So we’re back to this in today’s Post. Another Forty reasons to have kids, this time by Danielle Crittenden. Her reasons are as good as any, but number one caught my eye, because clearly Danielle didn’t get the memo: They aren’t kids until such time as they emerge from the birth canal:
One: They give you an excuse to eat ice cream for nine months, guiltlessly.
A new movie to be released in October: Not Evil, Just Wrong. Title made me laugh, anyway. (I feel that way about so many things. But then I get trapped in pseudo-philosophical circular debates–if it’s wrong, is it evil? Hmmm. Deep thoughts with Andrea…)
Just heard a snippet of an interview with the producers who declared that “children are an endangered species,” which also made me laugh.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMOEVRysWE]
Folks, I am cleaning my place with Edith Piaf on very loud repeat. Swiffering will never be the same. Certainly adds drama to mundane household tasks.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88]
Admittedly, the Bill 34 kerfuffle in Quebec annoyed me. Et voila. The results of an annoyed Andrea and Rebecca, in today’s Post.
_______________________
Brigitte is laughing her his little head off: Check this out, from Paul Tuns’s excellent blog (I enjoy most everything except the baseball/football stuff, which I do not get at all):
I read the column this morning at home and when I was standing on the subway I noticed a woman sitting near me reading the Post who glanced toward that article, rolled her eyes and turned the page. I should have gone back to reading my magazine but I decided to open my mouth. I said to her that she when she got the chance she should read the “well-written and thought-provoking article on the ‘abortion distortion’,” to which she replied that “Andrea and Renita [sic] are funny names for men.” I corrected her, “Andrea Mrozek and Rebecca Walberg are co-founders of the ProWomanProLife blog.” The woman said they were a front for men or perhaps men using female pseudonyms. I said it was sexist to believe that political views are determined by biology and returned to my Economist. Further discussion would be fruitless.
I suppose now is as good a time to confess as any: I, too, am secretly a man. The name, the long hair, the reasonably feminine features, the inability to understand why adults should care about baseball? That’s just a front.
________________________
Andrea/Andrew adds: Why should it matter? Gender is a mere construction anyway, a vestige of the patriarchy. Male/female: Cumbersome and unnecessary distinctions.
On a different note, it was bold of Paul Tuns to engage on the topic with her.
________________________
Tanya balks: You’re all dudes? I feel so betrayed. All this time I perceived you both as enthralling, educated, articulate women with a solid foundation for your points of view. And all this time, you were just enthralling, educated, articulate men with a solid foundation for your points of view. I’m outta here!
________________________
Rebecca says: Thank you to Paul for defending our honour. This sort of behaviour highlights one of the ugliest aspects of identity politics: reading out members of a group if they don’t toe the party orthodoxy. It’s not enough to dismiss us as mistaken or unconvincing; we are in fact not really women if we don’t support abortion at the drop of a hat.
In the US, where identity politics are even uglier, black conservatives are described as Oreos, black on the outside but white on the inside, and similar epithets exist for other groups, the intent of which is to put unpopular ideas beyond the pale, and thus avoid engaging them seriously.
Meanwhile, of course, the half-white Obama, who was raised by his white grandparents, is the hailed as the soul of African American authenticity …
If people are a burden, sucking life out of the planet then yes, it’s possible to have too many. But if they are a promise for the future, then we need more.
The Demographic Bomb discusses these points. I wrote about that new documentary here.
(While I’m at it, I’ll recommend Fatal Misconception by Matthew Connelly. A good read, which looks at the history of population control across the globe.)
This article about Jenny Sanford fills me with gloom. How on earth could a man cheat on a woman who appears to be this gracious, smart and beautiful?
The answer could be this:
‘Politicians become disconnected from the way everyone else lives in the world. I saw that from the very beginning. They’ll say they need something, and ten people want to give it to them. It’s an ego boost, and it’s easy to drink your own Kool-Aid. As a wife, you do your best to keep them grounded, but it’s a real challenge.’
A challenge? Apparently.
