Someone once said that people will always find a philosophy to justify their actions (maybe Camus?), and this morning, while beginning to feel a little ashamed of bombarding my Facebook family and friends with anecdotes, photos, videos and a plethora of reflections about our youngest daughter, I have found just the philosophy I need! I share it with you, in case you ever need to defend your own gushings about babies, offspring, grandchildren and all of those little “human mushrooms.”

From GK Chesterton’s A Defense of Baby Worship:

The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea.

 

(Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you believe in Santa Claus!)

What does a 10-week old fetus look like? Recently, the group called Show the Truth brought graphic images to the streets of Halifax. You can watch some pretty one-sided coverage of the event here on CTV News, where one opponent to the display states:

“It uses shame tactics and misinformation and fake science,” said Ashburn. “That is not what a 10-week-old fetus looks like. They’re computer-generated Photoshopped images.”

You can actually watch the words come out of her mouth on the CTV video at minute 1:45. My first reaction to her statement was anger, that someone who is college educated (I know, because I’ve heard her make a similar statement about “fake science” on the local college radio station) could be so wrong about something. This was quickly followed by frustration, that we even allow such ridiculous and fact-less statements to be made on the news and radio. But the lingering feeling that still tousles and twists itself around in my brain is sympathy.

Wouldn’t you sort of have to believe that this is not what a 10-week old fetus looks like in order to support abortion? I know I wouldn’t be able to say it was just a clump of cells when I could clearly see a face and tiny toes. But perhaps BabyCenter.com is in on the conspiracy too, maybe this isn’t what a 10-week old fetus looks like. Heck, maybe Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body is propaganda!

But it’s my duty, as much as it makes me unpopular, to tell the truth. Because I care about women, because their universities have apparently failed them, and because I won’t let unchecked statements go on masquerading as facts.

1. Let’s not forget that long before Adobe Photoshop (created in 1988, Wikipedia told me so) even existed, people were using images of abortions to expose the death of unborn babies. I would guess that many of those photos are decades old.

2. I don’t know how I feel about the graphic images. I’m not sure if they’re useful. I held up a sign once for an hour, and I don’t really know if it made the impact one would’ve hoped for. I was completely uncomfortable. But regardless of how I feel, how else are people going to see this stuff? They’re certainly not going to put it on the news or in the paper in any impartial way.

3. Even if you don’t like the signs, you have to see the insanity of one group of people standing on one side of the street saying “Please don’t kill babies, this is what they look like” and then people on the other side of the street shouting obscenities at them and showing them their bums. Are we really saying that asking that babies not be killed (in ANY context) makes you a jerk but mooning people doesn’t?

4. This is the last on the list, but the most important to remember…Gray’s Anatomy is not a book of lies, it’s on its 40th edition. That is what a 10-week old fetus looks like, and in Canada, they are killed every day. It’s not like getting a mole removed (please stop lying to women and the rest of the world telling them that it is).

It can’t be easy to see the truth and interpret it for that when you’ve been fooled your entire life. It’s like when my partner was asked to tell his teenage niece there was no Santa Claus. She just couldn’t believe what he was saying and quickly wrote a tell-all letter to Santa reporting him. Maybe sometimes a graphic image is the slap-in-the-face truth that some people need to stop believing in Santa Claus.

Dear Dr. Colleen MacQuarrie, conference speakers and participants:

I don’t know you, but I am going to assume that we have more in common than you might think. In fact, I am convinced of it. Forgive my arrogance, but I’m going assume a couple of things. I’m going to assume that we all want women to realize their full potential. I’m going to assume that we all want women to be safe and healthy. I’m going to assume that we all want to uphold the dignity of the female for what it is, unencumbered by stereotypes and presuppositions. I’m going to assume these things because I’m here, in this space, for one reason and one reason alone: I care about my fellow woman. And you too, are where you are, for the same reason. We’re out in the world caring for the marginalized, we’re gently folding into the greater society those that have been neglected. Our work is good and noble.

Many of us do what we do for free. We do what we do by sacrificing time that could’ve been spent doing other, more personally beneficial, things. We do it because it matters so much to us, because other women, complete strangers, matter so much to us.

