Sometimes, being prowoman and prolife can be very frustrating. Sometimes, you just want to scream. This is one of those mornings…

Women abort potential babies because they would prefer not to be a mother at all, rather than be an inadequate parent. It’s not that they don’t care about the unborn child, it’s because they care so much.

It is right for us to be sympathetic to these fears of inadequacy, and it is our duty to soothe these fears, educate and create systems of support that eradicate the perceived need to abort. I’ve heard this argument before, that it’s better to not be a parent at all than to have been a bad parent. On behalf of all of those with difficult childhoods in less than perfect homes, I protest.

As a parent myself, I know that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. Women are told this bumper sticker style slogan to convince them they’re making the right decision for not only themselves, but for their baby. I’ve heard this repeated in 12th and Delaware by the abortion clinic operator, Candace, who tells a woman she’d be a bad person if she had the child and then mistreated it. But abortion or being a failure as a parent are not the only options, and we need to stop telling women they are and instead do something to support their efforts.

So rather than pull my hair out, I’m going to celebrate those women who have made the choice to have their children (like my own mother, and I’m sure many of yours) and not let the Candaces of the world tell them it’s too much of a risk because the odds aren’t in their favour.

__________________

Andrea adds: The article ends by asking: “Isn’t it better to end the pregnancy than be a parent when you know you are not ready for it?” And the short answer is no, it’s not. You’ll never know how and whether you could have risen to the occasion and become a better person by having the baby. Secondly, no one is telling women they have to parent. There’s another “A word” and it’s called adoption. My BS o’meter went through the roof on this. Or, as Brigitte would say, colour me unsympathetic. We are prowoman and prolife, not gullible and timid, and that means sometimes you have to call your fellow women to account. So to this writer, I would say, don’t pretend abortion is a courageous act. You know somewhere deep down that it’s not.  

…for Dr. Mildred Jefferson.

Associated Press

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, a prominent, outspoken opponent of abortion and the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, died Friday at her home in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Anne Fox, the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, one of many anti-abortion groups in which Dr. Jefferson played leadership roles.

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, “gave my profession an almost unlimited license to kill,” Dr. Jefferson testified before Congress in 1981.

[…]

“She probably was the greatest orator of our movement,” Darla St. Martin, co-executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Monday. “In fact, take away the probably.”

In a 2003 profile in The American Feminist, an anti-abortion magazine, Dr. Jefferson said, “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.”

_____________________

Andrea adds: Wow. Memorize that last sentence. “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.” Sounds like a ProWomanProLife motto to me.

When a couple is choosing surrogacy, IVF, or even adoption, they are met with far more options that the average couple conceiving is faced with. From the start, there are contracts and decisions to be made. For example, how many embryos is too many embryos? What level of disability are you willing to accept? All of these things are decided prior to the beginning of the process, something not many of the biological parents I’ve known have discussed prior to a routine pregnancy.

The problem is, these early decisions don’t account for the chaos factors in life. There are divorces and breakups that lead to IVF terminations, there are surrogate mothers who change their minds, couples who change their minds, and there’s the moment when a baby is born that wells up powerful, unpredictable, emotions. It is difficult, in my opinion, to attempt to legislate such an unpredictable process, especially in relation to surrogacy.

The tragic case in B.C. has brought the issue back into the spotlight.

The case of a B.C. couple who hired a surrogate to have their baby, and then demanded the fetus be aborted after they learned it would likely be born with Down syndrome, is a disturbing reminder that the ethical and moral concerns around surrogacy arrangements have not been debated and properly dealt with. The story came to light after Dr. Ken Seethram, the doctor involved, raised it at a recent conference on fertility medicine held by the Canadian Society of Fertility and Andrology.

[…]

In the B.C. case, the couple wanted the surrogate to have an abortion, but she refused. Later, faced with the apparent prospect of having to raise the couple’s child herself, the surrogate had an abortion.

