Archives for 2010

In this morning’s Ottawa Citizen, a journalist asks: “… as women happily display themselves as sex objects. It raises the question: Is feminism dead?” I don’t know if feminism is dead but I wanted to point out that feminism is not about women displaying themselves as sex objects but about equal rights and equal opportunities. And when it comes to equal rights and opportunities, there is often more than meets the eye.

Take abortion for instance: poster procedure for women’s rights and equal opportunities… Or is it? I don’t need to start linking to previous posts: just scroll down long enough to find the next post on campus free speech, informed consent, pregnancy crisis centres, abortion counseling or post-abortion trauma (post-abortion what??) and you will find a world that doesn’t really want women to know what’s going on with abortion as long as they get it done. How equal is that? And I’m not even getting into coerced abortion (coerced what??), whether the coercion is physical or psychological.That’s it girls, just go and be whatever you want to be: firefighter, CEO, Secretary of State. Just don’t bother us with your babies. Everybody is treated equally here, like a man.

Go ahead and soothe yourself thinking that women still have a long way to go because there are 50-foot posters of half-naked girls adorning the outside walls of La Senza. It reminded me of walking back to the office on a warm summer afternoon, a couple of steps behind a co-worker who had just had her breasts, ahem, “enhanced”. Yes, men were ogling. But that’s — arguably — why she had it done. Where’s the inequality? The last time I went to La Senza, it was a woman’s store selling women things. Unless this has changed radically, the titillating images are selling something to women, not men. Poor taste? Probably. Inequality? No. Just like a boob job.

Roxanne’s Law is Bill C-510, a bill to ban coerced abortion. It’s named for Roxanne, who was brutally beaten and left in a snowbank to freeze to death because she wouldn’t have an abortion. But what if she had managed to protect herself and killed her attacker? Looks like that’s what happened here:

I almost missed this one. George Jonas on what you can and can’t say on campus. Naturally pro-life speech falls into the category of what you can’t say. My favourite part on why freedom of speech is curtailed:

Second, because the centre-left, in charge of both universities and the justice system, has a soft spot for the far-left from which free-speech deniers are launching their forays. Centrists and extremists of the left are kin under the skin. Left-centrists embrace illiberal institutions from “human rights” tribunals to affirmative discrimination, just like the far-left. While the centre-right is embarrassed by its far-right cousins and disowns them, the centre-left tries to find excuses for the black sheep of its own ideological family.

No matter how we got there, the end result is that we have police taking away pro-lifers in handcuffs.

Good grief:

LUCKNOW, India — A northern Indian village has banned unmarried women from using cell phones for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death, a local official said Wednesday.

The Lank village council decided unmarried boys could use mobile phones, but only under parental supervision, council member Satish Tyagi said. Local women’s rights group criticized the measure as backward and unfair.

Marriages between members of the same clan are forbidden under Hindu custom in some parts of north India, where unions are traditionally arranged by families. In conservative rural areas, families sometimes mete out extreme punishments, including so-called honor killings, for those who violate marriage taboos. In some cases, village councils themselves have ordered the punishments, though police often intervene to stop them.

The Lank village council feared young men and women were secretly calling one another to arrange forbidden elopements.

Part of me laughs, but mostly I’m horrified, of course. Marriage is tough enough without all those ridiculously backward rules one finds in ridiculously backward societies. Shame on these people.

So the web site getting people to vote on whether a baby should be born or aborted really is a hoax. What a twisted thing to do.

I can really only think of one thing more twisted, and that’s the very many clinics we have actually aborting babies daily and calling it “women’s rights.”

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Brigitte adds: If I understand correctly, they did it as a “pro-life” stunt. I would just like the record to show that this here pro-lifer very much disagrees with this kind of tactic. It’s not just twisted, it’s also quite stupid.

Paul Tuns has something nice to say about Laureen Harper:

Laureen Harper’s political activities are usually subtle and behind the scenes, so when the prime minister’s wife takes up the cause of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to be hanged for alleged infidelity, it is a big deal. She brought together more than a dozen prominent Canadians to brainstorm on the best way to ensure the cause remains in the public eye. I don’t believe Tehran cares one bit about international opinion, but it is nice to see Laureen Harper raising a genuine human rights issue.

I agree. Thank you, Mrs. Harper.

I’m always grateful for sources of news beyond the mainstream. The more the merrier when it comes to media, I say, and somehow, by checking all the sources, we *may* get a true sense of what is going on.

In any event, check out LifeSite’s new look.

Vote no here, in this CBC online poll.

A good summary by a Catholic scholar (as opposed to an agnostic reporter). Because there is a difference.

It’s good to read articles like this one, to get a sense of the sentiments of doctors who do abortions, if for no other reason. They see themselves as super heroes, donning capes in hospital corridors (and killing babies in a single bound). Their patients thank them, with tears in their eyes…

The whole article bothered me, from begining to end. That said, the part that bothered me most was the abortion doctor who tells his patients “We’ll get through this together.” Really? Because the doctor is only there for the duration of the abortion–not for the rest of the woman’s life.

As for the one abortion provider who simultaneously is looking to adopt and is worried about what to tell his adoptive child when the time comes? I’d have to say he likely doesn’t have to worry–what are the chances he’ll get a child? After all, there are so many abortions, so few adoptions.