…to see whether pro-life students at University of Calgary get arrested for doing the Genocide Awareness Project on campus. Imagine the visual in the media if students were to get arrested for protesting. Not that I wish that on those poor students, but it could be a powerful statement, whether or not you are pro-life. University campuses are typically hotbeds of protest, and when students get arrested for doing just that–it might wake a few Canadians up.
Pro-life students at the University of Calgary
Great article from the Calgary Herald here. Indeed, there’s no point in a protest people can’t see.
Let’s just talk about this business of which way the signs are to point–in or out. The argument for turning them in is so people who don’t want to see them, don’t have to. Sounds reasonable, but is it?
What’s wrong with just walking by, as many people do when confronted with something they don’t like? Obviously nothing. I am reminded of a scene in the film depicting the life of antislavery crusader William Wilberforce, (Amazing Grace,) when he obliged a party of influential Londoners to actually look at a slave ship: People for whom forced labour in the colonies hadn’t been an issue, now found they could no longer ignore it. Same idea. …
According to protest leader Leah Hallman, they’re going ahead anyway tomorrow, signs pointing out. There’s no point in a protest people can’t see.
When you’re poor, powerless and 20, that’s ballsy. As for the university, words fail me.
Grammar mistakes are theirs
The Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) drops fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis because the disease is not diverse enough. No really. From the CFRA web site:
This is the wording of the Motion (grammatical mistakes are their’s)
“Motion to Drop Shinerama Fundraising Campaign from Orientation Week.
Whereas Orientation week strives to be inclusive as possible;
Whereas all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve the their diverse communities;
And Whereas Cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.
Be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign
Be it further resolved that that the CUSA representatives on the incoming Orientation Supervisory Board work to select a new broad reaching charity for orientation week.”
The only person to vote against this motion was Nick Bergamini, interviewed this morning on CFRA. He said, and I agree, that this is reminiscent of how they banned the pro-life club back in 2006. Meanwhile, Queen’s University is deploying students to monitor private conversations on campus, and University of Calgary is prepared to expel some pro-life students who are planning a demonstration on campus.
So–let me get this straight–we have a bunch of students, who run the student unions, who can’t write, who are willing to ban fundraising for a disease on the basis that it affects white men, which, as it turns out is factually inaccurate. Words fail.
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Brigitte found the answer to the age-old question: What do they teach them in school? To worry about whether an illness is “diverse” enough, that’s what. Two generations of modern educators brought us to this. And people still save and make all sorts of financial sacrifices to send their kids to college. I wonder why.
And another thing: In one part of the world, girls get attacked for going to school (where I’m pretty sure they’re not learning about the proper PCness of various illnesses) whereas here they can’t be bothered to learn how to write simple sentences in their own language. Golly, what a mess.
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UPDATE, Wednesday afternoon: They are apparently about to repeal their decision.
Music to my ears
Not often you pick up a paper and flip casually through to read something like this:
Like Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, one act of killing requires more acts of killing to legitimize itself. This has been the real agenda behind the enigmatic enthusiasm for stem-cell research and the furious criticism of bans on late-term, or “partial-birth,” abortion.
One act of abortion is killing, but two or more–now that’s “choice.” (From the Saturday National Post.)
Fight FOCA
There’s a web site that’s sprung up to fight the Freedom of Choice Act. I wasn’t really aware of what FOCA would do–it’s a promise the President-elect made to Planned Parenthood.
The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would eliminate every restriction on abortion nationwide.
- FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial birth abortion, and on all other protections.
- FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
- FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.
Sounds like an incursion into state jurisdiction to me.
On the road
I’m in Washington DC, on the tail end of a most interesting conference. Today I have the day off. I went jogging on the Mall, tried to circle Capitol Hill but you can’t–they have it all fenced off to get ready for the inauguration.
You may be expecting some weighty analysis–the tone and tenure of DC post-election, perhaps what is going on in politics–what was my conference about? But No. It is my day off. So did you known you can get The Onion in news boxes on the street here?
Here’s my favourite headline of the day. It’s a fashion item because I’m about to go shopping:
Sweater-Vest Worn As Well As Could Be Expected”
(More later–I actually do have some interesting thoughts to share from pro-life folks I’ve met while down here.)
“Canada without abortion. By choice”
If you are visiting this site, you may have noticed our tagline, “Canada without abortion. By choice.”
