Archives for 2010

Marie Stopes International runs one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns I have ever encountered, from TV ads on abortion to youth-friendly JibJab style cartoons depicting sexual scenarios, from World Cup themed vasectomy ads in cabs to the latest SexFactor (playing off the uber-popular UK talent show, The X Factor).

MSI, in their efforts to become the primary source of contraceptives, reproductive surgery and abortions, have now taken it upon themselves to be the first to “educate” the children of Manchester about the birds and the bees.

Marie Stopes International is hosting SexFactor for 200, 15 year olds from local Manchester schools to give them all the facts about how to avoid unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and sexual assault.

SexFactor will be a fun, interactive day with workshops on sex and relationships being held at the Lancashire County Cricket club today.

[…]

Louise Brennan, Clinical Lead at Marie Stopes International’s Manchester clinic said:

“The research is very clear; where sex and relationships education is taught in conjunction with contraceptive services, young people are more likely to delay their first sexual experience, practice safe sex and are less likely to have an unplanned pregnancy or contract an STI.

“Many of the students attending SexFactor, previously have not received any sex or relationships education. So this is about arming young people with the information to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy and STIs, to respect each other and to have the skills and knowledge to have safe sexual relationships.

“We have received requests from teachers to visit their schools to teach sex and relationships education because students have become pregnant. Many teachers are telling us they don’t feel they have the training or information to properly teach comprehensive sex and relationships education.

“Marie Stopes International calls for the Government to make the teaching of sex and relationship education compulsory and to fund the proper training of teachers, but in the meantime we are helping local schools.”

School boards are elected by their communities. MSI, as a non-gvernmental organization, answers to no one but themselves. So is it really about teaching children to “respect each other” (which I find difficult to imagine for 15 year olds at an event called SexFactor), or is it about getting them familiar with the brand name?

From the Kansas City Star:

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri faces 107 charges that it falsified records and performed illegal abortions. Phil Kline filed the charges in 2007 when he served as Johnson County district attorney.

The case had been tied up in a dispute over subpoenas, but the high court returned it to the District Court, where it may proceed.

Friday’s decision is far from a big win for anti-abortion groups, however, because it imposes restrictions on what evidence can be used by prosecutors. A key set of state abortion records, for instance, is off limits, the court ruled.

And with that, 23 felony charges against Planned Parenthood could just disappear without further investigation.

The debate on graphic abortion pictures resurfaced in my house this morning in a most unexpected way. My local paper has decided to publish some of the least offensive pictures released during Col. Russell Williams’ sentencing hearing. The sight of a grown man in girls’ underwear is not my idea of a wake-up call at 5 am. But as the Ottawa Citizen explained: “…we believe it is vital that the true nature of his crimes be revealed and that, by (publishing the pictures), the Citizen is contributing to an understanding of the proceedings against him and his sentencing.”

As an argument for publishing, it is uncomfortably similar to the rationale supporting the use of graphic abortion images, don’t you think? So can I both support graphic abortion images while denouncing the publication of explicit pictures of a sick man? I dread looking at pictures of aborted fetuses as much as I dread looking at Williams’ pictures. In fact, when I go to work, I make a point of looking the other way when I walk by the abortion display on Parliament Hill. Yet I support the use of graphic abortion pictures because the story needs to be told. And the story is not told by our sex educators, our schools or our medical system.

Does a story of sexual perversion need telling in all its gory details? I am asking because I am not sure what purpose is served by publishing the pictures. I read that Russell Williams was a grown man who liked to wear girls’ underwear. Then I saw Russell Williams in girls’ underwear. What changed? I honestly fail to see how seeing the pictures after reading the article has enlightened me. Do I better understand the proceedings and the sentencing? Two women are dead, several more traumatized. Whatever his sentence is, I can promise that I will find it inadequate.

I didn’t need a picture.

From a moment of silence for Dr. Mildred Jefferson, to a silent day, this time a campaign to draw attention to the unborn who are forever silenced when their lives are aborted. Seems like it’s more for high school students, but I appreciate the sentiment and the effort.

