Your Vote Counts!

Early voting for General Election begins April 30.  Many people have the same mentality about voting, "Does my ONE vote really matter?"  YES!  Your ONE vote DOES count!  Think about how many people say the same thing and then add all those ONE votes in. 

General Election early voting will begin April 30 and your vote will count.  The City of Austin's Mayor and Council Member positions 2, 5, and 6 are up for election May 12.  The City will have election resources for voters.  There will be a list of voting locations, mobile voting resources, votes by mail, voting options for students/military overseas, and even a Facebook page is being made available for information.

The Government makes voting as easy as pie, so why not take just a few minutes out of one of your days and GO VOTE?!  And no one is going to know who you voted for unless you feel the need share that information. 

One of the candidates running for Mayor is Lee Leffingwell, which he is also our current Mayor.  Mayor Leffingwell is definitely my first choice because of his accomplishments for our City so far.  Lee Leffingwell has proved himself as Mayor for the City of Austin by helping bring in more jobs,  has managed to help keep Austin high rated to best place to live, making Austin a green city as well as a more healthy city, finding ways to control traffic a little better, and many other accomplishments.  Lee Leffingwell is an Austinite born and raised, went to UT, has served our Nation, and has been in City positions for several years now.  To me, that sounds like he should be re-elected as Mayor.  The other two candidates for Mayor are Brigid Shea and Clay Dafoe.

Every vote makes a difference and there’s nothing difficult about voting.  Vote today and YOU can make a difference in our government!

Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

I always find it interesting reading about people's thoughts on abortion.  Many arguments on both sides of the subject are valid points; however, I still aim for pro-choice. 

After reading Christina Valdez's blog, "Why Not Give it a Second Look?", I disagree with her points on being pro-life.  Christina gives examples about being pro-life by mentioning a few successful individuals whose mothers almost followed through with their abortion.  Without some of these individuals, our world would be a lot different due to their contributions to Technology or their roles in life.

My argument is that Christina is only giving a few examples of individuals who benefit our society today, but we should let the mother decide what she wants to do with her own body and her own child because we don't know what each mother’s situation is.  The circumstances are different with each pregnancy; we never know if the pregnancy was due to a rape or incest situation.  Let the mother decide whether or not she wants to bring up her child after being a victim of rape.  They are the only ones that know what it feels like carrying a child from being forced to have sex, so why should we also force them to have the child?  A lot of them are already traumatized and you never know if going through the pregnancy would only negatively affect them even more.

Other mothers decide to abort because of the lifestyle they are living; drugs, violence, AIDS or HIV, or homeless.  Knowing they are going to bring a child up in their same lifestyle might not be the best, but that's for them to decide.  A child being raised in that type of environment is more likely to live that exact life when they grow up.

A mother is THE mother and she should be able to decide what's best for her child. Only she knows what the circumstances are and how it'll benefit or affect the child.