ProWomanProLife

Stumbled across this web site today (strange world I live in, yes). It provides the stories of women and men who used to work in abortion clinics but no longer do.

Here’s a clip from CBC’s Power and Politics where Don Hutchinson of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (he’s a lawyer by training) and Joyce Arthur discuss the topic.

I wholeheartedly support MPs bringing up this issue. And MP Stephen Woodworth is not bringing up abortion, but rather,  an examination of what is in the womb, and whether a child in the womb has any rights. You may think I’m splitting hairs here in identifying that there is a difference, but I’m not.

Abortion is one possible outcome of pregnancies, but in Winnipeg Child and Family Services v. DFG back in 1997, a mother, pregnant with her third child, could not be coerced into drug treatment of any kind in spite of the fact that her first two were born with problems because of her glue-sniffing addiction. Here, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the mother could not be put in treatment against her will because the unborn child had no legal status until he or she was born. In this case, the mother had no intention of aborting, but she also had no intention of halting her addiction. Had the child had any rights, perhaps this situation could have been changed.

In any event, while I support MPs bringing this up, I still don’t believe that political change is where the abortion debate is at. Ie. Even if we start to debate a law, it won’t truly protect unborn children, because the best we can hope for at this current time is the absolutely uncivilized situation of countries like the UK, where abortion is legal up to 24 weeks, and even after that in rare cases, if I’m not mistaken. 24 weeks.  Here’s a picture of a non-human, non-child, non-entity at 24 weeks:

Or how about we work decades long, struggle really hard, and get that abortion limited pushed down to 22 weeks?

Right. Something’s gotta give and while political debate is a useful tool in igniting the conscience of our nation, I don’t think that’s where it’s at, in total.

A young man with Down’s was on the ferry from the Toronto Island airport this past weekend. He was excited to get off first and had positioned himself accordingly. But then he let me go before him with a smile, in a kind of chivalric gesture. It was one of those nice, if small, moments in a busy city.

I already get choked up when I see people with Down Syndrome, knowing as I do that we don’t see as many of them as we should.

Not going to get any better now.

Tomorrow marks a celebration of Roe v Wade for some folks. Those pro-abortion folks have been doing a “blog for choice” day for six years now.

Since “choice” is a euphemism for the very painful and heartwrenching concept of killing your child, some other bloggers will be asking a simple question: What do you mean by choice?

I’m sure they’ll have plenty of answers to skirt the issue.

No one should celebrate abortion, which is what they are doing.

Celine Dion comments on her twins, born six weeks ago. Part of what makes “selective reduction” (have you ever heard of such a horrible euphemism?) so terrible is that there are so many women who want children so desperately. She was supposed to have triplets, incidentally, but one didn’t make it:

She also told how she was originally pregnant with three babies, but lost one during the pregnancy. “One little baby decided to step back to help the other two survive. The doctors said to me if there’s something wrong, natures takes it’s course. “I still think of the one who stepped back. I’m sure every woman has the feeling about -the little one that’s not there.”

I wish every woman did have a feeling about the one that’s not there…but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

When is it OK to reduce the number of fetuses from two to one? In my book: Never. I’m no doctor and I suppose it’s possible there are times when pregnancy really does pose a real risk to the mother’s life. But I’ve never heard of a case where a twin pregnancy was super duper dangerous while a singleton pregnancy wasn’t.

Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s — and their first son just over a year old — when this spring the woman became pregnant a second time. Seven weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ont., resident was carrying twins. “It came as a complete shock,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “We’re both career people. If we were going to have three children two years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids. … All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen.”

She soon discovered another option: Doctors could “reduce” the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses — and has become increasingly common in the past two decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies.

Selective reductions are typically carried out for women pregnant with triplets or greater, where the risk of harm or death climbs sharply with each additional fetus. The Ontario couple is part of what some experts say is a growing demand for reducing twins to one, fuelled more by socio-economic imperatives than medical need, and raising vexing new ethical questions.

I’m willing to believe the questions are vexing, but they’re not new. At bottom it’s the same question as ever: Who gives you the right to decide which baby gets to be born? And according to what rationale? We’re not talking about somehow having those fetuses vapourize into a puff of lilac-scented smoke. These human beings are being killed for convenience’s sake.

Fetal reductions are most commonly conducted by inserting an ultrasound-guided needle through the mother’s abdomen and into the uterus, injecting a potassium chloride solution into the chosen fetus or fetuses, stopping their hearts. They are typically performed between the ninth and 12th week, often with the most accessible or smallest fetuses marked for reduction, unless one is abnormal.

…unless one is abnormal. Of course.

