Still nothing great, but this is progress I suppose.

China’s family-planning policy currently limits most urban couples to one child and allows two children for rural families if their first-born is a girl. It also allows two children for parents who themselves are both singletons.

The new policy will allow two children for families where only one parent was an only child.

The Chinese government credits the one-child policy introduced in 1980 with preventing hundreds of millions of births and helping lift countless families out of poverty. But the strict limits have led to forced abortions and sterilizations, even though such measures are illegal. Couples who flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs. […]

The China Development Research Foundation said the policy had resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance because of illegal abortions of female fetuses and the infanticide of baby girls by parents who cling to a traditional preference for a son.

I just listened to the latest Life Report episode where Josh Brahm, Gabi Vehrs and Steve Wagner talk about various pro-life activities and their value. Wagner uses as a test the following question (and I’m paraphrasing): With this activity, will you be making a moral statement or a moral impact?

I think we’d all like to make an impact. To change hearts and minds by sharing our own hearts and minds. It’s a good 30 minute discussion. Watch it below.

This is a heartbreaking story but I’m thankful he shared it.

The experience of the birth was “one of those absolutely terrible moments in your life,” Kyle says, his voice growing hushed. “But it was also beautiful as well,” he adds quietly. “I don’t know any other way to describe it. We were all there sharing this terrible grief together. But so happy for the moment that we got to hold him and be with him.”

When asked what they would have missed if they had chosen abortion, Kyle responds, “That moment in the hospital.”

“I just never could have forgiven myself,” he adds. “Elijah deserved a chance at life, no matter how brief that life would have been. He deserved it, and I’m thankful that we gave him that opportunity.” […]

“Who you are you to judge the quality of somebody’s life, or their right to it, no matter how brief?” he asks. And to those who receive a similarly devastating prenatal diagnosis, his advice is clear and unequivocal: “Don’t succumb to the pressure. Because even if you get to hold your child for ten minutes, that is so valuable and good for you. Those moments, as difficult as they are, they are so healing as well. And if you deprive yourself of that, you would be forever haunted by that decision.”

Kristi – Healing After from VirtueMedia on Vimeo.

As many Ottawa activists know, electronic petitions cannot be submitted to the House of Commons. Only old fashioned paper and ink petitions are permitted by House rules.

However, in February, NDP MP Kennedy Stewart introduced a motion that would change this. His motion is M-428. The issue is being debated this week in the House.

Here are more details on what the motion proposes:

Maclean‘s magazine reports, “Currently, MPs can table paper petitions with at least 25 signatures, and the government must respond within 45 days. Kennedy’s plan would allow e-petitions, if they garnered enough names and the support of at least five MPs, to ignite actual debates in the House.”

Stewart explains that with his motion, “Certified electronic petitions receiving a certain number of signatures – for example, 50,000 – and sponsored by at least five MPs would trigger a debate (similar to a ‘take note’ debate) in the House of Commons.”

Considering how many pro-life petitions are submitted to the House on a weekly basis (and yes, I monitor this trend), this a motion the pro-lifers should look into. Imagine that – our little signatures triggering a formal debate in the House?

For more information on the motion, a Q&A is available here.

(Anyone see a downside to this motion? At first glance, I don’t.)

Stephanie Gray wrote an article this week about how family members of aborted children work through the abortion issue. Or don’t.

This excerpt talks about survivor guilt:

That does something to you psychologically.  Consider the words of child and family psychiatrist Dr. Philip Ney who has done extensive research on the effects of abortion on siblings, something he calls post-abortion survivor syndrome:

“[Siblings of aborted children] have in common many of the conflicts that were found in those people who survived the Holocaust. For instance they have survivor guilt. They feel it is not right for them to be alive. And they wonder why they should be selected when their little siblings were selected to die … which is precisely what happened to the people from the Holocaust. Why were they selected to live and some of their friends, relatives, and family were selected to die? And it leaves this deep sense of guilt. And that is a difficult, difficult thing to treat, because it is so deeply embedded. And of course with that is how can you trust your parents? Are they capable of killing you too?”

This one isn’t about abortion, but about IVF and how it affected one woman’s determination of when life begins:

If that weren’t bad enough, it gets worse.  While speaking to a young female college student, my colleague was having a difficult time convincing her of the scientific fact that our human lives began at fertilization.  My colleague invited me into the conversation, hoping I could convince the young lady.

In our conversation I learned that the student was conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).  And in that moment, I realized I had a nearly insurmountable task ahead of me.  It was no longer easy to explain that life begins at fertilization—not because it doesn’t, but because of what it means.