Sometimes, being prowoman and prolife can be very frustrating. Sometimes, you just want to scream. This is one of those mornings…

Women abort potential babies because they would prefer not to be a mother at all, rather than be an inadequate parent. It’s not that they don’t care about the unborn child, it’s because they care so much.

It is right for us to be sympathetic to these fears of inadequacy, and it is our duty to soothe these fears, educate and create systems of support that eradicate the perceived need to abort. I’ve heard this argument before, that it’s better to not be a parent at all than to have been a bad parent. On behalf of all of those with difficult childhoods in less than perfect homes, I protest.

As a parent myself, I know that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. Women are told this bumper sticker style slogan to convince them they’re making the right decision for not only themselves, but for their baby. I’ve heard this repeated in 12th and Delaware by the abortion clinic operator, Candace, who tells a woman she’d be a bad person if she had the child and then mistreated it. But abortion or being a failure as a parent are not the only options, and we need to stop telling women they are and instead do something to support their efforts.

So rather than pull my hair out, I’m going to celebrate those women who have made the choice to have their children (like my own mother, and I’m sure many of yours) and not let the Candaces of the world tell them it’s too much of a risk because the odds aren’t in their favour.

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Andrea adds: The article ends by asking: “Isn’t it better to end the pregnancy than be a parent when you know you are not ready for it?” And the short answer is no, it’s not. You’ll never know how and whether you could have risen to the occasion and become a better person by having the baby. Secondly, no one is telling women they have to parent. There’s another “A word” and it’s called adoption. My BS o’meter went through the roof on this. Or, as Brigitte would say, colour me unsympathetic. We are prowoman and prolife, not gullible and timid, and that means sometimes you have to call your fellow women to account. So to this writer, I would say, don’t pretend abortion is a courageous act. You know somewhere deep down that it’s not.  

…for Dr. Mildred Jefferson.

Associated Press

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a prominent, outspoken opponent of abortion and the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, died Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Anne Fox, the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, one of many anti-abortion groups in which Dr. Jefferson played leadership roles.

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, “gave my profession an almost unlimited license to kill,” Dr. Jefferson testified before Congress in 1981.

[…]

“She probably was the greatest orator of our movement,” Darla St. Martin, co-executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Monday. “In fact, take away the probably.”

In a 2003 profile in The American Feminist, an anti-abortion magazine, Dr. Jefferson said, “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.”

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Andrea adds: Wow. Memorize that last sentence. “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.” Sounds like a ProWomanProLife motto to me.

Some folks are trying to organize an electronic debate on abortion, here. It’s in French, but I don’t know whether the organizers would agree to have an English component if asked.

Excuse the sarcasm, but this is a bit much:

When I studied bioethics, the topic of addicted mothers — especially of the pregnant variety — was the issue  to polarize a group. Check this one out:

Project Prevention. It pays money to drug addicts so they can be sterilized. Should we be shocked? I don’t know. Call me disillusioned but we’ve been able to remove ourselves from the gene pool for quite some time now. Is getting a financial reward to do so any worse? The slope isn’t that slippery at the bottom. As far as I can read, the state is not paying people to be sterilized. Nor is the state deciding who should get paid to have it zipped.

All in all, much ado about nothing. Not to mention that sterilizing males does nothing to prevent the birth of drug-addicted babies.

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Andrea adds: “The slope isn’t that slippery at the bottom,” is a good point, Véronique. While I may not be shocked, I am dismayed that rather than curtail sexual behaviour, we’d rather all run out and get ourselves sterilized. There’s something upside down about that. But then again, I’m pro-life. I think it’s upside down to consider aborting as a solution to anything at all. Very backwards, I know.

This is a good overview of the issues with regards to Roxanne’s Law, or Bill C-510, which will undoubtedly be a bill we hear more about.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHuN3hKaUF4″>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHuN3hKaUF4]