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A good time to become Catholic

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If I were a faithful Episcopalian (Anglican)–this would be my big moment to jump ship.

“Rev.” Katherine Ragsdale, newly appointed as dean of The Episcopal Divinity School  sees virtually no circumstance when abortion is not a “blessing”:

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.

My favourite part of her lecture is when she engages the audience in brainwashing:

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

(Repeat.)

Now I don’t justify my pro-life stance exclusively on religious grounds. That a supposed cleric would justify her pro-abortion stance using religious language is… well, Rod Dreher used the word evil and I’m inclined to agree.

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Rebecca adds: Almost all of my pro-choice friends – the ones with whom I’ve discussed the issue, anyway – consider abortion to be a “necessary evil.” They often suggest that I, and others opposed to elective abortion, create straw men when we talk about a culture that does not just tolerate abortion but actually promotes it, and celebrates it. Being sensible, thoughtful people, they assume that everyone on the pro-choice side shares their perspective: disliking abortion, being uneasy about it, but believing that it must be an option open to women in general, even if they themselves would never choose it. And I maintain that there are in fact people who have no inner conflict about abortion, who not only don’t consider it the lesser of two undesired outcomes but actually believe that it’s a positive and empowering act in and of itself. A female cleric preaching that “abortion is a blessing” so that women can sleep around without having to alter their plans for education or “life’s work” is about as stark an example as I’ve ever heard.

The fashion police

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No really:

It could soon be illegal to wear your pants too low in Tennessee. That is if a state lawmaker has his way. In fact, by wearing your pants too low you could be charged with a criminal offense. The saggy pants bill cleared one committee Wednesday, and it will be up for another vote next week. Democrat Joe Towns from Memphis is behind this bill. “It’s just a simple, no sagging, it’s an anti-crack bill, just pull your pants up,” Towns said.

But why stop there? What about thongs showing above the belt and a host of other “fashion crimes”?

I think this bill is embarrassing. Now police are supposed to do the mom thing, as in “you aren’t leaving the house looking like that”?

The serious note here is of course that many of these kids don’t have parents–dads absent, moms working too hard. I have a host of libertarian friends who say they want a smaller state but don’t support/don’t understand the work I do in my day job. Get with the program, my friends, or get ready for legislation on what you can and can’t wear. It’s pretty simple.

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Brigitte wonders: While we’re at it, can we outlaw capri pants? They make me look terrible.

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Andrea adds: No, we can’t, Brigitte. I look good in capri pants.  

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Tanya wonders: What will happen to plumbers?

When I was in high school, I saw myself off to school (and back home for that matter).  Even 15+ years ago, that scenario wasn’t rare.  But I do recall school administration cracking down on our attire (no pun intended).  According to my 12-year-old niece, exposed cracks do not warrant being sent home, being called to the office, or sending a note to mom/dad.  That troubles me.

Slavery versus abortion

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For people who care about these things, there’s been a bit of a dialogue in the blogosphere over the comparison between slavery and abortion of late. It all started with this initial comparison piece here, and resulted in a rebuttal here, which caught my eye for this statement:

First of all, to be brutally candid, it [the comparison between slavery and abortion] trivializes abortion. Evil as slavery was in practice (especially in its American variety, which broke up marriages, sold off children, and discouraged religious preaching to blacks), it was never remotely as evil as abortion. It amounts, in essence, to the theft of labor—and theft isn’t quite as evil as killing. Of course, one could rightly see it as “defrauding the laborer of his just wages,” and thus a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance, which would put it in the same category as voluntary murder.

Finally, I choose today to comment on the rebuttal to the rebuttal–which caught my eye for this sentiment which remains encouraging to me, as it should to all who strive for each life to be recognized as worthy:

But the pro-lifer/abolitionist analogy is just that: an analogy that is imperfect and inevitably breaks down somewhere. To my mind, it works best as a cause for encouragement among pro-lifers: If abolitionists could succeed against a moral evil with such deep roots in law, custom, and culture as slavery, they should have some hope of overturning the abortion regime of the past 36 years.

