//------------------------------// // Ch 2.4 Friendship, Dating and Politics // Story: Our Girl Scootaloo 2 of 3 // by Cozy Mark IV //------------------------------// Our Girl Scootaloo Part 2 of 3 by Cozy Mark IV & Jan. McNeville Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-made work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro. Please support the official release Chapter Two point Four: Friendship, Dating and Politics After their first meeting at the student union building, Scootaloo had invited David and Philip to join her friends for dinner in the cafeteria, and though it was some distance from his dorm, David had made it a habit to join Cat, May, Josie, Melissa, Scoot and Demi for dinner nearly every day of the week. Her friends got along well with him, and he fielded more than a few of their medical questions as they all got to know each other better. Demi and David hit it off particularly well, what with his engineering background and David's interest in cybernetics, and along with Philip, the three of them would often run off on technical tangents. While Philip wasn't in attendance every night, it soon became clear that Josie and he shared more than a few interests, and it wasn't uncommon to see the two of them discussing some aspects of politics or engineering intently at one end of the table. It was after one such dinner on the walk back to their rooms that Scootaloo pulled Josie aside. “Josie, what do you think of David?” The question seemed to catch her by surprise. “You have to ask? Scoot, are you telling me you don't know?” “Know what?” “Scoot, David hasn't been coming to dinner with us for his health. Did you really not notice that he's into you?” She blushed. “Okay, maybe I did notice a little. I just want your advice on this. After Conner and Christina I really don't want to mess this up. Is he as good a guy as he seems?” Josie laughed. “I asked Demi to look into David last week, and the worst his cyber-stalking could turn up is that his Jewish parents are pushing him really hard to become a doctor.” “Really? I didn't know he was Jewish...” “Apparently he isn't particularly observant. But in all seriousness, he seems like a good guy. Do you really like him?” Scootaloo's giddy grin said it all, and she actually pranced in place as she nodded. Josie grinned and hugged her. “Oh! I'm so happy for you!” “You think I should ask him out tomorrow? Is that too sudden?” Josie laughed again. “Sudden? Did you not notice how fast I fell for Philip?” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, you two hit it off that night and have been hanging out all the time since. Are you guys dating now?” “Scoot, I...” Josie looked stupidly happy despite a tomato blush as she tried to get her admission out. “I pounced Philip four days after I met him!” “Josie!” Scootaloo was shocked. The brunette gave her orange friend a sly look over the top of her glasses. “What? I was essentially celibate all through high school because I couldn't find what I wanted. I finally found who I was looking for and you expect me to take it slow? Hell, you've had more boyfriends than me so far!” Scootaloo was blushing a bit as Josie pointed this out. “Um... so I guess I'll ask him out then. He is a bit older, but that's not necessarily a bad thing...” “Mmm... It turns out that 'older' also means 'more experienced'.” Josie whispered in her ear with an evil grin. “Josie!” “And much as I hate to admit it, my brother was right.” Scootaloo tried to remember what she was talking about as Josie's grin only got wider. “About the advantages of dating engineers?” Scootaloo had by this point taken on a distinct resemblance to the common beet. “Josie!” Her friend just grinned as they walked off toward the elevator. “Oh, don't look so shocked. I waited years for the right guy, and I'll be damned if I'm going to doodle around with this blushing-virgin Puritan bull shit after I've found him.” All of a sudden, her expression fell a little. “He's a senior and I'm a freshman, so I know it's completely doomed, but...he's here now, and right now, I'm pretty sure I love him. So I have to enjoy that while I have it. I'm not stupid; I know he's going to graduate and get a grown-up job and sooner or later, we'll agree to see other people and I'll just be back where I was before, except I'll have the memory. So I'm...I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.” Scootaloo saw the hard, fatalistic determination she hadn't seen on Josie's face since high school and realized this was really a serious case in the second it took before her friend's smile returned. “And you should, too, pony-girl!” The doors opened and Josie called out as she stepped in: “So call him and make a date already! You can't win if you don't try!” ... Scootlaoo took her friend's advice, and after classes the next evening she found herself at a downtown restaurant called ‘The Black Bear’. David sat across from her looking a bit excited and somewhat nervous at the same time. “I'm really happy you let me take you out to dinner, Scoot. I think you'll like this place; it’s got a few vegetarian options, and they have live music almost every night.” She leaned forward and crossed her front hooves on the table while her elbows rested on the table and her chin rested in her hands. “Thank you for taking me. It’s been a long time since a nice guy asked me out.” “It's been a while since I found a girl I wanted to ask.” He smiled back. “And I'm a little shocked to find you a freshman.” She chuckled and cocked her head. “Hmm... In your mind the girl of your dreams was always an upperclassmen?” “Well... I guess I never really thought about it. I've been so busy with school work, trying to get the grades to get into Med school next fall, I really haven't had much free time left to think