Archives for July 2010

Australia has been abuzz with pregnancy related news this month, covering everything from drinking during pregnancy to prenatal vitamins. But it’s the abortion debate that’s been picking up momentum this week.

The survey of 1050 Australians investigating attitudes to early and late abortion is published in the Medical Journal of Australia. It shows remarkably strong public support for women being able to access abortion at all stages of pregnancy, including after 24 weeks. The level of support depends on the circumstances.

One of the differences between this survey and previous ones is that respondents were asked to think specifically about situations where either they or someone close to them such as a partner, sister, daughter or close friend was facing specific clinical and social circumstances.

The Sydney Morning Herald titled this article “Abortion laws don’t reflect public opinion,” citing this study by Crosby/Textor as its supporting evidence. In my opinion, asking someone what they think about their daughter’s hypothetical abortion is a very emotive and inaccurate indicator of their position on the legal status of abortion. But Crosby/Textor seems to have little interest in gathering factual, usable data…

Knowing what people think is one thing. Taking this knowledge and using it to influence the way people behave to achieve your goals is another.

So who hired Crosby/Textor and employed their ‘results driven approach’? I’m not pointing fingers, but I will say that it comes as a striking coincidence that Marie Stopes International Australia, the countries leading abortion provider, launched it’s new awareness campaign promoting their services and focusing on contraception the day this article was published (after a six month lull in their Australian news department). Notice the paragraph in the awareness campaign details dedicated to a mysterious company titled MSD who wants you to ‘be well’ at the bottom? It appears disconnected from the rest of the campaign information. Who are MSD anyhow, and what do they have to do with Marie Stopes or awareness? Well, they’re a large pharmaceutical company who sells, among other things (like Nasonex, the nasal spray with the cute little bee in the commercial), contraceptives. It seems there is a lot of money to be made backing a campaign that pushes your product, but Marie Stopes and MSD just want what’s best for women, right? Right.

People who complain about uneven or poor access to abortion leave me completely cold. This is different:

A 21-year-old Ottawa woman who had been sexually assaulted was refused immediate treatment at the Ottawa Hospital over the weekend, the Sun has learned.

The woman was taken to the Civic hospital early Saturday to have a rape kit completed but Ottawa police were told there were no sexual assault nurses available.

The victim was given three options: Lie in a bed until Monday morning when a nurse would be available — but she wouldn’t be able to shower — or go to either Cornwall or Renfrew hospitals.

She ended up being taken to Renfrew to get treatment.

“This is unacceptable and it’s upsetting to hear,” said Concillia Muonde, spokeswoman for the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Ottawa.

“The message it gives to women in the community is nobody is going to do anything about it.”

[…]

Eight women are sexually assaulted every day on average but only one reports it, according to Ottawa police.

_______________________

Update: Apparently, this problem is widespread.

A great piece by one Rebecca Walberg:

There is another way to live, though, one that focuses on personal responsibility: to be a person who recognizes that every moment of our lives counts, and that in every moment we can choose anew how we want to conduct ourselves.

This article from the London Times on June 30, 2010 is worth copying in full. I couldn’t find the link online, so here’s a link to a commentary about the article:

I’ve been wavering. But a woman’s right to choose her own way of life is paramount.

In the Cradle Tower at the Tower of London is an interactive display that asks visitors to vote on whether they would die for a cause. Hmm, let’s see. I like dolphins, but if it came down to a straight choice, goodbye Flipper. I’ll shout abuse at a Uruguayan linesman when my country calls, but I wouldn’t take a paper cut for England, let alone a bullet.

Standing where religious martyrs were held and tortured in Britain’s turbulent reformation, I could think of one cause I would stake my life on: a woman’s right to be educated, to have a life beyond the home and to be allowed by law and custom to order her own life as she chooses. And that includes complete control over her own fertility. [Read more…]

Child-free, or child-less? I can’t believe there are people with so much time on their hands that they can indulge in such silly linguistic sparring.

Interesting advice:

The Spanish government is about to amend its abortion law, falling into line with its European neighbours, though local demonstrators are protesting the new law as unconstitutional.

The Socialist government’s new abortion reforms — which notably allow all women to end their pregnancies up until 14 weeks — take effect on Monday.

It’s still unclear how this will affect abortion rates in the country.

Last year around 115,000 abortions were carried out in Spain, according to the health ministry.

The vast majority took place in private clinics and were justified on the grounds that the pregnancy posed a “psychological risk” for the health of the woman.

Currently, the law allows for abortion if the woman’s health is ‘at risk’. Which begs the question, what is good health and how do we measure the risk to it? How individual states answer this question constitutes the ‘grey zone’ of abortion law, in between legal upon request and illegal without exception. So what is good health?

The most famous modern definition of health was created during a Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948.

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

The Definition has not been amended since 1948.

By this definition, the WHO model of health allows for the individual to define what health and well-being are, rather than offering a concrete and universal definition. So what shapes our individual visions of health?

What is MasterCard selling in their “priceless” advertising campaign? They are selling meaning and telling us that for 9.7% (for you), or 19.7% (for me), we can have it. MasterCard is selling us moments of meaning, right relations with our spouse and children, meaningful encounters with art and sport, security in old age; MasterCard is selling us wellbeing. Priceless? No, in fact these “priceless” moments can be yours for only 19.7% apr.

Again, take anti-cholesterol medication Lipitor, it advertises itself not as anti-cholesterol medication but as a gateway to fishing with our grandchildren (which is depicted in its advertising), it is selling us not an object such as a pill but, rather, it is selling us familial relations, things of “real” value, it is selling us meaning.

The most significant point, however, is not simply that such companies are trying to sell us meaning. They are also telling us what “meaning” actually is.

Abortion is packaged in such a way when we begin to discuss risk, that it is a relief of pain, stress, hardship, unease. That it is a potential gateway to well-being, but by whose definition?

Happy Canada Day! Families are heading up to Parliament Hill wearing red and white as I type this.

A fun item that might pertain to an activity some of you might do today.