Some pro-lifers from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform were acquitted of trespassing charges for displaying their signs in the Calgary airport in 2011. A good ruling.

A lawyer for eight members of the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform said a judge’s decision to acquit them of trespassing for displaying anti-abortion signs and distributing leaflets at Calgary International Airport is another positive ruling for freedom of expression. “It’s encouraging for free expression rights generally,” John Carpay said outside court on Monday, following provincial court Judge Allan Fradsham’s decision. “Decisions like these ones have persuasive influence on other court cases. It is a positive addition to the body of case law regarding free expression rights.”

“The idea of neutrality in the speech context not only requires that the state refrain from choosing among viewpoints, but also that it not structure public debate in such a way as to favor one viewpoint over another. The state must act as a high-minded parliamentarian, making certain that all viewpoints are fully and fairly heard.”

— Owen Fiss. “State Activism and State Censorship,” Yale Law Journal, 1991

photo credit: @mjb via photopin cc

In the July 8th issue of Maclean’s Barbara Amiel writes about the abortion she had in 1965. She was 24 years old and four months pregnant. She shares this story in the context of a piece on maternal instinct in our society, or the lack thereof.

Looking at nature, she argues that all other living things, from “the thumbnail-sized strawberry poison-dart frog” to the Pacific octopus to “struggling little shoots in Antarctica” fight for survival. But we Homo sapiens tackle survival differently. She says that we don’t necessarily fight to mate and ensure our offspring survive: “Humans don’t have to do any of these things. We choose to mate but not to breed. Or on breeding, we can choose abortion.” Is this natural? She says that “the choice not to pass on our genes seems against our nature.”

Does she regret her abortion? Did she understand what the abortionist did to her or her child?

And until I looked at fetal development charts for this column, I never understood what was inside me: a tiny being with limbs and fingernails that might have felt discomfort as the doctor’s instruments murdered it. I couldn’t wait another four months and have the child adopted, let alone climb up a tall tree to find a safe home for it. Though I fully support legal abortion (as a dark necessity not as some precious human right) I rue our need for it. […]

Perhaps it is rank sentimentality, that cheapest of thrills, that brings tears to my eyes when I watch the graceful mating ritual of weedy sea dragons mirroring each other’s movements as they dance into the underwater night to mate and transfer eggs onto the male for safekeeping. Perhaps it is the shadow of errors my free will made. Meanwhile, having your daughter view the BBC’s Planet Earth or Life series would be a cool move. Even better, it’s in most public libraries—taxpayer dollars paying for material extolling the propagation of life—even while we pay Dr. Morgentaler’s followers for its extinction.

Amiel calls her abortion a murder. I was surprised to see this language in Maclean‘s. She almost seems regretful that she had her abortion. Perhaps she is. It’s a sad story.

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Andrea adds: “And until I looked at fetal development charts for this column, I never understood what was inside me: a tiny being with limbs and fingernails that might have felt discomfort as the doctor’s instruments murdered it. I couldn’t wait another four months and have the child adopted, let alone climb up a tall tree to find a safe home for it. Though I fully support legal abortion (as a dark necessity not as some precious human right) I rue our need for it.”

There is nothing compelling in the snippet there to suggest there actually is a need for it, quite the contrary. It’s a terribly sad column. I agree with this, wholeheartedly: “we have this burden of free will that allows us to make the most ghastly mistakes as well as great advances.” And in that sense, she fits right in with PWPL, for we should be able to name something as a mistake, whilst simultaneously knowing we cannot hold people back from making major, difficult, awful mistakes. That said, I’d rather not fund their mistakes with my tax dollars…

I too, have recently taken to noting the lack of maternal instinct around me and the manner in which many mothers, even, devalue their own position and work. Crazy upside down world. We claim to value family and relationships above all else, but we do not act in a manner conducive to supporting this apparent belief.

photo credit: Canadian Film Centre via photopin cc

…is Kellie Leitch. I don’t know much about her but she voted no on the Woodworth motion, M-312, which was a parliamentary motion, not a bill, to examine when life begins. Rona Ambrose was promoted to health.

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Faye adds: Ouch. From Andrew Cohen:

Leitch arrived in Parliament when the Conservatives cruelly disowned the incumbent in her riding, Helena Guergis. When Leitch talks of the rights of women, she would do well to remember that she is where she is because a woman was drummed out of the party.

