A friend recently attended a reproductive justice conference. The pro-choice experts didn’t refer to those of us on this side of the debate as “pro-lifers” (generally our preferred designation) or “anti-choicers,” but simply as the “Antis.”

Example of common usage: “Faye believes that unborn children are human beings deserving of respect, value and dignity. Faye is an Anti.”

Le sigh.

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Andrea adds: Funny. On a different, but related note, I would personally very much love it if all PWPL readers could commit, sign a pledge, whatever it takes, to never using “poor-choicers” instead of “pro-choicers.” I don’t think our readers do. That said, I’ve seen it from pro-lifers of goodwill and to me, it is asking for someone to poke fun at you. And when I get made fun of, I like it to be for the right reasons.

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Andrea adds again: I suppose I should ask whether your friend learned anything useful?

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Faye adds: He did. Perhaps we can blog about it at some point. Hmm… (And there I leave off the longest PWPL thread in history.)

Studies have shown that relationship demise can be the result of abortion. The story of why famous tennis players Chris Evert and Jimmy Connor split up in the 70s when they were supposed to get married highlights this. She got pregnant and unilaterally decided abortion was the answer, telling him to “make the arrangements.” He, on the other hand, was happy to accept responsibility for what happened.

Connors claims that Evert’s decision helped to end their relationship. “It was a horrible feeling, but I knew it was over,” he writes. “Getting married wasn’t going to be good for either of us.”

I can’t imagine how getting married would work after that. It’s a pretty fundamental disagreement, and not exactly the basis for a strong relationship going forward.

On the flip side, of course I have read about men entirely and totally rejecting women who choose to have the baby. I do believe this has increased since “the choice” became so pervasive, legal and accessible. Why should the woman be the only one to be able to make the decision? Pretty much the man’s only power in an unplanned pregnancy lies in walking away.

According to this Ottawa Citizen op-ed by Amanda Watson, this year’s pro-choice demonstration at the March for Life will be silent and I can’t say I’ll mind that. I was a speaker at the March for Life two years ago and the screaming was distracting.  And yes, I was a young, female speaker. Not a middle aged man. (Ms. Watson states that most people on the platform are male.) Anyway.

Ms. Watson was a pro-life young person who attended a Catholic school. As an adult, she states that her eyes were opened to women’s rights issues and she became pro-choice. She now demonstrates with the pro-choice activists at the March. There are a number of points she makes in her article that I would like to address, but I simply don’t have the time to go through all of them so I’ll just note a few.

1. A pro-lifer’s terrible comments

As I scuffed through the grass from Parliament Hill, eyes swelling with tears, I stared at my feet so I would miss the poster displays of mangled fetuses and hordes of chanting students, some waving malicious signs my way. A girl yelled “Slut!” in my direction and tears spilled down my cheeks…

This is an unfortunate incident. Canadian pro-lifers do not view pro-choice activists this way, nor post-abortive women. The movement is holistic in its approach – caring for not only unborn and born children but women and their families and communities as well. I have never met a pro-lifer – and I’ve been engaged for years – who has used this type of language or who has ever characterized pro-choice activists in this way.

But as in any community, there are a small number who might take regrettable and unacceptable actions and those actions don’t accurately reflect the movement as a whole. I’m sure Ms. Watson would also condemn the pro-choice activists who whipped pro-life marchers in the face with condoms at last year’s March.

I had a lovely pro-life graduate student who interned with me last year who returned to the office in shock because she had been hit in the face with condoms. She was shocked because she had been assaulted but also surprised at the choice of means of pro-choice demonstration. Are condoms a good response to the pro-life message? Is violence really an advocacy means that pro-choice activists want to rely upon?

2. Abortion is necessary for gender equality

When I left high school I learned about women’s health, issues of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, and problems with restricted access to abortion and birth control. I learned that reproductive justice is one of the most salient issues affecting women’s health and mobility globally, and access is divided along lines of race, class, and citizenship. I became pro-choice because I came to understand reproductive rights as necessary for any goal of gender equity…

I hate, hate, hate the argument that abortion is needed for gender equality.  I’ve written about this in my post ‘Women must change biology in order to fit into society’:

If society is structured in such a way that pregnant women can’t fully participate, or are guaranteed fewer rights or freedoms than men or non-pregnant women, then society needs to change. Not women.

