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A tempest in a teacup

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So there was a demonstration in Montreal against Bill C-484 yesterday after all. Read about it, here.

Many carried grisly signs; others opted for clever slogans such as “Epp, Harper: Je fais ce que je veux avec mes oeufs,” (What I do with my ovaries is up to me.) After the rally, protesters marched down the hill to Berri Square.

I say go to town, you and your ovaries–it’s more unborn babies I’m concerned about. And when you can’t tell the difference, what you really need is a biology lesson.

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Tanya adds: If the journalist had checked with the translation department, he’d have known the sign said ‘I do with my eggs whatever I wish.’

She gets her eggs fertilized, after which point it’s no longer an egg. If she’s seeking an abortion, did she wish to fertilize that egg? Likely not. So has she really done what she wished with her eggs? Seems the opposite is true.

Her sign should have read: “I do what I don’t mean to do to my eggs”

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Andrea adds: Thank goodness Tanya is on our team. For correct translations and the accompanying acerbic commentary.

Allowed to operate, but no funding

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So this Toronto Star article says there was a vote today at York University and pro-life groups will be allowed to operate but won’t receive funding. All that negative publicity for them to achieve pretty much the status quo (I mean really, how much money did pro-life groups ever get?) and a one hundred per cent guarantee that “anti-choice” groups will be back with a vengeance, next year. (Have a great summer.)

The York University student council has voted in favour of a motion to ban funding to anti-abortion groups on campus.

The controversial decision means that groups promoting anti-abortion ideas will not be reimbursed by the student union but will still be allowed to operate on campus, said Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students.

“This policy does not apply to religious organizations,” said Massa. “It only applies to groups whose sole purpose is to spew anti-choice rhetoric on our campus.”

Eight members of the York University student council voted unanimously for the decision on Sunday afternoon.

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Tanya adds: So first, we have to prove that being pro-life is not just a Christian point of view. Then we have to be religious in order to be allowed to be pro-life. Tell me that’s not self-propagating! “Welcome to York U, where you may not practice free thought, but are excused from the norm if you ascribe to antiquated religion, in which case we are forced to exercise tolerance.”

From Andrea, with love

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I’m posting my letters to Gilary and Hamid of the York Federation of Students, and to Mr. Tiffin, the VP of students, regarding my dismay over their attempts to ban pro-life clubs on campus. “From Andrea, with love,” was not, incidentally, my chosen sign off. But it sounds like From Russia, with Love, making an afternoon of letter writing into a James Bond affair. How exotic.

Dear Mr. Tiffin:

I am writing to register my disapproval of the recent attempt of the York Federation of Students to silence those who oppose abortion on campus.

The recent and ongoing attempts of the York Federation of Students have been of great interest to me—especially given the flawed justification for the ban. I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those many, many women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. Abortion is not a woman’s right. Equality for women on campus, as elsewhere, is not contingent on access to abortion. I represent hundreds of women across Canada who are against abortion, precisely because we are in favour of women’s rights.

There is a growing body of research to suggest post-abortive women do not fare as well as other women who have not had abortions. There are higher rates of depression, depressive episodes, suicide, suicide ideation, alongside a host of other negative repercussions, physical and mental.

The health and welfare of every woman, especially vis-à-vis high abortion rates for those who are of university age, should be of grave concern to the York University administration.

I would encourage you to ensure that the pro-life side is given fair treatment and equal funding alongside all other clubs and positions at the university. And I would challenge you to publicly support these pro-life students—if not in the name of life, if not to support true equality and true rights for women, then in the name of freedom of speech.

AND

Dear Hamid and Gilary:

 

I am writing to ask you to reconsider your views on pro-life groups on campus.

 

I started ProWomanProLife.org in order to provide a voice for those women who are pro-life because they are pro-woman. I believe ours is a unique approach to the abortion debate.

 

Why? Firstly, we are pro-life precisely because we are pro-woman. Secondly, I am not interested in legislative action. Rather, I am interested, as my web site explains, in seeing abortion dwindle and decrease in Canada because that is what women choose. Thirdly, we are a non-religious group. We are made up of a team of nine bloggers now and I encourage you to log on to the site, and comment where you see fit. I welcome any and all comments, negative or positive. Each woman is able to blog with maximum freedom of expression and as a team we represent the breadth and depth of what “anti-choicers” can look like.

