That’s what this story implies:

Just two years after it celebrated its opening with the blessing of a Catholic priest, a “pro-life” pharmacy in Virginia has gone belly up. The Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy in Chantilly was one of a few in the United States to peg its business model to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, its shelves were free of condoms, porn, cigarettes, and even make-up. Turns out, though, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of stuff people actually want to buy.

Or maybe banning make-up was too much?

For those who’ve been following the failed Russian adoption story. An adoptive parent gives us some perspective on difficult cases.

Our family’s adoption was far from perfect, although for the moment it seems to have ended better than Hansen’s. Of course, we still don’t know how it really ends. Even if my adopted daughter turns out fine, there are the other children to consider — my three-year-old biological son may spend years on the couch because my adopted daughter displaced him; either my older son or my older daughter could seek the love and affection they lost this past year in a cult or a series of destructive one-night stands. We won’t know until we know (and we’ll never know what might have been different).

With the publicity surrounding his return, Hansen’s adopted son will surely be taken in by some Russian family, and no matter what’s said about it publicly, that will not be a smooth sail down the Nile. Probably none of it will work out as anyone would have intended — in fact, by definition, it already hasn’t. A perfect world would be one in which every child could be well cared for by the mother he or she was born to. That’s not what we’ve got. A “successful” adoption story is one in which you can tell yourself that it worked out better than the alternative. That has to be enough.

I, too, dislike the idea of making doctors withhold information to patients as a way of trying to limit the number of abortions based on gender alone.

One critic, however, questions the measure’s effectiveness, given that parents can mail order DNA tests that accurately predict fetal sex, and abortion clinics generally do not ask the reason for the procedure. The way to tackle sex selection is by combating the social mores that lead people to want sons and not daughters, rather than by limiting abortion, said Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

“To restrict people’s freedoms, withholding information in that way, I think is unethical and unnecessary and is not going to prevent anything,” Ms. Arthur said. “It’s a little bit paternalistic and authoritarian.”

I agree that not telling patients won’t really help all that much (while annoying all the other parents out there who simply wish to know the gender of their baby as early as possible just because they’d rather know than not know). And yes, probably the best way to fight sex selection abortion is cultural, not legal. But hey, I wouldn’t mind if abortion clinics asked a few questions before going ahead with the procedure – why do you wish to abort; have you thought about other options; that sort of thing – at the very least make those parents who abort girls for no other reason than they prefer boys fess up semi-publicly. And really, it wouldn’t bother me if we could somehow have rules limiting access to abortion for entirely frivolous reasons – like because the baby is of the “wrong” gender. I am far from convinced this is possible and/or realistic, but if it were I wouldn’t be against it.

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Andrea adds: Well gosh, I didn’t know Joyce Arthur was all about freedom of information. I look forward to her advocacy in favour of doctors telling patients about the development of their children in detail then, at every stage. Information about what happens in an abortion (stirrups, suction, piece body parts back together after the fact to ensure that all have been removed)… You know, freedom of information.

When Joyce Arthur advocates for freedom of information for women it will be a sunny day in Canada indeed. It’s just that she really doesn’t want that, so it’s a bit rich to claim it here.

A blanket law restricting what doctors tell is unnecessary, as doctors are very aware when someone is wondering about the gender because they want to kill off their baby girl. It would require not a law, but a doctor telling parents I won’t support your nefarious intentions here, and here’s why. That would require doctors who don’t enforce an abortion culture in other areas. (They shouldn’t be the arbiters of what constitutes “a good abortion.” Here we have an attempt for the pot to call the kettle black. “We don’t like your cultural reasons for killing. We do, however, like our cultural reasons for killing.”)

All abortions are bad news.

No, I’m not going to get in the middle of the discussion between Andrea and Véronique about job prospects (or lack thereof) for moms. I will simply say, since you can’t resist asking me for my opinion anyway, that I believe we each make our own opportunities based on our own unique set of experiences and challenges. Also, I never expect anything from anyone, so it’s easier for me not to be disappointed when some things are harder than I thought.

But.

That’s now why I’m writing now. I just noticed this news story about the prevalence of women in the public sector and I’m just delighted that some people are starting to question affirmative action. I have always been against the idea of giving any group of people preferential treatment based on their gender or race or anything not directly related to the job they’re applying for. I believe we each make our own opportunities based on our own unique set of experiences and challenges, and that’s that.

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Véronique adds: Ah, yes, affirmative action. When I saw the front page I thought about the discussion on career prospects. I’m not too hot on affirmative action as a principle although my earlier comments may lead you to believe otherwise. I’m not saying that systemic injustices don’t exist or that wrongs shouldn’t be “righted”. On the other hand, I look at any state interference with suspicion, especially when it comes to picking winners. It’s not only that picking winners creates a whole new class of injustices in response to injustice but it also erodes our collective work ethic. Some people will never get ahead no matter how hard they work; other people will get ahead regardless of how little they work.

Wow, what a perfectly horrible story:

It sounds like a script for a B-grade horror movie: a childless 30-something American woman decides to adopt a seven-year-old orphan boy from halfway around the world.  Overnight, the boy’s world changes completely:  from the gloom of a Russian orphanage, he is transported to the bucolic “horse country” of Tennessee.  At first all seems well, but as time goes on the boy begins to display disturbing behaviour, spitting, hissing and kicking his new mother, threatening to kill family members, reacting violently when denied a new toy, attempting to beat a relative with a statue when asked to correct his math homework.

