Archives for May 2010

Nope, not us:

QUEBEC – Members of the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution Wednesday calling on the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to respect free choice and access to abortion, to end its ambiguity on the issue and to stop cutting funding to women’s groups who favour abortion. Members agreed to transmit the motion to the Senate and House of Commons in Ottawa. Carole Poirier, Parti Québécois MNA for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in Montreal presented the motion after Cardinal Marc Ouellet called for re-criminalizing abortion.

I love it when people panic like that.

…as one columnist sees it.

The rejection earlier this spring of a Liberal motion instructing the Prime Minister to include contraception (including abortion) in his G8 maternal health initiative did not offer an accurate reading of the mood of the current House on the issue of domestic access to abortion.

This just supports the statements Andrea made earlier about consensus and the status quo. The motion did represent the ‘mood’ of the country, it simply didn’t uphold the status quo the small but powerful pro-abortion extremists have been championing over the past 20 years. Canada’s statistics have continuously demonstrated a strong moral divide and a public lacking information when it comes to the actual legislation. This discussion is long overdue.

I will not be the first one, at this late stage, to highlight for Barbara Kay that abortion-rights activists will not find anything she’s written here remotely reasonable. They will fight it all tooth and nail. Let’s keep in mind that the only people happy with the status quo right now are very radical, very extreme pro-abortion types. But they have voice in the law schools, amongst judges, in the education system and finally, in the media.

Don’t just blame politicians, then, for not engaging in this debate. Blame those who uphold the status quo because every time a pro-abortion woman pipes up with just one simple word: “Discrimination!” everyone kowtows and scuttles away in scared silence. (If a pro-life woman stands up and says: “Injustice!” she’s being controlled by the patriarchy and can generally be ignored.)

The problem with abortion is that there never has been a consensus. The topic is on permanent high boil for so many, and therefore any opportunity at all to discuss it brings it up again and again. In short, it’s precisely because of the total and complete lack of consensus that the issue keeps coming up. I personally think Prime Minister Harper must deeply regret this maternal health initiative. But it’s too late now.

So, when Ignatieff says this, it’s pretty laughable:

But let’s be clear: we didn’t end the 25-year consensus on a woman’s right to choose. They did,” he told the $500-a-plate crowd of close to 1,000 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel.

And actually, there’s nothing more motivating for me than to hear patronizing liberal types declare there’s a consensus, simply because they, and their friends at the Granite Club, all agree.

But you knew I’d say that…

Catholic Church official condemns abortion.

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Andrea adds: Wow. That is hot off the press.

I learned how to read at an early age reading Tintin’s Les bijoux de la Castafiore. Since I am openly pro-life  I can’t quite say that I turned out all right. Maybe this steady diet of Hergé in my formative years is responsible for making me the angry ol’ white male mysoginist I have become. Still, I allow many of the books in my house, including Tintin au Congo, which is making waves this week in Hergé’s homeland.

How timely. My 13-year-old son — who also learned to read using subversive material like Tintin, I’m passing it on — was just mentioning the racist undertones in Tintin au Congo. When asked what he thought about it he shrugged and said: “That’s how they thought at the time, now we know better.” Yes indeed. I asked him: “Do you think we are passed that? What do you think we are doing now that our grandchildren or great-grandchildren will look at with scorn and say: “That’s how they thought at the time. Now we know better…” I think that our treatment of the unborn will shame us. Maybe not in my lifetime, but it will.

The fact is that the human species has a dismal track record when it comes to arbitrarily deciding what is deserving of moral status (or personhood) and what is not. We are on the winning side of this issue.

While gender barriers are being broken in Canada today, other countries are failing to meet the basic standards of maternal health care because of inequality and poverty.

“Inequality in decision-making, limited access to health services in rural areas and lack of information on healthy pregnancy are among the factors that contribute to maternal deaths,” said Masruchah, secretary-general of the National Commission on Violence against Women.

This story from Indonesia is further evidence that poverty and the gender divide, not lack of access to abortions, is a leading factor in the maternal mortality rates abroad.

“The maternity hospital suggested a C-section, but I didn’t have the money,” Juhri, a motorcycle taxi driver in Depok, a Jakarta suburb, said of the US$1,000-$1,500 procedure. “I took her to a midwife, but she could not handle the delivery.”

An emergency caesarian, if she’d had the power to demand/afford one, would have saved her life.