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Having fun with image databases

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Been browsing the History of Medicine Division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine image database in preparation for a presentation on c-sections. Of course, when you type “birth” in the keyword field, you get images about — no, not birth — birth control. This ad from Planned Parenthood was too good to pass. So giving out information about the physical and emotional complications of abortion is a scare tactic but this isn’t, eh? Still, pro-life kudos to PPH for recognizing (for once?) that women don’t get pregnant on their own.

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Andrea adds: I find this ad fascinating–what year is it from? If the feathered hair is any indication, I’m going to guess the 80s. The thrust of pro-choicers today is very different from the spirit of this ad. Today, abortion is private. A woman’s matter. Men don’t matter. The pro-choicers of yesterday, then, were more sensible–if I don’t get pregnant on my own, how come the whole thing is so very private in the end?

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Véronique searches but: I couldn’t find the year. It said Utah Planned Parenthood, 19– 

My guess would be the 80s too.

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Tanya objects: Let’s not knock this ad too much.  It may be what inspired maternity-wear designers to bring out jeans for pregnant women.  Seeing this, they surely said to themselves: “If a man can pull off something other than a mu-mu or overalls while pregnant, surely a woman can, too!”

The wrong side of history

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If fighting abortion is not a social justice issue, then what possibly could be? The victims have no voice. The perpetrators have entrenched interests, deny others information and make money by it. Perpetuating abortion results in harmful physical and mental effects that are concealed from the vast majority. (Through a combination of sheer disinterest, deliberate coverups and a lack of freedom of speech.) Overturning it would result in greater freedom and the defence of the ultimate of all rights, the right without which all others are void.

Where we accept abortion we are apathetic, dispassionate and relentlessly cruel.

Being pro-choice means standing on the wrong side of history: A side that says it is just fine to use people, to have sex and leave, to deny a natural and normal result (pregnancy) of a natural and normal action (sex). To live in an empty shell, devoid of all logic and reason, where charity, love and compassion themselves become nothing more than choices.

This culture will be embarrassed in not too long for offering the barbarity of abortion. We will wonder how we excused it, ignored it, concealed it, sanitized it, normalized it. 

If fighting abortion does not constitute social justice, then I don’t know what does.

Here ends the rant. Read about this “new trend,” here.

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Andrea adds, yes, to her own post: This from William Wilberforce’s great grandson:

There are great similarities between the status of the foetus and the status of African slaves two centuries ago. Slaves were considered a commodity to do with whatever the vested interests of the day decided. Today, in our desire to play God in our embryology experimentation, with all its’ unfulfilled promises of miracle cures, and our decision to abort unwanted children, we are no better that those slave traders who put their interests and world view higher than they placed the sanctity and value of human life.

A ProWomanProLifer who sings, yes I am

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I had thought our ProWomanProLife Facebook group was doing well, thank you very much, at 530 members. Until I noticed that the Why Yes, I Do Frequently Burst Out in Song group has 361,639. Now for me, these groups are about equally integral to who I am. So I thought I might try and merge them, for a healthy 362,169… People might not notice. The culture wars continue.  

Unhelpful – why, exactly?

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A bit of a depressing piece in today’s Daily Telegraph about parents who “abdicate” their responsibilities by parking their kids in school all day.

Some mothers and fathers “dump” pupils at breakfast clubs and pick them up late in the evening because of the demands of work, said Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers.

Britain’s so-called “back to work culture” – which has also prompted many parents to place children in nurseries from a young age – risked undermining family life, he said.

[…]

He said: “Some parents are abdicating responsibility for their children. They dump them early in the morning at school and are late picking them at the end of the day. There is definitely a lack of care.”

Gosh, you think? Sure, most kids in this kind of situation (or those left in daycare for up to 8 or 9 hours a day, five days a week, before they’re even one year old), will learn to cope and turn out OK. But good grief, what kind of parent are you? There are cases where parents absolutely must work. But I’d be willing to bet they’re not the majority; rather, most working parents think they must both work if they are to afford a lifestyle that is, and should remain, out of their reach. It’s not the same. I know plenty of moms who’ve decided to stay home to raise their own kids (some of them work part-time from home), even if it means not buying a big-screen TV or going camping instead of flying to Disney. It’s a matter of deciding which is more important: your kids or your stuff.

We all know this, including most parents who abandon their kids for up to 10 hours a day, every single day of the week. That’s why they tend to get a touch aggressive when you question (or, dear me, criticize) their way of life. What do you think the British children’s minister [uh? a children’s minister? it’s almost as funny as Quebec’s minister for social solidarity…] had to say to Mr. Brookes?

But Beverley Hughes, the children’s minister, insisted Mr Brooke’s comments were “unhelpful”.

She insisted that more schools were now offering wraparound care to give parents greater opportunity to return to work “if they want”. In a speech, she announced a new £13 million scheme to help vulnerable families in 15 areas. It includes more advisors to help parents organise childcare.

