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Wow, these people never give up

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The “lack of access to abortion” complaint manifests itself again (and again and again), this time, in American jails.

Incarcerated women wishing to terminate a pregnancy face numerous challenges; among them are facilities’ ad hoc responses to abortion requests, difficulties in making transportation or financial arrangements, and the requirement of obtaining a court order.

These intrepid policy types are clearly leaving no stone unturned.
Question: If I go for a long canoe trip in an isolated provincial park, perhaps Killarney or Temagami, what’s my access? Stay tuned for the soon-to-be-released “Abortion access on remote-area canoe trips: Females face delays, forced to return to civilization for abortions, while men just get to paddle on.”

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Tanya has a few more “access” concerns: What about if I fall down a well or get stuck in a mine shaft? And will this ‘service’ be available during my 3 week Carnival cruise?

To be honest, I’m sort of comforted by the idea that getting an abortion while incarcerated is not the easiest thing in the world. For those women who suddenly find themselves in that unfortunate situation (of being imprisoned while pregnant) abortion may seem to some like the only reasonable thing to do. How much more so if the access is facilitated.

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Brigitte evidently just fell off a turnip truck: Am I the only one who had no idea unintended pregnancies in jail were a big problem?

Abortion and low birth weight, preterm delivery

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There’s an article today in the papers about the birth control pill being linked to low birth weight. (It’s supposed to be here, however, at time of posting this, the National Post web site is down.)

That’s not a study or a link I’m familiar with, and so not having seen the study I’d rather not comment on this link.

However, the article also says:

Babies born with a low birth weight or prematurely — a growing problem in Canada whose cause is not always clear — are more likely to suffer health problems.

It is clear through more than one study that an abortion is linked to subsequent preterm delivery. Read about it here, here or here.

We’re not allowed to talk about any adverse health effects the result of abortion. So it’s important to highlight these things, and learn about them, as they come up.

In case you were wondering

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Belinda Stronach hasn’t completely disappeared. Here she is in the Star discussing the horrifying plight of women – or something. It’s not entirely clear what she wants given the long way women still have to go in order to get to a destination that is not specified by ways that are altogether imprecise.

“We need to encourage policies and build institutions that help to empower the equal treatment of women,” she says at one point. Huh? What kind of institution helps empower the equal treatment of women? For the matter of that, what kind of equal treatment is amenable to being empowered? Or is it equally empowering institution building?

I get lost amidst all those buzzwords, forgive me. Where were we? Oh yeah. Institutions that empower the equal treatment of women. Such as?

Among other things, that means stepping up the pressure on governments to make a priority of implementing quality and affordable child care right across our country. It is distressing that at a time of massive government spending in the name of stimulus, there has been little public pressure on Ottawa to fund a system of child care and early learning, an investment that would create jobs in the short-term but would pay off again down the road in the form of better educated children and more successful women in the workforce.

Of course. Nothing says institutionalized empowering equal treatment of women like a crazy expensive national program they don’t even want.

Happy Women’s Day, everyone!

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Andrea adds: Since I’ve been humming ABBA all weekend, why I don’t know, but why not, I also say–I might as well say I have another dream, another song to sing… I dream of the complete and total defunding of Status of Women Canada. I have no political aspirations, none. But if I did, I’d dream of being the person to cut all that funding, and I’d do it on International Women’s Day. Just for fun.

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Brigitte says: Me too! I’ve been humming ABBA all weekend, why I don’t know…

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Tanya thinks she’s mentioned this before… but it warrants being repeated.  Cheap daycare is a lifesaver for the single mom who would work regardless.
Don’t get me started on the fact that most of the low-paying jobs are not Monday to Friday 9-5.  What’s the single mom working retail supposed to do with her toddler on Thursday night and Sunday?  Especially when the following week, she’s actually working Wednesday night and Saturday.
For the middle class, that big ambiguous cloud somewhere in the middle of all this, cheap daycare is something of a curse, too.  For that woman who dreamed of getting to stay home with her kids, her sense of financial obligation scoots her out into a working world while her children are being cared for at the cost of half an hour’s salary a day.  Now her family can go on that vacation and buy that big sectional couch.

I have a dream, a song to sing

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The Chatelaine article for which I was interviewed is on news stands now—but subscribers have had it for a bit. As such, I was getting emails and calls—hey—I saw you in Chatelaine. And I still had not seen it. (I mentioned the photo shoot, here.) 

