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Is it something in the water?

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New York politicians seem to have a lot of trouble being faithful.

ALBANY, N.Y. — With his predecessor’s term doomed by a sex scandal, brand-new Gov. David Paterson tried to come clean about his own skeletons just hours after assuming office by acknowledging a years-old affair.

Paterson was sworn in almost exactly a week after allegations first surfaced that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was “Client 9” of a high-priced call girl service. Responding to rumors circulating in Albany, Paterson and his wife, Michelle, told the Daily News of New York City that both had affairs during a rough patch in their marriage several years ago.

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“We move forward. Today is Monday. There is work to be done,” Paterson said. “There was an oath to be taken. There’s trust that needs to be restored. There are issues that need to be addressed.”

Ah, yes. Moving forward. They always say that, don’t they. But forward from where?

“A woman’s right to choose”

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Hadley Arkes, one of the authors of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (stop and think about that for a second), starts off by discussing the Spitzer debacle, and then veers into very interesting territory:

Bernard Nathanson has told the story often that the mantra “her decision,” on abortion, came from the men who founded the National Abortion Rights Action League. It was to be “her decision” because it was “her problem.” It was a conception that put discreetly out of the picture the man who had his own, distinctive role to play in creating the problem in the first place, or the man whose refusal to take responsibility and stand by her now made the problem hers alone to manage.

This goes to something that we don’t discuss often enough. Men’s role in the discussion about abortion is an odd one, constrained in so many ways. We don’t talk enough, for instance, about what it’s like to be a man whose child is aborted without his consent, or sometimes even his knowledge until after the fact. And abortion-rights activists are very fond of implying that men who oppose abortion are implying patriarchal values upon women as part of a centuries old hegemony to keep women subjugated. But it is undeniable that a political discourse that insists on viewing abortion as a women’s issue, whether pro or con, removes men from the equation, and this severs the connection between the other participant in the creation of the pregnancy and its resolution. It takes two people to make a baby, and hyper-correct sex ed has inculcated in a whole generation that both people are responsible for safe sex. It’s time to extend that to include pregnancy. Insisting that abortion is entirely and solely a decision to be made by the mother (although of course subsidized by all of us) has the unintended effect of letting fathers off the hook.

Cold feet

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In the UK, there’s big debate over a new fertility bill. Here’s some recent news.

Among other things, the bill raises IVF issues like “savior siblings” (couples having a subsequent child as an organ or tissue donor for a sick older sibling) and animal-human hybrids.

Even Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, seems to have reservations. He has spoken of the human-animal hybrids on which Shipley is placing her hopes as a “step too far”, warning that even scientists feel a “degree of repugnance” at the idea.

It is too late for ministers to back down: the legislation was in the Queen’s speech and is strongly supported by Gordon Brown.

Too late for ministers to back down? These sound like the sentiments of an uncertain bride on her big day. Sure the guests have arrived and the caterer has been paid, but call the wedding off before making a big mistake!

Excellent Ottawa Citizen letters page today

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Why such a good page, you ask? Because there are two ProWomanProLifers on it all on the same happy day. Very much unplanned. My letter, here and Véronique’s here.

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Rebecca adds: The insistence that if one opposes abortion, one must support birth control is a fine example of question begging. (For the record, while I reject the notion that abortion is a consequence-free private decision that is the prerogative only of the woman involved, I believe birth control to be none of anyone’s business but the couple’s, informed by medical, theological and other considerations that matter to them. Although I do have some serious qualms about the medical basis for a number of birth control methods.) But the argument takes as a given that a) sex can be severed from reproduction and b) perfect birth control, or close enough to perfect, is achievable. Neither of these is true.

The world would be a happier, better, saner place if fewer teenagers (and, dare I say it, unmarried adults) had sex. This is partly the case because of the inevitability of unplanned pregnancies. No birth control method is 100% effective; sterilization comes pretty close, but even then, whether through a faulty procedure or natural regeneration, sterilizations sometimes don’t work. And the numbers typically given for the effectiveness of the pill, diaphragm, condom and so on are usually “perfect use” statistics; in reality, very few users reproduce these circumstances, and the “”real world” reliability of most birth control methods is much lower. This may tie in well with certain political or religious views, but it is not a political issue or a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact.

So we create a culture in which sex is separated first from reproduction, then from marriage, and finally, in the age of the hook-up, from commitment or even affection. We raise a generation with the mantra of safe sex (omitting the fact that some diseases can be transmitted even while using a condom) and provide them with flawed tools to prevent conception. And inevitably, we end up with unplanned pregnancies, men leaving smoke behind them in the manner of the Road Runner as they head for the hills, and women convinced that their lives are ruined, who try to flee by terminating their pregnancies.