about dating.” Scootaloo chuckled a bit at that, “In all the meals we’ve had together, you never thought to ask?” She couldn’t help but smile as she continued, “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much, I’ve skipped more grades than I care to remember already, and if that academic streak hold, I’ll probably be catching up to you in a couple of years.” David shook his head with a grin, “Well I sure can’t fault your ambition. My parents only wish I could have that kind of drive.” Scootaloo cocked her head at that, “What do you mean? You’re on track to get into med school in the fall, with the end goal of a PHD in medicine; what in the world do your parents have to complain about?” He smiled disarmingly, “Well, you know what they say about Jewish mothers? They’re not making it up. My fokes support me, hell, they’re paying most of my way through school, scholarships notwithstanding, but they’re never quite satisfied. Pleased? Sure. But satisfied?” He shook his head, “Never.” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow at that, “So much for stereotypes…” “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t be here without their support and encouragement. I have no illusions that I could have made it this far without help.” He paused to sip his drink, “But there are still some days I could really use a break.” He shook his head to clear it, “But I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to me talk about my parents, and I’m sure you’re sick of talking about your past too. What were your classes like this week?” The evening wore pleasantly on as the street lights came on outside, and it was well after midnight before the two of them finally called it a night… and headed back to David’s dorm room. … It was a couple of weeks later when the circle of friends, which now included Margaret May, Cat, Demi and Melissa, were watching a NASCAR race together. Demi and Melissa had asked why, but Cat and Margaret had described the proceedings so excitedly that Scootaloo, with her background in helping her Dad repair the family car, started asking complex mechanical questions…to which both girls had good answers And then Demi, whose shabby Subaru continued to run only by dint of concerted effort, had quickly gotten caught up in their enthusiasm and turned the pre-show on, only to become absolutely enraptured by the variety and angle of cameras used. Melissa wasn’t interested until Cat informed her which car was a Honda like her own (at which point she became extremely interested,) and Josie, who would generally attend the opening of a can of tennis balls if it meant time with friends, pulled out her tablet and managed to look up just enough detail and trivia about the drivers, cars and the race itself to understand what was going on –even if her questions were, at times, a bit silly. “I see why they do it in a circle now,” Josie looked critically at the screen, “but wouldn’t it be better for the cars’ suspension to do, like, every other race in the other direction, so the shocks wear out evenly against the different banks of curves?” “The cars are specially made and tuned to drive in that direction, actually, banked curves and all,” Margaret explained. “Can I see your tablet?” “Sure.” The farmer’s daughter tapped the device a bit, then handed it back to Josie, an exploded diagram of a stock car on the screen. The physics major tilted her head to the side a bit. “Is that…whoa, so they completely rebuilt the car.” “Yep. See how the shocks are different from street-legal?” “Yeah, and that roll cage, too. See, I thought ‘stock’ meant that they had to keep the car exactly the way it came from the factory, so this never made sense to me.” “No, it just means that the race car is based on a mass-produced vehicle, like that one is at least basically similar to Melissa’s Honda. That’s distinct from Formula One, where the cars are explicitly purpose-built, and a lot of the drag-race motorsports like funny cars and rat-rods.” “Funny cars?” “Yeah, they’re really cool…” And with that, Margaret and Josie were eagerly tapping away at the little tablet, discussing the relative virtues of different makes, mods and similar, interspersed with cheering and explanations of what was going on with the race on the TV screen. Scootaloo smiled, happy that her roommate and her high-school friend were getting along so well. Both women had the habit of ‘talking with their hands,’ especially when the conversation dealt with something mechanical, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before one or both of them broke out the graph paper. Sure enough, the graph paper came out about the time one of the racers took a pit stop for a shock replacement. “That isn’t even fair!” Demi objected. “Look how fast they did that! It took Mel and me half a day to fix the shocks in her Honda!” “Well, we don’t exactly do it for a living, dear,” Melissa looked critically at the scene. “And it’s not like we –holy shit, look at those brake rotors! I want that kind!” “Those look like truck rotors.” “Demi, can we modify the Honda?” “I thought your Honda was best Honda because it hasn’t been molested by rice-rocket car modders.” “But those brakes are so freakin’ huge! I could do stunt driving with brakes like those!” “You could also shear the sidewalls of your tires and completely destroy your rims.” “Then I could buy fancy NASCAR rims.” “Mel, sweetie…are you saying you want a race car?” Demi looked concerned. “…Yes.” “You know, you could just buy a $500 P.O.S. and race in the LeMons,” Margaret May explained. “The one in France?” Demi asked. “No, that’s the LeMans, that’s for real race cars. The 24 Hours of LeMons is a hobbyist race. All the cars are worth $500 or less excluding safety gear, the race organizers insist on a roll cage, helmet and