Comments this week have been posted, here.
Archives for 2008
A tempest in a teacup
So there was a demonstration in Montreal against Bill C-484 yesterday after all. Read about it, here.
Many carried grisly signs; others opted for clever slogans such as “Epp, Harper: Je fais ce que je veux avec mes oeufs,” (What I do with my ovaries is up to me.) After the rally, protesters marched down the hill to Berri Square.
I say go to town, you and your ovaries–it’s more unborn babies I’m concerned about. And when you can’t tell the difference, what you really need is a biology lesson.
____________________________
Tanya adds: If the journalist had checked with the translation department, he’d have known the sign said ‘I do with my eggs whatever I wish.’
She gets her eggs fertilized, after which point it’s no longer an egg. If she’s seeking an abortion, did she wish to fertilize that egg? Likely not. So has she really done what she wished with her eggs? Seems the opposite is true.
Her sign should have read: “I do what I don’t mean to do to my eggs”
____________________________
Andrea adds: Thank goodness Tanya is on our team. For correct translations and the accompanying acerbic commentary.
Planned Parenthood: Not so much emphasis on the parent
Planned Parenthood tirelessly opposes every parental involvement law now in effect and works diligently to prevent new laws from passing.
In states like Pennsylvania, teens need parental consent to have a legal abortion. To get around involving their parents, teens may apply for a judicial bypass. Philadelphia lawyer, Barbara Bailey, has “shepherded more than a thousand teens through judicial bypass since the early 1990’s.” Watch the full video.
I don’t see teens who have good, healthy relationships with their parents coming for a bypass. They tell their parents.
In other words, this translates into more parents hearing about what’s going on in their teenage daughters’ lives. Where this type of parental involvement law doesn’t exist, any girl the least bit squeamish about telling her parents she is pregnant (thus admitting she is sexually active) can bypass that whole awkward conversation. That teen can march right into a Planned Parenthood clinic and have herself an abortion, go home and cry for 2 days, having now increased six fold her risk of attempting suicide. She’s also twice as likely as her peers to start abusing drugs or alcohol.
35 states have parental involvement laws. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 40 percent of teen abortions take place with no parental involvement. I’d be curious to know the stats. How many girls who have fair to excellent relationships with their parents offer up their intention to have an abortion when they are not legally required to do so? As a parent, wouldn’t you want to know?
Some argue parental involvement laws create more problems than they solve.
Really?
Allowed to operate, but no funding
So this Toronto Star article says there was a vote today at York University and pro-life groups will be allowed to operate but won’t receive funding. All that negative publicity for them to achieve pretty much the status quo (I mean really, how much money did pro-life groups ever get?) and a one hundred per cent guarantee that “anti-choice” groups will be back with a vengeance, next year. (Have a great summer.)
The York University student council has voted in favour of a motion to ban funding to anti-abortion groups on campus.
The controversial decision means that groups promoting anti-abortion ideas will not be reimbursed by the student union but will still be allowed to operate on campus, said Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students.
“This policy does not apply to religious organizations,” said Massa. “It only applies to groups whose sole purpose is to spew anti-choice rhetoric on our campus.”
Eight members of the York University student council voted unanimously for the decision on Sunday afternoon.
______________________________
Tanya adds: So first, we have to prove that being pro-life is not just a Christian point of view. Then we have to be religious in order to be allowed to be pro-life. Tell me that’s not self-propagating! “Welcome to York U, where you may not practice free thought, but are excused from the norm if you ascribe to antiquated religion, in which case we are forced to exercise tolerance.”
From Andrea, with love
I’m posting my letters to Gilary and Hamid of the York Federation of Students, and to Mr. Tiffin, the VP of students, regarding my dismay over their attempts to ban pro-life clubs on campus. “From Andrea, with love,” was not, incidentally, my chosen sign off. But it sounds like From Russia, with Love, making an afternoon of letter writing into a James Bond affair. How exotic.
Dear Mr. Tiffin:
I am writing to register my disapproval of the recent attempt of the York Federation of Students to silence those who oppose abortion on campus.
The recent and ongoing attempts of the York Federation of Students have been of great interest to me—especially given the flawed justification for the ban. I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those many, many women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. Abortion is not a woman’s right. Equality for women on campus, as elsewhere, is not contingent on access to abortion. I represent hundreds of women across Canada who are against abortion, precisely because we are in favour of women’s rights.
There is a growing body of research to suggest post-abortive women do not fare as well as other women who have not had abortions. There are higher rates of depression, depressive episodes, suicide, suicide ideation, alongside a host of other negative repercussions, physical and mental.
