‘Wired for Sex, Lies and Power Trips‘ is the new CBC documentary I watched last night.

Whenever I talk to someone about why abortion is anti-woman, I usually do so arguing that it doesn’t stop or inhibit the violence that leads them to the abortion in the first place, but rather it helps perpetuate a vicious cycle by further demeaning them. So I had this thought in mind while one teenage girl after another reported her own story of assault (ranging from name calling to a ‘dry rape’) on sexually charged school grounds.

You know, you think that okay, then maybe I could grab her ass ’cause the way she dresses, she’s telling me to grab her ass.
Billy, 17

They keep doing it even if you say no or stop ’cause they think you’re joking so it gets kind of difficult to tell them to stop.
Kelsie, 15

They don’t think that the little things they do is sexual harassment. They just think it’s normal.
Pauline, 16

A sort of meandering column on what it means to be a feminist.

I suppose the problem on the anti-abortion versus pro-abortion front is that you can’t have it both ways. And both sides say they are defending women. I know I am: defending a woman’s health, her wholeness, her potential, her acceptance in society with or without children.

The problem is that those who defend abortion say exactly the same thing.

… are leading to older, much older, mothers.

For centuries, being childless in India was a stigma so severe that it drove many women to suicide and gave men grounds to take another wife. […]

…they have increasingly been seeking in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment from thousands of unregulated private clinics that have sprung up across the country.
As a result, the issue now is that women who are old enough to be great grandmothers are risking their health by undergoing fertility treatment so as not to die without a child.

The doctors who provide the treatment, mostly in the conservative northern states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, say they are helping women who feel it is their social and religious obligation to produce an heir.

… and scoot over. Is the tube a microcosm for our culture at large?

Nobody will be surprised to learn, from two separate surveys, that heavily pregnant women have trouble getting a seat on public transport. All pregnant women report this. There are several reasons, I think. One is obviously that the tubes are so crowded in the first place. Another is the  selfishness of passengers on the underground.

Animal Freedom Day is coming up on July 24. Apparently animals are saying: “Don’t eat me!” This is very pressing, especially considering July is the height of BBQ season. So many will gather around steaks, ribs slathered in sauce, peach chicken with a hint of soya, salmon on cedar planks…

Where was I? Right. Animal Freedom Day.

Unfortunately, I will not be around. Hate to get all sanctimonious on these folks, but I’ll be away with World Hope Canada–call ’em Human Freedom Days–at this time. But consider buying a t-shirt to celebrate?

With a name that means ‘all’, the new drug ellaOne is being marketed as just that, an all in one ‘contraceptive’.

Ella works as a contraceptive by blocking progesterone’s activity, which delays the ovaries from producing an egg. RU-486, too, blocks the action of progesterone, which is also needed to prepare the womb to accept a fertilized egg and to nurture a developing embryo. That’s how RU-486 can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting and dislodge growing embryos. Ella’s chemical similarity raises the possibility that it might do the same thing, perhaps if taken at elevated doses. But no one knows for sure because the drug has never been tested that way.

As the National Health Service in the UK recently advised young women to “stockpile” morning after pills, we are setting a dangerous precedent for the new all-in-one pharmaceuticals. What ella does chemically is perhaps not as severe as what it does socially, which is to erase an already blurry line between contraceptive use and routine chemical abortions.

CTV reported that “three Quebec women’s groups” (ahem, those are pro-choice women’s groups) demonstrated Sunday.

…we feel that you cannot discuss women’s maternal health without also offering the possibility for women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy under safe, proper conditions,” said Alexa Conradi of the FFQ.

In Ireland the maternal mortality rate is six, that’s right… 6 a year per 100,000 live births.

I’m using Ireland as an example primarily because, at least for now, abortion is illegal except where the woman’s life is at risk. Whereas in South Africa, where abortion is available on demand up to 14 weeks, the MMR is 170. Somewhere along the way the FFQ must ask themselves what the key difference is between these two examples, since it’s obviously not the legalization of or access to abortion.

I am doubly puzzled by the final quote from this article.

“I’m a nurse by profession. Women’s health and children’s health is one of the great determinants of overall social and medical health, and Harper is going in absolutely the wrong direction. He’s putting families at risk,” said Scott Weinstein, a pro-choice demonstrator.

Forgive my crankiness, but this stuff drives me batty (short trip, I know):

Babies born to couples who had fertility treatment have a greater risk of birth abnormalities and doctors should be prepared to warn potential parents about these risks, French scientists said on Sunday.

Clinical geneticist Geraldine Viot said couples considering undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment should be told that the risk of birth defects is around twice that of babies conceived naturally.

Question: Once you start treating babies like commodities, where do you stop? I mean, if you’re going to spend a lot of time and effort and money to conceive, you don’t really want to hear about defects, right?

So much for the “abortion isn’t used as birth control” rhetoric. In Britain:

Government data have disclosed that 89 girls aged 17 or under who terminated a pregnancy last year had had at least two abortions previously.

[…]

The Department of Health figures for 2009 show that, for the first time, more than a third (34 per cent) of abortions were performed on women who had already ended one or more pregnancies.

Across all ages, more than 1,000 women or girls were on at least their fifth termination, including 214 on their sixth, 70 on their seventh and 48 who underwent the procedure for at least the eighth time.

[…]

The total number of abortions in England and Wales last year, 189,100, fell slightly on the previous year. Of those, 63,390 involved women who had previously ended a pregnancy, compared with 51,987 a decade ago — a rise of 22 per cent.

Almost 18,000 abortions were carried out on girls aged under 18, including more than 1,000 on girls aged 14 or under.

I dislike government handouts, but if you’re going to pay parents to have children maybe you ought to focus on the first few years?

New mothers should get a quarter of all their child’s benefits in just the first two years of a baby’s life to reduce the pressure on them to go back to work, it has been suggested.

The move for bringing forward the payments and letting mothers stay at home and let them bond more easily with their babies, according to the Government’s poverty adviser.

Currently, poorer parents are eligible to be paid as much as £100,000 in benefits and tax credits in equal instaments over the first 19 years of a child’s life, if he or she stays still in full time education.

However, Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, suggested the Government should tailor the system of child benefits so that it better suited parents’ lives.

This could see a quarter of this total – £25,000 – paid out in just the first two years of a child’s life, to take the financial pressure off young mothers to go back to work and encourage them to spend more time with their babies.