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Planning parenthood isn’t possible

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One of life’s greatest jokes is that you can actually plan parenthood. Jennifer Roback Morse has a good line on this: She was an economics prof, was going to time her pregnancy to coincide with summer break and have the baby in care by the time September rolled around. That didn’t work. She ended up successfully adopting–but then also coincidentally conceiving–at the same time. Two kids in less than nine months, a record, she jokes, even for a Catholic.

Pro-choicers will admit as much in candid moments. Over coffee, an acquaintance who worked for Planned Parenthood (we would meet to hash out the issues) once sighed–it’s true, most kids are not planned.

Ultimately, that’s why law suits like this a such a shame: Awarding damages for kids because they were born should never be the jurisdiction of the courts. If someone needs help, private citizens and charitable organizations should step in to do so. But this sets a precedent that allows the myth to flourish–that women have total and complete control over reproduction, always.

Giving your eggs, altruistically

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Sorry, I know it’s harsh to get up in the morning and to be confronted with this sort of news story. The French government is launching what they call a “solidarity campaign” (story in French) to encourage women to give their eggs (anonymously) so infertile couples can have a shot at parenthood.

I’m all for family and children, but I’ve never been a fan of assisted reproduction. Mostly because I don’t think it’s a good idea to force Mother Nature into something she doesn’t want to do. I realize there is a lot of pain and anguish involved when two people realize they are infertile, and I also understand that the desire to have at least one child can be quite overwhelming. I can see why someone would want to undergo fertility treatment and improve her chances to conceive. But asking other women to contribute their own eggs is something else entirely. I know I wouldn’t do it; these are my eggs and any children resulting from same would be mine, regardless of how many layers of Cartesian “logic” I applied to convince myself they’re not.

This isn’t solidarity. It’s more like Brave New World and it creeps me out.

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Rebecca adds: The article hints at the real problems here (it’s not a shortage of women willing to go through the physical pain, medical risk and moral conundrums of anonymous egg donation) but doesn’t pursue it, probably because being judgemental is in even worse taste on the Continent than it is here. Luckily, I have no such reservations.

The reality is that female fertility starts to decline in one’s late 20s. As Sylvia Hewlett wrote in Creating a Life, this isn’t about fairness or equality, it’s biological reality. The French restrictions on ART for women over 37 may seem unfair to a 40 year old who wants medical help to conceive, but they’re based in that reality – with or without artificial means, at that age women are less likely to get pregnant, less likely to carry a fetus to term and deliver free of complications, less likely to have healthy and normal pregnancies.

Europeans are becoming famous for their low birthrates, and for delaying not only motherhood but also marriage and moving out of the parental home. The solution isn’t to conscript the ovaries of strangers, it’s to reassert the importance of family within French culture.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse to the rescue

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Depending on where you sit, you either view women as playing second fiddle to men in our society (Women still earn less than men, men are in the positions of power, there are more male politicians and CEOs); or you view men as playing second fiddle to women (women always get custody, men are forced to pay support even when they don’t have jobs, men don’t get a say in whether a baby is aborted or kept, and they subsequently get no say in whether or not to pay support).  

 

I’d like to see an end to “gender based analysis”—this view that can only conceive of men and women in competition. One gets the gold, the other not silver or bronze but dead last… a never-ending opposition, whereby husbands never do anything good for their women, and a wife is unfailingly generous to just about anyone, so long as it’s not her husband.

 

All that preamble to say Jennifer Roback Morse is starting a much needed new institute. The Ruth Institute. She calls it:

 

A Think Tank for Intelligent Women and the Men Who Love Them, Promoting Marriage At Home, at Work and in the Public Square.

 

And it will promote:

 

marriage as a fundamental, gender-based, social institution

the family-friendly, free-market, faith-filled participation of women in all aspects of society

collaboration and cooperation with men, both at home and at work

human sexuality as an engine for building up the family, through both spousal unity and reproduction

 

Her audience is 

College-educated, career-minded women, who want to raise children and love their husbands.

 

Some may wonder why this is necessary. For women who want to love their husbands? Is that so hard? Clearly, it is—we have a high divorce rate.

 

I’ll be honest. I love Dr. J. I enjoyed her books before I met her. In person, she is all the more reasonable, compassionate, smart: someone who made some mistakes, learned from them, and is passing that wisdom on. Plus then there’s that economics PhD and a love for freedom. Certainly jibes with my finnicky personality—how to balance marriage, which will involve sacrifice, with a desire to live free or die? 

 

Some may wonder where the male equivalent is: and I think there’s a need for that too—to teach men how to love their wives. But Dr. J is only one woman, not every woman—and she’s doing quite enough for women to learn what it means to be married—to be fulfilled in family life after years and years of proving ourselves in a “man’s world.”