The health and welfare of every woman, especially vis-à-vis high abortion rates for those who are of university age, should be of grave concern to the York University administration.
I would encourage you to ensure that the pro-life side is given fair treatment and equal funding alongside all other clubs and positions at the university. And I would challenge you to publicly support these pro-life students—if not in the name of life, if not to support true equality and true rights for women, then in the name of freedom of speech.
AND
Dear Hamid and Gilary:
I am writing to ask you to reconsider your views on pro-life groups on campus.
I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. I believe ours is a unique approach to the abortion debate.
Why? Firstly, we are pro-life precisely because we are pro-woman. Secondly, I am not interested in legislative action. Rather, I am interested, as my web site explains, in seeing abortion dwindle and decrease in Canada because that is what women choose. Thirdly, we are a non-religious group. We are made up of a team of nine bloggers now and I encourage you to log on to the site, and comment where you see fit. I welcome any and all comments, negative or positive. Each woman is able to blog with maximum freedom of expression and as a team we represent the breadth and depth of what “anti-choicers” can look like.
We are convinced at ProWomanProLife that women are not served well by abortion, this based on good, peer-reviewed research. We believe that women can get better, and indeed, deserve better than abortion. And we believe that women ought to be able to discuss this issue with the maximum freedom of expression.
So it is with great sadness that I realize, were a student chapter of ProWomanProLife.org to develop at York University, it would be banned.
I would encourage you to reconsider your view of so-called anti-choice groups on campus. Tolerance can only exist where there is disagreement—certainly you would not ban every conflicting view. I believe that pro-life clubs on campus can only serve to strengthen the type of strong community you seek to foster at York University.
Whatever you do, never say you’re sorry
My favorite uncle passed away a few months ago. He once teased that he was only my favorite uncle by default, as he belonged to my favorite aunt. They had been happily married 41 years. She mourned very deeply for weeks. Although she seems much better now, we who love her do understand that her mourning period is not over. Autumn will bring with it his birthday. Then will come her first Christmas without him, not to mention next spring reminding her of the days she spent by his hospital bed before he finally died.
I think of the state my aunt is in now. She isn’t on the constant verge of tears; she laughs and jokes…I recognize her again. It would, however, be inconceivable for her to now share how easy it has been to recover from the loss of her dear husband. She knows these things take time, and come in waves. No one can safely say, after a few days or weeks, how an experience has permanently affected them.
With this understanding in my pocket, I took a trip to I’m Not Sorry.net. As I understand it, this site is the pro-choice response to Silent No More (or here in Canada). Both of these offer women’s stories of past abortions.
I can safely say that two-thirds of the testimonies I read on I’m Not Sorry were by women who had undergone an abortion within the last year; most shared their stories a day or two after the fact. Wisely, a pro-choice organization has decided to publish these stories, which don’t usually lack emotion, but do often lack any sort of full perspective of what the abortion experience is really like, long-term, for a woman.
Some of the women’s stories enumerated the following sentiments:
- “I am still unsure how I feel about everything, although I know what’s done is done. I am unsettled, but I am starting to feel better.” Amelia; 2 days later
- “It has been two weeks, and I haven’t cried in days, I have slept, and I know my baby is in Heaven, and one day when I know I can do it, and provide a better life, I will.” Ashley; 2 weeks later
- “Checking my phone for a missed call from him [the father] hoping I could tell them [the clinic] to keep the $400.00, and make my way home with my baby… He wants me to feel bad and terrible [now] and I never will.” Ashley D.; the next day
- “I have no idea what this will bring me in 20 years. But it has brought me relief. No regrets.” Kayla; the next day
- “I do not regret the first abortion that I had…but I do not want to do this to myself again.” Nadia; 1 year ago
These are the portraits of women who escape ‘unscathed’ from the abortion experience. No words.
______________________________
Andrea adds: Some of the best testimonies against abortion are found when pro-choicers let women express themselves openly. “It has been two weeks, and I haven’t cried in days, I have slept, and I know my baby is in Heaven, and one day when I know I can do it, and provide a better life, I will.” This is a good reminder of what happens in an abortion. A baby dies. Now we can look and say–there are reasons for that, or these situations are complicated, or I couldn’t tell her what to do, or “who are you to say, Andrea Mrozek, that she would have been better off keeping this baby?” But I am going to stick to my guns and say this: We are always better off when we keep babies, when we let them live and when we don’t give women like Ashley–so poignantly describing her tears and how she is now sleeping again–that choice. “My baby is in Heaven”? Your baby could have been right here on earth.
Remember Emma Beck when you begin to think abortion is compassionate… her babies were in Heaven and she went on to join them prematurely.
