Hot women are pro-life. Hey,it’s not me saying it. It’s the New York Times. And oddly enough they don’t seem thrilled about it.”

(h/t)

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Brigitte adds: 🙂

Ottawa-based doctor extraordinaire René Leiva comments on the new Saskatchewan guidelines:

After reading the recently revised guidelines from Saskatchewan’s College of Physicians and Surgeons on unplanned pregnancies, I was amazed at some statements in this story. While it is true that the college expects doctors to provide full information to patients considering abortions, it seems incorrect to state that they are forcing doctors to go against their medical and moral judgments and refer to abortions. The guidelines contain very good points in terms of options for women facing an unplanned pregnancy. Furthermore, it is insulting to believe women who want abortions lack the intellect to search in the phone book for their local sexual health clinic and will need a doctor to open the book. I see this in my own practice.

My patients have been informed well in advance of my position that I will not refer to abortions, yet, I feel honoured that they will still look to me for advice in their crisis pregnancies. Some will go on to have abortions without delay but others change their minds after proper counselling. At the end, I think what we truly need is not guidelines but doctors who consciously want the best for their patients. 

Dr. Rene Leiva, Ottawa

Black History Month is not only an opportunity to revisit black history but is also a chance to follow that time-line and look progressively forward to the contemporary civil rights movement.

The Rev. Clenard Childress Jr., told Pennsylvanians for Human Life Scranton Chapter that its cause is the modern civil rights movement.

Delivering the keynote address at the group’s annual prayer breakfast Saturday, the Rev. Childress, who heads the Life Education and Resources Network and founded the website Blackgenocide.org, equated abortion with genocide and an attempt to control undesirable population.

“The African-American community has been targeted by abortion,” he said. “A pregnant woman who is in poverty and destitute and may appear not to have much chance at a fruitful life seems to be a candidate for abortion, but that is the mindset of an elitist group making the rules of who lives and who dies.”

More than 400 people turned out for the breakfast,

[…]

Pennsylvanians for Human Life President Helen Gohsler gave a political overview in which she decried the elimination of abstinence-only education funding from the federal budget but cited the election of Gov. Tom Corbett, who is anti-abortion, as a bright spot. She also mentioned the offenses that came to light recently at a West Philadelphia abortion clinic where employees stand accused of killing viable newborns and conducting late-term abortions.

The Rev. Childress noted he rarely addresses black audiences since he critiques contemporary black leaders and fellow preachers who tolerate or support abortion.

“I tell them they are blind and being played like a harp,” he said.

Following the breakfast, attendee Kathy Tumavich of Clarks Summit saw parallels between the Rev. Childress’ ostracism and former Gov. Robert P. Casey, who often found himself at odds with his political party over abortion.

“Rev. Childress gave a great, thoughtful speech,” she said. “I think he is carrying on the true message of Martin Luther King (Jr.)”

Here, we see doctors counselling a mom to have an abortion at five months because she’s been diagnosed with cancer and needs to begin chemo. Her response?

Holding my daughter in my arms was an amazing moment. I might have risked my life for her, but she was worth it.”

Trust Mark Steyn to put it just so.

Oh. Well, “Dr” Gosnell’s just one rogue abortionist. How about the “right to choose” over at Planned Parenthood? There are a whole range of choices – not so much for the illegally smuggled underage foreign sex slave, but at least for her pimp. If you’re a middle-aged guy running a child-sex business, you have the “right to choose” what’s best for that 13-year old Venezuelan hottie you brought over a couple weeks back. As the Falls Church clinic assures him: “We don’t necessarily look at the legal status, like I said.”

That’s good to know. With Planned Parenthood aiding and abetting child prostitution, my friend Rich Lowry argued that the back alley is back: “Legal abortion was supposed to end “back-alley abortions,” both their dangers and their entanglements with shady characters. But the practice and the mores of the back alley are with us still, tolerated by people for whom the ready provision of abortion trumps all else.”

Rich is right. Ever since Roe v Wade, proponents of a woman’s “right to choose” have warned us against going back to the bad old days of rusty coat hangers and unsterilized instruments from money-grubbing butchers on the wrong side of town. Now, happily, the back alley is on the main drag, and with a state permit framed on the wall.

[h/t]

There are people who think this is OK?

A class of grade eight students in southern Sweden was asked to write essays about their sexual fantasies and experiences for a school assignment.

A teacher from the school expressed surprise that the assignment had upset parents, claiming that most students appreciated the exercise, which was part of a cooperative effort between the biology, sex and well being, and Swedish-language departments.

However, Maria Ahnlund told the newspaper she took the criticism “very seriously” and said she would review the assignment next year to see if there is a more “neutral” approach to the topic.

A spokesperson for teachers’ union Lärarförbundet emphasised the importance of addressing student concerns.

“Obviously, if students feel like the assignment violated their privacy, that criticism must be taken seriously,” Lärarförbundet spokesperson Claes Nyberg told The Local.

“Just the thought that a teacher would sit and ask about their sexual fantasies makes me sick,” one parent told the local Ystads Allehanda newspaper.

