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David Frum isn’t done – and neither am I

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He’s baaaaack, with his ‘college education’ fetish (why does he care so darn much how the degreed vote? do people with university education count more than those without?) and his gosh, no, we can’t possibly even think of pretending we hold anything resembling conservative-esque values. I mean, ick.

I am annoyed. Perhaps it’s me who has no business anywhere close to his tent. Or perhaps he needs to go someplace else to pitch his. I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure we can’t agree to disagree on stuff like this:

We need to modulate our social and cultural message. Not jettison. Not reverse. Modulate. For example: We are a pro-life party, but every Republican platform since 1980 has gone much further, calling for a federal constitutional amendment to ban all abortions in all states under almost all circumstances. We don’t mean it. We don’t act on it. Yet we keep saying it.

That’s just one way in which we’re confusing voters. We don’t intend to police every single one of the millions of deathbeds in America, either. So why did we obsess over Terri Schiavo?

So if you’re pro-life you can’t, for instance, call for an end to abortion? You’re not allowed to ‘obsess’ over end-of-life issues? What, pray tell, are pro-lifers allowed to do? Pretend they’re not so they can look more with-it at fashionable cocktail parties?

Geez, mom, thanks

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I realize we live in a world where nothing is supposed to be taboo. But this is ridiculous:

Shelley Price can’t stop the tears from falling as she makes her startling confession.

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Shelley is about to admit to one of the great taboos of motherhood. No matter how hard she has tried, she says she can’t bring herself to love her elder daughter, Catherine.

‘I know what people will think. Everyone will hate me. I’m the woman who doesn’t like her own child. But I’m speaking out because I’m convinced I’m not alone,’ says the 33-year-old.

‘I hate myself for the way I feel, but whatever it is that makes a mum want to hug and kiss her child, I have not felt it. Catherine has always felt like someone else’s daughter.’

I don’t know what it’s like to have a daughter you don’t even like. But you’re, at least technically, an adult and she’s not. For the sake of that child, could you please get a grip, do your best, and shut up?

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Rebecca adds: “‘I whisper: ‘I’m so sorry for the way I’ve been with you.’ But I know I can’t help the way I feel. I can’t turn on my feelings like a tap.”

And here we have the therapeutic culture bearing its toxic and self-indulgent fruit.

No, you can’t turn on feelings like a tap. But you can control your actions. You can choose to meet a child’s needs, which include a need for affection and warmth and cuddles, regardless of what you’re feeling inside. Daycare workers, who may well be very fond of the children they care for but certainly don’t love them the way their mothers do, provide cuddles and smiles and happy interactions all the time with their charges.

Horrifying.

Lending pharmaceutical companies a helping hand

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helpingbigpharma

Lauren Bosworth, the 22-year-old star of The Hills, on her decision to promote a particular brand of the birth control pill:

…I don’t think my promoting [the birth control pill] is promoting sex,” she says. I think it’s just the opposite. It’s my body, so on that level, I’m responsible for it. It’s about health.”

She’s probably right–sex pretty much promotes itself–but let’s not have any illusions on the “health” front. This is not about “controlling your body.” It’s certainly not about women’s health. It’s about money for pharmaceutical companies and ensuring they never lose the market share they have when 50 per cent of the population can be on a pill for years and years. I’ve met and talked to pro-choicers who understand the Pill isn’t healthy for women–this is not a pro-life thing.

What about the second?

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“Women who refuse sex on first date ‘increase chances of finding a good man'”

Researchers used a mathematical model to show that more reliable men were willing to wait longer before having sex for the first time. By contrast, less suitable men were not as likely to continue dating.

The researchers used a mathematical model. They could have also asked any of our grandmothers, thereby saving money, time and effort.

(h/t Sobering Thoughts)

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Brigitte is about ready to go put on hair curlers (no wait, I no longer need them): It’s been a while since I’ve sampled the dating scene (thank goodness), but isn’t the headline on that story a little crass? Whadayamean, ‘refuse sex’? Is having sex on the first date now something that’s expected unless ‘refused’? Am I missing something?

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Rebecca adds: What about guys who “refuse sex” on the first date?  Those would be worth hanging on to, one would imagine.

Strange world we’re living in.

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Andrea adds…that there’s really only one way to find out if a guy refuses sex on the first date, and it involves, er, throwing “oneself” on him. Said guy-worth-keeping will be repulsed, and likely won’t enjoy hearing “but I was only testing you!”  In short, a lose-lose for the single girls in the crowd. Someone else will have to conduct this important experiment. Maybe there’s a mathematical model…

And so it begins

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President Obama may overturn the Mexico City policy, which banned taxpayer funds for international abortions. It was put in place by Reagan, kept by Bush Sr., overturned by Clinton, and kept by Bush Jr.:

Bush defended the action, saying then: “It is my conviction that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortion or actively promote abortion.”

Think what you will about the former President Bush–he was great on the life issues–understood them–and held the line against the insidious encroachment of abortion into foreign countries using taxpayer dollars.

Polygamy bust opens debate

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Andrea has an op-ed on polygamy in the Sun today. Read it here. My favourite part:

From prehistoric times until the late 20th century, marriage was understood as a child-centred institution between one man and one woman, for life.

Though you’d be hard pressed to find this view on any university campus, marriage served to protect women and children, chiefly by obliging men to stick around to help raise them. (Sex was confined to marriage so any resulting children were identifiably linked to both parents–finally both men and women were held responsible.)

