This morning at an hour in which I don’t generally talk to anyone, I joined CBC’s The Current for a discussion on the politics of maternal health. When the segment is up on the CBC web site, I’ll certainly link to it. For now, you can listen to me below. My main point: Compassionate care in the developing world does not include abortion.
[podcast]https://www.prowomanprolife.org/media/TheCurrent_short.mp3[/podcast]
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Andrea updates: You can listen to the full show, here.
One of the earliest things I remember learning from my very good parents is that life isn’t fair and I should get used to that.
Having learned the lesson well, I’d still like to remind my parents of the dog we never got and give them advance notice that I’ll be getting in touch with Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner, Jean Augustine, some time soon.
I didn’t know about the Fairness Commissioner, but an add for “Women of Influence” in Macleans caught my eye. There it says that Ms. Augustine has a veritable Passion for Fairness.
So I’m confident she will be interested in my story: How badly I wanted a dog, and how we never got one. No we didn’t. It’s still hard for me, as I consider the diary entries written about the dog we didn’t have, the plaintive pleas. The friends who had dogs. You get the picture.
My second thought was: This is totalitarian territory. A Fairness Commission? Really? For what? Accountable to who?
Anyway, Mom and Dad, when the Fairness Commissioner contacts you about this, and you are annoyed, may I take this opportunity to say it’s really never too late to get a Labrador. Or a Newfoundlander. Or a German Shephard. A Spaniel? Really, I was so willing to compromise…It’s just too bad it had to come to this.
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Brigitte is thoroughly devastated: Good grief, I gotta go get me some violins…
Oh dear. What a terrible editorial:
The Harper government has taken an illogical stance by refusing to include contraception in its well received initiative to reduce the death rates of mothers and babies in poor countries. Although studies show mortality rates grow for women who have too many children too close together, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told a Commons committee that a new program being spearheaded by Canada “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed the purpose of this is to be able to save lives.”
My two cents: Not including “family planning,” a term which tends to include abortion, in a maternal health initiative is perfectly reasonable.
I’m quite sure we can all see how there would be many facets to maternal health. I’m quite sure we can all see how one government can’t address all aspects. And I’m also quite sure we can all agree that since some people insist on including abortion in “family planning” that’s a mandate a neutral government should stay away from.
Oh wait, though. When it’s anti-abortion, it’s ideological, radical, religious and right wing. When it’s pro-abortion, it’s rational, neutral and scientific.
My fault for forgetting that the debate is “over” and that we’ve achieved “consensus” on this “divisive” topic.
I commented here, earlier, that The Management was working on fixing an ongoing problem with imports from PWPL to Facebook, insofar as every PWPL post was being imported to my Facebook page, making those comments all look like mine.
This has been fixed (thanks, Brigitte). This makes imports to my Facebook page more Authentically Andrea, which come to think of it, could be a great name for a new pro-life perfume?…I tell you, great minds just never rest. (I expect it to be right up there with Jennifer Aniston’s.)
Meanwhile, to repeat, I am not coming off maternity leave, and have no children hidden in my closet, figuratively or literally.
With MPs and Ministers tripping all over themselves to “out” themselves as pro-choice Conservatives, I thought I would remind you all that there are pro-life politicians on Parliament Hill. Full disclosure: I work for one of them. And no, I am not paid to blog (unfortunately. Can you make a living pro-life bloggging? Because I’d be interested.) In my office, I have pictures of my boss denouncing the Morgentaler Order of Canada, visiting pro-life organizations, attending the National March for Life and addressing the crowds on Parliament Hill.
If you live in a riding represented by the NDP, the Liberals, the Bloc or any socially-liberal-Conservative, you may feel unrepresented in Parliament. If you have ever written to your MP about pro-life or pro-family issues and received a boiler-plate reply about social consensus and Canadian values blah-blah, you may feel misunderstood and silenced. But you are not. It may not be your MP but some MPs are working hard — and getting flack — making sure that your voice is heard.
If that seems like a dumb question, perhaps take a look at this new web site, launched yesterday.
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Brigitte is back in the 1980s: Now I can’t get this song out of my head. Thanks Andrea!
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And so is Véronique: Gee, thanks Brigitte.
It’s stuff like that about the media that drives me crazy. Why do they need to mention, twice, that he’s pro-choice? Because otherwise we’ll think he’s weird?
OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is pro-choice but says family planning programs — which include abortion in some countries — will be excluded from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s G8 initiative on maternal and child health care.