In directly making the case that life began at fertilization, I’d be indirectly making the case that siblings she’d always longed for actually existed…

Abortion affects not only the woman who is making “her choice.” It affects the family, the community, and society. It affects our understanding of who we are, what life is and when it begins. It affects our understanding of love, sacrifice, freedom and independence. It can affect our understanding of so many fundamental and foundational realities. It can change everything.

Another day, another story about pro-choice/pro-abortion aggression towards pro-life activists. The right to freedom of expression in Canada is heralded, except when it isn’t.

Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Quebec-Vie, said the number of incidents at pro-life vigils lately raises concerns for him about freedom of speech. “These types of altercations seem to be almost routine now,” he said. “They’re not provocateurs or anarchists. They’re everyday people who seem to consider the message and people second-class citizens.”

The thinking behind it, he suggested, is that “those guys, their statements, are out of bounds so we’re allowed to push them around.”

Because we should laugh on Monday mornings.

Or know a couple who is struggling? Here’s a great article that compares and contrasts NaPro Technology to IVF. Marie-Claire Reer mentioned the benefits of NaPro in our interview a few weeks ago.

If you’re looking for a NaPro-trained MD in Canada, these fine people can refer you to one.

I work with a NaPro doctor, not for fertility reasons, but because I have a fairly uncommon hormone issue. I saw 19 doctors over 18 months who couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. The NaPro doctor diagnosed me in three appointments over the course of two months. The additional training they do to be NaPro practitioners is so valuable. I’m a big fan. And I find the NaPro approach incredibly pro-woman. It’s about correcting underlying problems and supporting vibrant health.

And as I’ve mentioned before, I have friends who struggled with infertility who conceived with NaPro and know women who have struggled with hormone-related problems that were finally diagnosed by a NaPro doctor after years and years of pain and suffering. I just mention this because so few people are aware that there are alternatives to IVF and the like.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

With all of these corrections in health, the woman’s body is better equipped to support a pregnancy, which leads the NaPro quoted pregnancy rates of between 60-80% at 1 year after therapy has begun. Even the best IVF clinics in the nation only quote success rates in the 50% range. However, you have to keep in mind that only those couples who can afford IVF are getting that success rate. There are many couples who can’t even try IVF. That being said, because NaPro techniques are correcting medical problems, the majority of the tests and treatments are covered by insurances, even when “infertility” is not included in the policy. This allows for a greater number of couples to seek treatment! Even couples who have tried assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to conceive but were unsuccessful are still candidates for NaProTECHNOLOGY treatments. There are many stories of couples who have tried ART, some more than once, and later conceived and delivered babies with NaPro. […]

NaProTECHNOLOGY is a relatively new women’s health science that works cooperatively with a woman’s natural cycle. As mentioned before, it can be used to diagnose and treat many gynecologic, hormonal, and even emotional problems. However, what it seems to be known for best is treatment of infertility. The approach that a Medical Consultant (a physician, advanced practical nurse, or physician’s assistant trained in NaPro) takes is that infertility is not the diagnosis but a symptom of other underlying disease processes. By identifying the underlying cause or causes (as it is often multi-factorial), NaPro is able to treat the source of the problem instead of using a Band-Aid solution.

We’ve written before about how the Ontario government passed legislation in order to withhold abortion data from its taxpayers. Pat Maloney, pro-life blogger and superstar is taking the government to court over the move.

We’re still not clear why the government did what it did in passing that ridiculous legislation. Pat continues to ask questions though. Here’s her exchange with her MPP Madeleine Meilleur.

I asked her why the government put the abortion exclusion clause into FIPPA.

Ms. Meilleur responded:

“We amended the Freedom of Information Act at the request of the hospitals to maintain the quality and the privacy of the information, so it was not specific to abortion. It’s among other things [in the act]. I don’t think you would like your private information to be disclosed to the public.”

I explained to Ms. Meilleur, that the change had nothing to do with privacy. That I agree that private information should never be released, however there is no private information in what I’m asking for. I’m asking for totals of abortion statistics, those done in hospitals, in private physician offices and clinics. I said that private and personal information is already excluded from the act. I said that because it is important to have good statistics, and it doesn’t matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice, we need to have accurate statistics for all health concerns for women.

I asked her again, saying that I’m just trying to understand why the Ontario government did this. They haven’t excluded information for woman who have breast cancer, or knee surgeries. So why did they exclude abortion services?

Keep up the good fight Pat! Perhaps someday we’ll have answers…