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For a few precious moments

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Ottawa woman pleads guilty in newborn’s death. She allegedly tied a plastic bag around her infant son’s head, and pleaded guilty to infanticide. Also known as murder. But she could have aborted the fetus moments before his birth and suffered no legal consequences.

The baby would still be dead. It would still be a dead baby. His body would probably have been thrown out with the garbage. But society would not seek to punish the mother for wanting her son dead. That is what this ad campaign is trying to make Canadians understand. Yes, indeed, we have gone too far. And the worst thing about it is that we didn’t even mean to go this far.

These little babies are human beings one and all. Why are we treating them differently?

This is the moment I’m worried about

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Bristol Palin talks about how hard it was to tell her parents she was pregnant:

In the interview, Bristol admitted that confessing the pregnancy to her family was more difficult than the birth of her baby — saying it was “harder than labor.”

Since labour is not universally acknowledged as being super easy, we can imagine what it felt like for her to tell her parents. That’s when our abortion-friendly culture kicks in for so many. For how many kids do you bet it’s easier to go “fix the problem” than have to tell anyone?

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Rebecca adds: The pro-life charity Efrat in Israel works to stop abortion by trying to provide whatever an individual woman would need to make her choose to give birth to the baby. Very often, what teenagers living at home need is someone to come with them when they tell their parents, who can de-escalate and moderate the inevitable anger and betrayal and disappointment and fear most parents face when they learn their underage daughter is going to be a mother.  They also need to know that there are people and an organization who will find a home for them if their worst fears are realized and their parents throw them out. My understanding is that the vast majority of the time, this doesn’t happen – but an awful lot of pregnant teenagers are scared that it might. If telling your parents seems scarier than labour, it probably seems a lot scarier than an abortion, especially when abortion is presented as a minor procedure, about as painful and less time-consuming than getting a cavity filled (which, from a purely technical perspective, is probably accurate).

Hey, I’m not the only one to notice…

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James Taranto, over at the Wall Street Journal, isn’t impressed with big-league feminists. Noting how NOW is making a big deal out of the Chris Brown/Rihanna business and domestic violence in general, he wondered what they had to say about two atrocious cases of same, including the awfully under-reported case of wife beheading outside of Buffalo. (About which, incidentally, Mark Steyn had the best headline EVER.)

Do you know what NOW had to say about a man who has reportedly confessed to having beheaded his wife? That’s right. Nothing.

Now I am opposed to domestic violence in every case (including female-on-male; and same-sex violence). I also understand that one can’t comment on every single case of abuse. But give me a break. Beheadings aren’t so common in the United States as to go unnoticed. Seems like a big one to miss, especially for a feminist organization.

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UPDATE, Wednesday: It appears the New York State chapter of NOW is quite upset by the murder and has denounced it forcefully. Good for them.

Playing by the rules

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The rules of dating and sex as taught today appear to go something like this–you can have sex if you are in love. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) Those rules further say that since kids are going to have sex anyway, we should protect them. Through things like birth control and condoms. (Again, correct me if I’m wrong.)

So when we see this story from the UK of kids (literally) having kids are they not following the lessons of our culture? Just at a younger-than-expected age? With the one major mistake of not having an abortion to conceal the problem, so that adults can’t delude themselves into thinking there is no problem, anymore.

I’m not saying this isn’t crazy and a tragedy and a symptom of social decline.

But I’m losing track of what I’m supposed to be shocked by, these days. I can’t help but think these kids are playing by the rules we give them.

(Anyone recall the discussion in the Ottawa Citizen not too long ago about co-ed sleepovers?)

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Brigitte can’t help noticing: One paragraph in that story stands out:

Britain has the highest underage pregnancy rate in western Europe, despite channelling substantial resources into sex education for children as young as five. According to the Office for National Statistics, over the past decade 385 girls under the age of 14 have become pregnant, and more than 40 boys under 14 have fathered children; four boys aged 11 have had children in recent years.

So, do you think that means modern sex-ed isn’t working? Nah. Surely the problem is we’re not spending nearly enough showing 3-year-olds how to put on condoms.

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Rebecca says: I try not to disagree with Andrea in public, since she wields the blogging whip without mercy, but I don’t think this is accurate:

The rules of dating and sex as taught today appear to go something like this–you can have sex if you are in love.”

I think this is largely true for people over thirty or so, although this is the demographic that loved Sex and the City, a show which revered the zipless encounter. If we’re talking about teens and university students, though, a fair chunk of that population operates by different mores, more along the lines of “you can have sex if you want to.” There are some generally accepted rules: it should be consensual, it’s not cool for guys to drug girls to get them in bed, it’s not cool for girls to lie about being on the pill, and most of all, thou shalt not judge those who have recreational sex, for who are you to judge?

I think this has serious consequences for unplanned pregnancies and how we cope with them. People have always had premarital sex, and teen pregnancies have always been with us (albeit in much smaller numbers.) But in earlier generations, one generally had sex with someone one knew well, cared for, and could imagine being married to, so an unplanned pregnancy followed by a quick and discreet wedding was the logical outcome. In an era in which anonymous sex is commonplace, this traditional solution doesn’t work nearly so well.

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Andrea to Rebecca: Please come and see me in my office at the end of class. Thank you.

