MaterCare International is an organization of health professionals who dedicate their time and energy to caring for mothers and children in developing countries. With the purchase of their super stylish new maternity motorcycles in November, this year they’ll be able to reach women in areas that were difficult to access before.

 These vehicles are much cheaper to operate and maintain than the 4X4 ambulance but are only for short haul pickups from villages relatively close to the main hospital. They are specially designed motorcycles for transport of pregnant women. One will be brought to Merti and the other will stay around Isiolo. We hope to purchase more in the future when funds become available.

What great news to get after the holidays. MPs are starting to vocalize that they’d like a debate on rights for the unborn.

Essex Conservative MP Jeff Watson supports a colleague’s call for parliamentary discussion about whether to give human rights to the unborn.

Kitchener-Centre’s Tory MP Stephen Woodworth said in a media release issued earlier this week that Canadian laws governing human rights and the unborn are outdated and need to be re-examined.

Recently there have been several stories about Marie Stopes’ patients requiring medical aftercare to save women’s lives, some have died before that care was recieved. Their answer to that problem? The organization is urging these women’s home countries to clean up their mess.

WOMEN returning to Ireland after having abortions in the UK put their lives at risk by not seeking adequate aftercare, according to a leading figure at Marie Stopes International.

On Saturday, the General Medical Council struck off Dr Phanuel Dartey after he carried out botched procedures on a number of women, including an Irish patient who became seriously ill after returning home in 2006.

The Ghanaian doctor who worked at the Marie StopesInternational clinic in Ealing, West London, left parts of the foetus inside the Irish patient, which led to her suffering a perforated uterus.

The Marie Stopes clinics, which carry out about 2,700 terminations for Irish women each year, said the case involving Dr Dartey was an “isolated incident” and Tracie McNeill, the group’s international vice president, said one of their main concerns as a healthcare services provider involved Irish patients returning home.

“We are worried that many Irish women are not visiting their GPs to receive any aftercare help.

“Many are too embarrassed and ashamed to tell their own doctors about their termination and it’s not uncommon to hear of some who’ve become ill after going back.

Botched procedures on a number of women are not “isolated incidents”.

In Brazil abortion is not part of the cultural framework, and abortion laws are very restrictive in the country. As a result when children are born with abnormalities, even very extreme abnormalities, we have women and families who warmly welcome these new lives without hesitation. It’s inspiring really. Welcome to the world conjoined twins Emanoel and Jesus.

A Brazilian woman who has given birth to a baby with two heads, admitted she had initially expected twins. […]

Mr Vasconcelos added that at no point did the mother, who has three other children, appear distraught that her son has two heads.

He said: ‘On the contrary, the baby was received with much happiness by the family.

‘The mother fed both mouths and the baby stayed with her in her room the whole time. Her desire was to take her baby straight home.’

…into the Croydon Day Surgery clinic (now known as Maroondah surgery of Marie Stopes International Australia).

A 42-YEAR-OLD woman died days after attending a controversial abortion clinic in Croydon last week. […]

It is the fourth investigation involving the clinic in six years.

Anaesthetist James Latham Peters allegedly infected more than 50 women with hepatitis C at the same clinic in 2008 and 2009. Peters, who was bailed on a $200,000 surety, will return to court in May for the remainder of the committal hearing.

The surgery’s owner, Dr Mark Schulberg, was in 2009 found guilty of unprofessional conduct for failing to gain legal consent to perform a late-term abortion on an intellectually disabled woman.

And earlier this year it was revealed that a 40-year-old woman was left fighting for her life in the Box Hill Hospital after Dr Schulberg performed a late-term abortion surgery on her.

C.S. Lewis wrote that the more we use a word outside of its true meaning, the less meaning that word will eventually have. Take for example the word “gentleman”, which used to mean someone who was independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was used so often outside this definition, that now we simply address people as “ladies and gentlemen” without it having any real meaning at all.

We’re at risk of this happening to the word “person”. I assume that most people probably use the term to refer to all human beings (who can also be referred to as “natural persons”). However, the words “person” and “personhood” are starting to provide we “natural persons” with strange peers.

