For all the ills Canadians suffer: high taxes, higher gas prices, even higher food costs, and an ever increasing general cost of living, they have always had better federal health care coverage than their American counterparts. But this beautiful system has one pitfall, abortion, because elective abortion isn’t “health care”. Elective procedures, teeth whitening, nose jobs, hair plugs, abortions, ought not be part of a federal system, and Americans are determined that during their health care overhaul they don’t make the same mistakes as their northern neighbors.

Virginia Gov. Robert F. Mc­Don­nell has added an amendment restricting insurance coverage for abortion into a bill approved by the General Assembly establishing a health insurance exchange as part of the federal health-care overhaul.The health insurance exchange would be managed by the state and allow individuals and some small businesses to pool together to buy insurance at lower rates. Some who cannot afford insurance would receive government subsidies.

Under the federal law, states were given the option of creating their own exchanges or using ones operated by the federal government.

The bill approved by the General Assembly stated Virginia’s intent to create its own exchange, and directed state regulators to figure out how to run it.

After the bill reached Mc­Don­nell (R) for his signature, he added an amendment that would prohibit any insurance plan offered as part of the exchange from including coverage for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

“The governor does not believe elective abortions should be covered through the exchange or with taxpayer dollars,” said Mc­Don­nell spokesman Tucker Martin. “This is consistent with his pro-life position and policies passed with bipartisan backing at both the state and federal levels.”

Abortion opponents across the country have been working to get the health-care exchanges to exclude abortion coverage, and similar measures are pending in more than 20 states. They say a government-managed market should not allow dollars to be spent on the procedure.

[…]

She said seven states have adopted similar legislation.

Advocates for abortion rights say the measures are part of a national drive by conservatives to restrict access to abortion.

Federal and state law prohibit using tax dollars for abortions except in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk. McDonnell’s amendment would extend such prohibitions to insurance plans purchased by individuals in exchanges.

Adelaide was recently ranked Australia’s “most liveable” city, making it a macabre location choice for Philip Nitschke’s specialist clinics.

GWENETH Nitschke believes she will live to see her son operating Australia’s first euthanasia clinic in Adelaide.

Not that the 90-year-old mother of voluntary euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke has a terminal illness.

She reluctantly moved into a northern Adelaide independent living centre last week after a fall at home, and although she has no major health problems, she is urging South Australian MPs to pass a bill allowing doctor-assisted euthanasia.

[…]

Dr Nitschke, the youngest of three children, quietly stopped in to check on his mother yesterday, as he scouted Adelaide’s suburbs for a suitable location to open a specialist euthanasia clinic.

He will spend two days in talks with prospective landlords, but will not disclose potential sites because he said the matter was as controversial as opening abortion clinics. “We really don’t want to go making it impossible to find a place,” he said.

“There is a degree of apprehension here, and people are starting to see this as an extension of the abortion clinic issue, where they fear they are going to be picketed.”

Dr Nitschke said a clinic would initially provide information on procedures required before a doctor could help a patient die, and be fully operational only if a proposed bill passed through both houses of the state parliament on a conscience vote.

The bill last week moved from the second reading stage into committee in the lower house, in what sponsors of the reform hailed as “historic”.

But right-wing Labor government MPs are opposed to the bill and Family First has threatened to withdraw election preferences from any MP who backs the bill.

Health Minister John Hill, who supported the bill last week during a speech about the death of his sister, yesterday said it was not designed to allow a stand-alone clinic. Labor MP Steph Key, who introduced the reworked bill, yesterday said Dr Nitschke’s plan was premature.

Like most of you, I anxiously check the news several times a day to hear more about Japan, what’s being done, and how we can help. The situation is increasingly tragic in Japan and almost every resident, including the unborn, is at risk.

Douglas Almond, a Columbia University economist who has studied the effects of the Chernobyl disaster, is concerned that the Japanese government may not be doing enough to warn pregnant women to leave any areas at risk of radiation exposure. Those areas can be much farther from the nuclear plants than many people realize.

Mr. Almond, in an e-mail, explains. The fetus may be particularly sensitive to low doses of ionizing radiation, a susceptibility that current public health responses in Japan seem to have overlooked. Evidence comes from a recent study of Chernobyl fallout in Sweden, which experienced comparatively low radiation doses from the accident; indeed radiation levels in Sweden were believed safe at the time. While this has been largely confirmed in subsequent studies, there is one important exception: children in utero at the time of the accident. Swedish students who were in utero during the accident experienced significantly lower cognitive function, as reflected in performance on standardized tests in middle school, especially those tests that correspond best to IQ. The damage was greatest for cohorts in utero in regions of Sweden that received more fallout by virtue of rainfall during the time the radioactive plume was over Sweden, and were of gestational age 8-25 weeks at the time of the accident. This last finding mirrors earlier epidemiological analysis of the survivors of Atomic bombings in Japan, which found reduced IQ and head circumference among the cohort exposed to radiation at those gestation ages.

