I just read this tragic story that was reported by Jill Stanek:

Late last week came the news that Planned Parenthood of Illinois, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation have agreed to pay $2 million in a wrongful death settlement to the surviving young son of a woman who died after an abortion at a Chicago Planned Parenthood in 2012.

On July 20, 2012, 24-year-old Tonya Reaves, pictured right, died after a late-term abortion at Planned Parenthood’s Loop Health Center from uncontrolled bleeding, according to court documents.

When I read American stories like this, I always wonder about the abortion complication rates in Canada. I just assumed we didn’t have access to that data because accessing any kind of accurate abortion data in Canada is incredibly difficult. Next to impossible. Immensely frustrating.

So I found myself quite surprised yesterday when trolling Pat Maloney’s Run with Life blog. It turns out we do have some data on complication rates. This is probably old news for some of you, but I had no idea there was any data available.  According to Pat’s analysis:

We already know that–contrary to what abortion advocates like to tell us–abortion is already not safe. Many say that abortion complication rates are less than 1%. Yet Echo, an Ontario government “pro-choice” agency, informs us that complication rates for abortions are actually between 6.95% and7.70%.

The breakdown is available here:

On page 14, I refer the reader to: Table 7. Hospital Abortion Outcomes (2002/03 to 2008/09) for 98,483 abortions

The chart reveals short-term complication percentages (1), and they are not less than 1%.

In fact, 6.95% of the 96,859 women who had “same day” hospital abortions had complications (and were readmitted as inpatients: .91%; to same day surgery: .59% ; to the emergency department: 5.45%)

and

7.70% of 1,624 women who had “in patient” hospital abortions had complications (and were readmitted as inpatients: 1.91%; to same day surgery 1.05%; to the emergency department 4.74%).

To file away in your records.

…to make our point!

There are branches of the pro-choice movement that I just really, really don’t understand.

I mentioned this story a few months back. Good news for pro-lifers who rely on electronic petitions, which previously couldn’t be submitted to the House of Commons:

Having successfully garnered the approval of the House, Stewart’s proposal will now be sent to the procedure and house affairs committee, which will have 12 months to come up with a plan to turn his vision for an e-petition system into parliamentary reality.

Chief among the questions with which the committee has been tasked is the threshold for triggering a special House debate, particularly the number of signatures that would be required, and how many MPs would have to sign on as sponsors.

But now you can kinda feel like you did.

I’ve been working my way through the videos from the conferences, which include lectures and panels. Conference organizers seem to be posting new content every day. And the content is phenomenal. The speakers are engaging and challenging. And I just feel tingly and inspired every time the cameras pan the 2,600+ student audience. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Check out the videos here.

Many of you have probably already heard about baby Iver:

A Victoria woman who was declared brain dead is being kept on life support until doctors can deliver her unborn child.

Dylan Benson visits his wife Robyn in the hospital every day as their baby boy — already named Iver – grows inside of her.

Robyn, then five months pregnant, suffered a rare blood leak in late December that caused irreversible damage to her brain.

Now, doctors are hoping that they can keep her on a ventilator until the baby grows enough to be delivered via a caesarean section.

As most of you know, last week a blogger came out condemning stay-at-home moms. The blog post was fairly widely circulated. Here’s a snippet:

Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average. And here’s the thing, why on earth are we settling for average?

First up is Andrea Mrozek on Michael Coren. She also addresses the abortion issue and what we can perhaps expect from the Conservative party and the NDP.

(Clearly Andrea should wear the colour plum more often. Stunning. And she said some very interesting stuff too, of course.)

I also thought Matt Walsh made some interesting points in his response.

And what is this argument about, really? Is it better to have a job or take care of your family full time? Is that the controversy? What a twisted point of view we have in this culture. This is what happens when you buy into the notion that mankind, and especially womankind, achieved emancipation through industrialization. The Industrial Age and the advent of consumerism gave birth to the modern idea of a “job,” and the pinnacle of freedom and self fulfillment is to have one of them.

Or so we’re told. Ironically, this is a traditionally left-wing point of view, but hating capitalism is also a traditionally left-wing point of view. The free market is evil, they say, but the ultimate expression of female liberation is to participate in it.

What a dizzying philosophy these people profess.

Women. Babies. Marches for Life.

And long conference calls.

Hilarious video.

Just brilliant. The way they structured the video, the quotes, the women and girls who spoke. Brilliant.

(I cried and my son kicked. Just another day in the home office…)

I don’t think we posted this yet. Some great speakers lined up. Check it out.

(If you’re in town for the Manning Center Networking Conference, perhaps drop by! It’s free.)

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Andrea adds: Yes! Some really great speakers! Especially for the breakout sessions. Tee hee.

At least that’s Ron Liepert’s talking point. He was a finance minister under Alison Redford and he’s now seeking the Conservative nomination for a new riding, Calgary-Signal Hill.

Here’s his quote from a LifeSiteNews article:

“They are laws of the land. We honour the laws of the land and it’s not appropriate at this time for Mr. Anders or any other Member of Parliament to be trying to go against the wishes of the majority and try to reopen these debates. So far as I’m concerned, it’s done and over with,” he said.

There are many reasons Liepert could have identified for not wanting to address the abortion issue. About four seconds of Googling would have resulted in a number of arguments to support shying away from tackling this gross human rights violation. It’s not that I would agree with the arguments – but hey, they’re out there. We all know they’re out there.

I just can’t believe that this is the talking point his team came up with. How many provincial and federal bills have the sole purpose of amending existing “laws of the land.” Like…almost all of them. Our elected representatives spend their days reviewing and amending “laws of the land.” This is what goes on in legislatures. On a day-to-day basis. All the time.

So how is this an argument in favour of the abortion status quo? It simply isn’t.

(Of course acknowledging that we have a legislative void when it comes to abortion in Canada. We do not have a law regulating abortion access.)

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Andrea adds: Oh Ron… So lame.