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American politics and abortion

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Now that Hillary has conceded defeat, sort of, we can examine Obama’s platform.

On abortion, it’s not good. Not good at all.

Oftentimes pro-lifers will declare there’s no middle ground on abortion–voting against amendments that would outlaw some abortions but not all, because they don’t go far enough.

But there is some middle ground to be found. Most everyone–even those who are pro-choice–find late-term abortion abhorrent. Most every civilized person shies away from eugenics, though eugenic abortions are common in Canada today. (Note the Canadian Down Syndrome Society’s new TV campaign: Different Genes, Same Value.)

Barack Obama’s position on abortion has been relentlessly extreme–against life.  This link, from the Atlantic Monthly, discusses just how extreme he has been. He has not done anything conciliatory on this front. Late term abortions? Fine by him.

As a side note, I stumbled on this link, for different reasons yesterday–you can choose your topic and get the candidate’s summary position on it. On abortion, I like Ron Paul’s the best. The man don’t mince words:

Paul said he views the fetus as a “human being [with] legal rights … from the day of conception.” He reconciles his anti-abortion outlook with his libertarian views, saying, “I do not say that because our homes are our castles that we have the right to murder our children.”

If I were American, I might vote for him, just for that clear-as-a-bell statement. I guess if you are the long shot, (ie. Ron Paul’s not going to be President) you can afford to say things like that.  

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Tanya sticks up for Ron Paul:

Even when he was full-swing campaigning, he didn’t mince words at all. And not just on the issue of abortion. The man would have been quite a president. Sigh.

Trouvez l’erreur

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Ever do those games on the back of a cereal box when you were a kid? (I still do them now, but that’s beside the point.) Remember the one where you had to find all the errors in a given picture? Man with shoe on head, mouse in bird’s nest, spoons flowering in garden…

I felt a little like I was playing that game this morning as I read this article.

If Mr. Epp was well known for his defense of women’s rights, we could believe that he is truly concerned about violence against women.

Error #1) Just because someone holds a particular view on what women’s rights actually entail, it does not mean he is not concerned about violence against women.

His bill is supported by anti-choice groups across the country…For all these reasons, we must denounce Bill C-484.

Error #2) If by anti-choice, she is referring to pro-life, it only makes sense that a bill which is meant to protect life would be supported by these groups. This is not an actual reason to oppose any bill.

Bill C-484… opens the door to the possibility of recriminalization of abortion in Canada, and this, only 20 years after its decriminalization.

Error #3) Abortion has been legal in Canada for almost 40 years now.

In attempting to more severely punish attackers of pregnant women, he is giving the status of personhood to the fetus.

Error #4) The bill would recognize the fetus as something, but it’s far from calling the fetus a person with Charter rights. Considering the pregnant woman would still be entitled to do whatever she likes to it (drink, smoke, do drugs, have an abortion), that’s hardly what anyone could call personhood.

The murder of pregnant women does not constitute an epidemic in Canada; over the last 3 years, 5 pregnant women have been assassinated. Though these deaths are regrettable, we can not consider it a trend. The reality is that conjugal violence is a much greater problem.

Error #5) The number one cause of death among pregnant women is homicide. Pregnant women experience abuse at a rate 6 times higher than women who are not pregnant. Approximately one in five women lose a pregnancy because of abuse. Pregnant women experiencing spousal abuse are struck in the abdomen in 70% of cases. It’s a bit of a problem, I’d say.

Misinformation is the greatest enemy of this bill’s passing. What gets me most is not the risk of this bill not being approved. It’s the why. It is that a segment of women are so petrified of having access to abortion even vaguely questioned that they are willing to prevent a sensible law like this one from being enacted.

Thoughts on Sex and the City (spoilers)

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Last night I saw Sex and the City. I ended up going to a different cinemaplex than we’d originally planned because all three early evening showings at the first theatre were sold out, and we were stuck in the very front row at our second choice. My appreciation for the series is limited; years ago I started watching the show with some friends I’d just met, and as time passed, I grew more and more fond of the friends, and less and less fond of the show. So I’m not sure if I would have bothered to see the movie, had these friends not really wanted us all to watch it together for old times’ sake.

