A pretty thorough smack-down:

But how does the young non-mother have standing to sue? She came to the clinic to have the baby removed from her body and destroyed. The baby was removed and destroyed. What’s the actual harm to her? She didn’t like the method?  The issue seems to be that she was forced to witness the ordeal that was a direct, if messy, consequence of the procedure she requested.  Would it have been better to see the baby taken out in parts? Injected with poison and born dead?

Her lawyer claims she was ambivalent to begin with. Sure. But so what? She made her decision. Her lawyer responds, “She came face to face with a human being. And that changed everything.”  While that is emotionally plausible — even likely — again, so what? She was aborting the baby precisely because it was a human being which, she says, she was not mature enough to care for. What was it she thought would happen?

If you think that sounds harsh, blame the “pro-choice” activists who say nothing should prevent a woman from exercising her “right” to “choose” without ever getting into the details of what, exactly, that “choice” entails.

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Andrea adds: Thanks for posting this, Brigitte.

You know, once in a while a story will surface–the specific one I recall from about three years ago was from India–about the bones of babies found in the gutters on streets, either after infanticide or abortion. The response tends to be one of horror and shock from this part of the world. Because over here, we conceal the remains and body disposal. How civilized.

That mother went in to have her baby killed. Her baby was killed. Et voila: that’s what we here in North America call a screaming success and an advancement of women’s dignity. And yes, I do blame those “honest, informative” abortion providers. The girl involved is not without her share of the responsibility. But if she’s been told her whole life this is a valid option, a workable solution, and a compassionate course of action–and then meets face to face with a gruesome reality–well, it’s a gruesome reality the abortion provider fails to see because he/she is so used to it.

Off to get some valium now. (This stuff, for all the fun we have blogging, does make me angry.)

In Australia, extra-marital relationships can lead to “divorce” litigation:

Mistresses can now claim income maintenance, property and even superannuation funds under the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures), dubbed the “mistress laws”, which were passed by the Senate last November and came into effect today (March 1).

The main objective is to remove same-sex discrimination from the Family Court system, but they have left the door open for a raft of de facto relationship claims.

The laws declare that de facto couples who satisfy basic criteria – such as being in the relationship for at least two years – will be treated in the Family Court in the same way as a married couple. It also applies to same-sex couples.

The laws will change the way property is divided by enabling the court to consider the “future needs” of partners, as it does for married couples.

Men or women who have a second relationship outside a marriage are now liable to legal action in the Family Court should the second partner decide he or she deserves income support or a share of assets. This is particularly the case if a child is involved.

No pro-lifer I have ever met wants women to go to jail for having an abortion. This is ye olde refrain of the virulent pro-abortion side. (I think the average pro-choicer gets it, by the way, and are aware that “sending women to prison” is not high on the pro-life list of priorities.)

What I find infuriating is that those who go to jail over abortion these days are pro-lifers offering other options on the sidewalk outside clinics. (Remember Linda Gibbons.) In Canada, it’s because of bubble zone laws. I assume the States has them too–and in fact I personally know one decent, non-violent, generous man with a wife and small children who went to jail for sidewalk counselling. (He preferred jail to a criminal record.)  

Since when is offering options a crime? Today it’s pro-lifers who actually spend time in jail because of abortion–forget the baseless accusations that that’s where we supposedly want to send women for having one.

(h/t The Ruth Institute)

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Andrea clarifies: The title is a pun, one I didn’t notice before publishing. The sentences are not “for life,” but these people go to jail because they are in favour of life, and against abortion…

A rather horrifying piece about date-rape drugs being more widespread than thought. Highlighting once again the dangers of getting too close too fast to people you barely know – and leaving your drink unattended. But also of the incredibly bone-headed idea some people seem to have of mixing bizarre drugs they know little about with too much alcohol.

Although all the victims believed they were covertly slipped drugs by their assailants, and met the medical criteria to support such claims, study author Janice Du Mont says they “can’t say with certainty that that was the exact scenario” in every case (drug tests were not included in the CMAJ data).

While many could have “unwittingly ingested a ‘date-rape drug,’ ” she notes others might have “inadvertently contributed to their own incapacitation” by mixing voluntarily ingested pharmacological substances with alcohol.

Du Mont, a scientist at Ontario’s Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto, believes this supports the need for a public awareness campaign that not only warns of the dangers of combining drugs and alcohol, but also educates men that people who are intoxicated are incapable of consenting to sexual contact.

“It should not all be women’s individual responsibility to prevent sexual violence,” says Du Mont.

Look. I understand partying – certainly I remember its most salient features (some of it was even fun). But if you’re a single girl going out alone (or with a “friend” who abandons you the minute a guy gets her attention), then for crying out loud don’t mix drugs and alcohol. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is. And while most guys I know would not take advantage of a highly intoxicated young woman, I would not want to trust that all the random guys in the random bars are like that. After all, the kind of guy who would take advantage of a highly intoxicated young woman tends to hang out in places where highly intoxicated young women are. It’s so basic it’s threatening to give me a headache. You can have public awareness campaigns until you go blue in the face and it won’t matter as long as young women continue to put themselves in ridiculously obvious dangerous situations. I realize it’s not fun having to police your drink when you go out. But given all that we know about these drugs, what other safe options are there, assuming “staying home watching TV” isn’t one of them?

This made me laugh out loud. Great satire is hard to come by:

THE ANSWER to all our problems is staring us in the face. It may even be quite literally staring at you, right now, across the breakfast table.

So put the paper down, stare back and ask yourself a selfless question.

Does the woman in your life really need a job?

Admittedly, this is not a fashionable question. From Iceland to Australia, men are blamed for causing the credit crunch, while a more feminine approach to finance is proposed as the solution. …

It would be ludicrous to suggest that women should be sacked purely to give men their jobs. In many cases, their jobs should be abolished as well.

This modest proposal is also somewhat unfair. Some of us live alone, and were all women to be canned, the single ones would suffer.

(Hey–is this even the craziest suggestion to “fix” the economy? I think not. Wish the billions shovelled into the money hole was satire too.)