[…] I’m grateful to Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who is also director of the Hamilton Project in Washington, for calling this research to my attention. “The point,” Mr. Greenstone says, “is that the Japanese government should be issuing stronger warnings to pregnant women.”

Admittedly, I had never heard of Ms. Littlejohn prior to today, but the work she is doing and has done to support Chinese woman’s reproductive rights (and when I say this I mean, as she seems to, the right to bear children) is phenomenal. Who better to give the keynote address on this International Women’s Day than a woman who supports the right to bear children?

BOSTON – Reggie Littlejohn highlighted the suffering of women under China’s One Child Policy as the Keynote Speaker and Award of Excellence recipient at the 100^th Anniversary of International Women’s Day celebration in Boston on March 8, 2011. Below are her remarks:

I am deeply humbled to receive the Award of Excellence on this historic day […]

I accept this award on behalf of the women and families who continue to suffer because of forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide. […]

While women in some areas of the world celebrate the great advances in women’s rights in our nations, women in other areas have seen a decline. As the president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, I am dedicated to the plight of more than half a billion women in China who are victims of the One Child Policy. They have had perhaps their most fundamental right stripped away: the right to bear children. And let us not forget the 100 million missing women who are victims of “gendercide,” the sex-selective abortion of baby girls.

Most people know that China has a One Child Policy. Very few people stop to think about how it’s enforced – through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide.

The coercive enforcement of China’s One Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth. It is the biggest women’s rights issue in the world today. It does not matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue. No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a choice.

I’ll know who she is from now on.

 ___________________

Jennifer adds: Reggie Littlejohn’s organization, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, currently has a petition to free activist Chen Guangcheng. Learn more here.

From The Week,

The morning-after pill might soon need a new moniker. A new report in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology suggests the emergency contraceptive might also work well as a woman’s go-to form of birth control, a use doctors have typically discouraged in the past.

Get more information here.

2nd Annual GALA Dinner, Westin Hotel, Halifax, NS
FRIDAY, MARCH 18TH 6:30PM WESTIN HOTEL

“The Case Against Euthanasia”

The speaking engagement of Professor Margaret Somerville is, for CLC,
“once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Campaign Life sees this as an excellent opportunity to defend the case against Euthanasia.
If you are planning to attend this fundraising dinner, Please, order your ticket now.

If you are not able to attend, would you consider sponsoring a youth? We have several who are anxious to hear Dr. Somerville’s presentation.

Give me a call a.s.a.p. (902) 861-1982

INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED
ETHICIST MARGARET SOMERVILLE
REGARDED BY SOME AS HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL
BECAUSE OF HER DEBATES
ON TOUGH MORAL QUESTIONS IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

DON’T BE DISAPPOINTED
RESERVE YOUR TICKET NOW
$100.00 per

Call: Ellen (902) 861-1982 or e-mail: [email protected]

CLC EXPECTS THIS TO BE A SELL-OUT EVENT!

 

Back in January, I wrote a post about PlanB posters at my place of work. It’s about time I updated that post. After initially contacting the marketing director, I was informed there was an ad company that rented those locked poster spaces from us. The ad company was contacted and asked to change the posters because they weren’t cohesive with the facility’s “family oriented” identity (their words, not mine). The posters were changed by the ad company owner about a week after but then were changed back to PlanB posters again at the end of month (when the posters are usually changed) by the regular delivery person who does this job. Once again, management contacted the ad company and requested the posters be changed. They were, and no PlanB posters are currently in the building and should not be in the future.

The moral? This whole endeavor took a lot of time and effort on the part of management, there were phone calls and follow-ups. I’m the only person that had questioned the posters in a building with about sixty employees. I’m incredibly grateful to my co-workers for their support but also recognize that this is perhaps not an isolated event. I don’t work in a vacuum, it’s just a gym. So don’t be afraid to bring these things up, who knows what kind of change you might effect.

The debate last night at Dalhousie started off as expected. The posters on the doors had been torn down and crumpled, then were reattached. A small group of people on campus had littered the auditorium with helium filled balloons dangling signs that read: “Access to Safe Abortion On Demand IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE”

But the speakers weren’t discouraged.

For the pro-life side, Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, began the debate by describing the medical definitions of human being and illustrating how those differ from our current standards of ‘personhood’. Ms. Gray was thoughtful and concise, her points were clear and didn’t fall victim to emotionalizing the debate. Regardless of whether or not one agreed with the CCBR’s controversial methods, they couldn’t help but recognize Gray’s ability to give compelling arguments and coherently question what difference it made to be in the womb or outside it, a few seconds conceived or 20 years old. Was a person not a person regardless of their time spent on earth?

During her opening, a young gentleman had left stink-bombs, yes you read it right, stink-bombs, on a chair in the auditorium which temporarily interrupted the debate while the chair and its smelly protest were removed. Ms. Gray commented, “I thought we were at a university.”

