A group of 25 women will be walking from Montreal to Ottawa next year in the spring. 25 women for every year since 1988 and the disastrous Morgentaler decision.

Here’s a little video about it. Looks like a great initiative and makes me look forward to 2013 and all it will bring!

People who know me will know I make jokes about being a surfer at heart. But I do truly love water and waves and all that they represent (freedom, renewal, strength, power and sometimes, danger). So this story of a young surfing woman in Bangladesh bucking misogynistic cultural trends definitely struck a chord with me. Enjoy.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0gc1XqZew]

Barbara Kay has a wonderful article in the post, in support of M-408.

Legislation targeting sex-selective abortion is ineffective in the West, because it’s difficult to enforce (as in the Netherlands, where the practice is illegal but still widespread). That is why I favour Conservative MP Mark Warawa’s petition for the Commons to approve his motion — M408 — to “condemn discrimination against female pregnancy termination.”

This is an intelligent compromise. Women still would have freedom of choice, but the view of enlightened people that sex-selective abortion is a retrograde practice, alien to Canadian values and based in contempt for women, would be given official expression in our legislature.

An abortion law in Canada would halt the slide toward acceptance of infanticide. A good article by WeNeedALaw’s Mike Schoutten:

While the promotion of infanticide by “ethicists” such as Peter Singer and two philosophers in a recent issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics is generally dismissed by the public as extreme, Canada’s top legal experts are increasingly using our lack of legal protection for pre-born children as an excuse to enter the world wherein infanticide is an acceptable practice for women who have given birth and don’t receive the support they require to take care of their newborn child.

A passage from A Severe Mercy, A Story of Faith, Tragedy, and Triumph by Sheldon Vanauken. The whole book, sentence sentence, is beautifully written. It’s the true story of the correspondence between CS Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken, men who exchanged letters as they lost their wives to terminal illness. Here’s one passage that I thought our readers might be interested in.

He had been wont to despise emotions: girls were emotional, girls were weak, emotions—tears—were weakness. But this morning he was thinking that being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky—no feelings at all. But feelings—feelings are emotions! He was suddenly overwhelmed by the revelation that what makes life worth living is, precisely, the emotions. But, then—this was awful!—maybe girls with their tears and laughter were getting more out of life. Shattering! He checked himself: showing one’s emotions was not the thing: having them was. Still, he was dizzy with the revelation. What is beauty but something that is responded to with emotion? Courage, at least partly, is emotional. All the splendour of life. But if the best of life is, in fact, emotional, then one wanted the highest, purest emotions: and that meant joy. Joy was the highest. How did one find joy? In books it seemed to be found in love—a great love—though maybe for the saints there was joy in the love of God. He didn’t aspire to that, though; he didn’t even believe in God. Certainly not! So, if he wanted the heights of joy, he must have, if he could find it, a great love. But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. Still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain—if, indeed, they went together. If there were a choice—and he suspected there was—a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.

A sometimes funny piece about why being a mother today is hard, particularly as contrasted with yesteryear:

There were no flashcards, there was no sign language (unless you were deaf), there were no organic, free-range bento boxes — your job was to just see a kid through to adulthood and hope they didn’t become an idiot.

Dear PWPL blog readers,

I have received the following letter, which stems from Jennifer Derwey’s post about tocophobia. I have asked the letter writer for her location, because I thought we might put our heads together and try and find some counseling support for her in her area, which turns out to be Ocala, Florida. This looks to be about 100 km north of Orlando.

Please comment or send me an email, which I can then forward on, if you have any ideas. Thank you, and here’s the letter now.

I have tocophobia and cannot even leave the house. I was so traumatized with my first birth and the embarrassment was horrifying. I can’t find any help and have thoughts of suicide. I am to far along for termination an feel so helpless I can’t wake up day after day continuously thinking of giving birth and all that goes with it. I am terrified.

______________________

Update: Some of you have asked how things are going here. Better, I believe, and I remain in touch with her. Thank you for countless great recommendations and thoughts. I will continue to forward on anything else you’d like to offer.

This story is so lovely, so honest, so gut-wrenching. Oh to be able to write like this! So I hope you enjoy it for what she says and how she says it. There are many excerpts I enjoyed, but the one below struck closest to home:

But one thing I’ve learned these last four years that possibly Solomon has not: All of our accomplishments are few. All of our accomplishments are minor: my scribblings, his book, the best lines of the best living poets. We embroider away at our tiny tatters of insight as though the world hung on them, when it is chiefly we ourselves who hang on them. Often a dog or cat with none of our advanced skills can offer more comfort to our neighbor than we can. (Think: Would you rather live with Shakespeare or a cute puppy?) Each of us has the ability to give only a little bit of joy to those around us. I would wager Eurydice gives as much as any person alive.

Here are some true stories of how First Place Options, an Ottawa-based centre that counsels men and women in pregnancy options, helps people.

There really is nowhere else like this in Ottawa for people in need of help to go. You’ll note those stories include men who needed to talk out a crisis pregnancy.

You might like to send them a Christmas gift! (And no, I don’t work for them.)

This is a really interesting infographic of abortion in Canada, from the National Post.

It’s quite dispassionate, and, from what I can tell, quite accurate.

What I find really, really disturbing, is that this is essentially a big pictorial representation of how and when we kill our kids in Canada.

I’m glad they did this.