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Funding abortion overseas

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This caught my eye, from the campaign trail.

Trudeau and Mulcair will include abortion as part of the maternal health initiative overseas–this is no great surprise. What is surprising to me is the number of folks who are quite happy to frame abortion provision as included in reproductive services and maternal health.

One woman’s violence is another’s “compassionate care,” which is precisely why you can’t have a “woman’s issue” debate. Sigh.

Just as a small aside, this:

“According to a 2011 World Health Organization report, 21.6 million unsafe abortions were performed around the world in 2008 — almost all of them in developing countries.”

is easily debunked:

The source for [these numbers] lies in a series of reports published by WHO called Unsafe Abortion. There, researchers repeatedly clarify how hard it is to study the issue due to the lack of data. One citation (of many) reads: “As there are no feasible data collection methods that can reliably reflect the overall burden of unsafe abortion, one is left to work with incomplete information on incidence and mortality from community studies or hospitals … This is then adjusted to correct for misreporting and under-reporting.”

It’s no big surprise that some of the world’s poorest or war-torn nations don’t keep impeccable abortion statistics. So researchers rely on assumption after assumption.

Like this one: Abortions in the developing world, they say, are always under-reported. This assumption leads researchers to consistently inflate abortion numbers. Entirely lacking is any rigorous defence of this opinion. There’s every reason to believe that local attitudes toward abortion, most of which are significantly less approving of abortion than those in the West, might lead women to have fewer abortions, not more.

Then there’s the assumption that allows for local data to be applied nationally. “It was assumed that sub-national data could be extrapolated to country level with adjustments,” write researchers. That’s about as rigorous as assuming that since 2% of Saskatchewan is francophone, so too is 2% of Canada.

What about this one? Researchers assume that half of induced abortions would result in hospitalization for complications, using hospitalization rates to attempt to calculate unsafe abortion rates and then death from unsafe abortion. Yet that is entirely unreliable: Depending on the method used to abort, the prior health of the mother and access to basic antiseptic supplies, this ratio could be far too low or far too high.

I’m not a single issue voter myself, so I get it when people who are pro-life vote for a pro-choice candidate or a pro-choice party. Also it is fully possible that money is being put to abortions overseas even now (unreported).

All that said, not including abortion in maternal health makes sense. After all, making someone “no longer a mother” (of that particular child–she may have others) isn’t the same thing as making life healthy as a mother.

What I’m after is a society and a world where mothers are not penalized for being mothers, and a developing world where childbirth is as safe as it is in Canada today. And childbirth in Canada is not safe because of abortion, it’s safe in spite of it.

SOUTHASIA-FLOODS/

Smart

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This is a fair pro-choice look at a pro-life event. What I want to draw attention to is the first comment on the article:

Thanks for a well written article. I’m wondering what were the questionable scientific facts presented at this particular talk? Were you able to either confirm or deny them?

Why I like it: She doesn’t rant about her views. She asks a simple question. The author might go and try to do that. And that could be interesting. That is the kind of thing, done privately, without debate, that changes minds. Also, to be fair, I’m pretty sure if the organizers knew or thought they were presenting false, unscientific information, they would want to change that. (I know the organizers, and I know they would indeed want to correct if they were misstating, or getting things wrong.)

prairie dog, non-lethal, prairie, prairie dog coalition, wildlife

Ryerson pro-life students are suing

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To be sure, they are suing because their club was banned. But we should all consider suing when the education system is so bad that one simple sentence has three [sics] in it. I got a laugh out of that. They know their “women rights,” just not how to spell women. It gives me strength: Pro-lifers might win this battle after all.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ANTI-ABORTION GROUP AT RYERSON FILES LAWSUIT OVER ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION

October 14, 2015. TORONTO, ON— Pro-life students at Ryerson University have filed a lawsuit against the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) over denying their club, Students for Life at Ryerson (SFLR), status.

