ProWomanProLife

  • The Story
  • The Women
  • Notable Columns
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Archives for Tanya Zaleski

A get out of jail free card

July 14, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 3 Comments

Apparently, you can say the most appalling things, so long as you are pro-choice. A few days ago, US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had this to say:

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out… Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.

And those ‘excuse-me-what-did-she-just-say?’ words only help underscore the recent release of the documentary film Mafaa 21.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLnNi_qb7nY]

As a sidebar, if you’re a minority woman in the US, you’re five times more likely than a white woman to terminate your pregnancy. (In Canada, we simply prefer not to keep statistics.)

Filed Under: All Posts

Who should be talking about sex to whom?

June 29, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Crossed this article:

Sexual coercion and “reproductive control,” including contraceptive sabotage, are a common, and devastating, facet of dating and domestic abuse.

The article basically links pregnancy among teens to partner abuse. So what is the prevailing belief over at RH Reality Check? “We need to get even more dating-violence education into the schools.” They acknowledge:

Researchers, including Teitelman, are also studying exactly how parents can best educate their kids, not just about the birds and the bees, but also about standing up to sexual coercion. (In one study, Teitelman found teen girls whose mothers had talked to them about resisting sexual pressure were twice as likely to delay sex, or use condoms during sex; when fathers did the same, they were five times more likely to have safe sex.)

I suppose if RH Reality Check is going to allude to the idea that parents should encourage abstinence, it is only fitting that the info be shrouded in brackets toward the end of the article. And yet they insist the focus should be on getting more sex ed “in the schools.”

In this same article, a nurse practitioner points out, “We’re giving teens all this information about prevention in the clinic, and yet I see them back all the time for STI testing.”

So in this article we’ve outlined that the parent thing works well, and that learning about condoms from a stranger (even if they’re a medical professional) doesn’t work well. So we need to elaborate sex ed in schools. Something about not being able to see the forest for the trees…

(Though I’m being a bit critical here, the article is worth a read. It sheds light on a topic we don’t hear enough about.)

_______________________

Rebecca adds: “Contraception sabotage” – this is an area ripe for study. I’ve never had a male friend own up to deliberately sabotaging his partner’s birth control, although I don’t suppose many men ‘fess up to it, especially to female friends. I do, on the other hand, know women who’ve quite consciously lied about birth control (explicitly, as in claiming to be on the pill when they’re not; or implicitly, when they stop taking it or “accidentally” miss a week; or say “it’s a safe time” when it’s not, or might not be) and think it was a perfectly fine thing to do, because the guys wanted to marry them, just needed a nudge, ya know? And there are many other situations where I suspect something similar might have happened.

A lot of these relationships ended badly. Not a surprise, given how little trust must exist for those shenanigans to take place. A couple of them are still married a decade later. Still doesn’t justify that kind of lying, in my opinion. At any rate, tricking a guy into fathering a child is as despicable as coercing or intimidating your girlfriend into having a child. And it’s something a lot of people condone, or turn a blind eye to, in my experience.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Pregnancy, teen, Violence

It’s not exactly apples and oranges

June 27, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 2 Comments

(Irrefutably off) pro-life activist commits violent crime against abortion doctor, and it’s in the news for over a week.

However, a man tries to bowl over a pro-lifer with his ’91 GMC and the only place you can read about it is in an online newsource so credible that it insists on calling Chicago “Chico.”

A man who allegedly used an SUV in an attempted to run over an anti-abortion protester Wednesday outside of the Planned Parenthood office, has been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Matthew R. Haver, 40, was arrested by Chico police for allegedly trying to hit James Cantfield, 69, of Chico.

That’s right, friends, Chico.

I’d love to be wrong but I’m guessing we won’t read about this one in the Times.

Update: Oh, Chico, California. *blushes*  Well that does add some credibility, then. Mind you, the readership just significantly plummeted. Chico’s population isn’t quite 90,000. Chicago’s just shy of 3 million. Now we really won’t read about it in the Times.

Filed Under: All Posts

New study: Abortions cause relationship problems

April 18, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 7 Comments

It’s astounding the number of women who consider abortion in favour of their romantic relationship.  A woman is often put in a position where she feels she must choose between her boyfriend or her baby.  Some men may even be heard uttering, “What?  You’re choosing this baby over me?”

This recent — and very relevant — study published by the peer-reviewed journal Public Health suggests:

When a woman gets an abortion, the couple is more than twice as likely to argue when discussing future children, and nearly three times as likely to experience domestic violence, compared with women who carry the pregnancy to term and raise the child.

So, dude, it turns out that, if she’s choosing the baby, she is choosing you, too.  Suck it up.  You’ll make a great dad.

