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20 years of silence

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This has been a major beef of mine: silence on abortion. Have a read of Barbara Kay in today’s Post. Only I’m not sure pro-life zealots deserve the blame….

…In today’s second instalment, Barbara Kay argues that most Canadians believe abortion should be restricted in some cases –but have been silenced by pro-life zealots.

In my experience, the blame lies with pro-choice zealots. Then again, I grew up in very pro-choice social circles. Perhaps if you grew up ensconced in the pro-life side of things you might feel your freedom of speech was curtailed in a different way. What’s your experience? And if we need to lay blame for the silence–where should it go?

My opinion? No need to lay blame, just break the silence.

Celebrating abortion on Parliament Hill

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There’s a gala event next week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “decriminalization of abortion in Canada.” Didn’t that happen in 1969? And “celebrate” is an odd choice of words. Women don’t celebrate abortion. We can only imagine what fun this gala will be. What do you wear to an abortion party? Go with black, I’d say. All black.   

The Honourable Senator Lucie Pépin is hosting the event, alongside the usual suspects: Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), Action Canada for Population and Development (ACPD), Canadians for Choice (CFC), Canadian Federation for Sexual Health (CFSH), Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (FQPN) and the National Abortion Federation Canada (NAF). Henry Morgentaler will do a video presentation and Judy Rebick will speak. There’s entertainment too, provided by Lesley Hoyles and the Asinabika Women’s Drumming Circle. Who knows what Judy Rebick will say, but she told a crowd in Calgary in June 2005 this:

If you think about if for a minute these are people [pro-lifers] who really believe that abortion is murder. So if you believe that you would be a fanatic about it. Because you would think there is mass murder going on all the time in this country and what could be more important than that, to stop that. … so it is important to understand where they are coming from. …but the thing about that is that just like other elements of the right they have a very powerful story to tell which is that a fetus is a human being and they walk around with these big mangled fetus pictures…

Rebick must be very, very sure that the fetus is not a human being. Otherwise, that would be a bad mistake to make.    

Cross-posted to The Shotgun.

Try to keep up, will ya?

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Stories about young pro-lifers abound. There’s this one, and Paul Tuns also points to this in a post on his blog today.  

 

Pew Research Center polls dating back a decade show that 18- to 29-year-olds are consistently more likely than the general adult population to favor strict limits on abortion. A Pew survey over the summer found 22% of young adults support a total ban on abortion, compared with 15% of their parents’ generation.

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Brigitte adds: I have to say I find the idea of kids “spiritually adopting” fetuses growing inside unknown women more than a little creepy. But yes, I’m glad teenagers are starting to oppose unrestricted abortion. I guess the Roe Effect was more than just a theory. Egad!

McCorvey v. Wade

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If you have not heard of McCorvey v. Wade, that’s because the case is called Roe v. Wade. Jane Roe is Norma McCorvey, who in 1973 would fight the case that would give a “moderately pro-life nation the most anti-life abortion law in the West.”

Anyway, Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, is now a pro-life Christian. Norma McCorvey, then and now. How much would have been different had Roe v. Wade been fought by the woman Norma McCorvey is today.

I am also developing a theory–that many 1960s feminists were raised by intact families and never partook in the activities they now recommend. This develops further when you consider McCorvey never had an abortion. 

I began thinking about my theory when Margaret Wente published “Summer of Love was the best of times.” In the article she describes that wonderful 1960s zeitgeist… You know, free love and all that jazz. Only that she didn’t experience any, er, free lovin’ herself.

Susan was the only girl I knew who might not have been a virgin, and I envied her audacity and her carnal knowledge. I invited a boy named Jack, a romantic, sweet-natured redhead who seemed to be madly in love with me. I was filled with equal parts of hope and fear that something dangerously illicit might happen…

I wish I could tell you that Jack and I had sex. We did not….A few weeks after my trip to Expo, I started university. To my amazement, almost everyone in my class was still a virgin.

