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I almost agree with Joyce Arthur

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I, too, dislike the idea of making doctors withhold information to patients as a way of trying to limit the number of abortions based on gender alone.

One critic, however, questions the measure’s effectiveness, given that parents can mail order DNA tests that accurately predict fetal sex, and abortion clinics generally do not ask the reason for the procedure. The way to tackle sex selection is by combating the social mores that lead people to want sons and not daughters, rather than by limiting abortion, said Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

“To restrict people’s freedoms, withholding information in that way, I think is unethical and unnecessary and is not going to prevent anything,” Ms. Arthur said. “It’s a little bit paternalistic and authoritarian.”

I agree that not telling patients won’t really help all that much (while annoying all the other parents out there who simply wish to know the gender of their baby as early as possible just because they’d rather know than not know). And yes, probably the best way to fight sex selection abortion is cultural, not legal. But hey, I wouldn’t mind if abortion clinics asked a few questions before going ahead with the procedure – why do you wish to abort; have you thought about other options; that sort of thing – at the very least make those parents who abort girls for no other reason than they prefer boys fess up semi-publicly. And really, it wouldn’t bother me if we could somehow have rules limiting access to abortion for entirely frivolous reasons – like because the baby is of the “wrong” gender. I am far from convinced this is possible and/or realistic, but if it were I wouldn’t be against it.

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Andrea adds: Well gosh, I didn’t know Joyce Arthur was all about freedom of information. I look forward to her advocacy in favour of doctors telling patients about the development of their children in detail then, at every stage. Information about what happens in an abortion (stirrups, suction, piece body parts back together after the fact to ensure that all have been removed)… You know, freedom of information.

When Joyce Arthur advocates for freedom of information for women it will be a sunny day in Canada indeed. It’s just that she really doesn’t want that, so it’s a bit rich to claim it here.

A blanket law restricting what doctors tell is unnecessary, as doctors are very aware when someone is wondering about the gender because they want to kill off their baby girl. It would require not a law, but a doctor telling parents I won’t support your nefarious intentions here, and here’s why. That would require doctors who don’t enforce an abortion culture in other areas. (They shouldn’t be the arbiters of what constitutes “a good abortion.” Here we have an attempt for the pot to call the kettle black. “We don’t like your cultural reasons for killing. We do, however, like our cultural reasons for killing.”)

All abortions are bad news.

Why give preferential treatment to people who are already on top?

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No, I’m not going to get in the middle of the discussion between Andrea and Véronique about job prospects (or lack thereof) for moms. I will simply say, since you can’t resist asking me for my opinion anyway, that I believe we each make our own opportunities based on our own unique set of experiences and challenges. Also, I never expect anything from anyone, so it’s easier for me not to be disappointed when some things are harder than I thought.

But.

That’s now why I’m writing now. I just noticed this news story about the prevalence of women in the public sector and I’m just delighted that some people are starting to question affirmative action. I have always been against the idea of giving any group of people preferential treatment based on their gender or race or anything not directly related to the job they’re applying for. I believe we each make our own opportunities based on our own unique set of experiences and challenges, and that’s that.

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Véronique adds: Ah, yes, affirmative action. When I saw the front page I thought about the discussion on career prospects. I’m not too hot on affirmative action as a principle although my earlier comments may lead you to believe otherwise. I’m not saying that systemic injustices don’t exist or that wrongs shouldn’t be “righted”. On the other hand, I look at any state interference with suspicion, especially when it comes to picking winners. It’s not only that picking winners creates a whole new class of injustices in response to injustice but it also erodes our collective work ethic. Some people will never get ahead no matter how hard they work; other people will get ahead regardless of how little they work.

You can’t do that to a child, period

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Wow, what a perfectly horrible story:

It sounds like a script for a B-grade horror movie: a childless 30-something American woman decides to adopt a seven-year-old orphan boy from halfway around the world.  Overnight, the boy’s world changes completely:  from the gloom of a Russian orphanage, he is transported to the bucolic “horse country” of Tennessee.  At first all seems well, but as time goes on the boy begins to display disturbing behaviour, spitting, hissing and kicking his new mother, threatening to kill family members, reacting violently when denied a new toy, attempting to beat a relative with a statue when asked to correct his math homework.

Finally, when the child not only threatens to burn down his house but draws pictures of the conflagration, the adoptive mother hatches a desperate plan.  She puts the boy on a plane back to Russia with a note saying that he has severe psychological problems, she was lied to by the orphanage, and that she had

“…given my best to this child [but was] sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child. As he is a Russian national, I am returning him to your guardianship and would like the adoption disannulled.”

Were this a movie, that would be the final frame; the haunted face of a purported psychopathic child staring out the face of the airplane, while his adoptive mother and her family sob with both guilt and relief.  But this isn’t a fantasy – it’s the real story of Russian orphan Artyom Savelyev and his American adoptive mother, Torry Hansen.  And this drama didn’t end at the airport: it has spawned an international diplomatic incident, a freeze on American adoption of Russian children, and an investigation into the adoptive mother and her family.

