This is life, which no one said would be cheap or easy. This baby is toughing it out in the world at 25 weeks. Today the Globe and Mail discusses our failing healthcare system, which doesn’t have enough beds for these premie babies.
This is high school?
The National Post recently discussed Miley Cyrus and her topless appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair. Two on the editorial team reasonably commented that the photo was inappropriate. I’d agree and add this: That photo is the least of my concerns.
See Gossip Girl–the new season just started. To say that these are kids acting like adults isn’t really fair to most adults, actually. It’s about a prep school where orgasmic sexual encounters are the norm, teachers, parents and adults absent. It’s Beverly Hills 90210 on steroids with a dash of Hugh Hefner. No wonder Colby Cosh of the Post wasn’t shocked by Miley Cyrus: He’s probably seen Gossip Girl, and by these standards the Cyrus photo was the epitome of decency and all American charm. Watch the season promo below:
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=LwTGEXqL1fk]
Seeking help in Toronto
An email from very good friends… They are seeking help for an abortion-minded newcomer to Canada:
When this baby is due, she will be in Toronto without her husband because of immigration policies… She is very fearful of going through the birth alone, and so is currently planning on having an abortion. We are seeking a Chinese-speaking person in the Toronto area who would be open to walking through the birth with her…
If you know someone, please write in and I’ll connect you with the people trying to help. Thank you.
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Update: Friends and support have been found. Thanks to those who wrote in.
Bad moment in history to be parents of teenagers
From NRO:
1 in 4 teenaged girls has a sexually transmitted disease. On the same day that story came out, newspapers reported another study showing that 17 percent of middle-school students had used alcohol within the past year, and 6 percent had been drunk within the past month. A previous study had shown that 47 percent of eighth graders have had alcohol, 20 percent had done so in the last month, and 12 percent had consumed “five or more drinks in a row in the previous 2 weeks.”
The author goes on to point out signs of a recurrence of the tiniest smidge of sexual morality, such as the phrase “walk of shame” to describe the act of going home from an overnight date in clothing that makes the evening’s conclusion obvious. I don’t know that I agree; the fact that the phrase is so prevalent indicates that this behaviour isn’t unusual.
Muddy waters
Self-proclaimed feminists express worry for the rights of a pregnant woman to use illegal drugs.
One of the most dangerous consequences of Bill C-484 is…that it muddies the water regarding the potential for prosecuting pregnant women who use drugs. Pregnant women who use drugs already face tremendous stigma and marginalization; many such women fail to access medical services in fear of having their children removed from their care.
Where to begin…
Is enabling a woman to continue her drug use, especially while in a pregnant state, really doing her a favour? Are we a backwards society for enforcing the protection of children? Is this all about the fact that a man can’t get pregnant, so he can harbor a drug addiction more easily than a woman? Is this a question of equality of the sexes? And finally, are you serious?
in many U.S. States pregnant women who use drugs are criminally charged with child abuse before the child is born and are incarcerated on the basis of protecting the foetus.
Canada’s drug laws are such that we place the bulk of penalties on dealers. To compare this to U.S. laws is to ignore everything we already know about Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Judges have considerable discretion in sentencing offenders under the CDSA. Sentences may take into account aggravating factors such as selling drugs to children, using or involving children under 18 years in the commission of the offence or selling drugs in or near schools or school grounds, or other public places where youth frequent.
If anything, C-484 may mean tougher sentencing for offenders who sell drugs to pregnant women. Who wouldn’t want to see that? Other than drug dealers, that is.
National day of action?
Protests were organized across the country yesterday in opposition to Bill C-484. For a solid week, abortion advocates were spreading the word, rallying people together, calling it a national day of action.
Nearly 100 people gathered in [Edmonton] Saturday to protest a proposed law they say poses a direct threat to women’s reproductive rights in Canada…
Similar protests were held in Ottawa and Fredericton, N.B.
Radio-Can reports more than 50 people gathered in Ottawa. (Hey, that’s the same amount of redheads that showed up to pretend-protest the Wendy’s logo!)
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPmd_wc7s8]
As of yet, I’ve been unable to find any news coverage on the Fredericton protest, but the Facebook Event had 70 confirmed RSVP’s.
So, what, shall we say 300 people at most participated? I didn’t realize one one-hundred-thousandth of the population constituted a ‘national’ anything.
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Brigitte adds: I spent yesterday exploring the streets of downtown Winnipeg (and the closed shops – this is one dead town on weekends) and can report, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that approximately zero people protested C-484 – or anything else for that matter. Perhaps because it was soooo dashed cold…
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Andrea adds: “Hey hey! Ho Ho! Wendy’s logo has got to go!” That YouTube clip is powerful, Tanya, and reminds me that discrimination is everywhere, all around me, all the time. If I would only look harder.
“How much time?”
As all eyes are on Obama and Clinton, at least one group is turning their attention to McCain. The New York Times writes about this campaign of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) which asks how much time a woman should do in jail if abortion were outlawed.
Now I’ve never met a pro-lifer who wanted to see women behind bars. So I consider this type of fear mongering a particularly evasive strategy–the one thing pro-choicers won’t do is debate what life is. The thing is the abortion debate has never been about criminalization, but rather equality for all people. Talk about a dialogue of the deaf.
Though I suppose if legislation outlawing abortion is your main goal, you ought to be able to answer that question.
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Tanya adds: This talk of imprisonment is a bit of strategy, to say the least. I doubt NARAL mentions that Poland, Portugal, Ireland and Malta share the western world’s strictest abortion laws, and have yet to send a woman to prison for having one.
So I suppose the question of “how much time” has effectively been answered. None.
Is abstinence politically incorrect?
There’s something to be said for a well-phrased question, like the one posed by U.S. congresswoman, Virginia Foxx.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMJsyN92kk]
“If you lead the people with correctness, who will dare not be correct?” ~ Confucius
Telus is in the clear…
…but I have at least one girlfriend who is a fish rights offender. Her poor fish swims alone, day in, day out. (The Swiss are mandating stringent standards for animals. Read about it, here.)
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz_JqLPzWCU]
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Tanya adds: Oh, not just animal…plant life, too.
“None of this is a joke. The world’s leading science journal, Nature, recently reported that Swiss biologists are worried. Funding for their work might get cut off if they offend the dignity of plants.”
Oh, they’d definitely pull the plug on the ecology project I did in 8th grade!
BTW, abortion in Switzerland was legalized in 2002.
We’re supposed to get used to this?
From the UK, 12 to 15-year-olds are having abortions.
Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which runs a chain of abortion clinics, said: “This is a tiny number of girls. Children grow up very quickly in our society. They are maturing faster physically, psychologically and socially, and society just has to come to terms with that.”
It is a small number of girls–10 to 15 each year–but we ought to be shocked, maintain that shock, increase the shock. True compassion isn’t shown by saying hey, that’s normal, get used to it! And it is entirely alarming and painful to read that someone would advocate that view. Would Furedi say that if it were her 12-year-old daughter?
This is where “women’s rights” becomes an obvious fraud. Who will start the “girl’s rights” movement–a 12-year-old is not a woman, after all.
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