Archives for 2011

ProWomanProLife is three years old today. Happy Birthday to us!

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Andrea adds: Not to put a damper on the birthday celebration, but it is hard to uncork the champagne when your founding coincides with a reprehensible, sad and heavy moment in Canadian history, both for women and their unborn children. January 28 is the 23rd anniversary of the Morgentaler decision. However, onwards and upwards, there are more and more of us (by this I mean ProWomanProLife types, and pro-lifers in general) and we are all actively and gracefully (I hope) pushing toward an end to abortion in Canada. Maybe I’ll have a beer after work, after all. (I’m not sure three years warrants champagne. Or even a fine wine. But on many occassions I actually prefer beer. It’s the time spent in Germany…I’m officially digressing now. Happy Birthday ProWomanProLife! Thank you to our readers, and thank you to those who quietly and faithfully do their part in the struggle.)

Re Andrea’s post from yesterday. Just heard on the radio something about a contest to kill coyotes that didn’t sit well with the authorities because it offers a prize for the best kill (here’s a news story about it, in case you’re curious). The news reader explained that you can’t benefit from killing an animal, even if it’s a pest.

Wish they had a rule like that for killing humans…

p.s. coyotes really are a pest.

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Deborah adds: Tell that to the folks at the University of Victoria. Even the hippies there are okay with a rabbit cull.

When your cause is animal rights, apparently all you have to do is mention displeasure and bingo-bango-bongo things change! (No more pigs killed for use in training medical students.) It’s that easy.

People? Not so much.

We need a post about this latest study suggesting abortion doesn’t trigger mental illness. I, however, will not let the media tell me what to think about it. SO. I make you aware of this, while commiting to actually read the thing later.

It’s interesting that though the headlines basically allow the reader to think “no mental health problems after abortion” there are more mental health problems among those who have abortions than those who give birth. The headline comes of the fact that there was no increase in mental health problems after abortion–those who had mental health problems after had them before, where having a baby showed an increase in mental health issues:

Researchers compared the rate of mental health treatment among women before and after a first abortion. Within the first year after an abortion, 15 per 1,000 women needed psychiatric counseling — similar to the rate seeking help nine months before an abortion….While first-time mothers had a lower rate of mental problems overall, the proportion of those seeking help after giving birth was dramatically higher. About 7 per 1,000 women got mental health help within a year of giving birth compared with 4 per 1,000 women pre-delivery.

I reserve judgment. And if anyone feels like they have the time and the inclination and wants to send the study along in full, I’d welcome that!

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Brigitte doesn’t have time to read the whole thing, so she’ll just talk through her hat: Seriously. You don’t see me talk about these things very much. Mostly because to me, the reason why abortion is wrong isn’t because it causes (or not) mental-health problems, or breast cancer, or a bad complexion. Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human being, often in a most distressfully casual manner.

So a study says having an abortion does not cause women to seek psychiatric help as much as giving birth to a baby does. So what? Of course giving birth to a baby (even a wanted baby) is stressful. Duh. Nobody ever suggested it was a stress-free picnic. Some women just have a touch of baby blues. Others have more serious problems. Most worry about being a good mom. And I’m willing to bet most moms occasionally feel that they’re not up to the job.

But there’s one thing the woman who gave birth to her baby will never feel: guilt at having taken her baby’s life. That’s got to count for something, even if scientists can’t measure it.

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UPDATE: Read Dr. Priscilla Coleman’s assessment of the study, here. Dr. Coleman is a reputable psychologist who has worked on this topic for years.

Since we all learn to parent from popular culture, I thought it important to spend a minute of introspection figuring if we are more like “Amy Chua” — of Tiger Mother fame — or “Betty Draper” — Mad Man Don Draper’s long suffering wife. (I’m still in season three so shush already!) 

Where are the positive parenting models asks  this piece from the Huffington Post. Well, I see plenty all around me. But I don’t spend my time in front of a TV screen. Maybe that’s why.

You can get in trouble for using the term “pro-abortion.” But in the gruesome story from Philadelphia, is there any other word?

