Archives for 2010

GUILTY.

The University of Calgary has notified eight members of the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) student group that they have been found guilty of a major violation under the Non-Academic Misconduct Policy regarding a pro-life display held last month. The verdict comes one week after the students each attended individual, closed-door hearings with an Associate Vice-Provost during which legal representatives were disallowed.

The verdict is “a formal written warning” that if the students “fail to comply with directives of Campus Security staff in the future” it will “result in more severe sanctions,” said Acting Associate Vice-Provost Meghan Houghton, who was the sole decision-maker in the guilty verdict.

“We are going to challenge this verdict,” stated Alanna Campbell, CPL President. “We did not break a single University bylaw or regulation and so we will defend ourselves accordingly. We will also not cease exercising our rights to free speech just because they’re threatening us. I’d rather be expelled as a principled person than graduate a coward.”

That’s my kind of girl! Wish I had that kind of courage back in school.

I happen to think there’s lots wrong with this. Though I’m terribly glad for anyone who can become a mother, I don’t think it should be done at any cost, or quite frankly, through interventions like in vitro at any age. It seems unjust for the children, in a way. Imagine being 20 with a mother who is 80? And therefore no chance to know grandparents, and no chance for grandparents to know you?

To my mom, to all the moms:

…Mothering remains a profoundly worthwhile undertaking, one that Chesterton calls nothing less extraordinary than “the mystery of the making of men.”

…And women. Happy Mother’s Day.

Today is May 8, so join us if you can!

Back to maternal health. This citation from this article is important:

The second problem is that, while abortion on demand may be legal in Canada, it’s actually illegal in most of the countries into which aid would flow as part of this initiative. I’m surprised that this fact has garnered as little attention as it has in this debate. It’s one thing for private groups like Planned Parenthood to raise money and spend it in defiance of the laws and customs of the countries in which they are operating – it’s another thing entirely when states do. The former is a nuisance; the latter is a form of neo-colonialism that can undermine any number of bi-lateral or multi-lateral initiatives from improving trade to protecting the environment.

It goes to show you just how political the debate is. Those who advocate for abortion always add that we should be offering it where it is legal. And in most places, it isn’t. What more do we need to hear to know that we know that we know that those who think abortion ought to be included in maternal health are people who are pushing for expanded abortion access and nothing else?

Great interview in Macleans on teenage girls:

For girls, I use this term “anorexia of the soul,” which I first read in a New York Times article. What I understand it to mean is that this girl is wasting away on the inside. She’s obsessed with surface—being the best student, or the fastest runner—but inside, her sense of self is undernourished, it’s starving. She doesn’t realize it because people keep praising her for being the top student or the fastest runner, and her sense of self gets tied up in that surface. I just don’t see that with boys. You will certainly find a lot of boys who are very comfortable, when you ask them to tell you about themselves, saying, “Well, I’m a really good gamer.” That’s also a pretty impoverished sense of self, but it doesn’t seem to bother the boys. And unfortunately, perhaps, they’re more robust and less prone to existential collapse than girls. That boy who’s a champion gamer is not going to fall apart if some other guy gets to level two in a game before he does. That’s okay, he still has status among other boys. Whereas the girl whose identity consists of being the “smart girl” or “Justin’s girlfriend” tends to crumble if she doesn’t get into the university of her choice or if Justin dumps her.

I think if we understood these realities a bit better, the whole abortion as empowerment idea would crumble, because it becomes clearer and clearer to me that a great many girls (and women) have an abortion because someone else told them too, or didn’t support them, or said or implied they wouldn’t love her anymore if she didn’t. Tragic.

Great column, great read about the sex ed curriculum kerfuffle.

Personally, my favourite point in the whole thing came when I was forcibly confined in a room with the CBC on TV. (Waiting for the ferry from Toronto’s island airport–it was either swim, listen, or put my fingers in my ears while saying “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!”)

Anyway, a young woman, author of Laid, a book about “young people’s experiences with sex in an easy-access culture” came on to proclaim how distressed she was that the curriculum had been removed. Her book logo is the word “laid” written on a condom wrapper. Just the sort of role model parents want teaching their children, really.

The Lancet is an influential body, so this one is tough to stomach:

…70 000 women die from unsafe abortions worldwide every year. The Canadian Government does not deprive women living in Canada from access to safe abortions; it is therefore hypocritical and unjust that it tries to do so abroad. Although the country’s decision only affects a small number of developing countries where abortion is legal, bans on the procedure, which are detrimental to public health, should be challenged by the G8, not tacitly supported. Canada and the other G8 nations could show real leadership with a final maternal health plan that is based on sound scientific evidence and not prejudice.

Turns out, “sound scientific evidence” is just about impossible to come by in this arena. I’m quite sure even your average pro-choice doctor would agree there. And even if legal abortion were safe and medically necessary, an assumption I do not accept, it still would not be Canada’s job to push for it in countries where good obstetric care of any kind is completely and totally unavailable.

_____________________________

Brigitte adds: I may have missed something, but where do people get the idea that refusing to fund abortions amounts to banning them?

_____________________________

Andrea adds: Thanks for that, Brigitte. Exactly.

Just as a rule of thumb, if the word “ruse” is in the headline, I’m likely to link to the article. But then on top of that, here, we get the wisdom of Margaret Somerville. Good times.