Thank you for not thinking
Courtesy of The Shotgun, this excellent ad about sums it up. And yet I wonder, and only partially in jest: Does the York Federation of Students know what the KGB is?
Two anecdotes on a Saturday morning
These two anecdotes came to me courtesy of distinctly non-religious people and the women featured are their friends, not mine:
One: A woman, now married, was once a doctor who did some abortions. No more. But now she’d like to conceive and can’t and says she thinks God is punishing her.
Two: A woman, single, gets pregnant and has an abortion. She later gets married and has a son, all is well. He is killed in an accident in his teens. She thinks that God is punishing her.
A couple of thoughts come to me. First off, there are repercussions from abortion that are not easily measured. It would have to be some kind of specially-designed, longitudinal study that could get at the guilt and pain two decades later, arising the result of the death of a son, for example.
Secondly, I do not buy into the God as Great Punisher model, and I do not do so with some justification. God in the Christian conception does not run “on one strike and you’re out!” and is rather a God of love and forgiveness, even when egregious mistakes are made. Plus, these random comments show that religious or non, God is in the picture, for many folks. And those in the abortion-related business, ought to be prepared to address meta-physical questions, and correct misconceptions, too.
But the main point is that I am amazed at the manner in which abortion haunts these women. These are some of the things I hear on the street in my life, day to day. They just come up, when we give the opportunity.
Beijing prostitutes–one, Sex in the City characters–zero
Last night I flipped back and forth on television between two things. One, a CBC documentary on the rise of prostitution in Communist China. It’s something Communist nations typically have a stranglehold over—being totalitarian and all–but the Communist regime there is turning a blind eye because of the rising numbers of single men. CBC did not mention this is because of sex selection abortion and the one-child policy.
The program went on to say that these young girls are lured from the rural countryside into the cities, and they know nothing about “safe sex.”
The other program I watched was a “documentary” on how Sex in the City came to be a program. Lots of men talking about how they realized that there had never been a show about women’s attitudes toward sex. And wouldn’t that be so interesting. To have men decide what women’s attitudes on sex are. And how avant-garde it all was, and how they weren’t even sure if they could call it Sex in the City…And could they convince Kim Cattrall? The tension was enormous, as you can imagine.
And I was left thinking two things. One, the women on Sex in the City don’t know anything about safe sex either. But still, the girls in China are one up on them. For at least they are getting paid. The characters in Sex in the City give it all up, over and over—sex, dignity, you name it—for free. Very avant-garde, indeed.
(cross-posted to The Shotgun)
______________________________
Véronique adds: An excellent column by Fr. Raymond de Souza on that topic.
______________________________
Andrea updates: I wrote this blog post before I read this Globe and Mail review–which, ironically gave the movie a whopping zero stars. Apparently you don’t have to be a priest to have higher standards than Sex in the City offers. My favourite line in the review:
That means the iconic foursome with their adjectival personalities – bouncy Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), horny Samantha (Kim Cattrall), judicious Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), preppy Charlotte (Kristin Davis) – don’t perform so much as parade, fixed in their roles as semi-animated clothes hangers on a cinematic runway.
Channeling my idle banter
Folks. This is going to be a busy weekend. Why? Because at ProWomanProLife we are not all about idle banter. This weekend, I am going to attempt to do something useful. I will direct my idle banter at specific individuals in the form of letters. Three letters.
1. A letter to York University Vice-president Robert J. Tiffin, who disagrees with the attempt of the student union to ban pro-life clubs. This letter will be one of support, encouragement. A little “thank you for the common sense,” if you will
(Update: This letter indicates less support, more questions for a letter to Mr. Tiffin.)
2. A letter to the York University Federation of students. This one will not be a letter of support and encouragement. But I promise not to swear and since they claim abortion is an issue of women’s rights, I must, of course, challenge that idea
3. A letter to the Advertising Standards Council. To say hello–and add that I did not find Life Canada’s ad campaign offensive, and it was above all, truthful
Now I tell you this because:
a. you may like to “join me” this weekend in this letter writing bonanza, putting your pens to paper to “express yourself” like Madonna. (Many of you may prefer to just express yourself, no Madonna. That’s fine too.)
b. having told you this I will actually do it.
Does one letter change the world? No. Do three? Probably…not. But fighting for life is a fight for freedom, which is worth much more than a couple of hours on a weekend. “For our freedom and yours!” –that’s the Polish side of me talking. Sometimes I quote Madonna, sometimes Thaddeus Kosciuszko–pay attention and bear with me.
So here’s to a good weekend, a small turnout for what I have heard is a union-funded Bill C-484 protest in Montreal on Saturday, and a return to sunshine on Sunday.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- …
- 93
- Next Page »