A really bad example:

GRENOBLE, France, February 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life demonstrators outside a hospital in Grenoble France were violently attacked Sunday by abortion supporters.  NOVOpress, a French-language news agency, reports that 70 pro-life picketers outside the ‘Couple-Child’ Hospital were violently attacked by a pro-abortion mob of some 260 individuals.

A pro-life demonstration was scheduled for the early afternoon, but prior to the arrival of the pro-life demonstrators, a rowdy crowd of abortion supporters took up the designated area.  NOVOpress reports that when the pro-lifers arrived they were verbally and physically accosted.

Police intervened and remained on the scene until the pro-life demonstrators left an hour later.  Two pro-abortion activists were arrested for throwing stones.

Later, 15 of the pro-lifers were confronted in a parking lot by 90 of the pro-abortion mob.  NOVOpress reports that the pro-lifers were barraged with stones and even threatened with knives.  They took shelter in a supermarket, but that did not stop the attack, which resulted in the smashing of the window of the supermarket.

Police in riot gear arrived on the scene and the abortion supporters fled.  Police arrested but later released over a dozen of the abortion supporters, charging two with causing damages.

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Rebecca adds: I’m just stunned that progressive France has a place called a “Couple-Child” hospital. Isn’t that kind of judgmental, implying that having a child should have anything to do with being part of a couple? How very un-European.

Not that making your mark is a bad idea. But moms should not feel like they’re idle when raising their kids.

And stories like this one don’t help me feel better. There’s a zoo in Michigan that charges visitors to watch animals, er, mate. And it’s sold out, of course.

Hey, what if it turns out animals are heteronormative right-wing bigots?

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Andrea adds: Far be it from me to give dating advice, but this would most certainly qualify as the worst Valentine’s Day date activity, ever.

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Tanya says: To add to Andrea’s point, I wouldn’t bring a child there, either. You don’t want to know the questions I faced from my 3-year-old when we had an embarrassing run-in with some giant turtles on display at the local pet store.

What to do when your kid drives you insane? I find this tip very cute:

THE MONA LISA

Say nothing, show no emotional reaction, and deploy a slightly amused, faintly dismissive expression that says, in effect, “Pretty good for a novice, but nowhere near good enough to get to me.” – Immediate effect The Mona Lisa will de-escalate the child’s behaviour. The child may finish the current diatribe but will probably not go on beyond that. – Long-term effect Decreases slightly the likelihood of future battles. The Mona Lisa shows the child — more effectively than simple ignoring would — that provocative misbehaviour will not get a satisfying rise out of you. – Side effects You’re asking a lot of yourself, in terms of restraint, because you will feel that you have not taught the child a lesson and that you permitted yourself to be abused, but you will have modelled restraint, the very behaviour you wish to teach here.

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Tanya adds: Hey Brigitte… have you ever tried this on an adult? It works rather well!

I enjoyed Juno a great deal, but I couldn’t hum you anything from that soundtrack if my life depended on it. That wasn’t really what I was paying attention to. I guess I missed something good: It just won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack. Yippee-dee-doo!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20PQBtyfNZY]

MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism.

Oh, I know. She’s busy counting the days until her sixth baby is born… But what can I do? She’s the one who knows stuff about ethics. I’m just, you know, a know-nothing reactionary right-winger who doesn’t like too many medical interventions in what should be normal life stuff. (Don’t get me wrong: modern medicine is great when you need it; but we don’t need it nearly as often as some people would have us believe.)

Anyhoo.

Long piece in the Globe and Mail about yet another “simple test” that could, they claim, detect genetic problems with your baby earlier in a pregnancy. It’s too early in the morning (plus Véronique is, last I heard, still pregnant…) to start a “spot-the-euphemism” drinking game, but gosh, what a piece. A few choice samples:

Current methods to collect fetal DNA, such as amniocentesis, involve an intrusion into the uterus that can trigger a miscarriage – a risk that makes many couples refuse the procedure.

(Written as though most normal people – and not, say, reactionary kooks like me – would, of course, never refuse such a procedure… I mean, really, what’s the big deal?)

Yet as with most advances in reproductive medicine, the new technology is raising tricky social questions.

While some see it as a better way to prepare parents and hospitals to care for newborns with special needs, others fear it smacks of eugenics as science makes it ever easier to reject a less-than-perfect baby.

(“tricky social questions”?)

This is a powerful technology,” said Doug Wilson, head of the genetics committee of the Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada.

