The Tories decided to just pre-empt it all by committing to not reopen the debate, period. It was broad, and it helped silence the critics — sort of — but also painted them into a corner. They can’t really do a single thing about abortion without being justifiably accused of reneging.

He goes on to say:

There’s an argument to be made that on an issue like this, there’s a moral imperative to do something regardless of past promises. But I’m not holding my breath.

And of course there is, but our Prime Minister knew that before he started in with this “we will not re-open the debate” zombie-like meme. He could have done just as well by declaring his bias to be “we will allow for freedom of speech” (who is against freedom of speech? But he chose not to do that.)

I’m quite OK with saying that the time is not now for the political debate. Furthermore, we still need to loosen the stranglehold of radical feminism on the media. So much of what pro-lifers say, think and believe is still twisted beyond recognition, the National Post being a fantastic exception for the freedom they allow. So there’s hope, but I’d wait it out for a bit of a fairer playing field.

The bulk of PP’s breast-health work is simply referring their clients to outside facilities. “Sorry, no help for you here.” In fact yesterday, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker and President Elizabeth Thompson revealed they halted funding to PP for this very reason. “We have decided not to fund, wherever possible, pass-through grants. We were giving them money, they were sending women out for mammograms. What we would like to have are clinics where we can directly fund mammograms.”

The spin continues.

I think Planned Parenthood doth protest too much. They are so up in arms over this Komen thing because they are on the brink, fighting for their lives. (Lives of unborn children, not so much.)

Watch this clip about the Komen Foundation coming under heavy fire for withdrawing funding (or, possibly not) from Planned Parenthood. Incidentally, you might catch the part where Nancy Brinker of Komen points out that Planned Parenthood sends women elsewhere for breast cancer screening and that they want to be directly in contact with those agencies. Makes sense. But apparently incomprehensible to Andrea Mitchell, the interviewer.

Here’s the thing. Planned Parenthood may yet be funded by Komen. So it’s hard to see what the story is, other than the media having histrionics.

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Update: About 30 seconds after publishing this post, I got word of this petition. I stand with Komen. I’ll sign it, and I think you should too. Whether or not Planned Parenthood continues to receive their funding in the future is irrelevant. The fact is, they are taking substantial flak for something they have done right now, and they ought to be aware that many people appreciate it.

I now coin the word “choiciness.” Same idea. Choiciness is a choice that a person defends vehemently because it “feels right” and “sounds good” without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

How did I come to coin this word? After discussing abortion with two Carleton University students on campus radio yesterday for an hour.

Upstanding young people of good will, I must hasten to add.

But the gist of the conversation was this: Abortion is bad. It should not be used as birth control. It can cause harm. But it must remain a choice.

I don’t actually disagree all too vehemently. It must not remain a choice in our minds and hearts, but people are certainly free to make their own monumental life errors.

They were truly hung up on the legislative side of things. But given how hung up they were on that, they couldn’t even come forward and say abortion is a terrible choice.

At the outset I explained that I believe in a “Canada without abortion. By choice.” And the host said, so how does that make you different from pro-choicers?

It makes me very different, because I can identify that abortion is a horrible, terrible, life-ending choice that is incompatible with human dignity and true concepts of freedom. Some things are not a choice. And whether or not the state tells me there is a law on this matter, I will always know it is wrong. It’s not confusing. There’s no debate about when life begins.

I was there with a Catholic chaplain on campus, who tried his darndest to explain concepts of what true freedom, true love and community mean from a Christian perspective. It all made sense to me, and I would have liked to hear more. But the worldview is so substantially different from the one that says FREE CHOICE IS OUR HIGHEST VALUE, that I fear it fell on deaf ears.They should interview him, one on one, about the worldview stuff. Would be interesting.

I remain optimistic, though. Because even these ardent supporters of choice were not ardent supports of abortion, and that came through loud and clear.

The Harper government recently announced a publicly funded agreement between three of Canada’s mining giants and three of Canada’s leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs). [...]

“The Canadian government is using aid to support the expansion of Canadian mining…[and] to determine development paths inside countries according to the logic of mining companies,” Yao Graham of Third World Network Africa [...]

“CIDA has always worked government-to-government,” said Coumans. “Now what CIDA is doing is channeling Canadian taxpayer money directly to the mine site and basically paying for corporate social responsibility projects, and that is very bizarre.”

What does this mean? It means that mining companies have a bad track record of damaging regions, so now they’ve been paired with groups that usually focus on humanitarian issues/sustainable development and receive government funds. These are the groups we want to build hospitals and make good on the promises we make to foreign countries. Promises that matter so much to us we’re willing to give gobs of money towards them, like lowering maternal death rates and ending child poverty. However with this unusual pairing, these groups are now meant to keep “in check” the mining company, as well as clean up any further damage the mining causes to already needy regions at the taxpayer’s expense. The money moved like a game of three-card Monte, and we’ve taken our eyes off the lady.

When I asked her if she was pro-choice Iris answered, “I am against it.” When asked if she was Christian Iris said, “I am secular.”

Gaby Rodriguez, of Toppenish, Wash., got headlines last April when she announced at a high school assembly that she had worn a faux baby bump for months to explore stereotypes about teen pregnancy. [...]

“Being a Hispanic girl from a family full of teen pregnancies meant that my odds of also becoming a teen mom were way higher than average,” she wrote. “If I gave people what they predicted, how would they react?”

Rodriguez believes the biggest message from her experience is: Things will be OK.

“It’s not the end of the road for them,” she said. “It’s going to be harder, but it’s not the end of the road.”