In today’s Ottawa Citizen, we have a blasé defence all abortions, because, apparently:

They [fetuses] are not persons for they have no interests; they lack the self-consciousness necessary for having interests.

Professor Mark Mercer starts by saying:

That the fetus you are carrying is female is certainly a terrible reason to have an abortion

Here’s a link to Jennifer Derwey’s assessment of Mark Mercer debating Stephanie Gray from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

This is a great article by Barbara Kay, with some instructive, pithy one-liners about the hypocrisy of feminists not supporting M-408. I’m going to use this one again, for sure:

Radical feminists have chosen a pathologically pure right to abortion and a refusal to judge the culture of others over their solidarity with the principle of gender equality. They are as irrational as those who would refuse to condemn murder on the grounds that it might lead to a reinstatement of the death penalty.

More thoughtful commentary by Andrew Coyne:

People like me are inclined to look for structural causes in cases like these. But it is as much about the character of the individuals involved. Because whatever the wishes of those in power, in fact everybody has a choice in these situations. The members of the committee who voted to throw out Warawa’s motion knew they were doing a grubby, sordid thing. They did it anyway…

There is a role for parties, of course, and in return for the benefits of membership, party members are obliged to accept certain responsibilities. If you are elected on a common platform, for example, you are honour-bound to support that platform. But just because a party takes no position on an issue does not mean its individual members may not. No platform can abolish freedom of speech, and no leader can promise to bar members from presenting private member’s motions in Parliament.

But then, it is not only the Conservative leadership that needs reminding of this. For the suppression of MPs in favour of the leader is an ill that afflicts all parties, to a greater or lesser extent. Members of all parties voted together to deprive Warawa of his rights, at the behest, you may be sure, of their respective leaders. That is whose “team” was really in action at that moment: the party leaders, who whatever their other differences, share a common interest in power, and their own possession of it.

I have no words. Simply no words.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow. […]

“I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling on the table, wouldn’t you agree?” asked Oliva.

“That’s a very good question. I really don’t know how to answer that,” Snow said. “I would be glad to have some more conversations with you about this.”

Watch the video and read the rest of the article here.

H/T Wesley J. Smith

With all the talk of democracy this past week, this video is fitting.

Yesterday, Mr. Warawa issued a press release explaining what his options are now that the Committee rejected his appeal:

Warawa disappointed with Committee’s decision

Ottawa, ON (March 28th, 2013) — Today, following the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs’ decision to reject Langley MP Mark Warawa’s appeal on the votability of Motion 408, Warawa stated that he is very disappointed with their decision. Warawa will announce his next step when the House returns.

“I have three options. I can accept the decision of PROC, appeal to the House, or introduce another motion or bill,” stated Warawa. “I want to make sure that I take time to consider what is best for the issue of discrimination against women and girls.”

The United Nations estimates that 200 million women and girls are missing due to gendercide, and stated: “Renewed and concerted efforts are needed by governments and civil society to address the deeply rooted gender discrimination which lies at the heart of sex selection.”

“92% of Canadians want the practice of sex selection condemned,” said Warawa. “I need time to consider how best to move this issue forward.”

Mr. Warawa must make his decision by April 19th.

This is all so very disappointing.

And really, as someone mentioned to me yesterday, on what other issue do 92% of Canadians agree with each other?

Andrew Coyne on yesterday’s M-408 appeal and democracy in Canada:

Warawa’s appeal to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was heard without a single question, and decided in camera. But meantime, it is important to understand what is really at stake here. Members’ statements are hardly the most important thing that goes on in Parliament. But Warawa’s muzzling comes at the end of a long train of other abuses, not just to his own rights as an MP, but to those of MPs generally.

This is not about abortion, in other words. It is not even about the right to discuss abortion, though it is absurd and insulting that members of Parliament should be forbidden from debating the issue, if they so wish. Neither is it about divisions within the Conservative party, nor the leadership of Stephen Harper. This is about the rights and responsibilities of MPs of all parties, and whether they have any role but to say and do exactly what their leaders tell them to.

Holy hyper-sensitivity batman. A grandfatherly aged man (Keith Ashfield) pays a compliment that is politically incorrect and somehow it reflects his opinion that women can’t achieve in the workplace. Watch this.

Dealing with sex selection is not uniquely Canadian. Australians are grappling with it as well. What might be uniquely Canadian is the allergy to discussing the issue.

Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill

In undertaking the inquiry, the Committee should consider:

1. The unacceptability to Australians of the use of Medicare funding for the purpose of gender selection abortions;
2. The prevalence of gender selection – with preference for a male child – amongst some ethnic groups present in Australia and the recourse to Medicare funded abortions to terminate female children;
3. The use of Medicare funded gender-selection abortions for the purpose of ‘family-balancing’;
4. Support for campaigns by United Nations agencies to end the discriminatory practice of gender-selection through implementing disincentives for gender-selection abortions’;
5. Concern from medical associations in first world countries about the practice of gender-selection abortion, viz. Canada, USA, UK.