ProWomanProLife

It’s summer. Good times. For me this means being outdoors as much as humanly possibly. The other day I biked from work to the swimming pool (outdoors) and did laps (did I mention the pool is outdoors? Love it.) After doing laps I went to play beach volleyball. Changing out of my swimsuit, I put on workout attire, applied no makeup, did precisely nothing to my wet hair (forgot my brush) and got back on my bike.

By the time I was almost there, I realized I was hungry and so pulled over at a concession stand to purchase dinner, which was a hotdog.

Because I was late, I started walking my bike and eating the hotdog as quickly as I possibly could.

Just as I hit the beach area, I scarfed down the last (big) bite of the hotdog. I just want you to have the complete picture as I saw myself: wet from the pool, sweaty from the bikeride, possibly with mustard dripping down my chin and unable to speak because I had just taken too large a bite. Classy!

At the point at which I could not speak for chewing the hotdog, two guys approached me. Here I thought, oh great, they are going to want directions somewhere and they will have to watch me chew for five minutes before I can answer.

But no, they approached so that one could say, “You are the prettiest girl I have seen all day.”

My actual thought was: He must be drunk.

I recount this on this blog for the following reasons. A) It’s nice when men pay women random compliments that are not lecherous and well meant. B) It’s nice in particular when they pay me random compliments, I’m not gonna lie. C) I can’t stress enough to you how modest my attire was, and these fellows were leaving a beach filled with less-than-modest ladies. D) The immediate female thought is I can’t possibly look good, so they must be visually impaired, or they must be drunk where apparently the male thought is more simple: she looks pretty, and I’m going to tell her.

Some random thoughts after a random moment.

This interview with Robert P. George is about marriage in response to New York legalizing same sex marriage. But it more than touches on sexuality and I find it aptly describes the culture we are currently living in. Here in Ottawa, a conservative talk radio station recently asked listeners to respond to the New York decision. When one listener called in to express a view in support of traditional marriage, the host steamrolled him with his own view in support of same sex marriage.

Now Robert P. George is no dummie and I don’t think he’s a homophobe, either. I do buy into his arguments; they make sense to me, though they didn’t always. But even as I read this piece, I realize I probably couldn’t convey the depth of what he is saying to the average person on the street. “Sexual liberation” no matter the fact that it was initially championed by the likes of Hugh Hefner, sounds like freedom to people, and freedom, we rightly think, is good. So explaining that “sexual liberation” is actually the opposite of freedom, that it binds and constrains and takes human beings further from their potential, is a tough sell.

What I’m saying here, in a convoluted way, is that I agree with Robert P. George. He’s smart and he knows what he is talking about. But I don’t think we’re going to win this particular battle over same sex marriage because we are poorly educated, it’s a sound bite culture, and arguments in favour of traditional marriage fit better into academic journals, rather than on the nightly news.

From Ohio:

Across the country, Republicans and Democrats are wrangling over proposed changes to state abortion laws. On Tuesday, the Ohio House of Representatives voted on a measure that has the power to transform the state’s — and the nation’s — abortion dialogue. In a landmark move, the House voted 54 to 43 to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable to doctors.

The measure, known as the “Heartbeat Bill,” has been touted by Republicans in the state, with the majority of them voting affirmatively for its passage. There has been no shortage of controversy surrounding the proposal, as a heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks (by some accounts, it can be found even earlier). Also, the measure does not include exemptions for rape or incest, but it does include one for the health of the mother.

I could have written this, so wholeheartedly do I agree with it. The one section I might add is the physical repercussions for many women of taking said pill every day, effects which are not liberating by a long shot. This section on how the Pill increased abortions is something we have yet to fully grasp hold of. It’s very counter-intuitive:

Originally, the Pill was expected to reduce abortion by reducing unwanted pregnancies. However, this “iron curtain” between sex and the possibility of babies had the unintended consequence of dramatically boosting the rate of abortion, which spiked dramatically around 1968-70, well before 1973’s Roe v Wade. This was because of the growing sense of having a “right not to be pregnant” if a sexually active woman didn’t want to be. She could also face pressure toward abortion from her partner who didn’t want his sexual partner hampered by pregnancy.

Things to think about and talk about, to be sure, since every woman gets on the Pill at one point or another.

I don’t know what to say:

Girls as young as one are being forced into sex change operations in India by parents desperate for a son. Surgeons in the city of Indore are reported to be ‘converting’ hundreds of girls a year, who are subsequently pumped full of hormone drugs.

At least in Ireland, it’s still considered criminal.

A “CUNNING and manipulative” man who gave a teenager abortion drugs when she became pregnant has been jailed for seven years.