3. Youth speaking for themselves

Their strategy stems from the knowledge that most of the participants in the march are students who are bused to the Hill as a form of religious and political indoctrination.

I attended three Catholic schools growing up and while there was a pro-life atmosphere at each, I didn’t really learn about the issue until I dug into it for myself a few years ago. Now that’s not a critique of Catholic schools – perhaps there was an optional pro-life club where I could have learned more about the issue. I just happened to be editor of the school newspaper and a photographer for the yearbook committee and I was busy horseback riding and hanging out with friends. I quite possibly missed all opportunities to seriously consider the issue.

Like Ms. Watson, it was during my university studies that I investigated the abortion issue for myself. Unlike Ms. Watson, I became pro-life.

As for the youth who participate in the March for Life, they seem to have seriously considered the issue at a much younger age than both Ms. Watson and I did. I’d like to think that rather than being indoctrinated, that they’ve thought the issue through. It’s unlikely these kids live in Catholic bubbles where they only watch Catholic movies and TV, listen to Catholic music and read Catholic magazines. They are exposed to the pro-choice message through all these mediums, yet decide to march for life. That says something.

I’ve done street interviews with the youth who participate in the March for Life. I ask the questions and my colleague mans the camera. We’ve both been floored by the way the kids explain their pro-life position. On the spot, they have thoughtful commentary on the unborn child, human rights and bodily autonomy.  These kids learned about the issue and examined their consciences. They speak for themselves.

4. Shaming

Even more, the rage and pain of pro-choicers should be respected as we watch a generation of children learn to slut-shame fellow women, particularly via the dozens of women at the front of the march, wearing oversized yellow sandwich boards with the shaming words, “I regret my abortion.”

I dislike the labeling of  women’s expression of pain as ‘shaming.’ It minimizes the pain and suffering a certain segment of women live and such a label seeks to alienate them and their experience from the broader discussion of abortion in Canada.

Who better to offer an alternative perspective on the issue and speak to the side effects and consequences of the procedure than women who might have been pro-choice, but became pro-life as a result of undergoing an abortion?

And shouldn’t the pro-choice movement seek out these women? Find out what they lived through, comfort them and offer them resources where appropriate?  Shouldn’t it make them want to perhaps include more information about the procedures on their websites and in their resource guides? Shouldn’t they want to figure out “what went wrong”?

Shouldn’t pro-choicers see them as women in pain rather than a tool used by the pro-life movement to advance their cause? These are women. Individuals. They have their own voice. Each has a story that needs to be told. And for some of these women, this type of engagement is part of their post-abortive healing journey.

I’ve heard women share how difficult it is to deal with their post-abortive grief as some parts of society and the pro-choice movement condemn them for regretting their abortions.  They are condemned for hurting. They are treated as ‘anti-woman’ for sharing that their abortion wasn’t what they thought it would be. This type of condemnation is insensitive and distasteful.

While I strongly disagree with most of what Ms. Watson said, she sounds like a thoughtful person who cares deeply about women. Perhaps our paths will cross and we’ll have coffee someday. Perhaps we can listen to each other, understand each other and challenge each other.

Anyway, that’s it for me. What did you all think of Ms. Watson’s article?

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, where I work as Legal Counsel, just released the newest edition of FaithToday. The cover story is entitled “Why is it so hard to talk about abortion in Canada?” and it’s a great read. Read it online here.

I was interviewed, along with CCBR’s Stephanie Gray, former speech writer for Prime Minister Stephen Harper Paul Malvern, National Post managing editor Jonathan Kay, former PWPL blogger Veronique Bergeron, MyCanada’s Faytene Gressechi, my colleague Don Hutchinson, and our very own Andrea Mrozek.

I thought Kay’s comment was interesting:

The reluctance of Canadians to debate abortion may also have something to do with how vocal Americans are about it, and a desire to distance ourselves from American fundamentalism. Why Americans are more prepared to debate has a lot to do with “the state of the law so plainly at variance with the moral view of so many of its citizens…The U.S. is an openly Christian country, and there is a vast difference between the religious nation and the liberal abortion law – even though the laws vary from state to state. And that tension drives the debate, the tension between the morality of the people and the law, and as long as the law doesn’t reflect people’s values, there will continue to be that tension.