Your dating culture on campus, courtesy of the Pill. There’s so much I could say about this article but I’ll limit this comment to a short reflection on how the Pill changed our world, drastically and dramatically. Not too long ago (should have realized this earlier) I began to realize that the sexual revolution is not mythical. And one effect is apparently the loss of romance.

At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time. She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over. So she did. They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep. A generation of women faces broad opportunities and great pressures, both of which help shape their views on sex and relationships. Their relationship, she noted, is not about the meeting of two souls. “We don’t really like each other in person, sober,” she said, adding that “we literally can’t sit down and have coffee.” … “I’m a true feminist,” she added. “I’m a strong woman. I know what I want.” At the same time, she didn’t want the number of people she had slept with printed, and she said it was important to her to keep her sexual life separate from her image as a leader at Penn. “Ten years from now, no one will remember — I will not remember — who I have slept with,” A. said. “But I will remember, like, my transcript, because it’s still there. I will remember what I did. I will remember my accomplishments and places my name is hung on campus.”

Since these girls are completely unencumbered from pregnancy concerns (though not STIs, as rising rates of those will attest) they can have casual sex and worry about the really, really important things in life. Like getting a good transcript. Don’t we all just sit back so very often with a glass of fine wine and reflect on that critical piece of paper?

And Lucinda Creighton, the pro-life Minister we wrote about last week, was forced to resign. The Prime Minister did not allow a free vote on the bill.

She went on to say that the electorate would not forget the vindictive action taken by [Prime Minister] Kenny in inflicting such harsh sanctions and penalties on those party colleagues who dared to defy his authoritarian whip.

“It disgusts me that the Taoiseach would demand that his party colleagues should vote in favour of this horrific and fundamentally flawed piece of legislation and threaten them with being thrown out of the party if they fail to do so. What kind of a leader is he? What kind of a leader throws a colleague out of the party for doing exactly what they told their electorate they were going to do before election?” Ui Bhriain said.

Only five members of the majority Fine Gael party dared to break ranks and as a result were automatically expelled from the party.

Lucinda Creighton, one of those who voted against the abortion bill, resigned from her position as Ireland’s European Affairs Minister, saying the government broke a commitment to keep Ireland free of abortion.

“It’s very disappointing and I would rather that I wasn’t here. For me, this is a very important piece of legislation, one which is against a commitment that we made at the last election – a promise had been made, a very fundamental promise – on abortion.

“I just felt that I couldn’t remove from that promise that we made at the last election,” she told RTE News.

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Andrea adds: I like Lucinda Creighton’s integrity and will remember her name.

I appreciated reading this, from Jill Stanek. It’s an interview, a discussion between a pro-life activist and a pro-choice activist. Here’s the pro-life question:

I so often hear wild exaggerations from the other side that I never know if and when they think something is a real emergency. I asked Robin about this. Do they see these particular times as truly alarming?

And here’s the pro-choice answer:

I can only speak for myself and a lot of activists I have talked to,” Robin responded. “‘The sky is falling’ is a bit extreme, but I do think there has been a significant shift. The language has changed, the tactics have changed. Local stories – such as when Ohio added abortion restrictions to their budget, or when North Carolina gutted that bill – are now national news events.  There is a sense that abortion access could be changed forever. People who weren’t necessarily engaged are paying attention. The public is becoming more aware that abortion isn’t a settled issue, which many believed was until now.”

Interesting.

(h/t)

When you hear about forced sterilizations, one hearkens back to Margaret Sanger’s day–the founder of Planned Parenthood who appreciated and advanced the cause of eugenics. Or 2010, as the case turns out.

The situation in California is pretty simple: Between 2006 and 2010, the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals, nearly 150 female California prison inmates were sterilized without their fully informed consent.

The author writes this:

The major reason to force people to give up their reproductive potential (among the most natural of all rights), as California did, is a determination by the state that their crimes deprive them of even the most basic of rights. It’s the same thinking that results in the casual acceptance of rape behind bars and dozens of other horrible things. And this casual type of dehumanization, in turn, undermines the most fundamental teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I agree.

Should directing a think tank cease to challenge her, Andrea has confided that she is seriously considering pursuing a career as a mermaid. In a fit of glee last week, she sent me this link.