Archives for 2011

National Review, a conservative magazine founded by the late great William F. Buckley (a Roman Catholic) is not known for taking socially liberal positions. Salon, on the other hand, the online magazine, might be. If for example, you were looking for one magazine to support and condone sexual teenage relationships, you wouldn’t go to National Review as a first choice. 

So what happens when National Review runs a story about Steve Tyler (of Aerosmith fame), and his former (much younger) girlfriend having an abortion? Salon slams them for not condemning the relationship that led to the abortion.

The National Review piece is by the co-founder of Rachel’s Vineyard, a post-abortion counselling group. So it seems natural to focus on post-abortion effects, not the societal disarray that is the root cause of so many abortions.

Certainly, Tyler’s relationship with his “girlfriend” sounds horrifying–he convinced her parents that he should be her legal guardian so they could live together. She was 14.

But when the Salon writer reads it, she’s horrified that the piece is about the after-effects of abortion and not the relationship itself or how the girl suffered. Those would be worthwhile articles to write, but they are different articles. I’m sure they’ve been written before, and I’m sure they’ve been written by pro-lifers, too, a group of people who are much more often concerned about the sort of sexual relationships that lead to abortions in the first place.

The Salon piece is here and the National Review piece is here, should you be interested in taking a look at both.

I have to say, I’m loving the Reservoir Dogs feel of this cover. While you have to subscribe to get the full issue, I can offer a tidbit.

The Canadian movement advocating for the sanctity of life from conception until natural death has a refreshing – and some may find surprising – face today. By Alex Newman

When 23-year-old Ruth Lobo was arrested last fall for a controversial display her pro- life group set up at Carleton University, she set off a minor media storm. Even the Canadian Civil Liberties Association weighed in, arguing the student had a right to her voice on her own campus – even though they might not agree with what Lobo’s display said.

A year earlier, an elementary school student – Lia Mills of Toronto, then age 12 – chose abortion as her topic for a school public speaking contest. Despite opposition and threatened backlash, she placed first in the competition.

Then there’s American Abbey Johnson, a young woman who watched an ultrasound monitor in a Texas abortion clinic as an unborn child recoiled from the instruments. She is now a vocal pro-life advocate.

Or consider Gianna Jessen, 32, who addresses audiences around the world about her life – a life her biological mother tried to end in a late-term abortion. She continues to tell everyone: “I didn’t survive so I can make everyone comfortable.” Articulate, educated young women who embrace the gains of the women’s liberation movement – this is the face of today’s pro-life movement. Look at any photo or video from the annual March for Life on Parliament Hill
and you’ll see them – row on row of young women energetically propelling their banners forward.

[…]

“We can and will speak for ourselves. A woman can be pro-life.”

These young women aren’t just bringing a message – they are the message.

_____________________

Update: Full Faith Today story can be read here.

This week, the annual March for Life will be taking place across the country. While Deborah is out in Victoria, I’ll be out in Halifax. To find your own regional event, click here. The Winnipeg event is tomorrow (not sure why), but the rest will take place on Thursday, May 12th. It’s a great way to support and be supported.

If you’re in Ottawa, there will be an additional Youth Conference on Friday.

“After all, religion is the only reason you all seem to cling to this idea that a fetus is a baby or a human.”

This is a quote from the letter Andrea posted yesterday. It reminded me of a post I’ve been meaning to write for a while and here we – finally – go!

I am currently taking a journey in the unexplored confines of our society’s split personality when it comes to abortion and the status of the fetus. Last February, I found out with great surprise that I was expecting. For those who are keeping count, that would be number 7. Oh well, thought I, we’ll have one for each day of the week. Our children were ecstatic, people thought we were crazy (same old same old). Except that 3 weeks ago, we found out – with even greater surprise – that 7 days wouldn’t be quite enough. I am expecting twins. If I ever thought I had heard it all with my large family, expecting twins takes the cake. I now qualify as a bona fide circus animal. I should have known from the tone of pessimistic disbelief in the ultrasound technician’s “…well, you seem to be taking it well…” that I was in for an interesting ride.

Reading everything I can put my hands on, I learned a few factoids. Twinning rates have been increasing steadily for the last 20 years, partly due to increasing maternal age (check!) and assisted reproduction technologies (uncheck, just in case you’re wondering). This means that my search for the best double-stroller has lead me to countless assisted reproduction message boards and Internet sites. In the ART world, gametes are babies. They are loved and expected from implantation, a time when mothers like me don’t even know they are pregnant. They are mourned and remembered when implantation fails, a time when mothers like me just have another period.

Every book about twins starts with a detailed chapter about twinning and early conception. With quotes like “this is when your babies’ cells start specializing”, “this is when your babies’ hearts start beating”, “by so-many-weeks, your embryos are now fully formed and will only get bigger and bigger until they are ready to be born…” there is no grey zone. But then, the whole gig gets positively weird when it tackles selective reduction or the selective abortion of some fetuses in a high-order multiple pregnancy (usually triplet and more). Presented as just one more medical procedure, it balances out the advantages (higher chances for the remaining fetus(es) to be born at term) with the risks (higher chances of mortality following the procedure for the remaining fetus(es)) in a cold medical calculation and barely touches the psychological impact such a decision must have on the parents. You may think that it must be because there Is no psychological impact but I once met a woman whose ovaries had been over-stimulated through ART. She was only told that she could be expecting as many as 8 babies and should consider selective reduction. She spent the following week in a complete state of shock at the thought of having to choose which babies to dispatch after spending years struggling with infertility. A simple risk-benefits analysis it was not. Thankfully, only 2 embryos implanted and she carried healthy twin girls to term. Ten years later, she still cries when she recounts this episode.