fireproof everything, and it’s a real race on a real track, just affordable.” Josie physically placed the tablet into Margaret’s hands. “Show us this,” she pleaded. Demi, Josie and Melissa gathered around the little screen as Margaret brought up the appropriate website. “See, this car here is my uncle’s entry from last year. He let my sisters and I do the paint job.” “…Please tell me that’s Plasti-Dip or something else that’ll come off the poor car when the race is done,” Demi looked at the piteous vehicle. “Nope. We used straight-up Rust-Oleum and hand-cut stencils, with some papier-mache for the big tomato and cucumber on the roof.” “I didn’t know you liked Veggie Tales!” Josie perked up. “Oh, yeah! Well, my little sisters more than me, but yeah, Veggie Tales…” “I wrote some Veggie Tales fanfiction once when I was twelve,” the coloring-book enthusiast and former Sunday School teacher explained, “and Demi deleted it. He said it was by accident, but I think we all know better.” “The story of Rahab did not need to be told by onions,” Demi objected. “Veggie racist.” “I would have said beets, myself,” Margaret remarked. She was finally comfortable enough to joke around with the others some. “Or cucumbers,” Cat suggested. “Cucumbers have wicked souls.” “Do not!” Josie and Margaret objected in unison. “It’s a joke, from this web cartoon.” Cat pulled up a ridiculous little video about a talking orange, which the whole group laughed over while the commercials ran. Josie and Margaret were just giggling over the talking orange video when the next-to-last commercial of the break ran. It was an attack ad by a candidate for governor, criticizing his opponent’s record on abortion. Apparently the opponent was for keeping such things legal, and the candidate running the ad was not. Again, in perfect unison, the girls reacted to the ad. Margaret said “Right!” Josie said something abjectly unprintable. And then they looked at each other, both surprised and a little hurt. “…You know, we probably have really different politics,” Margaret observed hesitantly. “Almost definitely. Very different life experiences, backgrounds, stands to reason,” Josie nodded. The awkwardness could have been cut into slices and used as a radiation shield for nuclear reactors. “So this LeMons thing-?” “Oh, yes, it’s awesome. My Uncle John found this old Mercury Sable wagon on Craigslist for $200. The wheel-wells were rotted out and the engine mounts had sheared, but it was otherwise okay.” “So it didn’t cost too much to get up to snuff?” “Nope. We did the engine mounts with some JB Weld to test and then he just welded in some scrap metal from the farm. The roll cage was the really expensive bit.” “How did he handle the wheel-wells?” “I did them, actually. If you rivet on a bit of sheet aluminum from behind, you can just apply Bondo between the rust holes and the backing, then build up and over to cover the rivets.” “I’ve done that, but I used a bit of metal screen left over from fixing the storm door.” “Really? The sheet aluminum was just what I had on hand,” Margaret explained. “It came from cut-up pop cans.” “Bondo is awesome stuff, isn’t it? I bet if we wanted to do a car for LeMons, we could put Bondo in a pastry tube and decorate the car to look like a giant 3D birthday cake.” “Oooh, I never even thought of that!” Margaret agreed. “We could paint it pastel colors and maybe write something funny on the top!” “Big fake candles with LEDs in them, too!” “Or better yet, gas torches! If we used propane, it could be done reasonably safely. I’ve worked with the stuff for years on my parents’ farm!” “Could we have a button that made the candles’ flames shoot up all big and scary on command, like ‘foom!’” Josie gestured. “I think we could!” Margaret clapped her hands. “It’d just be a matter of valves and nozzles!” “…This is how the world ends, you know,” Demi remarked to no one in particular. “The liberal and the conservative find something to agree on and by their powers combined, thus shall appear the abomination to end all life on this planet.” “Hey!” both girls objected. “The Cakemobile is not an abomination!” Josie protested. “And it won’t end all life on this planet at all! It’ll probably be gas-powered,” Margaret May looked indignant. “We’d have to be using nuclear fission to power a car that could end the world!” “And how the hell would we get that under the $500 limit?” Josie asked. And then they started thinking again. “You know, if we obtained the radioactive materials from a country with a really obscenely favorable exchange rate…” “Yeah, and if we really wanted it to destroy the world we wouldn’t exactly need to be in perfect compliance with OSHA or NHTSA standards, so there are a lot of costs we could cut…” “You know, it just might be feasible,” Margaret May agreed. She and Josie nodded to each other, clearly very pleased with themselves. Melissa wordlessly handed Demi a cold soda from the mini-fridge, which he held against his head as if the notion of two women who thought and acted like his little sister was just too much for a generous God to inflict on a mortal man. “What kind of car should we get for the Cakemobile?” Josie asked. “If we don’t want it to destroy the world, I mean.” “I think an older Japanese make might be fairly reliable,” Margaret mused, “though if we went with a Korean one from the early to mid-oughts, we could get it cheaper.” “Is there any advantage to choosing a car that’s already popular with race modders? I know a lot of Hondas get five-point harnesses and the like put in them.” “Oh, there is. You could conceivably find your safety cage off-the-shelf if you chose a popular modder car. Our best bet might be one of the economy micro cars from the early oughts –I’d say the Eighties to early Nineties, but those are classics now and it’d be horrible to waste one on the LeMons.” “Like my dad’s Honda CRX.” “Your dad has a Rex? Dude, that’s awesome!” “Not really. He won’t let any of us drive it,” Josie explained. “What’s the trim level?” “Base. It’s also a first-gen, the ’87, so it doesn’t have the cool tint on the liftback.” “Still! My Uncle John had an ’89 HF and he still talks about it. Those are like the classic car for you liberals.” And then the air went icy. “…We liberals have our own car culture?” Josie asked, looking at once a little hurt and vaguely amused. