Harvey Weinstein, we learn, as recently as May, gave $100,000 to Planned Parenthood. What a guy! He was pro-choice, and clearly so very generous! What do his actions matter–he was saying the “right” things and making big movies.
For the record, it is a pro-woman and pro-life thing to point out that men who have lots of sex with not their wives need access to abortion more than anyone–to conceal the result of their despicable ways.
Lady Macbeth
My friend Veronique Bergeron’s blog, Fearless Family Life has a new look, which caused me to re-read some of her old stuff. It’s pretty great, starting with her description of her family and how the family got started:
I was 21 and unmarried when I got pregnant with my oldest daughter, right out of my first year of Law School. The doctor who confirmed the pregnancy told me that mothers in my situation ended up poor, uneducated and single. My peers told me: “You’re not going to keep it right?” She was born with the sunrise on a Wednesday morning. I didn’t believe in God back then but when they placed her on my chest, I knew I had touched eternity. She was more than a birth control flub, more than an “it”, she was a person who had been meant from all times to be placed in my arms. A unique and timely mix of the right chromosomes, meeting at the right time, never made before, never to be made again. Clara opened my heart to a love that defied every other kind of love: a love devoid of self-interest, a love of the other for the other’s sake. She gave me a new heart and new eyes. And so I was made a mother and never looked back.
Looking forward, not back.
Later abortion and coercion toward abortion are two things the mainstream media prefers not to discuss. This woman’s story involves both. Because women like this are sidelined, I am linking to her story.
We have gone from making abortion “rare and legal” to enshrining it for all nine months at the expense of everything, including the long-term impact on the mothers we profess to care about. This negative impact is still being denied by those who have made abortion their god, despite women themselves speaking out on the pain and destruction it has caused.
More proof that today, the pro-life woman is supposed to be silent and invisible in order to uphold the abortion-friendly status quo.
By this point, everyone has a take on Rachael Harder-gate. Lots of folks have written well on the topic, and let me just say, I’m grateful for the very reasonable pro-choice people out there, who get why walking out of a Parliament Hill committee like some high school clique is the wrong direction for democracy. This is my pro-life-and-proud-of-it take on the topic. Being pro-life doesn’t mean being weak. It doesn’t mean being subservient to men or anyone else. It doesn’t mean denying choices. It means one recognizes the beauty of women, including her reproductive capacity. Being pro-life says it is not right, just or equal to ask women to make a choice that involves getting rid of her children.
Read more here. And feel free to leave a comment at Huffington Post. I know countless pro-life women–countless!–and now is the time for our voices to be heard.
Being pro-life is, in reality, a feminist position. A woman-friendly world should be able to accommodate women’s fertility, with things like flex work time for mothers, different work rules for pregnant women and having much higher expectations of fathers. (Incidentally, Planned Parenthood used to understand this, running an ad campaign in the ’80s that showed a man with a pregnant belly. The caption read, “When your girlfriend gets pregnant, so do you.”)
In the feminist pro-life world, pregnancy and children should not be a threat or an inconvenience — indeed, “women deserve better than abortion” is the slogan of Feminists for Life. It’s a twisted definition of equality that asks women to give up their children by undergoing invasive surgery. Men don’t have to do that, and neither should women.
If I were a betting woman, I’d bet Rosie the Riveter was pro-life.
Some Liberals walked out of a committee meeting on Parliament Hill today because Rachael Harder was nominated as Chair of the Status of Women committee. This is the quote from an NDP MP, Sheila Malcolmson:
The chair is the spokesperson for our work and it’s impossible for a spokesperson of an all parliamentary committee where reproductive choice is at the foundation of women’s equality, for her to be able to communicate and articulate our work,” she said after Tuesday’s meeting.
“Reproductive choice” is a euphemism. Here, it refers to abortion. So now we have this clear admission that the Status of Women ministry only represents pro-choice women. I’d be glad to see the whole committee fall apart and Status of Women defunded. I, for one, do not need special representation in Parliament, especially not by people who don’t represent all women, but only a subset of women.
