ProWomanProLife

Today, a group of African-American pastors will march in Washington demanding that both the Democrats and the Republicans reject campaign funds from Planned Parenthood. Why? Because they believe they are racist, something we discussed here. 

In other (related?) web meanderings I stumbled across this YouTube video–Nick Cannon thanks his mom for life. (No judgment, he says, he’s just telling his story. Hard to argue with that. He speaks, in a way, for those who don’t live, and never get to argue their case. Too bad, that.)

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Brigitte wonders: Am I the only one in tears after watching this?

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Andrea adds: No, you’re not. It started out kind of so-so for me, and if I had not watched the whole thing, I would not have posted it. But by the end, I found the story he tells very moving, indeed. Especially when his real-life mom shows up.

Stuff I wish I’d made up:

Saudi marriage officiant Dr. Ahmad al-Mu’bi told Lebanese television viewers last week that it’s permissible for girls as young as 1 to marry — as long as sex is postponed.

Al-Mu’bi’s remarkable comments also included an explanation that “there is no minimal age for entering marriage.”

“You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7 or 8,” he said. “But is the girl ready for sex or not?” What is the appropriate age for sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and tradition,” al-Mu’bi said.

Actually, crazy may not be the best word to describe this nonsense… And these are the same clowns who call the West decadent?

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Tanya thinks he’s crazy, too: Marriage in Islam is considered a covenant, or “mithaq.” And a covenant “requires the total commitment and awareness of each party.”

“Muslim religions approve of arranged marriages as long as mutual consent exists. By definition, therefore, Muslim marriages are a voluntary and willing union of two people. Without the consent of both parties, the marriage is not valid.”

How can a one-year-old knowingly consent to anything? What a joke!

So maybe you wish you’d made it up, Brigitte, but this guy, this Dr. Ahmad al-Mu’bi guy, beat you to it. I’m sure he has many Muslims up in arms, too.

What? Girls like babies? Kay Hymowitz makes the valid point that unless we address this small biological imperative, birth control pills ain’t gonna help, because girls won’t take them with the religious attention required for them to be effective. A girl who can find a homeless man to be the father of her child could certainly have found the Planned Parenthood clinic, no matter how far away.

Put another way, ubersocialized middle-class experts, journalists and policymakers aren’t addressing the fact that girls tend to like babies. In most cultures in human history, 15-or 16-year-olds were seen as viable mothers (only after being married off, of course), so biological urge coincided with social need. But in more complex societies like ours, in which a long period of education and wealth accumulation is necessary to prepare for an advanced labour market and marriage, adolescent baby lust poses a big problem.

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Tanya just clicked: That’s what’s been bothering me about this story form the outset, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Teaching a girl how to put on a condom or take a pill won’t do much if she’s bent on getting pregnant. It’s not just a ‘teenage girl’ thing. 

Here’s where a good ole’ dose of abstinence education comes in handy. ‘How does that make any sort of sense?’ you say. Well, abstinence education is ideally coupled with ideas like self-worth, family values and the importance of one partner for life. Nothing wrong with having a baby, even as a teenager. Just get married to the best man in the world first.

Got legislation? Bring it on. Canadians agree. Seriously, this poll shows support for Bill C-484, alongside airline, cellphone and competition bureau regulation. I’m not saying the support for all four isn’t real. Just too many questions, too much regulation for me, all in one poll.

Personally, I have a dream of air transit deregulation. (That’s an irrelevant aside.)

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Brigitte disagrees strongly: Not at all irrelevant. If we deregulated the industry Air Canada would be forced to offer decent services at prices that don’t force you to re-mortgage your house. But then again, I’m of two minds on the issue: I once tried to start a movement in the U.S. to bring a constitutional right to a direct flight. Oh well. I was young and foolish and spent too much time in too many airports running around clutching my carry-on trying to catch incredibly ill-timed connections.

NARAL released the results of what they consider a poll last week. I’ve always understood a poll to be a collection or sampling of opinions. NARAL may have been giving more opinion that they were hoping to collect.

Here are the descriptions used by the pollsters in survey calls made to women between May 29 and June 8:

Obama: “Barack Obama believes that the decision to have an abortion is profoundly difficult for women… As president, Obama… will work to reduce unintended pregnancies through prevention and education…”

McCain: “John McCain is pro-life, and on the issue of abortion, he opposes a woman’s right to choose… As president, he will nominate Supreme Court judges who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade…”

Doesn’t Obama sound like a stand-up guy, full of proactive ideas? Meanwhile, McCain comes across like a stuffy politician, in the worst sense of the word. Imagine what a pro-life group with as many scruples as NARAL would come up with. Reminding women of Obama’s support of late-term and partial-birth abortion, using terms like ‘killing unborn children,’ would definitely be a priority.

Alas, a pro-life group would never get away with it. But NARAL seems to. We aren’t plagued with this sort of double standard in Canada, are we?

