Me and Brian Lilley. Enjoy.

Woah. Don’t read the comments, but this is Lorna Dueck’s take on the whole Justin Trudeau thing. This time in the Globe. I wrote that Justin’s actions were consistent with a pro-choice worldview and got vitriol, she writes that they are unjust and unnecessary and got…vitriol.

Apparently, there’s no pleasing the pro-choice crowd.

…do people issue press releases declaring abortion to be a universal human right. Only in politics does a leader stand up and say no one is allowed to think differently.

For men and women on the ground, abortion is not on their radar. And when it is, it’s in a decidedly non-Ottawa way.

That’s why I wrote this piece about abortion’s effect on the family.

It was written with a specific eye for women who have abortions, suffer, research says that is completely possible, but the political ideologues stand up and say “it’s a right!” And so these women suffer alone, thinking they must be the only ones to have a negative reaction.

That there are major effects of abortion on women, men, families and society is the subject of this paper. That the effects can be negative is no great surprise.

Used to be that “safe, legal and rare” was the consensus. Now we have to all stand up and cheer. Or shut up.

I can guarantee you a lot of women don’t agree with me. I can also guarantee you they don’t agree with Niki Ashton.

A friend sent me the photo below, from HuffPost Canada. They did a series called What Moms Really Want, for mother’s day. I was obviously disturbed by this mom’s request for free abortion and IVF:

What I really want for Mother’s Day is for all Canadians to be supported in their choice to become parents when they’re ready — which means abortions are free, legal and easily accessible, and that artificial reproductive technologies be offered safely and widely to ALL Canadians through provincial health coverage.”

Since it takes a special kind of mom to say she really wants abortions for Mother’s Day, I googled her name. And is it really surprising to learn this? She is a university prof, at Concordia.

Rachel has long-standing scholarly and activist interests in queer lives (in theory and practice), reproductive politics, and questions of power in relation to the formalization of political and activist practices. Her new work on this subject, entitled Reproductive Politics in Queer Times, centers on evolving discourses of ‘choice’ in neoliberal times. Using perspectives from ethnography, textual & cultural analysis, legal studies, and queer theory, this project and takes up questions of reproduction and coupling set against the backdrop of homonationalism and the economization of life.

(“Homonationalism” is a term discussed in one place, and one place only, I’m confident: On Campus.)

Anyway, no further comment from this on me, since in the words of one Ron Burgundy, I intend to stay classy.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I wrote a whole post, and then deleted it. I had some sort of critique of this day and how we may not actually honour moms in our culture at all but then couldn’t get the tone right. Gonna go off and reflect on Philippians 4:8 now.

I will add I am grateful to my mom, who I affectionately call Mamma Mia from time to time. She answers the phone with an “Aaaaaannnndreaaaaaa!!!” when I call like I’m a prodigal daughter or a celebrity.  No one else does that. And I call often! She sounds like she really wants to hear from me, (almost) every time. I have a great mom. And I will leave it at that for this Mother’s Day.

And that’s why (well, so many reasons, actually) I love Véronique and her clan. People before stuff sounds about right to me. An article about Véronique, and the birth of her ninth on the eve of Mother’s Day.

I posted this over at Huffington Post Canada. I feel like at least some of the people commenting didn’t actually read the piece.

Faye, YOU DID IT!!!

The Gosnell movie is fully funded, and it happened at the same time as you made your last minute donation.

Well, people, well done. I’m happy about this. And I will arrange a screening for Ottawa when the time comes.

PS. Remember this moment. When Faye speaks, people listen.

I have always held that the Conservative Party line on abortion “We will not re-open that debate” was wrong, not because it wasn’t pro-life enough for me (it isn’t) but because it isn’t pro-freedom enough for me.

Had they made their line be something like “we will let freedom of speech reign,” I think it would have been entirely defensible to Canadian pro-choicers.

After all, Members of Parliament must fight for their seats. So in the short-term if there were some “uncomfortable” debate about abortion, but it’s not what constituents wanted, they’ll get voted out. If it is what constituents want, then the MP is doing his/her job and that’s called democracy.

Instead, the Conservatives under Prime Minister Harper made clamping down on any abortion discussion their line. And since clamping down on abortion discussions/debate is standard fare for the most extreme fringe of the abortion rights movement, in a sense, Conservatives were pandering to a demographic that was never in a billion years going to vote for them anyway.

Now the Conservatives can’t rise above what Justin Trudeau said, because they have themselves clamped down on freedom in the past–albeit to a lesser degree.

I suppose freedom is actually dangerous to political parties and leaders. Who knows what people might actually do with it? That’s why citizens have to stand up in defence of freedom regardless of the issue at hand.

Well. That’s enough political prognosticating for one day. (How it is that being pro-life is actually part of a bigger freedom package is a post for another day. In one line: When the state can define and legislate on when life begins and ends, we have no freedom whatsoever.)

They won’t tell any woman what to do with her body, but they will tell candidates what they are allowed to think, feel and say about abortion.

Justin Trudeau declares pro-life candidates need not apply for nominations in the Liberal Party.

The question is then: Are Liberal MPs allowed to represent their constituents? There are pro-life ridings. And some of them are were Liberal.