 

We are convinced at ProWomanProLife that women are not served well by abortion, this based on good, peer-reviewed research. We believe that women can get better, and indeed, deserve better than abortion. And we believe that women ought to be able to discuss this issue with the maximum freedom of expression.

 

So it is with great sadness that I realize, were a student chapter of ProWomanProLife.org to develop at York University, it would be banned.

 

I would encourage you to reconsider your view of so-called anti-choice groups on campus. Tolerance can only exist where there is disagreement—certainly you would not ban every conflicting view. I believe that pro-life clubs on campus can only serve to strengthen the type of strong community you seek to foster at York University.

  

Two anecdotes on a Saturday morning

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These two anecdotes came to me courtesy of distinctly non-religious people and the women featured are their friends, not mine:

 

 

One: A woman, now married, was once a doctor who did some abortions. No more. But now she’d like to conceive and can’t and says she thinks God is punishing her.

 

 

Two: A woman, single, gets pregnant and has an abortion. She later gets married and has a son, all is well. He is killed in an accident in his teens. She thinks that God is punishing her.

 

 

A couple of thoughts come to me. First off, there are repercussions from abortion that are not easily measured. It would have to be some kind of specially-designed, longitudinal study that could get at the guilt and pain two decades later, arising the result of the death of a son, for example.

 

Secondly, I do not buy into the God as Great Punisher model, and I do not do so with some justification. God in the Christian conception does not run “on one strike and you’re out!” and is rather a God of love and forgiveness, even when egregious mistakes are made. Plus, these random comments show that religious or non, God is in the picture, for many folks. And those in the abortion-related business, ought to be prepared to address meta-physical questions, and correct misconceptions, too.

 

But the main point is that I am amazed at the manner in which abortion haunts these women.  These are some of the things I hear on the street in my life, day to day. They just come up, when we give the opportunity.

Beijing prostitutes–one, Sex in the City characters–zero

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Last night I flipped back and forth on television between two things. One, a CBC documentary on the rise of prostitution in Communist China. It’s something Communist nations typically have a stranglehold over—being totalitarian and all–but the Communist regime there is turning a blind eye because of the rising numbers of single men. CBC did not mention this is because of sex selection abortion and the one-child policy.  

 

The program went on to say that these young girls are lured from the rural countryside into the cities, and they know nothing about “safe sex.”

 

The other program I watched was a “documentary” on how Sex in the City came to be a program. Lots of men talking about how they realized that there had never been a show about women’s attitudes toward sex. And wouldn’t that be so interesting. To have men decide what women’s attitudes on sex are. And how avant-garde it all was, and how they weren’t even sure if they could call it Sex in the City…And could they convince Kim Cattrall? The tension was enormous, as you can imagine.

 

And I was left thinking two things. One, the women on Sex in the City don’t know anything about safe sex either. But still, the girls in China are one up on them. For at least they are getting paid. The characters in Sex in the City give it all up, over and over—sex, dignity, you name it—for free. Very avant-garde, indeed.

 

(cross-posted to The Shotgun)

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Véronique adds: An excellent column by Fr. Raymond de Souza on that topic.

 

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Andrea updates: I wrote this blog post before I read this Globe and Mail review–which, ironically gave the movie a whopping zero stars. Apparently you don’t have to be a priest to have higher standards than Sex in the City offers. My favourite line in the review:

 

That means the iconic foursome with their adjectival personalities – bouncy Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), horny Samantha (Kim Cattrall), judicious Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), preppy Charlotte (Kristin Davis) – don’t perform so much as parade, fixed in their roles as semi-animated clothes hangers on a cinematic runway.

Channeling my idle banter

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Folks. This is going to be a busy weekend. Why? Because at ProWomanProLife we are not all about idle banter. This weekend, I am going to attempt to do something useful. I will direct my idle banter at specific individuals in the form of letters. Three letters.

1. A letter to York University Vice-president Robert J. Tiffin, who disagrees with the attempt of the student union to ban pro-life clubs. This letter will be one of support, encouragement. A little “thank you for the common sense,” if you will

(Update: This letter indicates less support, more questions for a letter to Mr. Tiffin.)