 So how many of our mentors and elders went on to advocate for dangerous behaviours they themselves never experienced? The irony.

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Rebecca adds: I’ve noticed this “do as I say, not as I did” attitude a lot among the boomers. I’m thinking of some well-intentioned women I know of that generation who see no disconnect between the choices they champion for children writ large (unrestricted access to abortion, with of course no parental consent or notification, freedom to have sex from an early age, and so on) and how they raise their own children (often providing them with religious education that specifically discourages premarital sex, encouraging, if not abstinence, at least waiting until adulthood, and in horror of the prospect of ever having an unplanned pregnancy.) If you’re horrified at the thought of your own teenager having sex, or an abortion, why is it good enough for other people’s children? If you had more self-respect than to behave that way, why shouldn’t young women today?

I’ve wanted this since at least last math class

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I’m not going to review Juno, as it has been in the theatres for weeks. It’s a fun movie, well worth seeing. But my favourite line comes not three minutes in: “I’ve wanted this for a long time,” says an extremely young male voice, as Juno makes her move. You’ve wanted to have sex for a long time? Really? Like ever since your large slurpee this afternoon, right after training for track and field?

On a different note, having seen the movie, I now understand why the pro-choice crowd doesn’t like it. They’ve complained it is unrealistic. I’ll believe that when the complaints roll in over Gray’s Anatomy. Is anyone’s doctor that good looking? No, I’d say they don’t like it because Juno draws a straight line from sex, to pregnancy, to a baby.  In that regard it is very–what’s the word I’m looking for–realistic.

I guess we might one day call it progress

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Sort of.

Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state.

Government officials have confirmed the landmark decision and plan to issue a decree by the end of the year.

The move is designed to forestall campaigns for greater freedom by women, which have recently included protesters driving cars through the Islamic state in defiance of a threat of detention and loss of livelihoods.

So maybe in a year there will be some decree? Gosh… Though the story also points out that: “If the ban on women driving is lifted, it could be years before the full impact is seen. Practical hurdles stopping women obtaining licences and insurance must be overcome.”

Oh well.

I tip my hat to the Saudi women who are fighting for their rights: They’re a courageous bunch. 

Are you dead yet?

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That question sounds rude, but it’s one Martin Luther King poses, in a way, with the quote below. And since today is his day in the U.S., it’s a good moment to consider our own great principles and the manner in which we will stand up for right. Also a good moment to consider his very fine speeches as compared with some of the meaningless pap we get today.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you’re afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand…Well you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You refused to stand up for justice.

From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered November 5, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Introducing the new comment page

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We launched ProWomanProLife with the comments feature up and running and boy, did you ever use it. Comments have poured in and while we are grateful for every single one, flattering, thoughtful, condemnatory, sarcastic… We have not been able to keep up.

It is for this reason that ProWomanProLife moves to a letters format for feedback. If you read a post and want to comment, please submit just as you have been. Once a week, we will choose some for publication on our new “The Comments” page.

We’ll hope to come back to the ongoing dialogue of comments at the end of posts at some point in the future. Meanwhile, however, each one of us hopes to keep our full-time (read: paying) employment. We thank you both for your interest and your understanding.

Why I don’t like feminists

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Well, some of them anyway.

America’s favourite television presenter is paying a painful price for her intervention in the US presidential campaign last month. Oprah Winfrey has been dubbed a “traitor” by some of her female fans for supporting Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

Winfrey’s website, Oprah.com, has been flooded with a barrage of abuse since the queen of daytime chat shows joined Obama on a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in mid-December.

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It started with a message on her website entitled “Oprah is a traitor” and rapidly expanded to include several discussions that attracted hundreds of comments.

In the original post, a reader called austaz68 said she “cannot believe that women all over this country are not up in arms over Oprah’s backing of Obama. For the first time in history we actually have a shot at putting a woman in the White House and Oprah backs the black MAN. She’s choosing her race over her gender.”

Oprah? A traitor to women? Some sisters need to give their head a good shake.

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