I believe with this story about giving Mother Earth the same rights as humans that she is getting a raw deal. Really, since humans don’t have the right to life across the board, what confidence can “Mother Earth” possibly have?

I’m almost prepared to say that any guy who voluntarily signs up for this should indeed not reproduce:

Animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is offering up a free vasectomy to a man who recently had his pet neutered. Calling the contest a “two-fer,” the group is offering up one vasectomy – a reimbursement of up to $500 once the procedure is confirmed – so “one lucky man be reproduction free, free of charge, just like his pooch or feline friend.” …The men must also answer the question, “Why should PETA neuter you?” and tell the judges “how his sterilization will most benefit both humans and animals.”

 

“How his sterilization will most benefit humans and animals?” It would be uncharitable to go into all the reasons.

Whether or not he becomes President, it is always nice to have influential figures who declare themselves publicly to be pro-life.

I saw the headline and thought rather cynically that he is only doing this because a Republican nominee running against President Obama pretty much has to be pro-life to win. But then I read the story linked above, and it would take a lot of embarrasing backtracking to undo some of the statements he’s made. I’ll take it as good news.

Not too long ago, I posted this, a link to a review I wrote about the book Giving Sorrow Words. In that review, I mentioned an Australian columnist, Evelyn Tsitas, who, in our global village read what I wrote and wrote a rebuttal:

That acceptance with their decision is something the women in Giving Sorrow Words do not have. Why? Because they obviously wanted the baby, but lacked the courage of their convictions and now want to blame others for their regret. Women who really want the baby they are carrying will do anything to keep it. Women in a high-risk pregnancy require frequent hospitalisation, invasive tests, months of bed rest, painful daily injections – the list goes on. Birth is also a risky business for them. …

So I have no time for the women who can’t get over their abortions. They obviously didn’t want to have a termination in the first place. While I feel sorry for them, I also refuse to buy into the pro-life line that every abortion will cause grief.

Ignoring the callous, staccato tone of her piece, I will say that to a very small extent I agree with her. Women ought to be stronger and stick to their guns. I wish many more were able to do that. But she entirely missed my point, which is this: Our culture talks about abortion as being easy and valid. And so it is absolutely no surprise that many women go against their impulse to keep a baby and have an abortion instead. The women chronicled in the book Giving Sorrow Words are women who learned the very hard way that oftentimes, not every time, but oftentimes, that simply isn’t true. And they have suffered as a result.

That’s why I compared having an abortion to trying drugs. Not everyone will become an addict. But many will, and it’s a reasonable outcome. When we talk about drugs, we understand that addiction and all the harms that come from that is a reasonable outcome. And thus we have campaigns against drugs: Just Say No. When we talk about abortion we talk about nice, comforting concepts like “choice,” and it’s deceptive.

There’s a new news site out, Heroic News:

Heroic Media, a faith-based company that promotes alternatives to abortion through mass media, has launched an online news portal at Heroicnews.org. The initiative is aimed at making a broad cultural impact, complementing its current outreach to women in crisis pregnancies. “Heroic Media has always had two goals: to provide women facing unexpected pregnancies with hopeful alternatives through mass media advertising, and to create a culture of life,” explained Heroic Media founder Brian Follett.

Can’t say I know too much about them, but it might be worth bookmarking and checking from time to time.

I went for a swim at one of Ottawa’s fine universities yesterday and in the changeroom I overheard this conversation.

Girl 1: Did you know that [fill in name here] lost his virginity at 17? To a prostitute?

Girl 2: No. A prostitute?

Girl 1: Ya, his dad took him.

Makes you rethink parental consent laws.

Stephen Harper will not raise the abortion issue if he becomes Prime Minister. This is no surprise, since he has been saying the same thing more or less on repeat for at least five years now.

That said, I’m not sure why social conservatives swing in the national imagination between omniscient and powerful (The Armaggeddon Factor) and “spent.”

Harper is not the pro-life man of the hour. Maybe someday we’ll have a leader with this conviction on his/her heart. But it’s not Harper and I’m not particularly bothered by that.

From last night’s Country Music Awards. Your feel-good story of the day. Enjoy.

Comparing child sacrifice in Peru from over 500 years ago and prenatal screening today is not quite the way we like to think about this, is it:

The findings lend credence to the accounts of Spanish conquistadors that described how children were selected for sacrifice from all across the empire, based on their physical perfection. We shudder at such brutal backwardness. Today, using prenatal screening, we scour the empire for children with physical imperfections and sacrifice them to ourselves.

I think this is a painful and offensive comparison. Also that he makes a valid point. We ain’t all as civilized as we’d like to believe.

I think I’m supposed to be offended by this, a doll that is for little girls and it mimicks breastfeeding. Would I buy it? Probably not. Would it be “sexual” for a little girl to play with this doll? No. Is it a bit weird? Probably yes. 

We should all return to the days of Little House in the Big Woods, where Ma lovingly made Laura a cloth doll that didn’t mimick anything. And where they poured syrup on the snow and it turned into hard candy! And where the smoked their own meat in a little hut out back. How I loved those books.