From the WebUrbanist, 12 monuments to women. I’m good with Queen Victoria (the ultimate have-it-all woman; she had a busy career and a busy family life way back before work-family balance was in fashion) and Molly Pitcher, not sure about the Red Light woman, and somewhat intrigued by the others. An interesting feature to ponder on a nice, warm evening.
After my post yesterday about Carolyn Bennett’s comments at the Status of Women committee, a reader sent me this link with Bennett’s views on the Morgentaler decision, back in January:
I remember my first abortion, as a med student in Barbados. She had red hair and braces, she was in grade nine, age 14 — the daughter of the local prostitute, who had been renting her out. I realized it was so important to get her back to grade nine. So many people had their educations interrupted.
So Bennett does the abortion on a 14-year old, who, in her own words has been “rented out” by her own mother–so she can get her right back to grade nine.
I’m sure Bennett dropped everything to remove the little girl from the abusive home, to ensure she would not be “rented out” again by her own mother. I’m sure also that Bennett ensured the mother was given enough money to stop being a prostitute, to care for her little girl adequately.
Remind me again how abortion helped this little girl? At least had she been pregnant the abuse would have been evident–Bennett, in a position of power, authority and responsibility, took a big problem and multiplied it one hundred fold. Congrats.
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Brigitte wonders: Why do we so often forget that abortions also “erase” evidence of abuse? And yet, and yet. There are cases where this is undoubtedly true. Obviously I don’t know the particulars of that one, but from the sound of it, I wonder whether keeping the baby would have helped that girl. I’m guessing not really. I’m also not sure the baby would have fared well – what if it was a girl? She might have ended up in the same situation as her mother. I know pro-lifers are meant to prefer life over abortion in all cases, and because we can never tell for sure what will happen I’m of the view that allowing that baby to live would have given him or her more of a chance than abortion ever did, but I do sometimes find it hard.
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Tanya is reminded of: This story.
The writer’s concluding thoughts:
Abortion defenders need to realize that while abortion may keep one of the results of incest and sexual abuse from seeing the light of day, it does absolutely nothing to protect a young girl from continued abuse, and in fact aids the abuser in his crime. Furthermore, birth control counseling and abortion often indirectly contribute to the victim’s sense of shame, guilt, and blame for what is happening, since she is told to “take control” and “be responsible” for her “sexual activity,” implying that this situation is, indeed, within her power to control. On the other hand, pro-lifers need to realize that incest, rape, and child abuse do happen, and often with devastating results. In the assembly-line process of abortion on demand, incest-related abortions are seriously underreported.
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Andrea adds: Brigitte, I agree with you in some ways–certainly a pregnant 14-year-old who keeps the baby is no grand success, especially if she is left in the same horrific situation. My main point is that neither is aborting. We can’t pretend we are heroes in either situation.
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Rebecca adds: So this was in Barbados – I’ve no idea what the laws are there. If a Canadian doctor failed to report to the authorities that a 14-year-old was being “rented out” by her mother, she would herself be committing a crime. But surely one’s conscience would dictate that one not passively let such abuse continue, regardless of the local laws, right? Someone needs to ask the honourable member what she did to ensure that the girl would be “rented out” no longer.
Angelina Jolie: “Pregnancy great for sex life”.
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Rebecca snorts: I started to make a list of all the ways in which Angelina is unrepresentative of normative motherhood, but my mother swiped the In Touch I was using for research purposes.
I think the issue for me has been that the substance of the bill doesn’t matter one bit, meaning if this was seatbelt legislation…this is a ploy used by the anti-choice, pro-life movement across the world to try to get the rights of the unborn child, encadré, put into any piece of legislation they can think up.What this committee needs to look at is how, state by state by state, the pro-life movement has been using bills such as this to actually put their anti-choice, pro-life agenda into legislation. That’s what’s dangerous about this bill. I couldn’t give a whatever about the actual violence…. It’s the rights of the unborn child getting into any piece of legislation. There is a tracking that this committee could do of how this has been done in other jurisdictions. That is the danger of this bill.
Woman 18 weeks pregnant discovers her “unborn baby may lose both its feet.” Obviously, women have aborted later for less severe conditions. (I’m reminded of a third trimester abortion due to a cleft-palate diagnosis.)
Operate while still in the womb and there were risks to both mother and child. Do nothing and their daughter faced a lifetime of walking aids and difficulty.
Doctors at the Monash Medical Centre decided that to save their daughter Leah’s feet, they would have to operate on her at 22 weeks in-utero, the earliest operation conducted on a foetus in Australia and possibly a world first.