On February 23rd, 2015, the RSU Board of Directors unanimously voted that SFLR would not be allowed to form a pro-life club. This vote marked the last step in an appeal process that began in the fall semester after SFLR was rejected by the Student Groups Committee on the basis that the RSU, “opposes…groups, meetings, or events that promote misogynist views towards woman [sic] and ideologies that promote gender inequity, challenges women’s right [sic] to bodily autonomy, or justifies [sic] sexual assault”.

“Our club stands for human rights for all human beings, including those at the earliest stages of life. We also want to support pregnant students on campus who want alternatives to abortion,” states Carter Grant, a third year business major and Vice-President of SFLR.

Pro-life students at Ryerson were first denied club status back in 2003.  Now students are taking the decision to court to assert their right to be treated fairly by their student union, and to not be discriminated against on the basis of their pro-life viewpoint.

What is happening at Ryerson is not an isolated event.  Pro-life students across the country have faced similar censorship at other institutions, including at the University of Victoria, University of Calgary, York University, Carleton University, Trent University, Lakehead University, and Capilano College.

As a strong advocate for freedom of expression, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) strongly opposes these acts of discrimination and is assisting the students with this case.  CCBR’s new legal department, CCBR Legal, has retained experienced constitutional lawyer Carol Crosson to defend the students.  Ms. Crosson says that, “pro-life students have been denied rights on campuses long enough.  This is the time to end this battle and enshrine students’ rights on campus.”

Through CCBR Legal, CCBR provides legal representation for those in the pro-life movement.  As history as shown, legal representation is an integral part of successful social movements.  The law protects the right for pro-life individuals to share their message on the same basis as others and CCBR Legal is determined to protect this right.

 

EWTN Pro-Life Roundtable October 10

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EWTN is a Catholic Network that I believe just came to Canada. They are doing a pro-life roundtable, featuring Deb Gyapong, Brian Lilley, and Jonathan Van Maren, among many others.

Watch a preview here:

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk33Uwvws2E&feature=youtu.be]

Here are the segment details for viewing the full thing:

Hear them speak at 4 p.m. ET, Saturday, Oct. 10, when EWTN broadcasts in Canada and the U.S. and streams online (under the television tab at www.ewtn.com) the first-ever “Canadian Pro-Life Roundtable” from St. Brigid’s Centre for the Performing Arts in Ottawa. (Additional airings in Canada are 1:30 a.m. ET, Oct. 21; 10 p.m. ET, Oct. 14; 1:30 p.m. ET, Oct. 16; and 1:30 p.m. ET, Oct. 18.)

Lots of smart folks talking about many aspects of the pro-life debate. Should be good.

candles

Redirecting pain and anger?

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It’s not uncommon for me to send Andrea a link to a news article with the  accompanying text: “I don’t even know how to blog about this. I don’t know where to start.”

This story about Nicky Windsor is one of those stories. Nicky is a 29 year old woman from England who chose to abort her child.

She became upset with the abortion provider, the Conifer House clinic, because it did not provide her with sufficient options regarding the disposal of her dead baby’s body.

In response to her complaint, the clinic sent a card of apology and “comfort” and two ultrasound pictures of her baby. Nicky’s statement to the media:

She said: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. It’s absolutely disgraceful.

‘I’ve never known anything like it. What were they trying to do to me? Why on earth would I want scan pictures?

‘Going through a procedure like that is traumatic enough so to have it all brought back to me in the way that they did was absolutely shocking.

‘When I first got the card I thought it was a nice gesture but when I opened it up and saw two baby scans it absolutely shattered me. It was just an awful feeling.

‘It felt as if I had to go through the loss all over again.’

The front of the card, though not noted in the article reads “Your little one is sleeping soundly. Your little one is sleeping on a cloud, drifting high above. And gently dreams of peaceful things surrounded by your love.”

Nicky is not angry because her child is dead. She’s not angry that she perhaps made the wrong decision. She’s not angry that women are frequently told that abortion is a simple and straightforward procedure with few side effects, when she suffered severe trauma.

She’s angry that she couldn’t do what she wanted with the corpse and she’s angry that she had to look at the child that she “terminated.” She’s so angry that she goes public with her story and speaks to the media.