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…well, it’s a funny coincidence that all the liberals I know have these really little, efficient cars and all the conservatives have, like, trucks and stuff.” “I like trucks, though. Trucks are good. I just don’t have one because, well, I don’t actually have any car at this point, I just kind of share Demi’s Subaru now that he’s always riding around in Melissa’s Honda.” “And I don’t even know why Subarus are a liberal stereotype where I’m from,” Margaret shrugged. “Actually, I’ve heard that one, too. Subaru owners are supposed to be either liberals with pets, middle-aged NPR listeners, or lesbians.” “My car is supposed to contain lesbians?” Demi looked puzzled. “That might explain why those nice ladies you bought it from had matching rings, three different FM pre-sets for NPR and a special harness for each of their dogs in back,” Josie reminded him. “…Yay! My car is lesbian-tested and dog-approved!” Demi viewed the world just a bit differently than most men. “So I think that stereotype may be justified,” Josie agreed. “For some reason, some kinds of car really are popular among liberals.” “Well, and small-block Chevys are kind of a justified stereotype with conservative rural types like me,” Margaret agreed. “It makes a kind of sense, too. GM parts were a lot cheaper and easier to get ahold of in some small towns before logistics and computers and stuff changed things, and if you have to have a separate toolbox for your metric car and your SAE farm equipment, it’s still kind of expensive.” “Plus, if you have the same kind of truck as your relatives and one has a problem, you have a control or two to compare it to and hopefully figure out what the issue is,” Josie nodded. “Exactly! I thought my Mama was going to have a fit when Daddy bought a secondhand Prius C for me to take to school. She swore up and down that I’d wind up joining a fast crowd and voting for new taxes.” “It’s not just cars, either! My mother just about blew a gasket when she saw that cute top I have, you know, the blue gingham one with the pearl snaps on it that Scoot and I found at Tractor Supply last week when we all went to get those cool boots you said we’d like?” “Oh, yeah! I have that one in pink and green, too. And did you like the boots?” “They’re completely perfect, yeah!” “Good, I’m glad!” “But yeah, Mom saw that cute top on Facebook and said it made me look like Daisy Duke and I was sure to wind up riding a mechanical bull at some bar someplace, chewing on a piece of hay and voting to cut food stamps!” “That’s ridiculous,” Margaret grinned. “You look nothing like Daisy Duke because your jeans are too long and your hair’s too dark. If anything, you look like Dorothy Gale from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when you wear that top. And when my mother saw that cool peasant blouse with the beads you lent me when that girl spilled Coke on mine at the one party, she had a class-five freakout, too!” “She did? Why? You looked like Michelle Phillips from ‘The Mamas and The Papas’ in that. It was adorable.” “You would have thought I’d posted a Democratic National Convention t-shirt covered in dead babies instead of something my Grandma probably wore herself in the Sixties. She asked me if I was smoking pot now!” “I think our mothers are nuts.” “I think all mothers are nuts. Scootaloo, you lucked out having two daddies.” “That actually raises a really good question, and please don’t be offended,” Josie looked serious for a second. “I know there are some conservatives who are okay with gay people, obviously you’re one of them, but how do you deal with the fact that some people in your same general category, politically speaking, aren’t?” “Probably the same way you deal with there being pro-life liberals,” Margaret shrugged. “I know they exist because I worked on the campaign for one.” “So the abortion issue is enough of a deal-breaker for you personally to back the liberal candidate?” “Yep. It’s really important to me.” “Wow. I’d never back a conservative just because he was pro-choice, not unless he was the kind of conservative who wants to lower taxes via efficiency improvements rather than service cuts.” “But isn’t being pro-choice really important to you?” Margaret asked. “I mean, obviously we don’t agree on that one, but you’re kind of…well…notoriously pro-choice. I remember seeing that protest you and Scoot and Mel had in high school and wondering how on Earth Scootaloo Scott herself could be friends with a girl like that. It didn’t make any sense until I met you personally, and even now it’s weird to know we disagree on something so important.” “I think it’s kinda weird and super-awesome that we’re still somehow friends,” Josie looked just as puzzled. “But I didn’t start that protest because I’m pro-choice. I mean, I am and all, but that didn’t mean I wanted all the pregnant girls at my school to get abortions if that wasn’t right for them. I just wanted them to have decent sex-ed and maybe access to contraception if they did decide to have sex before they were ready to be mothers.” “My folks don’t approve of contraception for teenagers,” Margaret explained, “I think they think that if we have access to such things, we’ll be more likely to have