____________________________
Brigitte disagrees: She gives me hope, not despair. (Her husband is obviously an idiot, or at least a normal decent guy who somehow became an idiot.) This bit from the article you link to caught my eye:
I think”—she chooses her words carefully—“my husband has got some issues that he needs to work on, about happiness and what happiness means. You wish it wouldn’t come to a crisis like this, but I think when a lot of men get to this midpoint in life, they start asking questions that they probably should have asked a long time ago.” A former investment banker and a stay-at-home, full-time mother, Sanford doesn’t share her husband’s angst. “Midlife aging is different for men than for women,” she says. “Mark is worried about what his next job is. He worries about making money, running for office again, his legacy. I know my legacy is my children. I don’t worry about that.”
“I don’t worry about that.” How sweet the sound, indeed.
_____________________________
Andrea adds: Thanks for your perspective, Brigitte. She’s cause for hope, sure, because she’s coping and gracious. But I still fall prey to thinking that if you “do things right” you’ll be safe from agonizing emotional pain. It doesn’t work that way, not in my life, and clearly not in hers. Some things are not a choice–I suppose I should celebrate the fact that this life is not fair, I am responsible only for my own actions, not those of others, and move on.
I know not every member of the PWPL team agrees with the “show the truth” method of convincing Canadians that abortion is wrong. I do. It’s one method that will change some minds. (And other methods that will change other minds.) Here’s a new video from the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, in Calgary, Alberta. Have a look and see what you think. I think it’s well done, if a bit long for the YouTube crowd.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl9-MCgmMTg”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl9-MCgmMTg]
Can frank language change the outcome of a debate? Some (here and here) are saying Sarah Palin has won a round against President Obama, thanks to some “inflammatory” (if you hate Palin) or “frank” (if you like Palin) language. Her “death panel” phrase drew enough attention that part of the proposed legislation on end-of-life medical care was scrapped:
A Senate panel has decided to scrap the part of its healthcare bill that in recent days has given rise to fears of government “death panels,” with one lawmaker suggesting the proposal was just too confusing.
I am certainly an advocate for diplomacy. (Does that make me too nice?) However, the words we use do matter. (Say for example when you use “choice” or “women’s rights” instead of “killing.”)
André Picard is a perfectly good reporter on any number of topics, except abortion, at which point I feel like I’m reading a National Abortion Federation press release. True to form, this column (“We need fewer barriers to abortion, not more“) is no exception. “Access is threatened!” “The battle for reproductive rights is never done!” “Financial barriers remain!” “I am in the pay of the National Abortion Federation!”
OK, so he didn’t write that last one, but I’m beginning to have serious questions.
All in the name of “women’s reproductive health,” of course, Picard advocates for a double standard so that abortion clinics in Quebec would be exempt from the same standards applied to other clinics. On small points like hygiene and sterile environments and such. Cuz where abortion is concerned it’s all access, access, access! And deviating from that is punishable by up to four years in the bad books, with no chance of parole, so says Judge Vicki.
What the real deal in Quebec is deserves greater scrutiny. Bill 34 as it is called, would force abortion clinics to abide by the same rules as every other surgical clinic:
Bill 34, which was adopted by the National Assembly in the spring, says abortion clinics must adhere to the same guidelines as specialized medical clinics that provide such procedures as cataract and knee surgery.
In Quebec, where access to real health care for just about everything is severely threatened, abortion rates remain the highest in the country. That doesn’t stop “medical specialists” from coming out of the woodwork with quotes like this:
Medical specialists say Bill 34 is unjust and will reduce women’s access to health services. They note that the jeopardized clinics’ abortion methods conform to national standards.
I would link to those national standards, but it’s hard, because there are none. Such is the beauty of our lawless state in Canada where politicians panic at the mere thought of abortion. Actually, they don’t fare much better on the healthcare debate all told, but I digress. We have the best system in the world! In the world, I say, with the exclusion of France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, many Asian countries, the better part of North Africa and Cuba, among others.
Still, we should be concerned about access to abortion in Quebec, I agree. The abortion rate is very, very high there and it’s undeniably used as birth control–and that’s something even pro-choicers pretend to have a problem with.