I wish I could have gone to this conference at Princeton. Sounds interesting. And I enjoy going into environments where there are the most extreme kind of pro-abortion people. The quotes you get are worth the entry fee in gold. Take this, as an example:

Kissling shocked the audience in the last session by saying, “I don’t care how you accomplish it [the right to abortion], whether through a constitution, the UN, state laws or federals laws, or by the Taliban.”   The University of Pennsylvania, where Kissling is a visiting bioethics scholar, has drawn criticism for appointing the long-time abortion activist who lacks significant academic credentials.

Now that’s dedication.

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Jennifer adds: Here’s a good article about Singer and the fact that he paid for care for his aging mother with Alzheimer’s, going against his utilitarian ethics. “Singer forgot to look on page 2 of his book Practical Ethics, where he asserts, “…ethics is not an ideal system that is noble in theory but no good in practice. The reverse is closer to the truth: an ethical judgment that is no good in practice must suffer from a theoretical defect…” It seems that not only his critics think his action towards his mother negates his ethical theory, he does too! Will he take his own advice and admit that his ethical theory must suffer from theoretical defects, since it is no good in his very own practice?” (Source)

I used to work at McDonald’s – and there I got my meals either half-priced or free. Then I worked in clothing stores – where I got clothes at huge discounts. Then I worked in a pub, where I got my food at half-price (unfortunately, they didn’t give us discounts on the beer – darn). I’m used to these things. Still, I find this story a bit much:

One of Britain’s leading abortion providers has come under fire for offering free terminations for staff as a perk of the job.

Marie Stopes International offers employees, their partners and children free abortions as part of  its benefits package – which also includes cheap gym membership, reduced rates at theme parks and an annual health check for £10.

The company, which receives an estimated £30 million a year from the NHS to carry out abortions, tells staff: ‘For your dedication, passion and hard work you will be rewarded with our support and benefits – both financial and non-financial.’

And they say pro-choicers aren’t in favour of having more abortions? First they call it a “benefit” then they offer it to their employees, partners and children for free? Yes. I see…

Woman tries to have an abortion. Abortion fails. Now woman worried half to death her baby will be born handicapped because of her earlier choice. And that’s supposed to be empowering?

The clinic staff were shocked,” she says. “They said there was a high chance the pregnancy would still miscarry. Horrifyingly, if it continued he was likely to be born handicapped.”

Over the next few days Lucy agonised over what to do.

“It was a terrible decision to make,” she says. “I didn’t think I could cope with bringing up a handicapped child. And I also knew if my baby was born disabled I would never forgive myself.

“But then my baby had survived so much. I had to give him a chance.”

Although Lucy spoke to doctors at the clinic and also her GP, she says no one could give her a clear idea about what might happen with the pregnancy.

She says: “As my GP explained, not enough babies have survived the abortion procedure to know what the side-effects of the pill might be on them.

“But the more I thought about it, the more having another abortion felt like murder.”

I’ll let you chew on that last line by yourself. Meanwhile, make sure you read the story to the end – see anything funny right there at the bottom? Yes! An ad for Marie Stopes! Well done, Sun!

Thanks to Julie for drawing my attention to this piece by Jill Stanek. I must say I don’t understand why the American Association of Pediatrics would worry more about cultural sensitivity than, say, the health of girls. And not just physical health, either. For there is something deeply more troubling about female genital mutilation than “just” removing body parts; it’s the idea that girls and women are not supposed to experience sexual pleasure – that they are somehow dirty, or impure, if they do. It’s not just a “cultural practice”. It’s butchery, pure and simple – and if you don’t believe me, I challenge you to watch one (ditto with an abortion). So why would we put up with it, and try to minimize it instead of just saying “No way, we’re not going to tolerate that sort of butchery on American soil”? As Jill Stanek points out:

Traditionally, feminists have strongly opposed FGM, along with all of Western civilization.

But in this new age of cultural sensitivity, attempts are being made to bridge the divide, not necessarily end the barbaric practice of FGM.

For instance, there is a call to stop using the offensive term “mutilation” in favor of “female genital cutting” or “female circumcision,” both utterly inaccurate.

There is also the recent suggestion by the American Academy of Pediatrics to barter a compromise, recommending that pediatricians offer the gentler, kinder form of FGM, Type 4: pricking, piercing, or incising. In a new policy statement on April 26, AAP recommended:

“Some physicians … advocate only pricking or incising the clitoral skin as sufficient to satisfy cultural requirements. This is no more of an alteration than ear piercing. …[T]he ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC.”

I should note this recommendation is currently illegal in the U.S.

It’s also a pretty stupid idea.