“If it can be proven to be as accurate [as current diagnostic methods] it will become the new diagnostic gold standard.

“If it can be done at 10 weeks, instead of 16 weeks, it will relieve the stresses of pregnancy early.”

(“relieve the stresses of pregnancy”?)

Dr. Wilson of the obstetrics society noted that even the best current screening methods result in a number of women being told they are carrying a baby with Down syndrome when they are not.

“You could have 10 to 15 women who screen positive, but only one of them will be a true positive,” said Dr. Wilson, also head of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Calgary and Foothills Hospital.

(Right. And that would have nothing to do with a pregnant woman’s decision not to have a giant needle stuck into her uterus? or with – what did they call it? – the stresses of pregnancy?)

U.S. statistics suggest that 80 to 95 per cent of women who receive an early prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to end their pregnancies, she noted. In Canada, the number cannot be tracked due to privacy regulations.

Had enough for one morning? Me, too.

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Tanya’s mind is reeling: So instead of insisting on more accurate screening methods, science is looking for screening methods which can be performed earlier. And this even though it’s likely about 8 out of 10 abortions performed in the name of “fetal abnormality” end the life of a perfectly healthy child.

Now, I’m opposed to eugenics across the board. But even if you aren’t, isn’t that disgusting?

Do they tell the woman, when she screens positive, that there’s less than a 10% chance her child has Down Syndrome? Where are the “reproductive rights” activists now?

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Rebecca adds: Well, two cheers for Canadian medicare, because at US$700 a pop, I can’t see this test being offered, and thus in practice available, here anytime soon.

What’s that about a slippery slope? “But CEO Harry Stylli said the company plans to develop screening tests for a range of other disorders, such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and Tay-Sachs disease.” Tay-Sachs causes deterioration from late infancy on, leading to death by age 4 or 5. I can imagine how abortion might seem to be a better choice than bringing a child into the world doomed to a short and painful life. But cystic fibrosis patients often live into their late 20s and 30s, and sickle cell anemia reduces the average life expectancy to the late 40s. Implicit in this testing is that at least some parents will choose abortion over bearing a child with the disease being screened for. What sane argument can be made for aborting a baby who will have a medical condition that can largely be managed, and who with today’s medicine could potentially live half a century, and see his or her grandchildren? Heart disease and hypertension also shave a decade or two off life expectancy; if we could pinpoint the genes for those and screen for them in the womb, would that be a good reason to abort? Where do we stop?

The mother of those octuplets talks to the media.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLtm_DW2jMQ]

[h/t Maclean’s]

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Rebecca adds: It’s surreal. Where to start?

One tiny detail of the story: there is a daycare at the university that she hopes to use while finishing her Masters in counselling. There is a very well regarded daycare that a lot of my friends have used at a nearby community centre: for the four infant spaces (infant being between 12 week and 18 months) they have a waiting list of 150 babies. And she’s under the impression that she’ll be able to find, never mind pay for, fourteen spaces?

“I wanted to be a mother” – yes, of course, what could be more natural than to want to be a mother, and since (it’s implied) her fertility problems are linked to an injury, how much worse to feel that your ability to become a mother has been violently taken away from you? But at what point do we have to move beyond the wants of individual adults, and think about the babies?

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Patricia says: The throwaway question “you knew you weren’t going to selectively reduce?” was a nice touch, I thought. It provides a chilling insight into the world of assisted reproduction. As the mother goes through her story, the interviewer just wants to make sure she’s got the process right: the mother had implanted multiple embryos and she didn’t plan on killing even a few of them. Without batting an eye, the mother acknowledges that the “selective reduction”/killing step was not part of her plan and continues on with her story. Implicit in the whole exchange is a complete acceptance that that step would be a completely normal response to the possibility of such a multiple birth, but it just didn’t work for this mother.

I wonder how they decide which babies to “selectively reduce”? Does the doctor review that decision with the parents?

Ezra Levant has the latest… from the free speech point of view.

From my own anti-casual-abortion point of view: I’ll say again (sorry if you’ve read this before; but I am going to say it every chance I get), I object to subjecting unsuspecting bystanders to graphic GAP images without giving them a chance to brace themselves. I challenge everyone to see those graphic and disturbing images [you have been warned], along with Silent Scream – especially pro-choicers, for they should know what it is that they’re defending. But I don’t want to force them to. This said, and given what else goes unchallenged on campus, I consider the treatment of those pro-life students more objectionable than the images in question so I find myself, reluctantly, defending them.