The news that Roe vs. Wade turned 34 years old today stopped me briefly in my tracks. It isn’t exactly a mile marker of an anniversary now, is it? The years rolled along, and the 10th anniversary passed, then the 20th, 25th, and 30th. But this year, I paused to consider what the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion has meant for me and other women of my generation.

I could start by writing that this 1973 decision, along with the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, dramatically altered my life. Both are examples of how government can shift and shape its citizens’ lives. The 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971, granted 18-year-olds the right to vote. I still remember at age 19, stepping into the voting booth at the Valley View 3rd LDS chapel in suburban Salt Lake City, and casting my first presidential vote. I got to do that two full years earlier than my parents did, when they each voted at age 21 for Harry Truman. I was a whole three years younger than them. I felt proud, sublime, superior.

I recall — vaguely — the heated debate over whether teenagers should be allowed to vote. Mostly I remember the thinking of the pro-amendment people, and how persuasive their arguments were. I was only 13 or 14 during the ratification process. The Vietnam War was raging. One of the strongest points for ratification went like this: If we’re old enough to fight and die in a war, we’re old enough to vote for the politicians who keep sending us there.

And so I helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976 to the U.S. presidency.

As for the ruling that legalized abortion, I can say this: I’ve never had an abortion, and thankfully, I’ve never been in a position to even consider one. I was legally married when both my children were conceived and born. I was married to their father, and I could depend on him to help nurture and raise them. Both babies were healthy, born at full-term with beating hearts and working lungs. Prenatal tests showed nothing to worry about.

The point being, I was never forced by circumstances, poor judgment in men or the random cruelty of genetics into weighing the costs and benefits of an unintended or difficult pregnancy. My babies’ lives and long-term health were never in question. And I, fortunately, came through those nine months of pregnancy healthy as a horse.

But then I also had great luck to grow up with Roe as the backstory to my reproductive life. I was 15 years old when Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the groundbreaking majority opinion in Roe. I may have never considered having an abortion, but I do know that Roe helped generate more choices in birth control for women. It also forced men and women to talk more freely about sex and its consequences. And no matter what a person thinks about abortion, these are side benefits of a terribly difficult issue.

Tte new Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate introduced legislation on January 4 that would increase contraception options in this country. Majority Leader Harry Reid is sponsoring the “Prevention First Act.” Among other things, the bill would require insurance companies to cover all forms of FDA-approved prescription contraception for women and make the “morning after” emergency contraception pill more widely available to American women.

In the “let’s all get along” version of the 2007 Congress, Reid’s legislation is supposed to be getting bipartisan support. You gotta hope. Because why would anyone who professes to be anti-abortion not come down in every way on the side of better and more comprehensive birth control measures? Fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, right?

I’ll be 50 next year. If I have the good fortune to survive another 50 years, I hope it’s in an atmosphere of every possible family planning option for women. I’ll be too old to worry about it myself. But still, it will matter. Having options has made all the difference in my own life.

Meet Sam. He’s my 15-year-old son. This photo marks one of his proudest moments: He’s poised to cook a plucked and trussed pheasant he tracked and shot all by himself last fall. He even found his own recipe for the dish in “Joy of Cooking.”

His dad took him to a state-sponsored pheasant hunt for kids. Sam bagged two ringnecks. Sam and his dad (he and I divorced in 2000) spend time together many weekends in Utah’s west desert, target shooting and rabbit hunting.

How can a good liberal and gun-control advocate justify such Neanderthal behavior? How can I support Sam’s love of shotguns, and his pursuit of certain furry and feathered creatures? How do I square it with anti-cruelty beliefs?

Only this: Sam’s understanding of guns, his ability to use them safely and with skill (he’s a graduate of the National Rifle Association’s firearms safety training) impresses me. More than that, it pleases me. Sam hasn’t shown much interest in playing a musical instrument. He hasn’t gone out for high school sports. Yes, he loves video games. But shooting? It’s probably highest on his list.

He knows how to handle firearms. He respects their power. He also respects life; knows how to make a quick kill to help alleviate an animal’s suffering. As pacifist as I am, I’ve always understood that licensed hunting has a place in nature. People who do it legally, with skill and ethics, are performing an environmental service.

Just don’t ask me to ever, ever pull a trigger myself. I would crumble and fall in a heap.

I’m happy about Sam’s hobby. I have a handful of photos his dad took shortly after he shot his two pheasants. Sam’s grin is as genuine and wide as any kid’s who might have just sunk a 3-point basket or run 60 yards for a touchdown.

His shooting ability gives him huge confidence. That’s scarcely pigeon feed in a world where so many teenage boys are perpetually stoned, or lonely, or isolated, or aimlessly violent, or all of the above.