The fact that only abstinence is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy is also a matter of fact, not opinion. Young women (and men) who think their lives will be ruined, or (less melodramatically) recognize that premature and single parenthood will radically alter their plans, should keep this in mind. As a society, we can have “consequence-free” sex or we can value all life. We can’t do both, and no matter how hard we try (and many people have tried very hard indeed) we can’t sever sexuality from reproduction. Which is, I believe, part of the teaching of the Church on this matter.

Carleton University abortion debate, this Wednesday

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The question: Is abortion a woman’s right or a moral wrong?

The date: Wednesday, March 19th, 7-9 pm

The place: 103 Steacie Building, Carleton University, Ottawa

Stephanie Gray from the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform will represent the pro-life side and the Carleton Debate Society will present the pro-choice side. Guess the ladies of Planned Parenthood called uncle after the last round against Jojo Ruba in December 2006. Now I think this debate will go ahead: The student union can hardly afford to cancel it, given all the negative publicity York U just received.

Still, our friendly totalitarian, Kelly Holloway of the York University Student Centre is busy justifying just how and why she shut down the abortion debate at York in the Ottawa Citizen today. Read all about it! here…

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Véronique adds: Read the letter. I’d hate to see what an un-friendly totalitarian sounds like.

My question is if the student union is not accountable – specifically – to conservative pundits, are they accountable to liberal pundits?

If moral considerations pertaining to abortion are personal, what makes yours righter than mine?

What makes an “entitlement” to an environment free of harassment and intimidation weightier than a right – a Charter right I must add – to freedom of expression?

Who decides?

Why?

I don’t need an answer today…

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Tanya adds: Kelly Holloway says,”York University can make its own decisions and, if the York University president wishes to host a debate organized by these anti-choice campaigners, the university will have to take responsibility for that.”

I’m happy to see they are attempting in some way to show students there are responsibilities to be accepted for choices made. Does anyone else think they may be nullifying this lesson just a tad by advocating for consequence-free sex?

More than leprechauns and shamrocks

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shamrock.jpg

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. And while there’s nothing wrong with wearing green and having a pint of Guinness, we have a tendency these days to dumb down and secularize our festival days. But St. Patrick has a great story, a story that must include God otherwise it’s no story at all… He was himself first a slave, and would then help eradicate slavery in Ireland long before other nations… He’s the early William Wilberforce, in a way. From How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, by Thomas Cahill:

The life of a shepherd-slave could not have been a happy one.  Ripped out of civilization, Patricius had for his only protector a man who did not hold his own life highly, let alone anyone else’s. We know that he did have two constant companions, hunger and nakedness…He began to pray… he didn’t really believe in God…. But now, there was no one to turn to but the God of his parents…Patricius endured six years of this woeful isolation, and by the end of it he had grown from a careless boy to something he would surely never otherwise have become – a holy man, indeed a visionary for whom there was no longer any separation between this world and the next.  On his last night as Miliucc’s slave, he received in his sleep his first otherworldly experience.  A mysterious voice said to him:  “Your hungers are rewarded:  you are going home. 

Patricius sat up, startled.  The voice continued:  “Look, your ship is ready”. 

As he tramped towards his destiny, his faith that he was under God’s protection must have grown and grown, for it was virtually impossible that a fugitive slave could get so far without being intercepted.  “I came in God’s strength… and had nothing to fear” is Patricius’s simple summation.

Try though he might, he cannot put the Irish out of his mind.  The visions increase, and Christ begins to speak within him: “He who gave his life for you, he it is who speaks within you.” Patricius, the escaped slave, is about to be drafted once more – as Saint Patrick, apostle to the Irish nation.

You’re looking for me?

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The Canadian Forces has a message for stay-at-home mothers: We want you.

Read all about it.

As a stay-at-home mom, if I don’t take the opportunity to get out amongst adults regularly – and I think this happens to many of us – I feel a sense of social awkwardness come over me. In Quebec, they refer to it as pas sortable (can’t be taken out). I encourage dinner companions to finish their vegetables. I wait for the word “please” before I relinquish the salt shaker. I excuse myself to go “pipi.”

Do the Canadian Forces really know what they’re getting themselves into? Can you imagine? New recruits will be peeking over shower stalls reminding everyone to “scrub twice.”

On the flip side, we would have the most polite soldiers on the planet.

This is big

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For decades, the medical establishment has maintained that there are no mental health risks for women after abortion. That is changing. Read about it here.

