A good idea. Though of course everyone hopes it will never be used.

Welcome, Judith Timson! Welcome to my world. For years and years the government has funded abortions, supplied abortions, paid for them (since I started paying taxes) with my money. It wasn’t done in my name. And frankly, I don’t love the blood on my hands. In fact, this group was started so that women like you wouldn’t be the only ones to stand up at the time of the Morgentaler anniversary, to make a claim of “victory for women’s rights” as if you spoke for women everywhere. See, here’s the problem. You and your friends have been purportedly “representing” me in politics and the public square for quite some time. But you never did. It was frustrating, yes. So when you write this:

Here is a political question that for me, just won’t go away: In exactly whose name has the Harper government decided to withhold funds for access to safe abortion in their international maternal and child health initiative? Not in my name. And not in the names of countless Canadians who have relied for years on safe access to the procedure at government expense.

…I say, how do you like them apples?

Certainly, I’m glad you have a column, Judith, and can express yourself. You’re welcome to that. The point of this post is simply to highlight that for my entire life a pro-abortion status quo has been forced on me, pushing me to agree to some sort of “women’s right” that doesn’t exist.

Not in my name. Not in my name.

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Brigitte adds: Not in my name.

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Tanya adds: No, not in my name, either.

Peter Gabriel believes in abortion. In particular for victims of rape in a country where abortion is illegal, apparently. Watch this video, and learn what it looks like to speak on a topic you know absolutely nothing about. I’m not trying to be mean, but when famous people weigh in on The Issues, they have a special way of sounding like they just descended to earth from another planet.

That said, time to get a little hypocritical. What the pro-life side needs is a famous person, Bono perhaps?–to stand up and defend life consistently. Any takers?

Heart and Stroke Foundation has an ad showing off the research they do. It shows a baby on a monitor, in utero. Voice says heart disease strikes both young and old, as the camera does a close up of the baby in utero. You can hear the baby’s heart pounding, and the visual is the 3D ultrasound.

The closing line is: “Saving babies lives, before they’re even born.” Gave me shivers. A very cool ad. And if a pro-life group ran it, the Advertising Standards Council would drag them before some commission, fine them, and force it off the air.

“G8 backs maternal aid despite abortion row.”

The world’s leading industrialized nations support a Canadian proposal to boost maternal health in the Third World, even though Ottawa refuses to fund groups that perform or advocate abortions, Canada’s aid minister said on Wednesday.

To repeat: Does ANYONE think the ONLY thing we could do abroad to help improve maternal health and child mortality is fund abortions? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The papers report the abortion issue is waking up.

Politicians may gain nothing in this debate, but pro-lifers have nothing to lose.

MATERnal health. Making motherhood safer. Great column in the Citizen today, that lays out why and how United Nations types needle the developing world towards abortion and “reproductive rights,” in spite of the fact that they don’t want it and in spite of the fact that maternal health and abortion have nothing to do with one another.

Kudos to Canada for speaking out against this.

In the Medical Post (not available online) there’s a full page article on abortion and grieving from the doctor’s perspective by one Shane Neilson in Erin, Ontario. Very interesting, in particular because the doctor is not pro-life. He doesn’t like abortion, but he does refer for them. He says he has but once seen a women who had an abortion and didn’t regret it. The remorseless 19-year-old who shows up in his office one week after an abortion is the subject of his column.

He says she appears to live in an “emotional dead zone” and that he “wants to shake her, but [does] the Pap and bimanual exam instead.”

He concludes with this line: “It haunts me that I wrote in the chart that her uterus had returned to a normal size.”

I feel for him. Seems to be strangled by his own desire not to press his opinion on others. I’d like to shake him, actually, I’m betting he doesn’t hesitate to impress his view in other areas–maybe weight loss or smoking. So here’s a doctor who consistently sees women grieving their abortions but won’t cease to refer for them. I think he sounds like a good man, a good doctor. But why won’t he stand up for what he knows to be true? That the fetus matters, even if he’s not sure it’s human? That women suffer after the fact?

In any event, sounds like this doctor doesn’t love abortion. And for that I’m glad. If it continues to haunt him, that “uterus has returned to normal size” comment after it was just violently emptied… chances are sooner or later he’ll stop and think some more about his choices in this situation.

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Brigitte seconds that: I’m glad to see he was at least disturbed. Beats this guy.