Women! Settle down sooner! As someone who received this advice often enough, it’s worth mentioning why it’s unhelpful. Women certainly are not exempt from making wise relationship and life decisions, but there’s no point in gearing this advice exclusively to women when men need it too–along with just about every aspect of our culture. In this article, published in National Review, I touch on why it’s harder than many think to simply settle down.
An article about a recent talk I did for the deVeber Institute about the interplay between being pro-life and the feminist movement.
The original feminist movement, the abolitionists seeking an end to slavery and then the suffragettes of the late 19th and early 20th century, were actually more pro-women and would have more in common with pro-lifers today, argues Mrozek, who spoke on the issue at the annual deVeber Institute Lecture Nov. 8 in Toronto.
“Really, the onus isn’t on pro-lifers to reconcile that,” she told The Catholic Register. “The onus is on the second-wave feminists to reconcile with their own roots.”
The evolution of thought came in the 1960s and the “Sexual Revolution” with its strong emphasis on “so-called reproductive rights.” That launched this second wave and took the women’s movement on a hard turn away from its roots, said Mrozek. It led to a splintering of the movement, with a “lack of a common cause because it has left behind its classical liberal roots that would allow for freedom to prevail.”
Second wave feminists silence pro-life women, where they should be embracing their own pro-life roots.
An unlikely pro-life spokeswoman in Mindy Kaling. Read more on Convivium.
When I think pro-life talking points, I think freedom; the freedom to live a life that is not scripted or part of a checklist because even an unwanted pregnancy can become wanted. The world is filled with women, who moved from weeping at the sign of two lines on a stick to joy at the birth of their children.
The Canadian budget document, #YourBudget2018, is easily one of the more patronizing government documents I’ve ever read.
So I wrote this column about it in the National Post.
Imagine with me for a second that the budget focused so much on men. Imagine that Budget 2018 referenced men 708 times instead of women. Men — we need to coax you into nursing! Men — not enough of you are kindergarten teachers! Men — don’t take time off with your children when they are young! Men — you can’t choose more paternity benefits — these are “use it or lose it” for women, only! If that sounds pushy, it’s because it is.
Welcome to the world of “feminism means what I say it means,” courtesy of our current Liberal government.
A slightly re-written version of the Convivium article by Faye Sonier and myself posted on Huffington Post. I’m grateful for their willingness to engage both sides of the Canada Summer Jobs debatedebacle.
There are many hostile thoughts below the piece. Few of them constitute an actual argument, however. Very few engage the thinking in the piece, or mention the concept of competing rights. And God bless the lone man for stating over and over that abortion is killing and therefore not a choice. Wouldn’t you know it–he gets slandered for being backward because he is Muslim (which incidentally, the rude commenters are guessing at. It may be a reasonable guess, because he comments under the name Muhammed, but we don’t know this for sure.)
Witness the grosteque face of “diversity” among those who pat themselves on the back for being “progressive” and “tolerant.”
There are, in fact, numerous democratically legitimate arguments against declaring abortion a right. In the early days of the abortion debate, “the clump of cells” argument worked. Not so in an ultrasound era. In the early days of the abortion debate, stigma was attached to having a child “under the wrong circumstances.” Not so today. Surveys and polls today consistently show more women than men lean pro-life. Abortion, an issue that was supposed to be “settled,” is as hotly contested as it ever was.
Just not to our bold “women’s rights” campaigner of a prime minister, surrounded by “yes” women in an apparent echo cabinet. Saying a falsehood over and over doesn’t make it true. Naming abortion as a right doesn’t make the choice any better.
It’s a choice, so that bulge in her belly? It could be anything, really. We just can’t be totally sure. Until she tells us. Got it? Got it.
Does abortion support women’s rights or detract from them? Here, I put forward some questions and reasons why access to abortion detracts from women’s rights. Please forward to your friends who are pro-choice and feel free to tell me whether any of these arguments resonate.
