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Oh what the heck, let’s kill people – they’re such a bother

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Assisted suicide bill passes California Assembly and Belgian legislators seek to legalize euthanasia for the unconscious and children.

California:

AB 2747 would authorize total sedation without nutrition and hydration for depressed and confused patients, whether or not their natural death was imminent. The bill would also allow family members to order the death of a mentally disabled person when a nurse opines they have less than a year to live, similar to Terry Schindler Schiavo’s death at the hands of her husband.

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This is the fourth time that the assisted suicide bill has been pushed by Assembly Democrats Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine. But this year, instead of proposing to have doctors administer lethal injections, AB 2747 aims to produce death by sedation abuse, a clear violation of life-affirming medical ethics. Until now, total sedation has been used only when death was imminent – within hours or days – and when strong pain medication was not enough. Medical ethics require that food and water (nutrition and hydration) not be removed when sleep-inducing drugs are used, since doing so would cause unnatural, as opposed to natural, death. Yet AB 2747 pushes total sedation even if patients have not rejected food and water.

Belgium:

A group of legislators in Belgium is seeking to expand the practice of euthanasia  to include those who are unconscious, as well as minors, according to a recent article in the Spanish newspaper Hoy.

The initiative, spearheaded by former Senator Jean-Jacques de Gucht, was originally launched in 2004 and failed, the article states. 

The new proposed legislation will allow people to create a type of “living will” that will allow doctors to euthanize them if they are unconscious and unable to give consent. 

While euthanasia has been legal in Belgium 2002, the existing law has prohibited the practice under the above-mentioned circumstances.

Doctors who refuse to kill their patients under the law will be required to refer them to a doctor who is willing to do it, reports Hoy.

Ah, progress. What would we do without it?

Hypocrite, and proud of it

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In Quebec, cell phone use was recently banned while driving. The ban took effect April 1st. However, until July 1st, no legal charges will be pressed.

An offence will result in a fine of $80 to $100 plus costs and three demerit points for drivers at fault. Over the next three months, offenders will receive a warning, but starting July 1, 2008, peace officers may issue a notice of offence.

Cell phone use while driving is no more or less dangerous depending on its legality, or risk of legal consequences. So if it’s dangerous, why are only warnings being issued? Is this hypocrisy, or is there not an understanding within our society that we need to allow time for change?

Segue now to this issue.

If abortion is murder, why is NO ONE, not even pro-lifers, willing to imprison the women who have them?

… So why does she get off so easily? To really fathom their tolerance for these female killers, watch how many of them they will embrace, coddle, and hug at a pro-life rally… as long as they shows [sic] remorse.

For at least a full generation now, women have been told it is their human right to have an abortion. If a pro-abortion advocate wants to know why I might ‘coddle and hug’ a woman who is experiencing remorse over a past abortion, part of my answer is this: she is also a victim of our abortion-advocating society.

If cell phone use while driving warrants three months of leeway, how much leeway are we to offer women who have been raised and indoctrinated to believe abortion is their human right; abortion is the most valid “choice”; abortion is safe; abortion evacuates a blob of tissue; abortion is necessary; abortion goes hand in hand with the liberation of women?

Furthermore, the more we hear of attempts to silence the pro-life voice, the more it is apparent that these women are victims of a society that only wants one side of the issue exposed.

If abortion were criminalized tomorrow, I would not want to see these women imprisoned. If that makes me a hypocrite, I’m glad to be one.

Thoughts on equality or lack thereof

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I heard about this latest bit of pro-abortion news yesterday afternoon. Normally, I would have been seized by the urge to blog. But I have been flying solo this week, taking the full brunt of running the household while my husband is out of town. Not to mention finishing my [expletive deleted] LL.M. thesis and looking for gainful employment. I am tired. And suddenly, I was overcome by a feeling that the battle had been lost, that everything had been written, every argument laid out, and still, people didn’t care.

 

But when I heard that the said award had been granted for “outstanding service to humanity and for his contribution to the cause of equality for women” the feeling of hopelessness was quickly replaced by an overwhelming urge to yell at someone. I tried writing, I did. But I couldn’t write anything that wasn’t seasoned with a generous dose of profanities. Out of respect for our beloved readers, I chose to run 5 km during my daughters’ gym class before heading home at 9 pm to make lunches, clean the kitchen, run a load of laundry, sign permissions, take out the trash, read bedtime stories, and watch three consecutive episodes of Jon & Kate +8 while checking my emails. In the end, I went to bed way too late to be angry and am therefore in a much better disposition to write a well-balanced thoughtful post. Well, we’ll see.

