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The guppiness factor and Bill C-484

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Naomi Lakritz of the Calgary Herald has written an excellent piece about clarity, abortion and Bill C-484.

My favourite line:

It is obvious to anyone with a minimal grasp of English that this bill is not about abortion. Notice the key words “criminally assault,” “wants and loves,” and “against her will.” That does not describe the pregnant woman rifling through the phone book in search of an address for the nearest abortion provider.

And my second-favourite line:

Next, politicians and abortion rights groups have to stop pretending that a fetus is not fully human because it can’t survive on its own. If it weren’t fully human, there wouldn’t be all this debate. We do not hold debates about the degree of guppiness of unborn guppies, do we? And if a fetus cannot survive on its own, neither can an infant or a toddler. Are they any less human?

Reading this also caused me to stop and realize that I am way too cautious on the topic of abortion. Yes, you heard me, too cautious. Because I’ve never seen any Canadian political leader do or say anything reasonable on abortion or defending unborn babies, I stopped thinking they ever could. Thanks to columns like this, I am reminded to demand nothing less. (But hey, a girl has to keep her sanity. Low expectations means that even politicians, from time to time, exceed ’em.)

Not very secure at all

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If their ideology can’t withstand people thinking about what that ideology actually involves, how secure are they in their position?

Ken Epp, writing about Bill C-484 here. The ideologically strident are aware that the current pro-choice status quo rests on not thinking about “the abortion situation” too much (and constantly putting things like “unborn victims” in quotation marks, as if it were a laughable possibility rather than reality.) 

This is why all the screaming begins for bills that don’t even pertain directly to abortion. How secure is their position? Not very.

Bill C-484, RIP

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Bill C-484 was never my favourite piece of legislation. It wasn’t pro-life, and man oh man, judging by the outcry on the pro-abortion side, it certainly wasn’t their cup of tea either. I suppose I enjoyed the fact that even in wanted pregnancies, the pro-abortion side was guarding against what they perceived to be a slippery slope–that somehow, if in wanted pregnancies killing a baby could amount to a crime, that might spill over into people’s subconscious for the abortion debate. In any event, Bill C-484 is no more. I think Harper did the right thing, telling Minister Nicholson to have that press conference, especially given that Dion was asking for his position on abortion. It’s off the table now–a good tactical move for any politician going into an election. Which I now, thanks to this move, fully believe we are.

Now how he did it, that irks me. Ken Epp’s office was not informed. I understand Epp is not running for office again. I understand therefore, that Harper thinks he doesn’t need to care. Here’s why he should have. Irrespective of how I felt about Bill C-484, there were those who supported Epp passionately, and saw it as a pro-life bill, or at least a small statement that social conservatives could support. Not telling Epp now means at best begrudging support from that crowd. What Harper did was fine. How he did it wasn’t. A tactical shift doesn’t have to be dirty. 

That’s where Harper should be more careful. There are many people out there who couldn’t give a hoot for “politics,” but do look to substance and conduct. And why shouldn’t they? They don’t live in this special silo called Ottawa. Don’t they count for something?

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Brigitte adds: Ken Epp says he won’t withdraw his bill. Good for him. I have zero doubt it will die on its own some day soon, but hey. There’s only so much any individual MP can do, and Mr. Epp is doing all he can.

New government bill to replace Bill C-484?

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This was announced about ten minutes ago.

The federal government will introduce new legislation that will punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday. Nicholson said the bill will “leave no room for the introduction of fetal rights.” The bill is aimed at protecting women from violence, he said.

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Opponents to the bill, called the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, raised concerns that the bill would reopen the debate on abortion in Canada.

“Let me be clear, our government will not reopen the debate on abortion,” Nicholson said Monday.

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Update: The Globe has an article on the same topic here. A small note on style–if “unborn victims” gets quotation marks, then I’d ask also that “abortion rights” be consistently referred to with quotation marks. The “right to abortion” is much more imaginary (and never confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) than those “unborn victims”–who we can view via a thing called “the ultrasound.”

Defend Tom Wappel

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Aha. Just before the story broke that Morgentaler would be received into the Order of Canada, Rob Anders was forced to take a sign down from his office window. The sign read “Defend Life”–we blogged about it here and here. Amélie Crosson, Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Jim Munson, Senator, sent an email to everyone on the Hill (and their dogs, too) about how she felt offended by just how political the sign was, and don’t we deserve more, and our Parliament is not a frat house…bla, bla, bla.

Turns out there’s no policy against signs in windows. Writes Tom Wappel, MP, in the Hill Times:

I contacted the Speaker’s office, the Sergeant-at-Arms Office, Canadian Heritage, the House Accommodation Services Office, and the Conservative Whip’s Office. Guess what? There is no policy!

Since there are signs in numerous other windows which were there before Mr. Anders removed his, and which are still there (e.g. “Veterans for Obama ’08 in the Confederation Building), I wanted to know why Mr. Anders’ sign (“Defend Life”) had been singled out for attention and removal. It turns out it was because someone had complained about it.

Why? Since other signs remain in windows, it is clear that there have been no complaints about other signs. Thus the complaint has to be not about a sign in a window, but about a sign in a window which was assumed to be a pro-life sign in a window.

Well, I am proud to be pro-life. Being so is not a criminal offence (yet). Expressing my pro-life views is not illegal (yet). What can be more fundamental in the very seat of our democracy than our Charter-cherished rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression?

So, I have borrowed Mr. Anders’ innocuous sign and put it in my window in East Block, and there it will stay.

I am also a lawyer and I respect the rule of law. When and if there is a written policy agreed upon, banning all signs from all windows, I shall remove my sign, but only after all other signs have been removed.

Kudos to Tom Wappel for putting the sign in his window.

Changing the comments

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Comments are posted for this week, here. As of today, we are switching to posting comments under the post themselves, ie. no more Comments page. At the launch of ProWomanProLife, too many comments flowed in, and I couldn’t balance with the dayjob–so we pushed it to a weekend format, which allowed me to review once a week. Two things have happened since then: I have gotten used to the daily maintenance of the site, and comments are more manageable, save for the spikes that occur when issues arise–which has been often enough, but anyway.

Thanks for writing in, and please continue to do so. We’ll still moderate the comments, so posting will not be instantaneous or automatic, but on a shorter delay, and under each post.

I’ll tell you what I think is really, really scary

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I have a low level of appreciation for pornography in the public square. (You can click here to see the offending ad campaign–I’m not going to post the photo.) Especially when it masquerades as “female creativity.” I’m glad I’m not the only one. Many thanks to Ms. Batsheva Capek–and I don’t know her, or who she is–for spearheading an effort to get this ad down. We need people on the street who recognize porn for what it is. We also need people to boycott American Apparel, whose “CEO” has been very public about using a 1970s-style porn-look to sell your 16-year-old t-shirts. The Globe reports about the story, here.

In New York City, the same ad ended up with the words “Gee, I wonder why women get raped?” written over it. It was then replaced. But the company says this:

“It is a little bit disconcerting to see what feminism has evolved into,” said Marsha Brady, one of American Apparel’s two creative directors… “When … there’s a group of people attempting to shame female creativity, female beauty, female pride under the auspices of protecting women, it’s really, really scary.”

You know what is more scary? Those who think these ads represent female creativity, female beauty or female pride.

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