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Sex is a sacrament and not a commodity?

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Woah. Must be some deeply religious news source—perhaps a newspaper from the Vatican—making this recommendation:

Re-instituting the traditional Christian message on sex – it is a sacrament and not a commodity – would be a good place to start.

Not quite. The same paper reports high teen abortion rates: One in 23 teens in some areas have had an abortion. I must be jaded, because that doesn’t sound that high to me. It’s worth looking into the stats and figuring out very precisely how many women have had abortions. In Canada, 70 per cent of abortions happen before age 29. But how many are repeat abortions, which would change the number of women who have had one, and the rate. This is very important. Why? For accuracy alone, which is a good reason all by itself. The other reason why it’s important is that pro-abortion activists would like to “mainstream” abortion. It’s just so normal, why look! One in three women will have one before the age of 45. I highly doubt this statistic as cited by Planned Parenthood in the U.S. And as with so many of these finer points, it is critical to know the exact and correct number.As for sex education and abortion: I’m not convinced calling sex a sacrament will help (far too many don’t know what a sacrament is). But that it is not a commodity, not to be taken lightly, and to be avoided entirely as a teen: Why, oh why, is this so controversial in the public square? 

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Just stumbled across this: This item suggests some women have repeat abortions. Up to five, in spite of sex education. Interesting.

Obama, poverty and families

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Obama’s recent speech discussed race and poverty: Here’s what he did not discuss. Marriage is an anti-poverty campaign in itself. The article is from a non-so-con source (very important-because so-cons are born with a pro-marriage, pro-life gene, as we all  know).  

Researchers estimate that the entire rise in poverty in America since the late 1970s can be attributed to “changes in family formation,” a euphemism for the decline of families headed by two married parents. … Given that a significant body of research now shows that children raised in two-parent, married families do better in school, are less likely to wind up in jail, and are less likely to end up on welfare, the startling racial divide in marriage tells us that a new generation of children, especially blacks, are growing up destined to struggle academically, in the job market, and in forming their own families. And policy prescriptions like a higher minimum wage or tax credits are unlikely to help many of these kids. What they mostly need is another parent-usually a father.

And lest you think the Republicans are doing any better on this issue…

Even Republican presidential nominee John McCain-whose economic agenda focuses on pro-growth policies, like corporate tax cuts-has little to say about the family, though the children of many fractured poor families will be in no position to take advantage of such tax cuts. … Comparing the rhetoric of the presidential candidates with the latest stark data on families is a reminder that, until we can at least begin to discuss in the political sphere one of the major causes of economic woes in America today, we can’t begin to take the necessary steps to reduce long-term poverty.

The doctor’s choice

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“Doctors in every branch of medicine were asked ‘What cigarette do you smoke?” The brand they named was camel!”Sometimes, just sometimes, the average pro-lifer feels like some have elevated “choice” above substance.Let the record stand: This anti-choicer believes everyone, even doctors, ought to be allowed to choose their favourite brand of cigarette. If that’s what they so desire.

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Tanya offers up a bit of trivia fun:  The National Cancer Institute acknowledged a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer in 1957.  In what year did the first study show such a link?  Answer: 1929.  “Really?  It took almost 30 years for NCI to begin warning the public?”  Yes, really.

An hour of darkness will come…

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That’s not a cryptic prophecy of some kind. An hour of darkness will come at 8 pm on March 29 for Earth Hour.

I remember “Earth Days”—the blackout that affected much of the eastern seaboard back in  2004. I don’t recall whether the Rosewater Supper Club was serving organic lettuce by candlelight at that time.

Lights out in major cities has a depressing, quiet and eerie feel to it. I first experienced it in Communist Poland—where prior to 1989 many lights were out every night (and not because people were trying to be green). Ditto for the dark streets of east Berlin ten years after Communism fell. Not a great way for a girl to get home from late night classes. In other parts of the world, like El Salvador and Mexico (off the resort path) again, the flickering of a broken fluorescent bulb is more the norm than the exception.

But you know what? I support this Earth Hour so every spoiled westerner can feel and see what it’s like when the lights dim. As we congratulate ourselves for “making a difference” over a night of organic greens, perhaps some will turn their thoughts to those parts of the world where they don’t take basics (like light) for granted.

 

“See the difference you can make” is the slightly ironic Earth Hour slogan. “See a difference?” Well, not as I sit in the dark, I sure won’t. Earth Hour–taking us toward a bold new dark age. Literally.  

 

Cross-posted to The Shotgun.

