Alexander Solzhenitsyn is dead. While most of us will never come close to being as brave and unflinching as he was, we can all look to him for inspiration. The pen is not only mightier than the sword, it’s stronger than corrupt ideologies. Let us never forget that.
Just a fetish
It’s not the first procedure of its kind, but it still makes the news. ABC News called it surgery on the “tiniest, most fragile of patients; those still in the womb.”
Doctors, using new technology to work inside the mother’s uterus, separate the blood vessels that connect the twins.
[The mother], sedated but awake, underwent surgery during her 22nd week of pregnancy.
During the surgery, doctors entered the amniotic sack using a kind of miniature “telescope.” Occasionally, to their surprise, a fetus will actually grab on to the scope in the middle of the procedure.
It’s the most simplistic reasoning there is to being against abortion. When it’s wanted, the life in the womb is treated by pediatric surgeons at a children’s hospital. When it’s ‘unwanted’, well, you know.
Pro-abortion advocates, though, have a name for recognizing what’s actually in the womb: fetus fetish.
The legislature of South Dakota is insincere and is acting out a fetus fetish to make themselves feel morally superior rather than focusing their scarce resources on child care for working mothers, education, and medical care for children.
(I don’t know about South Dakota, but Quebec has the highest rate of abortion in North America. Yet, we are home to daycares-a-plenty, an impressive array of educational options for women, and three of the country’s eleven children’s hospitals.)
When I think about all the lives snuffed out before they make it out of the womb, I don’t feel morally superior. I might feel a bit like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of a crowded room while no one pays any mind to me, but I don’t equate that so much with superiority. In fact, if any one of you is looking for a glamour job – one where others recognize you primarily for your unsurpassed moral standards – skip the pro-life section of the classifieds.
Language issues
I suppose linguistic kerfuffles are inevitable when you live in Canada. Or perhaps it’s something special to abortion-related matters, I don’t know. But I do find it difficult to believe how hard it is even to agree on the terms of reference to the debate. Like, what is an abortion?
I’m reasonably new to this stuff; I’ve always been opposed to casual abortion (even though I would not wish to recriminalize the practice) but up until this year I had been pretty much uninvolved in the ongoing public debate. When we launched PWPL in January one of the things Andrea would say in interviews was how much she wanted us to talk openly and freely about what abortion really is and what it does to women. And I remember thinking: “What do you mean, what abortion really is? Isn’t that obvious?” Now I think I know what she meant.
My attention was drawn recently to this website, which is a travelling portrait exhibit of women who have had abortions. “We want people to see the faces of reproductive choice in Canada,” they explain. Which I immediately thought was an awfully weird way to put it; after all, reproductive choice is a whole lot more than just abortion, isn’t it?
Then I realized, reading a few of the stories highlighted on the site, that the person who had sent us the link was right to notice how frequent it was for some of these women to “blame the guilt they experience on the anti-choice movement.” And here I was reminded of a few recent conversations with pro-choicers who seem to think that referring to abortion as “the killing of an unborn baby” is nothing more than a dirty political tool in the ongoing oppression of women by some particularly retrograde patriarchal ideology. Which only goes to show that some people spend way too much time in soi-disant academic seminars.
I don’t care how many euphemisms you wish to use. When all is said and done, abortion results in the death of something that, given a little bit of time, would have been a human baby. Me, I believe that even in the earliest stages of pregnancy we’re talking about someone, not something, who is undeniably human and deserves at least some protection and recognition. I understand many people see things differently – they either think it only turns into someone much later along during a pregnancy, or that it’s not entirely human until it looks the part, that it’s nothing more than unspecified “products of conception”, or that even though it’s human and alive it doesn’t deserve protection until the moment it emerges from the mother’s body. That’s fine; it’s a debate and it’s customary in debates to have disagreements about terminology. But surely it should be possible to agree that, however you define that thing/person/product of conception developing inside a pregnant woman’s body, a successful abortion stops that thing/person/product of conception from continuing to develop into something that is, or will one day become, human.
When you choose to have an abortion, you are choosing to end the development, or life, of something, or someone, that would have grown into a tiny humanoid, which most people call “baby” once it’s out of the mother’s body. Your choice of words to describe it is usually a good indication of how you view the procedure, but it doesn’t change what that procedure is and what it does to someone, or something, other than yourself.
Me? Need a protector? What?
So last night I was sitting on my porch reading Save the Males. I was sitting on my porch because within four minutes of arriving home I was locked out. I had been in the house, mind you, with my very own set of keys, which remained inside, as I went back out… Never mind, it’s not a good story.