…the category of “person” may be taken to include such non-human entities as animals, corporations, artificial intelligences, or extraterrestrial life

Are corporations people? And if these invisible and artificial creations are “persons”, does saying someone is not a person really truly mean anything at all?

Once again, a pro-life student group is having a rough start to being granted club status.

Dec. 19, 2011. Fredericton, New Brunswick:  Pro-life students at the University of New Brunswick’s (UNB) Fredericton campus were shocked last week to learn from their student newspaper, TheBrunswickan, that their club would not be recognized by the Student Union due to a “lack of information”.

“The whole situation has been incredibly frustrating,” says Amanda Magee, the President of UNB Students for Life.  “We have given the Student Union information.  We have offered to be present to answer questions.”

UNB Students for Life applied for club status in October, not anticipating any issues given that a pro-life club is active at the UNB Saint John campus and had also existed at the Fredericton campus only a few years previous.  When their contact on council, Andrew Martel, requested additional information from the club, they replied, ensuring that the information would be received before the next Council meeting on November 20th.  Despite this, Andrew Martel stated at the meeting, according to the Nov. 20th minutes, that he did not receive any information from the club.

“We’ve had to rely on the student newspaper and the minutes of the meetings to piece things together,” adds Magee.  “And the Dec. 4th minutes still aren’t available so we’re not entirely sure what happened.”

Read the entire press release here.

The holidays are busy, and as my children get older Christmas seems to be morphing into an infinite loop of mall, grocery store, party, mall (repeat as necessary). It’s overwhelming, and it can be easy during these busy days to forget the things that are at the forefront of our minds during the other eleven months of the year. For me, this means not letting my volunteerism slide just because I have something to bake or buy before C-Day.

There are lots of charitable things to do in December, and among those is ensuring that our most marginalized and vulnerable populations don’t feel forgotten, this includes our growing senior population.

Right now in Calgary, 29 per cent of senior citizens live alone, and are subsequently at high risk for depression, injury, malnutrition, and fraudulent activity – which is to list only a few of the most common and unjust circumstances they face every day.

I recently started a volunteer group called PAIR which aims to unite marginalized groups, and the current ongoing event aims to bring mothers with young children together with seniors. We meet for about an hour every month. If you’re in Nova Scotia, you can learn more about the group and events here.

A few days ago, I posted about a woman in New York charged with “self-abortion”. Again, this is a rare charge, but I found this article today entitled “Abortion is Legal: So Why is Self-Abortion Care a Crime?“.

…if a woman decides that the best thing for her to do is to self-induce an abortion, she should have access to the best information available on how to do this safely (ie with medicines, NOT herbs) and know where to go in case of a complication.  Criminalizing her choices does not protect her health. If we believe that women have the right to control their fertility, then we must also trust women with the right to choose the methods that make the most sense for them.

A few things spring to mind as to why this is a very bad idea. One is the fact that making abortion drugs available for at-home use might cause a higher rate of coerced abortion. Coerced abortion is still legal in Canada, and sometimes the only person who actually asks if you’re being coerced is medical staff. Remove these middlemen/women, and coercion becomes all the easier.

Since coercion isn’t a crime, what about slipping over-the-counter purchased mifepristone into your partner’s drink? Is that a criminal offense?

I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to make self-abortion a regularity, given the possible mental health effects, the possible abuses of these kinds of drugs, and the isolation a woman must experience as she self-aborts her child.

Criminalizing this “choice” may in fact protect her health and save the lives of both mother and child.

________________________

Andrea adds: Same article I linked to for a game of Count the Euphemisms, “Self-Abortion Care” being the first one I spotted, in the title.

We create laws because certain acts violate the moral and ethical codes of a society. Abortions based on sex and race violate the moral and ethical code of the majority of people in the US and Canada, so why hasn’t it been banned?

NEW YORK — The practice of sex-selection abortion, usually targeting a female fetus due to parental preference for a son, has few defenders in the United States. Yet a proposed federal ban is drawing vehement opposition from liberal advocacy groups who call it a veiled attempt to undermine broader abortion rights.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., would outlaw abortions done on the basis of gender or race. Women who had such abortions would not be penalized but those who performed them — or pressured a woman into having one — would face up to five years in prison.