Reflections of Motherhood is a video project that asked mothers the question, “What would you say to yourself if you could go back to before your first child?” Not that I would! I’ve come a long way since that first day of motherhood, but if I could use just one of these answers it would be, “Nobody really knows what they’re doing.”
I have always said that if I could be an animal, I’d choose a dolphin. Really, the similarities are quite obvious: my love of swimming, my chatty, personable nature, my sleek, grey skin. Ok, maybe not that last one.
Anyways, naturally it is very good news that if I were a dolphin, some people would be campaigning for my rights as a person. Comforting, that.
(People for the Ethical Treatment of People. Feel free to buy a shirt.)
An interesting campaign has begun in Saskatoon this week: 4millionandcounting.com. The billboards, bus bench ads etc. point people to a web-site that links to a random grouping of excellent sites including the San Jose Articles, the Elliot Institute in the US, the 180 Movie among other items. The point is to highlight that over four million abortions have occurred in Canada…and counting.
It is certainly a good effort, but my question is this: will it achieve what it sets out to do? Presumably that would be to educate the masses. Will it appeal to and move the mushy middle? Will it change hearts and minds? Here’s hoping. I would like to see how this campaign goes, and if differences in public opinion before and after can be ascertained.
This article represents my thoughts on the Pill, almost to a T, including the solution file.
And this points to an unresolved difficulty with the contraceptive revolution, which was supposed to serve women above all: Women on the whole disproportionately bear the burden of the new sexual regime. They are expected to dose themselves with a Group 1 carcinogen for approximately two-thirds of their fertile years. They sustain greater emotional costs from casual sex. They are at greater risk of contracting STDs and disproportionately suffer from their long-term consequences, such as cervical cancer and fertility loss.And even after 50 years with the Pill, as many as half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Women, not men, must make the heart-wrenching choice between abortion, reckoned a tragic outcome even by its supporters, and bearing a child with little to no paternal support. After all, since children were negotiated out of the bargain by the availability of contraception and abortion, men have secured a strong rationale to simply ignore or reject pregnancies that result from uncommitted sexual relations. Nobel-laureate economist George Akerlof predicted nearly two decades ago that this would lead directly to the feminization of poverty, as it ruefully has.
I have been reading this book: Father to the Fatherless. It’s very riveting. It is the biography of one man, Charles Mulli, who, from a childhood of abandonment, neglect and abuse, grew up to be successful and wealthy, in Kenya. He then gave up his whole business to serve street children. You may not read the book, but you can watch these YouTube clips about all he has achieved. Amazing.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzcx4CMUQcM]
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMzrgBDAS8&feature=related]
I think the pro-life community has worked incredibly hard over the past several decades to educate and change opinions. That change, dare I say it, seems to be taking effect. Wanting to address the issue of Canada’s current unrestricted law doesn’t make you “pro-life” necessarily, is just means you’re not completely comfortable with no restrictions whatsoever. The majority of Canadians fall into that category. Is there anyone who disagrees with the majority of Canadians? Of course there is, but you can’t say every poll is “wrong” just because it doesn’t illustrate what you want it to.
Over the past few years, we have conducted many surveys in Canada and around the world on topics that are highly controversial: the legalization of marijuana, thedeath penalty, the use of torture to interrogate terrorism suspects, and corporal punishment in the home. The reaction from people who disagree with the findings because they find themselves in the minority is usually the same. “Everybody I know agrees with my point of view,” they say. “So the questions have to be biased.”
It’s not PC. It’s not something you’d hear in a gender studies department. But everyone’s grandfather would say something similar, that’s my guess. My two cents on the “controversy” of a Rick Santorum backer without media training saying what many people are thinking. Watch the clip.
Is it just me, or is it a little bit ironic that there’s a column in today’s post by Father de Souza called “What contraception has wrought” and then just a few pages before, an article about rising infertility in Canada?
It’s somewhat sad that the situation we face is one where girls are told to pop pills for years, only to discover at said magical moment when they want to have children that it is too late.
Contraception has wrought infertility, in no small part. And many other things, of course, but no need to go on about those here. I suppose my point with this post is for women in particular and society in general to draw a connection between those contraception and infertility. Infertility may be a sad burden for many women to bear, but it will only continue and increase if we don’t acknowledge the conditions that create it.
(I’m aware that this is counter-intuitive for many and so I link to the Pill discussion PWPL did some while back.)
Columnist Naomi Lakritz of the Calgary Herald focuses on women in this column, but the reality is, we can’t have it all and no one, male or female, is entitled to everything he or she wants. Or put differently, you can have it all, just not at the same time. Most unfortunately, we live in a culture where people expect a lot. We can reasonably accommodate families, but there remain some places where babies don’t belong. Like Parliament, for votes, as Naomi points out:
Ladies, the world isn’t going to hand itself to you on a silver platter. It may offer you some things and may make some concessions to your status as mothers, but you’ve got to rise to meet the world halfway. You’ve got to do the rest. And you’ve got to understand and respect the idea that there are some places where babies simply don’t belong. Parliament is one of those places.
Canada’s Criminal Code, Section 223 reads:
- 223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not
- (a) it has breathed;
- (b) it has an independent circulation; or
- (c) the navel string is severed.
(2) A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.
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Andrea adds: No, I don’t, for one. And I don’t know many expectant mothers who would agree with this, either.