Words fail me. I gather adoption is not always easy, and I’m sure international adoptions are several orders of magnitude harder. Especially when the child has been mistreated – or “mistreated” according to posh North American standards. But good grief – “I no longer wish to parent this child”? That’s enough to kick an orphan, a 7-year-old orphan, back to Russia?

[Read more…]

China’s missing girls

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Great article about the situation in China:

By the year 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women of marriageable age in this giant empire, so large and so different (its current population is 1,336,410,000) that it often feels more like a separate planet than just another country. Nothing like this has ever happened to any civilisation before. …

…And in every cheerful classroom there was a slightly sinister shortage of girls, as if we had wandered into some sort of science fiction fantasy.

The whole article is filled with interesting quotes, eye witness accounts of the problem. Warning: It’s very disturbing. But all the more reason to know and learn. I do wonder why we don’t talk about this more.

Hope and change

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Rex Murphy on Sarah Palin. I like the column but disagree with his last line:

No wonder Obama claims he won’t respond when she tweets. The Hope and Change President still owns Hope, but real Change in current American politics is on Palin’s side of the ledger.

I’m not sure that Obama owns hope anymore, anymore, either. This is not to say that Sarah Palin owns Hope and Change (what are we talking about here, anyway, who “owns” those things?) But rather that Obama decidedly does not. They are “for sale” I suppose.

Respecting cultures

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Back to maternal health: Dr. Leiva in today’s Ottawa Citizen:

Proper choice should include options for those methods that respect the social, cultural and religious values of the people in the developing world. Abortion is certainly not one of them.

The only other G8 story I’ve seen is about nuclear partnerships. If I were Prime Minister, I’d be tired of the whole maternal health saga by now too. That said, people on our side should tire him out more by sending friendly letters in support of his position not to include abortion in a maternal health mandate.

If we profess certain principles, now is the time to voice them privately to the Prime Minister’s office, and publicly, too.

Brave or nuts? That is the question

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When I read this article about having children and career, it was like the journalist had picked my brain (wait a minute, I don’t have any left…) during my sleep (er, what sleep?). In fact, I started writing a blog post raising the same issues a month ago. But my frustration got the best of me and after 1500 raving-ranting words, I decided to spare PWPL.

Where to start? First, she is right. About everything. About gaping resumes. About “doing time” in jobs for which we are overqualified. About having to gain the trust of our employers after putting our family first. About refusing promotions for unclear reasons.

What does this all mean? Does it mean that raising children is not valuable, productive work? Why is it so wrong if maternity and motherhood affect women more than men?

Well, it’s a question of measure. What the author takes issue with — and what I certainly have a bone to pick about — is not so much that young children cramp our style for a couple of years but that these years seem to extend way past early childhood. Motherhood marks you in two major ways that are not directly related to the demands of young children. First, motherhood leaves a gap of productivity in your resume. This gap  has nothing to do with actual productivity while your career is slowing down to a crawl. It only means that this new kind of productivity and life experience is not recognized by the workplace. Secondly, motherhood marks you because you are assumed to be unable to take on as much as your child-less or male colleagues. I had this discussion recently with my child-less male colleague: maybe I cannot take on as much but it should be my choice. When have I not picked up my Blackberry on evenings and weekends? When have I missed a deadline? And last night at 1 am, when I was touching-up some communications material for a morning announcement, it was my sleep I was sacrificing. Not my colleague’s, not my kids’, not my boss’.

What frustrates me is not that motherhood makes a difference but that it doesn’t need to make as big a difference as it does. With today’s communications tools, why do I need to pass up a promotion because I cannot make the 7 am management meeting? Or because I cannot travel for meetings? Why do the years spent at home managing not-for-profit sports organizations, school meetings and family vacations count as “productive gap”? When I get up at 5:30 am every morning of every week and manage to feed 8 people three square meals a day, run 20 km a week, work 40+ hours and keep the sanitary authorities from closing down my kitchen and bathrooms — and much more — I don’t feel unproductive, far less! Why does the job market see me as a slacker?

Why?

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Andrea adds: Let’s stir things up a little, shall we? Let me take the perspective of the single, childless sucker who can go in early, also stay late, make every meeting, put in overtime, do the weekends… and does not get the joy of children in his/her life, in fact goes home to eat cereal hunched over the sink for dinner…Should someone who needs negotiations and special deals, can’t be present at various meetings and may or may not need to take off at a moment’s notice to care for child X, Y or Z  get promoted over that person? Maybe. I don’t rule it out. But the point is the workplace doesn’t owe any of us anything. We earn the right to be there. If I happen to realize I work for Ebenezer Scrooge who won’t let me get a new coal scuttle, I leave. Or I choose a workplace with rules I like. Or I create the work environment I like by starting my own business.