It’s interesting to note that the operation was conducted by a pediatric surgeon. Definitely puts a different spin on sayings things like ‘My body, my choice,’ and ‘One body. One person. One count.’ I wonder if pro-choice feminists will be up in arms at the idea that a woman was treated by a doctor for babies.
Mrs Bowlen said. “Just hearing the doctor say she’ll have full function in that foot and basically be able to walk. Hearing that, I know I made the right decision no matter what anyone else says.”
I am a bit conflicted on Bill C-484. I don’t object to it, but in a strict legal sense I don’t believe it to be necessary. I’m also far from convinced it would work as a deterrent or do anything to protect pregnant women from violence. But as a political expression of a society’s belief that unborn children are human and fragile and as such, deserve protection, it’s a fine dandy piece. So I guess that puts me in the “pro” camp, if somewhat reluctantly.
It’s not an easy topic, and deciding whether to be in favour or agaisnt Bill C-484 can be difficult. But scary? Not one bit, unless of course you are so entrenched in your pro-abortion views that you consider any indication that society may find the indiscriminate disposal of tiny human beings morally objectionable a threat to your position. I find it hard to believe that’s where most pro-choicers are.
Following this story from France. Please take the time to read this. And explain to me why, as far as I can tell, North American feminists have nothing to say about this issue.
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Andrea adds:
In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.
Um, how to say this. Clearly it is not, because you had sex. And now want to pretend that you did not.
As for why North American feminists have nothing to say, that much is clear. It is not Christianity they would be criticizing, so why bother.
On Bill C-484, the unborn victims of crime act, a new poll commissioned by Ken Epp and done by Angus Reid shows 53 per cent of Quebec women support the bill.
Who would have guessed?
Still, if journalists and doctors and lawyers keep up the pressure, I’m sure they can change those stats around–turn that frown upside down! Normal, non-activist people are so resilient, answering simple questions reasonably. But what they need is a good dose of Where this Bill Might Go, how it would be Very Scary and Doors That Are Closed Could be Opened…
La Presse–you have your work cut out for you.
The Conseil du statut de la femme has raised the question of choice. No kidding:
The question is to know if girls really make a clear and educated choice to experience a precocious sexuality, or if this is purely a direct impact of the media.
Are we, in Quebec, calling sexually active teens ‘girls?’ Are we raising the issue of ill-informed choice as a potential problem regarding sexuality (and therefore reproduction)?
The article goes on to say:
Among adolescents in a couple relationship, one in five girls (20%) affirms having had a sexual encounter without actually desiring it. These are “extremely worrisome statistics,” figures the CSF.
The CSF confirms that the younger a girl starts being sexually active, the more sexual partners she will have and the higher the likelihood of her contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Hmm…That sounds a bit like a dose of abstinence education to me.
There was no mention of unintended pregnancy and subsequent (ill-informed, undesired) abortion risks.
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Rebecca adds: “… purely a direct impact of the media.” That’s a handy bit of slicing and dicing of reality, isn’t it? Are those really the only two possibilities: a) “girls” are making informed and rational choices to be sexually active or b) it’s the media’s fault? Parents, teachers, clergy, and all the other adults who are more directly connected to individual children have a responsibility to provide young people with not only facts, but also moral guidance and support. I can gripe about the media with the best of them, but there are some rather more specific culprits in the discussion of why teenage girls might be making regretable choices.
The marriage debate. Frustrating. If marriage was strictly about love and equality–then of course there was never any reason to deny it to anyone. This article reminds me about the level of emotion associated with the marriage debate. The “equality soundbite” prevailed. I always thought the “children’s right to a mother and a father soundbite” was quite compelling too. But all it ever resulted in was the comment, “ya, but not everyone has children.” And we were back to square one.
To argue against gay marriage on the grounds that children need a mother and a father required proving without doubt that children don’t do well with two or three parents of the same sex. Proving that, meanwhile, was impossible, because no long term studies without significant design shortcomings exist. Back to square one. Frustrating.
The author of the Globe piece doesn’t seem to find the “unintended consequences” of gay marriage very compelling. I on the other hand, do, and this piece by Jennifer Roback Morse, which landed in my inbox today too, highlights some.
Bottom line: Had there been more freedom of speech associated with the whole debate I’m not sure we would have legalized same sex marriage. Marriage as an institution is complex–and we just don’t learn about it anymore, beyond the Hollywood love angle. And the Hollywood understanding of marriage is not, quite frankly, an institution worth keeping.