 

Equality for women. The cause of equality for women. And what would be abortion’s contribution to equality for women? We hear it so much we no longer pause to wonder “oh yeah? and why is that?” This is not a rhetorical question. We need to reflect on the underlying assumptions of making abortion an “equality” issue. Because if equality between men and women really hinges on access to abortion, we are a lot farther behind achieving meaningful equality than we flatter ourselves to be. Women need abortion to be equal in order not to be weighted down by children.

 

This premise contains, at first glance, two important inequalities. The first one being that men are not (or shouldn’t be) weighted down by children. The second one being that children are social dead weight. I believe that thoughtful abortion advocates would see clearly through the inequality of equality through abortion but would counter-argue that in the present circumstances, it is unfair to make women bear the brunt of our social inertia. But what pro-woman pro-life advocates see is that equality has been achieved at the cost of fairness and that access to abortion has only promoted the inferiority of women as bearers of children. The vicious circle has to stop an we need to make women equal as they are — with a uterus and all — not as society wishes them to be.

 

Equally problematic is the notion that equality in society is somehow “granted.” Think about it: we have “achieved” equality with access to abortion. Shouldn’t we just “be” equal? Doesn’t the very idea of having to achieve equality fundamentally unequal and unfair? It would be equivalent to saying that immigrants achieve equality once they become white, anglo-saxon and Protestant. What kind of equality is that?

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Tanya adds:

Tanya points out from the link above:”The court’s ruling in 1988 declared the law that prohibited abortion to be unconstitutional, thus confirming women’s reproductive rights.”

Let’s not wonder why there’s misunderstanding over the fabric of the abortion issue in this country.

To correct the above phrasing, the court’s ruling in 1988 declared the law that regulated access to abortion to be unconstitutional. Over 20 years later, and no new law regulating access to abortion has been passed, contrary to the wishes of the Supreme Court. “thus confirming” nothing…nothing at all. On se permet des choses, en tout cas!

 

Women’s rights versus freedom of speech

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In the Post, today, a report about the ban of pro-life groups on campus. Again. Says Gilary Massa, vice-president of the York Federation of Students:

Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women’s rights.

Broken record alert: It is no one’s right to have an abortion. Abortion is not now, never was a right. The Supreme Court of Canada never said that. And if you take away freedom of speech, you sure don’t enhance women’s rights. Repeating this is getting tiring, but then again, I’m not the one initiating thought bans at major universities.  

Cross-posted to The Shotgun

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Brigitte notes: Damian P. has a great one-liner on this business of absolute “pro-choicers” who want to silence other points of view. “You have the absolute right to do whatever you want with your body. Except your mouth.”

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Tanya adds: Well, the powers that be can’t control everyone’s ears, so they’ve opted to control a few mouths. That way, they have more hope of controlling your thoughts.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows

-George Orwell, 1984

Do they not teach Orwell at York U?

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Andrea adds: They probably teach it, Tanya, but it’s not compulsory like “Banning stuff that personally bugs me 101.” Orwell, was after all, a man. Or at least he thought he was. But there’s probably a course to correct ancient and oppressive ideas like “male” and “female” as well. I think that’s the point of most Womyn’s Studies departments, all told. 

Kids!

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An adorable story from this morning’s National Post:

SURREY, B.C. -Andrew Binns, five-year-old, took charge after his mom Shawna tumbled face-first down a flight of stairs, knocking herself unconscious. Andrew first called his father and then 911. That done, he prepared a bottle for his 23-month-old brother Ethan, to calm him down while they waited for paramedics to arrive. “You never know what your kids can do until thrown into that situation. I’m very proud of him,” Shawna said. “He tried to call my husband first. He didn’t answer, so he called 911.” Shawna had cracked her nose badly and was bleeding. Though not able to get up, she still heard a bit of the 911 call. “I guess they asked him where mommy was bleeding, and he said, ‘She’s bleeding on the carpet.’ “

York U ain’t for learnin’

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York U is working hard, even over summer break, to ban pro-life groups on campus.

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Tanya scratches her head:

Gilary Massa, YFS vice-president external, defends the motion by saying that pro-life organizations seek to deny women of their basic human right to choose.