sex. Me, I think it’s really important to tell young people how much better abstinence is, but you can’t always expect them to make the right choices, and it’s not fair to let babies be aborted just because their moms chose wrong.” “So…you’d like to ban abortion?” “Ideally, I’d like to keep girls from getting pregnant so they never have to consider abortion, but I probably would ban it if I could because it does kill babies. But that doesn’t mean I agreed with that awful man at your school! I mean, my church thinks the best way to prevent pregnancy and STDs is abstinence, but your cousin got pregnant because she was raped. Abstinence doesn’t somehow magically repel rapists,” Margaret looked very serious, and her hands shook a little. Scootaloo wasn’t sure if her roommate was nervous because she thought Josie would stop being her friend, or because there was something else to this conversation. “See, just because I’d rather keep abortion legal, doesn’t mean I want it to be all that commonplace. The whole ‘safe, legal and rare’ thing is actually the doctrine. It’s like how the people who want to legalize certain drugs know the drugs will be safer with medical oversight and that some people will choose to use them whether it’s legal or not.” “I can understand that, but it’s still an awful thing.” “Absolutely. We’re in perfect agreement there.” Josie sighed. “I’m looking forward to the absolute last abortion in this country ever just as much as you are.” “But you just said you want to keep it legal.” “Yep. Legal, safe, and hopefully someday obsolete. Iron lungs were awful, so we got rid of polio, and now we don’t need to bother with iron lungs anymore. Abortion is awful, so… why not do everything we can to get rid of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy?” “That makes a lot of sense. In fact, that’s almost exactly how I feel…kinda.” The corner of Margaret’s lip turned up a little into the slightest ghost of a smile. “How is it that we aren’t having an argument about this, just kind of laying our beliefs out for the other to look at?” “There’s no chance in hell I could change your mind,” Josie explained shortly. “So why try? The people our folks’ age and older have already wasted so much time and money on legal vs. banned…why should we bother?” “Wasted…but banning abortion would save babies.” “Yeah…some of them,” Josie nodded. “But not all of them, and you’re assuming death is the absolute worst thing that could happen to a kid. Foster care is still full of kids, it’s still super-expensive to adopt even from there, and raising a kid is a really expensive proposition that young parents or unwed moms really don’t get a heck of a lot of help with. Even with WIC and TANF and such, most babies with unprepared young parents do suffer at least some form of neglect while they’re growing up, and some of them are pretty horribly abused because their parents are completely unprepared, even incompetent, and a lot of them see the kid as the reason why they’re trapped in poverty.” “But the kid is the reason they’re trapped in poverty,” Margaret sighed. “It’s wrong of them to take it out on the kid, but their lack of responsibility is what caused the problem, or at least contributed to it.” “Unless it was rape.” “Unless it was rape,” Margaret agreed. “Are you the kind of pro-lifer who makes an exception for rape, or not?” “Hell, no! The baby didn’t do anything wrong.” “Oh, good! At least you’re not the kind who’s pro-life just to punish women for having sex.” “Is that seriously what you think some pro-life people are doing?” “Why else would they make an exception in cases of rape or incest? If she didn’t choose to have sex irresponsibly, she doesn’t need to be punished ‘like the rest of the other sluts.’” Josie mimed the air-quotes. “I always thought that was a holdover from eugenics, that rapist’s or incestuous DNA was bad and that the enlightened, modern pro-life movement was phasing that out…but that does actually make a bit more sense.” “If either side has holdovers from eugenics, it’s mine,” Josie explained ruefully. “Margaret Sanger herself was openly pro-eugenics and expressed the hope that people less worthy of reproducing would use contraception to reduce their increase.” “Well, but don’t they? A teenage girl is fairly unlikely to be a good parent, not without lots of help anyway, so if she uses contraception, she can avoid it until she’s older, better educated, married and an all-around great parent.” “That’s true, but Margaret Sanger was also…well…a lot more racist about it.” “That’s one of the problems my side has with abortion. More African-American babies get aborted than white ones.” “True. There are also more minority kids languishing in foster care.” “Aw, seriously? You mean people don’t adopt perfectly good kids because of what color they are? Like black cats at the animal shelter?” “It looks that way, yeah,” Josie sighed. “And there’s some correlation-causality stuff in there. If African-American women are statistically more likely to live in poverty, they’re also statistically less likely not only to not be able to afford to give a child a good home with plenty of resources, but they’re also statistically less likely to have access to contraception. So that might be why there are more abortions in their demographic. Women in poverty and young women are also markedly more likely to seek abortion than women who are well-off or established in their careers.” The physics major shook her head. “Contraception’s so much cheaper than social services, I never understood why conservatives object so much to funding it.” “I’m not against contraception by any means. You’re thinking of Roman Catholic conservatives, I think; they don’t believe in it. Me, I’d rather fund that and prenatal care than the whole pro-life vs. pro-choice