I just think we as humans make choices and generally speaking, we can’t do it all on Tuesday.

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Véronique adds: To this I would reply that it is not about making it to X,Y, Z  commitment or letting your child-less colleague pick-up the slack. Of course, if you do the work you shouldn’t be passed-up for promotion by someone who doesn’t.

But the problem arises when you do the work and are passed-up (or not even considered) for promotion because you have children or because you took time-off to stay with your children when they were young. When you start questioning the status quo, you realize that many hiring/staffing rules don’t make sense; it’s just the way things are. For instance, I recently had to pass-up a great job for which I was perfectly qualified but lacked experience. I was sure I could figure it out quickly, given my life experience. And if anybody had given me an interview, they would have seen it too. But I wasn’t even considered. Why? Because I was home for 2 of the 5 years of required experience. That’s what gets me. So now I am “doing time” in a job for which I am so overqualified, it’s not even funny. I am so overqualified that I don’t even get considered for interviews: people know I am just “passing by” on my way to something better. Truly, I am just about to drop the Masters’ degree in law and the University teaching experience part of my resume. It scares employers.

As for leaving a job you are unhappy with or choosing a workplace with rules you like, come on! Have you looked for work lately? My job is paying the mortgage on the house that shelters my 6 children. I am not about to get fussy about the new coal scuttle!

Overqualified and all, I like my job: I have the best boss and the best colleague. I am not bitter, just frustrated.

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Andrea adds: But this is my point! Those childless suckers “did the time.” They spent the hours getting other people coffee. Fact checking until 3 am. Being available for more and more work that was “below them” too. And then someone else enters the scene: someone with experience but of a very different kind. And if they are never given the chance to start where said childless sucker did ten years ago, then that is wrong. But if they aren’t willing to start where said childless sucker did, years ago…then that is a different question. My point here is that life looks differently–could a woman or man who takes ten years out of the working world possibly be in the same position as someone who didn’t? How would that be fair?

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Veronique adds:  You are misunderstanding my point. Of course, it wouldn’t be fair. I am not saying that mothers shouldn’t expect to bring their boss’ coffee. I have no problem with “doing time” and I don’t consider my work to be “below me.” I take pride in doing the best job I possibly can getting my boss’ dry cleaning. My problem is when “doing time” is as good as it gets. Mothers do the time – the fact checking at 3 am, the coffee, the dry cleaning run – but don’t get ahead because they have family obligations. Even if these obligations don’t get in the way, even if they get the job done.

I was thinking about this whole issue while making supper tonight. Returning to work after having children is like being an immigrant in a foreign land. You used to be a doctor or an engineer. You leave on a journey to another country. When you get there, your diploma is no longer worth the paper it’s printed on. Your credentials are not recognized. Your experience is not acknowledged. You tell people that a broken arm or the laws of physics do not change essentially between two countries. Nobody believes you. Or they pretend to believe you but never give you the chance to prove it. When you finally find work sweeping the floors at a clinic you tell yourself that you will move up and show them what you are capable of. When you apply for the receptionist’s job, they tell you that you don’t have the appropriate experience. You try to explain that you have been sweeping the floor in the receptionist’s office for 5 years, you know you can do the job. Nope. You ask if you could help the receptionist and gain experience. You are told that people in your country of origin are known to have long afternoon naps and since the receptionist works afternoons, well… we don’t think you’ll be able to pull it off. It sounds extreme but I have been in jobs interviews like that.

Make that two pro-lifers in jail

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For all the ridiculous frothing from feminists about how pro-lifers want to put women in jail, I’m now aware of two people in jail over the abortion issue, and they are both pro-life. There’s Linda Gibbons, put in jail because of a law which curtails our freedom of movement and speech, which she refused to obey as she peacefully engaged women on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics.

And now there’s this New Brunswick man, David Little, who has this to say:

I’m prepared to die in jail, if necessary. I can no longer cope with the hypocrisy of praying for life … and paying for death.”

For the record, I’m just in the process of filing my taxes ahead of the deadline. But I do wonder about the place of orchestrated civil disobedience to evil. I’ve always thought I wouldn’t mind going to jail for the right reason. I’m not looking for it, I hasten to add, but I suppose jail has a time and place for the conscientious objectors of the world.

Double standard or reality?

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I like this ad, and I disagree with the criticism. We have way too many Hollywood starlets breaking up their families, for example, as if it works out hunky dory for everyone, when the reality is that wealth does smooth over some (not all) of the difficulties. Since personal trainers/make-up artists/nanny support etc. aren’t available to everyone, why shouldn’t we stare those facts in the face? Bristol Palin is in a unique situation. And it would be wrong not to acknowledge that.

That said, the next ad could address all the difficulties for a child, whether rich or poor, privileged or not, of growing up fatherless…

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