Archives for 2010

The beauty of Canadian abortion politics (bet you never thought you’d read “beauty” and “abortion politics” in the same sentence) is that they have always been very non-partisan. There are pro-lifers scattered about in every party. Did Michael Ignatieff just change the game by declaring his party to be the party of abortion rights? Will be interesting to see just who has to do the backpedalling here, and my guess is it’s not going to be the Conservatives. Tons of faithful Catholics vote Liberal. Or they used to, anyway.

Here’s a good piece about this, with plenty of good quotes:

By bringing abortion into a discussion where it had not previously been, and then making it a key element, Mr. Ignatieff seemed to go much further, says Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary political scientist and former campaign manager for the Conservative party. “Of all the issues that you could possibly raise about women’s health, why would you start with abortion?” Mr. Flanagan says. “What kind of mindset is that that you have to start killing unborn babies in order to help people? It seems to be based on the now discredited theory that poverty in the Third World is based on overpopulation. I don’t think any serious scholar believes that anymore.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It appears that abortion in the Liberal ranks just moved from necessary evil to irrevocable right. I don’t think the majority are comfortable that.

Or so it seems, from this research:

Patients left in a “vegetative” state after suffering devastating brain damage are able to understand and communicate, groundbreaking research suggests.

Experts using brain scans have discovered for the first time that the victims, who show no outward signs of awareness, can not only comprehend what people are saying to them but also answer simple questions.

They were able to give yes or no responses to simple biographical questions.

No, the technique those researchers use doesn’t work with every PVS patient. But they claim it did work with some. As the article also notes:

It will raise questions about when doctors should switch off life support machines. It is likely to add to the debate on assisted suicide as the patient could potentially decide and communicate if they wish to carry on living.

I’ll bet. And a good thing, too.

I find this surprising, to say the least:

The mortality rate of Californian women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, reports California Watch. The investigative reporting website interviewed the authors of a not-yet-public Department of Public Health study identifying the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the total number of deaths remains relatively small, the report affirms that it’s now more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia. Possible reasons behind the spike include an uptick in morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from the growing numbers of C-sections. And the trend could be nationwide. An alert issued last week to hospitals by the Joint Commission, the leading health care accreditation and standards group in the country, warned: “Unfortunately, current trends and evidence suggest that maternal mortality rates may be increasing in the U.S.”

Whatever you do, don’t ask Michael Ignatieff to comment.

Apparently, “baby brain” is a myth. Govern yourselves accordingly. (That means, fine, whatever, blame it on the hormones and the lack of sleep.)

When a politician has to engage in word distortions of Orwellian proportions, you know you have a real vote winner on your hands. Yup, he’s really laying down the gauntlet. I challenge you to a duel. Over what? Not telling! That’s the level of Michael Ignatieff’s avowed support for “woman’s rights.” It’s so strong that he can’t even say the word “abortion”.

“We don’t want to have women dying because of botched procedures. We don’t want to have women dying in misery,” Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday after Parliament Hill meetings on international development. “We’ve had a pro-choice consensus in this area for a couple of generations and we want to hold it.“

That leaves me feeling glad I get to talk about why abortion is not part of women’s rights, be it here or overseas, on Friday, at University of Ottawa. Lamoureux Hall, Room 122, 7 pm.

Come one, come all, yes Dr. Carolyn Bennett and Anita Neville, too. Looking forward to it.

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Véronique adds: Aaaaargh! Again, this pro-choice consensus thing! The only place where there is a pro-choice consensus is in the head of pro-choice advocates and politicians.

Universal daycare isn’t a good idea. Specific programs to help children and families in lower-income brackets, or people with various life challenges (self-inflicted or not), I can see. There is research that shows daycare helps those children, at least a little. But your average kid from the average middle-income family? Not so much.

“It’s also the best anti-poverty program. I want every single child in Canada to have the opportunity to get a square meal when they come to daycare; to get loving care and tender care,” Mr. Ignatieff added. “A lot of children in our country, we don’t like to admit it, start in a very turbulent difficult environment at home. The great thing about these programs is they give kids an equal start.”

Mr. Ignatieff is correct in one sense: Studies show that, on average, child care moderately improves the cognitive performance of children from low-income families — and the benefits last into adulthood. On the other hand, the same studies generally have shown no such lifelong benefits for children from middle- and high-income families.

Oh, and in the average normal family, “loving care and tender care” is something kids get at home, not in a government institution. When’s the last time you felt loved by a government bureaucrat?

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Thanks for posting about this, Brigitte: I try to keep my day job, in which I research child care, and my after-hours life, PWPL, separate. But on a day when a politician follows up an announcement about daycare with one about abortion that becomes difficult, to say the least.

Do these people even hear themselves talk?

Michael Ignatieff warned Stephen Harper today not to play “ideological games” with women’s health, suggesting the Prime Minister’s new commitment should extend to abortion programs.

“Let’s keep the ideology out of this and move forward,” said the Liberal leader at an afternoon press conference.

Mr. Ignatieff says he supports Mr. Harper’s initiative to make maternal health a key plank at this year’s G8 summit in Muskoka but cautioned that women must “have a full range of contraceptive options and have control of their fertility.”

I like this column by Suzanne Fortin over at No Apologies:

A recent occurrence sums it up nicely for me. I decided to sign up for a publicly funded poetry workshop. The lady who ran it was very sweet, but even though she was very nice, you know when you walk into room full of writers, the liberal worldview predominates. The exercises consisted of free writing that would be shared with the class – because that’s the whole point. Being Catholic and a pro-life activist, the things I think about are worlds away from what other people do. I didn’t want to sow division when I read my stuff because that would just ruin the atmosphere, so I didn’t write what I really thought. Now everyone in the room probably also engaged in a measure of self-censorship. But there’s more to censor when you don’t share the predominant worldview. It was very stifling. I didn’t write what I really wanted to say, which made the material inauthentic. Which is to say, not very good.

For me, this speaks to the notion that pro-lifers ought to be really great at what they do best, be it as artists, writers, doctors, lawyers. But the journey is uphill, because oftentimes in order to get to be the best in your field–whatever that field may be–you have to conceal your own convictions. Those who are imbued with tremendous talent can probably be as public as they like from the get go. For the rest of us, though, we have to plug along and do our best, working and waiting and strategically wondering when and how we can reveal who we truly are. Be it Christian, or pro-life, or gasp and good luck to you–both.

P.S. I don’t know how this happened, but I ran recently into this fellow who competes in “poetry slams” here in Ottawa. He broke out into a poem right there on the spot, which I very much enjoyed, if in part because it was so unexpected. Anyway, he shares in this particular poem (listen carefully) the struggle of being a Catholic Christian in a hostile culture.