Off to rent Amazing Grace, again.

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Brigitte says: Forgive me for barging into a delicate debate with clumsy clodhoppers, but it seems to me the important connection between slavery and abortion is that both deny the full humanity of human beings. It’s the same connection I see with the Holocaust and any genocide you care to mention. When a society accepts that some of its members aren’t fully human, all sorts of evil things happen – including that it makes it possible for otherwise normal and decent people to do bad things and get away with them, at least in the strict legal sense.

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Tanya has to agree with Brigitte: It is a denial of the human rights of a human being. That is the parallel. Watching the Prince of Egypt with my daughter yesterday, I couldn’t help but again be reminded that the root cause of atrocities against humanity is always someone, somewhere, believing his rights supersede anyone else’s.

Not the cream of the crop

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So in this article we read about a man who was looking for a one night stand, presumably one he didn’t have to pay for, and found it, only to be dragged through the courts on a rape charge for 13 months at a cost of 90,000 pounds when the binge-drinking, drunken female he spent the night with felt violated.

Right. So I don’t feel bad for the man–you get what you pay for–and since it was sex with no strings attached that he wanted, he probably should have gone to an official prostitute, where this is understood. Or is “caveat emptor” the real premise here–don’t have sex with drunken lawyers…

Certainly no sympathy for the woman either, though. Wrongly accusing someone is always wrong, and certainly a little personal responsibility in the equation never hurts. I’m hard pressed to give advice–four bottles instead of five next time, young miss?

We (royal) note that apparently you can go through years of higher education and still be…not smart.

More trends for researchers to study

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From the UK: What happens when we become a nation of only children?

Latest figures show homes with just one child now make up 46 per cent of all families and could soon be in the majority of the current trend continues. Currently there are some 3.43 million homes with only-children and 2.91 million with two youngsters. Families with three or more children are also in decline.

On a societal level–who knows–I’m sure there are some serious ramifications. Personally, however, this would have been a great tragedy. No one to jump through Fun Fountain with, no one kicking me in the back seat on long car rides–no one to follow around the house… the list could go on and on, really. Even today, no one to call who understands my anxiety-ridden gene pool, and can tell me in no uncertain terms when to let something go.

(This article courtesy of the lovely Brigitte.)

Voicing my voice

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I have a voice. And I use it. And I will not be categorized, or compelled to express my voice in one way. So often, our voices are held against us, or shamed; my voice will be my voice and I will continue to voice my voice, audibly. Yes. When I think about my voice—I just know I want my voice, and others’ voices, too, to be heard. And this way, we will change the world.

For more blogging just like this, please click here. The author calls herself “pro-voice” and is attempting to reframe the abortion debate in a manner that is…almost entirely incomprehensible to everyone. I understand that labels have limitations. But let’s get down to brass tacks. She is pro-choice—rhymes with voice—but won’t acknowledge it.

In this post, she says there’s room for the voice of the unborn child. I’d have to imagine that voice is a bit quieter. All those who advocate for abortion are alive. And the rest… well… not so vocal.

I wish her—and her voice—the best of luck.

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Brigitte isn’t particularly subtle: Call me cynical, but when I read stuff like that what I hear is “if only everyone would agree with me we’d put an end to the culture wars, which would be so much nicer”. Colour me unsympathetic. And unimpressed. Try again, sweetie.

So is the Ottawa Citizen hiring?

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Wanted: opinionated women. I think I know some.

This column discusses why it is that about 75 per cent of opinion columnists in Canada are men.

On the one hand, I have a bit of a hard time understanding why women wouldn’t want to express opinions. That’s always been my goal, and I’d love to have a little sketch of my noggin beside a permanent column in a paper somewhere.

On the other hand, I can see why women would stay away. In writing I can be opinionated, controversial. But in debates and on radio, I default to compassion mode. Consensus-building mode. I become easily concerned that perhaps I am too hard-nosed, didn’t see both sides, spoke to quickly–hurt someone’s feelings. Oh dear. Feelings are always hurt in the opinion business. You need a tough shell.

Now you’ll see in this post how I’ve seen both sides–made sure I was fair to opinionated women and those who aren’t. Very fair. Very middle of the road. Yaaaaawn. (Boring is not the hallmark of a great opinion writer.)

If I wanted to really have an opinion, I’d come right out and say this: there are fewer female opinion writers because women have fewer strong opinions that they want to express publicly and hold to, as a point of debate. Perhaps because we don’t have tough shells. Perhaps because women are less… egotistical. You have to have quite an ego in this business. (Witness the raging success of Rush Limbaugh for an extreme example. Whether you like him or not, he is successful at expressing his opinions.)

Just my opinion, anyway. And when you write to disagree, I will feel very bad and try and see things your way.

More from the University of Calgary

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The University of Calgary pro-life club set up the Genocide Awareness Project today, again. There must be a bit of freedom in already being criminally charged–what are the authorities going to do–charge them again? Probably. But doesn’t look like that bothers them too much. 

The University of Calgary’s campus security personnel have taken down the names and addresses of seven members of the Campus Pro-Life club at about 2:30 p.m. today, presumably for the purpose of charging students with “trespassing” on their own campus.

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Update: Here. The headline reads that “Free speech wins in pro-life protest” but so far as I know, the charges against the group have not been dropped and they are due back in court in the fall.

Joining the young Campus Pro-Life group is one lone elderly woman, who pulls out of a black portfolio bag a sign that reads “I Regret My Abortion.”While she walks around silently, her sign hoisted in the air, a couple of campus security officers swoop in. But rather than arresting anyone, a move that would have likely prompted much excitement among the gathered media throng and TV cameras, they only plunk down a couple of signs decrying the demonstration, and letting the public know that the miscreants have been charged with trespassing.

Get ready for an increase in depressed women

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In a field of research with very very little consensus, it is clear that when a child is wanted–and the mother aborts–depression results.

This article shocks me. And I don’t shock easily. (I think I stopped shocking so easily way back in my Masters with my focus on Holocaust studies. I just needed to learn the material and get my degree. Excellent professors encouraged it, by the way; they didn’t want emotionally-outraged students in the classroom, so we learned to discuss the Holocaust in dispassionate terms.)

I am shocked by news that abortion clinics see women with wanted children who are aborting because they can’t afford it–and no one goes off to raise funds to help them keep the baby.

And this article reports how raising money for the abortion is supposedly deemed compassionate.

What a twisted world.

‘This was a desired pregnancy — she’d been getting prenatal care — but they re-evaluated expenses and decided not to continue,’ said Dr. Pratima Gupta. ‘When I was doing the options counselling, she interrupted me, crying, and said, ‘Dr. Gupta, I just walked here for an hour. I’m sure of my decision.'”

Other doctors are hearing similarly wrenching tales. For many Americans, the recession is affecting their most intimate decisions about sex and family planning. Doctors and clinics are reporting that many women are choosing abortions and men are having vasectomies because they cannot afford a child.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics performed an all-time high number of abortions in January, many of them motivated by the women’s economic worries, said CEO Steve Trombley, who declined to give exact numbers. Abortions at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis-area clinics were up nearly 7% in the second half of 2008 from a year earlier.

No one ever thought of adoption, either. Many, but not everyone, are feeling the pinch. And I’m quite sure we have the funds to help out here. This is the result of a pro-abortion status quo, that the Vicki Saportas of this world get busy raising abortion funds with my tax dollars (she’s American, but you get my point) instead of raising money for other avenues that don’t involve the death of the child and the subsequent depression of the mother. Well done.

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Tanya adds: I sincerely don’t understand. I know a woman who, a few years ago, ended a wanted pregnancy due to some financial issues. Two months later, when she normally would have been well into her second trimester, the family’s financial problems resolved themselves. Since then, she’s been trying to get pregnant again.

A few months back, I had a dentist’s appointment that I had to cancel because some expensive doohickey went on the car. No biggie. I just rescheduled.

Pregnancy is not a dentist’s appointment.

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