When Dr. Mark Mercer took the podium for the pro-choice argument, he proceeded to follow a Peter Singer train of thought. Dr. Mercer had previously published an article entitled “A Fetus is not a Person” in The Ottawa Citizen, this article has been removed. He argued that ‘personhood’ did not actually occur until around 18 months to 2 years of age, that until a human being was able to rationalize, make plans, be a ‘locus’ of experience, and feel pain and joy, it was not in fact a person. As such, we should not be “morally troubled” by it. He conceded that though abortion was killing a human being it was not killing a ‘person’ and that there was no moral difference between killing a baby in the womb and killing a baby prior to its ‘personhood’. Dr. Mercer, unfortunately, lacked the ability to convey these beliefs coherently to the audience, many of whom actually laughed at some of his remarks.

During the question period, Ms. Gray continued to illustrate respect for her questioners and thoughtfulness in her answers, even though one young woman stormed out just when it was her turn to question yelling “This b*tch isn’t worth my time!”. Dr. Mercer, however, was questioned primarily about why he was even chosen to represent the pro-choice view, as none of the pro-choice audience members believed he was speaking on their behalf. Those audience members even went so far as to claim that Pro-Life at Dal (the group who put together the debate) had purposefully chosen a poor speaker for the pro-choice side, demanding to know who else was contacted about participating.

In my empathy for Dr. Mercer and his obvious confusion to his reception, I spoke to him afterward. He asked me,”What could I have done or said differently?” I offered my opinion that perhaps the pro-choice audience members expected a more ‘pro-woman’ argument to be made. He replied,”But I’ve written numerous times and shown how those ‘pro-woman’ arguments don’t work, they have no basis.” And at that, I was pleased.

Perhaps those who consider themselves pro-choice in the audience might have realized that evening that Dr. Mercer was arguing the morality of abortion without the usual ‘choice’ rhetoric, the rhetoric that abortion should be legal because women will acquire illegal abortions (which Dr. Mercer has shown is not a solid argument). That the pro-choice/pro-abortion philosopher kings, like Dr. Mercer and Peter Singer, aren’t people the general pro-choice population agrees with or even likes. And this is hopeful, because eventually everyone will have thrown off the shackles of ‘choice’ rhetoric and will have to look at abortion as starkly as Dr. Mercer, the man nobody agrees with and who represents no one, does.

Abortion Debate: Is it moral? Should it be illegal?

Tuesday, March 8 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm

Scotiabank Auditorium, Marion McCain Arts & Social Sciences Bldg 

6135 University Avenue

Halifax, NS

*On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day*
Free event, open to the public. There will be opportunities for the audience to pose questions to each opponent. 

Stephanie Gray of the controversial Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform will debate Dr. Mark Mercer of Saint Mary’s University on whether abortion is moral, and the legal implications of its morality. Stephanie Gray will argue that abortion is immoral, while Dr.Mercer will argue it is not immoral.

Abortion numbers, they’re hard to come by, but POWER has been putting in the research to compile a comprehensive report. From Anastasia Bowles at the National Post:

No matter what your position on abortion, the study reveals unsettling facts about abortions in Ontario, and by extension, in Canada. For example, we learn that for every 100 babies born in Ontario, 37 are aborted.

The ratio for teens aged 15-19 is even more shocking. For every 100 babies born to Ontario teens, 152 are aborted.

The study noted that teens “were by far the most likely of any age group to have an abortion rather than a live birth.” And since it excluded abortions for girls under 15, the teen abortion rate is even higher.

It also revealed disturbing data about repeat abortions in Ontario hospitals. As many as 52% of women had one or more previous abortions. Even more disturbing, almost one fifth of teens aged 15-19 said they had already had at least one abortion. The study even cautioned that the percentage of repeat abortions was likely higher due to under-reporting.

And that’s just for hospitals. Abortion clinics were excluded from the repeat calculations even though they perform more than half the province’s abortions. And teens don’t need parental consent for clinic abortions (though they may at some hospitals), so more teens may go to clinics.

Even fairly liberal parents might squirm to think that their child, aged 14 or younger, could walk into a clinic to have an abortion — more than once — and they would never know.

Most Canadians are unaware that teens don’t need parental consent to have an abortion. They don’t even have to inform their parents. In fact, most Canadians — 80% according to a 2010 Angus Reid poll — don’t even know we have no legal restrictions on abortion.

For the record, abortion is fully legal in Canada at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason, and for any Canadian citizen, and taxpayers pay for almost all of them.

LifeCanada, a national organization educating on the value of human life, has commissioned Environics to poll Canadians annually from 2002-2009. Each year, a large majority, anywhere from 60% to 66%, supported some legal restrictions on abortion.

So even though most Canadians don’t know the facts or statistics on abortion, they don’t support the current legal vacuum in Canada. Imagine if they actually knew something about the subject.