battle. If anything, it’s the next best thing to abstinence, and even emergency contraception is a darn sight better than an abortion when it’s a rape victim.” “Emergency contraception?” Josie asked. “Oh, you know, Plan B,” Margaret tapped the tablet. “Women take it within 72 hours of unprotected sex, the sooner the better, and it prevents ovulation and/or an already released egg from implanting into the wall of the uterus? I don’t remember the medical name for it right off-hand, but they have it at Student Health and just about every hospital that isn’t run by nuns…” “Levonorgestrel,” Josie nodded. “But you’re pro-life. How are you okay with that stuff?” “It doesn’t abort a pregnancy, it’s just a last chance to stop one before it starts,” Margaret pulled up the manufacturer’s website. “Pregnancy doesn’t exactly happen the minute a man…well…the minute the sperm cells reach the woman’s body. It’s kind of a process, which is why you’ve sometimes got between one and 72 hours to get some Plan B as a last resort. Essentially, emergency contraception is a double dose of the same kind of hormonal stuff they use in the Pill. It tricks the ovaries into thinking you’re already pregnant so they don’t release any new eggs into your uterus, and the same hormones that do that also make the uterine lining inadequate for a fertilized egg to implant to it so the process of conception can finish taking place.” “…I was told it was an abortion pill.” Josie looked very confused. “Let me guess, by someone from my side?” Margaret shook her head. “It’s a common misconception, that, and one which the really anti-contraception and pro-abstinence crowd is sometimes a little too happy to spread around. They get so caught up in encouraging the idea of abstinence and damning the idea of birth control that they forget lying to girls our age really doesn’t do anything but convince us they’re damn liars. I mean, seriously, Google is right there.” “…And I didn’t use it…” Josie had gone chalk-white. Melissa glanced away from the NASCAR race to the other girls’ conversation, then became extremely interested in the little pop-tab on the top of her soda can. Scootaloo, who had been half-following their discussion, realized exactly what was going through Josie’s mind. “So levonorgestrel wouldn’t cause an abortion, then?” the orange pegasus asked her strangely knowledgeable roommate. “Nope. If a pregnant woman tried to take that stuff, she’d probably just feel nauseous and maybe throw up a bit, which lots of pregnant women do anyway. It couldn’t cause an abortion if it wanted to, the amount of artificial hormones it contains simply aren’t enough, proportionally, to have any effect. I mean, long-term studies might show that a heavy dose of synthetic progestogens or estrogen substitutes might have an impact on fetal gender or maybe cause some kind of birth defect, but a drug that tricks your body into thinking its pregnant isn’t going to do anything to stop an existing pregnancy.” “What if…what if you gave levonorgestrel pills to someone who was pregnant?” “Well, if they took both of them at the same time, they might throw up. And while it certainly wouldn’t be good for the baby, there haven’t really been studies yet to determine if anything bad would happen. I’m inclined to think nothing whatsoever would happen.” “But…but there is an abortion pill, RU-486.” “Yeah, mifepristone. Totally different drug. You can’t even find that stuff in most pharmacies.” “…How do you know all of this?” Josie finally gasped. “My Uncle John and Aunt Becky are OB-GYNs and I was their summer receptionist whenever one of their staff went on maternity leave,” Margaret explained with a smile. “Uncle John is pro-choice and Aunt Becky’s pro-life, but it’s really kind of irrelevant because their clinic’s not really set up for surgeries anyway. He just makes referrals to Planned Parenthood or the Women’s Center if that’s the choice a woman is going to make, and they keep brochures for adoption lawyers on hand just in case anyone changes their mind. It’s really nice for women who have a preference to see the right doctor for them and have someone from the other side right in the same office should their opinions or circumstances change.” “Circumstances? So there are times when abortion is reasonable?” “Well…personally, I’d never choose it, and I’d really like to ban it –though I think that ‘obsolete’ thing you mentioned actually sounds a lot easier, but if something changes and the mother’s life is at risk, sometimes there’s nothing else they can do if they don’t want to lose both of them. That’s an exception I can understand. It’s a tragedy, but I can understand that one.” “It’s always a tragedy,” Josie agreed, still white and slightly shaking. “Even if you feel relieved afterward, it’s still an awful thing and the worst possible solution to a preventable problem.” Margaret suddenly reached out and held Josie’s hand. “…I’ve…I’ve been told that women who’ve chosen abortions are just as much victims as the children,” she explained. “Did you…” “No. Not personally. Believe it or not, I’ve never even slept with a guy yet.” “Really? But you’re so…cosmopolitan. You know everything about contraception and women’s rights.” “Not everything,” Josie sniffled. “I seriously thought Plan B was an abortion pill. And now you’re telling me that it wouldn’t have done anything at all…” “…Josie,” Margaret looked even more concerned. “When we were playing Truth or Dare at that party and everyone was saying the worst thing they’d ever done but you insisted on taking ‘dare’ …did this have something to do with that?” “I went to a pharmacist’s assistant and bribed him to sell me abortion pills. Exact words I used. The package read ‘levonorgestrel’ and I added both pills to a bottle of prenatal vitamins, then gave