I didn’t make it to the opening day at the Utah Legislature, but no worry. We still have 43 days left in which to dissect motives and messes on the way to making state law. Today I found my way to the Capitol for a short committee meeting. State senators who oversee transportation matters took up a bill that would allow family members and friends to rat out–anonymously–people who are incompetent to drive their cars and therefore may pose a risk to themselves and others on the roads. The bill would empower concerned family members to call the state drivers license division, and report the geezers they feel should no longer be driving, but not have to face any grilling or repercussions for making that report.

It would all be on the QT.

The bill passed the committee 4-0. They barely had a quorum. Now it moves on to a House committee for consideration.

Sen. Allen Christensen, a Republican from North Ogden, got the idea for the bill because his elderly mother kept taking off for California on a whim. She would hop in her car and go. Christensen said his mother did this after she had suffered a stroke, had lost some of her capacity for balance and decision making. But she thought nothing of driving oh, 600 miles, as if she were a sorority girl skittering off for a long weekend to Vegas.

Christensen got a little flushed when he testified that he couldn’t possibly have told his mother straight out about her driving incompetency, or reported her to authorities, for her poor road skills. If he–or other adult children who can’t stand up to their elders–could pass the problem on to government authorities to investigate and determine a solution, why not? Whenever his mom got into the car, Christensen testified, “she scared the tar out of me.” So suddenly, his problem became everyone’s problem. If you don’t have the chutzpah to tell your mother what she needs to be told, or to just take her keys away, why not legislate it? We all have to feel his pain, I guess.

What I always love to see at the Utah Lege is the brick-sized blind spot that blocks its vision. We live in a state that glows with this philosophy that government should stay out of our lives. Too much government, too many taxes, too much intervention, too much Big Brother. But give one guy an aging mother who who can’t be controlled or deterred, who insists on independence and driving wherever and whenever she likes, and suddenly we need a statewide solution.

I’d say the senator has a few mother issues. Seems like more of an issue for Sigmund Freud than the legislative grist mill.

I expect someone will soon sick a vicious junkyard dog on me. This is because I’m trying to make sense of a Jan. 9 hearing before the Salt Lake City Council over whether to turn a longtime nature park near the mouth of Parley’s Canyon into a full-time, off-leash dog zone.

It got a little nuts.

First, there were these off-leash activists who packed the meeting. They love their dogs as much as any parent loves her children. They want the whole of Parley’s Historic Nature Park, at 2700 East and 2700 South, to be open to their dogs, sans leash. As near as I can tell, these folks think their domesticated dog companions have some biological imperative to run free.

Opponents to the total off-leash area argued that no matter how well-behaved, dogs will always alter the natural environment. They speed erosion of stream beds, disturb birds and other wildlife. The park could function with on-leash, off-leash and no-dogs-at-all zones, they say.

Ted Wilson was Salt Lake City mayor in the early ’80s when property owners deeded their land to the city for the park. He reminded everyone of the history of the place. Mormon pioneers trekked right through it and followed Parleys Creek in to the valley. It should be preserved.

The City Council took the matter under advisement.

I sensed that the dog people thought Ted, who also happens to be my husband, has something against dogs. Hardly. He told them a little about our 10-year-old pound mutt, Kip. Kip is mostly wiener dog, but with long hair. He also may be Welsh corgi. He has terrier ears. The grandkids like to dress him up, or push him around the living room in a laundry basket. Kip endures all manner of humiliation to please them.

It’s a dog’s life for Kip, which means he gets two squares a day, a lamb’s wool cushion in front of the fireplace and a daily walk. Oh, and did I mention regular pats on the head and belly scratches? That, too.

The point being: Kip is a dog. He has a place in the house, in our lives, and he knows it. He isn’t a child. He doesn’t substitute for a child. He’s key to this family, but he is a DOG.

Here are two comments from dog lovers to the City Council, which sums up the group’s feelings:

–”I have two dogs. I don’t have any children and who knows if I’ll ever have a child? I give them equal time that I would give to a child I might bring into the world.”

–”I need to give [my dogs] the quality of life that everyone gives their children. I don’t have children. I’ve been taking my dog to this park for two years now. I’ve seen the park improve in that time, in terms of cleanliness and the environment. It wasn’t a pure preserve before. It’s important for people who have animals who need to run to keep this park off-leash.”

Would I feel differently had I never given birth to children? If dogs were all I had as family? Hard to say. But I found myself trying to understand this urge so many humans have to turn their dogs into people.

Hey Kip, any thoughts?

Nah. He’s snoozing.