Archives for 2010

There’s a new web site out, that gives information and support for adoption. Apparently, only two per cent of single women place their children for adoption. About 38 per cent abort.

The site has information, plus the stories of birth mothers.

We rarely hear about adoption these days. I think it’s because the abortion choice is so prevalent. But no one, least of all me, ever thought that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy has to keep the baby. (And this is a pro-life web site, so you all know what I mean by that.)

Spread the word about this new campaign.

Please forgive the totally-unrelated-to-prowomanprolifesque-content. This is just too funny not to share. Especially for those of us (hi, Andrea!) who enjoy sending text messages on our way cool iPhone.

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Andrea adds: I recently attended a hymn sing at St. Barmaids (Barnabas). Funny.

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Deborah says: Ah, another one to add to my Google Reader. My husband was taking (or trying to take) a nap on the sofa next to me and I kept waking him up laughing. I wish I had an iPhone as an excuse for my occasionally strange typos . . .

Admittedly, St. Barmaids sounds like it could be a really fun church. 🙂

I am a seraphic single.

Take today, for example. I woke up at six am, briefly wondered whether I was late for something, realized it was Saturday, rolled over and slept in…until eight. Eight am constitutes a sleep in for me. Earlier is work territory and later means your sister has done her homework, been for a run, baked muffins and already had time to get bored…There I go channeling high school again.

Back to this morning: I opened the curtains at eight, looked at the changing leaves in the sun and approved. I made tea and drank it from my Made in Poland cups. (This is a growing collection, and simply looking at my Made in Poland butter dish makes me happy. You must see it yourself, and you will agree.) I made pancakes and checked the internet. I responded to a response from a woman who works in an abortion clinic to my defence of Roxanne’s Law in the Calgary Herald.

Good times for Andrea. And not, perhaps, what I’d be doing if I weren’t single.

I am a seraphic single, except when I’m not. And I wasn’t when I received Seraphic Single: How I learned to stop worrying and love the single life by Dorothy Cummings  in the mail, for free. My actual thought was something along the lines of Oh For PETE’S Sake!: Does the one thing I ever receive for free thanks to my blogging have to be a book about singleness? For when I received this book I had just had a relationship end. And abruptly ended relationships disturb the equilibrium and the seraphicity of life, to put it bluntly.

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Remember the conjoined twins born in BC a while back? They just turned four. An interesting and endearing look at how they are doing.

Of course, nothing is assured. The state of their health can turn on a dime. Every day they defy the odds. So many odds. How many mothers would have done what Felicia Simms did, not terminating the pregnancy, knowing what she knew? How many families would have banded together, and stayed together, and grown stronger in a bond almost as fierce as that of the twins – ignoring, or at least absorbing, the financial hardships, judgmental stares and whispered disapprovals?

Their mother has come to accept each day with them as a gift and a little miracle; its purpose still unfolding. “They’re here for a reason,” she says, as you lace up your shoes and prepare to leave. “We just don’t know the reason yet.” “Hug!” demands Krista. And you sweep them up, feeling their warm embrace and two beating hearts. And you wonder about that reason all the long way home.

When I wrote my piece for the Calgary Herald, I deliberately put the name of the blog Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome in. It’s the best way to ensure the blog author takes note and responds.

And respond she did.

A couple of small things. She seems to be annoyed I didn’t link to her in the piece. That’s just silly–of course I couldn’t, because the piece was published in print. Interested parties are supposed to go and do what everyone does: Use Google.

She also seems to think I’ve misquoted her. I have not. Someone landed in her clinic who did not want an abortion and made a big fuss about it. That was the sole point. That the blog author made fun of her, that the girl left without having an abortion is entirely irrelevant. She got that far in a process she didn’t want to participate in.

That Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome disagrees with me is no great surprise. She works in an abortion clinic. Most women do feel some relief around the day of the abortion. That’s the short term effect; it took care of the pregnancy. It made it go away. I bet Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome gets thank you cards for her work. In the short-term.