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Rebecca approves: This is wonderful news. I must say I’m distressed that so many people are responding to instances of bias against men and boys by insisting that men, not women are the real victim. Most of us recognize that it’s not a zero-sum game, where if men are happy, women aren’t, or vice versa, or that one sex is in a perpetual state of victimhood inflicted by the other sex. In fact, it’s the opposite; men and women are happiest together, as our recent sparkling posts have discussed. Marriage and partnership aside, most women are happier when their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons are thriving and happy and treated well by their community, as men are happier when their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters do well.

 

Why is it so easy to fall into silly battle of the sexes cliches? One of the smarter things feminism did, in my opinion, was point out that although men using pornography, telling sexist jokes, and trolling at bars were objectifying the women involved, these women were still someone’s daughter, or sister, or wife. Drawing a connection between the treatment of women in general and the average guy’s love for his female relatives, and desire that they be treated with more respect, helped to make this sort of behaviour unacceptable. But it should be just as unacceptable to tell jokes that rely on the assumption that all men are cads, or stupid, or to set up sitcoms or ads whose entire premise is that men are The Perpetual Culprit.

 

Woman, if you want to get pregnant, why are you on birth control?

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A recent study explains that a considerable portion of the female population is both using birth control and desiring to get pregnant.

The researchers also found that many women who are lax about birth control are simply ambivalent about preventing a pregnancy and confessed that they would be very pleased if they found out they were pregnant.

Of course, this article doesn’t claim these women want to get pregnant. It refers to them instead as “women who are the least motivated to avoid pregnancy.”

So why are these women on birth control? Is it trendy? Is it fun? Am I missing something?

Perhaps it has to do with a social imposition. Generally, men expect “their” women to be on birth control within an unmarried sexual relationship. However, a woman generally has an innate desire to have a child. Try as we might, biologically, we can’t successfully separate sex from procreation. Thanks to modern feminism, our gender-image has been so warped that a sexually active woman wanting to get pregnant (out of that perfect context) is unreasonable, flighty, and even creepy.

So here we have loads women happily getting pregnant from intentionally inconsistent birth control use. Now they need to tell the new, clueless father-to-be. The result of this mix? Perhaps it’s this:

…up to 64 percent of abortions every year are a result of violence and coercion – a practice… that brings unbearable and life lasting trauma to thousands of women.

Way to go, modern feminism! Just look how well the sexual liberation of women is working out.

How much you wanna bet…

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… that this isn’t going to turn out to be “good for women” after all?

OTTAWA – The emergency contraceptive pill Plan B will now be sold on the front shelves of Canadian pharmacies without any medical consultation after a landmark decision came down Thursday to make the drug more accessible.

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Andrea adds: Oh but Brigitte, clearly you missed the nightly news. It’s 95 per cent effective! says the broadcaster, who clearly did not have time to do anything other than rewrite the pharmaceutical company’s press release.  

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Tanya explains: This was a smart move, right?  On http://www.drugs.com, on levonorgestrel (AKA Plan B) they give the following directives:

“Use levonorgestrel exactly as directed by your doctor. If you do not understand these directions, ask your pharmacist, nurse, or doctor to explain them to you…

 

“Talk to your doctor and pharmacist before taking any prescription or over-the-counter medicines, including vitamins, minerals, and herbal products, while using levonorgestrel.”

 

Now that no one is required to consult either a doctor, pharmacist, or nurse, I’m sure every 15 year old scared stiff of being pregnant will have self-discipline to do so. 

 

My favorite find, on HealthyOntario.com has to be:

 

“It can be harmful for people to take this medication if their doctor has not prescribed it.”

 

The big inconvenience here, I suppose, is that HealthyOntario.com will have to update its site to reflect NAPRA’s “landmark decision.”

 

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Véronique says: You know, this says a lot about the pro-abortion (or anti-children) culture our previous post was touching on. Here, we see that unplanned pregnancy is is to be avoided at such a cost that we are willing to forgo proper medical follow-up to ensure that no unplanned pregnancy goes “unadressed.” This move is so obviously anti-woman it should make feminists want to burn their bras all over again. What this decision tells women is: “we don’t care how sick you get taking Plan B, just as long as you remain sexually available and barren.”

 

This make me sick. Plan B side-effect sick.

 

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Rebecca does the math: 95% effective means 1 in 20 of the women who take this – without advice from a doctor or pharmacist, and therefore without any follow-up by a medical professional – will continue to be pregnant after taking Plan B.  How many of these women will assume the drug “worked”, or avoid taking another pregnancy test out of sheer denial and wishful thinking, and thereby go without the medical care that they need? What are the effects on the fetus of taking Plan B if it doesn’t work, does anybody know? Are we going to have a wave of women and babies harmed by Plan B and its side-effects a year or two down the road?

