Calling all university pro-lifers! The National Campus Life Network is having their annual conference in Toronto September 30 to October 2. They do a great job of equipping campus clubs to engage in the debate throughout the year. Not easy, being a pro-lifer on campus these days, I think we can all agree. Great speakers, great city, what more could you ask for. For more information, check out their web site.

Someone just sent me this study. It’s from 2008, so not new, but I was not aware of it. The executive summary (beware the clinical language, talking about this poor little guy):

 A 28-year-old woman, with only moderate asthma treated occasionally by albuterol, became pregnant 3 years after a miscarriage and 1 year after a full-term pregnancy resulting in a healthy, normal child. No use of illicit drugs was reported. She decided to terminate this pregnancy and started the French protocol for chemical abortion at the beginning of the seventh week of gestation (day 43). She received oral mifepristone 600 mg and, 2 days later, misoprostol 400 μg. One month later, despite significant metrorrhagia, an ultrasound examination showed ongoing pregnancy, with no anomalies observed in the fetus. The patient requested genetic consultation during the fifteenth week of pregnancy; thus, pharmacovigilance advice was solicited to counsel the woman on teratogenic risks. A follow-up by a sonographer was started because the woman decided to continue her pregnancy. The woman delivered a boy at 33 weeks and 3 days of pregnancy; his measurements were within normal parameters for his age of gestation: weight 2.28 kg, length 46 cm, and cranial perimeter 31 cm. The boy presented with transient respiratory distress, which was corrected rapidly. Diagnosis was immediate for left facial palsy, microretrognathia, and axial hypotonia related to Möbius syndrome (Figure 1). Eight weeks after birth, the left facial palsy and microretrognathia were still present. At month 4, the infant was able to suck without help, but he was still hypotonic and unable to lift his head completely or grasp objects.

 A couple of things. Mostly, my point is that there is no “undo” button, not for sex resulting in pregnancy and not for abortion–these are final things. But here we see a mother who was able to change her mind on extinguishing the life within her. I applaud this, but I also feel terribly bad for her son, who will live with some challenges thanks to her earlier decision.

These sorts of cases also highlight that life is a continuum: we start out very small and funny-looking (take a look at photos of very early gestation pregnancy); we grow into… what you see walking all around you every day. Mothers don’t drink or smoke to protect that development, knowing very well that the person growing inside them is the person they will always be. It just all highlights that a person’s a person, no matter how small.

And lest there be any confusion on the matter, this abortion survivor is a person too, fully human and fully loved, even with some disabilities. I’m sadly quite sure that the report offers this advice in order that some women should choose to get the job done right, once and for all:  

Ineffective use of mifepristone and misoprostol in the first trimester of pregnancy may be associated with a risk of Möbius syndrome, primarily due to misoprostol activity. Women with ongoing pregnancy after failed abortion with misoprostol administration should be informed of this risk.

Nearly 73% of Canadian mothers work outside the home, and many of them struggle to find a work/life/parenting balance. But one company has been successfully giving women more flexibility for 125 years. I’ve never purchased Avon, but I might just get myself a bottle of Skin-So-Soft to mark the occasion (I could use it anyway, the mosquitoes are murder this year).

‘I was a stay-at-home mum,’ says Rebekah. ‘I was really shy at first. I didn’t think I would be able to knock on a stranger’s door, but my confidence grew and I began to think, “If I become a sales leader and recruit my own team, I could earn a full-time wage from this.” And it just grew and grew. Avon has taken me beyond my dreams.’

Few companies are able to inspire such loyalty in their workers, but then this isn’t the usual kind of employment: reps are ‘independent’, earning commission on sales (20 per cent on orders over £78 and 25 per cent on orders over £148) and working the hours they want. (The ‘start-up’ fee to become a rep is £15.) Some of the women in the arena work only a few hours a week – not just to earn a little extra money, but because of what they perceive to be the social side of being a rep (many talk about how their customers have become their ‘friends’). One or two say that their ‘dream come true’ with the company has been the ability it has given them to ‘come off benefits’.

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Andrea adds: I’ve been surprised by the number of Avon-style events I’ve been invited to lately, for skin products, kitchen stuff, clothing. These are always events led by women for women and to me it speaks to the reality that most moms do not want to work full time, 9 to 5, when they have kids. (Which is why I’m against provincial daycare schemes of any and all kinds: they force women into one mould and solidify a lifestyle most parents do not want, that of the two-parent, full-time working household.) 