I have returned from my bioethical wanderings which took me to Montreal to submit my master’s thesis – high five, anyone? — and St. John’s NFL for the Canadian Bioethics Society’s national conference. The Canadian bioethics community offers an interesting case-study in split personality, being profoundly committed to “women’s right to choose” while being profoundly horrified by its collateral damage, namely the cheapening human life, especially old, sick or disabled life. Whether or not they are able to see the link is anyone’s guess: I sat on numerous presentations decrying the effects of prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis on human diversity but nowhere did I hear a semblance of battle cry to make it stop. In cases such as these, it is more appropriate to use “pro-choice” than “pro-abortion” to describe the position of many speakers present at the conference: uneasy as they are with the termination of genetically impaired embryos, they would never question a woman’s choice to do so. From this point of view, abortion is a by-product of choice: if you want one, you will have to deal with the other.

I find this type of ethical reasoning both interesting and distressing. Interesting and distressing because if ethics concerns itself with what we should do, the hegemony of choice turns sound ethical reasoning on its head by stating first what we should do (don’t question choice) and backpedaling itself from its conclusion into an ethical position. It makes for somewhat cowardly ethics because paths of ethical reasoning that could lead to question the hegemony of choice – especially reproductive choice — are either eliminated or carefully circumvented. Speaking from both sides of one’s mouth will only get you so far in eliminating injustice: by refusing to take a clear stance on the injustice of genetic terminations – including sex-based terminations – the Canadian bioethics community is effectively condoning the elimination of diversity from the Canadian demographic landscape.

So what, you ask? The ramifications of condoning genetic terminations are not only seen in dwindling diversity. By refusing to rein in freedom of choice in matters of genetic terminations, we cause the erosion of the range of choices available to the rest of society: as embryos with trisomy 21 – to name this easy target – are less and less likely to make it to full term, the services and support available to parents who choose to bear and raise their children with Down syndrome are reduced to reflect the statistically inexistent demand. And I’m not even getting into the consequences of changing attitudes toward disability which can also erode the range of choices available to those who walk to a different drum. Illegitimate, unethical choices are rotten apples. Failing to recognize it only exposes the whole basket.

Meet Margeret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Ask yourself if you’d like to have her over for tea.

She advocated for abortions and birth control for blacks, for the “feeble-minded,” for the poor.

‘More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue of birth control,” she frankly wrote in her 1922 book The Pivot of Civilization.’ –Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood

That’s their past, you say, and as such we should not judge them for it. But they refuse to disassociate themselves from it. Margaret Sanger, author of quotes far, far worse than that cited above–remains a hero of their movement.

Now they are aiming to rebrand, green clinics–move into more upscale neighbourhoods, the Wall Street Journal reports here. The rebranding doesn’t appear to include a wholesale condemnation of their past.

It should. It’s disquieting to realize that a government-funded entity has fascist roots they refuse to condemn. But is not “every child a wanted child” a derivative of this sort of thinking?

Letters for the week of June 16th can be read, here.

Women are equal, but give us special treatment. That’s what I got out of this assessment of the Harper government re.: ”women’s issues”–second one in recent weeks.

The Conservatives’ legislative enthusiasms are almost guaranteed to repel women voters: Wars, tougher criminal treatment of children, funding cuts to women’s groups, lack of interest in universal daycare and access to abortion.

The only problem with cuts to “women’s groups” is that they have not been sweeping enough and they still retain funding so they can lobby the government for partisan purposes using my tax dollars.

It’s enough to make a girl cry.

That’s what they seem to claim here:

An overwhelming majority of Canadians continue to support women’s right to abort pregnancies, but a recent national survey found the country is split when asked who should foot the bill.

The online Angus-Reid poll — conducted June 4 and 5 of 1,000 adult Canadians — found 91% of respondents supported abortions under certain circumstances, and only 5% would outlaw it altogether.

There are more details on the way poll results are distributed if you follow the link. You decide whether support for abortion is somewhat inflated in the story. (Hello? I’m anti-abortion but would not count myself in the 5% who “would outlaw it altogether”, am I to be tabulated as “pro-choice” regardless of what I believe simply because I wouldn’t outlaw abortion altogether?) What I find particularly interesting is the comment by Carolyn Egan, of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics:

Canada is very solidly a pro-choice country. There is no doubt about that,” she told the Sun yesterday. “I think there is a minority in this country who feel abortion is wrong … but I think we’re moving beyond (the debate).”

If that were as true as she claims, why would so many pro-choice activists be so shrill so much of the time?

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Tanya adds:

Also, denying those women publicly funded abortions would force them to either go through a pregnancy they aren’t prepared for, or look for illegal abortion sources, she said.”

The US has a similar per-capita abortion rate as Canada does, and last time I checked, they don’t have publicly funded abortions. They do, however, have privately funded abortions, which would likely happen here through collective insurance.

All that aside, I’m amazed at how often pro-choice advocates like Egan bring up the issue of illegal abortions. They’re all about keeping visions of coat hangers dancing in everyone’s head. I dare say this is a ridiculous argument, and I’m calling it out as a scare tactic. There, I said it.

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Andrea adds: Well then. That does it. This here debate is clearly closed. Over. An Old Question, one not worth discussing. We’ve moved on. Everyone thinks abortion is OK. (Sometimes when people have to repeat themselves over and over, and strenuously, one wonders if they are protesting too much.)