I ran into a friend yesterday on my way to do the Sun TV hit on “after-birth abortion.” His comment was that we should never trust the experts. At the time, I agreed, but now I realize, I do not. This headline reads “Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say.” That’s cuz abortion is killing babies, which is something some of us have been saying for quite some time.

Trust the experts, after all! (I hasten to add that their conclusions from this statement of fact are something else entirely.)

I love dogs. Truly. But this strikes me as insane. Remember the case of the baby killed by the dog in Calgary? People are volunteering to adopt that dog. Now there’s a liability I don’t want… I remember my friend’s dog simply nipping unnecessarily at her toddler and she had the dog put down. It’s very sad. But when dogs kill people, I do think they should be put down, not adopted. I can negotiate this position for dogs that simply bite people, although being attacked is less than fun. (This happened to me some 28 years ago, and I’ve not forgotten. Scar’s still there, too–physical, not emotional.)

I will be discussing this on Charles Adler’s show on Sun TV tonight:

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

I missed Joyce Arthur’s piece in The Mark. But today Google Alerts brought me this Lifesite article with Angus Reid’s response.

In short, Joyce Arthur is claiming the polling company is biased for asking Canadians about whether or not there should be restrictions on abortion. Angus Reid replies:

[Angus Reid’s] Canseco further lambasted Arthur for taking to task the wording of the answer when ARCC’s own website defends what the organization calls a “constitutionally-based right to unrestricted, fully-funded abortion, without legal or other barriers or discrimination due to gender, class, ethnicity, race, age, location/region (or area of residence), or any other characteristic, including reasons for choosing an abortion.”

“This is not something we wrote—it is the second affirmation in the ‘Our Vision’ section of the ARCC website,” said Canseco. “Ms. Arthur now writes that this ‘unrestricted right’ does not exist, yet it certainly does in her own organization’s documentation.”

This is one of the most interesting parts of the exchange. Organizations like Joyce Arthur’s actively support a Canada in which women can have an abortion up to the time of birth, no questions asked. Yet to state that this is what we have legislatively, on paper, right now, is apparently controversial.

I always find it interesting, how stating this fact of Canadian law raises pro-choice ire. It doesn’t matter to me if few abortions are late term, or if they are done for “good reasons,” like fetal abnormality. (Pains me to write that, but I digress.) We permit it in law to be so, and that’s a fact. Furthermore, I’ve witnessed a conferee at a pro-abortion conference at University of Toronto Law school in January 2008 ask questions about why ninth month gestation abortions should be denied women, even for social reasons. The hosts were disquieted, but that’s their stakeholder group. The premise for pro-choicers is that female autonomy means women can choose to have an abortion for any reason at any time. I disagree with that, vociferously, in fact. But that is their point of view and it is reflected in Canadian law. They should celebrate it, instead of denying it.

Would anyone say Kate Middleton is not beautiful?

What about Audrey Hepburn?

So why would you force yourself to wear this, and then be subjected to a critical analysis play by play as to whether your dress became indecent?

Modest is the new sexy.

May 5, 2012, a day-long conference about human trafficking in Ottawa. Read more about it, here.

I caught this story this week and wanted to blog about it, but didn’t have time. So here I am, catching up with this item this fine snowy Saturday.

Here’s the gist of the story:

The Active-8 program encourages people to make positive changes. It features eight young people from Atlantic Canada, who are meant to serve as an inspiration for building a better world. People can pledge on the Active-8 website to do a good deed in support of one of the youth ambassadors and the person with the most pledges at the end of February wins $1,000.

One of the youth, Kandace Hagen, wants to open up PEI to abortion. It’s the only province that doesn’t have abortion clinics on its soil. A pro-life activist drew attention to this, and asked people to vote for someone else else, hence the CBC story.

What do the other youth activists want?

Anna Fricker wants to put an end to poverty in East Africa, after spending some time in Tanzania.

Deg Nath Neaupaney spent 18 years of his life in a refugee camp in Nepal and as a result wants to work for peace and freedom.

Elena Fenrick has worked in a hospital and school for underprivileged children in Morocco and made a film about it.

Tara Brinston wants to help improve the world for people with disabilities.

I could go on. These are inspiring young people who have seen some injustice and want to rectify it.

Then there’s pro-choice Kandace, whose concern is that when women want an abortion on PEI they have to travel to the mainland to get it.

To summarize, her struggle is that women in her province can’t get a procedure of  dubious benefit in exactly the way she wants. (“I said a latté! Not a cappucino!”) Her own abortion, for example, required her to travel.

Let me address the thought you may have had that my latté/cappucino is mean and unwarranted.

And let me further state that I meant it.

This kind of campaign for “reproductive justice” for women is the result of an uneducated, immature worldview that results in true injustice being glossed over and swapped for a twisted fake version of it.

She’s campaigning for the rights of powerful people to trample over little people, in a world where people starve, are put in jail for nothing, have their freedoms removed, have to move across oceans away from their families and homes in order to survive.

She’s sitting pretty on one of the quietest, most peaceful places on God’s green earth and campaigning for injustice to be further perpetuated.

Seems to me that a vote for her is a vote for a string of silly, immature euphemisms, strung together in a way that would make Orwell proud but does nothing whatsoever for the girls and women of PEI, in sharp contrast to a group of focused and concerned young people who have seen real injustice and are working to combat it.

And that’s the way I see that. Here ends the rant.

I thought it was quite frank and interesting when examining the political side of abortion. Read it here.

I have always said that if I could be an animal, I’d choose a dolphin. Really, the similarities are quite obvious: my love of swimming, my chatty, personable nature, my sleek, grey skin. Ok, maybe not that last one.

Anyways, naturally it is very good news that if I were a dolphin, some people would be campaigning for my rights as a person. Comforting, that.

(People for the Ethical Treatment of People. Feel free to buy a shirt.)

This article represents my thoughts on the Pill, almost to a T, including the solution file.

And this points to an unresolved difficulty with the contraceptive revolution, which was supposed to serve women above all: Women on the whole disproportionately bear the burden of the new sexual regime. They are expected to dose themselves with a Group 1 carcinogen for approximately two-thirds of their fertile years. They sustain greater emotional costs from casual sex. They are at greater risk of contracting STDs and disproportionately suffer from their long-term consequences, such as cervical cancer and fertility loss.And even after 50 years with the Pill, as many as half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Women, not men, must make the heart-wrenching choice between abortion, reckoned a tragic outcome even by its supporters, and bearing a child with little to no paternal support. After all, since children were negotiated out of the bargain by the availability of contraception and abortion, men have secured a strong rationale to simply ignore or reject pregnancies that result from uncommitted sexual relations. Nobel-laureate economist George Akerlof predicted nearly two decades ago that this would lead directly to the feminization of poverty, as it ruefully has.