 

The trademark quirks of the show – the literal glint in each character’s eye, Carrie’s overly enunciated narration, the not-even-groanworthy puns – are all intact, and if they aren’t exaggerated in Sex and the City’s movie incarnation, they certainly seem that way. The characters are all sketched out in the opening credits, with flashbacks to the series, and it’s remarkable how about 40 seconds of montage each tells you all you need to know, if you had never seen the series. Complexity has never been the point of SATC.

 

Unlike the fans and critics who saw the series as striking a blow for women everywhere by portraying them as liberated, independent, and answering to no man, I always thought the show was in many ways regressive (and I only partially mean that in a bad way.) Certainly the “girls” were sleeping with whomever they choose, dealing with the consequences (STDs, abortions, unwed motherhood) in a cavalier way, and putting themselves before any other relationship in their lives – not only with men, but also with family. The only relatives I remember from the show are Miranda’s mother-in-law, and Charlotte’s first mother-in-law. But then part of the conceit of the show was that friends are the new family.

 

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Cherry picking–not a right

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When it comes to pro-abortion arguments, a recently published opinion piece in the Medical Post — “INSIDERS: Is the end of abortion near?” (a restricted access piece) — has got it all. There’s the well-funded religious groups, fear mongering of Bill C-484 backdoorism and a return to coat-hanger abortions, abortion as standard of care for unplanned pregnancy, abortion as human right, abortion as incontestable under law, the obligation to refer, the obligation to facilitate access, and finally, freedom of conscience, sure, but my conscience, not yours.

Then there’s this brain twister:

The Federation of Medical Women of Canada (FMWC) is very concerned because we owe our deepest gratitude to our federation founders those heroes who fought so hard for the right of women to be able to choose their reproductive rights.” (emphasis mine)

 

Huh? So it’s no longer about having reproductive rights but about being able to choose our reproductive rights? This is moral relativism at its best – or at its worst–depending on how you look at it.

 

Allow me to think about it in the big scheme of things, that is, a scheme bigger than justifying individual wants and desires. Why women? Why the “right to choose”? Why “reproductive rights”? Why do women have a right to choose their rights? Men can reproduce too.

Just imagine men parading around with this slogan: “What I do with my semen is my business.”

But men are not allowed to choose their reproductive rights–and rightfully so. Society at large recognizes that some rights should be limited and others denied entirely. In civil society, rights are not chosen individually even when their scope is essentially individual. Rights are enshrined and efforts to protect them deployed because of a general understanding that they are just, good and necessary. There is a general understanding in society that men shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever they choose with their sperm; that pedophiles shouldn’t be allowed a full range of reproductive rights and that under age children shouldn’t be allowed to choose at all, to name but a few…

Pro-choice advocates please stop waving the flag of “reproductive rights.” Please stop making a case for the special status of your eggs. Or at least make a coherent argument. I’m still waiting for that.

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Andrea adds: Aaaah, Véronique, clearly you didn’t get the “it’s none of your business” memo. It’s probably my very favourite pro-choice argument, that variation on a grade four theme–none of your beeswax–said with jaw tightly clenched. Are homeless people my business? What about all the charitable groups we have to help with that? Very strictly speaking, nothing is ever our business–if that’s the kind of world you want to live in. One where you step over the bodies lying on grates on the way to work, and turn your head the other way, while you zip in to Starbucks for a latté. “Mankind was my business…” It’s always a good time to quote one of my all time favourite movies. Here–watch the YouTube clip again. (Yes, I’m aware that it is June.)

What is truth?

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What is truth? After extensive introspection, Advertising Standards Canada has found it and is–yes, you guessed it–advertising it. Wonderful. Nothing hypocritical there. I am personally grateful when others do thinking for me. (And thanks to the reader who sent this photo in, asking “I wonder who one complains to about deceptive ads sponsored by Ad Standards Canada?”)

They’re against everything

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Le Collège des médecins announces in this article that it is against every law that has anything to do with fetuses or pregnancy currently on the table in Parliament. This according to Yves Robert, secretary of Le Collège des médecins:

Besides Bill C-484, the organization also denounces three other federal bills: C-338; C-537; C-543, which all run along a similar vein.