Today, marriage is chiefly based on love and weddings are an opportunity to have a party. We (well, the Supreme Court) already agreed marriage should not be limited by sexual orientation.

What justification is there now to limit the number of partners?

We already collectively accepted it needn’t be for life and it needn’t be between members of the opposite sex. If you are against polygamy, but in favour of same sex marriage, you’re between a rock and a hard place.

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Rebecca adds: As to whether or not the care, legitimization and support of children is the prime role of marriage, nobody has explained it better than David Blankenhorn in his magisterial book The Future of Marriage. Yes, the details have varied, and yes, virtually all societies have recognized marriages that did not, or could not, involve procreation, but the essence of marriage is to create a functional context in which to produce the next generation.

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Andrea adds: Blankenhorn makes this comparison to highlight his point–he says that not everyone buys a car to drive it, but that doesn’t mean cars aren’t primarily meant for driving. Some people, it’s true, they only collect cars. But because that is true, we’d never say that there’s no connection between cars and driving. (I’m paraphrasing.)

I also just read this in Marriage and Caste in America: “…no culture has ever designed a model of fatherhood without matrimony.” When we separate child bearing from marriage (and this is not to say that every married couple absolutely must have kids–just that kids ought to have married parents) it is an unprecedented experiment.

He says, she objects

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I was in Toronto all weekend on family business. It snowed quite a bit last night and most of today. As we left to drive back home, we saw a dude get the snow off his car with a leaf blower. Dear Husband said he’d wondered about asking the dude for assistance clearing our own car, which made me burst out laughing. I mean, how idiotic, right? There was only about 4-5 inches of fresh, fluffy snow, not 19 feet of icy crud. We have a biggish car and it only took a few minutes to clear the snow off it with a cheesy ordinary snow thingy.

Turns out hubby was semi-serious. And that made me wonder what, exactly, is it in the male psyche that makes them want to use any power tool for any reason whatever, and the louder and most ridiculously out of proportion with the task at hand the better (hey, gotta keep the mind occupied during those dull 401 stretches). I think it’s just to annoy their wives. [It works.]

When pro-choicers do good pro-life work

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Last week a strident pro-abortion person, Liz Shepherd, wrote in to the Ottawa Citizen. I remember reading the letter and ignoring it because the ideas were so flawed; I couldn’t be bothered–sorry. However, other people could be bothered in the letters section today, I’m grateful to see. Margaret Somerville wrote in to correct assertions about the medical system:

She is wrong that the patient’s autonomy is always trump, that other medical procedures are not prohibited, and that legally regulating abortion would be unique. Consequently, these are not valid arguments against having law on abortion. The law, both criminal and civil, governs all medical procedures and would prohibit some.

And this one is particularly good, too:

I can stay silent no longer on the abortion debate after reading Liz Shepherd’s letter. Her statement that “no one can claim to be both pro-life and pro-woman” has put me over the edge.

Indeed, the idea that you could not be pro-woman and pro-life is pretty ridiculous–it motivated this letter writer to write in.

Look, if I had a dollar for every time I pointed out the flawed thinking and lack of logic in pro-abortion arguments, I’d be a wealthy woman. Their thinking comes down to this–that women must be able to do whatever they want, no matter what. This involves some fairly anti-woman thinking–the notion that women simply can’t do well in life if they bear children in “unwanted” moments. This magic women-trump-all formula is everywhere.

The bad news: They are, momentarily, winning the public relations battle.

The good news: It’s not a really great argument. Parents don’t teach their toddlers the “whatever you want, whenever you want it” principle…it just doesn’t make sense. And when more and more women stand up to say just the opposite–that you can support women and children, yes, at the same time–our barbaric, uncivilized pro-abortion status quo will fall. Furthermore, when women like Liz Shepherd talk crazy, it’s highly motivating for people who might not previously have engaged in the abortion debate.

Keep up the good work, my pro-abortion friends.

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Tanya adds: Margaret Sommerville mentioned this:

But if, for instance, a person wanted their right leg amputated, simply because they’d like to be a one-legged person, a physician could not legally carry out the operation — it would be contrary to public policy and a criminal assault, despite the patient’s consent and the absence of any negligence.”

I’ve been wondering lately about gal bladder stones. They usually pass, but occasionally need to be removed surgically. Now, if the stone is likely to pass, the medical professional will not recommend alternative intervention. Can a patient insist? Can a patient demand, say, surgery? And if they can, is that surgery covered?

I think the parallel I’m attempting to make here is pretty obvious.

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Rebecca adds: Joyce Arthur chimed in that all medical procedures require consent (which they do) as if that meant that abortion is just like any other surgery. The difference is, abortion is not medically indicated for a disease or injury. One of the big things feminists did right was insisting that pregnancy not be viewed as an illness, requiring intervention and the passive status for women that accompanies this mindset. But you can’t have it both ways.

And it’s true that if you wanted a leg amputated because you wanted to have only one leg, it wouldn’t be covered by medicare (or performed anywhere, one would hope.) But even if the reason you wanted the leg amputated was because you were convinced that you could only realize your life’s ambitions, and your health and happiness were threatened by having two legs, you’re still not going to get the amputation if there is no medical problem with your leg. Not to belabor the point here, but elective abortion is not a medical therapy, any more than getting your ears pierced is medical therapy, because it doesn’t solve a medical problem – it’s a lifestyle choice. And until abortion rights advocates can get their minds around the fact that “because I don’t want to be pregnant” is not actually a medical condition, we’re not going to get anywhere going over the same ground again and again.

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