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A story of free speech and perseverance

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A beautiful column about Linda Gibbons from Nigel Hannaford of the Calgary Herald. Certainly it is a free speech story, a pro-life story and a story of perseverance, at the same time.  

This could be a free speech story, or a pro-life story, or just a story about plain old perseverance. You decide.

Earlier this year, abortion provider Henry Morgentaler got his Order of Canada.

A lot of people hated the idea, but whether or not one approves of what he was doing — full disclosure, I do not — one has to concede he believed in it strongly enough to go to jail, rather than yield. If you agree with him, he’s a brave man.

If you don’t agree with him, you should still allow he has the courage of his convictions, and this martyr factor is part of what makes him so appealing to his supporters.

What then shall we say of pro-life activist Linda Gibbons, who has spent 75 months of the last 14 years in jail for protesting Morgentaler’s trade? After all, it’s a mirror image. When abortion was against the law, one man challenged it and in the end, was acclaimed for it.

 Courageous, indeed.

Peggy on Palin

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Two readers have pointed to Peggy Noonan’s piece on Palin. Indeed, it is worth a read–she is way more positive about Palin’s performance than I, and way more experienced to comment with authority, too. Reading and listening to American sources, in particular the right-of-centre ones–lead to a better understanding of America, these days in particular.

I don’t think Canadians really get how much Americans hate the mere idea of a bailout package, and this is where I thought Palin was incredibly weak last night. (Even Jay Leno made fun of the bailout, after making fun of Palin, on his show last night.) She could have capitalized on Washington greed, instead of focussing on Wall Street.

Anyway, if Noonan thinks she was this good, it’s worth taking note.

Debates!

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But which debate? Well, the first blog post from your Ottawa-based correspondent would have to be on… Sarah Palin. (Now to be sure, I watched both. At the same time. That’s just the kind of multi-tasking woman I am. But my comments on the Canadian debate largely revolve around what a great moderator Steve Paikin is. Kidding! Sort of.)

Back to Sarah Palin. I thought she did well; it was not a knock out to be sure, but she certainly was not a failure, either. Which leads me to think there simply is no parallel to the hostile media test (the one she previously failed). Any given day, fighting the Taliban may in fact be easier. Furthermore, the hostile media test generally has little bearing on how competent you are. (What’s too bad, is that after you fail the hostile media test, they pull more pundits out of the bag to kick you while you’re already down. By discussing, on repeat.)

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Update: Interesting to read commentary from around the globe. This from South Africa:

If she doesn’t get into the White House now, Palin could be a better contender in 2012. After a few more years of experience and with more time to polish her political skills, Palin might get where she wants to be. For now, I think her entry into this level of politics might be premature.

Plus, she wouldn’t be with McCain, who I believe is very weak indeed. Far weaker than I thought.

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Brigitte cheers Steve: I didn’t watch much of the Canadian debate, choosing instead to watch the U.S. one (I’ve seen the Canadian debate last election, and the one before that; these guys keep repeating the same inane platitudes year in, year out). I would absolutely vote for Steve Paikin. He rocks.

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Andrea: That makes two votes for Steve. Paikin, not Harper.

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Tanya adds: Is it me, or are they trying to make Harper smile more…and at wierd times? BTW, I vote for Paikin, too.

Victim of abortion speaks up

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We, as women, won the right to vote when women suffragettes mobilized. All black people won the fight against segregation when black activists raised their voices. Unborn children, victims of abortion, may ultimately receive recognition thanks to women like this:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEQR1-1OXK4]

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Andrea adds: Looking out over the audience, you’re seeing the faces of girls who have already aborted their babies, I think. Not a good moment.

Quote of the day: Bioethics out of the mouths of babes

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My 6 year-old daughter’s grade 2 assignment is to present her family tree. Amongst pictures of assorted siblings, we added an ultrasound picture of Nouveau Bébé at 18 weeks gestation. While rehearsing her presentation, Martha said that there were 5 children in her family, for which she was immediately corrected by her 11-year-old brother who said: “There are six children in our family. Just ask Mom…” At that point, I thought he would say something like “She’s the one carrying that baby 24/7.” But no, you can always count on Kurt to go the extra mile. Instead, he said: “She spends her job thinking about dead people so she knows a family member when she sees one. And there are 6 children in this family.” 

“She spends her job thinking about dead people.” Ahem. No doubt, he was confusing my hobbies — pro-life blogging and getting graduate degrees in bioethics — with my actual day job which involves answering the phone and filing travel claims for other people.