Filed Under: All Posts

Closure, and other myths

April 15, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 4 Comments

adoptionpic

I knew adopting a newborn in North America was not for the impatient.  But I had no idea:

The latest federal data show about 6,800 babies a year are relinquished at birth for adoption, a minuscule number out of nearly 3 million unwed pregnancies. Moreover, only white women place their babies for adoption. Since 1989, the number of black babies relinquished at birth has been statistically zero…

Why is “Juno”-style adoption — an unwed mother places her newborn with a unrelated couple — so rare?

Legal abortion is part of the answer. Some 50 million pregnancies have been erased since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling…

Adoption, meanwhile, has become unthinkable.

Infant adoption is a “barbaric” practice, said one of many anti-adoption Web sites. “With abortion, grief has closure. With adoption, the grief intensifies over time,” is a common warning.

Closure?  According to Webster’s dictionary, closure is “an often comforting or satisfying sense of finality; something (as a satisfying ending) that provides such a sense.”  I’ve heard abortion described in many ways over the last few years, but words like ‘comforting’ and ‘satisfying’ never made the cut until now.

It is not my intention to deny the full range of emotions associated with adoption.  Rather, I’d like to shout through a bullhorn (preferably while standing on a soap box) that there is no closure involved in the act of abortion.  It is disturbing to think that there are anti-adoption organizations out there that preach:

Adoption…is “an industry” in which “young, unwed (and thus powerless) parents are persuaded, through force, coercion or outright lies, to transfer parental rights of their children to older, more affluent couples.”

You know, feminist abortion advocates swear to us up and down that abortion is empowering, and that the idea of coercion is ferociously exaggerated.  But when faced with the option of adoption, suddenly women are weak, powerless victims who’s babies are being ripped from their arms.

Am I alone in sensing the cock-eyed perspective here?

____________________

Andrea adds: I have heard pro-life advocates express concern about coercion in adoption, actually. I think coercion certainly exists in abortion, so I don’t think it goes entirely absent in adoption. The pro-life advocate I knew wanted to advocate for girls who are pregnant to become mothers, I think. (I should add that she is not a “barefoot and pregnant” type of woman–you’ll have to take my word on that…) These are tricky questions. I would again default to the notion that we don’t kill to solve our problems, and therefore the anquish of adoption is a lesser burden than the anguish of taking your child’s life.

Filed Under: All Posts

A wise woman

April 9, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 5 Comments

Had a great conversation with a wise woman today.  This woman, 60-something , mother, grandmother, believer in the true strength of women, was talking to me about how things were “back in the day.”  We were touching on a variety of topics when, suddenly she paused and looked to the ceiling, as if something were written there.

She started again, “Why is it that we don’t see much of this anymore?  You know, all sorts of different people.  I went to school  with a girl who had a hunched back.  And another who’s legs were not the same length. She had to wear a special shoe with a platform.

“There was a family that lived two doors down, and the father’d had his legs amputated.  (I thought twins lived there, one tall and the other short.  I was no older than 4.  I couldn’t understand that sometimes he was wearing his prosthetic legs and sometimes he would walk around without them.)  Well, that family had a daughter, and she was missing that bone between the knee and the ankle.  She was older than me, so I never played with her.

“There was also a boy who would come to our house from time to time.  He had Down Sydrome.  He would come over with a man who worked with my father.

“And I can clearly remember, as a child, that none of these people were strange to me, or odd.  They were just people, like you or I, who simply had something particular about them.  But they were all around.

“Why don’t we see much of them anymore?”

“Well,” I started, “aside from some of the medical advances, many of these conditions are diagnosed during pregnancy.  Children with abnormalities are usually aborted.”  At this point, my eyes began to well up and I stopped speaking.

The wise woman sat back in her chair, as if soaking in the reality of what I had just said.  Her mouth opened, but no words came out.  She took a breath, exhaled, and stated, “That’s the problem with this generation.”  She had my full attention. “You can go to the store and buy a fridge.  For $100 more you can get a warranty.  Why risk it?  Get the warranty!  But people view their children in the same way; like so many commodities.  A man and a woman don’t get together and have a baby to create a family unit.”  She lifted her arms, as though tightly holding a large ball to her chest.  “They should love the family enough that, when they find out the baby is less than perfect, it’s OK.  It’s still their baby.  It’s still their family.”

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: baby-boomer

An eerie coincidence

March 28, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 2 Comments

It’s hard to miss the tragic irony here:

The crash of a small airplane in Montana carrying a family from California after a ski trip has made the national news…The crash involved two daughters of a prominent California abortion business owner, Irving “Bud” Feldkamp, and their families…

The plane crashed into Catholic Holy Cross cemetery near the Butte airport and burst into flames. The site of the devastating impact and the deaths of the 14 passengers was near a memorial erected in the cemetery to honor unborn children who have died in abortions.