them to Amelia after her parents had decided to take her for an abortion. I thought…if I could do it that way, make it look like a miscarriage, then at least her folks couldn’t hide the rape or put her through the procedure…” “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever seen her do,” Melissa chipped in. “I had no idea at the time we did it that the pills were just Plan B, but I knew about it and helped her do it.” “I knew, too,” Demi’s sister shot him a look of shock and he shrugged. “I didn’t realize you took it so hard, Josie. Our side of the family’s been pro-choice since forever. It’s a fetus, and one that was pretty darn close to doomed.” “Yeah, but if the woman carrying it says it’s a baby and she wants it, that makes it a baby and no one should take it away from her until it’s born and she’s been proven an unfit mother,” Josie sighed. “The point of being pro-choice is to respect the woman’s right to choose, and I didn’t do that. I’m no better than Pastor Gray was, keeping information away from girls so they didn’t know what choices to make and got stuck with the aftermath. I literally took the choice away from Amelia…or I tried to, anyway.” “She couldn’t have made the right choice, Josie. Amelia barely understands how traffic works and we can’t trust her to use a stove, let alone raise a kid. And much as I love my family, our aunt and uncle couldn’t have raised that baby.” Demi sighed. “Social services took Amelia away from them for a little while after the rape scandal and by the time they’d made sure her parents weren’t complicit in the attack, the two of them were in the middle of a divorce. Amelia lives in a group home for people with special needs and her parents visit her separately. Our folks would have taken her in, but she doesn’t understand safety rules beyond the most basic stuff, she can be kind of combative and she’s already taller than and at least as strong as Josie. They’re just not equipped to handle someone like her, not with our brother, too.” “Your brother?” Margaret asked. “Our big brother, Laurie. He has an autism-spectrum disorder, the severe kind. He takes community college classes and lives at home, but his Asperger’s is bad enough, it’ll be a while before he can live on his own, if ever.” “I have it, too, but it’s a lot milder. Josie’s the only normal one of the three of us.” “For a given value of normal,” Josie growled. “This will sound really insensitive, but what kind of special needs does Amelia have?” Cat asked. “Traumatic Brain Injury,” Demi explained. “Bicycle accident, no helmet...” “My fault,” Josie sighed. “No, Josie. Not your fault. It was a stupid fucking accident and her folks are the ones who spent so much on bullshit status symbols that they couldn’t afford a helmet for her. She only had a bike because Laurie gave her his old one, remember? He doesn’t blame himself! And our parents started going to St. Francis because their old church started disagreeing strongly enough with the Gospel that they wanted us to at least have the chance to decide our faith for ourselves. The fact that our uncle and aunt stayed there doesn’t mean you should’ve somehow stuck around to keep an eye on Amelia or that you failed to protect her from that asshole. You’re fifteen months older, for fuck’s sake. How the hell is that supposed to make you your cousin’s keeper? There were adults whose job it was to protect her and they failed. You tried your best, but you were still just a kid yourself. It was never your job.” The other girls, even Melissa, gasped, and Josie had started crying somewhere around the mention of Amelia’s bike. Demi Findlay had never in his life given such a determined, serious speech to anyone. “I still did something terrible.” “No, you tried to do something terrible, with what sounds to me like the best intentions. If her parents were going to take her in for an abortion anyway, your method would at least get the rapist caught,” Margaret looked contemplative. “She wanted to keep it. The mandatory pre-abortion counseling would have caught that much and stopped it.” “Ehhh…and you’re assuming abortion clinics cannot be bribed, or that every state has mandatory counseling? Or that the parents of a minor can’t get a court order to override the law if they know a judge who agrees with them? If they could get her across state lines, they could get her across a national border if they needed, or they could have easily given her a real abortifacient themselves.” Melissa looked grim. “You’re the one who insisted that anything we gave her be FDA-approved for use in women her age. There’s nothing you could have gotten within that criteria that would have worked, as I found out when Demi and I went to Planned Parenthood for the IUD.” “You’ve known this whole time?” “I found out the day before the protest. She’d already had the miscarriage, and while I don’t think your little adventure in drug-dealing caused it, I have my suspicions as to what might have. Social services doesn’t normally take statutory rape victims away from their parents just because of a miscarriage, and the fact that your aunt dumped your uncle like a bad habit within the month is pretty damn telling.” “…I still feel like a bad person.” “Maybe you should,” Margaret replied softly, before putting up both hands as everyone but Josie glared at her. “No, seriously. Feel bad about it until you understand what was wrong with your actions, learn from them, and then feel better. Nobody’s really ever a hundred percent good or bad in this world, are they? I mean, that awful pastor who was working as your school principal wound up going overseas with that charity and helping bring vaccinations and food to all those little kids in the refugee camp.” “Somebody even shot at him, yeah. Pastor Josh says he’s going again as soon