Someone sent me this article and I thought it was refreshing. I think many young mothers might be relieved to know that small children under the age of five constitute “the darkest part of motherhood:”

She turned to me and cheerfully asked, “So, what are the ages of your children?” I answered a bit sheepishly, “4 ½, 2 ½, and 1 ½,” unsure of where the conversation was heading. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “you’re in the darkest part of motherhood! It’s going to get better!” Say what? I was totally surprised, and frankly, relieved.

The article goes on to highlight how decisions to sterilize are often made on emotional grounds, without enough information. I’m quite sure decisions to abort are made on emotional grounds, without enough information. So I certainly saw a parallel there. The moment of finding out that you are pregnant if you didn’t want to be is a very dark day indeed. Too bad there aren’t more older, experienced women to step out alongside and say something simple like “this too shall pass,” or “this is as bad as it’s going to get” before we go on and take drastic measures to “alleviate” the pain.

From BBC News,

A flash mob to highlight fetal alcohol problems has taken place in Aberdeen city centre.

The event at the Trinity Centre was part of a UK-wide “Pregnant Pause” flash mob.

The National Organisation on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS-UK) stunt took place at 09:09 – on 9 September – to mark the nine months of pregnancy.

Participants placed a balloon up their tops and then froze for exactly nine minutes, before moving off.

On November 8, Mississippi voters will decide when personhood begins.

(CNN) — Voters in Mississippi will be given a chance to decide whether life begins at conception, a controversial abortion-related ballot initiative that the state’s highest court has refused to block.

The Mississippi Supreme Court late Thursday allowed Measure 26, also known as the Personhood Amendment, to appear on the state ballot November 8. The decision was a rejection of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and abortion-rights groups.

The 7-2 ruling said those groups had not met the legal burden required to restrict the right of citizens to amend the state constitution. […]

The measure would amend the constitution to extend “personhood” to the unborn, likely rendering abortions illegal in the state if upheld.

From CBC News,

The Wetaskiwin, Alta., woman convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son, was given a three-year suspended sentence Friday by an Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench judge.

Katrina Effert was 19 on April 13, 2005, when she secretly gave birth in her parents’ home, strangled the baby boy with her underwear and threw the body over a fence into a neighbour’s yard.

She silently wept as Justice Joanne Veit outlined the reasons for the suspended sentence. Effert will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won’t spend time behind bars for strangling her newborn son. […]

“Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother.”

From a pro-choice perspective, it seems it all comes down to intent.

Pro-choicers are in favor of abortion rights—but when a mother-to-be selectively aborts just one of her two fetuses, even pro-choicers get uncomfortable. […]

In Slate, William Saletan attempts to unravel the reasons behind the discomfort.

At least two pro-lifewriters have expressed befuddlement: If you are OK with abortion, why aren’t you OK with selective reduction? “After all, a reduction is an abortion,” Saletan writes. But it all comes down to the “bifurcated mindset [that] permeates pro-choice thinking. Embryos fertilized for procreation are embryos; embryos cloned for research are ‘activated eggs.’ A fetus you want is a baby; a fetus you don’t want is a pregnancy.” With a reduction, you can no longer have that distinction, because both a wanted and an unwanted fetus exist in the same pregnancy. And someday, the wanted fetus will be walking around outside your body, “a living reminder of what you exterminated.”

And sometimes, I’m sure, a fetus can one day be a pregnancy and the next day be a baby, all during the same pregnancy depending on the mother’s state of mind. So does the number of fetuses matter, or is it the perspective that needs changing?

You learn something new every day, don’t you.

Steve Jobs, the man behind your iPad, iPhone, iEverything–was put up for adoption as a baby.  

I find this interesting. Unwanted babies can become criminals, but they can also become geniuses. As pro-lifers we understand we can’t sanitize the world. We also understand that every life (criminal or genius) has a purpose and a plan.

It is never fair or compassionate to imply or outright state, as pro-choicers so often do, that it would be better if someone were never born. Everyone is wanted by someone.

I think Jennifer linked to this story/study in one of her posts, but I do believe it deserves a post all of its own.

“Abortion is tied to a sharp decline in mental health,” reads the headline. This has been covered up and made into a political issue in the United States, but as time goes on, and particularly outside North America, more studies make it plainly evident that this is true.