Today’s my day to visit the Governor General over lunch. Never been, since I moved to Ottawa. Information about the demonstration here. I’ll report back on how it went afterwards.
A bit discouraging, what
Not a happy poll result:
OTTAWA — Two out of three Canadians either support or somewhat support the appointment of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the prestigious Order of Canada, reveals a new poll, which points out Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in the minority by voicing his “personal dissatisfaction” with the controversial nomination.
I would still think it wrong even if 99.99% of Canadians approved, so in that sense I don’t mind being in the minority. Can two-thirds really approve? I admit I’m surprised and puzzled. Perhaps different polls will show different results, I don’t know. Perhaps this one really represents the views of Canadians – if so, that’s more than a bit discouraging.
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Andrea asks: How do you somewhat agree (37 per cent) or somewhat oppose (16 per cent)? Does this actually mean that more than half (53 per cent) of Canadians are conflicted? Or perhaps they just sit on the fence? Or it’s hot out and it’s patio season and why are you asking me about Morgentaler? Listen, I’m not going to toss a poll result just because I don’t like it, but I wish Canadians would buck up and be hot or cold. Or must we always be mediocre? Nothing better we can do than abortion, so I guess I might as well thank Morgentaler. Pass me a beer.
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Tanya adds: This poll from a Southern Ontario news source is pretty 50/50.
I don’t mind the fence sitters. I’m encouraged by the amount of fence sitters there are. These are the ones who just don’t know, and that’s why we’re here.
She’s lying alone, with her head on the phone…
…thinking of us til it hurts. That’s an Air Supply song, to take you right back to my youth. We want the Governor General to be thinking of us about this Morgentaler award. So much that it hurts. I’m not out of love, yet. So call her. This info cut and pasted from 4MyCanada.ca
- STEP 1: Program numbers listed below into your speed dial (the most important being the Secretary to the Governor General (613-993-0259) and the Deputy Secretary Order of Canada (613-998-8731)).
- STEP 2: Call these numbers every 2nd day and leave a message saying something like, “I am calling to tell you I do not agree with Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada and to ask you to have it rescinded (taken away).”
- STEP 3: Save the following e-mails in a group ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected] , [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],[email protected]).
- STEP 4: Write a letter expressing your heart regarding Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada.
- STEP 5: Hit send (to this group list you created in Step 3) every 2nd day!
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Tanya adds: Well, I’ve been following steps 3 to 5 since the 4th of July. Today would be the third time I send in my email. Today is also the first time I get an auto-response from the GG’s office. Clearly, they are experiencing an unusually high volume of emails.
Thank you for writing to the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. We appreciate hearing your views and suggestions. Responses to specific inquiries can be expected within two to three weeks. Please note that many of the e-mails we receive are in the form of comments or opinions and do not receive a reply. Content that is of an offensive or commercial nature will not receive a response.
Due to the large quantity of incoming correspondence, we also cannot reply to e-mails inquiring about the status of a previous request. Thank you for your understanding.
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Andrea adds: Good work, Tanya. I might add, the idea in this is to keep up the pressure for more than a week. We’re talking months here. Yes, you heard me correctly, months. Morning routines will need to be altered to incorporate official correspondence. Shower, coffee, then call the Governor General. That kind of thing.
There would be orphanages
I once sat down with a woman who runs an abortion clinic for a chat. The conversation had its ups and downs, and certainly got heated in places, but this snippet left the biggest impression on me. She looked at me intensely (everything about abortion is intense) and said: “Do you know what we would have if we had no abortions?” I was sure she was going to say “Back alley abortions.” But no, she said, “orphanages. We would have orphanages.”
Why, to produce mousy types?
Ew.
MICE have been used to make human sperm, researchers say.
The discovery shows the animals can be used as surrogate sperm producers for men who cannot produce viable sperm of their own.
The research could, however, prove controversial because it gives a separate species an intimate role in human reproduction.
The research could “prove controversial”, eh? Geez. You don’t say.
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Tanya wonders: Is there a shortage of human sperm?
Either way, the story reminded me of this scene (1:38 into the clip).
[youtube:http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Cg2aE6SlI]
Imagine, this keeps up and the next generation won’t find that joke funny.
Comments are up
New comments, here. Thank you to all who wrote in. A reminder to new readers that we post comments more as Letters to the Editor on a weekly basis. (This is why.)
A phonecall every second day keeps injustice away
That beautiful line of poetry is not, alas, my own.
4mycanada.ca is doing a great job of telling people what to do to counter this Morgentaler honour thing. They suggest calling the Governor General, your Member of Parliament and anyone else on their list on a regular basis for the next little while.