And so this is my journey at the heart of our collective split personality. On one page, fetuses are pint-sized human beings with all the bells and whistles of personhood, the next page, they are subject to reduction, like a wart or a tumour. When the pendulum stops swinging, I hope it will be on the side of the baby.

A letter I received yesterday. It’s certainly a “view from the other side.” I grew up with this view, to a certain extent and even had an old teacher of mine tell me how she can’t understand it when “women [like you] fail to support women’s hard fought rights.” That was at a wedding reception. I smiled and nodded.

To be certain, this is not my target audience…someone this doctrinaire is certainly not the person I aim to encourage. But I thought it’s good to know this view is alive and well. I’d say a comment of “no comment” is perhaps most appropriate…if you choose to comment, be nice.

You are not “pro-woman” and as a woman it is deeply disturbing that you would attempt to call yourself that. It makes me sick that women band together to unempower themselves after years of fighting and winning their rights. What you are, plain and simple, is ignorant religous nuts. After all, religion is the only reason you all seem to cling to this idea that a fetus is a baby or a human. Perhaps your thinking will go back another century and you will inform us all that sperm are sacred and the use of condoms is a sin. I hope you all come to your sences and remove this website before you actually cause any harm to the women’s rights movement.

You should be ashamed of what you are doing to your own people. Abortions are never forced, and no woman commenting on here would ever have an abortion if she did not want one. Why do you want to remove that right from others? It does not affect you. It does not involve you. It is none of your buisness. And yet you are so passionate about it.

Women spent so long fighting for their place and say in this man’s world and here you are, a group of women, commited to unempowering the women of this country.

If you could all focus your attention and energy on something that is actually important perhaps you could make a positive change in this wourld. But you don’t want that. You just want to ignorantly bitch and complain. Nice. I hope your proud. I’m not proud to be a woman today, and I truely wish I never found this disgraceful website.

In case anybody out west is interested, a week from today (Thursday the 12th of May) is the March for Life in Victoria (looks like there are others, such as in Ottawa and maybe other places, but I don’t know the details on those). It will start at Centennial Square at 2:00 and we’ll march to the legislature where there will be a few speakers. That evening at 5:30 there will be a banquet with even more speakers. They’d like to keep the message positive, so if you can’t come up with a good sign on your own, some will be provided (or if you’re like me, bring a camera and take pictures of everyone else).

For more information, check out the website they recruited me to put together. 🙂

Canada does not have any systemic problem with gender discrimination against women. Not so in other parts of the world. Read here about how girls and women are treated in India. Tragic.

Mariah Carey had twins! And this gives an opportunity to link to the pro-life rap her husband did a couple years back. And then what I’ll also do is link to the other pro-life rap that Brigitte and I wrote about once upon a time in the Ottawa Citizen. The first one has a happy outcome, since Nick Cannon is rapping about his own near death but obviously lived to tell the tale. The second one is by a father who regrets the loss of his child.

Enjoy.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdOCwd9EttE”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdOCwd9EttE]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5f9-b-Zfnw”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5f9-b-Zfnw]

(h/t)

Pro-abortion folks are today wringing their hands and weeping because they truly do believe that electing a majority Conservative government means an end to abortion in this country. Honestly, I’ve never before and probably never will again wish that pro-abortion folks were right.

For the rest of us living in Canada in 2011, having heard Prime Minister Harper say over and over that he will not introduce or support abortion legislation, well, it seems reasonable to believe it.

ProWomanProLife has never been motivated by legislative matters. The idea was to motivate the grassroots, those quiet Canadians cross country who believe abortion is wrong and wish it would end; those who understand that abortion is not a “woman’s right,” not a “man’s right” because it is simply not a right at all.

That said, there was an election and so I will muse about what I’d do if I had just been elected and wanted to see our House of Commons move on abortion legislation.

I think I’d try for a bill that outlaws late-term abortion. As such it would be an upfront, in-your-face pro-life bill and would be branded as such. Accusations of a hidden agenda would be met with “Yes, we are working to eradicate abortion in Canada by starting with an area that all Canadians know is wrong and morally reprehensible.”

I like it anytime a bill comes up that allows us to debate abortion, for, unlike Harper and so many other politicians on the Hill, I am not allergic to discussing this matter. And while I am not all that interested in the latest in pro-life legislation, every time this comes up on Parliament Hill it creates the opportunity for Canadians to reconsider the matter.

I believe the ramifications of allowing abortion to continue  in Canada mean we are a weaker, less just society. Abortion is not a settled matter and never will be, until we give up on this barbaric practice altogether.

On a related note, congratulations to superstar MP Rod Bruinooge, head of the parliamentary pro-life caucus, who was re-elected in Winnipeg South.

From Texas,

AUSTIN — A sonogram bill that would require women seeking an abortion to hear a detailed description of their fetus, as well as be presented images and heartbeats, won Senate approval Monday, moving it closer to becoming one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation.

Women could opt out of seeing the sonogram or listening to a heartbeat, if it is detectable, but almost all would have to listen to a doctor outline what organs and extremities have developed. The measure was tentatively approved, 21-10, and faces one more vote before it heads back to the House.[…]

A tougher sonogram bill already has passed the House. Bill author Rep. Sid Miller, R-Stephenville, said he will review the Senate version and is likely to ask the full House to accept the changes so it can be sent quickly to the governor, who has supported the bill.

Under the bill, all women would be required to have a sonogram within 24 hours of the abortion procedure, even if they recently had the test. A daylong wait would then be required, except for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion facility; they could have an abortion the same day as the sonogram.

In almost all early pregnancies, a sonogram is performed with a vaginal probe. Women could avert their eyes if they choose not to see the image.

In all cases — except for medical emergencies, rape, incest or minors who have a judge’s order allowing the abortion — the women would have to hear a detailed explanation of fetal development.