Seems to me that medical clinics should all follow the same regulations. Seems to me also that abortion is not a medical procedure insofar as it almost always concerns a lifestyle choice–as in, woah, I just didn’t know that sex might lead to THAT and this is terribly inconvenient for me/my boyfriend/my mother/fill in your excuse here. As such, if pro-abortion activists are prepared to admit once and for all that abortion has nothing to do with “health care” then I’d say fine–let them be exempt from medical regulations.
They won’t. So I consider this bill that might grant some women and their unborn children a brief reprieve from the killing a great boon.
_______________________
Véronique adds: Wait a minute Andrea. They are not referring to abortion legal standards – of which there are none — but to surgical standards. Pardon my bad faith but, WHAT? Do they mean that abortion providers are NOT held to the same surgical standards as other clinics? And abortion activists are OK with that?
Somebody is going to have to explain this one to me: abortion activists want abortion to be considered basic health care, but they don’t want the kind of regulations that make basic healthcare, well, basic. And safe. And readily available because you don’t have to shop around to find the doctor who cleans his surgical instruments. You just walk in a clinic anywhere and you get world-class, clean, competent healthcare. That’s the theory anyway. That world-class healthcare is the product of regulations: regulations on who can be a healthcare provider, regulations on who can open a clinic or a hospital, etc.
So first, you had illegal abortion, back-alley-coat-hanger abortion. We had to make it legal to make it safe (or so the cliché goes). Now, abortion activists are opposing a bill that would ensure that abortions are not performed in back-alleys with coat hangers. Because if you prevent back-alley abortions with coat hangers, then you might prevent a poor hopeless victim of her circumstances from having an abortion.
Am I getting this right? I hope I’m not.
______________________
Andrea adds: I fear you understand it perfectly, Véronique.
______________________
Rebecca adds: Medical care is the care that is required to correct or ameliorate a disease, injury or pathology. Pregnancy is none of these. Choosing, for no medical reason, to terminate a pregnancy has (moral dimensions aside) as much to do with healthcare as getting breast implants. Should cosmetic surgery clinics and abortion clinics conform to high standards of safety and cleanliness? Of course. Does it trouble me that there are financial barriers to elective, medically unnecessary surgery? Not particularly. Should tax dollars go to non-essential elective procedures when people wait for months to get diagnostics when life and limb are at stake? Oh, please. I can sort of see why any legislative barrier to abortion seems wrong to those who believe that the act of abortion is morally neutral. But expecting abortion to be hassle-free, available at the drop of a hat and paid for by the government is daffy. And pro-choicers are almost never called on it. Even leaving morality off the table entirely, there is much to debate, and we’re still stuck at “pro-lifers want to go back to the 1950s.”
I was inclined to ignore this 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, because none of the reasons were good. (And if it was meant to be funny, it wasn’t that either.)
But I kind of like this 40 Reasons to Have Children. There are many I would add. My niece is a walking comedian and she doesn’t know it. She spots things even at a distance that I wouldn’t otherwise see. She laughs heartily at, well, sometimes we aren’t sure what, but she has inherited a healthy Mrozek laugh. She’s two and she can sing the entire “Angels We Have Heard on High”–in July. (Yes, including the Glorias, up and down the scales.) Anyhoo. Have kids or don’t. But I tend to think the type of woman who writes up 40 sad reasons not to, including “Rat race plus rugrats: No thanks!” is probably just a bit boring–someone who is unprepared for adventure. (Unless you think the long elevator ride up to your office is one.)
________________________
Véronique adds: Oh my. I too liked the 40 reasons to have children better. In fact, as I write, my 12 year-old on is bugging me to configure my new iPhone. Here son, knock yourself out.
I also have a couple of my own good reasons: The moment they put your newborn on your chest right after you’ve given birth. Children look much better than you do but you get all the compliments. Teenage daughters who bake. You loose “friends” when you have children. You make new friends. Real ones. With children, you have no trouble sleeping (when you get to sleep). Children make family parties more fun. When they don’t, they give you an excuse to leave early. Children force you to share dessert and that’s good for you. It is! Children force you to share and that’s also good for you. Finally, children force you to get off your butt and do something.