Keep calling, Canada. (Heck, I can see from our site stats that plenty of people in Europe, the UK, and America are logging on. Even a couple in Japan, China… South Africa. Don’t feel left out! You can call too.)
What’s the legal terminology for that?
So tonight’s Gerry Cammy Show (580 CFRA) went well. There’s one thing I did not get a chance to say that I really wanted to. That’s what this blog is for! So here I go:
A man called in and expressed his loss and pain at losing an unborn child–he could not convince his partner at the time not to abort. In his words, “I tried everything save for physically restrain her.”
All the pro-choicers on the panel expressed sincere regret about that, and offered sympathy. And I don’t doubt their sincerity, not at all. But the legal term for that sympathy is something like this: “screw you” (not the official latin).
Because that man has no rights, no ability, no decision-making capacity to actually do anything at all–thanks to this notion that women get pregnant all on their own, and therefore it’s a “woman’s right” to abort. He was good enough to have sex with, but nothing more than that.
Are we starved for leadership?
CTV’s Question Period hosted a discussion between MP’s on the topic of Morgentaler’s Order of Canada appointment. (To watch the clip, scroll down to the bottom right, and click the link.)
Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay expressed her approval, claiming Morgentaler is “someone who has challenged assumptions; has contributed to the evolution of Canadian society.”
We are a better country for having people willing to stand up…We are better off having people willing to challenge those assumptions. It’s not a question, in fact, whether you agree with the underlying piece or not. I am a huge supporter of anyone willing to stand up and do exactly this.
Wow. Anyone? I can name a few people who’ve stood up — changed perceptions within a nation and contributed to an evolution of their society — whom I’d never call myself a huge supporter of. Names like Adolf Hitler, Tomas de Torquemada, and Genghis Khan come to mind.
I’d boldly argue that the underlying piece indeed does matter a great deal. With a mentality like Findlay’s, not one of us would care where Canada was going, as long as it had strong leadership taking it there.
Obviously, Findlay couldn’t possibly mean what she said. Had she meant it, she would not have begun her rant by emphasizing that “we’ve had the [abortion] debate” already. Clearly, she’s not a ‘huge supporter’ of pro-lifers who are ‘willing to challenge…assumptions’ about abortion.
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Andrea adds: All we need are really, really strong leaders–on the one hand it almost rings like a call for dictatorship, as you mention, Tanya. On the other hand, it means we just don’t need Martha. Because she is not willing to comment on the underlying issue–read be a strong leader–for fear it might alienate voters. (Then again, perhaps she did comment, after alll. “The debate is over,” is code for I’m happy with the status quo.)
Worrying about a vaccine
I am no medical specialist. But something about the rush with which some people are intent on giving Gardasil to every young girl bothers me. I’m all for trying to prevent cervical cancer, but not at any price. Stories like this one should, I think, warrant more than a casual shrug and mild assurances that trying to avoid cervical cancer outweighs adverse reactions.
THE new cervical cancer jab is believed to be behind a huge jump in the number of women and girls suffering bad reactions to vaccinations .
The first annual vaccination statistics for New South Wales to include Gardasil reveal a 1600 per cent surge in reported adverse side-effects among young females who were immunised last year.
These include allergic reactions, collapsing, dizziness, nausea and unexplained illnesses.
New female cases pushed the total adverse reactions to immunisations last year to the highest on record. NSW Health says it is monitoring the situation closely, but said the results did not outweigh the benefits of the vaccination program.
[…]
Most of the adverse reactions were recorded by nurses during school-based immunisations and none were life-threatening, he said. NSW Public Health data reveals that there were 224 official reports of adverse events linked to immunisation last year — 133 of which were in females aged between five and 24.
In comparison, there were only 70 in total the previous year, with just eight recorded in young females. This is a 1662.5 per cent rise in reactions among young women. The statistics do not break down which vaccinations cause the side-effects. But nationally, there have been 1013 reports of adverse side-effects from Gardasil from doctors, parents and patients to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
But the real number of reactions may be significantly higher, according to Women’s Forum Australia director and health researcher Melinda Tankard Reist. She said: “I am not surprised that there has been an increase in reported reactions.
“Most adverse reactions are never reported so you have to multiply it by many times (to get the real figure).
As I say, I’m no medical specialist. And while I do on the whole resist unncessary medical procedures, I am not an anti-vaccine crank. But I don’t like these stories, and I sure wouldn’t like to be one of the girls testing this vaccine, or have a daughter of that age and seeing her experience adverse reactions after receiving that shot.
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