Now that the U.S. has a pro-abortion President, I’m glad to see pro-lifers trying to think of other ways to outlaw abortion. Read about that, front page of the Washington Post, here. It’s wise to acknowledge Obama is pro-abortion and move on. (Whether or not a pro-lifer can or should have voted for him is a question we’ve already addressed and that debate is over now.)
Lots of interesting points in this article, including this one:
“You don’t work to limit the murder of innocent victims,” said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League. “You work to stop it.”
Yes, you work to stop it, but the question is how. I don’t think that civilized, compassionate societies should offer, pay for, sanction or condone abortion in any form. In that sense, some day we’ll come to the point where we outlaw it, as William Wilberforce worked to outlaw slavery. We’re not there, not even close. Now Wilberforce outlawed slavery on some sort of technicality–he was very clever about it–the mores of his culture had not yet changed.
We (pro-lifers) need to get creative. We need to look for new and different ways to stop abortion, especially considering Obama’s record on the topic. I hope he’s not as extreme as he appears, but all I have to go on is his solidly pro-abortion, Planned Parenthood Approved (gold star!) record. So better look elsewhere, is what I say, and incidentally, what I did, too in launching this web site and group. (Because in Canada, multi-cultural land of diversity that we are, every leader is pro-choice right now, and, I believe over the course of my lifetime this has always been the case.)
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Interesting commentary from the author of The Party of Death, here. He ends by saying this:
Still, we learn something from Salmon: It is indeed possible for pro-lifers to get friendly treatment from the Washington Post, at least as long as they are supporting pro-choice politicians.
“Eliminate the crisis, not the child”
Aid to Women is having an info session this Saturday. If you live in or near Toronto, it promises to be a good event.
Date: November 22, 2008 (Saturday)
Location: 300 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, ON
Email: [email protected]
Time: Noon to 3.30pm
Certainly this is what we are about–coping with crisis, over the long term instead of “offering” the “compassion” of abortion.
More from the “societal norms are lacking” file
I always find Kay Hymowitz interesting, even as I say yikes–the dating scene is not that bad.
Here’s the thing: I think you end up embittered and creating web sites called “relationshit.com” when you only ever viewed the opposite sex as a vehicle from whom you can get something, be it sex, marriage, money or status. Seems to me at some point that is going to break down. Seems to me it will break down particularly poorly for one or the other when you start a relationship with sex. But hey–they call me “old-fashioned” while muttering about stealing women’s rights…and baking cookies….while barefoot and pregnant….
Anyhoodle, this quote from the article:
As the disenchanted SYM sees it, then, resistance to settling down is a rational response to a dating environment designed and ruled by women with only their own interests in mind. “Men see all of this, and wonder if it’s really worth risking all in the name of ‘romance’ and ‘growing up,’ ” a correspondent who calls himself Wytchfinde explains. “After all, if women can be hedonistic and change the rules in midstream when it suits them, why shouldn’t men? Why should men be responsible when women refuse to look into the mirror at their own lack of accountability?”
reminded me of a personal exchange I had with a guy I worked with once. He made it clear if I ever repeated this, he’d deny it. He said something like this: “If marriage means being constrained in manners x, y and z and you still have to eat Mister Noodles every night, then what’s the point?” And I see his point.
But then is his deal that his significant other ought to care for him through good cooking? Who doesn’t like good cooking, I ask you? Mmm, mm. Back to my point. Which is that people do not equal a vehicle to fulfill yourself.
People=relationships=hard and messy, sometimes AND good times other times. It’s either/or almost all the time.
(I’d like to dedicate this stream of consciousness to Véronique.)
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Brigitte can out-old-fashion Andrea: It’s the old ‘why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free’ thing. Except nowadays guys don’t even have to live with girls – heck, they don’t even need to be ‘in a relationship’ – isn’t that what they call friends with benefits? Free milk on demand?. And the girls are drilled to believe giving it all away in exchange for nothing is ‘liberating’. Pfshaw. I wouldn’t say we’re lacking societal norms. I’d say we got societal norms that stink. Both for men and women. I’m told boys are enjoying themselves. But men are about as disappointed with these newish norms as women are.
Lest we forget
What with the Olympics and all, it it always a good time to remember the brutality of Chinese Communism:
Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third child, is under guard in a hospital in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will because authorities say she is entitled to only two children, according to the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
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Rebecca asks: Why is this woman not eligible for refugee status somewhere in the civilized world?
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HAPPY UPDATE: It appears she has been released – without having to undergo the abortion – because of international pressure.
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