So I broke and snuck down into my dentist’s office on the main floor of our office building. Asked whether I was due for a checkup. No? Right, thank you. As I turned to leave, I spotted it. The April edition of Chatelaine. Very suave, to this point, everything was going according to plan. I flipped through to the appropriate page to be met by the largest, glossiest photo of myself I have ever seen. “Holy shit!” escaped my lips as I dropped the magazine and ran out.

Exhibit A: Woman loiters in dentist’s office, swears at a ladies’ magazine, leaves.

I just hate it when the mainstream media characterizes pro-lifers as crazy.

Now Chatelaine didn’t do that. They reported my words faithfully.  They said the website is elegant and called our team sassy, funny. These are great things, and I’m thrilled that Chatelaine took on the issue without demonizing pro-lifers. They only used the term “anti-choice” once.

But the report is so old-school it hurts. Framed by the lack of abortion access—an idea I’m quite sure most won’t buy, given our thriving abortion rates—the idea of being pro-life remains something of an absurdity.

There’s one major mistake from my perspective in the article. No two, actually. The first major mistake comes in the subheading.

Two decades after the decriminalization of abortion, pro-choice advocates are still fighting against the stigma of abortion and for better access to services. Meanwhile, women on the pro-life side want the feminist movement to open itself up to their voices, too.”

Hmmm.  I gave up on the old-school feminist movement a while ago, precisely because all they seem to have left is a ragged struggle for “abortion rights.” I don’t want to start this exciting new journey by chaining my ankle to an anvil.

The second major mistake is that until such time as I actually turn 33, a very good month from now, I am still 32. I’m just saying….

Now the author of the article is also author of “Morgentaler: A difficult hero.” Haven’t read it, would like to. I would have preferred “Morgentaler: A complicated villain.” So we know where she stands–and I knew that as she interviewed me.

Here’s the thing—that picture of me (so large, so large, look away, look away and only, thankfully, in the print version) shows a determined woman. But the bigger part of me is less serious, more positive, more hopeful, more joyful.

I’m happy to fight this battle because it’s one we can’t possibly lose. We are presenting so many positive choices—so many positive ideas—a happiness that goes beyond nine months and way into the future.

I have a dream.

Women, loved and supported, loving and supporting their kids and families. Women, strong women, doing what they choose—aware that sex is also an action to be responsible for, and it is quite often, though not always, linked to having kids.  Women, aware that some things simply aren’t a choice, and that we don’t kill to solve our problems. Women accepting life as it comes, with all the ups and downs.

I have this idea that women want to love their kids, even the unplanned ones. And that the minority who don’t still don’t need to kill those kids.

I wish that reporters like Catherine Dunphy could catch on to this. I wish Chatelaine would move away from an old 60s stand that supports abortion. I wish more women would rise up and rebel against that old status quo.

Until then, we forge on. There are now about 800 people who log on to this site daily. (We started with about 100, just one short year ago.) If you want to send a thoughtful note to Chatelaine, I’d suggest you thank them for taking on the topic, and offer your thoughts from there. There’s stats in the article that could be challenged; I’m absolutely unsure of where they got the information that 60 per cent of Canadians thought Morgentaler deserved the Order of Canada.

This website is a tiny, small, minuscule, baby step toward achieving our dream of a Canada without abortion.

We say no to abortion. We ask others to join us in saying no. We ask those who are unsure to track with us and see if they can’t see the other side of this pro-abortion world. Because it’s a good one—it’s a good place to be; a place with endless opportunity and possibility. This article lives in April 2009, an era when expediency trumped decency. I think we can do better, and soon will.

P.S. The post title is not mine. There really is an ABBA song for every occasion. I have a dream. (I do not have ABBA’s 1970s je ne sais quoi.) 

P.P.S Those who are regular visitors will know I never swear in writing. I rarely swear when speaking. But that’s what I said when I saw the huge picture of my noggin. It can’t be helped and so I faithfully reproduce the dialogue (with myself) here. 

The birds and the bees

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This column about the octuplet situation highlights the different sides of the life debate. Women don’t have a right to a child, just the same way they don’t have a right to an abortion. It all comes down to this: 

The child is not an object of rights, but a person who has rights of his or her own. The child is an end in himself or herself.