The memorial, called the Tomb of the Unborn, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

Well, at least I thought the irony was hard to miss. But no mainstream media outlet alludes to it. Oh, they refer to Irving “Bud” Feldkamp. They even offer up that he’s “a Redlands dentist who is president of the leasing company that owns the plane.”

True, the media generally avoids mentioning abortion and the untimely death of innocent children in the same article. I didn’t realize they were so religious about it, though.

Whatever the circumstance, my heart goes out to the victims’ family. It’s a horrible thing to lose your children.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: Abortionist, Family Planning Associates

Politically correct

March 22, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about political correctness lately. A lot. And in this context: When, as a civilization, we finally understand that abortion is a violation of human rights, what will we call unborn children?

You know what I mean. There are many things we don’t call people anymore. If you’ve watched The Wizard of Oz lately, you’ve likely had to shield your child’s eyes as the credits rolled. Do you know how they referred to those actors who played the Munchkins?

I think fetus will be the new F-word. I also think I have too much time on my hands.

_____________________

Rebecca adds: Claude Lantzmann’s Shoah, a very long documentary about the Holocaust that included many interviews with perpetrators (not all of whom knew they were being filmed) contains many fascinating and frightening insights. One of the smaller, but telling, details is that the workers in death camps referred to their victims as figuren – my professor translated that as “mannequins” or “dolls”. It conveys the physical shape of a person, but ascribes no value, soul, or life to it. For all but the most evil Nazis, this sort of reification of humans was necessary if they were to carry out their grim tasks.

Unborn children don’t even get the courtesy of an acknowledgment of their basic nature. They’re called “products of conception,” or “a cluster of cells,” the latter as apt a description of a tumour, or an unsightly mole, and by implication something to be disposed of as readily as a tumour or mole. I don’t think “fetus” is necessarily problematic – my doctor calls it a “patella” even though almost everyone thinks of it as a “kneecap” – but there’s no question the word is often used to achieve distance. How about even referring to them as “human fetuses”? A fetus is a developing life; we use the same word for all mammals in utero. I’d settle for that small step towards taking an honest look at what it is that is being destroyed in an abortion.

____________________

Andrea adds: I have heard someone else use the terms “embryonic child”, “fetal child”, etc. which I like. It’s scientific, accurate and personable–allows us to consider that’s how we all began… we’re all people in different stages of life. We evolve, so to speak.

Filed Under: All Posts

Rape in Iraq

March 21, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 1 Comment

Why do an estimated 80% of these rapes go unreported?

They didn’t report because they didn’t think they’d be believed…  They didn’t report because they were ashamed and humiliated and they didn’t want anyone to know what happened to them.

Oh, I should probably clarify that we’re not talking Iraqis raping Iraqis.  These are Americans raping Americans.

[In 2006] there were 2,974 cases of rape and sexual assault across the services. And of those, only 292 cases resulted in a military trial.

And in 2007 there were even fewer prosecutions.   Of more than 2,200 servicemen investigated for sexual assault, only 181 were prosecuted…

And in a majority of cases, the punishment doesn’t seem to match the crime. Often most offenders only get a reduction in rank or reduced pay.

And the Western world is supposedly so much more civilized.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: sexual assault, Violence

Happy St. Patrick’s day

March 17, 2009 by Tanya Zaleski 1 Comment

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/home.php]

________________________

Brigitte adds: Brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it. To say nothing of what it does to the ear… But that’s par for the course today. Happy Green Beer Day!

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: danny boy, muppets, musical

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 13
  • Next Page »

Follow Us

Facebooktwitterrssby feather

Notable Columns

  • A pro-woman budget wouldn't tell me how to live my life
  • Bad medicine
  • Birth control pills have side effects
  • Canada Summer Jobs debacle–Can Trudeau call abortion a right?
  • Celebrate these Jubilee jailbirds
  • China has laws against sex selection. But not Canada. Why?
  • Family love is not a contract
  • Freedom to discuss the “choice”
  • Gender quotas don't help business or women
  • Ghomeshi case a wake-up call
  • Hidden cost of choice
  • Life at the heart of the matter
  • Life issues and the media
  • Need for rational abortion debate
  • New face of the abortion debate
  • People vs. kidneys
  • PET-P press release
  • Pro-life work is making me sick
  • Prolife doesn't mean anti-woman
  • Settle down or "lean in"
  • Sex education is all about values
  • Thank you, Camille Paglia
  • The new face of feminism
  • Today’s law worth discussing
  • When debate is shut down in Canada’s highest places
  • Whither feminism?

Categories

  • All Posts
  • Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia
  • Charitable
  • Ethics
  • Featured Media
  • Featured Posts
  • Feminism
  • Free Expression
  • International
  • Motherhood
  • Other
  • Political
  • Pregnancy Care Centres
  • Reproductive Technologies

All Posts

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in