But the grand jury found that Pennsylvania authorities knew what was happening at Gosnell’s abortion mill, yet deliberately looked the other way. In 1993, with the accession of a prochoice governor, the Pennsylvania Department of Health stopped inspecting abortion clinics. “Officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,’’ the report says, and decided “to leave clinics to do as they pleased.’’

So great is the concern around “access” that standards get tossed aside. The tossing aside of standards happened recently in Quebec, too. Rebecca and I wrote about that, here.

Back to Philadelphia, though. When the goal is unethical (killing babies) is it any wonder that some doctors “cross the line”? From day one of choosing to work in a clinic, they already did.

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Brigitte adds: Words fail...

… how much I like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie? First and foremost because he’s got guts and isn’t afraid to stand for what he believes in. Also because he is taking on public sector unions (not the most PWPL-esque topic so I won’t elaborate here). And then there’s this. To be this openly pro-life in such a “blue” state and still be popular is very encouraging indeed.

In a follow-up to Saturday’s story, women in the UK rallied yesterday in response to undercover police officers using sex to “infiltrate” groups.

DOZENS OF women demonstrated outside Scotland Yard, London, yesterday over the conduct of police officers who had sexual relationships with women they met while working undercover among environmental and left-wing protest groups.

One protester, Belfast student Maeve McKeown, said: “In the United States, that would be considered as rape, because there was no informed consent.”

The conduct of these policemen is a major headache for the British force, following the disclosure in a recent trial that policeman Mark Kennedy had sexual relationships with a number of women during the seven years he lived undercover among environmental activists. Two other officers have been outed since.

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Demanding the identification of all the officers involved, Leila Deen, another of the demonstrators, asked a young uniformed Metropolitan Police officer standing guard outside New Scotland Yard: “Did you know your agents were using sex with women like us to get information? It is a clear abuse of public office.”

Acting Metropolitan Police commissioner Tim Godwin and Cmdr Bob Broadhurst are expected to face a difficult time today when they appear before the home affairs select committee in the House of Commons to explain why the Met gave false information about the use of undercover officers during the G20 protests in London in 2009.

The protester who commented on “informed consent” is incorrect however, as informed consent refers to a minimum intellectual capacity and/or emotional maturity (this usually refers to victims who are children, developmentally disabled, etc.). Fully capable adults who have been lied to by their sexual partners on the other hand are unfortunately par for the course. Aside from the obvious ethical violations the protesters address, I’m surprised that the issue of these officers being paid during these events hasn’t come up. Ahem, paid to have sex, and on the state’s dime?

You will, I trust, forgive the pun:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with murdering one woman and seven newborn babies at his rogue clinic, called the Women’s Medical Society, in West Philadelphia. Though it’s too early to predict this case’s full political impact, it’s certain that anti-abortion groups will use it to push for further restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. But the legislation pushed by these anti-abortion conservatives is what has forced women into such life-threatening situations. Poor women throughout the United States cannot afford safe abortions and in consequence sometimes make extremely dangerous choices.

“Because of the Medicaid ban on abortion funding and state restrictions, poor women in the state and in Philadelphia really face horrific choices about what to do if they have an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy that poses significant health problems,” says Rose Corrigan, a professor of politics and law at Drexel University. “So what I’ve seen is that women often shop around for abortion services. Women are so poor that a few dollars really make a difference.”

A longer article about what makes a feminist. It’s hard to nail down and this conversation is going to continue for as long as there are women on the planet, but one thing remains clear:  

And these divisions don’t begin to address the biggest bone of contention of all: abortion. The writer and movie director Nora Ephron answered the what-is-feminism quiz simply by announcing: “You can’t call yourself a feminist if you don’t believe in the right to abortion.” Many liberals agree. Yet most Grizzlies oppose abortion; Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who lost in November, even rejected it in the cases of rape and incest. Palin has praised young women who carry unintended pregnancies to term as “strong,” “smart,” and “capable.” It seems unlikely that the Grizzlies can successfully recast feminism as antiabortion, but surveys suggest that women have been growing less sympathetic to the proabortion position—so who knows?

I’m not sure I care whether feminism can be recast to include pro-life women. I am, however, confident that women will come round to seeing being pro-life as a reasonable position to take, regardless of their position on trillion dollar deficits, national defence or any other matter.