Your conference is a call to bring abortion access to Prince Edward Island, and you know that I would argue that abortion access is not the solution to the issues that bring women into crisis pregnancy situations. You know I won’t advocate for that, because I believe in every fiber of my being (and we can see it exemplified in the way our society responds to the unmarried mother) that there are implications for a society that provides abortion on demand to its citizens, and these implications affect each and every woman, regardless of her stance on abortion. You know that many women have multiple abortions, and this illustrates that abortion doesn’t lift a woman from the socioeconomic position that brought her to the abortion clinic in the first place.

I would argue that by funding abortion on demand we’re saying it’s okay to have an abortion because gender inequality still prevails in our classrooms and our workplaces, that you won’t get that promotion or that degree unless you have an abortion, and we’ll pay for it.

And perhaps we are not only saying that it’s okay, and that we’ll pay for it, but perhaps we’re sending the message that unless you are pregnant in the most Utopian of circumstances, you SHOULD have an abortion.

You know I don’t agree with you, but we still have so much in common. We still share a view of womanhood marked by strength and infinite possibility. With so much in common, why have we yet to create a space for ourselves to enter into dialog with one another? Why have we not come together to erect a more sustainable and universal vision of the future? Why do we still seek refuge in our podiums, me at mine and you at yours?

We should be fearless, and in our fearlessness collectively exchange ideas, let our moral imaginations reign, let the most truthful ideas win, let the most honest aspects of our passions come to the surface and be written into our moral code.

Sincerely,

Jennifer

I’m not Jewish, but that doesn’t mean I, and you too, can’t absolutely love the blog Raising Kvell. I’m all about Amanda Kosior’s posts right now. My most recent favorites are this post on the Happy Birthday Colin movement, a social media birthday party for a special needs child, where she writes,

What if every single person out there who “liked” that page or sent a card, actually started a dialogue with their kids about the importance of looking beyond differences?

And this wonderful open letter to the media to stop labeling children as adopted. It’s thought provoking and funny.

Dear journalists, scriptwriters, and other members of the media: I officially revoke your ability to use the word “adoption,” in any of its related forms. […]

I have been a mother for two-and-a-half years, and my limited experience has shown me that your success as a parent is not defined by the moment your baby is placed in your arms. It is defined by every single moment after. I know this because I just had to have a discussion with my son about what you do and do not put up your nose, a topic I am pretty sure has never shown up in an adoption pamphlet or Lamaze class.

The fact is, parenting is parenting. There is no asterisk next to my name on my son’s birth certificate. My “Mom” necklace is not surrounded by quotation marks. In the eyes of my country and God, I am my son’s mother.

 

I have many unkind words to say about the drug company, Merck, but I’ll let the complete and utter disregard for women’s health and lives speak for me. From Vanity Fair,

Danger in the Ring
When 24-year-old Erika Langhart—talented, beautiful, bound for law school—died on Thanksgiving Day 2011, she became one of thousands of suspected victims of the birth-control device NuvaRing. Elite army athlete Megan Henry, who survived rampant blood clots in her 20s, is another. With major suits against NuvaRing’s manufacturer, Merck, headed for trial, Marie Brenner asks why, despite evidence of serious risk, a potentially lethal contraceptive remains on the market.

CHEATED CHAMPION Olympic hopeful Megan Henry, who collapsed with blood clots after using NuvaRing, photographed near her family home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

From CMDS Canada,

Place: St. Benedict’s Parish 45 Radcliffe Dr. Halifax, NS B3M 0E1

Date and time: 5:30 PM, Saturday, November 30th

Current Canadian Initiatives to Legalize Physician Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia (PAS/E) Implications for the Practice of Medicine in Canada

 

Two recent legal initiatives have reignited the euthanasia debate in Canada.

In Carter vs. Canada (Attorney General) 2012, a B.C. Supreme Court judge raised significant legal, medical and ethical issues by ruling in favour of legalizing PAS/E. Even though this decision was overturned by the BC Court of Appeal, the case will be decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. In June of this year, the Parti Quebecois government in Quebec introduced Bill 52 – an Act respecting end of life care that tries to legalize “medical aid in dying”. Regardless of the outcome, these two initiatives have set off another round of public discussion on the question: Is it ever justified to take a human life?

All are welcome to participate.

Facilitator: Larry Worthen, BA, MA(Th), LLB

Executive Director, Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada

I’ve quoted Barry Schwartz’s presentations before in my own workshops on the concept of choice, now NPR is picking up the scent of The Paradox of Choice. Is choice always a “good” thing? Read and watch more here. 

The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all that is disappointing about the option that you chose.” — Barry Schwartz