And “reproductive choice,” is not the foundation of women’s equality. Those who make it so do a disservice to all women.
Rachael Harder, MP
Oftentimes, in life-related debates, it can feel like there is no common ground. This article highlights the problems with surrogacy, something many feminists are against, whether those feminists are pro-life or pro-choice. The author’s bio shows that on some issues at least, there can be common ground. Read her article–it describes the pitfalls of surrogacy very well.
Kathleen Sloan is a former member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW), Executive Director of Connecticut NOW, a consultant on third-party reproduction issues, and co-author of the book Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth and Culture. She has a master’s degree in International Relations and has traveled the world advocating women’s rights, including at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York. She co-authored a brief for fifteen feminist academics and advocates as amici curiae in support of the petitioner (the surrogate) in the case discussed above.
On rare occasion, the World Wide Web does something positive by bringing people together. I got an email from Jennifer Rose (not her real name) who was asking for places to go for healing after an abortion 28 years ago. Something about Jennifer’s story really resonated with me. She doesn’t have other children–her aborted child was it. Could this not be any one of us? I consider how life goes in our “modern” world and I really feel her story could be me. Suddenly, you are 40 or 50 or 60 and you look back on your life and realize so many things you thought were difficult could have been coped with. We are all compelled to make our own mistakes and suffer the consequences, as if there were no older, wiser women to learn from. Must it be this way? Here’s one older, wiser woman, who would like to tell her story so that others can read it, hear it and change course if they are in her situation of 28 years ago.
Here’s Jennifer’s story:
I regret my abortion. It was 28 years ago and this is the first time I am writing about it. It is time to leave my head—to get my story out. There are many reasons why I made the mistake to end my pregnancy; fear, self-hate and ignorance top the list.
I was 28 years old and missed one day of my birth control pills. I was in a serious relationship. I believe I had the abortion at eight weeks. It was an unsettling and exciting time in my life. I had just uprooted the only life I had ever known and moved from one coast to the other, to be with the love of my life. He was starting a new job and we wanted to start a new life together. He was not happy for us when he heard the news. He had two older children from a previous marriage and our finances at the time were a shambles. He said he would leave if I had the baby. (He denies he said this.) I was too afraid to tell my parents back home. I wish I was happy with the news regardless of how my partner felt and whether he wanted another child. I felt so scared and very alone. I felt I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have a baby. Me? Having a baby? Being a mother? I panicked.
As a young, introverted girl, I rarely thought of growing up and having a family like a lot of my friends. I tended to talk about “deeper” things like why the universe is the way it is, or what the purpose of life is. Then when I was eight, my childhood came to an abrupt end and my family was fragmented forever when my oldest sister, just 18 years old, dropped dead from a heart attack. When sudden tragedy strikes I believe it depends on your age, stage in life and temperament as to how and in what forms you process the event. I lay in bed that night listening to the horrific wails of grief coming from my mother downstairs. That memory will always be with me. I was good at internalizing and over-thinking events even then and created the thought that having children must feel terrible because they die and you cry and hurt.
What if my baby died like my sister did?
I wish I could go back to my 28-year-old self and tell her not to make the biggest mistake of her life. If I could, I would have told her she didn’t need to feel scared or alone and to reach out to a supportive minister or counsellor for guidance and support—someone who would show her that her life was going to change for the better. I would have told her this was not entirely about her, that she must be brave, that this baby deserves a chance at life and even if she felt that she couldn’t raise the child, there is always adoption. If the baby was born with physical or medical problems that she would be able to cope with strength, love and courage.
I wish I loved and believed in myself more back then. I wish I knew then what I know now that everything will always be okay. Everything. I wish I had had my strong personal faith in God like I do now. I kept everything to myself. Thinking I knew best, I guess, I let my ego rule over my heart. I still remember as if it were yesterday when they put the oxygen mask over my face; I had tears pouring down my face. So, so sorry I was so selfish and stupid!