He was grilled at the House of Commons foreign affairs committee Tuesday where New Democratic Party MP John Rafferty said an important and cost-effective element of maternal health care is access to contraception and other family planning services.
Cannon said the G8 initiative “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning.”
Cannon declined to answer when Rafferty asked whether he would ensure that funds are “secure” for the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
The IPPF has received millions of dollars annually from the Conservative government and its predecessor Liberal governments since the mid-1980s. But backbench Conservative Brad Trost (Saskatoon-Humboldt) has petitioned against the funds, supplied through the Canadian International Development Agency, on grounds the federation helps provide access to abortions.
Cannon said the MP should ask International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Oda and her officials have refused to state whether the government will renew an $18-million, three-year contract to the IPPF that expired at the end of 2009.
After the committee hearing, Cannon appeared to try to separate his own opinion from government policy on the G8 initiative, in which Harper seeks to harness funds and resources from G8 countries and non-government organizations to reduce millions of preventable maternal and child deaths in the developing world. This is identified by the government as Canada’s “signature initiative” for the G8 leaders’ summit Harper is hosting in Muskoka, north of Orillia, Ont., in late June.
“The point here is our political party is a political party that offers, on all of these social issues, offers members to be able to express their opinion,” Cannon said.
“I do believe that on a number of these social issues we’ve had the opportunity of making our positions known in the House. Everybody knows what my position is but from a government position, this policy, this announcement by the prime minister has nothing to do with what you’re raising.”
Cannon’s aide later said that the well-known position he was referring to is his pro-choice position on abortion.
What was lost in translation? Sympathy, that’s what:
Our current income is just enough to feed four and educate the two,” she said. “Activists and policymakers can debate all they want, but I’m the one sweeping floors to kill my baby.”
That’s where euphemisms really help, don’t they? There’s something quite jarring here. As there should be.
I read this article, about how an artist wants to explore the the genesis of evil and did so by dressing her baby girl up as various dictators, and felt distinctly uncomfortable.
What do you think? (And why, because I’m still trying to figure out why I’m so uncomfortable.)
I am slowly emerging from maternity leave. As February rolled around, my baby turned one and my mat leave expired. I wasn’t planning to return to work until September but my previous employer made me an offer I couldn’t refuse “in these difficult economic times” and four days later, I was back in my old job.
Working means that in exchange for a pay cheque, I get a whole LUNCH BREAK. For you stay-at-home moms, a lunch break is a fabulous invention of the 20th century whereby you get to sit down and eat a meal somewhere between snack and nap-time. I know, it’s that crazy! But you know what? I’ve been home with young children for too long: for me, lunch is still stuffing sustenance in with one hand while doing something useful with the other. Hence the blog post. I hope you won’t mind a couple of goat cheese crumbs. It’s not like I can eat goat cheese anywhere else. If anybody asks why I decided to work outside the home, it all comes down to sushi and goat cheese. Yes, I’m that shallow.
Have you ever heard the tidbit “if a really nice guy is rude to waiters, watch out: he’s not a really nice guy”? I am not exactly a waitress but in my line of work – which I cannot better describe than “miscellaneous nitty gritty and random, er, stuff” – I am often the first point of contact between my boss and the world at large. I have noticed that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat the lowest rung in the office hierarchy. Some people are nice and respectful and make me want to find time for them. Others think that throwing weight around in a “do-you-know-who –I-am” kind of way will intimidate me into service. Others treat me like their foot servant: “I’m emailing you a document (from across the office where all the hardware is on a network), can you print it for me?” Because pressing “attach” and “send” is much more impressive than “print.”
What does all this have to do with pro-life? Just like I can tell a lot about a person by the way I am treated at work, I am wondering if future generations will judge us on the basis of our treatment of the most vulnerable members of our society. The frail, the elderly, the handicapped, the helpless, the unborn. And when historians look back on the medical means at our disposition in parallel with our increasing tolerance toward euthanasia and assisted-suicide, what will they think of us?
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Andrea adds: For Facebook followers, this post, automatically imported into my profile, is not mine. Similarities between me and Veronique include that I do like sushi and goat cheese and I harbour disdain for people who think they are very, very important and try to make others feel small. Differences include that I do not have a one-year-old and am not coming out of maternity leave.
“The management” will look into ways to make it clear who is posting what on Facebook but for the time being, be advised that not every post imported into my Facebook profile is me.