I’ve recently fallen for this song, and frankly anything Clare Bowen sings. I love her voice. Here is When The Right One Comes Along, featuring Sam Palladio.

This is a little funny in places. I have a problem with commercialism of all kinds, around most every holiday, including Valentine’s Day. (Don’t read me wrong, however, I would graciously accept flowers of any kind, any day of the year. It just can never hurt to make this publicly known.)

I shall be spending Valentine’s Day in the pool, getting my behind kicked by a bunch of other swimmers who are far better than me, but I was placed in their lane because I worked overzealously hard to swim super duper (yes, super duper) fast upon entering the swim club. This was a mistake because now, thrice weekly, I have to keep up this same unnaturally speedy clip, having been bumped up a lane beyond my true capacity. Having seen that “if I push myself, I can do it” the coach has chosen, rather ungraciously, to not allow me to return to my lazy ways. And so it goes, and so it goes. Wish me luck!

I agree, and this is information young women must hear. Makes me sad. These words, so neatly typed on the page, spell the personal unhappiness of so many.

However on this:

That is not what girls want. For girls, sex without affection is hollow and eventually degrading. (To understand the soul-deadening effects of male-female relations without moral constraints, watch the unutterably sad TV series Girls.) Elevated rates of cutting, burning, binge drinking and anorexia amongst girls — not boys — suggest that today’s cultural trends are harmful to girls.

I would nuance it, a bit. I understand she was speaking to an audience of girls. But trends toward casual sex and a lack of commitment have led boys down a thorny garden path too, filled with porn, prostitution, poor habits, lack of motivation, laziness and general immaturity.

So while we tend to (and I tend to, simply because I am a woman) focus on the negatives for girls, there are negatives for boys, too. Of course, this makes sense, and I doubt very much that Barbara Kay would disagree–it just wasn’t her focus for this short piece.

I have been reminded lately of the fact that regardless of what I personally make, I am very rich. In contrast with the rest of the world, I am supremely wealthy. This story drives that home. It is a different culture and era, but still, I don’t think many of us would think ten kids, two bedrooms and no car sounds comfortable. We’d probably launch some sort of anti-poverty campaign to “improve” his (perfectly happy) childhood.

Julie Burkhart was recently interviewed by Mother Jones on her efforts to re-open the infamous Tiller abortion clinic. This comment stopped me in my tracks:

This community has just been so embroiled in the abortion…I hate to say the abortion “debate,” but just the turmoil. Some people would say, “Just leave it alone and let it go.” However, we can’t really have true freedom in this country until everyone can access that right.

Is she arguing that women can’t be free if they’re pregnant or that pregnant women can’t fully participate in society?

Feminists for Life has a good response to this argument:

How can women ever lose second-class status as long as they are seen as requiring surgery to avoid it? This is the premise of male domination throughout the millennia – that it was nature which made men superior and women inferior. Medical technology is offered as a solution to achieve equality; but the premise is wrong…[I]t’s an insult to women to say women must change biology in order to fit into society.

I hope that’s not what Burkhart meant, but it’s an argument that pro-choicers have advanced for years, so I’m not optimistic.

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.

Read about this sad case, here. A 29-year-old mother dies when she goes for a late-term abortion at 33 weeks.

The abortionist who did this is featured in a recent documentary called After Tiller. Jill Stanek rightly says, “That documentary’s credibility has now gone up in smoke.”

Savita’s sad case also comes to mind. There was media uproar over that death. Why not here? Are pro-life activists not doing their job in raising it enough? Or does the media turn a blind eye because they want to protect the current legal-on-demand status for abortion?

You’ll recall there was a bizarrely inappropriate tribute to Roe v Wade making the rounds, not too long ago. I posted it here, but the video has since been removed.

Now there’s a parody of that horrible “tribute.” Here it is.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=JNU7RB_QdOI&NR=1&noredirect=1]

“Twenty-one weeks after delivery of her second child, when the baby was diagnosed with a rare bone disease, Carol determined she had two options: keep the baby and have a child with a shattered skeleton that wouldn’t live very long or request a rare very late term killing.”

This story doesn’t say that, but in case you were wondering what I make of the front page story in the National Post today, my translation of the scenario above is pretty much it.

It may be worth noting that I am a compassionate, empathetic woman. I see a lot of pain around me; people come to me with their problems and I don’t turn a blind eye. I’m sorry–that’s not big enough a word–when parents lose a child, a baby.

Neither am I cold about how hard it must be to receive a diagnosis like this.

And yet.

I refuse to see a mother killing her child early as compassionate. It’s not right, and if that child were a mere 15 weeks older we would all agree. Yes, the child will die anyway, but that does not make killing right. I don’t know why it should be kosher to kill a kid in utero simply because that child will die, as predicted by our flawed and fallen medical world, which has made countless false predictions in the past.

When the only place that child will thrive is in utero, why not let her live for that time?

I know, I know. It’s a woman’s choice.

Life presents tough choices. I’m not living in some happy-go-lucky Pollyana bubble where everything always turns out perfectly. And somewhere out there, I’m not oblivious that “Carol” might read this, and I want to be considerate of her too.

I think there’s a bigger picture. “Carol” made her choice; I’m hard pressed to see how it was a good one.

…chronicled here. I’m truly sorry she had to experience this. The end result?

I no longer believe that abortion is “pro-woman.” It only serves to burden our minds, and hurt our bodies. If the doctor had recommended counseling, or if I had spoken to my parents, I am almost sure that I would have kept my baby. Perhaps not – but if I’d known about what I was going to put myself through, I definitely would have thought twice.

Thinking twice–before experiencing this–is what ProWomanProLife is all about.

A disturbing read.

Kamal, a boy in the same year, says: “Say I got a girlfriend, I would ask her to write my name on her breast and then send it to me and then I would upload it on to Facebook or Bebo or something like that.” The profile picture on his phone, seen by everyone to whom he sends messages, is an image of his girlfriend’s cleavage. Some of the boys at his school have explicit images of up to 30 different girls on their phone. They swap them like we used to swap football cards. If they fancy a girl, they send her a picture of their genitals. As one teenage girl said after the report came out, sending pictures of your body parts is “the new flirting”. […]

What is the cause of all this? We need more research, the experts say. But to a dismayed parent, it seems like the horrific result of a massive experiment. Thanks to the internet, our boys and girls are the first children to grow up with free, round-the-clock access to hardcore pornography. Porn has become part of the adult mainstream, colouring everything from advertising to best-selling books like Fifty Shades of Grey. Of course our children are affected. […]

As for his sisters, I shudder. I don’t want them to live in a world in which romance means boy meets girl, boy sends a picture of his genitals. Lily and Rose are not their real names, by the way. I’m that afraid of their being drawn in. We clearly need to talk, awkward as it may be.

I’m all for research…but really? How much more do we need? How about some common sense?