I stand corrected. I thought there still was some small correlation between love and sex. But now I see I’m wrong. Ah, progress.

Advertising in transit

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The Ottawa transit strike is thankfully over. What is not over is bus-related debate: Today the discussion on my morning news station was whether or not it was right or wrong for Ottawa transit to say no to the atheist ads going around. In fact, it’s the substance of this CFRA Soundoff Poll. I just voted, in favour of free speech. (That side is losing, by a long shot.)

But while we’re at it–take a look at these ads, also, travelling about the city on Ottawa busses. I have not a sweet clue what they are trying to say. The Gods of Rock compel women to iron? The Gods of Rock will get you pregnant, seems to be the theme–and will make you morose. Either way, I find these ads somewhat offensive but also just plain dumb. I’m quite sure I’m not their target audience–the question remains: who is?

To summarize–in Ottawa atheists are out, pregnant ladies are in.

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Tanya adds: I almost hate to point out that the target audience for The Gods of Rock ad is men.  Not all men, of course…but some men.  And keep in mind, it has nothing to do with having children, but everything to do with getting them pregnant.  Very classy.

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Patricia says: I agree with Andrea that it is not up to OC Transpo to decide which issues merit public debate and by which means that debate should be generated. I would of course draw the line at public decency, although that seems a  laughable limit given the “Gods of Rock” ads or the ones for “dating” services that I see on the TTC here in the Big Smoke. Most times that I take my children on the TTC, I long for blindfolds to avoid the “what is that ad for, Mama?” questions. It does seem to me that if these ads are an acceptable way of generating public debate, so are these.

abortiontoofar

I would be curious to see how many of the atheist/humanist free speech advocates would be arguing for buses  to carry these ads, previously barred from the Hamilton transit system (see Andrea’s post). Or are they only interested in using provocative measures to encourage public debate about the non-existence of God? (Or am I being too cynical?)

Who is oppressing who?

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Couldn’t have said this better myself:

Part of the reason the abortion debate is so polarized is that the pro-choice faction wants to do just that — look away from the medical truth of what abortion does to an unborn baby. Maybe they should meet Denise Mountenay. Or would they rather look away from her too, because she represents a different unpleasant truth–what abortion does to women?  “I was 16 when I had my first abortion,”Mountenay says in an interview from her Morinville home. “My mother said, ‘Denise, you have your whole life ahead of you. Have that operation.’ I thought, I’ll just be unpregnant.”…It wasn’t until after her third abortion that she came across information on fetal development, and “I was like, ‘oh, my God’. It was a revelation. I was absolutely devastated. I read that at three weeks it has a beating heart. This is not a clump of tissue, it’s a little person.”

Pro-choicers are keen on looking away–efforts to show what the baby is through ultrasounds are met with this sort of attack:

Abortion foes have a new tactic: The hope that women can’t look away.

Let me get this straight: ultrasounds showing the beating heart are fanatical? And letting women go ahead with killing their child, without offering that information is compassionate. Kudos (again) to Naomi Lakritz for this sort of compelling column in defence of women’s rights.

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[Editor’s Note: Tanya’s wrath is directed at the author of the blog, see the second link above, not Naomi Lakritz.]

Tanya can’t believe it:  It takes a lot for me to get sincerely annoyed at someone.  This lady managed to push some serious buttons.  It’s the type of thing where, if she were in the same room as me, I’d say things to her that I’d later regret.

“No woman seeking an abortion does so unthinkingly.”  Really?  I know one.  Would you like to meet her so that you can stop your ignorant generalizations?

“Few, if any, women use abortion as birth control”  Is that why 46% of women did not use contraception during the month they became pregnant?

“Elections have consequences. You lost. Go away.”  I’m guessing this lady hid under a rock for the eight years prior to Obama being sworn in.  It would explain her nonsensical arguments.

OK, I’m done.

Sweden, home of “gender equity”

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Sweden is quite consistently (and falsely, I might add) portrayed as the home of gender equity. So this report on sex selection abortion  may shock some. But not me. We know this is happening in Canada, so why not Sweden?

The only slight reference we have to the fact that the mother may be from elsewhere is this:

In part, I wonder if a caregiver within the public health system has the right to make reference to their own views and the dominant view in our country about gender’s equal value, in preventing a patient, with perhaps a different valuation, from learning the gender of the fetus,” he writes.

Sure, you can reference the dominant view about gender equality in your country, my friend. But then you’ll also have to reference that other dominant view of our times–that abortion is always a private woman’s choice and that her arbitrary decision to do away with her daughters supercedes almost every other dominant view.

Good luck!

Right-to-die?

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Or right-to-capitalize-on-death?

Kusch [Dr. Death] has developed, and advertises, a “suicide machine” that he will hook up to clients for a charge of up to $13,000. One of his “clients” took her life simply because she felt she was too anti-social to live in a nursing home.

Perhaps Canada would never face someone pining for his right to make a profit off of assisted suicide like this Dr. Death character.  As the above article goes on to say, “the U.S. is more likely than Europe to be a trendsetter for Canada.”  Hmmm…

Oregon has a law that allows terminally ill people to end their lives “through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.”

And we know that, where prescription medication is concerned, there is no profit to be made.

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