This story is as maddening as it is tragic. But the article does reveal some of the tragedy of abortion, how it not only ends a baby’s life, but how it hurts women. Nicky herself said that choosing to have an abortion proved to be a traumatic experience. The abortion provider also admits, via the message on the card, that a child was alive and is now dead and that the mother may be concerned about her child’s eternal soul.

I have to wonder if that concern and pain may be part of the reason for Nicky’s anger directed at the clinic. Nicky’s baby is gone and Nicky herself is in a lot of emotional pain.

And those of us who are pro-life are told we can’t call ourselves pro-woman.

Baby feet

 

Why there will always be an abortion debate part 235,756

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Here’s how Nancy Pelosi responds to a question about whether a baby in the womb is a member of the human species. It wouldn’t be good talking points if she spoke honestly and said “It is, but I don’t care, because I prioritize circumstances above that human being in many to all circumstances.” That’s a bit too Camille Paglia.

She is obviously ruffled by the question, cites her faith and goes personal, indicating that because the speaker is a man, she will always know more about childbirth than he does.

All in all, this is another reason why there will always be an abortion debate: Because there will always be reality, aka, human beings in the womb, and there will always be some who prioritize other things above that.

BTW, in saying pro-choice people prioritize other things, I’m not being disparaging. What I aim to create, and what we as pro-lifers should strive for, is a world where it becomes impossible not to prioritize people in all stages of life.

(This post could be done here… but if you keep reading, please email me to collect your prize.)

But I don’t look down upon those who felt for one reason or another that they simply couldn’t keep their baby, and they bought into the lie that it was easier and better to abort. I have said it before and I’ll say it again–at a certain stage of my life I think I would have found that argumentation very compelling and I would have bought into that lie. I know this through friends who look a whole lot like me, who did indeed have abortions. This isn’t about judging, it’s about creating new priorities, freely held.

 

Lashing out at people who “keep their kids”

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This family has been called “selfish” because they didn’t kill their son in the womb when he had a bad diagnosis. He’s now 13 months and doing well. They cherish every day they have with him and never want to lose him. But others are calling them “selfish” for “keeping” their child.

I have this theory that when people lash out in strange ways, it’s because they have made some life choices they are uncomfortable with. (Another reason is because you are a jackass, but we’ll leave that be for now.) So one reason why you would do this cruel thing to a family is because you yourself killed your child in the womb, and you struggle with it. People want to feel better, not worse, about their choices, even bad ones.

It is I, Captain Obvious: It’s not selfish to keep your kid. I could go on a neat little rant about this, but I’ll spare you for today.

This is Jaxon, 13 months old in spite of a terminal diagnosis

This is Jaxon, 13 months old in spite of a terminal diagnosis.

Why is abortion ignored?

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I have never argued that abortion is the only social problem we have. Or even the worst social problem we have. That said, it’s a terrible problem, a blight on a compassionate, democratic country, that we would accept abortion, even embrace it as a “solution.”

So why don’t people see it as such? Lea Singh explains. She leaves us with a question though:

Breaking the mass hypnosis is an urgent need. But how? I am not quite sure.
I have some ideas, which I’ll talk about in a later post.
AbortionGenocide2

On mercy killings

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This mother wants us to hear her story. I read it in full. I confess I read it and wanted a mercy killing for me for the sheer frustration of it all. Is there a different world I can go to where compassion is defined as caring, not killing? Is there a place I can go where people look for and seek out the miraculous? Where people support a mother and her child with a terrible diagnosis? Is there a place where doctors are not given the final say, because they are so often wrong? Is there a place where how we feel about hard circumstances is allowed to be expressed without altering the realities of life? Is there a place where we don’t try to “kill death” as if we could all live problem-free forever? (She basically beat death to the punch.)

No one is claiming her circumstance wasn’t hard. It is. I just can’t see how her course of action is better, more honourable, or even easier for her than carrying the baby to term and letting nature take its course.

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