He then compares this reality to Canada’s where there is less “religious pressure” to ban the procedure and also less tension between the law and status quo.

I also wrote a sidebar on MP Mark Warawa’s Motion M-408, a motion which simply sought a Parliamentary condemnation of sex-selection abortion, and how debate was shut down in Parliament. You can read that article here.

There’s also an article on cases that challenge free speech limits in Canada, and some commentary on the abortion debate. You can read it here.

If you’re around for the March for Life, you’ll likely see some free copies being distributed – feel free to take one. And more info FaithToday is here.

I haven’t been able to read the decision for myself yet but I hope to get to it Monday morning. But the fact is that the Supreme Court of Canada chose not to address the issue of when human life begins.

Despite her lawyers arguing otherwise, the Supreme Court ruled that the section of the Criminal Code under which Ms. Levkovic had been charged, the section that makes it illegal to conceal the body of a dead child, is in fact constitutional. They ordered a new trial where she’ll face charges for that crime.

I’ve included some snippets of the media coverage which further explain the decision. The National Post summarized the facts of the case:

Levkovic said she was alone in her Mississauga, Ont., apartment in the spring of 2006 when she fell and delivered a baby girl, which was later determined to have been at or near full term.

She placed the child’s body in a plastic bag and put it out on her balcony, where a building superintendent later discovered it.

Levkovic was charged under a section of the Criminal Code that makes it a crime to dispose of the body of a dead child to conceal the fact it had been born.

The law applies to babies that die “before, during or after birth.”

Here’s more from Charlie Gillis at Maclean’s:

Levkovic’s lawyers argued at trial that the co-existence words “child” and “before” in this context are problematic. Since the 1988 Morgentaler decision, the court has resolutely refused to recognize an unborn fetus as a person with rights that might compete against those of its mother. In Levkovic’s case, medical investigators couldn’t say for sure whether the baby had died before, during or after birth.

So, Levkovic’s lawyers argued, the legislation is unconstitutionally vague: if Levkovic’s baby died before birth, then what they were talking about was a “failed pregnancy” and, under Canadian case law, women have an exclusive right to decide whether to disclose a failed pregnancy.

The trial judge agreed, striking the word “before” from the legislation in a move that ultimately led to Levkovic’s acquittal. But that finding was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada agree with the Ontario Court of Appeal and ruled that the section was not vague. It stated that “[i]n its application to a child that died before birth, it only captures the disposal of the remains of children that were likely to be born alive” and that a “conviction will only lie where the Crown proves that the child, to the knowledge of the accused, was likely to have been born alive.”

Gillis explains further…

Today, the Supreme Court found a way to uphold human decency without creating new rights for the fetus (I acknowledge the clanging contradiction of that statement to the ears of anti-abortionists). Sec. 243 is just fine, the high court ruled, because “it is focused on the event of birth;” if the accused knows that child is “likely to be born alive,” then the provision applies.

So it all hangs on what the accused knows about the state of her child, which in most cases will turn on medical evidence. In Levkovic’s case, medical evidence concluded the child was born “at or near to term.” Her case will now go back for a new trial.

…and closes his article with a reasonable question.

I wouldn’t call this a brave decision. Really, it’s an exercise in minimalism, which side-steps the big questions this miserable case raises: at what point during gestation is a fetus worthy of any protection whatsoever? Never? Is it really an attack on the hard-won abortion rights of women to even acknowledge some level of moral obligation of society to the just-about-to-be-born?

The Supreme Court has side-stepped a few issues as of late. I saw it most memorably in the S.L. v. Commission scolaire Dechenes case (Google it if you’re interested).

I don’t want to comment on whether or not it was a good thing for the pro-life cause in this case until I read the decision but if you’re interested in reading the decision for yourself, here it is. It’s really short.