Doctors and abortion: Politicians or scientists?

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Got this article via fax, so no link, sorry. It’s from the September 26 Medical Post. Headline: Abortion access continues to divide Canadian doctors, almost 40 per cent oppose it, but more than 80 per cent offer referrals. There’s a good section I’ll type out in full:

Meanwhile, Dr. Willi Gutowski used to support access to abortion but now thinks it should be curtailed. The retired Chilliwack, B.C., psychiatrist shared his reasoning with the Medical Post:

‘If you think about it as a scientist, instead of a politician, when you are dealing with a pregnancy you are not dealing with just a woman; you are dealing with two genetically distinct individuals. So with doctors, we are human beings, we get influenced by political things just like everybody else, and so we forget our science–that the fetus is a genetically distinct individual. We as scientists should be dealing with the science, not the politics–but it takes us a while to really think the whole thing through.‘” 

Not a hate crime. A crime, period.

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I have said before that I’m a free-speech absolutist, à la Voltaire. But I make two exceptions: libel, and incitement to violence. This, if true, falls into the second category, and he should be prosecuted. Not because he’s targeting gays (I’d say the same if he were targeting blue-haired biddies), but because he’s advocating violence. Ain’t no room for that in a civilized society.

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Andrea’s blood pressure just went up: So I click over to check the story Brigitte is commenting on, note that some fellow is advocating for gay people to be executed and further that these are classified as “extreme Christian views.” These are not Christian views, extreme or otherwise. Not in any way, shape or form. I don’t care what this guy calls himself. His is not a Christian view. Admittedly, my blood pressure skyrocketed before I had the chance to read the article so perhaps he is calling his views “Christian.” But plenty of people call themselves Christ and we generally see them in the psych wards across this great nation. News editors shouldn’t be allowed to perpetuate false stereotypes simply because they’re ill-informed and have an ideological anti-faith position to push. His views are criminal, not Christian–and I think I need to go breathe, breathe…in and out…

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Véronique adds: Andrea, you posted what I was in the process of writing! At the end of the article, they mention how the teachers and students just looked stunned as the conversation carried on but let it go on nonetheless. I couldn’t help but feel so sad for the youngsters who were introduced to extreme-wing-nutism that day.

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Andrea: I’d comment again, but I’m typing with one hand, still holding “downward facing dog,” while breathing deeply and thinking positive thoughts.

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Rebecca adds: And every time a clown like this gets the spotlight, the thoughtful, reasoned argument against gay marriage becomes that much harder to advance. Which, I have no doubt, is part of why he gets so much press. What were the hosts thinking, inviting this guy to a forum attended by children? It’s not as if he has no track record of irrational or hateful behaviour.

Giving him a platform is just playing into his hands.

Palin and pro-life consistency

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I was advised to look up footage of Sarah Palin in the Alaska gubernatorial debates on YouTube, since she apparently performed much better in that context than she did with Katie Couric, and lo and behold, it seems that she did. [youtube:http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=y1-B-OyQ-KI&feature=related] 

I am struck by how much the discussion of abortion dwelt upon abortion for a rape victim.  Why does it seem to baffle so many people that those who believe abortion is wrong also believe that aborting a baby conceived in rape is wrong?  If the issue is an innate right to life, why would the circumstances of conception be a part of the equation?

Any attempt to point out that abortion for rape victims might not be the answer is dicey, because of the need to be sensitive to the pain and horror endured by rape victims for a long time – frequently a lifetime – after the assault itself.  Pregnancy with a much-wanted child can still be a physically and mentally stressful experience; I can’t imagine how much worse this would be if the pregnancy was not only unwanted but a constant reminder of violation.  If the issue, though, is to minimize the suffering of a woman who has already been victimized, why do the reservations pro-lifers have about abortion in general – that it damages women on a physical, moral and emotional level – not still apply?

To put it more bluntly: most pro-lifers believe abortion to be wrong because it ends a human life.   How does it help a rape victim to make her an accessory to this?

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Andrea adds: It’s only in a world where abortion is viewed as compassionate that we would “offer it” as a “solution” to a victim of rape. We’re a long ways away from reversing the “abortion as compassion” sentiment. The line I’ve adopted is that I’ll get into discussing cases of rape and incest when the other 99 per cent of abortions are eradicated. So very few abortions are done for this reason. 