 

 “Anti-choice groups come onto campuses and take away the right a woman has to her own body, to determine what she can do,” Massa said.

First, I always am skeptical of a body that insists on calling a pro-life organization “anti-choice.” It pretends abortion to be the only valid ‘choice.’  (Note to pro-abortionists: Choice and abortion are NOT synonyms.)

 

Second, no pro-life group can come on campus and take away a woman’s right to anything. It can, however, offer information that would not be available anywhere else. (That makes pro-abortionists like Massa sound pretty anti-choice.)

 

Third, I can’t seem to find abortion under the women’s rights section of Human Rights Commission website, though I did find all sorts of other good things. (When exactly did someone decide abortion was an actual right of Canadian women?)

“Fetus incubators”

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It’s a special kind of disdain for pregnancy and for women in general, I say, when you call pregnant women incubators for the fetus.

 

That’s what Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice was cited as saying in a La Presse article on May 22, which I received translated into English.  

 

Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice, sounding an alarm that brings to mind the old slogans, says that pregnant women must not become incubators for fetuses once again

 

The whole article is a piece of work. It begins with a pregnant woman who passes the date for a legal abortion and subsequently shoots herself in the abdomen. She is charged under a law that we are led to believe is something like Bill C-484 would be. It turns out to be a case where “ultimately the charge was amended” ie. she didn’t suffer any consequences. It also turns out to be California, over three decades ago.

 

Any editor with an ounce of journalistic integrity would ask their reporter to FIND A NEW LEDE. Is this the best kind of fear mongering those who are against Bill C-484 can do?

 

In short, we are supposed to oppose Bill C-484 because one crazy lady shot herself in the abdomen in California thirty years ago.

 

Now that, that is high quality reasoning. Excuse me while I go shoot myself in the abdomen for the sheer frustration of it all.

Huckabee gets something right

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I’m not a Huckabee supporter for a bunch of reasons, but he is bang on here:

The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says “look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it.” Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. It doesn’t fly. People aren’t going to buy that, because that’s not the way we are as a people. That’s not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for.

H/T Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner

Just legal, not safe or rare

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Seems like there are a lot of law suits against Planned Parenthood these days. This one is particularly sad. But what’s a woman to make of this statement from Planned Parenthood?

Planned Parenthood Metropolitan has denied the injuries suffered and the infertility of Shantese Butler. In addition, they state in their answer that Butler’s claims are barred by the doctrines of informed consent and assumption of risk.

The average Canadian woman’s response will, with all seriousness be this: What? There are risks to having an abortion?

This and this imply all legal abortions are safe. This makes it clear that childbirth is more dangerous. (And certainly bearing children has its risks, but is it fair to weigh bringing life into the world against killing?) Cautionary information is so rare on so-called pro-choice sites as to be imaginary. In this notion called being pro-choice, there seem to be strong elements that encourage women to have abortions. I think this is because it’s hard for women to abort their children–it better be physically risk-free, otherwise women wouldn’t so easily choose it. 

Informed consent is not the friend of the pro-abortion movement.

h/t Michelle Malkin

Medical opinionist to the stars

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Do you have to be as brash as a punk rocker to sift through opinion and get to medical fact?

the doctor tried to give clinical advice, suggesting to Courtney [Love] that it was not a great idea to have a baby while dealing with [heroine] addiction.”

“… Courtney, who was only six weeks pregnant, went into a confrontational mode, saying: ‘Is that a medical fact, or is that just your opinion? I want to see it in a medical book…’”

“He sheepishly acknowledged that at this early stage of pregnancy a woman could discontinue heroin use with no physical or psychological damage to the fetus.”

“Courtney looked triumphant as she towered over the doctor seated at his desk.”

Courtney stopped taking heroin and daughter Frances Bean was born in perfect health later that year.

How often do medical professionals offer abortion up as the quick-fix? We can be sure it didn’t only ever happen to Courtney Love.

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Andrea adds: Let me first say I think that doing drugs while pregnant is bad. But a heroine drug abuser can more easily quit their habit than an alcoholic. Read about this little known fact here (and consider “harm reduction strategies” while you do.) If doctors can’t be bothered to help a heroine addict through simple flu-like withdrawal symptoms over a couple of days, how much less will they be prepared to help a woman through a nine month unexpected pregnancy?

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