In an unprecedented move, Dr. Morgentaler’s supporters have decided to catalogue past rejections and spur a public debate about why one of Canada’s iconic figures has never received its highest honour…
reads a Globe article.
Open the debate? That’s something pro-lifers have wanted for years. Sounds good to me.
A reader, Brian, thought we needed to read this. So I did–most of it, anyway.
There’s a lot of disagreement on how and when abortion causes psychological damage to women. One area of solid agreement is that when the woman herself harbours grave misgivings over the act, that woman is indeed more likely to experience personal damage.
So what upsets me about the link above is not that there are hypocrites out there, even pro-life ones–surely we all knew that. What upsets me is that the abortion providers document these examples and in only one case that I found, did they decline to do the abortion. One of these stories even documents a 16-year-old who the abortion providers describe as “not quite right.” But she too, got her abortion.
It also upsets me that someone would chronicle these horrible examples with an obvious sense of schadenfreude. Well done: You have exposed some maliciously dishonest pro-lifers.
It’s hard to see the hypocrites for all the other hypocrites. So I’ll ask a question. What is the bigger problem? The 16-year-old who is “not quite right” and pro-life but asks for and gets an abortion, or abortion providers who say they care about women but clearly don’t have a problem putting someone who is mentally incompetent under the knife?
Still, I thank the reader for drawing my attention to that piece.
A mother explains why she killed her first child here. She refrains from using the standard euphemisms, referring to her baby as a baby throughout. She then explains some of the results of her abortion: a (temporary) split with her husband, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and relief, a lack of desire for more kids.
But above all, the decision was right for her.
The new frontier of the pro-choice movement is to fully acknowledge the unborn child. But then to add that killing that child is a mother’s right.
Aaaah, progress.
____________________________
Patricia adds: Andrea, that’s a horrifying article. Maybe I’m naive but I can’t believe that stories like that are going to reconcile people to these kinds of “choices”. At least not in the long run.
There are about a dozen glaringly obvious and really disturbing aspects to this story.
For example, on learning that her child has Down Syndrome, there is not even the briefest consideration of any other possible alternative to abortion:
“Going ahead with the pregnancy wasn’t even up for discussion. Neil [the husband, oh, of course, the concerned husband] stayed strong [strong???!!!] and made all the necessary arrangements.
I saw a consultant the following day [the very next day??!! That Neil really stayed strong and wasted no time] and talked through the abortion procedure.”
There was a lot of “choice” going on there.
The description of the abortion procedure is stomach churning. Women should realize by instinct (and I believe that some part of each woman does) that anything that involves something so horrendous and unnatural has got to be contrary to their fundamental dignity.
No surprise then that the procedure leaves her with “guilt, I realise now, [that] I will have for ever. I pass Down’s children on the street and think, ‘I killed mine.’
… There is no escaping the reality of what I did, or the way I mentally rejected my baby. …
Abortion can never be described as an easy option. I still cry as though mine were yesterday.”
Naturally, I find it particularly horrifying that the justification for all of this is the fact that the child who was killed had Down Syndrome. But I would ask any woman if they would like their story to be that of the woman in that awful awful article or, in contrast and not to leave you on a completely depressing note, that of any one of these women.
ProWomanProLife welcomes Véronique Bergeron as a permanent blogging contributor.
Véronique Bergeron de Grandpré was born in Ottawa and was raised in the National Capital Region.
She graduated from law school at the University of Ottawa in 1999 with a civil law degree (LL.B.) The focus of her studies was… survival. During the summer following her first year in law school she got pregnant with her first child. And by convocation, four years later, she was pregnant with her third.
Like most young women of her generation, she was not born pro-life. While she always nursed a personal interest in childbirth (she wanted to be a midwife), she also assumed the prevalent choice rhetoric. Then she got pregnant at 21 in law school. “As soon as the little line turned blue, it became clear that what I thought would be a no-brainer was really excruciating,” says Bergeron. “Keeping” the baby was never an issue for her boyfriend, who surprised her with a marriage proposal shortly after (she accepted). Another formative influence was the complete and utter disbelief of her peers that she would do something so stupid as to “keep” the baby and ruin her professional life. “In the end, I pulled the trigger on my professional life by staying home with my children for 10 years,” says Bergeron. “That’s when I realized that women may have been liberated but liberation was achieved by excluding their reproductive abilities. I advocate for a complete liberation of women that includes the fact that they bear and deliver children.”
Bergeron believes that if abortion is indeed an equality issue and if women need to undergo such an invasive and damaging procedure to gain equal footing with men, there’s a word for that: Misogyny.