Obviously, the bottom line is that nobody should be coerced by contract into having an abortion against her will. Ethicists have suggested that if the case had gone to court, the child would have been awarded to its biological parents to raise.

[…]

What needs to be kept uppermost in mind while sorting through the moral and ethical ramifications of the complex scenarios in vitro fertilization has engendered, is that a human being — not a commodity or product — is the subject matter.

On the one hand, medical science is working hard to cure infertility. On the other, sexual and reproductive health providers are working hard to sterilize as many people as possible.

What does this mean? It means that the infertile, and the fertile alike, are feeling increasing pressure to ride the conflicting roller coaster of reproductive treatment.

While women tend to be more vociferous about fertility treatments, men are not excluded from this ride. Vesectomy campaigns have been running in various countries around the globe for decades. The largest of these is possibly the campaign run in India in 1972, where 221,933 vasectomies were preformed during an eight week period in over 1,000 camps. However, the most recent campaigns are more subtle…

Leading UK family planning specialist Marie Stopes International is running an innovative vasectomy advertising campaign throughout the World Cup tournament. Football-themed posters encouraging men to seek information about vasectomies will be placed above urinals in men’s toilets, on tip seats in taxis and in pubs and bars around the country.

Each poster features a special vasectomy call number and an SMS address giving interested parties the option to ring or text for an information pack.

The campaign is aimed primarily at men who are in stable relationships and have completed their families.

“By placing these advertisements in men’s loos we’re hoping guys will consider the matter when they, quite literally, have the matter in hand,” said Julie Douglas, Marie Stopes International’s Marketing Manager

My concern is that marketing vasectomies in this way may lead to men considering the surgery at increasingly younger ages (there are currently no concrete restrictions on the procedure for those over 18 in North America). In packaging a vasectomy as a flippant and “easy” procedure, men who simply fear unwanted pregnancy may resort to surgery (which may also create a false sense of sexual security) and their partners may also feel more justified in pressuring them to have such a “simple” operation.

The initial vasectomy is relatively low cost and straight forward, but reversal is far more complicated.

The chief advantage of vasectomy — its permanence — is also its chief disadvantage. The procedure itself is simple, but reversing it is difficult, expensive, and often unsuccessful.

The cost for reversal surgery in Canada?

As you may be aware, the Ontario government (OHIP) and most provincial health-care providers do not cover the costs of a vasectomy reversal. We try to keep costs as low as possible.

The cost of a vasectomy reversal is approximately $4,880 including the surgeon’s fee, hospital and anaesthetic fees. There are no charges for pre-operative and post-operative clinic visits and testing as these are covered under OHIP and provincial healthcare plans.

So while the medical field works away in labs curing infertility, young men are being met in the loo by adverts that promise sexual freedom but could ultimately lead to their never having children at all.

From the AFP:

KINSHASA — The UN confirmed Wednesday the arrest of a man suspected of leading a group of Democratic Republic of Congo rebels who raped hundreds of civilians, after earlier concerns he had been misidentified.

[…]

The arrest “is a very clear signal to other perpetrators that sexual violence is unacceptable and that justice will win,” said Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special envoy on sexual violence, during a press conference in capital Kinshasa at the end of a week-long visit to the country.

The arrest is good news, but like all stories of war, there are complexities worth devoting our time to. Here is a journalistic report from American Amy Ernst:

I wanted so badly to hate this man. He’s extremely handsome, with soft eyes, thick, curling lashes, and a nervous glance. It doesn’t fit with the dirty green uniform and rickety gun hanging from his shoulder.

The soldier, whom I’ll call Adonis (he did not want his name used), is part of the Forces Armées de la Republique Democratique du Congo (FARDC), the governmental forces, that are just as out of control as the rebel forces. When I ask if he has killed or tortured anyone, he says emphatically, “so many.” Civilians? “Sometimes.” I ask him if he has ever raped a woman, but before he can respond, his superior, who is also speaking with us (and like Adonis, prefers to keep his name to himself), jumps in.

