Archives for 2010

CTV reported that “three Quebec women’s groups” (ahem, those are pro-choice women’s groups) demonstrated Sunday.

…we feel that you cannot discuss women’s maternal health without also offering the possibility for women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy under safe, proper conditions,” said Alexa Conradi of the FFQ.

In Ireland the maternal mortality rate is six, that’s right… 6 a year per 100,000 live births.

I’m using Ireland as an example primarily because, at least for now, abortion is illegal except where the woman’s life is at risk. Whereas in South Africa, where abortion is available on demand up to 14 weeks, the MMR is 170. Somewhere along the way the FFQ must ask themselves what the key difference is between these two examples, since it’s obviously not the legalization of or access to abortion.

I am doubly puzzled by the final quote from this article.

“I’m a nurse by profession. Women’s health and children’s health is one of the great determinants of overall social and medical health, and Harper is going in absolutely the wrong direction. He’s putting families at risk,” said Scott Weinstein, a pro-choice demonstrator.

Forgive my crankiness, but this stuff drives me batty (short trip, I know):

Babies born to couples who had fertility treatment have a greater risk of birth abnormalities and doctors should be prepared to warn potential parents about these risks, French scientists said on Sunday.

Clinical geneticist Geraldine Viot said couples considering undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment should be told that the risk of birth defects is around twice that of babies conceived naturally.

Question: Once you start treating babies like commodities, where do you stop? I mean, if you’re going to spend a lot of time and effort and money to conceive, you don’t really want to hear about defects, right?

So much for the “abortion isn’t used as birth control” rhetoric. In Britain:

Government data have disclosed that 89 girls aged 17 or under who terminated a pregnancy last year had had at least two abortions previously.

[…]

The Department of Health figures for 2009 show that, for the first time, more than a third (34 per cent) of abortions were performed on women who had already ended one or more pregnancies.

Across all ages, more than 1,000 women or girls were on at least their fifth termination, including 214 on their sixth, 70 on their seventh and 48 who underwent the procedure for at least the eighth time.

[…]

The total number of abortions in England and Wales last year, 189,100, fell slightly on the previous year. Of those, 63,390 involved women who had previously ended a pregnancy, compared with 51,987 a decade ago — a rise of 22 per cent.

Almost 18,000 abortions were carried out on girls aged under 18, including more than 1,000 on girls aged 14 or under.

I dislike government handouts, but if you’re going to pay parents to have children maybe you ought to focus on the first few years?

New mothers should get a quarter of all their child’s benefits in just the first two years of a baby’s life to reduce the pressure on them to go back to work, it has been suggested.

The move for bringing forward the payments and letting mothers stay at home and let them bond more easily with their babies, according to the Government’s poverty adviser.

Currently, poorer parents are eligible to be paid as much as £100,000 in benefits and tax credits in equal instaments over the first 19 years of a child’s life, if he or she stays still in full time education.

However, Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, suggested the Government should tailor the system of child benefits so that it better suited parents’ lives.

This could see a quarter of this total – £25,000 – paid out in just the first two years of a child’s life, to take the financial pressure off young mothers to go back to work and encourage them to spend more time with their babies.

…means so much more than hospitals. From the BBC:

“…this year is the moment when the world will decide where to spend tens of billions of pounds over the next five years in the push towards the MDGs.”

[…]

But Dr Horton said it was “outrageous” that the latest investment announced by the Gates Foundation would not fund abortion services.

He added: “Unsafe abortion contributes to one in seven maternal deaths across the world. These women are already stigmatised, and they shouldn’t be ignored.”

My thoughts exactly! However, what Dr. Horton fails to see is that precisely by creating the space for abortion to become routine while not addressing the fundamental issues, we are ignoring these women. After all, it’s not the unborn child that enables the stigmatization.

Why, you might ask, would women go to such desperate lengths to have an abortion? For many young women, the cultural stigma of being an unwed mother is so strong that they will go to any length to avoid bringing shame and disgrace to their families.
A few years ago, a family friend committed suicide because her boyfriend had disowned the five-month-old foetus burgeoning within her womb. In her note to her parents she stated it would be better to die than bring humiliation to their Christian name.
Inherent in this cultural stigma is often the desertion of the partner or male responsible for the pregnancy, thus relegating the woman to position of a single mother.

Therefore the fear of single motherhood leads to unsafe abortions. A fear stronger than the desire to preserve life, even their own. Why? Because it’s not ideal, it’s not socially acceptable, and it’s not easy. It is essential, then, not only to provide these women with access to safe and hygienic medical care but to bring about a social change that will acknowledge these women as deserving of the dignity that can empower them with the strength and social support to become mothers, even in the least ideal of circumstances. Maternal health means so much more than hospitals, but they’re a good place to start.

In the Globe and Mail! Yes, the Globe and Mail:

And meanwhile for you, refuse to play the part of the whining, insecure girlfriend who debases herself by waiting around for a guy who regularly makes her feel like the least important part of his life.

I have played this part. And I have friends who have played this part. It’s quite common. And really, there need be no drama. A guy is either into you, or he’s not. And if he’s not, his loss. If he is, you should not need to wait for him. (By the phone. On Christmas Day. Not that that’s ever happened to me.)

Maybe there is a hidden pro-life message in this ad. So what? Seems to me churches can and should call it like it is (and abortion is morally wrong, though you would hardly know it by attending church these days) whether or not there may be a political takeaway.

The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform on the streets again, this time with some neutral, fair coverage.

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

Winning women in California, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

For our purposes here at PWPL, both are very successful and very wealthy, but Whitman is pro-abortion, Fiorina is pro-life. It’s a good start, anyway. (Whitman will come around.)