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Archives for 2009

The right to choose

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PWPL first posted about Annie Farlow here. Now her parents have taken a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal about the care she received (or did not receive) at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. The question remains of how a “do not resuscitate” order was issued without the parents knowledge. You can watch a bit of the story from CTV News here. Scroll down to the story called “Parents aim complaint at Sick Kids.”

Many today seem to live in the zone of personal choice, and having control–even over life and death. I don’t agree with this world view. But it seems pretty clear in this case that the Farlows were denied “the right to choose”–the right to choose life for their daughter.

A valid question

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A question from a not-really-religious pro-lifer in the UK: Why don’t atheists oppose abortion?

Denying the humanity of a 20-week foetus is as unscientific and irrational as denying the beef on your plate is a cow because you can’t hear it moo.

Now many atheists/agnostics do oppose abortion on scientific grounds…but they aren’t very vocal, that’s for sure. Too busy with bus ads, convincing people that there probably is no God? Or perhaps they can’t stomach an alliance with a largely religious crew? Who knows. But worth asking the question.

(cross-posted to The Shotgun)

Letters

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I’ve been getting more letters like this one lately:

 

I found a place where I fit! I didn’t know anything about you until I read an article in a Vancouver paper. I was thrilled to find out that there is a group of people out there who are trying to make their voice known in the abortion debate. Like many women, I too was indoctrinated by ProChoice/Women’s Rights during highschool. I am hopeful that your movement can and will touch the lives of women out there who think that being pro-choice means that you must be religious or anti-feminist. Such a dated point of view.

Thank you to our readers, both new and old. The more of us there are saying that abortion is not a right–the more it will take hold in the mind’s of undecided women.

Advocating for abortion does not make you an advocate for women. Since I believe this is the last leg that abortion rests on–this idea that by offering abortion we are doing women a big favour–when that falls, so will the abortion-friendly status quo. 

I am reminded of the advice of a communications guru on getting unpopular messages across: first be able to prove your point (know your stuff), then say it in the face of challenge, say it in the face of outrage, say it in the face of ridicule. Then say it again. Then find another way to say it.  

Which many of you are already doing… so well done and keep up the good work. And thank you for your letters.

Strange role models

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Those old school feminists choose strange role models: 

‘We want fewer and better children . . . and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict on us.’

That ghastly message appeared in the introduction to Margaret Sanger’s 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization.In a little-noticed incident, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that she is “really in awe” of Sanger. “The 20th-century reproductive-rights movement, really embodied in the life and leadership of Margaret Sanger, was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race,” Clinton declaimed upon receiving an award from the organization that Sanger founded, Planned Parenthood.

I have to wonder why we don’t highlight these sorts of “women’s rights advocates” more often. Certainly does serve the pro-life cause well because Sanger is a very, er, conflicted mentor at best. And either Clinton doesn’t know all she stood for (unlikely) or she really does agree with her. In which case, I’d agree with the author of the article linked to–this certainly does “puncture the fiction that [Clinton] is a moderate.”

(cross-posted to The Shotgun)

Hope does spring eternal

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It’s Easter and Passover and so in lieu of trolling the news for interesting abortion-related items, I offer instead the opportunity to give to good causes. Seems fitting.

We have options: First Place Pregnancy Centre (Ottawa), Options 360 (Washington State), and Aid to Women (Toronto). Finally, you can always buy a T-shirt from ProWomanProLife.

First Place Pregnancy Centre–good people, and they offer choices to women in the true sense of the word, not the distorted one. A great crisis pregnancy centre in Ottawa, not too far from where I live and work. They offer real options to women. They aren’t a centre that just gives a bag of diapers and a pat on the back—they see women through the whole process of having a child that she wasn’t prepared to have. Counselling in these circumstances and offering full and total information before birth or abortion is something not a single pro-choice agency will do—and counseling through the baby’s birth and into the future is Expensive with a Cap E. Please give if you can. 

If you live on the west coast, consider Options 360 in Washington State. Located next door to Planned Parenthood, Sarah Doll who works there say they can hear the suction machine–that’s the sound of lives being lost. How do I know about Options 360 you ask? Because Sarah Doll is the wife of Cyril Doll, and I used to work at The Western Standard with Cyril. Were it not for Cyril, there might not be a ProWomanProLife. He took a leave from work and planned a walk across Canada to fight abortion. I was very inspired by that. I know that there are others doing good pro-life work in this country. But to be honest, I never really took special note because they had always been doing it–and it became part of the pro-life landscape. Cyril up and left a regular job to follow his heart–which apparently involved walking across one of the world’s largest countries in support of life. Inspiring. So support his wife’s group if you can. 

Finally, Aid to Women is having a fundraiser on April 18th. Aid to Women is also right next door to an abortion clinic in Toronto and is run by the indefatigable Nicole Lau. A spunkier young woman you will not find. There will be music at her event and I believe the Archbishop is speaking, if I’m not mistaken. She asks you to call her for tickets if you are interested at 416-921-6016. The theme is “Hope Springs Eternal.” 

And hope does indeed spring eternal. Happy Easter season to all. 

A wise woman

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Had a great conversation with a wise woman today.  This woman, 60-something , mother, grandmother, believer in the true strength of women, was talking to me about how things were “back in the day.”  We were touching on a variety of topics when, suddenly she paused and looked to the ceiling, as if something were written there.