[…]

When Adonis was 10, living in a village called Masisi with his six brothers and sisters, he was captured by the CNDP, Rwandan rebel forces previously led by the infamous Laurent Nkunda (Nkunda’s forces and the FARDC have always been on opposite sides of the constantly changing conflict). Adonis pulls up his sleeves with dirty hands, and shows me several thick scars in the creases of both of his arms. “When they started cutting off my arms, I accepted,” he says.

[…]

Adonis continues to shake his head. Child-soldiers are used often by all military groups, particularly the Mai-Mai (community-based) rebel groups. They are forced to rape, kill and torture other human beings before they have even hit puberty. When they are demobilized (pulled from their stations of war), they rarely know where their families are, have no system of support and have done things a child should never even have to think about. Even after being demobilized, many of these children are lured back to the military camps by the promise of food and a relative sense of security. If they are not lured back willingly, they are often forced back with more violence.

The Congolese organization I work with, COPERMA, helps victims of sexual violence as well as demobilized child-soldiers. Child-soldiers receive the same type of help as all victims of the war, a foster family, vocational training and the opportunity to complete primary, if not secondary school. One of the biggest struggles with the victims of rape is that they will engage in prostitution to find food for their children. With child-soldiers, the problem is returning to the fighting. COPERMA can’t do everything, and even with their help the children are still stuck in extreme poverty and instability.

Hearing that some of the boys helped by COPERMA had committed crimes as horrible as those the young girls were simultaneously telling me about, I was conflicted and confused. I was angry at COPERMA for assisting rapists. But the more I speak to people, the more I see that victims of war come in all forms.

I wanted so badly to hate Adonis; it would be easier to hate him. But now I see he needs help too.

ProWomanProLife received an email from Marie Stopes International Australia, an abortion provider, recently. They were concerned from across the oceans about a post where I wondered whether they might be affiliated with a particular polling company, Crosby/Textor.

I wondered this because Crosby/Textor released a poll saying that (to paraphrase) Australians favour abortion at any stage of pregnancy on the same day as Marie Stopes International Australia launched a public relations campaign.

You can read my original post in full, here.

Here’s their letter in full now:

Dear Sir/Madam,

A blog post written by Jennifer Derwey (The debate down under, 6 July 2010) has been brought to our attention.

The writer implies that Marie Stopes International hired Crosby/Textor to conduct research recently published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

The writer states:

“So who hired Crosby/Textor and employed their ‘results driven approach’? I’m not pointing fingers, but I will say that it comes as a striking coincidence that Marie Stopes International Australia, the countries leading abortion provider, launched it’s new awareness campaign promoting their services and focusing on contraception the day this article was published (after a six month lull in their Australian news department).”

Marie Stopes International has never hired Crosby/Textor for any services, nor is it involved in any way with the conduct and publication of this research. A review of the Medical Journal of Australia article and author listing can also confirm this.

Marie Stopes International also undertakes regular media activity, issuing media releases on a monthly basis where appropriate and assisting media with requests. It is therefore also inaccurate to state that there has been a “six month lull” in our Australian news department.

We request that you advise the author of the above and amend these incorrect statements as a matter of urgency.

Regards,

Marie Deveson Crabbe, CEO

Marie Stopes International – Australia

That’s entrepreneur Marie Deveson Crabbe, Chief Executive Officer, because selling family planning is big business. Coincidentally, this email was received on September 13, two days before I suddenly lost all access to the MSIA site for seven days (at least from all of my home computers).

[Read more…]

From the BBC:

Chen Guangcheng accused officials in Shandong province of forcing 7,000 women into abortions or sterilisations.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders said he was released from jail in the city of Linyi, where he had helped people sue over the injustices.

Mr Chen, 39, is a contender for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Chen, who lost his sight in childhood, has no formal legal training as the blind were not permitted to attend college.

He has also advised farmers in land disputes and campaigned for improved treatment of the disabled.