Now, I am 56 and childless. My partner at the time and I have since married and have stayed together. Through the years since my abortion, I’ve been angry at myself. I tried to cope by numbing everything with booze, but the pain and regret never really seemed to go away. I have been treating myself as an invisible visitor on this earthly plane. I tried propping my self-esteem up with pro-choice and feminist beliefs for many years after that because I was too afraid to face the ugly truth of what I had done. But my soul always knew and it has weighed on me.
My self-esteem was demolished—the day my sister died. I work every day with meditation, my faith and journal writing to save any innocent essence I have left. I pray daily, repentant, and I know I am forgiven. I am back on the path and walk in His grace and mercy every day.
We are women and we can bring new life into this bizarre and beautiful place. I want my story to be comfort and inspiration for some scared young woman who perhaps, like me, fears being a mother. I want to tell her to go for it: Jump into the unknown with love and know that there are people out there who care about you. Whether you intend to keep your baby or not, know that you are bringing a new life into the world who deserves to be here.
And to tell her that everything will always turn out okay. Everything.
We don’t have a problem in Canada with women accessing abortions. We have a problem with women waiting to conceive, and then needing to cope with media reports of how tragic it is when women get abortions–just slower than they would have preferred.
Here’s my take on this in Convivium.
Ruth Shaw and I argue in this piece that we shouldn’t limit freedom of speech or association without solid evidence.
Bubble zones on public property in front of abortion clinics set a bad precedent. What do they mean for other law abiding and peaceful protests? What about protesting a corporation violating good environmental practices, or an embassy infringing on human rights? Recently, Indigenous protestors erected a teepee on Parliament Hill. Significantly, they placed it where the power and action is, and were allowed to do so.
Meanwhile, I’ve finally gotten a response from the Ontario Auditor General on how we can all contribute to the public consultation process. Long story short, they essentially aren’t having one. I’d suggest writing in–if you like you can use the piece linked to above for talking points. Here’s the response I got in full.
Thank you for your email requesting to participate in consultations with respect to the development of “safe access zone” legislation. This legislation would protect the safety and security of patients at health care facilities that offer women’s reproductive services. I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to me on this important issue.
As you may be aware, on May 29, 2017 I announced a plan to introduce a bill this fall that would, if passed, provide for the creation of “safe access zones” at specified health care facilities. These zones would help ensure that women across Ontario have safe access to health care services, and that their privacy and dignity are protected when doing so.
My ministry is working over the summer to develop a legislative proposal that strikes the right balance. Additional information about the proposed bill may be found here:
news.ontario.ca/mag/en/2017/05/protecting-a-womans-right-to-choose.html.
I would encourage you to provide your views on the proposed legislation in writing. Once the bill is introduced, there will be opportunity for further comment and debate as it moves through the usual legislative process.
So write in, people. It’s now or never for the government to hear the concerns of citizens. We ought to all expect and demand a higher standard of evidence than what we have in this debate.
Definitely unethical, and even illegal under our current law, but you can see how legalization normalizes killing and makes people bold. Going to the hospital and having someone recommend killing is a terrible thing that no one should have to endure. This is an obvious case of discrimination against people with disabilities, but really, it could happen to any one of us.
Sheila Elson, who lives in Newfoundland, was very upset when Dr Aaron Heroux offered assisted suicide for her daughter Candice (25) who lives with multiple disabilities.
According to Geoff Bartlett reporting for CBC News Newfoundland:
“His words were ‘assisted suicide death was legal in Canada,'” she told CBC. “I was shocked, and said, ‘Well, I’m not really interested,’ and he told me I was being selfish.”
Candice Lewis, has several disabilities including spina bifida, cerebral palsy and chronic seizure disorder.
Candice Lewis and her mother. Photo Credit: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition