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The birds and the bees

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This column about the octuplet situation highlights the different sides of the life debate. Women don’t have a right to a child, just the same way they don’t have a right to an abortion. It all comes down to this: 

The child is not an object of rights, but a person who has rights of his or her own. The child is an end in himself or herself.

It’s a good article because in a different context than the abortion debate, it highlights how making babies ain’t a solo affair. Even in this age of reproductive technology. Especially in this age of reproductive technology.

Freedom of conscience

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Good letters in the Calgary Herald today, here and here.

Pro-life doctors–of whom there are thousands in Alberta–believe induced abortion is the deliberate destruction of a child’s life. Asking them to participate in abortion is, from their perspective, asking them to kill a developing child. Demanding that they refer patients to other physicians or clinics to have an abortion is, in their minds, demanding they be complicit in murdering an unborn person. Some might claim these rigorously trained doctors are scientifically deluded in their belief about the unborn child’s humanity, but just the same, do patients want their own doctor, under pressure from administrators, to do what the doctor believes is a medical atrocity? If physicians are willing to abandon their deeply held scientific convictions, what else will they be capable of?

Indeed, what else? And here’s the thing–“pro-choice” doctors have deluded themselves into believing they are neutral. My “choice” dictates, ie. they’ll help me kill my baby if I so desire, otherwise not. That’s not a doctor I personally want. I want a doctor who understands what his/her beliefs are, knows what the bias is and can identify that and explain it to me, as such–this is my position, and it is based on x, y, z.

Pro-choice doctors are not Switzerland (if abortion were international politics).

Brigitte Pellerin is still swish

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She was swish last year, she’s swish this year again. Except that this year, I like to think I helped out on the swishiness factor, because I went dress shopping with Brigitte.

The event is Politics and the Pen, a fundraiser for The Writers’ Trust, and writers are paired up with politicians to host a table and entertain folks. Our very own Brigitte is one such writer–(you did know she’s written books, on top of everything else, one of them is here)–and so she will be the witty and charming hostess with the mostess at a table tonight. She says wine always helps–and where doesn’t it, I ask–however Brigitte is charming enough all on her own.

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Brigitte blushes a bit: Actually, Andrea was my good-luck charm. It’s a very fine dress we found (any dress that makes a girl look thinner than she is is worth its weight in platinum). Which, come to think of it, is almost what this one cost… But hey, at least my hair will not cost as much as this.

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Andrea is a good luck charm and is also secretly hoping to borrow said dress should the need arise. But don’t think of that now. I’m going swimming and playing hockey tonight. No word of a lie. Some of us are swishy, others are sporty (wait a second, Brigitte is both…)

When you work in an abortion clinic…

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…you are the furthest removed from being “unbiased” that you could possibly be. The simple fact that you work in an abortion clinic means you don’t see anything at all wrong with women killing their unborn children. In fact, you likely view it as “compassionate”–again, not unbiased at all. They are encouraging women to be completely distant from their own child, from their own bodies in which the child is living so that they can experience a short-term relief from what could be a bigger, broader problem.

“Accurate information” I’ll grant you–is hard to come by in this area–again, those working in an abortion clinic are not well-placed to offer it.

No, being “pro-choice” does not mean being “unbiased”. That’s all I’ll say about this letter to the editor from the director of a (the?) Calgary abortion clinic:

Dr. Stanislaw Iwanicki’s letter is a prime example of the anti-choice movement’s conceited attitudes. He makes the tiresome mistake of equating pro-choice with pro-abortion by saying women should be counselled by an unbiased third party. Pro-choice is the unbiased position.

It means you believe women should be free to choose to continue a pregnancy or terminate it. Pro-choice counsellors are respectful of the decision-making process and provide accurate information to women. They do not seek to influence through scare tactics and junk science as pro-life doctors and pro-life counselling agencies do. Pro-choice counsellors would never refuse referrals or assistance to a woman choosing to continue her pregnancy.

Refusing to refer or assist is unethical; a practice engaged in by those who lack respect for women and their reproductive rights.

His patronizing suggestion of a time out to “allow the patient an opportunity to reflect upon her decision” dismisses women’s intelligence and moral agency.

It is ignorant of the decision-making process women go through when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, the wait times to obtain abortions, and the counselling they receive prior to the procedure. His criticism of doctors who have the courage, skill and compassion to provide abortions can easily be redirected back to those me-first, anti-choice doctors who abandon pregnant women who choose to terminate their pregnancies–after billing for their services, of course.

Celia Posyniak, Calgary

Celia Posyniak Is Executive Director Of The Kensington Clinic.

Who is in jail for life?

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No pro-lifer I have ever met wants women to go to jail for having an abortion. This is ye olde refrain of the virulent pro-abortion side. (I think the average pro-choicer gets it, by the way, and are aware that “sending women to prison” is not high on the pro-life list of priorities.)