Several studies, including research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2006, concluded that abortion in young women might be associated with risks of mental health problems…

I know the American Psychological Association is also reviewing their position statement on women’s mental health following abortion. The new statement has not yet been released, but the very fact that they took down the old one saying abortion has no negative mental health effects means they know about the growing body of credible evidence showing quite the opposite. (Those studies show increased risks of suicide, suicide ideation, depressive episodes, hospitalization for depression and even things like increased drug use and engaging in risky sexual activity.)

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Andrea emphasizes: This is not yet another study coming out showing negative mental health affects for women the result of abortion. This announcement from the United Kingdom shows a body of doctors paying heed to the existing research.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health…

That’s why this announcement is so big. Because the studies showing poor outcomes have existed for a while, it’s just no one listened to them. That’s what’s changing.

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Tanya adds: It is big, I agree. The question is what took them so long. After all, a the British Medical Journal reported this in 2002 , and in 1996, a Finnish study concluded an “increased risk of suicide after an induced abortion.”

Then there’s the New Zealand study which reported in 2006 that “Young women who have had an abortion may be at increased risk of developing mental health problems.” Yet 98.9 percent of abortions granted in New Zealand are “done on ‘mental health’ grounds.” Why did it take so long for women to get informed consent?

A Saturday morning contemplation

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Sometimes I have time to sit and think. That happened this morning.

I was thinking about what it means to be pro-woman and pro-life, and how others view this.

There is a stigma attached to being pro-woman. Recently, I chatted with a man who was taken aback when I referred to myself as a feminist. The only self-proclaimed feminist he’d ever met was yelling, “We won’t go back!” and striking him in the head with a hanger. I assured him I was not that sort of feminist.

Being pro-life comes with its fair share of negative connotations as well. Here is the kind of pro-lifer I am not. But separating these people out from other pro-lifers in people’s perceptions is not easy.

ProWomanProLife comes across as an oxymoron to some.  That means it is challenging some preconceived notions on what it means to be both pro-woman and pro-life.  And maybe, just maybe, it will prompt some people to re-evaluate their own stance on issues of life and feminism.

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Andrea adds: I personally avoid use of the word “feminist” altogether. Why? Because it means many different things to many different people, and is entirely meaningless to many more. This group is therefore not called “feminists for life” for a reason. It’s those 1960s feminists who are responsible for abortion on demand, claiming it is good for women. Early feminists, those fighting for the vote, recognized and knew abortion was bad for women, bad for the child, and would never have called sacrificing the unborn a victory in any way. So I stay away from the term altogether. After all, those 1960s feminists have done a lot of damage; damage we must all work to undo. I will say this for them: They were very successful: Just look at how “the right to choose” is accepted dogma. Time to re-evaluate, indeed.

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Véronique adds: To me, being a feminist — and I don’t shy away from the word, how else can I redeem it? — is not so much a way of “doing” as a way of “thinking.”

Generally, I try to avoid equating feminism with certain principled conclusions such as “abortion is a human right” or “men are pigs.” It’s a little like “if you are pro-life, you must be a Conservative.” What does being pro-life has to do with it? Or if you believe in climate change, you’re a Liberal, if you don’t, you’re a Conservative. What does climatology has to do with political ideology? Same with feminism. What feminism is about is power struggles, inherent sexism, patterns of sex-based discrimination. You can advocate in favor of gender equity without ever mentioning abortion… in theory. In practice however, feminism is now associated with abortion as right. But I can point to power struggles, inherent sexism and patterns of sex-based discrimination in the abortion industry or abortion rhetoric any day of the week.

I’m proud to be a feminist. I’m just not sure feminists are proud to have me…

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Andrea adds: Well right here we have what ProWomanProLife is all about. Different pro-life women expressing their views, unplugged. The words “I’m proud to be a feminist” have never–and will never–pass my lips. Because the way feminism looks to me, I’d rather, um, be a chauvenist.

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Rebecca adds: I find it easier not to identify myself as a feminist, because for most people today it carries baggage I don’t want and connotations I actively reject. Lots of women I respect feel differently. I also generally subscribe to Christina Hoff Sommers’ distinction between “equity feminism” (which she considers to have realized its goals) that demands equality (same pay scales for men and women, women not needing their husbands’ permission to open a bank account, the franchise, etc) and “gender feminism”, which characterizes such lunacy as insisting that women be firefighters even if they can’t carry an average sized person, that women make up 50% of engineering students even if they don’t want to be engineers as much as men do, and getting Lawrence Summers publicly barbecued. Hoff Sommers also wrote the very important The War Against Boys, which all parents and teachers (of boys or girls) should read.

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