The comments came after a class consisting primarily of 14-year-old students from the Kastanje school in Tomelilla received a rather unusual writing assignment for their Swedish lesson.

Entitled “The First Time” (Första gången), the assignment instructed students to imagine they were talking to a close friend and write about the past sexual escapades they might divulge in confidence.

Other options included making up a story about their first sexual experience, writing about the first time they had sex or how they hoped their first time would be.

Getting high marks required writing at least a half page and with “passion,” according to the parent. The assignment made several students so uncomfortable, they told their parents about the request to write sexually themed essays.

[…]

A teacher from the school expressed surprise that the assignment had upset parents, claiming that most students appreciated the exercise, which was part of a cooperative effort between the biology, sex and well being, and Swedish-language departments.

However, Maria Ahnlund told the newspaper she took the criticism “very seriously” and said she would review the assignment next year to see if there is a more “neutral” approach to the topic.

A spokesperson for teachers’ union Lärarförbundet emphasised the importance of addressing student concerns.

“Obviously, if students feel like the assignment violated their privacy, that criticism must be taken seriously,” Lärarförbundet spokesperson Claes Nyberg told The Local.

A more neutral approach, one that doesn’t violate the students’ privacy, would be OK, then?

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Andrea adds: “A teacher from the school expressed surprise that the assignment had upset parents…” You asked 14-year-olds to describe sexual fantasies, in writing, with passion. And nothing struck you as being possibly upsetting. What to say?

On the one hand, my doctor’s office already has warnings up in the office about the services not provided, including that they won’t offer the birth control pill. So this seems uncontroversial from that standpoint. Doctors are already letting patients, or perspective patients, know their beliefs. On the other hand, this seems malicious. It singles out doctors who are actually providing excellent medical care as if they are subpar. I’d like, incidentally, to be warned if my doctor is the type who wouldn’t hesitate to refer for abortion.

And then, it’s one thing to let your patients know your beliefs. It’s another entirely to be forced to refer for abortions, which is wrong.

Last thing: This could be a moot point. I could barely find a GP after moving to Ottawa. In the Canadian system today, patients simply don’t get choices about which doctor to see.

Read about it here.

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UPDATE: I just spoke to a solidly pro-life doctor in Saskatchewan who feels these new guidelines are not troubling. First of all, these are guidelines, not policy. A guideline falls into the realm of “what we’d like to see” not “what you must do.” That said, these guidelines seem to take into account the differing positions of pro-life and pro-choice doctors.

What the new guidelines say is that a pro-life doctor who won’t even touch the topic of abortion, period, should be up front about that. They could refer to another pro-life physician, for example. This is not about referring to an abortion clinic or a doctor who does abortions.

If I were to snap my fingers and get a medical degree today and start counselling women about their options, I certainly would be comfortable offering full information about abortion, the effects, what it does, and why it is a bad option, but also that yes, it is available without referral for anyone who can look a number up in a phonebook. The guidelines would also mean every doctor should provide a woman information about adoption and parenting; this would help immensely for all the women who are simply given the number for the nearest abortion clinic and nothing else.

So there’s two sides to this equation: There are anti-abortion doctors who conceal information in the hopes that a woman will hit the second trimester without aborting. There are pro-abortion doctors who hand out the number of the nearest clinic without doing anything else. Both offer equally poor medical treatment/advice.

I was also told by the pro-life doctor in Saskatchewan who shall remain nameless that the Star Phoenix did a better job of reporting the issue. I will link to that article at such time as it does not cause my computer to crash, as two attempts have just done, causing me to re-type this update twice now.

It’s a contentious issue. The sense I get, I am told, is that there was no malicious intent against pro-life doctors. I hope I have faithfully conveyed this conversation, because every word matters when it comes to abortion, guidelines, policy and sorting that through.

All in all, I do very much trust the Pro-Life Doctor In Saskatchewen (PLDIS) I spoke to, and if this PLDIS is not concerned, neither am I.

If nothing else, I would hope that this bill would make more people realise that there is a little human being there:

An unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected as soon as 18 days after conception, and supporters of a bill slated to be unveiled in the Ohio Legislature Wednesday say that women should be prohibited from ending pregnancies beyond that milestone.

Of course, my husband proposed that instead of the heartbeat, unique DNA should be the factor considered  . . .

Google made a very cool interactive Doodle to celebrate Jules Verne’s birthday yesterday, you could move around in your own personal Google-shaped submarine. As a canonical science fiction author, Verne explored the highest reaches and deepest depths of the imagined world.

This got me to thinking about the science fiction genre, and what it has explored in terms of fertility. It called to mind novels that focus on sexuality and fertility like Anthony Burgess’ The Wanting Seed, Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, and P.D. James’ The Children of Men, and similarities cropped up for me again and again in every such novel. They are all dystopian, failing future societies under strict control and usually lacking in food and shelter for the majority of its citizens. Why? Is it that when we think of fertility and man-made attempts to control or shape it, in our most celebrated and most cautionary imaginations, we foresee a bleak future?

The Muslim man accused of murdering and beheading his wife in Buffalo was convicted of second-degree murder. He faces life in prison. I hope he gets it.