Tanya Zaleski – Page 11

Too greedy for babies

April 11, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Here’s a Canadian story about a young couple “struggling to get by.”

The young couple is planning to marry in six months and, within a couple of years, start their own family. Before long, they’ll want to move out of their cramped, eighth-floor apartment and buy their first home. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to do it on their own. With a combined annual income of $80,000 and zero savings, they simply don’t have the means to qualify for the $200,000 mortgage they’ll need to get into a starter home.

These are our North American standards; house first, then kids. Until all our financial ducks are in a row, we are “struggling to get by.” I blame these set standards for many of the abortions conducted in Canada for financial reasons. In the US, 21.3 percent of women having an abortion state they “cannot afford a baby” as their main reason. We often closely mirror their stats. (No one knows the exact figures in Canada because “StatsCan doesn’t collect data on the reasons for termination.”)

I am not turning a blind eye to poverty in this nation. I do, however, refuse to believe that one fifth of women seeking abortions in Canada are truly poor. In Nigeria, where nearly three quarters of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, 11.4 percent of women having an abortion claim it’s mainly because they cannot afford the child. In Mexico, 15.9 percent. Honduras: 5.3 percent.

Gandhi said, “We have enough for everybody’s need. But not enough for everybody’s greed.” If StatsCan ever does start collecting data on reasons for abortion, I think they should include “too greedy for baby” as a possible answer.

UPDATE, Saturday: Governor General Michaelle Jean is not turning a blind eye to poverty in this country either, as she prepares for her visit to Canada’s North.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080411/national/gov_gen_arctic

A nugget from “A Demographic Winter”

April 9, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Possibly 2008’s most important documentary, A Demographic Winter, has just become available. I barely know where to start, so I’ll just share one of the many things that jumped right out at me (please don’t be surprised if I do a “part 2”).

100 years ago, 75 – 80% of households had children in them. This family was a dominant force of influence on our society. Within this context, only those messages appropriate for little ears and eyes were allowed, certainly in the home, but also within the majority of communities. Today, one-third of households have children, which definitely explains our media’s shift to less child-friendly messages.

Wouldn’t it be fair to say that children keep us all a little more innocent, a little more pure, and a little less corrupt? By rendering the child an endangered species of sorts, we have done our world the disservice of catering to more adult desires. We are therefore inadvertently exposing the few children left to these adult messages and tainting that which used to help keep us from all our perversion.

Be it far from me to place the responsibility of upholding society’s standards of morality on a child. They certainly don’t need that sort of pressure. But, by their very existence, they do make us watch our mouth, be good examples of courtesy and kindness, and love immeasurably. In short, they make us better.

It’s easy to forget what gems these little ones are. We more often hear about their carbon footprint, and how very expensive they are. They are, after all, the “unwanted” in “unwanted pregnancy.” Well, that is child un-friendly, to say the least. The media really has outdone itself.

The “freedom” of hormonal contraception

April 6, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Pro-lifers are commonly criticized for not getting behind contraception initiatives. While personally, I have no religious opposition to the use of contraception, the claim that it is the salve to high unintended pregnancy statistics irks me. Aside for the fact that 54% of abortion seekers claim to have been using some form of contraception at the moment of conception, hormonal birth-control methods especially come with their fair share of dark, shadowy problems. Here’s one example:

For years, Johnson & Johnson obscured evidence that its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch delivered much more estrogen than standard birth control pills, potentially increasing the risk of blood clots and strokes…

But because the Food and Drug Administration approved the patch, the company is arguing in court that it cannot be sued by women who claim that they were injured by the product — even though its old label inaccurately described the amount of estrogen it released…

More than 3,000 women and their families have sued Johnson & Johnson, asserting that users of the Ortho Evra patch suffered heart attacks, strokes and, in 40 cases, death. From 2002 to 2006, the food and drug agency received reports of at least 50 deaths associated with the drug…

The F.D.A. did not warn the public of the potential risks until November 2005 — six years after the company’s own study showed the high estrogen releases.

Pro-abortion feminists are all too eager to talk about the sexual freedom these hormonal infusions provide. I guess I’m the sort of feminist who would rather think about a woman’s overall best interests in matters of health and well-being. So sue me.

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UPDATE, mid-afternoon: After reading this article again, I decided to call a friend of mine who is on the patch. We had recently been discussing the role of birth control in her life and relationship.

“You’re kidding!” she gasped, “and it was going so well with the patch, I thought.” Like many women, she’d struggled in the past with many forms of contraception with mediocre to very unfavorable results; weight gain, acne, allergies, cramping, decreased libido, you name it.

Her stunned silence was followed by, “But I can’t get pregnant now. I have no choice.”

Ah, the ‘freedom’ of hormonal contraception. Ain’t it grand!

