The maternal health saga continues:
The number of women dying in childbirth worldwide has dropped dramatically, a British medical journal reports, adding that it was pressured to delay its findings until after U.N. meetings this week on public health funding.
More news from the revolution!
An alarming new superbug may be on its way — an incurable form of gonorrhea. The disease, once easily killed with a shot of penicillin, is increasingly becoming drug-resistant. Soon, the world may face a version that can’t be killed by any known antibiotic, warned Catherine Ison, the director of the sexually transmitted bacteria reference library with the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency.
A reader sent the link to this McGill piece. The author is against graphic images–fine, some of the women on this team are, too. He’s also against the rather soft-spoken women of Silent No More, standing with images that say “I regret my abortion.”
Fohl’s professed love for dialogue is bizarre, since for a brief period this year, it seemed that Choose Life’s tactics had destroyed any hope of a meaningful discussion of reproductive rights on campus. When you confront a woman with a sign reading, “I regret my abortion,” for instance, you cannot expect students to eagerly engage in dialogue.
One is left with the distinct impression that the author wants women–only pro-life women, though–to go and “dialogue” in a dark closet somewhere, by themselves. Talk about a wimp. If you can’t handle a gentle woman holding a sign, you’ve got a problem and should probably get some help. Just by the by, this is precisely the sort of person I warn women against dating: in a crisis pregnancy he’ll smile and nod and say–it’s your choice, honey. (Now I’m gonna get a beer and watch the playoffs.)
Does the fetus matter or not? Is it human or not? Yes–if you think so. No–if you don’t think so. And so any circumstance can be good–if you think it is good. And alternatively, any circumstance can be bad, if you think it is bad.
No wonder pro-choicers don’t want to come out and debate very often.
Joyce Arthur’s arguments make sense to me, actually, in the context of today’s subjective culture. It’s just that they don’t hold any water when I reason it through–because that fetus either is something or it’s not and this can’t change depending on the ways the winds go…Every culture has societal norms and laws. It’s not a question of democracy. It’s a question of what we choose to classify as right and wrong. (Infanticide, slavery, anyone?)
That’s why women should be called out to think about these things, way before the moment of a crisis pregnancy. Because at that moment, someone like Joyce is going to step in and say–I couldn’t possibly tell you what’s on this ultrasound. It’s all up to you. And in the face of parents, and school, and boyfriends who aren’t ready and the thought of putting life on a different track for nine months–that is going to sound very seductive indeed. It’s quite a cruel approach when I think about it.
A study on coercion in reproductive options doesn’t appear to mention how many women are coerced into having an abortion. Haven’t read the full thing, but if this study doesn’t mention that, then there’s a terribly large blind spot.
Am I to believe there’s coercion all around but the second a woman walks into an abortion clinic it’s her own, personal, private, freestanding choice? Really?
A short segment on maternal health, also featuring yours truly (by Skype, which is why I’m never looking at the camera.)
…and stays there because she won’t agree to the conditions of her release. Mary Wagner is being held in the same centre as Linda Gibbons.
Read about this, here.
I don’t know Mary. I don’t know Linda. But this sort of courage of conviction impresses me greatly.
And let the record stand: That’s 3 pro-lifers (I’m aware of) in jail across this great land. (Two for peaceful protest/prayer/counsel near or in clinics, one for refusing to pay taxes.)
In the abortion debate you have people like me, vociferously advocating for life, and you have people on the other side, who advocate so vociferously for a free choice on abortion that it amounts to advocating for abortion.
Otherwise you have a mushy middle.
That mushy middle should pay attention to where pro-choice advocates come out on sex selection abortion. Because generally this is where the soulless nature of abortion advocacy comes out: it’s in the “we couldn’t possible condemn any woman’s choice at any time” moments.
An article about this, here.
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Brigitte adds: Indeed. I’m against sex-selection abortion because I’m against abortion in general, and extremely against frivolous abortions (if your life is on the line, and you’re having to choose between your life and that of your unborn baby, then things are quite different – at least in my book). Aborting a baby because it’s not the right time right now to become a parent, to me, is at least as wrong as aborting a baby because it’s a girl and not a boy.
Great article about the situation in China:
By the year 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women of marriageable age in this giant empire, so large and so different (its current population is 1,336,410,000) that it often feels more like a separate planet than just another country. Nothing like this has ever happened to any civilisation before. …
…And in every cheerful classroom there was a slightly sinister shortage of girls, as if we had wandered into some sort of science fiction fantasy.
The whole article is filled with interesting quotes, eye witness accounts of the problem. Warning: It’s very disturbing. But all the more reason to know and learn. I do wonder why we don’t talk about this more.
Rex Murphy on Sarah Palin. I like the column but disagree with his last line:
No wonder Obama claims he won’t respond when she tweets. The Hope and Change President still owns Hope, but real Change in current American politics is on Palin’s side of the ledger.
I’m not sure that Obama owns hope anymore, anymore, either. This is not to say that Sarah Palin owns Hope and Change (what are we talking about here, anyway, who “owns” those things?) But rather that Obama decidedly does not. They are “for sale” I suppose.