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Tanya attempts to answer Rebecca’s question:

Even if the “morning-after pill” fails and a woman becomes pregnant, there is no increased risk to the health of the mother or baby, research suggests…

In studying the newborns… researchers did not find significant differences in the length or weight of these babies… Additionally, there wasn’t any increased risk to the “exposed” babies of having malformations.

The study authors note that since failure of the “morning-after pill” doesn’t appear to negatively affect the fetus, mothers pregnant with exposed babies shouldn’t opt for an abortion because they fear for the baby’s health.

These conclusions based on a study involving 116 women, 36 of whom used “Plan B.” Not exactly exhaustive or very large in scale.

This pro-abortion culture is brought to you by…

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I heard Judy Graves speak this morning. She works with the homeless in Vancouver. Goes out at night and meets homeless people “in their home”—under bridges and in alleys. She then works to find rooms for them, get them to doctors, provides them with the necessities to live. Her talk was entirely inspirational.

 

She told her story: As a young woman, single and without support, she made a call from a phone booth to find out the results of a pregnancy test. The person at the other end said—you’re pregnant. But if you don’t want to be, I can get you an abortion.

 

Different time, different place: A friend recounted recently how she was told in person that she was pregnant. Her response, in shock: “Wow, this is difficult.” Nurse’s response was to tell her she can help her get an abortion. My friend retorted, “It’s not that difficult!”

 

Finally, I just got an email to the site. Girl, this time in first year university, gets pregnant. Health care worker tells her first thing—here’s where you go for the abortion.

 

Is this what passes for compassion, for help? What kind of choice is this? Have these health care workers lost any semblance of compassion or empathy? Do they not care? Do they think providing an abortion constitutes care? Such a response is incredible. How can they so completely fail to register the real issues at hand—to send women packing with nothing more than the words “I can get you an abortion” ringing in their ears?

 

These three women I spoke of kept their babies. And lived to tell the tale, imagine that. Not everyone gets the same happy ending. Health care workers, clinic workers, those who give this kind of lame excuse for advice—our pro-abortion culture is at least in part, courtesy of them.

 

I’ve said for a while that women don’t really get choices. It just dawned on me how very painfully true this actually is.

 

It’s a special kind of country for young women to live in where killing our unborn children is the first choice presented. The very first one. Do you have to call yourself pro-life to think this is wrong?

Ken Epp writes

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In the Ottawa Citizen this morning. Bottom line: “To oppose this bill is to stand in defence of only those pregnant women who choose abortion.”

Well, maybe not quite. To maintain that the current legal system is enough to deal with these situations is not entirely illogical. Certainly it’s possible to have a reasonable debate on C-484, or some aspects thereof, without getting into an unproductive shouting match. Or it should be; no legislation is perfect, after all. But loud and brittle (not to mention untruthful) opposition to anything that might, perhaps, in the future some day, contribute to the possibility of someone potentially questioning the validity and moral soundness of today’s anything-goes pro-abortion legal system sure isn’t helping.

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Andrea adds: The same article also quotes an opponent of Bill C-484 who says this:

If the fetuses are recognized in this bill, it could bleed into people’s consciousness and make people change their minds about abortion.

A total and complete moratorium on intelligent thought is the last defence of the ardent abortion supporter. God forbid that people think about this issue and change their minds. That “bleeding into your consciousness” is otherwise called thinking, reflecting, casting a second look at a topic and doing so, in normal circles, is considered wise and good. Good grief–give your head a shake–if Bill C-484 is that threatening, perhaps this pro-abortion status quo is on shakier ground than I previously thought.

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Rebecca adds: You know, if ever you find yourself hoping to conceal facts and preempt arguments to prevent people from changing their minds, you really ought to accept that you’re imposing your decisions on other people, and have explicitly abandoned “Truth” in any sense that is meaningful.

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Tanya adds: “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Free range parenting continued

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I’ve been thinking some more about free range parenting particularly as it pertains to safety, or our society’s risk aversion. I think that the extent to which children can be left unsupervised is directly proportional to parents’ ability to count on their neighbors – writ large – to keep her children safe.

My suburban neighbourhood is surrounded by open fields and a small wooded area. Liesl and Kurt, who are responsible for walking Cocker Spaniel twice a day, would love to prowl the open fields but are not allowed… yet. Is this necessary? Probably not. The risk of meeting an ill-intentioned stranger is low but the stakes are high. And more importantly, if my children yelled, would anybody help them? I don’t think so and this is the most frightening thing.

