… how much I like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie? First and foremost because he’s got guts and isn’t afraid to stand for what he believes in. Also because he is taking on public sector unions (not the most PWPL-esque topic so I won’t elaborate here). And then there’s this. To be this openly pro-life in such a “blue” state and still be popular is very encouraging indeed.

In a follow-up to Saturday’s story, women in the UK rallied yesterday in response to undercover police officers using sex to “infiltrate” groups.

DOZENS OF women demonstrated outside Scotland Yard, London, yesterday over the conduct of police officers who had sexual relationships with women they met while working undercover among environmental and left-wing protest groups.

One protester, Belfast student Maeve McKeown, said: “In the United States, that would be considered as rape, because there was no informed consent.”

The conduct of these policemen is a major headache for the British force, following the disclosure in a recent trial that policeman Mark Kennedy had sexual relationships with a number of women during the seven years he lived undercover among environmental activists. Two other officers have been outed since.

[…]

Demanding the identification of all the officers involved, Leila Deen, another of the demonstrators, asked a young uniformed Metropolitan Police officer standing guard outside New Scotland Yard: “Did you know your agents were using sex with women like us to get information? It is a clear abuse of public office.”

Acting Metropolitan Police commissioner Tim Godwin and Cmdr Bob Broadhurst are expected to face a difficult time today when they appear before the home affairs select committee in the House of Commons to explain why the Met gave false information about the use of undercover officers during the G20 protests in London in 2009.

The protester who commented on “informed consent” is incorrect however, as informed consent refers to a minimum intellectual capacity and/or emotional maturity (this usually refers to victims who are children, developmentally disabled, etc.). Fully capable adults who have been lied to by their sexual partners on the other hand are unfortunately par for the course. Aside from the obvious ethical violations the protesters address, I’m surprised that the issue of these officers being paid during these events hasn’t come up. Ahem, paid to have sex, and on the state’s dime?

You will, I trust, forgive the pun:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with murdering one woman and seven newborn babies at his rogue clinic, called the Women’s Medical Society, in West Philadelphia. Though it’s too early to predict this case’s full political impact, it’s certain that anti-abortion groups will use it to push for further restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. But the legislation pushed by these anti-abortion conservatives is what has forced women into such life-threatening situations. Poor women throughout the United States cannot afford safe abortions and in consequence sometimes make extremely dangerous choices.

“Because of the Medicaid ban on abortion funding and state restrictions, poor women in the state and in Philadelphia really face horrific choices about what to do if they have an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy that poses significant health problems,” says Rose Corrigan, a professor of politics and law at Drexel University. “So what I’ve seen is that women often shop around for abortion services. Women are so poor that a few dollars really make a difference.”

A longer article about what makes a feminist. It’s hard to nail down and this conversation is going to continue for as long as there are women on the planet, but one thing remains clear:  

And these divisions don’t begin to address the biggest bone of contention of all: abortion. The writer and movie director Nora Ephron answered the what-is-feminism quiz simply by announcing: “You can’t call yourself a feminist if you don’t believe in the right to abortion.” Many liberals agree. Yet most Grizzlies oppose abortion; Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who lost in November, even rejected it in the cases of rape and incest. Palin has praised young women who carry unintended pregnancies to term as “strong,” “smart,” and “capable.” It seems unlikely that the Grizzlies can successfully recast feminism as antiabortion, but surveys suggest that women have been growing less sympathetic to the proabortion position—so who knows?

I’m not sure I care whether feminism can be recast to include pro-life women. I am, however, confident that women will come round to seeing being pro-life as a reasonable position to take, regardless of their position on trillion dollar deficits, national defence or any other matter.

Yesterday in my gym’s female locker room, I noticed a blue Plan B poster depicting a sperm entering an egg hanging where there are usually posters promoting Breast Cancer awareness or ALS awareness. I looked around and saw 4 others. Obviously, I lodged a complaint (I’m very popular now, I’m sure).

Since the posters are new, I wondered if Plan B was planning a new ad campaign with their shiny new posters. The website certainly looks updated, and once you get past the options to download their new “sperm font” and sperm screensaver, you’ll find claims like this one:

IS PLAN B AN ABORTION PILL?

Absolutely not. It may be comforting to know that plan B does not work if you are already pregnant (a fertilized egg has attached to the wall of the uterus). So if you take plan B, you will not be terminating a pregnancy. However, if you already have a confirmed pregnancy, you should not use plan B because it will not be effective.

So why does Plan B want to provide this kind of “comfort”? Well, because as Jeanne Monahan, director of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, so eloquently said, “The difference between preventing life and destroying life is hugely significant to many women. Women deserve to know the difference.”

