Roe v. Wade, making abortion legal.

But I propose that Ms. magazine's “We Had Abortions” maneuver won't work this time. Over three decades later, the public is now armed with much more information surrounding childbearing and abortion that ever before. With an estimated 50 million abortions having been performed since 1973, plenty of women have experienced firsthand the physical, emotional and psychic toll that abortion exacts.

Medical advances have also made lay citizens privy to much more scientific data regarding childbearing from conception forward than in 1973. DNA tests now predict babies' sex at five weeks after conception.

Week 6 of the pregnancy calendars we pore over (whilst carrying wanted children) inform us of developing organs, including the “beginnings of the central nervous system,” the same system that sends and receives pain signals.

Growing Up Pro-Choice
Pro-lifers aren't stupid. Pro-abortionists' desire to keep abortion legal is more about parental convenience and abdication of responsibility than anything else. It's a wrong mindset I too employed in the past, especially growing up in a self-centered society whose laws during most of my 37-year-old life told me it was okay to murder children.

But unlike women who boldly declare no regret at having had abortions, I boldly declare the opposite. After irresponsibly having four abortions during college, I tried to bury my secrets and put that part of my life behind me after moving on and getting married. But like all sin not dealt with, my past reared its ugly head.

In 1999, the year I turned 30, my mother died and I miscarried two babies that I really wanted. My devastation drove me to my knees, begging God for forgiveness. He readily bestowed it, blessing me later with a family.

Still, I was on the fence about the abortion issue…

The Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning
Five years later, as autumn wound down, I toted my kids to the park. A small biplane dragged a banner and buzzed overhead, catching everyone's attention. “What does it say, Mommy?” my then 3-year-old son asked.

“Ten week…” I strained to read the final word then whispered it when it came into focus: “…abortion.” Thankfully, he didn't press for details.

This was before the 2004 presidential election, and my swing state of Ohio was a fishbowl of media attention and bipartisan persuasion. A few days later, as I stopped at a red light, a truck displaying the same photo that previously circled in the air pulled up to my left side, giving me the chance to see what I couldn't before: the silver dime placed as a reference point, the contorted skull, the pink and currant-colored streaks, the mangled tissue.

Election Tuesday, I pulled the curtain behind me and did what more than double the amount of African-Americans in Ohio did compared to four years prior: pushed the chad on the other side.

Infanticide's Darker Ages
Abortion advocates decry returning to the illegal back-alley pre-Roe v. Wade abortion days and go on ad nauseum about the risk to women's lives who are “forced” to endure such dangerous wire-hanger procedures. Never do I hear them sympathize with the fetuses that may experience horrific pain during pregnancy termination.

Besides, there have been darker times than the back-alley abortion days. In Sparta, circa 500 B.C., Greeks tossed healthy babies off cliff sides for any number of reasons. Infanticide was the accepted norm in their adult-focused society and reflected in their laws. No wonder many prosperous and egotistical ancient communities were obliterated. Divine retribution lives on.

These days, prenatal 3D ultrasounds in living color make developing babies more real to us than ever before, morphing abortion into an exercise tantamount to infanticide. More people are recognizing this and putting political power behind their newfound understanding.

Despite the horrors of the bloody war on terror, I'm grateful the current administration is winning a different, bloodier and more sinister war. Roberts and Alito sit on the Supreme Court poised to enact change. We watch South Dakota's legislation with bated breath.

Where Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Can Agree
There is a space between the two camps where we can agree, if pro-choice folks stop waving coat hangers and pro-life folks drop holier-than-thou pretenses long enough to foster rationale conversation.

I can't imagine how unspeakable it would be to carry an unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape. Or the shame of being an irresponsible and lost teen birthing an unwelcome baby. Or a parent who chooses to make the heartbreaking decision to terminate a child who has birth defects.

Certain cases are a tough call, not easy to wrestle with because I've never had to endure the wrenching pain those folks have experienced directly. But it still doesn't set right with me to then say, Okay, go ahead and rip those little limbs apart.

I do agree with pro-abortionists on this: Right-to-lifers should put money where our mouths are and support unwanted and disadvantaged kids – financially, emotionally and spiritually – who are already born. But this argument is largely a smokescreen evading the real issue: that it is generally not okay to take the life of a baby, be they on this side of the birth canal or the other.

Will this argument hold up in years to come, if – heaven forbid – some young woman I love has to endure bearing an unwanted child? I pray that by exposing more of my story as a young girl “looking for love in all the wrong places,” she'll heed mine as a cautionary tale and respect her body – her God-given temple – enough to never be in the position of wanting an abortion. Not strictly because they are then outlawed, but because she has been raised in a society that puts more value on human life.

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