What I find infuriating is that those who go to jail over abortion these days are pro-lifers offering other options on the sidewalk outside clinics. (Remember Linda Gibbons.) In Canada, it’s because of bubble zone laws. I assume the States has them too–and in fact I personally know one decent, non-violent, generous man with a wife and small children who went to jail for sidewalk counselling. (He preferred jail to a criminal record.)  

Since when is offering options a crime? Today it’s pro-lifers who actually spend time in jail because of abortion–forget the baseless accusations that that’s where we supposedly want to send women for having one.

(h/t The Ruth Institute)

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Andrea clarifies: The title is a pun, one I didn’t notice before publishing. The sentences are not “for life,” but these people go to jail because they are in favour of life, and against abortion…

Solving the credit crunch

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This made me laugh out loud. Great satire is hard to come by:

THE ANSWER to all our problems is staring us in the face. It may even be quite literally staring at you, right now, across the breakfast table.

So put the paper down, stare back and ask yourself a selfless question.

Does the woman in your life really need a job?

Admittedly, this is not a fashionable question. From Iceland to Australia, men are blamed for causing the credit crunch, while a more feminine approach to finance is proposed as the solution. …

It would be ludicrous to suggest that women should be sacked purely to give men their jobs. In many cases, their jobs should be abolished as well.

This modest proposal is also somewhat unfair. Some of us live alone, and were all women to be canned, the single ones would suffer.

(Hey–is this even the craziest suggestion to “fix” the economy? I think not. Wish the billions shovelled into the money hole was satire too.)

If it’s a matter of per cents…

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This letter in today’s Post on side effects of abortion:

The Hippocratic Oath urges all health professionals to “do no harm.” Thus, it seems unusual that Dr. Gail Erlick Robinson states that women need access to legal abortions, considering that “women who deliver [a baby] have a 10%-15% chance of developing a major depressive disorder.”

Has the professor not heard of the independent Ontario study of induced abortions published in the American Journal of Medical Quality in May, 2001? It revealed that in the first three months after an abortion, a woman falls victim to a four-times rate of hospitalization from infection, a five-times rate of hospitalization for psychiatric care and a five-times rate of hospitalization for another surgical procedure.

Dr. Andrew Caruk, Kitchener, Ont.

Though for me, taking the life of your own child, punches more weight than medical complications later on. (Not so for those who want abortion available because it “saves women’s lives” and that’s where this letter does good by pointing out abortion is not without medical complications.)  

Still, every procedure has risks–and even if abortion were made 100 per cent risk-free, I’d still be 100 per cent against it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

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iamawesome

This is how I feel about the Oscar’s too:

Thank you for giving statuettes to movies that have the right politics and thank you for allowing us to make speeches from positions of enormous privilege abusing people who dare to disagree with us. Act like a spoiled little fascist. More false emotion and false liberalism. Yes, yes, yes! I love Hollywood; it’s the real America. Laws don’t apply to me, being arrested for drugs and alcohol is a career boost and I’ll never have to worry about not being able to pay the bills or not being able to send my kids to a school that’s safe and good and clean. Thank you.

This is such a wonderful occasion. Having no idea who the foreign filmmakers are and not caring — where did she get that awful dress? Describing arch mediocrities who can memorize other people’s words and sleep with the right people as geniuses. Tears, marriage is wrong, tears, another attack on religion, go Obama! I have no idea who most of these dead people from last year are and don’t care either. Thank you.

This mentality lives well outside Hollywood. Schools here in Ontario that take on The Laramie Project pat themselves on the back for their bravery. Don’t get me wrong–put on The Laramie Project if you want. But do not for one second think you aren’t walking the most culturally acceptable, easiest road you possibly could. The road more travelled, by say most people in Hollywood, as it were.

When pro-lifers go underboard

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This is a mea culpa post. It could get really long, but actually, I don’t think that is necessary. A week ago I posted about the National Post article, on what is happening at St. Joseph’s hospital in London, Ontario, regarding early inductions for children diagnosed with things like anencephaly.

After getting all kinds of good information, through the site and through friends, I realize I was wrong.

So I would like to apologize to those at Lifesite who did the initial report. I’d also like to apologize to those who have had bad experiences with eugenic practices in our hospitals—poor treatment or no treatment for a baby deemed to be dying anyway—you certainly deserve a bit better from someone like me, who (generally speaking) can think things through and does better reading before posting.

In my defence: when I read the Charles Lewis piece, my main concern was for cases where the life of the mother is in grave danger should she carry the baby to term. I was led to believe that St. Joseph’s only induces to truly save the life of the mother.

This, however, would mark no conflict at all with Catholic teaching, as many Catholic friends have explained.

More to the point, this is not what is happening at St. Joseph’s.

So. There you go. I don’t believe Lifesite or other pro-lifers went overboard in this case—they drew attention to a morally illicit practice happening at a Catholic hospital under the guise of helping or saving the mother—and this should certainly not fall under our radar.

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