In recent years, two women were murdered by random strangers in the Ottawa area. Ardeth Wood disappeared in August 2003 and Jennifer Teague in September 2005. Some reported the similarities of both cases but omitted an important one: in both cases a witness noticed something amiss, felt uncomfortable about it, figured it was a couple’s dispute and decided to mind their own business. A cyclist saw Ardeth Wood visibly upset being taken toward the forest by Chris Myers. A resident heard Jennifer Teague’s scream as she was abducted at knife’s point by Kevin Davis. Both decided not to get involved. Upsetting as it is, I always wondered if my nausea wasn’t caused by the knowledge that I might have done the same thing in similar circumstances: mind my own business.

My fear is not so much that my children will make unfortunate encounters on the bike paths circling my neighbourhood. But if they did, residents of fancy ravine lots wouldn’t hear them in their sealed, air-conditioned, oasis of splendor. I have lived here for two years and I know one neighbour. I joke that if burglars pulled in my driveway with a delivery truck, they could empty the entire content of my house and nobody would bat an eye. I can drag my kids kicking and screaming through an entire shopping mall without anyone asking if they are okay. “Good!” you tell me? What If I wasn’t their mom?

They’re playing politics again

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Liberal MP, Brent St. Denis must not have read Ken Epps’ recent document. (If he’d visit our blog more regularly, he’d be on top of these things.) He “tabled a Bill today that would increase penalties for those who knowingly abuse pregnant women.”

The press release states:

Mr. St. Denis believes that the risks associated with C-484 are too dangerous as the potential repercussions are still unknown.  There is a concern that the Bill may establish legal rights for the foetus, which could begin to reverse a woman’s right to choose and punish behaviours and conditions for women that are not criminalized for other people, such as drug or alcohol abuse and mental illness.

As mentioned in Ken Epps’ release:

Only South Carolina has upheld convictions of women under child abuse and endangerment laws, citing South Carolina’s unique judicially enacted “fetal homicide” law of 1984 as a precedent.

There were a few isolated incidents in other states where cases were brought by prosecutors under “fetal homicide” laws… but these cases were later dismissed or distinguished on their facts and are in no way representative of applications of the legislation in the 37 states with these laws.

But the above are mere details. When you get down to it, our politicians are playing chess. Obviously the goal of this newly tabled bill is to draw support away from Bill C-484. If that happens, the subsequent (and nearly inevitable) passing of this new bill will be incidental.

Myself, I’d prefer our laws be formulated based on genuine concern for victims, not on political stratagem.

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Rebecca shakes her head: Good grief, what a tangle of poor logic and silly syllogisms.

I have very mixed feelings about criminalizing substance abuse for pregnant women. On the one hand, exposure to alcohol and drugs in utero can inflict a terrible burden on the fetus, and a wholly avoidable one. On the other hand, I’m not generally keen on giving the government or its agents more opportunities to interpose themselves in our lives, and am of the opinion that there are few problems so bad that state intervention can’t make them worse.

But this is just nonsense:

There is a concern that the Bill may establish legal rights for the foetus, which could begin to reverse a woman’s right to choose and punish behaviours and conditions for women that are not criminalized for other people, such as drug or alcohol abuse and mental illness. (emphasis mine)

First of all, how could this criminalize mental illness in pregnant women, for heaven’s sake? Second, the point would be to punish drug or alcohol abuse that harms another person, in this case the baby. We already punish non-pregnant people who use drugs and alcohol in a manner that harms other people. In fact, we punish non-pregnant people who use drugs or alcohol in a manner that has the potential to harm other people, without waiting to see if actual harm occurs; this is the whole concept behind charging people with drunk driving.

I’m all for an honest discussion of how far society can go to protect an unborn baby’s health at the expense of the mother’s liberties. I’m certainly open to objections that, even if we all agree that an adult’s right to abuse their own body is suspended when doing so harms their unborn child, there is no way to criminalize such behaviour without massive unintended consequences. But when the debate stays at this level, I’m forced to wonder if the other side is congenitally incapable of an honest, good-faith debate on the subject.

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Véronique wonders: How can you recognize that abusing pregnant women is somehow worst than abusing a non-pregnant one without recognizing what makes a pregnant woman different from a non-pregnant one? Are people that shortsighted?

That being said, I stood up and clapped when I read in the press release:

“The goal of my Bill is clear: to protect a foetus lawmakers must protect the carrier of the foetus which is the pregnant woman.”

Indeed. You can’t protect a foetus without protecting the woman. You can’t hurt a woman without hurting the foetus. When a foetus is aborted, you have to hurt the woman to hurt the foetus. This is why we are prolife because we are prowoman.

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Tanya adds: Exactly what I was thinking, Véronique. Is the law now to elevate a pregnant woman above a non-pregnant woman?

If we ignore what is so particular about being pregnant (being with child) then we are simply elevating the importance of one individual above another. What sort of dangerous precedent is that?

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