Worth a chuckle. I love it when America’s Finest News Source gets in touch with God for a story. When I was a journalist, He never gave me the money quotes like this:

Mountains, above all else, are undoubtedly my most splendid creation,” God proclaimed. “Mountains are incredibly tall. They are also miles wide and are filled with millions upon millions of tons of earth. These facts alone make them objectively more impressive than human beings.”

Sometimes when I’m tired of the petty, mean, bloviating blogosphere I go to Momastery to rekindle my hope in humanity.

This birth story is beautiful, and not quite the story you think it is.

Sources say it’s being considered. They also report that pro-lifers, apparently, oppose this. I don’t think I would; I think Condoleeza Rice could make for a great running mate.

Every single person affiliated with this site has their real name and real picture up. The point being that whether you love or hate our views on abortion, you know we are real people. We want to tell the world that being pro-life is a perfectly reasonable stand for a strong woman to take, so we show you our real lives (to a degree, since I also believe in privacy).

I understand why anonymity is desirable in the abortion debate. You might lose your job. There are security issues. I have been to the police station in Ottawa to report highly disturbing emails sent to my site, for example. Overall, however, if you have chosen to be activist on this issue, you probably, like me, feel you have little to lose by going public. If an employer doesn’t want me because of my pro-life views, would I want to work there? Probably not.

I find many of the pro-choice blogs I follow from time to time do not follow the same ethos. These are people like Pedgehog working in a clinic (fuzzy photo, bare bones bio and I’m assuming she wasn’t christened “Pedgehog”) or ardent defenders of abortion like Fern Hill (clear photo–of a gorgeous German Shepherd, who I am assuming doesn’t do the typing).

Here we have another highly politicized abortion defence that remains unconvincing precisely because of the anonymity.

There are reasons to be anonymous when blogging about abortion. And I have not quantified the number of pro-life anonymous blogs versus pro-choice anonymous blogs. In my experience, however, the pro-life blogs are not (mostly) anonymous and the pro-choice ones (mostly) are. I wonder why, since very often the voices at the pro-choice blogs are testifying to the normalcy and neutrality of abortion.

It can be controversial to assert in public debate with pro-choicers that abortion is used as birth control. But then there are pro-choicers like this, who just come right out and say it:

Until mass abstinence is feasible or permanent pregnancy is desired, sustainable, or safe, though, the best options women have to control their reproductive health are contraception and abortion.”

I won’t bemoan the state of gender relations. I won’t, because others do it for me. You have more traditional/conservative/religious female bloggers complaining about men. You have traditional/conservative/religious men complaining about women. You have liberal feminist atheists doing the same. My personal relationships with the men in my life are great. Societally speaking, however, I’m aware that things are not on the up and up.

Anyway, here’s one of the many blog posts on this theme. And what it highlights is that men and women are different, which is simultaneously one of the most ridiculously self obvious things to say and one of the most controversial.

Here’s where I’ll tie this in to abortion. If we fail to acknowledge that men and women are different, we’ll never get over this idea that “abortion is a woman’s right.” Because this notion stems in part from the idea that when women have sex, the outcome should be exactly the same as it is for men. Men can’t get pregnant, ergo, neither should women. The “unpregnancy” of abortion is a mainstay of this flawed worldview.

(Please note: I’m not sure that I’ve used the word “ergo” properly, but gosh, doesn’t it just seem to fit in with the flow of that sentence?)

These results aren’t what I’d like to hear. That said, these results are not what extreme advocates for “abortion rights” would like to hear either.

Canadians generally support a woman’s right to have an abortion but many believe the medical procedure should only be allowed in “certain circumstances,” a new poll has found.

This “resignation” doesn’t make me sad and I’m not concerned about 16 dollar glasses of orange juice.

I am concerned when a minister can’t tell the difference between groups that do charitable work with people in need, and groups that push for “abortion rights” in countries that don’t want ’em.

That’s why I won’t miss Bev Oda.

Tonight after an exhausting weekend of carrying boxes up and down three flights of stairs, I made my way over to the New Abortion Caravan event here in Ottawa. Because I am currently semi-comatose my blog post will not be long or profound, but simply say Get Thee to Hear a CCBR presentation when you can, because they do good work. And you may feel conflicted over their use of graphic visuals, but their explanation for this is eloquent and thought-provoking.

What wasn’t eloquent or thought-provoking was walking out through a wall of protestors calling out “My body, my choice” in both official languages. I left early, too, and by myself, and they still kicked into high gear as they saw me coming. I smiled and waved. I do feel badly for these protestors, in a way, and it’s important to remember that those folks are not the target audience. They would be, if they would stop shouting for long enough to carry on a conversation, but until that point, I’ll leave them be.

Good commentary on “The War on Women” over at Dumb Old Housewives.

For me, this poster marks another “count the euphemisms” moment. I got six, which is a lot for a short poster. My count starts with the phrase “protecting women’s health” and ends with “women are watching” which seems to me to mean “if you don’t do what we, a small group of extreme activists who happen to be women, want, we will hunt you down in your sleep.” Women are watching, indeed.