Abortion has often been defined as a ‘necessary evil’, and for those in the immense grey zone of attitudes towards abortion, this powerful phrase tends to push them towards acceptance of the procedure. It allows one to support abortion, while still retaining a recognition that it is not ideal, a sort of moral give and take that softens the callousness of being pro-abortion. But those who are adamantly and unapologetically pro-abotion desire a procedure that is quick, painless (both emotionally and physically for the women), and accessible with as little emotivism as possible, rendering the term ‘necessary evil’ itself unnecessary.

So the pro-choice side is celebrating the latest study from Oregon:

Teenagers who have abortions do not appear to be at increased risk for depression or low self-esteem, according to the first nationally representative study to examine the issue.

Jocelyn T. Warren of Oregon State University and her colleagues analyzed data collected from 289 teenage girls who reported having at least one pregnancy when interviewed as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health between 1994 and 1996. Sixty-nine reported having had an abortion. They were also interviewed again five years later. The analysis found no association between having had an abortion and depression or low self-esteem within either a year of the pregnancy or five years later, the researchers report in apaper being published in the journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

In their minds, they must see this as an achievement. Women will be less likely to require counselling as part of the abortion process (which will speed up things in the waiting room), and women will feel (similarly to postpartum depression) an ever increasing pressure not to ‘feel bad’. So while some women are suppressing their thoughts and emotions, others still will feel nothing, and the effect of these states of mind are not only possibly detrimental to the individual, but to the society as a whole.

Remember, these teenagers will one day be deciding what to do with all of us when we’re seniors.

Thanks to a link on BBC News, I spent last night watching vault footage of the famous television game show What’s My Line? A show that challenged its often blindfolded panelists to determine a contestant’s occupation. While watching, I couldn’t but help wonder why we rarely see classy dames like journalist Dorothy Kilgallen and actress Arlene Francis (two of the show’s long-standing panelists) on entertainment television anymore. This is one of my favorite episodes:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A]

But today in the car, while my thumb tangoed with the radio dial, I happened across this gem of a hit from the same time period. By the time Jack Jones was crooning the last verse, I had already resealed the time machine and returned it to a safe corner in the attic.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx4GI6XazJY]

Finally, the United Nations is placing special interest personnel in the DR Congo, but is it too little too late?

WALIKALE, DR Congo — Suspected rebels have raped at least 242 women within a few days in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Nord-Kivu province, according to an American medical charity.

Rapes and beatings took place at the end of July and the beginning of August and “242 women have been taken into medical care,” Cris Baguma, a local Congolese doctor with the International Medical Corps (IMC) at Walikale, told AFP on Thursday.

[…]

On Tuesday, UN Special representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom threatened to have people suspected of these rapes prosecuted for war crimes.

Wallström began her two year term on March 1, 2010 as the U.N. representative on ending conflict-zone sexual violence. With a well-documented reputation for rape , it is no surprise that her first destination is the DRC. But will her threats have any influence in the territory?

In response to the planned attacks:

“Sexual violence is all too common in the DRC,” said Amnesty International’s Country Specialist Tom Turner. “But this was a large scale, systematic event and the people who carried it out may well have calculated that they could count on U.N. troops not being able to intervene.”

“It makes the U.N. look bad and it’s sending a strong message right back,” Turner added.

More than 9,000 Congolese women were raped in 2009, according to the U.N. Population Fund.

In recent months, the U.N. has withdrawn 1,770 peacekeepers from a force that formerly numbered around 20,000, responding to demands from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s federal government, which wants a full withdrawal by next summer before its presidential elections.

While the U.N.’s failure to protect the women is coming under fire, Mosely, of the International Rescue Committee, is quick to commend Wallstrom’s plans to visit the area soon.

“There was a delay and there are reasons for the lack of response and that will become clear, but sending Wallstrom out here sends a message saying, ‘We are taking this seriously and we have to figure out what the obstacles are here,'” said Mosely.

The task is overwhelming, but I am hopeful that Wallström’s call for action will be taken seriously by local and world leaders.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FWgejxI4bg]