Bill C-338 would criminalize abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, other than in cases where the woman is suffering from (mental) health problems or if the fetus has been diagnosed with severe defects.

Bill C-537 has to do with the right of conscience of health care professionals. It allows then to refuse to participate in medical procedures which run contrary to their religious beliefs or their belief of the sanctity of human life.

Bill C-543 attempts to make the pregnancy of a victim of a violent attack an aggravated circumstance of the crime.

All of these are private bills. Bills C-484 and C-537 were put forth by Conservative members from out west. Bills C-338 and C-543 are the work of Ontario Liberals…

Mr. Robert would ask all members of Parliament to vote against these bills.

Apparently, he has some concerns about doctors being held liable if harm comes upon an unborn child. He must wonder how anyone practices medicine at all in those other civilized countries with all those pesky laws!

Reading in new Charter rights

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The rights business in full bloom: Abortion, sexuality, shooting up? This is precisely, I’m sure, what the creators of our Charter intended.

But I like the main point of Wente’s article. We should indeed deliberately attach stigma to certain behaviours. If something is considered dishonourable, or unethical–why not just say that? And make it harder for people to participate in those activities–without using the Charter or the law? (Which may actually dilute morality in any case, “forcing” people to do something or not do something based on legality takes away the strength of character which calls us to do or not do for simple reasons of right and wrong.) I’m rambling now, though, and not sure where this all will conclude, so I’ll stop. Read Wente’s piece, it’s entirely coherent.

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Tanya can ramble, too: The article notes

If safe shooting is a right, then shouldn’t every addict be entitled to it? Toronto’s more progressive politicians are hopeful. “We already have a lot of safe consumption sites in the city of Toronto,” Councillor Gord Perks pointed out. “They’re called bars.”

Great, is this gonna mean cigarette smokers will have a charter right to get their fix indoors, too? (They might argue that it isn’t safe to smoke outdoors during 40 below weather in just a cardigan or sport coat.) Did we just accomplish the opposite? I’m so confused.

The story of the day, the week…

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Nothing like a little miracle to perk up your day and remind you of how amazing women’s reproductive systems really are:

An Australian doctor on Friday hailed as a “miracle” a baby girl who survived a full-term pregnancy outside the womb. Durga Thangarajah was delivered by caesarean section at Darwin Private Hospital on Thursday, after spending almost nine months growing inside her mother’s right ovary — stretching the organ’s tissue as thin as paper…Miller said the condition had not been detected in this case because the mother, 34-year-old Meera Thangarajah, had not had early pre-natal scans and had had a trouble-free pregnancy.

Orwellian advertising commission

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I missed this on Sunday–references those “deceptive” ads from LifeCanada.

In other words, the LifeCanada ad was “deceptive” because it was outrageously true. Pace George Orwell: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Declaring the ads to be deceptive is a ruling so unambiguously slanted in favour of an ideology–to reference “access” in these ads would have made them pro-choice, since access is their battle cry. And of course the truth there is that a woman in Canada can have an abortion anytime, any place, unlike seeing a specialist, for example.

This is their side. No really.

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More post-abortive women’s voices put forward by pro-choice groups can be found at the Abortion Project and if it weren’t so damn sad, it would be funny. Here are some quotes from the very first three stories I clicked on, entirely randomly.

I regret the day I decided to have an abortion and wish that I could take it back.  

and

I still am pro-choice. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for what would come afterwards and all the feelings that I had: feelings of grief and loss, and realizing that I do want to have a child someday but this isn’t the right time. And feeling really sad and worried, like, did I make the right decision? It wasn’t something I could just talk to people about and I think that made it feel even worse. I’ve been in therapy since the abortion, and not just because of the abortion– all this other stuff got stirred up.

and

Although I have freely stated that I had a safe and legal abortion, I have never let myself feel anything about the experience and what it meant to me. I am crying while writing this and these are the first tears I have shed since I was in the midst of the procedure.

You could read as many like this as you have time for.

Abortion: Contributing to strong, empowered women, in control of their destinies, everywhere.  

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