as the money’s raised,” Josie agreed. “I sent a bit myself.” “And yeah, you made kind of a shitty choice with the Plan B, but even though you thought you were causing a miscarriage, you were doing it for what seemed like good reasons at the time. I bet a lot of people make shitty choices for good reasons. That’s really all abortion can ever be –a shitty choice.” “True, that.” Josie sighed, before bristling just a little. “Still want to keep it legal until it’s made obsolete.” “And I still want to ban it, but neither of us can ever be right for everyone, so…” Margaret shrugged and let a smile spread across her face, “you think maybe we can start up a third option, work on making it obsolete like you said? I bet my aunt and uncle can get us the condoms and Plan B to hand out at a student org, and if you speak on contraception I can cover abstinence.” “Considering you knew more about Plan B than I did, you could cover contraception.” “Actually, wouldn’t it work better if you both spoke in favor of, well, both?” Cat pointed out. “I mean, the people who are okay with sex generally consider abstinence to be an unrealistic option, and the people who are pro-abstinence tend to ignore the stuff they’re going to need to know once they’re older and married and all. My half-sister was brought up strict Catholic and she had no idea why she and her husband didn’t get pregnant right away soon as they got married.” “Was it infertility?” Josie asked. “Were they keeping track of ovulation and making an effort to…well…procreate at the proper times?” Margaret asked. “I didn’t ask for details, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were somehow doing it wrong,” Cat shrugged. “But I have a niece now, so it’s all good. Seriously, though, if a conservative and a liberal could throw their differences under the bus to actually do something to prevent unplanned pregnancy, maybe even raise some money for adoption or helping single moms with daycare during school hours…things would be a lot better on this campus alone.” The two girls seemed to be thinking about it. “…We could hand out condoms in the Student Union.” “Ooooh, and what if we dressed up in angel and devil costumes, like the ones who appear on people’s shoulders when they’re about to decide something in cartoons?” “Dude, sweet!” Three things happened as a direct result of this conversation. First, the director of Student Health wound up backing Josie and Margaret May’s initiative, unofficially nicknamed ‘No More Bad Choices.’ Their friendship in spite of their differences and easy, hilarious rapport made them popular guest speakers and together they managed to reach out to no less than 65 of the seventy-two registered student organizations on their campus, three local high schools and a local news station on what Josie referred to as “a really slow news day.” By the end of their freshman year, both girls had received activism awards from Planned Parenthood, Birthright and an anti-STD charity, as well as recognition plaques from a local adoption agency for whom they raised $2,000 and a job training program for single mothers for whom they raised $2,500. (Josie promised not to tell Margaret’s parents about the award from Planned Parenthood if Margaret would keep mum about the one from Birthright to hers.) Second, the school newspaper ran an investigative article just before Christmas break of their sophomore year with figures drawn from the local Planned Parenthood, Birthright chapter and Student Health. It was estimated that unplanned pregnancies had declined by 23%, and an exit poll administered by Student Health showed that more than 88% of patients using the department’s services had heard of No More Bad Choices, and of the students seeking contraception services at Student Health, 65% cited No More Bad Choices as their referral source. From Student Health’s numbers alone, contraception use had improved by 76%, and while the other two agencies hadn’t kept figures, interviews with the local directors of both revealed that unplanned pregnancy was, indeed, in decline. Cat did some complex math with the computers she used for macroeconomic simulations and informed Margaret and Josie that they had personally prevented something between 3,728 and 7,960 pregnancies with the potential to end in abortion in three semesters of work alone, that being the conservative estimate. “…And what’s the liberal one?” Margaret asked excitedly. And third, midway through their sophomore year, both girls changed their majors. Josie decided that she was a bit too opinionated and “chaotic-aligned,” for pure science to be entirely the best fit for her after all, whereas the hands-on work with Margaret on the Cakemobile had convinced her she liked to make stuff. So on Margaret’s advice she first switched from Applied Physics to Mechanical Engineering; then applied for and declared a minor in Political Science. Margaret signed up for a few more biology classes and some chemistry above and beyond her Agricultural Science major requirements, and after Josie suggested she take a look at Scootaloo’s textbooks and see if that didn’t sound pretty cool, she wound up switching to Pre-Med with dual minors in Agriculture and Poli-Sci. Some years later, when Congressman Josephine Findlay-Price (D) and Lieutenant Governor Margaret May Forbush Allen (R) met for a photo-op and successfully irritated the stuffings out of several photojournalists by animatedly ‘talking with their hands’ about some damn thing or another, then successfully won the 24 Hours of LeMons together as part of a joint fundraiser for foster-care adoptions, Scootaloo remembered when two of her best friends first met. It was really a pity more people couldn’t be sat down to talk things out over a bowl of popcorn. But all that came much later, of course.