ProWomanProLife

Can’t say Chris Selley isn’t absolutely right on this one. Though it might have been reasonable for pro-life social conservatives to hope the Conservatives wouldn’t bungle the issue so thoroughly.

What, just by the by, was the communications strategy here? We shall take the heat when it is really hard to do so, and when the issue has died down and all but disappeared, we shall raise it again in such manner so as to infuriate our supporters?

Lying politicians!
Well, well, well. As the Ottawa Citizen’s Elizabeth Payne reports, Canada’s Minister for International Co-operation now has no problem with funding abortion infrastructure in Third World countries where abortion is legal. But … but … what about all that vote-courting “no Canadian money for abortions” bluster back in April? Aren’t we now risking a terrible “divide [in] the Canadian population,” as Stephen Harper warned? Well, no. Of course not. It was just a ruse. Attention, social conservatives: You’ve been had. Again. And to borrow a line, it’s not going to stop until you wise up.

Please excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall. Not just because politicians lie, no. I’m at least somewhat used to that. But because of all the misinformation flying around about what it means to be pro-life and the wanton disregard we have for human life, while couching it in terms of sympathy and compassion for women.

Hey, remember all the people who had the vapours over the Harper government’s decision not to fund abortion as part of its maternal health initiative? It was all for nothing.

Despite its refusal to consider abortion in its maternal-health plan, the Harper government has given financial support to an international agency that provides abortion illegally in some African countries.

Words suddenly fail…

An article from The New York Times about women, their differences and how they vote, contrasting Sarah Palin with Emily’s List (a political action group that aims to get pro-abortion women into office). I like this part:

Women are divided but not by gender — the old saw that women must stick together doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did — nor necessarily split by party. They are polarized, like the nation, between the growing conservative-independent camp and the liberal-progressive bloc led by the political classes — or more simply, between insiders and outsiders. And this is the time for the outsiders.

I’m also keenly interested in the California election:

But it is the marquee race in California between Senator Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat and longtime feminist, and Carly Fiorina, the anti-abortion former Hewlett-Packard executive endorsed by Ms. Palin, that will most rigidly test who holds sway: Sarah Palin or Emily’s List.

In all this, it’s intriguing to me that a Sarah Palin endorsement still holds sway. Works for me, particularly when we are talking about life issues.

I’m having a hard time wondering whether this headline is deliberately facetious:

News Flash: Mandatory waiting periods for abortion are related to higher rates of unintended teen births.

Really.

It’s good to have solid facts, the numbers at your finger tips. Many thanks to the Ottawa-based Dr. René Leiva for getting this letter in the Lancet:

On the basis of data from Statistics Canada, in the 5 years before the legalisation of abortion in 1969, 44 women died as result of complications from illegal abortions. During the same period, however, 23 died of miscarriages. From the time abortion was legalised to 2005, 19 died of complications of legal abortions and 10 from miscarriages. Similar reductions were seen across all obstetric conditions. It can be safely concluded that the real cause of the maternal mortality reduction was the implementation of better medical care.

This goes back to the maternal health debate and how some people were very adamant that women in developing countries need abortions before they need clean surgical environments, basic medications and doctors. Right.

It must be summer when reporters write stories as lazy and old as this one. This can’t even be considered news, can it? An “exposé” about crisis pregnancy centres in the Star today.

I read with disbelief that she categorizes “emotional trauma” as one of the post-abortive myths. It’s a myth when you are a pro-abortion activist, sure. For the rest of the women out there who have had one, this ain’t no mythical beast. Neither is it mythical in the hard sciences, but pro-abortion people choose to look the other way.

These are people who can’t ever conceive that abortion wouldn’t be right. So when someone highlights that abortion might not always be neutral and easy, they are up in arms.

It is deceitful and harmful to make the claim that abortion is an easy choice. It is deceitful to fail to offer counselling and just let women, young women, teens, walk in and out of abortion clinics. Finally, it is deceitful to ignore the scientific literature decidedly indicating that there are negative side effects.

From the makers of Jesus Camp, which I never saw, comes 12th and Delaware, a movie about abortion in America. They focus on a corner in a town in Florida where there is an abortion clinic and a pregnancy centre across the street from one another.

If you watch the clip, substitute “Taliban Camp” for pregnancy care centre and I think you get the frenzied, conspiratorial tone of the journalist and the filmmakers about right. I don’t see it, not in Canada, that’s for sure, but also not in what they are reporting. Nothing appears to be quite that frightening to me.

A good hiatus, which I expect to blog about in the future. I was in Ukraine where I stayed at a transition home for young girls, some of whom came from the streets of Odessa, others from the Ukrainian orphanage system. Second week was spent running a summer camp in a small village. So much that I learned and saw and experienced that I hardly think I’ll ever be able to put those thoughts to paper.

But if I were to make any application for this blog it would be to say I learned (experientially, and not because someone preached it or told me) there are no unwanted children, only those we choose to label as unwanted.

It was good to be away. But now I’m back, and apparently, back to lots of abortion news. A huge article on Linda Gibbons in the National Post, which I’m sure you’ve already seen, and then the news today that Canadians are almost entirely unaware of what Canadian abortion law is.

This speaks to the apathy factor, which is, of course, much larger than the anti-abortion/pro-abortion camps combined. So onwards in engaging this apathy and the ongoing sympathy that exists toward abortion amongst really well meaning folks. Can’t believe it’s August. Back to work!

And again at this. Actually, read it. This is a very fine column by one John Robson. However, it will be much funnier if you watch this first.

We have a new GG. I wonder what he would have done if presented with Henry Morgentaler as a possible member for the Order of Canada. He is himself a companion of the Order, obviously didn’t give it up, so probably not much. Sigh.