Well. It would be a debate worth watching, to be sure. Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform is calling Hedy Fry out. MP Hedy Fry says she would like to debate abortion, that she has all her facts ready, but that it just isn’t necessary:

But Liberal MP Hedy Fry says the government is trying to confuse the issues about what’s really up for debate.

“Nobody’s talking about Canada here; we’re supposed to be talking about the developing world.”

Fry says she has all her arguments ready and is set to debate anyone on the topic, but she feels it’s unnecessary. Because the question in Canada is settled; so there’s no need to re-examine it. Fry accuses the government of trying to have it both ways – to not offend one side of the debate – while giving the other at least part of what it wants.

I know that people like Hedy Fry think I’m part of the flat-earth society for being pro-life. But here’s the reason why they should debate the flat-earthers. We’re growing and thriving, getting louder and stronger by the day. We need correction, Hedy! And since you are so clearly in the right, you should really talk about that so that fewer young people (like me) go off the rails. A debate is a good format for that.

I personally, would love to see Stephanie Gray debate Hedy Fry. And Stephanie has just issued the challenge. Hey–let’s make it two against two! Stephanie Gray and Andrea Mrozek against Hedy Fry and Carolyn Bennett. Food for thought. Would be much fun.

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Brigitte adds: Lorne Gunter puts his finger on it very nicely indeed.

I missed this, but caught the letters section in the Globe today which pointed me back to this interview with Camille Paglia. A great read. Love this part:  

Then feminism came along and decided greatness was a conspiracy foisted on us by men. People would criticize me by saying, “She’s writing about Michelangelo when the really important person was this woman….” But wait. There’s no way she came up to Michelangelo’s ankle. So what we’re getting now is people who never heard of Michelangelo or Leonardo because they are dead white males. 

Today’s letters section has Camille Paglia clarifying that no, she doesn’t think all of York University is a backwater, but that

The York coterie whom I did indeed call “shallow” were snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology that continues to plague many Anglo-American universities.

I plan on memorizing this: “snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology” for the next run in with the York student union over pro-life clubs. Or any student union for that matter.

Now I get it:

Abortion, then, involves the killing of a human being. But that abortion involves the deliberate killing of a human being is no reason for abortion to be illegal. Nor should one be morally troubled by it.

This is one of the less troubling citations from the article by a philosophy prof at Saint Mary’s. People with disabilities, watch out. Calling on Stephanie Gray to have a sit down with this man (she’s rather good on how/why/when we are all human).

It would take a great deal more philosophising for me to be untroubled by killing a human being, just by the by. Even if I were well-versed in what would make me totally happy and independent, and understanding that a human being is not a person.

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Brigitte would like to highlight some other troubling bits from that piece: Specifically…

A human fetus, on the other hand, though human, has only a rudimentary awareness of its environment and lacks self consciousness entirely. It has no interest in living, for it can have no interests at all.

Because a fetus is not a person, killing a fetus is not killing a person. That established, now comes the time to speak of a woman’s right to choose. A pregnant woman is a person, and because easy access to abortion helps her to live her life as she wishes, we as a society should make sure abortion is easily available to women generally.

Now it is true that each human fetus is potentially a person, in that, most likely, in the fullness of time, any particular fetus will become a person. But this is an argument against abortion only if it is better to have that particular future person walking around than it is to respect a here-and-now person’s autonomy.

The overall point is that abortion is not in any degree a morally fraught option. A woman considering whether to have an abortion or, instead, to raise a child is making a practical decision, not a moral one. This is what we who are pro-choice have to make more widely known.

I’m not surprised. But many will be:

Women who have had an abortion are nearly four times as likely to have problems with drugs and alcohol as women who have not, according to a study conducted by University of Manitoba researchers. The authors of the study caution though, that their research shows only that abortions and substance use disorders are linked; they have not established any causal relationship.

On May 8, 2010, Lorna Dueck will come to Ottawa to speak about human trafficking.

The event details:

Where: Sunnyside Wesleyan Church, 58 Grosvenor Ave.

When: Saturday, May 8, 2010, festivities start at 7 PM

Cost: Free of charge, suggested donation of $10.00 much appreciated (tax receipts available)

Why: In support of a trip I am on this July to Ukraine with World Hope Canada

The event is for everyone, and Lorna will address “Why Canadians should care” about the issue of human trafficking. The Ukraine team of which I am a part will round out the details about the situation in Ukraine.

This is the fourth team going from Ottawa and we work in a street shelter for kids in Odessa as well as running a summer camp in a small town near Odessa, called Kremidovka. I’m excited to be part of something bigger with this standing commitment through World Hope Canada.

It’s an event that is open to the public–come one, come all.

(Apologies for hijacking this site briefly to advertise a different cause. I spoke to The Management and me, myself and I were okay with it.)

Lorna Dueck, creator, host and executive producer of Listen Up TV, and president of Media Voice Generation, the Canadian charitable organization that produces the weekly broadcast. A popular television personality and public speaker, Lorna is also a regular commentary writer on faith and public life in Canada’s leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail.

Around the 13 minute and 30 second mark, a good segment, here.

I wake up. I turn on my radio. I make my toast to this song.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlBQiHtCZk4]

Gonna be a good day.

I sound dogmatic, yes. Dogmatic with a pinch of winsome? Come on. We all know abortion is wrong. And immoral is just another word for wrong:

On the other side, for those who consider abortion immoral, no boundaries are absolute enough. “If I ever found myself on the Hill advocating for a reduction in abortion time limits from 24 weeks to 22 or whatever, that I can’t stomach, [and] that’s where the debate is at in so many places in this world,” says Andrea Mrozek. It’s why she founded Ottawa-based ProWomanProLife, an advocacy group that seeks to end abortion without relying on laws that are, she believes, always problematic.

I also started PWPL to represent all the women currently chiming in over here. Sounds like there’s tremendous support for defunding this particular form of birth control… And for a women’s march. Hmmmm….