Here’s my friend Véronique, keeping it real on her blog about life in a ten ring circus. I think we all know there are so many moments we don’t post on Facebook. I have heard mother after mother speak about the lonely nighttime hours with their children who won’t sleep–how it feels like the darkness will never end. And they are so sleep-deprived themselves that it all takes on a more desperate tone. Heck, I don’t have children and this happens to me. (People–you can make fun of me as much as you want for going to bed early, but you simply don’t want to be around a sleep-deprived Andrea, this depressed, down, anxious and pessimistic version of my usual self.)

Sun News’ Michael Coren discusses with Campaign Life Coalition Youth’s Alissa Golob why the tragedy in Ireland is being exploited.

I, for one, am glad to hear that these petitions are being read. Keeping the issue alive and in the news is a good thing.

This from an Irish late night television show. I’m not sure it clarifies much of anything–and I did not have time to watch the whole thing. It does appear that many are prepared to make broad commentary about the need for changed laws with very few facts.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8cWJUJHcc]

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe, just maybe, we have lost all sense of what our real rights are:

UN declares access to contraception a human right

100 Huntley Street draws attention to how freedom of information is being curtailed in Ontario. Includes interviews with yours truly and Faye Sonier, of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. A good reminder about how we are losing abortion statistics in Canada (not just Ontario) and the right to query these statistics through access to information requests.

We can all agree this is a tragedy. A 31-year-old woman’s baby dies and then she dies herself. News stories are painting this as the example of what happens when abortion is not legal. I’m not sure this is the case. If it is, I’m still annoyed at the media because they systematically ignore the death of women in abortion clinics. I don’t mean to make this tit for tat. But the stories of women who die because they don’t get abortions are front page news, splashed all over the headlines. And the stories of women who die because they got an abortion are difficult to find–accessible only to those of us who track with this issue very, very closely.

(Sorry about the light to absent blogging, I’ve been on the road.)

I couldn’t agree with this more:

“The GOP old guard received a hard kick yesterday. They talked only sporadically and defensively about social issues to the general public, had no sharp and oft-repeated messaging on health-care repeal and reform, and tried to win by “bread alone.” If they could not win that way this year, bread alone is not a winning proposition,” he explained.

For all the media bias, I think intuitively people still believe that parties to the right of centre are better in fiscal crises. The USA is in a fiscal crisis. If Republicans can’t win with a focus on the economy under these circumstances, then they simply can’t win with a focus on the economy, unless and until we stop teaching socialism as a winning economic proposition in our public schools.

I would support parental notification laws when a minor wants to get an abortion. But I think it’s also important to note that oftentimes it is parents dragging their teenagers to the abortion clinic against their will.

Montana voters have approved a ballot measure that would allow parents to know when their minor daughter is considering an abortion. The Treasure State has not been able to support parental rights due to a state Supreme Court decision and this measure responds to it.

There are 37 states that require parental notification or permission before a minor can get an abortion. Montana is one of just 13 states without this common-sense policy.

It is so very refreshing to hear abortion discussed frankly by someone who does not associate himself with the pro-life movement. On a morning when I am regrouping post-Obama win, it is very good to read this:

Abortion is killing, but this doesn’t dispose of the matter. All societies, religious societies included, authorize individuals, sometimes classes of individuals, to kill for certain reasons. Judges, parents, police officers, ship’s captains, inquisitors, soldiers, executioners and others have been entitled to terminate human lives, provided they did so for compelling reasons and under lawful circumstances.

In our times feminists contend that social equality is a compelling reason. They interpret it as women having no burdens imposed on them that aren’t also imposed on men. Since nature imposes pregnancy only on women, in order to even the scales, women should be entitled to an absolute license to terminate their pregnancies on demand.

This is the essence of the feminist argument, though it’s seldom put so bluntly. The matriarchy needs popular support to achieve its ambitions, and while members of the Me Generation are ready to pull the plug on anybody for selfish reasons, few face the logic of their position. They can’t quite bring themselves to grant women a licence to kill, like 007. This is why the debate is filled with pious rhetoric about women controlling their own bodies, or lives aborted not being “life.” Ironically, the pro-choice crowd usually oppose capital punishment — except for the crime of inconveniencing a woman.

Inconveniencing men is okay. Fathers can’t opt out of child-support if the mother decides to keep the baby, no matter how “inconvenient” fatherhood may be for them. Nor could a father save his child’s life even by assuming sole responsibility for its maintenance.

Men and women are supposed to be equal. What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. Yet fatherhood is compelled by law, while motherhood is a matter of choice. How do lawmakers get around this hurdle? In the same way they get around any question for which there’s no answer in logic or equity. They ignore it.