It’s a good article because in a different context than the abortion debate, it highlights how making babies ain’t a solo affair. Even in this age of reproductive technology. Especially in this age of reproductive technology.

Freedom of conscience

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Good letters in the Calgary Herald today, here and here.

Pro-life doctors–of whom there are thousands in Alberta–believe induced abortion is the deliberate destruction of a child’s life. Asking them to participate in abortion is, from their perspective, asking them to kill a developing child. Demanding that they refer patients to other physicians or clinics to have an abortion is, in their minds, demanding they be complicit in murdering an unborn person. Some might claim these rigorously trained doctors are scientifically deluded in their belief about the unborn child’s humanity, but just the same, do patients want their own doctor, under pressure from administrators, to do what the doctor believes is a medical atrocity? If physicians are willing to abandon their deeply held scientific convictions, what else will they be capable of?

Indeed, what else? And here’s the thing–“pro-choice” doctors have deluded themselves into believing they are neutral. My “choice” dictates, ie. they’ll help me kill my baby if I so desire, otherwise not. That’s not a doctor I personally want. I want a doctor who understands what his/her beliefs are, knows what the bias is and can identify that and explain it to me, as such–this is my position, and it is based on x, y, z.

Pro-choice doctors are not Switzerland (if abortion were international politics).

If you’re in the Washington D.C. area this weekend

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R.E.A.L. (Responsible for Equality and Liberty) is holding a “Save Women Now” Rally on Sunday.

Every day, women are under attack by Islamic supremacism that supports and approves of oppression, mutilation, and murder of women. According to leaders and followers of Islamic supremacism, they have the right to commit violence against women. Islamic supremacism views oppression of women as a legitimate “right,” violence against women as a legitimate “right,” and murdering women as a legitimate “right.”

Humanity’s inalienable human rights include equality and liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and the freedom to pursue happiness. No one has the “right” to oppress women, no one has the “right” to violence against women, and no one has the “right” to murder women. Humanity must defy the dark and twisted vision of Islamic supremacists who believe that they can act without challenge and without consequences.

More information here.

McGill U: going against the flow

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Proud as punch about this:

McGill University’s student government has bucked an unfortunate national trend by granting full club status to a student anti-abortion group.

The Student Society’s decision to grant recognition to Choose Life is not so much a victory for pro-life forces as it is a victory for free speech and freedom of association, values that seem to be under attack, and poorly defended, on many Canadian campuses – where they should be safest.

I think a lot of this had to do with McGill not wanting to come off as narrow as York or Calgary Universities. In case you haven’t noticed, Quebec likes to go against the flow. Sometimes to a fault. Not this time, thank goodness.

About that horrible Florida botched abortion case

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A pretty thorough smack-down:

But how does the young non-mother have standing to sue? She came to the clinic to have the baby removed from her body and destroyed. The baby was removed and destroyed. What’s the actual harm to her? She didn’t like the method?  The issue seems to be that she was forced to witness the ordeal that was a direct, if messy, consequence of the procedure she requested.  Would it have been better to see the baby taken out in parts? Injected with poison and born dead?

Her lawyer claims she was ambivalent to begin with. Sure. But so what? She made her decision. Her lawyer responds, “She came face to face with a human being. And that changed everything.”  While that is emotionally plausible — even likely — again, so what? She was aborting the baby precisely because it was a human being which, she says, she was not mature enough to care for. What was it she thought would happen?

If you think that sounds harsh, blame the “pro-choice” activists who say nothing should prevent a woman from exercising her “right” to “choose” without ever getting into the details of what, exactly, that “choice” entails.

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Andrea adds: Thanks for posting this, Brigitte.

You know, once in a while a story will surface–the specific one I recall from about three years ago was from India–about the bones of babies found in the gutters on streets, either after infanticide or abortion. The response tends to be one of horror and shock from this part of the world. Because over here, we conceal the remains and body disposal. How civilized.

That mother went in to have her baby killed. Her baby was killed. Et voila: that’s what we here in North America call a screaming success and an advancement of women’s dignity. And yes, I do blame those “honest, informative” abortion providers. The girl involved is not without her share of the responsibility. But if she’s been told her whole life this is a valid option, a workable solution, and a compassionate course of action–and then meets face to face with a gruesome reality–well, it’s a gruesome reality the abortion provider fails to see because he/she is so used to it.

Off to get some valium now. (This stuff, for all the fun we have blogging, does make me angry.)

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