Handing down the sentence to Christopher Paul Buckham (33) at Belfast Crown Court, the recorder of Belfast, Judge Tom Burgess, said he had looked for a “scintilla of concern for her but no matter how hard one looks, finds none”.

He said that having groomed the 15-year-old girl through internet chat rooms and texting, Buckham lied to her about having fertility problems and then, when she became pregnant, he gave her abortion drugs and then left her to deal with the emotional and physical effects of the termination.

“His behaviour requires to be visited with condign punishment,” the judge said.

Buckham pleaded guilty to eight charges of sexual activity with a child and one of supplying a poison to procure a miscarriage, between June 19th, 2009, and May 22nd last year.

[...]

Using the internet, Buckham ordered abortion drugs and got the teenager to take them.

[...]

As Buckham stood in the dock with his head bowed and his victim being continually hugged by her father just feet away, Judge Burgess told him he had “taken advantage of the immaturity and vulnerability of a young girl half his age on a regular basis . . . for his own personal gratification, only too happy to subjugate her interests to his own pleasures”.

As well as the seven-year jail term, he ordered Buckham to sign the police sex offenders’ register for the rest of his life and, as part of a sexual offences prevention order, barred him from ever contacting his victim again. 

Here we go again. Seems to me that there truly is a double standard. President Obama was able to get away with getting the number of states in his own union wrong, as well as saying he was looking forward to meeting the president of Canada. His vice president is known for making factual errors.

But when Michele Bachmann gets John Wayne’s birthplace wrong, well then. This is news:

Bachmann officially launched her campaign Monday in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, but got a key fact about the city wrong during advance publicity for the event.

‘Just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, that’s the kind of spirit I have,’ Bachmann told a TV interviewer, referring to the iconic movie star.The only problem? John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa. Waterloo was once the home of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of raping and murdering 33 boys and men in the 1970s.

I don’t know a lot about her. What I do know sounds impressive. She’s an attorney, with five kids, who also took in foster kids. It’s hard not to feel like there’s already a media campaign mounted against her.

What would it take for the media to be disinterested observers? Is that too much to ask? Or to do investigative reporting that doesn’t involve slamming Christians for being Christian? (I didn’t read too far into that last link. I did find it funny that apparently the author takes it as some sort of strange apocalyptic sign that Bachmann thinks God is calling her to run for the nomination. Newsflash, newsflash, pull out your notepads hostile journalists: Every practicing Christian out there thinks God is calling them to do something, and has placed them where they are for a reason. Believer or not, that’s the story of the Bible from start to finish: the idea that God uses people, aka us, to work in this world. So it’s not just crazy Republican candidates. I’d hazard to say Jimmy Carter thinks precisely the same thing.)

Anyway. I’ll reserve judgment until I know more but headlines indicating that Michele Bachmann doesn’t know where John Wayne was born do not disturb me. Sorry.

This is a lovely story. A woman has a child at 18, gives him up for adoption, and he contacts her some 36 years later on Facebook. Meanwhile, she’s had two other children, one of whom passes away, and feels like her first son coming back into her life is a comfort, especially considering the loss of her third son. 

Of course she might have chosen abortion, and that would have been the end of the story.

…Overrule ‘em:

Planned Parenthood of Indiana expects to start offering services to Medicaid patients again Saturday after a federal judge ruled the state is not allowed to cut off the organization’s public funding for general health services solely because it also provides abortions.

A good article here on how being informed isn’t “anti” anything.

No one can call themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-woman” and stand in opposition to the Women’s Right to Know Act (House bill 854).  This piece of legislation requires that women receive a consultation with a doctor, are given information on alternatives to abortion, offered an ultrasound, and given a 24-hour waiting period before having an abortion. [...]

Nevertheless, this bill has generated a series of protests from the pro-choice crowd with arguments that the legislation violates the doctor/patient relationship, it makes the decision to have an abortion more painful for the woman and it is just one more step towards making abortions more difficult to obtain.

But the arguments stem from a misunderstanding of the current situation for women seeking an abortion.  When all the facts are included, this bill is not polarized and does not seek a hidden agenda. [...]

I was curious about how much doctor interaction was available to patients seeking an abortion so I called a Woman’s Choice center to schedule the procedure.  They informed me that I could come that same day and wouldn’t have to talk to anyone before my appointment; I could be “in and out.”

Regardless of your stance on abortion, this is not right.  No woman or young girl should be able to have an abortion without a doctor consult.  This is a decision and medical procedure that she will live with for the rest of her life; meanwhile abortion clinics treat patients as if they were customers at a drive-thru fast food restaurant.

This bill cannot violate the doctor/patient relationship because there is no doctor/patient relationship to speak of under the typical abortion procedure.

Emphasis added.