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Archives for February 2008

Obligation to refer: Fact or fiction?

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I realize that the democratic state allows citizens to have a hand in the legislative process. But the last time I checked, the course of a legal obligation involved a walk through Parliament and some semblance of a democratic debate. So how did it come to be that:

“Lorraine Weinrib, faculty of law at the University of Toronto, mused about why doctors should be protected from performing or referring for abortions.”

An obligation to refer women seeking abortions to abortion providers presupposes a right to abortion. Let’s turn to Canadian abortion laws… Wait a minute… There aren’t any!

Before 1988, abortions could only be performed in hospitals upon approval by abortion committees. Morgentaler struck down the Criminal Code’s provision that substituted a woman’s judgment for the decision of an abortion committee. It gave women the right to make an autonomous decision and it gave Henry Morgentaler the right to terminate their pregnancies in private clinics. Forgive me for thinking like a lawyer but the right to decide to have an abortion is substantially different from the obligation to provide or facilitate it.

Morgentaler did not close the door on any state-based initiative to regulate abortion and did not give women a positive right to abortion. Granting women a right to abortion – and obliging physicians to provide it – requires taking abortion back to Parliament and engaging in an open, democratic discussion about our national stance on abortion. And opening the legislative process on abortion would cause – Yikes! – a real debate! And that’s not something abortion advocates want.

Failing to see the forest for the trees

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A reader, Brian, thought we needed to read this. So I did–most of it, anyway.

There’s a lot of disagreement on how and when abortion causes psychological damage to women. One area of solid agreement is that when the woman herself harbours grave misgivings over the act, that woman is indeed more likely to experience personal damage.

So what upsets me about the link above is not that there are hypocrites out there, even pro-life ones–surely we all knew that. What upsets me is that the abortion providers document these examples and in only one case that I found, did they decline to do the abortion. One of these stories even documents a 16-year-old who the abortion providers describe as “not quite right.” But she too, got her abortion.

It also upsets me that someone would chronicle these horrible examples with an obvious sense of schadenfreude. Well done: You have exposed some maliciously dishonest pro-lifers.

It’s hard to see the hypocrites for all the other hypocrites. So I’ll ask a question. What is the bigger problem? The 16-year-old who is “not quite right” and pro-life but asks for and gets an abortion, or abortion providers who say they care about women but clearly don’t have a problem putting someone who is mentally incompetent under the knife?

Still, I thank the reader for drawing my attention to that piece.

Why I killed my first child

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A mother explains why she killed her first child here. She refrains from using the standard euphemisms, referring to her baby as a baby throughout. She then explains some of the results of her abortion: a (temporary) split with her husband, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and relief, a lack of desire for more kids.

But above all, the decision was right for her.

The new frontier of the pro-choice movement is to fully acknowledge the unborn child. But then to add that killing that child is a mother’s right.

Aaaah, progress.

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Patricia adds: Andrea, that’s a horrifying article. Maybe I’m naive but I can’t believe that stories like that are going to reconcile people to these kinds of “choices”. At least not in the long run.

There are about a dozen glaringly obvious and really disturbing aspects to this story.

For example, on learning that her child has Down Syndrome, there is not even the briefest consideration of any other possible alternative to abortion:

“Going ahead with the pregnancy wasn’t even up for discussion. Neil [the husband, oh, of course, the concerned husband] stayed strong [strong???!!!] and made all the necessary arrangements.

I saw a consultant the following day [the very next day??!! That Neil really stayed strong and wasted no time] and talked through the abortion procedure.”

There was a lot of “choice” going on there.

The description of the abortion procedure is stomach churning. Women should realize by instinct (and I believe that some part of each woman does) that anything that involves something so horrendous and unnatural has got to be contrary to their fundamental dignity.

No surprise then that the procedure leaves her with “guilt, I realise now, [that] I will have for ever. I pass Down’s children on the street and think, ‘I killed mine.’

… There is no escaping the reality of what I did, or the way I mentally rejected my baby. …

Abortion can never be described as an easy option. I still cry as though mine were yesterday.”

Naturally, I find it particularly horrifying that the justification for all of this is the fact that the child who was killed had Down Syndrome. But I would ask any woman if they would like their story to be that of the woman in that awful awful article or, in contrast and not to leave you on a completely depressing note, that of any one of these women.

The birth dearth

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I read about the “birth dearth” in last week’s Ottawa Citizen.

As a mother of five, I always get a kick out of suggestions that a baby cash-in can boost the country’s birth rate. Don’t get me wrong: as a stay-at-home mom with a monumental student debt, I could sure use the extra money. But the promise of a $ 1, 000 baby bonus pales in comparison with the $1, 200 I spend monthly on groceries. And that says nothing about the price of keeping my kids clothed, sheltered and happily busy with gymnastics, dance and other activities. My point is that maybe someone should tell left-leaning thinkers that there is only so much money the state can throw at declining birth rates until it must start making family cool again. And pictures of pregnant Britney, Gwyneth and Katie won’t cut it.

What then, is a government to do when it wants to proclaim that children are a personal choice that women must assume and ask them at the same time to have more, many more? It gives them more money and hopes they won’t notice the hypocrisy. Trying to turn childbearing into a money-making endeavor? Good luck…

PWPL welcomes new blogger Véronique Bergeron

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ProWomanProLife welcomes Véronique Bergeron as a permanent blogging contributor.

Véronique Bergeron de Grandpré was born in Ottawa and was raised in the National Capital Region.

She graduated from law school at the University of Ottawa in 1999 with a civil law degree (LL.B.) The focus of her studies was… survival. During the summer following her first year in law school she got pregnant with her first child. And by convocation, four years later, she was pregnant with her third.