Back to Save the Males—I sat loudly guffawing as I read. People passed by, looking up as the neighbourhood was punctuated by my loud laughter. The author, Kathleen Parker is very funny. And funny people can say unpopular things.
Though for the life of me, I’ll never understand why what she is saying is “controversial.” Yes, I am out of touch—the zeitgeist of political correctism seems to be passing me by. Yes, yes, I’m learning when to self-censor. (Andrea enters chi-chi-la-la cocktail party. Old friend asks—so what are you up to these days? Ah, glad you asked: I am spearheading an effort to prove abortion is not a woman’s right! And you? Smile. Keep Smiling—“hold, hold”—as in the Gladiator ring.)
Here’s a quote that made me laugh:
At the same time that men have been ridiculed in the public square, the importance of fatherhood has been diminished, along with other traditionally male roles of father, protector, and provider, which are increasingly viewed as regressive manifestations of an outmoded patriarchy. The exemplar of the modern male is the hairless, metrosexualized man and decorator boys who turn heterosexual slobs into perfumed ponies. All of which is fine as long as we can dwell happily in the Kingdom of Starbucks, munching our biscotti and debating whether nature or nurture determines gender identity. But in the dangerous world in which we really live, it might be nice to have a few guys around who aren’t trying to juggle pedicures and highlights.
Now in my experience, women want men to be their protector and yes, provider. It is on pain of death that they will vocalize said desires. I have no problem doing so, (see previous anecdote from the cocktail party circuit) but I’ve been told “I’m different” perhaps even “special.” I’m also a woman who came dangerously close to calling 911—uttering the words “now is not my time to die”—on a family of raccoons. (My home is my castle. Correction: I rent. My apartment is their castle—and in any case I’m not allowed to have a shotgun. I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway, and that is where A Man would come in handy. It could hang over the doorway, as with Pa in Little House in the Big Woods—the books, please, not the TV series.)
What I relate to in the snippet of Save the Males above is the notion that we are living in dangerous times, and policy writers, assorted authors, lawyers and economists—well, when push comes to shove I hope they rise to the occasion, and I don’t mean by penning a strongly-worded letter. (“Dear Freedom Fighter, I understand that you may not have been given every opportunity in life, and that the decadent West has been needling you for a very long time. However, when the explosion occurred, many in my town experienced a severe drop in self esteem…”)
I will conclude by saying this Long Weekend, I plan on reading more of Save the Males—and one or two of them will even be around to fire up the BBQ. Of the criticisms this site has received one that bothers me more than others is that we are anti-male: Please, it just ain’t so. We are ProWomanProLife, so that you, my strong male friends, will not go extinct like the whales, and that when it comes to sex, love and babies you will not be told It’s None of Your Business. Most of you, I remain convinced, are aware that sex might involve a baby and that this is your domain too—your responsibility, your pride, your joy—to love and protect these kids and your women in the way that was always intended.
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Brigitte adds: A) I like men, too. Real ones, I mean. I find perfumed ponies sub-optimal – fer crying out loud I don’t need a guy with worse mood swings and emotional issues than I have, and if I needed someone to help me with my gown shopping, I’d call a real gay friend, not some wimpy metrosexual type. B) I enjoy the confidence my martial arts training has given me. I don’t need a protector, but hey, if hubby (who also has a second-degree black belt) feels like doing what needs doing should someone be so dumb as to try attacking us, I won’t mind. C) I also looooove not having to fire up the BBQ.
America’s lost daughters
I’m not surprised when a barbaric practice begets other barbaric practices…
Steve Mosher of the Population Research Institute discusses sex selection abortion in the United States in the clip below. We know it’s happening in Canada–so why not the USA too?
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtfINUwalLA]
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Brigitte adds: My favourite part is where he challenges feminist organizations to join him in the fight to stop sex-selective abortion. “Where are the feminists when you need them?” Good question indeed.
What a cheery business they’re in
Pop the champagne–$4.3 billion dollars saved, by preventing babies from being born!
I’m not used to this kind of “dollars and cents” analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood. Viva The Guttmacher, for all the work they do to clean up this here human race–following on a long tradition of cleansing us from unwanted types…
Relax-
Smoke a joint, do some yoga… I’m sure you can think of something.
The poll is so laughable, risible, ridiculous, idiotic–yet worth an entire post and many comments. I’m searching for a word, and I think it starts with “i”. Irony. That’s it.
