Archives for July 2010

Friends, countrymen (and women), lend me your ear. PWPL is going on a summer holiday. It’s our first official break since we started in January 2008.

We shall return to our regularly scheduled blogging in August.

Check out this trailer for a new documentary about human trafficking. Coming soon.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEBbYhqKLKk”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEBbYhqKLKk]

And again at this. Actually, read it. This is a very fine column by one John Robson. However, it will be much funnier if you watch this first.

After saying they might not stone one woman accused of adultery, they decide to sentence this 25-year-old to be stoned to death for adultery, even though she is pregnant.

Here’s an optimistic article from the U.S.

Healthcare reform represents a historic victory for millions of Americans previously denied access to quality and affordable medical care. Among the law’s many benefits for vulnerable families are funds just announced by the Obama administration that will help low-income pregnant women. This overlooked but significant achievement has established common ground between pro-life and pro-choice leaders who agree on a common goal: reducing the number of abortions by addressing its root causes. […]

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States every year. Canada, Germany, Japan and Britain all have lower abortion rates than the U.S., despite having less restrictive abortion laws. Why? In large part because those countries offer comprehensive healthcare that includes robust pre-natal and post-natal care. British Cardinal Basil Hume once told a reporter: “If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it’s needed she’s more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn’t it obvious?”

While I’m a strong supporter of health care reform, I fear that it will have little impact on abortion rates. The U.S. has a higher percentage of women in “high risk” demographics for crisis pregnancies (higher percentages of women living below the poverty line etc.) than the compared countries, and I believe this is the reason for the higher abortion rates. Health care reform, while it will impact women for the better, won’t bring about the dramatic changes necessary to move women outside of those demographics. I hope I’m wrong.

PETA’s latest ad campaign might not be able to run on the streets of Montreal. The trouble arises in that they’ve labelled female body parts as if they were pieces of meat. So the political correctness police are stepping out in full force because of the labelling. Because this might be sexist. Possibly even degrading? Now good old fashioned regular porn, up and down our city blocks–now that is clearly not degrading. The sex shops, the shady massage parlours, with all the forced labour, human trafficking, prostitution that implies–not a trouble! But this ad might be.

I’m desperately confused.

…then I can think of ways to help:

Couples struggling to conceive are about to get financial help from the Quebec government, as the province becomes the first jurisdiction in North America to pay for fertility treatments.  Health Minister Yves Bolduc announced Tuesday the launch of a provincial plan that will cover up to three cycles of in-vitro fertilization, starting on Aug. 5. Bolduc anticipates 3,500 fertilization cycles will be administered this year at a cost of more than $25 million. That figure could reach $63 million by 2013-2014. “It’s good for Quebec because it will increase the birth rate,” Bolduc said.

I expect a defunding of abortion to follow very, very shortly. Don’t all jump at once, now.

News that Bristol Palin and her once fiance, father of her child Levi are engaged is not like a soap opera.

I haven’t watched The Young and the Restless in years, but if I did, I’m pretty sure Victor would still be kicking around doing the same old thing. So really, Bristol Palin is moving too quickly.

For those of you familiar with Lila Rose, undercover investigations of crisis pregnancy centers is a familiar plot line. This week, however, it was pro-abortion advocates doing the impersonating.

The report, titled “Unmasking Fake Clinics: the Truth about Crisis Pregnancy Centers in California,” asserts that the clinics make false claims linking abortion to breast cancer and infertility and dissuade particularly vulnerable women from receiving accurate medical advice.

The investigation, which included visits to 14 clinics in six counties and phone calls to an additional 200 centers across the state, was conducted by the NARAL Pro-Choice California Foundation unpaid staff and volunteers over a six-month period ending in August 2009. […]

More than half of the clinics investigated highlighted mortality as a claimed complication from abortion and the unpaid volunteer investigators were ultimately “dissuaded from considering abortion as an option.”

Really? If they had been dissuaded, would they continue to volunteer for NARAL?

Amy Everitt, the California organization’s state director, said that the report will be distributed to community-based organizations that provide medical referrals to the most at-risk groups of women, including those who are young, low-income, of color or from rural locations.

Because medical staff don’t need to provide abortion alternatives to those women?

Part of the problem, Everitt said, is deceptive advertising, which is why the organization collected more than 66,000 signatures on a petition targeting two online information sites, YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com

On these sites, more than thirty centers nationwide, including two in California, were listed under “abortion information and referral services” or “abortion clinics”, but were found not to offer those services or referrals, according to the report.

One crisis pregnancy center, Options for Women in Concord, which is listed on the crisis pregnancy clinic website www.lifecall.org, is a self-described “abortion clinic alternative”.

If only there was a category for “abortion clinic alternatives” in my phone book. There wasn’t, but when I looked for “tattoo removal”, low and behold they were lumped in with the tattoo parlours. Shameful… those two things aren’t related at all.

Please forgive the serious topic for a moment (some days, you gotta do what you gotta do). Hold onto your bonnets, ladies, because it appears the new Old Spice Dude is making personalized videos for bloggers and random fans. Please please please, can I get one?

If you’re somehow unaware of this phenomenon, read about it here. Below is my personal favourite (“I’m on a horse”).

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