Sarah Palin. I second this nomination, for the abuse she endured because she is religious and pro-life, for the stands she took and held, publicly, under great duress from supposed friends and enemies alike, and generally for being an advocate for the unborn as a successful woman everywhere she went.
Those pesky ethical issues
Brigitte wrote recently about surrogacy. What about frozen embryonic humans?
Couples are willing to do whatever it takes to create a family, and this leads to extra frozen embryos. In Canada, clinics cannot dispose of embryos without legal consent from patients.
So we have, they estimate, about 50,000 embryos hanging around. Embryos the parents wanted, until they didn’t. I’m prepared to say as someone who would like to have kids and who is on the outside edge of her fertile years–that perhaps the “whatever it takes” mentality has to go.
Oh what a beautiful morning
I do not know this Rod Bruinooge, the MP from Winnipeg and new chair of the Parliamentary Pro-life Caucus. I do, however, like him. It’s a good morning when you wake up to read an article called “Why I am pro-life.” It’s a nice little piece, and I find this part particularly interesting:
My aboriginal elders have taught me that the cycle of life honours both birth and death, and respect for the unborn is a foundation of this philosophy.
I had heard that the aboriginal mindset is against abortion, and I’d like to know more about that, actually. I think it is interesting to look at a cultural view, one that doesn’t value choice and expediency over the cycle of life.
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Andrea adds to her own post that she is grateful to the National Post for not being scared of taking this topic on.
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Andrea continues to be thrilled: The Globe and Mail ran a cover story on Rod Bruinooge, calling him a modern crusader. Indeed, he is a crusader for human rights, and I’m really happy to see someone act so boldly and publicly on this issue.
Pssssst
Rod Bruinooge, MP and chairman of the “secretive” Parliamentary pro-life caucus has taken his secrets to the media. Read all about it:
The new chairman of a secretive pro-life Parliamentary caucus is pledging to rekindle the abortion debate in Canada and bring “more value” to the lives of unborn children.
Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he’s not interested in reopening the divisive issue, Winnipeg MP Rod Bruinooge told The Canadian Press people need to be better educated about Canada’s abortion stance, which he says puts the country in a “class of its own.”
Interesting is that the pro-abortion side simultaneously claims that Canadians are pro-choice, and uninterested in debate. Is that one and the same thing? Because I don’t take apathy as support.
In any event, many Canadians are pro-choice, and many are simultaneously concerned about our status quo–they don’t like abortion on demand til the day a baby is born. This is something we must discuss instead of pretending the issue isn’t there, and discussion, free discussion, is nothing to be scared of. I’m up for it, in any case.
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Brigitte doesn’t understand: The guy who chairs a parliamentary committee talks to the media about what he wants his committee to do and that’s considered “secretive”?
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Andrea thinks the secrecy refers to the fact that the Parliamentary pro-life caucus doesn’t advertise who its members are. I recall wanting to know this as a journalist myself. And it was possibly the first question the media asked when I did a press conference with the PPLC on sex selection abortion year before last. But when the chair goes to the media with his plans, well, you can’t get much more open than that and more power to him, I say.
Name that author
Food for thought:
We are experiencing a tyranny that causes men to love their own slavery. It leaves the body free and directs its attack at the soul.”
OK, I’ll tell you. It’s Alexis de Tocqueville, apparently. Made me think today we have some men and women who love the slavery of abortion: slavery to a false freedom, a choice that isn’t freeing at all.
Now that would be really terrible
I would like to see The Tale of Despereaux. (“A hero doesn’t appear until the world really needs one”) So a review here, for your Boxing Day amusement.
This part caught my attention–the reviewer comments on how being bold and courageous and different is a standard lesson for kids–but usually within a certain framework:
…it’s never too early to start training kids that they’re going to have to be rebels if they want to fit into society as adults. (That is, be rebels in the acceptable way; it would be disastrous, for example, to champion an “unpopular cause” that actually was unpopular.)
Now that, that would be really terrible–taking on a socially unacceptable cause. It’s embarrassing, more than anything, really. Why can’t everyone fight for a greener world? and other assorted causes “we can all agree on.”
Kids! Be bold and rebellious–just not too bold and rebellious.
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Brigitte adds: There’s a fun book on the subject by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, for those who are interested in why the herd of independent minds behaves the way it does.
It’s a wonderful life
It’s Christmas—I’m sure many of you have noticed. And with Christmas comes…worry and depression. There’s something about Christmas that leaves many struggling with the juxtaposition of real life with the supposedly perfect life commercials and movies present.
Below we have the story of one woman, who almost had an abortion.
I thought now might be a good moment to post her story for those women struggling because life does not feel wonderful—and Christmas only highlights that more for them.
I do love the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”—between the beginning and the end, however, each moment if captured on its own wouldn’t actually seem wonderful. George Bailey doesn’t get to travel, he doesn’t get to start his own business—he hates the Building and Loan. It’s only in the long term context—in a bigger, broader context—that it looks wonderful in the end.
Here’s Rachael DeBruin’s story:
It was my first year of university and things were not going so well between my boyfriend and I. We decided since I was moving away to school we should end the relationship. However, not long after, we ended up back together and he started coming to stay overnight at my residence most weekends. The relationship had more up and downs than a roller coaster. It began to seem acceptable to treat each other poorly. We were both drinking and doing drugs. The emotional abuse and control was escalating between us. Still somehow I thought we might end up getting married someday so I justified being intimate with him and not being overly cautious.
[Read more…]
On surrogacy
I love it when I stumble across a good article. I love it even more when it turns out the author is a member of ProWomanProLife. Brigitte Pellerin writes here about surrogate motherhood. My favourite part comes in the kicker:
What bothers me most about it is that it is part of a wider culture that promotes and aggressively encourages anything that lets adults indulge their every whim and fancy. On any given day, countless women go for an abortion while countless others go through invasive assisted reproductive techniques while other women wait to have their uterus chosen to carry someone else’s precious embryo or their ovaries plucked so they can sell their eggs. The only moral standard here is that whatever I want is right, and must be mine. It is not possible to build a coherently decent society on such a basis.
“What I want is right.” (And when I think about it, do I even know what I want?) This is the basis for our abortion-friendly culture. And we call it “women’s rights.” How very empowering.
March of the penguin
Since Ottawa transit went on strike I’ve been walking to work. And home. And everywhere else. I am now ready to thank them for the extra turkey I will have over Christmas. All this walking in minus 1000 has to be good for something.
Meaningful life–simply because
This story in today’s Citizen.
Rob Warner is grateful for his son’s life of 323 days, 17 years ago. He describes how Liam Michael Warner was born with Trisomy 13 and not expected to live two months.
The doctor told him:
Treat him with the same respect and love you would a normal child. There was no need for him to ask us to love our son, but I’m glad he did. It said something about the man. And we listened well.
Warner says he is thankful for that doctor, for friends who supported him, for his wife of “reliable grace and strength.”
He concludes by saying this:
Liam Michael Warner would have been 17 on Dec. 13.
He had a right to be here.
Indeed.
Short lives, long lives, disabled lives–all meaningful lives. I’m grateful for stories like this one–where the human spirit rises over tough circumstances and responds with grace, dignity and strength.
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