PS. Do traditional hippies swear like sailors?
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Brigitte is no expert on hippies: However I am convinced that most people swear because they can’t be bothered to think of different words – and some people because they can’t think of better words. Which is a bit sad, but hey. So is the whole hippie thing (I thought even Tom Wolfe’s takedown of the Kesey bunch was unbearable). Anyway, what I don’t get is this: Where do people get the idea that being opposed to abortion is necessarily an attempt at controlling other people’s sexual lives?
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Tanya agrees with Brigitte: But I rather think it’s that he can’t be bothered to think of different words. How many times did he repeat the words ‘MASSIVE POLL,’ for Pete’s sake? Worst part is, with the exception of the word ‘hinky,’ repeating ‘MASSIVE POLL’ is as scintillating as the monologue gets.
Who’s mixing politics and science again?
The American Psychological Association (APA) has been reviewing their position on mental health after abortion for over a year. They are considering all the new research since 1990. There’s much for them to consider, all published in peer-reviewed journals.
Consistent Life has been writing letters to the APA to ask how it is that the APA can hold a clearly political stand, at the same time as they purport to act as unbiased arbiters of the research:
APA has held a position of abortion as being a civil right for women since 1969, and therefore has a clear political stand.
Meanwhile, pro-abortion psychologists bemoan those conniving pro-lifers who are, doggone it, getting published in peer-reviewed journals. Make’s ’em “seem credible”:
Since then, says Adler, anti-abortion advocates have become more world-wise. “They’re using scientific terminology,” she points out. They’re also gaining credibility by getting published in mainstream journals.
Oh the shame. Imagine that, research being reviewed and published–even when it suggests there are negative effects to having an abortion.
Let’s stop for a second–indicating there are negative repercussions, mental health or otherwise, is not a pro-life or a pro-choice thing to say. If it turns out a certain type of heart surgery is risky, no one declares the researcher to be against heart surgery. If a weatherman predicts rain, it doesn’t mean he’s against the sun. This is how crazy pro-abortion types get at the mere suggestion that their beloved “right” might not always be pain-free.
So they slam the research. Women who have abortions, they say, are not randomly selected. True. But neither are those who undergo heart surgery: There may be genetics, or health factors involved. We still study the thing.
Slamming the research means one of two things: it’s either an admission that the peer review process is flawed and I’d be open to that, having seen one study where fully fifty per cent of the study sample was lost and yet the authors still managed to declare abortion does not harm women–see Major et al, “Psychological Responses of Women After First-Trimester Abortion” for an example.
But more likely, it is a pro-abortion elite declaring their bias is AOK; a pro-life bias is not.
Before the APA undertook this, they ought to have dropped their anachronistic old-school statement, that abortion is a civil right. Abortion never was a right, not then, not now. And if they keep that sort of statement, it casts a pallour on their work regarding abortion and mental health.
Watch for the final APA report, which should come out this August.
Just doing what they were told
This little report talks about how kids today take the big step of having sex without a condom to show how committed they are. It’s like an engagement!
Here we witness the power of lust to take two strangers having sex to the level of two strangers committed to the joys of enduring an STD together, til death do they part. Cuz
a ring is very temporary. You can sort of just take that ring off whereas if you don’t use condoms and get an STD then it is sort of a much less temporary result of your engagement than a tan line on your finger.
Planned Parenthood must be quite distraught. Was it the curriculum? Were we boring? Did we not say you could have sex anytime, any place so long as it was safe? And there’s the rub: These kids are doing exactly what they were told. After all, before they move to condomless sex, they get tested. Now that’s romance.
Confidentiality or secrecy?
I’ve been writing the Governor General’s office pretty religiously regarding Morgentaler’s Order of Canada. I received a whole file of identical responses from the GG’s office just recently. I got as many emails as I had sent to [email protected]. The response went:
In order to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of the Canadian Honours System, the Chancellery of Honours does not comment on any decision made by the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, an independent council chaired by the Chief Justice of Canada. This practice applies to all nominations to the Canadian Honours System. The Advisory Council reviews all nominations and transmits its decisions to the governor general. Please rest assured that your comments will be shared with the Advisory Council.
I’ve thanked the Chancellery of Honours for their offer to share my comments with the Advisory Council. I’ve nonetheless expressed my desire to communicate my opinion to them directly, not via a third party. I’m therefore waiting for on them to send me the appropriate contact information. Would anyone like to hold their breath with me?
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