That’s the thing about abortion. You feel relief that you didn’t have to have a child with the wrong person, in a wrong relationship, at the wrong time…But in the long term you look back and ask yourself: Was it really so dire? Did I have to kill? My kid would have been X years old today. And that’s where I get the feedback. The questions. The friends lying curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, sobbing for a mistake that can never be undone. And it’s a mistake to have an abortion. It’s a mistake to think that life problems are solved through abortion.

Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome is 26 years old. She sounds like the type of person I’d like. After all, she’s someone who started up a blog about a topic she believes in. But she could afford to open up the dialogue and listen to the heart of what I wrote. It was something I was hoping people working in clinics would hear, and be aware of, since I fully understand that they are not wanting to do abortions on women who are unsure, or don’t want them. They should be the front lines in diverting women out the door. They should be the front lines of asking the tough questions on whether or not a woman wants to be there. They should be at the front lines of diminishing abortion numbers. I know some who actually want to do this.

No reason, then, to laugh at my article. I wrote it with a good heart, and representing the many women out there who regret their abortions, but only do so in the long term.

Earlier this month, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council met to discuss the adoption of human rights, like the rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, in order to determine what states must focus on in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals. But what right was Ontario based Dr. Kishore Singh concerned with addressing to the committee?

Sex education is a sensitive matter for all societies,” said Mr. Singh, relating that Mr. Muñoz, in his final report, had noted a “worrying lack of sustainable and comprehensive strategies” to ensure the adequate inclusion of sex education in educational and health policies and that, without accurate information, many people were exposed to abuse or risky practices, with potential consequences to their physical and physiological well-being.  The many recommendations made by the former Special Rapporteur provided a point of reference for discussions, Mr. Singh added.

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The Special Rapporteur concludes his report by reiterating the necessity and the relevance of the right to comprehensive sexual education.  He presents specific recommendations for States and the international community, including:  adopting and strengthening legislation aimed at guaranteeing the right to sexual education; encouraging public policies aimed at ensuring the right to comprehensive sexual education; ensuring the inclusion of comprehensive sexual education from primary school onwards; establishing the curriculum of sexual education, providing high-quality teacher training; and encouraging the inclusion of families and civil society in curriculum design and implementation.

The idea of what constitutes appropriate sex education varies not only from nation to nation but from person to person, making the universalism of such a right impossible to establish. In the west (especially in the U.S.), parents tend to still have some degree of input on at what age and what kind of sexual education their children are exposed to, but attempting to make this information a basic human right essentially takes all personal choice and preference out of the equation. It would also annihilate respect to religious differences on the subject.

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Brigitte adds: But Jennifer, that’s exactly why they’re doing it… We just weren’t supposed to notice.

Why shouldn’t beauty queens be able to defend themselves?

Swimsuit? Check. Evening gown? Check. Gun — huh?

At first glance, the Miss Liberty America pageant looks like any other scholarship pageant going out there. However, its odd requirements — like needing to be CPR-certified, proficient with firearms and able to converse about historic American documents — make it sound more like a program for young Sarah Palins-in-training or Mama Grizzlies-to-be.

And that’s something its founder, Alicia Hayes-Roberts, is perfectly OK with. “It is absolutely a beauty pageant,” she told TODAYshow.com, “filled with elite, feminine patriots.”

You go, girls!

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Deborah adds: Good find! Now that’s a pageant I could win if it wasn’t for the swimsuit competition (maybe I could make up for it by shooting really well . . . in a swimsuit)! Call me a redneck, but getting to pick any handgun or rifle and getting lifetime membership to the NRA would be the greatest ever.  🙂

Oh, look! Another stupid comment!

U.S. elections went sour for Nancy Keenan.

Here she is yesterday, in a mailing to supporters urging them to get out the vote for candidates who support the right to “terminations”:

And in a message to supporters today, following a string of defeats for pro-abortion candidates:

Must have been one hell of a rough night, by the look of things.

I would very much love it if a man brought forward a human rights complaint that he is being denied an abortion. I’m pretty sure they’d hear it: