In today’s Globe and Mail, the question of how Canada does maternal health continues. I’m not only concerned if the government is working with abortion-rights groups like Action Canada for Population and Development, but also be concerned if aid agencies are:

Mr. Morley said his organization and four others – Care Canada, UNICEF Canada, World Vision Canada and Plan International – realized when they met last February that they were all thinking the same way and decided to work together to get the government onside. Along with two Canadian aid agencies – Results Canada and Action Canada for Population and Development – that joined the cause in recent months, they were delighted when it was announced on Monday that Mr. Harper would take the opportunity of the June gathering to press the issue.

Since I have been a supporter of World Vision for some years now, I just placed a polite call, followed up with an email, to ask this:

I’d appreciate it very much if you could get back to me on whether or not World Vision is happy to partner with the ACPD. The ACPD is an abortion-rights group, and this is in my view, violently opposed to maternal health. It is my hope that you can clarify this situation for me and confirm that World Vision would not now, and has not in the past, worked with ACPD.

Feel free to do the same. My continued support of World Vision definitely hinges on the answer here.

Bump+. Will she abort? Or won’t she? And the audience gets a say, of course. Ain’t that America: A democratic say in whether or not a gal kills her child. What hootin’-hollerin’ fun!

In related news, tonight, I will throw my large-decidedly-not-a-flat-screen-television off my fire escape. Then, after writing a short but poignant goodbye note to family and friends, I will move to a small uninhabited island. I will be Prime Minister there. There will be no abortion, no attempts to pander to abortion-rights groups, and most importantly, no reality TV.

Apparently Prime Minister Harper is concerned about reducing maternal mortality. Good. Why is he partnering with a pro-abortion group to achieve this goal?

Kitts says that 30% of maternal deaths can be avoided and infant mortality can be reduced by 20% with proper family planning. Now I quickly understood how family planning could reduce maternal death but when I asked her to explain how family planning could help children live past their 5th birthday, Ms. Kitts became nervous and asked me to turn off my recorder. I asked her the question again and she told me she would have to do the interview later. The coin eventually dropped, the people at ACPD plan to reduce infant mortality by reducing the number of infants born. A major part of family planning for ACPD is abortion.

Now it really doesn’t matter which side of the abortion issue you fall on, when you hear that a government wants to reduce infant mortality, funding abortions in developing countries is likely not what comes to mind. When the Prime Minister says it is troubling that 9 million children die before their 5th birthday, most Canadians don’t think aborting children in developing countries so that they never have a birthday is the solution.

The ACPD–Action Canada for Population Development stems from a population control group that rebranded when that went out of style (I researched this once years ago, and will return to it now. I add that caveat because I’m 90 per cent sure the ACPD is actually hostile to life, but I leave the leeway to return to this in another post when I get a spare second).

From their current web site, we learn they advocate for “sexual rights” internationally, partnering with a Polish group (among others), the Federation for Women and Family Planning. Now Poland has achieved very low maternal mortality, lower than the United States, for example. But the ACPD still needs to partner with them–why? Because abortion is illegal in Poland.

This is inside baseball. But I know this and the Harper government should too. Reducing maternal mortality is laudable. Doing it by providing abortions is not.

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Andrea updates: It’s not clear that there’s a partnership with anyone yet. So another good question is who do you want to do this work? We know who we don’t want, but who should be helping? If you have suggestions, then send them my way. Thanks.

Symbolic of where abortion registers for the mainstream media (it doesn’t), this report about Steve Fonyo Jr. having his Order of Canada revoked ends this way:

The Order of Canada can be terminated when a recipient has been convicted of a criminal offence, the person’s conduct departs from recognized standards of public behaviour or they have been sanctioned by a professional organization. Other Canadians whose Order of Canada has been terminated include former NHL Players’ Association head Alan Eagleson, after he was convicted of fraud, and lawyer T. Sher Singh, whom the Law Society of Upper Canada disbarred after finding him guilty of professional misconduct. There are calls for others to have their orders revoked, including jailed media baron Conrad Black and disgraced Livent founder Garth Drabinsky.

It strikes me as obtuse that whoever wrote this failed to mention the obvious distress of many, many Canadians when Henry Morgentaler received the award. I suppose, however, that we need more time before Morgentaler’s behaviour is recognized as deviating from recognized standards. I maintain that we will recognize his “contribution” to Canadian society as abuse in due course, but we’re not there yet.

Read about it, here.

Meanwhile, in the UK, a solution: Sex ed for kids, starting age 7.

Makes me all very glad I am no longer a teen and not yet a parent. All I can think is that national government efforts, whether they emphasise sex ed or abstinence, are doomed to fail even before they begin.

The struggle for binding agreements on climate change a social justice battle of Wilberforce dimensions? I’ll let readers decide.

Our moment of opportunity came and then went, and here we are now, the fate of civilization and of millions of the planet’s life forms hanging by the frayed thread of inaction,” she wrote. She situated herself in the tradition of Christian leaders who have fought for social change, including British abolitionist William Wilberforce and Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung.”

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Brigitte can’t control herself, she’s stuck ROFL: ANDREA!!! You’re killing me!

This is why you should never pose nude, anywhere, anytime, boys and girls. Because the images will follow you no matter what you accomplish in life, no matter where you go. (Plus it’s very cheesy. And shows a lack of character. And terrible judgment. Do I need to go on?)

I’m glad this Scott Brown won though. Goes to show you how even cheesy, nude-photo-posing folks can have a tremendous affect on the course of history.

That’s an Angus Reid headline, not mine. See the poll results, here.

Most interesting to me is the wrong information floating around:

Only one-in-five Canadians (20%) are aware of the current status-quo of abortion in Canada: a woman can have an abortion at any time during her pregnancy, with no restrictions whatsoever. A large proportion of respondents (43%) mistakenly believe that, under current guidelines, a woman can have an abortion only during the first three months of her pregnancy, with no other restrictions. Two other incorrect responses also garnered mentions. Ten per cent of Canadians think a woman can have an abortion at any time during her pregnancy, but only if her life is in danger, if she has been the victim of rape, or if the fetus has serious defects, and 14 per cent believe a woman can only have an abortion during the first three months of her pregnancy, and only if her life is in danger, if she has been the victim or rape, or if the fetus has serious defects.