Remember that it was during the hearing of this case that justices of the Supreme Court of Canada referred to unborn children as “this, um, dead, um, whatever”:

Levkovic was charged under Section 243 of the Criminal Code, which forbids concealing the body of an infant “whether the child died before, during or after birth.” But pathologists were unable to determine whether Levkovic’s baby was born alive or dead, and under Canadian case law, a child has no legal rights before it has emerged from the womb. By using words like “child,” “baby” or “girl,” therefore, the judges could be implying humanity on the part of the deceased. They’d also be undermining Levkovic’s defence: if an unborn child has no right to legal protection, her lawyers had reasoned, how could the law stand?

Thus began a kind of linguistic minuet, as the judges reached for acceptable nomenclature for a hypothetical baby that the law might not regard as a person. McLachlin tried “object” and “being” and, at one cringeworthy point, referred to it as “this, um, dead, um, whatever.” Her colleagues didn’t fare much better. During a discussion of the applicability of mens rea, Justice Michael Moldaver, a former criminal lawyer who joined the court one year ago, referred to the infant in such cases as “the thing.”

Not, in short, the Supremes’ finest hour.

No, it was not.

What were the justices options? They faced a legal status quo that allows abortion for any and every reason and their own previous decisions that state that the child in the womb has no legal rights.To call it a child would imply that it’s human and humans have legal rights but not when the humans find themselves in one location, the womb, and …

Oh dear.

The Supreme Court will rule Friday on the case of a woman accused of concealing her newborn baby’s body, a decision which some legal experts say could touch on the politically thorny issue of when a fetus becomes a human being under the law.

Although the case of Ivana Levkovic deals specifically with the law around concealing a child’s body, at least one expert says there’s room for the country’s top court to give a judicial opinion on when human life begins.

“Inevitably there is a legal connection to abortion generally, but that is not to suggest the Supreme Court may themselves make that connection,” said Eugene Meehan, a former executive legal officer of the Supreme Court of Canada who is now a partner at Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa, a law firm specializing in Supreme Court matters.

Levkovic was charged with concealing the dead body of a child in 2006 after a building superintendent found the decomposed remains of a baby in her recently vacated apartment in Mississauga, Ont.

I recently got called anti-choice (again), or rather was asked whether I am “anti-choice” and whether that’s an official stance of the place I work.

Got me thinking: Thanks for asking, why yes! I am! For this one choice, it should be abundantly clear over five years of blogging (how did that happen…I digress) that I am anti “the abortion choice,” which loosely translates into killing your child. When we put it that way, no one would ask.

People who opt for “fetus fetishist” as their chosen slur have a hard road to travel because it’s a) hard to say and b) makes them sound crazy.

But anti-choice? Yes, and proud of it.

Next question.

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Faye adds: In our culture we seem to value “choice”, regarding anything really, above everything else. Let’s not evaluate or assess the morality or consequences of a given choice, let’s just value “choice” in and of itself.

I’m anti-choice on abortion. But I’m pro-choice on a whole host of issues. People should be free to determine where they live, work, play, etc. But some choices are wrong. Like whether or not to kill a human being.

You can see an update on Youtube, here.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ONLy34AUE0g#!]

I went to a screening of October Baby tonight. It’s an AMAZING movie. It’s just phenomenal. The acting is great, the story is moving and the message is clear. I’m going to watch it again, with both pro-life and pro-choice friends.

You need to see this movie if you haven’t already.

From the Toronto Star:

Kermit Gosnell was either a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” who preyed on poor women and murdered newborns in his West Philadelphia abortion clinic by cutting their spinal cords, or a mixed-race doctor who was the victim of an “elitist, racist prosecution.”

A jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday in the sensational murder trial of the 72-year-old abortion doctor, but whether they believe the defence or the prosecution, one outcome is not in doubt: the Gosnell case is the spark that has set off the latest battle in America’s protracted culture wars.

If convicted, he faces the death penalty for the first-degree murders of four babies born alive in illegal, late-term abortions and the third-degree murder of a Bhutanese refugee who died of a drug overdose during a botched abortion.

Gosnell has pleaded not guilty.

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Andrea adds: I’m not a lawyer but I am incredulous, given the evidence I’ve been reading, that Gosnell is pleading not guilty.