Apparently, there’s nothing like the government pulling the rug out from under you for getting good press.
Another article that favours Bill C-484. Here’s a good quote where about how doctors tried to save the “aggravating factor,” known in popular parlance as a baby.
They spent four hours at the hospital trying to save the baby,” said Aydin Cocelli, Ms. Sesen’s brother-in-law. “If it wasn’t a baby, then why were they trying to save her?”
Naomi Lakritz of the Calgary Herald has written an excellent piece about clarity, abortion and Bill C-484.
My favourite line:
It is obvious to anyone with a minimal grasp of English that this bill is not about abortion. Notice the key words “criminally assault,” “wants and loves,” and “against her will.” That does not describe the pregnant woman rifling through the phone book in search of an address for the nearest abortion provider.
And my second-favourite line:
Next, politicians and abortion rights groups have to stop pretending that a fetus is not fully human because it can’t survive on its own. If it weren’t fully human, there wouldn’t be all this debate. We do not hold debates about the degree of guppiness of unborn guppies, do we? And if a fetus cannot survive on its own, neither can an infant or a toddler. Are they any less human?
Reading this also caused me to stop and realize that I am way too cautious on the topic of abortion. Yes, you heard me, too cautious. Because I’ve never seen any Canadian political leader do or say anything reasonable on abortion or defending unborn babies, I stopped thinking they ever could. Thanks to columns like this, I am reminded to demand nothing less. (But hey, a girl has to keep her sanity. Low expectations means that even politicians, from time to time, exceed ’em.)
“What to expect when you’re aborting.”
Would love to talk to her. A bold move, certainly, being that public over a forthcoming abortion. But the blog is anger and angst-ridden. I don’t know what to make of it. If I could help, if I could give her money, if I could, if I could, if I could…
On a truck containing “carbon dioxide”:
“This vehicle stops at railway crossings. Only in Quebec.”
Because it is common knowledge that only in Quebec do locomotives crashing into tank trucks cause grave accidents possibly endangering lives. Or are Quebec locomotive drivers more likely to accelerate when commercial vehicles cross the tracks?
Really, it’s the whole legalistic shtick that cranks me up. We can blow up neighborhoods everywhere in Canada but only Quebec requires us to stop at railway crossings. And we are law abiding corporate citizens.
It reminds me — somehow — of what passes as dialogue between pro-abortion and pro-life where the pro-lifer goes “abortion ends a human life; the fetus can feel the pain of abortion” and the pro-abortion replies “the Morgentaler and Daigle decisions by the Supreme Court have both clearly stated that fetal rights do not exist in Canada and therefore the fetus is not alive and cannot feel pain.” Yes. And the Emperor is fully clothed. By decree, I know.
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Andrea, warmly: Véronique, you make me laugh. What doesn’t remind you of the pro-life, pro-choice dialogue?
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Tanya adds: I do love how your mind works.
Wow:
LONDON, August 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Crisis pregnancy centres, as well as doctors, nurses and midwives, may be subject to prosecution and a two-year jail sentence if they convince a woman to forego an abortion. Under a proposed amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, those groups advertising services to pregnant women who provide “false information” or even information that is “factually correct” that convinces a woman to change her mind about abortion, will have committed an offense.
Tabled by one of David Cameron’s Tory MPs, John Bercow, the amendment says, “It shall be an offence to deliberately mislead through advertising in relation to the termination of pregnancy and alternatives thereto.” Bercow has recently gone on record in support of an effort to bring explicit “sex-education” to six-year-old children in mandatory school curriculums.
The amendment continues, “Any person, association or body corporate shall be guilty of an offence” if they provide “material which … contains false information and is untruthful … or in its overall presentation deceives or is in any way likely to deceive the average person…even if the information is factually correct”.
An offense will have been committed if the information given “causes or is likely to cause the average pregnant woman to take a decision in relation to the termination of her pregnancy she would not have taken otherwise.”
This can’t be true, can it?
If their ideology can’t withstand people thinking about what that ideology actually involves, how secure are they in their position?
Ken Epp, writing about Bill C-484 here. The ideologically strident are aware that the current pro-choice status quo rests on not thinking about “the abortion situation” too much (and constantly putting things like “unborn victims” in quotation marks, as if it were a laughable possibility rather than reality.)
This is why all the screaming begins for bills that don’t even pertain directly to abortion. How secure is their position? Not very.
Bill C-484 was never my favourite piece of legislation. It wasn’t pro-life, and man oh man, judging by the outcry on the pro-abortion side, it certainly wasn’t their cup of tea either. I suppose I enjoyed the fact that even in wanted pregnancies, the pro-abortion side was guarding against what they perceived to be a slippery slope–that somehow, if in wanted pregnancies killing a baby could amount to a crime, that might spill over into people’s subconscious for the abortion debate. In any event, Bill C-484 is no more. I think Harper did the right thing, telling Minister Nicholson to have that press conference, especially given that Dion was asking for his position on abortion. It’s off the table now–a good tactical move for any politician going into an election. Which I now, thanks to this move, fully believe we are.
Now how he did it, that irks me. Ken Epp’s office was not informed. I understand Epp is not running for office again. I understand therefore, that Harper thinks he doesn’t need to care. Here’s why he should have. Irrespective of how I felt about Bill C-484, there were those who supported Epp passionately, and saw it as a pro-life bill, or at least a small statement that social conservatives could support. Not telling Epp now means at best begrudging support from that crowd. What Harper did was fine. How he did it wasn’t. A tactical shift doesn’t have to be dirty.
That’s where Harper should be more careful. There are many people out there who couldn’t give a hoot for “politics,” but do look to substance and conduct. And why shouldn’t they? They don’t live in this special silo called Ottawa. Don’t they count for something?
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Brigitte adds: Ken Epp says he won’t withdraw his bill. Good for him. I have zero doubt it will die on its own some day soon, but hey. There’s only so much any individual MP can do, and Mr. Epp is doing all he can.
This report should act as a wake-up call. But they forgot to mention all the pro-life clubs cross country being banned. Add that to the list of infringements on freedom.
The National Art Gallery in Ottawa talking to the Ottawa Citizen about its rule prohibiting the carrying of small children on one’s shoulders:
“Unfortunately, we just can’t allow that kind of liberty”…
Uh, yeah… My point exactly. I have argued many times that talking about “abortion rights” wasn’t the end of the discussion, we also had to understand the basis for that right. We seem to accept the limitation of rights just about everywhere so long as they serve some notion of “greater good.” Like the protection of delicate artifacts. But suggest that abortion might weaken society and erode women’s rights and you’re told to get your nose out of women’s uteri.
Head shake. Eye roll.
This was announced about ten minutes ago.
The federal government will introduce new legislation that will punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday. Nicholson said the bill will “leave no room for the introduction of fetal rights.” The bill is aimed at protecting women from violence, he said.
…
Opponents to the bill, called the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, raised concerns that the bill would reopen the debate on abortion in Canada.
“Let me be clear, our government will not reopen the debate on abortion,” Nicholson said Monday.
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Update: The Globe has an article on the same topic here. A small note on style–if “unborn victims” gets quotation marks, then I’d ask also that “abortion rights” be consistently referred to with quotation marks. The “right to abortion” is much more imaginary (and never confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) than those “unborn victims”–who we can view via a thing called “the ultrasound.”