In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-John McCrae

An informative rebuttal to the column I linked to here. Birth control won’t stop the growing population, since the reason we have that growing population is not due to births, but rather the fact that we are all living longer. This explains why demographers estimate that by 2060 or 2070 we will see the world population begin to shrink.

People, an event tonight and a debate tomorrow night, both featuring Stephanie Gray. Both are open to the public.

Date: November 10, 2011
Time: 7-9pm
Speaker: Stephanie Gray
Event: Abortion and Intellectual Honesty
Location: St. Paul’s University, room 103, 223 Main Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Date: November 11, 2011
Time: Doors open at 7pm; Welcoming remarks begin at 7:30pm
Theme: Debate
Speaker: Stephanie Gray vs. Jovan Morales
Location:  University of Ottawa, SITE A0150 (Engineering Building across from the Sports complex at the main campus)
800 King Edward Avenue, Ottawa, ON

UPDATE

More info about the debate tomorrow:

“University of Ottawa Students for Life, in partnership with University of Ottawa Medical Students for Life, will be hosting Stephanie Gray, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform, on November 11th 2011 at 7:30 pm for a debate on abortion in medical practice. The event will take place at 800 King Edward Ave – SITE A0150. Ms. Gray will represent the pro-life side, while the pro-choice side will be represented by Jovan Morales of the Atheist Community of the University of Ottawa.”

I will be attending this one, since I like to hear what both sides bring forward. Come out if you can!

…are a problem for  young women, too. For everyone, really. Margaret Wente surprises me here, with her passion. In other cases, her commentary on social issues has been more muted. But she`s right, so I suppose it`s good someone is sounding the alarm on this topic of drifting young men.

PEI Health Minister Doug Currie says abortion is not a service that PEI will offer any time soon. I have no idea (truly) where he stands on the life issue. However, if he were pro-life, simply stating that abortion is an additional burden on the system and not something they can add right now would be the right talking points.

This reader wrote in with her personal story in response to my post about Tiller. She has given me permission to post it, anonymously.

Just wanted to share my experience. At [the hospital] where I was a patient, they promote prenatal testing and abortion. Both are always options they mention. When I found I was unexpectedly pregnant with my second child I was highly distressed (to put it mildly) as was my husband. My first pregnancy ended with a beautiful daughter but a horrific birth that left me with post traumatic stress. I had severe postpartum depression for over a year. I was physically and psychologically in terrible shape and didn’t plan any more children.
When I went to my doctor to begin prenatal care I was sobbing saying how terrified I was of having the same experience again. Over a year after the first birth I was still waking at night from nightmares. The resident refused to refer me to an OB for a C-section saying “There is no medical reason” for a referral. How ironic given that I was in psychiatric care and literally suicidal at the thought of giving birth again. I had told my husband I would wait until the end of my pregnancy and then stab myself to force an emergency C-section if I couldn’t have a planned one. I was not being dramatic, I literally would have rather died than give birth again.
I did not for a minute consider abortion but that was the first thing I was offered since my pregnancy was unplanned. Since I didn’t want an abortion no one wanted to help me. I had to return to the doctor repeatedly until I saw someone different who gave me the referral. Ironically, the OB told me I did have a medical reason beyond the obvious psychiatric reason. If I had a similar birth experience I would have stand a high risk of not healing a second time and facing lifelong problems.
I want to make a complaint about the practice for refusing me the referral but haven’t yet. Once abortion is on the table as an alternative people stop considering other more nuanced, non-violent, patient-centred approaches.

“Once abortion is on the table as an alternative people stop considering other more nuanced, non-violent, patient-centred approaches.” How true. Thank you to this reader for sharing her story.

He’s the doctor in Kansas who did partial-birth abortions and was murdered in cold blood in his church.

Now we have a documentary that seeks to celebrate his life.

The article explains that Tiller’s patients fell into two categories: fetal abnormality or suicidal. Most patients fell into the latter category. And the way those patients were diagnosed as suicidal is suspect at best:

It is only recently that the Tiller legacy has begun to unravel, and I doubt if Alan Ball has gotten the memo.  The point of vulnerability has proved to be Tiller’s necessary second opinion provider, Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus. According to former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, Neuhaus would go to Tiller’s Wichita clinic twice a month on average.  There she would sign a form letter printed out by Tiller. The letter would verify Neuhaus’s finding that without a late-term abortion, the girl in question would suffer “substantial and irreversible damage to a major bodily function.”  Says Kline, “No diagnosis — every letter the same.  She received $300 a signature.”

It will be important to know the truth before Tiller is re-crafted as a martyr. Don’t get me wrong, the way he died is categorically wrong. But likewise what he did with his life was categorically wrong, and seeing both shouldn’t be so tricky for our establishment media.

Germany’s Der Spiegel does a better job of reporting on the world’s 7 billion people. (Article is in English.) In 2060, I’d be 84, so it’s fully possible that I could live to see this new demographic trend:

But,” says Wolfgang Lutz, “that shouldn’t distract us from the fact that an entirely different development has been underway for some time.” Lutz is the director of the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) and one of the world’s most prominent demographers. As he sees it, it is “highly probable that mankind will begin to shrink by 2060 or 2070.”

It will be a global turning point. For the first time since the Black Death raged in the 14th century, the world’s death rate will be higher than its birth rate.

I had truly never thought this far ahead, but 2056–I’m gonna have a big birthday party. 80! Woo-hoo.

Three cheers for the We Want the Debate people! For they are provoking a reaction. Here “We Want the Debate” meets “We really, really don’t want the debate,” in the person of Joyce Arthur, who, ironically, I just debated on abortion in the developing world.

I’ve debated Joyce Arthur about why maternal health strategies in the developing world should not include abortion. But I’d love to see her debate someone like Stephanie Gray of the Centre for Bioethical Reform. I suspect Joyce wouldn’t, however, and it has everything to do with the weakness of her position, which would be sadly exposed in debate with the formidable Stephanie Gray. (I am not so formidable.) Otherwise, why wouldn’t she debate it? If a position is strong and defensible, I can hardly understand why you wouldn’t get out there and make sure people know it and learn about it. Look, pro-choice support is generally waning…it would be really wise if those who ardently support it got out there to beef up their numbers.

I appreciate people who are not apathetic. In that sense, I appreciate Joyce, though we would both agree that we have nothing in common on this issue. But pro-lifers are out there, making their views known, up and at ’em, and having lots o’ kids too (for the most part, myself not included). Where will the pro-choice consensus be in years to come if no one defends it publicly? It’s a sad statement on this tenuous “consensus” that the best my opponents can do is never whisper a public word about it, especially not in debate.

A surprisingly positive look at the feminine face of the pro-life movement in the U.S:

The most visible, entrepreneurial and passionate advocates for the rights of the unborn (as they would put it) are women. More to the point: They are youngish Christian working mothers with children at home.