Like most young women of her generation, she was not born pro-life. While she always nursed a personal interest in childbirth (she wanted to be a midwife), she also assumed the prevalent choice rhetoric. Then she got pregnant at 21 in law school. “As soon as the little line turned blue, it became clear that what I thought would be a no-brainer was really excruciating,” says Bergeron. “Keeping” the baby was never an issue for her boyfriend, who surprised her with a marriage proposal shortly after (she accepted). Another formative influence was the complete and utter disbelief of her peers that she would do something so stupid as to “keep” the baby and ruin her professional life. “In the end, I pulled the trigger on my professional life by staying home with my children for 10 years,” says Bergeron. “That’s when I realized that women may have been liberated but liberation was achieved by excluding their reproductive abilities. I advocate for a complete liberation of women that includes the fact that they bear and deliver children.”

Bergeron believes that if abortion is indeed an equality issue and if women need to undergo such an invasive and damaging procedure to gain equal footing with men, there’s a word for that: Misogyny.

Bergeron joins ProWomanProLife because she wants to change the system. She is now seeking a Master’s degree in law with a specialization in biomedical ethics from McGill University. Her LL.M. thesis looks into the shared decision-making model in neonatal intensive care and her research interests are neonatal and obstetrical ethics, feminist approaches, informed choice and women’s health policy. She is particularly interested in using feminist scholarship to study forms of sexual exploitation not generally addressed by mainstream feminist approaches such as abortion, sterilization, cesarean sections and cosmetic surgery.

If she had spare time she would hone her musical skills and exercise. “In the meantime, I relax vicariously by driving my five children (aged two to 11) to their various musical and athletic activities,” she says.

PWPL looks forward to an ethicist/mother/lawyer’s contributions to the dialogue. Welcome Véronique!

Time to act

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When Morgentaler got the honorary degree from the University of Western, I was shocked. When he received an award from the Couchiching Conference, I was dumbfounded.

It’s time to stop being shocked by Morgentaler getting awards.

The time has come to stop him from getting the next one.

In today’s Globe, another call, same folks, mind you, always the same folks–for Morgentaler to receive the Order of Canada.

I’ll be writing a letter to the Governor General, which I’ll post once finished. You can either use it as a basis for your own letter, or just write in yourself.

I’d like to confirm the correct address before I post it. Stay tuned-I’ll call in on Monday during business hours to find out for sure.

It will be a dark day in Canada if he receives that award.

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Update: Globe and Mail poll asking whether Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the infamous abortionist, deserves the honour of the Order of Canada. Scroll down to the left hand side of the page to vote no (and then shake your head).

Who’s laughing now?

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Remember when we were debating same-sex marriage some of us tried to point out that once you start messing with the definition of marriage there’s no telling where it’ll end? That polygamy would be next? Because once you decide that a marriage is simply the recognition of a loving relationship, there’s no reason to get hung up on the number of people involved in said loving relationship?

I remember. We were laughed at. We were told tut-tut, of course not, because polygamy is illegal.

Oh yeah?

Hundreds of GTA Muslim men in polygamous marriages — some with a harem of wives — are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.

“Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims,” Ali said yesterday. “Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others.”

[…]

However, city and provincial officials said legally a welfare applicant can claim only one spouse. Other adults living in the same household can apply for welfare independently.

Once again, I wonder where the feminists are… Why aren’t they up in arms about this? Do they think polygamy is good for women?

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Andrea adds: If I had a dime for every time a social liberal or even a libertarian told me family and marriage policy doesn’t matter, I’d be retired in Waikiki. Social liberals appear to be AOK with an illogical double standard: Yes to same sex marriage, no to polygamy (though clearly we have not said no to that at all). And my libertarian friends? With some of their attitudes toward marriage-one almost has to wonder whether they don’t secretly long for bigger government.  

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Rebecca adds: “‘Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims,’ Ali said yesterday.”

No kidding. Lots of things are a regular part of life for many Muslims, but it doesn’t follow that we want these behaviours replicated in Canada, much less at taxpayer expense. Maybe we should jump on the Rowan Williams bandwagon and declare sharia in Canada inevitable?

Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding

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Epinal is a French town not too far from Nancy or Strasbourg. They award something called a French Family Medal and the winners are pictured above in a local newspaper La Liberté de l’Est.

Mme Dairi raised 7 children, Malika  Etassi 6, Yeza Sohbani 6, Khaddouj Karim 6, Djamila Beynée 5, Fatna El Bour 5. […] Françoise Skorynnée, raised 4 children.

So when Mark Steyn writes about changing demographics in Europe, apparently he wasn’t kidding.  On a different note, I find it both strange and intriguing that they have a “family medal.” 

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Rebecca adds: Wow. Vive la France libre.

While the government can certainly make it more, or less, of a hassle to have children, it can’t actually change the degree to which people want to make family their priority. This is why, attempts at increasing the birth rate aside, Quebec has the lowest birthrate in Canada and the segment of France that is reproducing is markedly different from the population overall.

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Andrea adds: Had I known that Mark Steyn would link to this post from National Review Online, I would have spent more time on it.

To explain then, why I find it “strange and intriguing” that they have a family medal:

Strange because in our post-60s era of feminism-motherhood and raising a family has been sadly and strangely diminished as the accomplishment that it is. It is some vestige of a bygone era, then for a woman my age (31) to read of a “family medal.” We are left with nothing more than an annual Hallmark remembrance to the grand accomplishment of raising kids.

Strange also because it seems that the state in France is attempting to condone some worthy traditional values, but the face of their state has changed so dramatically that they are not in fact being traditional at all and may end up condoning things like Shariah law in short order.

Intriguing because I believe we should honour motherhood. But how, in this age and era?       

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