Reflections of Motherhood is a video project that asked mothers the question, “What would you say to yourself if you could go back to before your first child?” Not that I would! I’ve come a long way since that first day of motherhood, but if I could use just one of these answers it would be, “Nobody really knows what they’re doing.”
I think the pro-life community has worked incredibly hard over the past several decades to educate and change opinions. That change, dare I say it, seems to be taking effect. Wanting to address the issue of Canada’s current unrestricted law doesn’t make you “pro-life” necessarily, is just means you’re not completely comfortable with no restrictions whatsoever. The majority of Canadians fall into that category. Is there anyone who disagrees with the majority of Canadians? Of course there is, but you can’t say every poll is “wrong” just because it doesn’t illustrate what you want it to.
Over the past few years, we have conducted many surveys in Canada and around the world on topics that are highly controversial: the legalization of marijuana, thedeath penalty, the use of torture to interrogate terrorism suspects, and corporal punishment in the home. The reaction from people who disagree with the findings because they find themselves in the minority is usually the same. “Everybody I know agrees with my point of view,” they say. “So the questions have to be biased.”
Canada’s Criminal Code, Section 223 reads:
- 223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not
- (a) it has breathed;
- (b) it has an independent circulation; or
- (c) the navel string is severed.
(2) A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.
_______________________
Andrea adds: No, I don’t, for one. And I don’t know many expectant mothers who would agree with this, either.
As the U.S. presidential election heats up, maternal health initiatives may fade into the background of daily news, but the need for something to be done still looms large over the poorest countries in the world.
We know abortion access isn’t a positive long-term solution for maternal deaths, and we know, pretty much for a fact, that it won’t empower the women living in these countries. Looking at the number of women in Africa living with HIV, we can begin to understand what choices those women do and don’t have when it comes to their sexual health.
In Southern Africa, the HIV statistics for young women are high. In Nomasonto’s village, over half the young women aged between 20 and 24 are living with HIV[…]
The most compelling risk factor is women’s lack of power to ensure they have safe sex. There is evidence that many women are unable to abstain from sex, guarantee that their partners will be faithful or insist on the use of condoms […]
In many African countries, particularly where people have been displaced by war, women are extremely vulnerable to sexual violence and “transactional sex”. Even in countries where there is no war there is a high level of coercive sex. In one survey, 40 per cent of young South African women reported being sexually abused before they reached the age of 19.
Pooling our resources into providing abortion access won’t elevate the status of women in these regions or keep them from contracting HIV. Giving women the resources and support they need to say “no” to sex really is a life or death situation. Let’s focus on that.
After a hard hour of googling, I’m still not entirely sure what the Motherhood Bill drafted in Tanzania will and won’t promise to deliver, but as soon as I know, I’ll let you in on it.
Dodoma — DOCTORS and nurses have hailed civil society organizations that drafted the Motherhood Bill, saying it will help improve maternal and reproductive health services. […]
The draft prepared by the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association in collaboration with Care International and White Ribbon Alliance, aims at addressing critical challenges facing mothers, newborn and teenagers among others in accessing reproductive health services. “There are several issues that will be solved with the Safe Motherhood Act in place, we will be assured of all necessary equipment for safe delivery and thus we will be able to reduce maternal and child mortality,” said the Regional Nursing Officer, Ms Anatolia Mkondo.
Doctors have discovered that the accepted origins of ovarian cancer have been wrong. From CTV,
MONTREAL — Ovarian cancer is one of the most feared diseases, as it hard to detect and often leads to death. […]
But a research team at McGill appears to have made a breakthrough by learning that the cancer actual begins in the fallopian tubes.
“We were barking the wrong tree. The name we got wrong, we got the origin of ovarian cancer wrong. We got the test that we should be using for this wrong,” said Dr. Lucy Gilbert, the MUHC oncologist who lead the research.
This is good news for all women, and should remind us that medicine, like every other science, is an evolving field. What we believe to be the case today could look very different from what we believe in the future. That gives me hope for the practice of abortion.
From the National Post,
Four of Canada’s fastest growing cities are in the West, where Calgary and Edmonton have posted the highest percentage increases in population among the country’s 33 metropolitan areas.
Calgary grew by 12.6% between 2006 and 2011, Edmonton by 12.1%, Saskatoonby 11.4% and Kelowna, B.C., by 10.8%.
Now, I’m not saying that has anything to do with Ruth Lobo Shaw reinstating the pro-life group at Carleton University in 2006, but it IS a coincidence.
I’ve gotten so many emails and updates on the Komen funding, that it’s been hard to keep track of who said what during which ridiculous interview. Luckily, there’s at least one article out there urging the media to do right by all the parties involved and at least acknowledge that a good number of people actually support the withdrawal of funds from Planned Parenthood.
Even if some forms of partiality are inevitable, journalists betray their calling when they simply ignore self-evident truths about a story.
Three truths, in particular, should be obvious to everyone reporting on the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy. First, that the fight against breast cancer is unifying and completely uncontroversial, while the provision of abortion may be the most polarizing issue in the United States today. Second, that it’s no more “political” to disassociate oneself from the nation’s largest abortion provider than it is to associate with it in the first place. Third, that for every American who greeted Komen’s shift with “anger and outrage” (as Andrea Mitchell put it), there was probably an American who was relieved and gratified.
The Harper government recently announced a publicly funded agreement between three of Canada’s mining giants and three of Canada’s leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs). […]
“The Canadian government is using aid to support the expansion of Canadian mining…[and] to determine development paths inside countries according to the logic of mining companies,” Yao Graham of Third World Network Africa […]
“CIDA has always worked government-to-government,” said Coumans. “Now what CIDA is doing is channeling Canadian taxpayer money directly to the mine site and basically paying for corporate social responsibility projects, and that is very bizarre.”
What does this mean? It means that mining companies have a bad track record of damaging regions, so now they’ve been paired with groups that usually focus on humanitarian issues/sustainable development and receive government funds. These are the groups we want to build hospitals and make good on the promises we make to foreign countries. Promises that matter so much to us we’re willing to give gobs of money towards them, like lowering maternal death rates and ending child poverty. However with this unusual pairing, these groups are now meant to keep “in check” the mining company, as well as clean up any further damage the mining causes to already needy regions at the taxpayer’s expense. The money moved like a game of three-card Monte, and we’ve taken our eyes off the lady.
Iris is an intelligent software assistant and knowledge navigator application (ask it something, and it will answer you). It’s the Android version of Apple’s Siri. My spouse recently got an Android phone, so I thought I would ask Iris a few questions. Here’s what she had to say about abortion. I apologize in advance for the blur, I’m know for being a poor camera operator!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JKCZiF62tA&feature=youtu.be]
When I asked her if she was pro-choice Iris answered, “I am against it.” When asked if she was Christian Iris said, “I am secular.”