We recently had someone who regrets her abortion write in to PWPL. She had the abortion because she was raped. Just goes to show you, these cases are not clear cut–and the pain of killing another exists even when you were wronged in the first place, grievously so.

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Brigitte is looking for a middle ground: While I would not go so far as to recommend abortion as a “solution” to a victim of rape (nothing can erase that kind of memory) who found herself pregnant due to the rape, I could not bring myself to condemn her for choosing to end that baby’s life. In my book, when you do not consent to sex, you can’t be forced to bear and give birth to the child.

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Andrea adds: To be frank, I’m not in the business of condemning any woman–so many have had abortions, and again, 99 per cent are not because of rape. I’m in the business of nurturing good choices. Abortion isn’t one. Rape is terrible–always. So is abortion. Though I appreciate the connection Brigitte is making between sex and pregnancy–ie that’s where the “reproductive choice” truly lies–the fact that the woman is raped, thereby denying her the “choice” doesn’t make the killing of innocents into a workable thing, or the right thing to do.

A woman in jail because she protests abortion

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Pro-abortion fear mongering often raises the false notion that pro-lifers want women to go to jail for having abortions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let the record stand: For women in jail because of abortion, there’s only one in this country that I know of, and she’s pro-life.

Linda Gibbons is a soft spoken grandmother whose trial is today. Gibbons has spent years in jail because she protests abortion. From a source who has seen her working:

She has been peacefully standing in front of [an abortion clinic] for the past five years handing out pamphlets and talking to women. Often only allowed an hour at a time before a peace officer warns her three times and then calls the police for her disobedience of the injunction [that does not allow protesting within a 60 foot zone outside of abortion clinics.]

Today is her trial, and the results are due out momentarily. My source further tells me:

This is the first time she has legal representation and her argument is being made. All the other times she simply stays silent, even when questioned by the judge, in order to make a political statement that the unborn are voiceless. …She is always charged with  obstruction of the peace officer’s duties (despite the fact that she fully cooperates and listens to his warnings and goes along with the arrest subsequently when he calls the police). But why is this 14-year-old injunction that was intended to be temporary still enforced and used to prosecute a peaceful pro-lifer?

And that is a very good question.

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Brigitte updates: She has been acquitted.

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Andrea adds: The story Brigitte links to quotes one Maria Corsillo. If I’m not mistaken, we were on the same TV program back when Morgentaler got his Order of Canada. And she wouldn’t stop talking. But bygones, this is what she says on this case:

“No one has a Charter right to interfere in another person’s medical care,” said Maria Corsillo, manager of The Scott Clinic, which opened in 1986. “The question every patient asks is, ‘Why is she allowed to do that?’” People are entitled to their beliefs but they should not impose them on others, she said. She used the example of people opposing blood transfusions for religious reasons. “Do you see those people standing and obstructing entrances to blood donor clinics?”

Short answer, and it’s an easy one. First of all, Gibbons doesn’t block entry. She stands quietly by, as the justice who acquitted her highlights. Secondly, if those opposed to blood transfusions want to stand and offer me information outside my very hospital room, I’m not opposed to that. I’d weigh the evidence and decide they’re crazy. Done. Women can, incidentally, as thinking beings, do the same, Ms. Corsillo.

Finally, abortion is but rarely medical treatment, and taking a life to solve a problem constitutes a very callous sort of world, one where it makes sense to protest. When Corsillo and I discussed Morgentaler’s Order of Canada, I recall she opened by saying it was an appointment that everyone could support. Everyone. Interesting. Guess working in a clinic, with a husband who does the abortions means you are by default out of touch with mainstream women’s concerns, which tend not to revolve around “medical treatment” but rather, “I can’t have this baby.” Cutting freedoms, freedom of speech and freedom of information–that’s her MO. Thing is, she’s curtailed her own world so much, she doesn’t even know when she’s doing it.

How do you say “thank you” in Prochoice-ese?

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Many thanks to a reader for highlighting this post over at Feministing. It’s a list of reasons to thank feminism. (Cue soft violin music.) 
The reader’s comments on number 3 (Thank you feminism for “an authentic language to discuss sex, work, and just about everything in between”) can’t be improved upon so I’ll just cut and paste: “Right. Like, ‘right to choose’ and ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive freedom.’ I don’t think Orwell intended doublespeak to be considered ‘authentic.'”
She doesn’t realize she’s using euphemisms, taking the new double-speak instead as “authentic.” Oh the irony.

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