2. A letter to the York University Federation of students. This one will not be a letter of support and encouragement. But I promise not to swear and since they claim abortion is an issue of women’s rights, I must, of course, challenge that idea

3. A letter to the Advertising Standards Council. To say hello–and add that I did not find Life Canada’s ad campaign offensive, and it was above all, truthful

Now I tell you this because:

a. you may like to “join me” this weekend in this letter writing bonanza, putting your pens to paper to “express yourself” like Madonna. (Many of you may prefer to just express yourself, no Madonna. That’s fine too.)

b. having told you this I will actually do it.

Does one letter change the world? No. Do three? Probably…not. But fighting for life is a fight for freedom, which is worth much more than a couple of hours on a weekend. “For our freedom and yours!” –that’s the Polish side of me talking. Sometimes I quote Madonna, sometimes Thaddeus Kosciuszko–pay attention and bear with me.

So here’s to a good weekend, a small turnout for what I have heard is a union-funded Bill C-484 protest in Montreal on Saturday, and a return to sunshine on Sunday.

Women’s rights versus freedom of speech

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In the Post, today, a report about the ban of pro-life groups on campus. Again. Says Gilary Massa, vice-president of the York Federation of Students:

Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women’s rights.

Broken record alert: It is no one’s right to have an abortion. Abortion is not now, never was a right. The Supreme Court of Canada never said that. And if you take away freedom of speech, you sure don’t enhance women’s rights. Repeating this is getting tiring, but then again, I’m not the one initiating thought bans at major universities.  

Cross-posted to The Shotgun

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Brigitte notes: Damian P. has a great one-liner on this business of absolute “pro-choicers” who want to silence other points of view. “You have the absolute right to do whatever you want with your body. Except your mouth.”

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Tanya adds: Well, the powers that be can’t control everyone’s ears, so they’ve opted to control a few mouths. That way, they have more hope of controlling your thoughts.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows

-George Orwell, 1984

Do they not teach Orwell at York U?

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Andrea adds: They probably teach it, Tanya, but it’s not compulsory like “Banning stuff that personally bugs me 101.” Orwell, was after all, a man. Or at least he thought he was. But there’s probably a course to correct ancient and oppressive ideas like “male” and “female” as well. I think that’s the point of most Womyn’s Studies departments, all told. 

York U ain’t for learnin’

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York U is working hard, even over summer break, to ban pro-life groups on campus.

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Tanya scratches her head:

Gilary Massa, YFS vice-president external, defends the motion by saying that pro-life organizations seek to deny women of their basic human right to choose.

 

 “Anti-choice groups come onto campuses and take away the right a woman has to her own body, to determine what she can do,” Massa said.

First, I always am skeptical of a body that insists on calling a pro-life organization “anti-choice.” It pretends abortion to be the only valid ‘choice.’  (Note to pro-abortionists: Choice and abortion are NOT synonyms.)

 

Second, no pro-life group can come on campus and take away a woman’s right to anything. It can, however, offer information that would not be available anywhere else. (That makes pro-abortionists like Massa sound pretty anti-choice.)

 

Third, I can’t seem to find abortion under the women’s rights section of Human Rights Commission website, though I did find all sorts of other good things. (When exactly did someone decide abortion was an actual right of Canadian women?)

“Fetus incubators”

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It’s a special kind of disdain for pregnancy and for women in general, I say, when you call pregnant women incubators for the fetus.

 

That’s what Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice was cited as saying in a La Presse article on May 22, which I received translated into English.  

 

Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice, sounding an alarm that brings to mind the old slogans, says that pregnant women must not become incubators for fetuses once again

 

The whole article is a piece of work. It begins with a pregnant woman who passes the date for a legal abortion and subsequently shoots herself in the abdomen. She is charged under a law that we are led to believe is something like Bill C-484 would be. It turns out to be a case where “ultimately the charge was amended” ie. she didn’t suffer any consequences. It also turns out to be California, over three decades ago.

 

Any editor with an ounce of journalistic integrity would ask their reporter to FIND A NEW LEDE. Is this the best kind of fear mongering those who are against Bill C-484 can do?

 

In short, we are supposed to oppose Bill C-484 because one crazy lady shot herself in the abdomen in California thirty years ago.

 

Now that, that is high quality reasoning. Excuse me while I go shoot myself in the abdomen for the sheer frustration of it all.

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