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Brigitte wonders: You know what I don’t get? Is the number of women who are extremely careful about what they eat, who spend small fortunes on organic, “chemical-free” food and whatnot (as though all chemicals were bad – we’d sure look funny without H2O…), but who don’t hesitate one-third of a second before pumping their bodies full of hormones.

From the horse’s mouth

April 3, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Ken Epp has addressed some concerns the pro-abortion side, namely Joyce Arthur, has for his bill, Bill C-484, here.

I think that if Ms. Arthur would debate what my bill actually says instead of basing her arguments on a misrepresentation, she would be advocating for C-484. How can she argue against protecting in law the unborn child which the pregnant woman has chosen to keep, and to provide criminal sanctions against any third party who would unilaterally take that choice and that anticipated new life away from her, without her consent, against her will and with violence?

Anyone?… Anyone?

Students of virginity

April 3, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Promiscuity sans consequence is, at its core, a masculine concept. Women require certain measures, such as a regular dose of hormones (AKA: the pill, the patch, the shot, etc…) and when those fail, they claim abortion is a woman’s ultimate right. In other words, modern feminism is all about being more like men. There’s a certain disdain for the reproductive system of a woman, until she’s good and ready to “activate” it. Being a woman is all too inconvenient unless we have access to products and services that keep our ovaries and uterus in check.

Enter Janie Fredell, advocate of premarital abstinence and president of Harvard’s “True Love Revolution.”

If men are commonly more promiscuous than women, it is only because the culture allows it, she said. Fredell was here to turn society around. “It’s extremely countercultural,” she said, for a woman to assert control over her own body. It is, in fact, a feminist notion. Conventional feminism, she explained, teaches that control of your body means the freedom to have sex without consequences — sex like a man. “I am an unconventional feminist,” Fredell said, in the sense that she asserts control by choosing not to have sex — by telling men, no, absolutely not.

Hmm… Is it possible, if women are less willing to “give the milk away for free”, that men will be more likely to practice abstinence, too? If for no other reason, the math makes me think so.

Feeling crowded since 1969

March 31, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

A Quebec current events show, Il va y avoir du sport, recently hosted a debate asking: Must the number of births be limited to save the planet?

Doing my best to translate:

In 2009, or perhaps sooner, planet Earth will be home to 7 billion people.
For several decades now, we’ve been wondering if our planet will reach its limits. How many human beings can the world sustain?

Laure Waridel, author and environmental sociologist, pointed out that the resources we consume on a return flight to Paris are equal to what an Ethiopian person consumes over 12 years. Host Marie-France Bazzo therefore asked, “So we should all be living like the Ethiopians?”

Yes, that’s exactly what she meant (duh.)

By the way, in response to the question, “how many humans,” we apparently exceeded the planet’s optimum capacity sometime between 1969 and 1987, according to the World Health Organization.

The end justifying the means

March 31, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Why put a positive spin on this?

I had thought, “Surely this can’t be a good thing. This is sexual objectification of women.” I assumed most women who went into this would not be doing it for good reasons and would not have choices. What surprised me is that the dancers whom I interviewed for the most part were doing it very self-consciously as a way to finance a longer-term, often educational goal. Stripping is the most lucrative legal profession to a young woman who doesn’t have a higher education.

It’s safe to say that it remains sexual objectification of women, regardless of how much the woman is raking in. So let me re-iterate: “Surely this can’t be a good thing.”

Inspirational passion

March 29, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

We who cleave to the title pro-life will be inspired by Tong Phuoc Phuc.

The 41-year-old Catholic from the coastal town of Nha Trang has opened his door to unwed expectant mothers in a country that logs one of the world’s highest abortion rates.

It allows us to understand we can all do more.

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Andrea adds: I think whether pro-life or pro-choice you can be inspired by this man. I looked up some stats on Vietnam. They have a per capita GDP of USD$2,600. Compared to Canada’s USD$38,200. I like these stories of people doing the impossible. He’s a man with a vision, compassion, and I do indeed find it very inspirational. The long term vision of PWPL includes a charity–I’m not sure what form that might take. But stories like this remind me not to make excuses for myself. All things are possible to help others in dire circumstances. All things–whether you make a lot of money, have a lot of resources, or not.

Our consumerist, materialistic world

March 28, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

This letter in today’s Montreal Gazette lays bare what standards society has set for raising a family:

The crux of the problem is that young mothers do not have a choice [to stay home with their children] any more. Most must return to work for financial reasons and place their children in care settings.
Our very consumerist, materialistic world emphasizes paid work as a means of delivering the good life – bigger houses, bigger cars, every imaginable gadget.
Our children quickly learn the importance that they hold in their very busy parents’ lives.

Imagine what an unexpected pregnancy’s prospects are in such a setting? Oh, wait, no need to imagine. We’re living it.

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