Archives for February 2010

News item: You can get pregnant any time before menopause.

Again, to repeat: Sex and pregnancy are linked.

Well, maybe not. But as these folks remarked, the Super Bowl Dove ad at least gets points for understanding (and not distorting) basic human biology. Yay.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuexzKkMIDc&feature=player_embedded]

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Patricia adds: I have been hearing an abbreviated version of this Dove ad on the radio and wondering if it signals a cultural shift towards a slightly more vigorous masculinity.  This despite the fact that it’s for a soap – I mean, what real man cares what kind of soap he uses?

Here is the Tim Tebow ad that ran during the Super Bowl last night.

That’s it? I don’t mean to sound like an impossible-to-please critic, but that’s not exactly a very controversial ad, is it? But it was enough to cause panic among pro-choicers? Wow. They really are a fragile bunch.

For what it’s worth, I found this ad, for Google, more pro-life than the Tebow one:

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

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Andrea adds: It’s amazing to behold. NOW is absolutely intent on helping get further traction and positive exposure for Focus on the Family:

NOW president Terry O’Neill said it glorified violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said. “That’s what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don’t find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.”

(h/t)

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Brigitte can’t believe it: That’s a joke, right? NOW can’t be that dumb? Can it?

Starting with the first sentence:

Like anything that involves killing babies, abortion tends to be controversial, and remains so in Canada more than 40 years after a bunch of white males decided to relax the common-law restraints on this practice. It is controversial in other countries, too: check out the United States, for instance, or the various European countries, in most of which it has long been “open season” on the unborn.

And it is a splendid column carrying on throughout. Killing babies remains a very difficult thing to defend, done only with the special sort of politically correct gymnastics of those who call abortions “abortion care”–nice try. But when I read this sort of fine column and I understand that I have logic, science and clearly, some good writers on my side, I get depressed because in the end, we do not live in a pro-life country. BUT THEN, I think, how much more depressing to be pro-choice–without logic or science on your side, just a very apathetic media and a couple of old-school feminists who won’t be around much longer. (Editor’s note: Very uncharitable, Andrea, shouldn’t that remain your “inside voice?”)

So while University of Ottawa was happily hosting me to discuss why being pro-life is pro-woman, University of Victoria banned their pro-life club. Because it “inherently discriminates” against women. Clearly, some work remains.

An Ottawa University student writes an open letter to Michael Ignatieff. Nice. These students are impressive:

As a 22-year-old Canadian woman, I felt I needed to inform Ignatieff that there is by no means a Canadian consensus in favour of abortion. I believe that it is scientifically indisputable that abortion is the act of terminating a human life.

She references last night’s talk. I think it went well, but then again, I gave the talk. So when it shows up on YouTube, watch and decide for yourself! There were no attempts to shut us down, however, which on campuses across Canada these days is rare. I tend to think it’s because the position I take is actually so common sensical, that protesting it…would rightly make the other side look foolish. I do think it would be really fun to debate someone like Carolyn Bennett. Now that, that would be a great debate. We shall see if such a thing could come to pass in the future…

Thank you very much to the students of Ottawa University for their hard work and their courageous, public stance. Certainly seemed to be a large and thriving club, which is indicative of very good things for the future.

Apparently it now includes easy access to Plan B in military clinics and hospitals.

After recommendations from the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and a successful vote to include the morning after pill on the list of drugs that military facilities should stock, officials announced the Department of Defense will begin making the pill available in its hospital and clinics around the world. It’s the latest step taken by the Obama administration to reverse women’s health policies made during George W. Bush’s administration, and fulfills a request from 2002 by women’s health advocates. “It’s a tragedy that women in uniform have been denied such basic health care,” said Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We applaud the medical experts for standing up for military women.”

I say a country that has as many as 200 “honour” killings, and where a teenage girl can be buried alive for having male friends, is anything but.

The gruesome details surrounding the murder of Medine Memi has shocked Turkey, home to some 200 “honour killings” every year—half of all murders in the nation. The 16-year-old was found outside her home in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman last December in a sitting position, her hands tied. A postmortem exam revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. “The report is blood curdling,” one official told the London Times. Memi’s father and grandfather have been arrested and are due to face trial. Her mother was also charged but has since been released. Media reports say the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex. It has also emerged that Memi had repeatedly tried to report to police that she had been beaten by her father and grandfather days before she was killed. “She tried to take refuge at the police station three times, and she was sent home three times,” her mother said after the body was discovered.

Please forgive this display of crusty-old-goatitude (it had been a while, no?), but what the heck, let’s gripe. We all know teenagers are interested in sex, but how many of us would write seriously about the etiquette of sex-on-prom-night? None other than two women with “Post” as their last name. Poor old Emily is, as we speak, spinning uncontrollably in her grave.

[h/t]