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Andrea is getting old: The eastern seaboard blackout was actually in August 2003.

Angus Reid must harbour a secret so-con agenda

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Otherwise how could they come up with these poll results on Bill C-484?

Furthermore, more women support the legislation than men.  

Women (74%) are slightly more in favour of the proposed legislation than men (66%). Female respondents (19%) are also less likely than male respondents (29%) to perceive the Unborn Victims of Crime Act as an attempt to recriminalize abortion in Canada

Interesting.

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Tanya adds: Boy-oh-boy, that 19 per cent sure is making alot of noise. In public forums, you can barely get two words out about Bill C-484 without someone calling it a “foothold in the door” for anti-abortionists, or a “very dangerous precedent.”

Apparently, the only way pro-abortionists feel safe is if fetuses are accorded less rights than cattle.

“My body, my choice” in Australia

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Apparently abortion rates in Australia have precipitously declined.

We’ve plotted a sudden decline in the abortion rate that is so low it harps right back to the time when abortion was illegal and rarely practised,” said Dr Julia Shelley, of Deakin University in Melbourne.

Aha–and this is what I’m after. Women who simply don’t and won’t choose abortion, irrespective of what legislation says. We should know better for ourselves without legislation telling us.

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Rebecca adds: Fascinating.  Any speculation as to the cause?

A sad day for Ms. Holloway

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Kelly Holloway of the York University Student Centre banned an on-campus abortion debate a couple weeks back. It’s back. And on York’s campus. The debate, “Abortion – A Woman’s Right or a Moral Wrong?” will happen today, Tuesday the 18th, 5:30-7:00pm, Curtis Lecture Hall E, Keele Campus. The unfortunate reality is that those who should go, won’t. Kelly’s probably got a date with America’s Top Model. When you’ve got a hard and fast No Thinking rule, best to keep it consistent.

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Andrea stands corrected: I’ll leave our readers to guess which ProWomanProLifer knows her pop culture, but I’ve just been told America’s Top Model is on Wednesdays, not Tuesdays. PWPL apologizes for the error.

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Véronique clears her throat: That would be America’s NEXT Top Model. Not that I watch these things. Really. It conflicts with American Idol. I mean, it conflicts with some of the serious documentaries I watch on very serious channels. Seriously.

Excellent Ottawa Citizen letters page today

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Why such a good page, you ask? Because there are two ProWomanProLifers on it all on the same happy day. Very much unplanned. My letter, here and Véronique’s here.

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Rebecca adds: The insistence that if one opposes abortion, one must support birth control is a fine example of question begging. (For the record, while I reject the notion that abortion is a consequence-free private decision that is the prerogative only of the woman involved, I believe birth control to be none of anyone’s business but the couple’s, informed by medical, theological and other considerations that matter to them. Although I do have some serious qualms about the medical basis for a number of birth control methods.) But the argument takes as a given that a) sex can be severed from reproduction and b) perfect birth control, or close enough to perfect, is achievable. Neither of these is true.

The world would be a happier, better, saner place if fewer teenagers (and, dare I say it, unmarried adults) had sex. This is partly the case because of the inevitability of unplanned pregnancies. No birth control method is 100% effective; sterilization comes pretty close, but even then, whether through a faulty procedure or natural regeneration, sterilizations sometimes don’t work. And the numbers typically given for the effectiveness of the pill, diaphragm, condom and so on are usually “perfect use” statistics; in reality, very few users reproduce these circumstances, and the “”real world” reliability of most birth control methods is much lower. This may tie in well with certain political or religious views, but it is not a political issue or a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact.

So we create a culture in which sex is separated first from reproduction, then from marriage, and finally, in the age of the hook-up, from commitment or even affection. We raise a generation with the mantra of safe sex (omitting the fact that some diseases can be transmitted even while using a condom) and provide them with flawed tools to prevent conception. And inevitably, we end up with unplanned pregnancies, men leaving smoke behind them in the manner of the Road Runner as they head for the hills, and women convinced that their lives are ruined, who try to flee by terminating their pregnancies.

The fact that only abstinence is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy is also a matter of fact, not opinion. Young women (and men) who think their lives will be ruined, or (less melodramatically) recognize that premature and single parenthood will radically alter their plans, should keep this in mind. As a society, we can have “consequence-free” sex or we can value all life. We can’t do both, and no matter how hard we try (and many people have tried very hard indeed) we can’t sever sexuality from reproduction. Which is, I believe, part of the teaching of the Church on this matter.

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