Finally, when the child not only threatens to burn down his house but draws pictures of the conflagration, the adoptive mother hatches a desperate plan.  She puts the boy on a plane back to Russia with a note saying that he has severe psychological problems, she was lied to by the orphanage, and that she had

“…given my best to this child [but was] sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child. As he is a Russian national, I am returning him to your guardianship and would like the adoption disannulled.”

Were this a movie, that would be the final frame; the haunted face of a purported psychopathic child staring out the face of the airplane, while his adoptive mother and her family sob with both guilt and relief.  But this isn’t a fantasy – it’s the real story of Russian orphan Artyom Savelyev and his American adoptive mother, Torry Hansen.  And this drama didn’t end at the airport: it has spawned an international diplomatic incident, a freeze on American adoption of Russian children, and an investigation into the adoptive mother and her family.

Words fail me. I gather adoption is not always easy, and I’m sure international adoptions are several orders of magnitude harder. Especially when the child has been mistreated – or “mistreated” according to posh North American standards. But good grief – “I no longer wish to parent this child”? That’s enough to kick an orphan, a 7-year-old orphan, back to Russia?

[Read more…]

Apparently, some people find time to wonder whether “chexting” is cheating. What a world.

A man is accused of causing his pregnant girlfriend to have a miscarriage. He is charged with “criminal homicide of an unborn child, first-degree murder of an unborn child, aggravated assault of an unborn child, aggravated assault, hindering apprehension or prosecution, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.” The charge that sticks out, here, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, is the murder one.

The charges are based on the following events, according to police:

The victim, a 36-year-old woman from Sayre and a pharmacist at a Wegmans Market, said she had a two-year physical relationship with Tercero, also a Wegmans pharmacist.

Tercero was engaged to another woman at the time.

The victim, whose name is being withheld by this newspaper, told Tercero she was pregnant in mid-January.

Tercero told the woman he could use the drug misoprostol to induce a miscarriage. The victim told Tercero she would get an abortion instead.

The victim, however, made a Feb. 24 appointment for an abortion but changed her mind. She called Tercero to tell him she would keep the baby.

In late February, on the victim’s birthday, Tercero visited her at home and used misoprostol he allegedly stole from Wegmans pharmacy to cause the miscarriage.

Without her knowing it, Tercero put one pill in her vagina, one in her juice and one in her water. She was 13 weeks pregnant at the time.

When the victim began to miscarry, she found a partially dissolved misoprostol tablet among the discharge.

Tercero drove the victim to Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, where she miscarried.

Where to begin?

One: I am terribly sorry for her loss. Two: I agree with the charge; if the accusations are proven in court, this man is guilty intentionally of ending the life of a human being. Three: I can’t help but note that had the woman voluntarily swallowed those pills, we would never have heard of her and nobody would have been charged with anything, yet that same unborn human being would still be dead.

That doesn’t make much sense to me.

[h/t]

A reader sent a link to this story (in French) about the recent decision to ban strip clubs in Iceland. I’d vaguely heard about it, but didn’t pay it much mind – I always thought Iceland was a bit of a weirdo kinda place. Maybe I should have (my translation):

But isn’t dancing in legal clubs better than clandestine prostitution? Feminists disagree. ‘The presence of dancing bars increases prostitution instead of reducing it,’ says Katrin Anna Gudmundsdottir. ‘If we want to fight prostitution and the traffic of women, we cannot accept that women should be akin to something you can buy and sell.

‘Prostitution isn’t the world’s oldest profession, it’s probably the world’s oldest oppression,’ says Ms. Gudmundsdottir. ‘We can’t make it less dangerous by legalizing it. It is a form of violence, so we have no choice but to make it illegal. We may not succeed in eliminating all forms of prostitution right away, but one day, when we have more equality and liberty, prostitution will be inconceivable.'”

I’m not sure exactly how realistic this woman’s position is, but I don’t really care. Maybe she’s a touch too idealistic. But so what? Isn’t her ideal worth pursuing? Wouldn’t you rather live in a world where buying and selling sexual services from other humans would be virtually inconceivable?

I think so. And now I’m thinking: What lessons can those of us who would prefer to live in a world where the indiscriminate killing of “inconvenient” or “unwanted” unborn babies is virtually inconceivable learn from this example?

Well, not very useful anyway. As Brian Lilley reports, if all you knew about abortion you’d read in polls, you’d be quite lost.

News you need:

Women with degrees are almost twice as likely to drink daily as those without, but they’re also more likely to admit they have a drinking problem, according to a new study. While the same link is seen among men, the correlation is less strong, the UK Telegraph reports. In the study, researchers from the London School of Economics tracked the lives of thousands of women and men, all born in the UK during the same week in 1970, and at the time aged 39. Women’s drinking habits can even be predicted from scores in school tests from as young as five, say the authors, who suggest several reasons: better-educated women tend to have children later, putting off the accompanying responsibilities. They also have more active social lives, and often work in male-dominated offices with a drinking culture. They might have grown up in middle-class families, and seen their parents drink regularly. The study found that women with some educational qualifications were 71 per cent more likely to drink on most days compared to women with none; women with degree-level qualifications were 86 per cent more likely to do so.