She started again, “Why is it that we don’t see much of this anymore?  You know, all sorts of different people.  I went to school  with a girl who had a hunched back.  And another who’s legs were not the same length. She had to wear a special shoe with a platform.

“There was a family that lived two doors down, and the father’d had his legs amputated.  (I thought twins lived there, one tall and the other short.  I was no older than 4.  I couldn’t understand that sometimes he was wearing his prosthetic legs and sometimes he would walk around without them.)  Well, that family had a daughter, and she was missing that bone between the knee and the ankle.  She was older than me, so I never played with her.

“There was also a boy who would come to our house from time to time.  He had Down Sydrome.  He would come over with a man who worked with my father.

“And I can clearly remember, as a child, that none of these people were strange to me, or odd.  They were just people, like you or I, who simply had something particular about them.  But they were all around.

“Why don’t we see much of them anymore?”

“Well,” I started, “aside from some of the medical advances, many of these conditions are diagnosed during pregnancy.  Children with abnormalities are usually aborted.”  At this point, my eyes began to well up and I stopped speaking.

The wise woman sat back in her chair, as if soaking in the reality of what I had just said.  Her mouth opened, but no words came out.  She took a breath, exhaled, and stated, “That’s the problem with this generation.”  She had my full attention. “You can go to the store and buy a fridge.  For $100 more you can get a warranty.  Why risk it?  Get the warranty!  But people view their children in the same way; like so many commodities.  A man and a woman don’t get together and have a baby to create a family unit.”  She lifted her arms, as though tightly holding a large ball to her chest.  “They should love the family enough that, when they find out the baby is less than perfect, it’s OK.  It’s still their baby.  It’s still their family.”

Baby Kaylee

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This story here is heart wrenching and disquieting to me at the same time. It must be so hard to have a baby who can’t breathe–a baby who is not doing well.  

Baby Kaylee continues to defy the odds this morning, breathing on her own for a second day after she was removed from a respirator in anticipation that she would become a heart donor for another infant.

But I’m quite uncomfortable with the juxtaposition with the other struggling baby who needs a new heart–and the idea that Baby Kaylee should become an organ donor so young. Thoughts?

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Andrea just got more uncomfortable: Read here:

Kaylee, his six-week-old daughter who a day before had been administered the last rites so her heart could be transplanted to another child at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, looked up and gurgled Except for the heart-shaped Band-Aid holding a tiny breathing tube in her nose, she looked healthy and pink and hairless – not unlike her now famous father, who has been defying the hospital and holding public press conferences as he lobbies doctors to let his daughter’s heart go to Lillian O’Connor, who desperately needs it.

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Patricia adds: I have some sympathy for these parents – as appalled as I have been by some of the remarks the father has made, including the loving statement that there is no way they would have brought Kaylee into the world if her disabilities had shown up in a pre-natal ultrasound. That said, it wasn’t Kaylee’s dad who brought up the idea of the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration (i.e, starving Kaylee to death). What I’d really like to know and what I suspect we’ll never get is a full accounting of the part of the hospital and Kaylee’s doctors.(Part of the reason for that is patient privacy, which is not an illegitimate concern.) I’d sure like to know who told these parents their baby’s condition was “terminal.” Did anyone at any time actually offer the parents some information about Joubert Syndrome and suggest that maybe they talk to some parents who are raising a child with Joubert? Who suggested the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration? Why were they told (as they alleged in a radio interview yesterday) that as Kaylee’s condition worsened, decisions about their child’s care might have to be made for them? Who at the hospital raised the issue about the cost of the medical care required by Kaylee, resources that might better be used by another child? In short, just what the hell is going on at that hospital anyway?

Lazy staff promotion

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The entire t-shirt staff (that’s me) is taking an extended long Easter weekend off. So if you order a shirt this weekend (and really, why wouldn’t you?), it won’t be shipped until I come back. To make you forgive me for being so lazy, enter the promo code “lazystaff” at checkout and get a nice little discount.

Happy Easter everyone!

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Andrea adds: If Brigitte is lazy, then I am a completely irredeemable couch potato. Still, nothing wrong with a discount on our lovely T-shirts.

Russia’s population bust

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Interesting article about Russia.

The current Russian depopulation—which began in 1992 and shows no signs of abating—was, like the previous episodes, also precipitated by events of momentous political significance: the final dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of Communist Party rule. But it differs in three important respects. First, it is by far the longest period of population decline in modern Russian history, having persisted for over twice as long as the decline that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, and well over three times as long as the terrifying depopulation Russia experienced during and immediately after World War II.

Second, unlike all the previous depopulations in Russia, this one has been taking place under what are, within the Russian context, basically orderly social and political circumstances. …

And finally, whereas Russia’s previous depopulations resulted from wild and terrible social paroxysms, they were also clearly temporary in nature. The current crisis, on the other hand, is proceeding gradually and routinely, and thus it is impossible to predict when, or whether, it will finally come to an end.

The author never mentions Russia’s astoundingly high abortion rates, which would certainly be part of the depopulation picture.

I might think, however, that high abortion rates are an effect of a society gone off the rails–not a cause. Happy cultures filled with hope, I’d imagine, don’t lead to high abortion rates… (I’m just thinking aloud here. Or rather, quite silently, as I type.)

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Brigitte concurs (also silently, as I type): Cultures and societies that are characterized by a lack of hope aren’t doing well, demographically speaking. Sterile hedonism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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