Those of us who are against abortion understand that abortion attempts to equalize men and women in a manner that is both impossible and undesirable.
Does access to abortion make women the strongest they can be?
I hadn’t heard of Harvey Weinstein before last week. But no matter! I just wrote a whole column in Convivium about him and the problems we face as a society.
We’ve tried so very hard to create a world of consequence-free sex and it’s not working very well. But if there are alpha males in Hollywood or politics for whom it does work, then suffice to say, the culture encourages it.
While women can have dispositions other than “sexy,” you’d be hard pressed to know that in Hollywood.
By this point, everyone has a take on Rachael Harder-gate. Lots of folks have written well on the topic, and let me just say, I’m grateful for the very reasonable pro-choice people out there, who get why walking out of a Parliament Hill committee like some high school clique is the wrong direction for democracy. This is my pro-life-and-proud-of-it take on the topic. Being pro-life doesn’t mean being weak. It doesn’t mean being subservient to men or anyone else. It doesn’t mean denying choices. It means one recognizes the beauty of women, including her reproductive capacity. Being pro-life says it is not right, just or equal to ask women to make a choice that involves getting rid of her children.
Read more here. And feel free to leave a comment at Huffington Post. I know countless pro-life women–countless!–and now is the time for our voices to be heard.
Being pro-life is, in reality, a feminist position. A woman-friendly world should be able to accommodate women’s fertility, with things like flex work time for mothers, different work rules for pregnant women and having much higher expectations of fathers. (Incidentally, Planned Parenthood used to understand this, running an ad campaign in the ’80s that showed a man with a pregnant belly. The caption read, “When your girlfriend gets pregnant, so do you.”)
In the feminist pro-life world, pregnancy and children should not be a threat or an inconvenience — indeed, “women deserve better than abortion” is the slogan of Feminists for Life. It’s a twisted definition of equality that asks women to give up their children by undergoing invasive surgery. Men don’t have to do that, and neither should women.
If I were a betting woman, I’d bet Rosie the Riveter was pro-life.
We don’t have a problem in Canada with women accessing abortions. We have a problem with women waiting to conceive, and then needing to cope with media reports of how tragic it is when women get abortions–just slower than they would have preferred.
Here’s my take on this in Convivium.
Ruth Shaw and I argue in this piece that we shouldn’t limit freedom of speech or association without solid evidence.
Bubble zones on public property in front of abortion clinics set a bad precedent. What do they mean for other law abiding and peaceful protests? What about protesting a corporation violating good environmental practices, or an embassy infringing on human rights? Recently, Indigenous protestors erected a teepee on Parliament Hill. Significantly, they placed it where the power and action is, and were allowed to do so.
Meanwhile, I’ve finally gotten a response from the Ontario Auditor General on how we can all contribute to the public consultation process. Long story short, they essentially aren’t having one. I’d suggest writing in–if you like you can use the piece linked to above for talking points. Here’s the response I got in full.
Thank you for your email requesting to participate in consultations with respect to the development of “safe access zone” legislation. This legislation would protect the safety and security of patients at health care facilities that offer women’s reproductive services. I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to me on this important issue.
As you may be aware, on May 29, 2017 I announced a plan to introduce a bill this fall that would, if passed, provide for the creation of “safe access zones” at specified health care facilities. These zones would help ensure that women across Ontario have safe access to health care services, and that their privacy and dignity are protected when doing so.
My ministry is working over the summer to develop a legislative proposal that strikes the right balance. Additional information about the proposed bill may be found here:
news.ontario.ca/mag/en/2017/05/protecting-a-womans-right-to-choose.html.
I would encourage you to provide your views on the proposed legislation in writing. Once the bill is introduced, there will be opportunity for further comment and debate as it moves through the usual legislative process.
So write in, people. It’s now or never for the government to hear the concerns of citizens. We ought to all expect and demand a higher standard of evidence than what we have in this debate.