Unhelpful, really? Whereas professionals who advise parents on how to “organise” childcare…

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Tanya, offering insight: What does it means to go to the daycare provided as ‘wraparound’ programs in elementary schools?  Well, the child arrives at school at 7:30 am and has breakfast with schoolmates and monitors.  A full day of school ensues.  At quitting time, those children enrolled in the afternoon daycare program slip into another classroom to carry on in a classroom setting for another 2 or 3 hours.  Granted, that’s a worst-case scenario.  But it’s not as rare as we’d like it to be.

 

Everything else aside, how tired do you think that 8 year old is come supper time?

 

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Rebecca adds: Whenever raising the minimum wage is discussed, advocates for the working poor point out how hard it is to raise a family on minimum wage x 40 hours/week. Why don’t we just tell the poor to work an extra ten hours a week to boost their household income? Maybe because we recognize the toll that would take on their home lives. So why is it ok for some kids to spend 55 hours a week – “wrap around care” (ugh, what a term) is offered at some centres near me from 7 am until 6 pm – at school or daycare? The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded upon the model of the RSPCA (animals), in part to highlight the absurdity that housepets had more rights than children under some jurisdictions. Maybe the Solidarity Rallies on May Day should start demanding a more humane workweek for 5 year olds.

Slice of life

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I have not been posting much lately and this is not by lack of life issues to comment on. But my thesis is off for revision and while I wait with bated breath for my supervisor’s latest round of “constructive feedback”; I have reverted to a less scholarly, more motherly, daily schedule. Liberated from self-imposed laptop bondage, I find that the opportunities to write are getting fewer while the need for distraction is getting, well, non existent. Life as a full-time mother of five is a never-ending succession of distractions.

I usually write my posts between 6 and 7 am over coffee. Over the last month, a full shift of construction guys has been pouring into my house at 7:30 sharp, making sitting at my computer in my P.J. a non-option. Not so much because I care about my looks – I believe that seeing housewives in their jammies is an occupational hazard when you start working so darn early – but because of the male toddler and his faithful sidekick Cocker Spaniel who feel that power-tool wielding construction guys should be followed everywhere. Since I don’t like a boring life, I woke up one morning and decided that now was as good a time as any to potty-train said male toddler. My performance on the toddler-grab 15 meters dash is improving and so is my 2 year-old’s toilet-to-underpants pee ratio. Now, if I could only train the construction guys to put back the seat adjuster once they are done, my life would be (almost) complete. Do you think I should give them Smarties too?

Since this is a prolife blog, I could not sign off without a bit of prolife news: two of my dearest friends gave birth in the last week to babies over 11 pounds. My hat goes off to two hard working women who give the “miracle of birth” a whole new dimension!

When is withdrawing care appropriate?

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Interesting editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, read it here. One passage brought back memories of my ethics placement at the Montreal’s Children’s Hospital:

The case of Samuel Golubchuk, an elderly and very ill man at the threshold of multiple organ failure in a Winnipeg intensive care unit, illustrates this problem. The doctors wanted to withdraw care, and they met with the family on several occasions to seek consent; however, a religious impasse was reached, and Mr. Golubchuk’s son and daughter would not give consent.

 The doctors wanted to withdraw care. One day during morning rounds, we were discussing withdrawal of treatment for a dying infant. A resident used these very words “withdraw care” and was immediately corrected by the attending neonatologist who said: “We never withdraw care…” and a chorus of students completed her sentence: “we withdraw treatment!”

Without referring to the particulars of the Golubchuk case, I wonder to what extent “religious impasses” are not reached when families are given the impression that “care” is withdrawn along with treatment. After all, no religion contends that physical life should never end. But most religions – at least those I know – advocate death with dignity. By this, I do not mean the so-called dignity brandished by euthanasia and assisted suicide supporters. I mean respecting the intrinsic dignity of every human being, regardless of their physical and mental condition. Faced with the imminent death of a loved one, families shouldn’t be made to feel like they are a burden to the system or that health care professionals are giving up on them. If health care professionals can’t or won’t respect the dignity of their dying patients, they are only inviting resistance from those who do. The Golubchuk case is not an invitation to draft more stringent end-of-life clinical guidelines – as was so sensitively done by the Manitoba College of physicians and surgeons, read my previous post on the topic here – but rather an invitation to review how we can effectively extend care where treatment is no longer appropriate.

This is high school?

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The National Post recently discussed Miley Cyrus and her topless appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair. Two on the editorial team reasonably commented that the photo was inappropriate. I’d agree and add this: That photo is the least of my concerns.  

See Gossip Girl–the new season just started. To say that these are kids acting like adults isn’t really fair to most adults, actually. It’s about a prep school where orgasmic sexual encounters are the norm, teachers, parents and adults absent. It’s Beverly Hills 90210 on steroids with a dash of Hugh Hefner. No wonder Colby Cosh of the Post wasn’t shocked by Miley Cyrus: He’s probably seen Gossip Girl, and by these standards the Cyrus photo was the epitome of decency and all American charm. Watch the season promo below:

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=LwTGEXqL1fk]

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