Bergeron joins ProWomanProLife because she wants to change the system. She is now seeking a Master’s degree in law with a specialization in biomedical ethics from McGill University. Her LL.M. thesis looks into the shared decision-making model in neonatal intensive care and her research interests are neonatal and obstetrical ethics, feminist approaches, informed choice and women’s health policy. She is particularly interested in using feminist scholarship to study forms of sexual exploitation not generally addressed by mainstream feminist approaches such as abortion, sterilization, cesarean sections and cosmetic surgery.
If she had spare time she would hone her musical skills and exercise. “In the meantime, I relax vicariously by driving my five children (aged two to 11) to their various musical and athletic activities,” she says.
PWPL looks forward to an ethicist/mother/lawyer’s contributions to the dialogue. Welcome Véronique!
When Morgentaler got the honorary degree from the University of Western, I was shocked. When he received an award from the Couchiching Conference, I was dumbfounded.
It’s time to stop being shocked by Morgentaler getting awards.
The time has come to stop him from getting the next one.
In today’s Globe, another call, same folks, mind you, always the same folks–for Morgentaler to receive the Order of Canada.
I’ll be writing a letter to the Governor General, which I’ll post once finished. You can either use it as a basis for your own letter, or just write in yourself.
I’d like to confirm the correct address before I post it. Stay tuned-I’ll call in on Monday during business hours to find out for sure.
It will be a dark day in Canada if he receives that award.
_______________________________
Update: Globe and Mail poll asking whether Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the infamous abortionist, deserves the honour of the Order of Canada. Scroll down to the left hand side of the page to vote no (and then shake your head).
Planned Parenthood is closing small clinics, while building mega-abortion centers. A 20,000-square-foot facility just opened in Aurora, Ill., and one three times that size is going up in Denver.
News item, here.
Naturally, Planned Parenthood calls it something else: A “full-service health center.”
Epinal is a French town not too far from Nancy or Strasbourg. They award something called a French Family Medal and the winners are pictured above in a local newspaper La Liberté de l’Est.
Mme Dairi raised 7 children, Malika Etassi 6, Yeza Sohbani 6, Khaddouj Karim 6, Djamila Beynée 5, Fatna El Bour 5. […] Françoise Skorynnée, raised 4 children.
So when Mark Steyn writes about changing demographics in Europe, apparently he wasn’t kidding. On a different note, I find it both strange and intriguing that they have a “family medal.”
_________________________________________
Rebecca adds: Wow. Vive la France libre.
While the government can certainly make it more, or less, of a hassle to have children, it can’t actually change the degree to which people want to make family their priority. This is why, attempts at increasing the birth rate aside, Quebec has the lowest birthrate in Canada and the segment of France that is reproducing is markedly different from the population overall.
________________________________________
Andrea adds: Had I known that Mark Steyn would link to this post from National Review Online, I would have spent more time on it.
To explain then, why I find it “strange and intriguing” that they have a family medal:
Strange because in our post-60s era of feminism-motherhood and raising a family has been sadly and strangely diminished as the accomplishment that it is. It is some vestige of a bygone era, then for a woman my age (31) to read of a “family medal.” We are left with nothing more than an annual Hallmark remembrance to the grand accomplishment of raising kids.
Strange also because it seems that the state in France is attempting to condone some worthy traditional values, but the face of their state has changed so dramatically that they are not in fact being traditional at all and may end up condoning things like Shariah law in short order.
Intriguing because I believe we should honour motherhood. But how, in this age and era?
Rebel against low standards. Do more with your life. “Do hard things.” Join the rebelution.
And yes, I noticed that these folks are religious. And ProWomanProLife is non-religious. But a Jewish friend put me on to the group and since she can hardly be taking up the cross (it’s a standard idiom, sorry) for religious purposes, I figure it’s kosher (oops, sorry, there’s another one) to go the extra mile (for the love of the saints-would someone please expunge biblical references from daily speech) … and post about them.
But I won’t join. I remain firmly committed to low standards because that means I always exceed ‘em. It’s allowed my self-esteem to flourish for years.
As the Post reported here, Suzuki has gone too far. Wonder how he feels about this new website to help understand the dissenting voices on climate change. Jail time for encouraging debate, or just a fine?
_______________________________
Brigitte wonders: Actually, could we not use his idea to silence global-warming alarmists who swear the science is sound but have no idea what a non-linear equation even is?
The remedy to Garson Romalis is Paul Ranalli. Thank goodness.