According to Plan B’s claims, pregnancy only occurs once a fertilized egg has attached to the uterine wall. This generally occurs 7 days after conception. That’s right, 7 days, a week, after fertilization. Was a women not pregnant for that week? Not according to the Princeton WordNet,

Noun

S: (n) pregnancy, gestation, maternity (the state of being pregnant; the period from conception to birth when a woman carries a developing fetus in her uterus)

Other dictionaries’ definition of pregnancy vary from edition to edition, sometimes contradicting themselves in the same edition. But whatever the printed page says, women DO deserve to know the difference and determine that definition for themselves, rather than have a pharmaceutical company define it for them. Plan B, as they stated on their site, prevents a fertilized egg, already starting to grow, from staying in the uterus. For many people, that is terminating a pregnancy.

_____________________

Andrea asks: I’m wondering a) How you phrased your complaint? and b) How the gym responded?

_____________________

Jennifer replies: As the gym I am a member of happens to be my employer, I felt comfortable leaving my co-worker, the marketing supervisor, a voicemail (since she was unavailable on the Sunday). I stated that 1) The posters were present where employees under the age of consent have access (under the age of 16) and 2) I have ethical issues working in an environment that advertises PlanB, which I consider to be an abortifacient. I asked her to get back to me and said I could write a formal complaint if need be. We’ll see what happens!

An update on this horrible and upsetting story we mentioned a few days ago.

“His entire practice showed nothing but a callous disdain for the lives of his patients,” said the nearly 300-page grand jury report, released Wednesday.

The panel also had scathing criticism for Pennsylvania state health and medical regulators, saying they had numerous opportunities to shut Gosnell down over the years but ignored complaint after complaint about filthy conditions and illegal operations.

In all, prosecutors said, state officials failed to inspect the clinic despite repeated complaints from 1993 until January 2010, when a federal drug raid investigating heavy painkiller distribution at the clinic shut it down.

Repeated complaints about safety standards at an abortion clinic are not enough for the authorites to bother with. But illicit painkiller distribution can shut down that clinic in no time flat.

Somebody’s got their priorities in the wrong order.

Should police officers really be using sex as a weapon?

Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of “promiscuity” with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years.

The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups.

Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence.

[…]

“When you are using the tool of sex to maintain your cover or maybe to glean more intelligence – because they certainly talk a lot more, pillow talk – you would be ready to move on if you felt an attachment growing.

“The best way of stopping any liaison getting too heavy was to shag somebody else. It’s amazing how women don’t like you going to bed with someone else,” said the officer, whose undercover deployment infiltrating anti-racist groups lasted from 1993 to 1997.

____________________

Andrea adds: Apparently, not always super effective:

The officer added that undercover police were strictly encouraged not to form a bond with women they were sleeping with and said that he knew Jim Boyling, the undercover officer who married an activist he was supposed to be spying upon.

So “keeping emotional distance” from people you are sleeping with doesn’t always work? Who knew? Yeesh.

I didn’t know anything about him before breakfast this morning, but the more I learn about Herman Cain, the more I like. The former CEO of Godfather Pizza is thinking of running for U.S. President and among the many reasons why I like this idea very much is this:

In a new interview, Cain tells American Family Radio’s “Focal Point” program that he is pro-life and opposes the agenda of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion business.

“I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood — not because I don’t believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people,” he said.

Cain, who is African-American, accused the abortion business of engaging in a racist agenda.

“People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No — it was a sham to be able to kill black babies,” he added.

He told the program that proof of the agenda is seen in the fact that  “75 percent of all Planned Parenthood facilities are located in black neighborhoods.”

In the UK, Tory MP Nadine Dorries is making headlines in this article from the New Statesman.

Anti-abortionists are feeling emboldened and they have adopted a new tactic. In both the United States and Britain, campaigning groups no longer implicitly state that they are against abortion, but claim instead that they are offering women “real choices”.

[…]

Her intention is to introduce “fully informed consent” for women seeking abortion, she says, rather than to campaign for a return to illegality. “There are 1,300 couples in this country wanting to adopt, but women are rarely told of that option. They feel railroaded into a cattle-market process and end up in clinic with 60 or so other women every day who are not treated with particular kindness.”

It’s a lengthy read with many issues crowding in for their share of the soapbox, but the general idea is that the pro-life movement worldwide is leaning toward a PWPL style mission. A world without abortion. By choice.

Maybe it’s the realization that laws aren’t enough, or that laws aren’t always enforced, or maybe it’s that this kind of mission does offer real choice (or maybe it’s that PWPL is highly popular and extremely influential). Pregnant, need help? Need housing? Need money? Need support? Need adoption advice? A large and ever growing network of organizations and volunteers are getting those bases covered. And if there is one thing that pro-abortion feminists (because not ALL feminists are in fact pro-abortion) hate, it’s other people offering women choices.

The invaluable folks at Mashable.com produced a handy list of parent-friendly social networks. How to find advice, parents who’ve been through what you’re now going (seems to be a lot of 2-year-olds refusing to eat out there…), or simply to find new friends who are up to their ears in crayons and diapers just like you.