Dove for Men is peddling a product with a slick sales pitch to promote the new must-have for men. A manufactured need for men using the actual need children have for their fathers.

Am I offended? Heck no! I’m sold!

Kids need their dads. If a men’s product thinks it can jack up sales by appealing to the love a father has for his children, I’m jazzed.
Dove for dads rocks because dads rock. Happy Father’s Day!

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jpb2_YdxYM]

At the age of 53 my grandmother was widowed with seven children still at home. They had 12, total. While my grandfather was dying of cancer in the family home, he also learned that they would lose the family farm in Carlsbad Springs, due to unpaid taxes. It was 1937. Though my grandmother’s roots dated back to the 1660s in this country, generations of farmers even in France, after his death, she left the country and moved to downtown Ottawa. She didn’t speak a single word of English. Like a foreigner in her own country, she had to pack up, leave the life she knew and make her way.

Five daughters, two sons and one fierce mother moved into an upstairs Clarence street. apartment. Desperate, alone, the weight of the world on her shoulders, she had a way of saving hard-earned money. In spite of the magnitude of her loss, she laid down the first and last month’s rent on that apartment and set about to find work. The work my grandmother found was cleaning. She became a char woman, as they were called. Up at 3 am, she cleaned government offices. She came home for breakfast and went to daily morning mass, then off to Rockcliffe Park, where she cleaned homes for the rich. I don’t know if she ever learned the second native tongue in this land, but she did know her numbers and that saved them.

The stories from my mother about my grandmother are a bit muddled since my mom was the youngest in that family. A seven-year-old who also had her world ripped apart but had the face of courage as a role model. That comes in handy in life, with or without a dad. So I heard that my grandmother never bought a stitch of clothing for herself. She didn’t wear a bra. She didn’t buy toilette paper, either, rather they used the tissue that goods were wrapped in, like in today’s gift bags. My frugal grandmother supported her children until one by one they married or moved out.

Now you know a bit about my grandmother: An even tempered Catholic widow who literally counted pennies, in what seemed like a foreign land. So when I tell you that two weeks into her first month in that apartment when she looked down and saw prostitutes plying their trade below, you’ll understand the magnitude of what she did. She packed up and left, losing the rent money. She moved into one of her grown daughter’s homes. Both families shared a single bathroom; both families making the best of 1937 and desperate circumstances.

My grandmother made no bones about what prostitution really was and what was needed to protect children’s innocence and young men’s minds. She referred to them as “those poor girls” but nonethelss, when they were almost literally on her doorstep, she was gone like the wind. I read prostitution advocate and pimp Valerie Scott’s comments that “there’s always money involved when it comes to sex, whether it’s sex work or not.” The fact is there is much more than just money involved. My grandmother made yet another difficult move because she understood the language of love and family, if not English.

In the back and forth on prostitution today and the hand wringing about safety, consent and crime, I am not conflicted. I like Canada’s proposed new laws on prostitution. What we learn and what we teach about the nature of human relationships will carry future generations.

A good Madame may not care about that but a good mother does.

I share all her questions about why Quebec just legalized euthanasia.

But I am still musing about her final statement, which is this:

I predict history will see each society’s decision about euthanasia as its turning-point values decision of the 21st century.

Indeed, it’s a turning point. But there have been many. And is not legalizing killing of elderly and infirm on their choice a logical outcome of a society that has had legalized killing of babies for decades?

Question might be why this didn’t come sooner.

It was a bit of an intense battle, and watching it again, I realize that I had been unable to make a point or two which happens in such debates.

One of the points I was trying to make before I was cut off, had to do with the nurses in Belgium who were acting outside of their legal boundaries. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (June, 2010) indicated that the law was widely abused in that country. Almost one-third of euthanasia deaths were illegally performed without patient consent.

The researchers found that a fifth of nurses admitted being involved in the assisted suicide of a patient. But nearly half of these  –  120 of 248  –  also said there was no consent.

“The nurses in our study operated beyond the legal margins of their profession,” said the report’s authors. “It is likely many nurses ‘ under-reported’ their involvement for fear of admitting an illegal activity.”

The guidelines that Francois kept talking about will ultimately be seen as infringements on a perceived “right” to euthanasia. Much like the abortion issue now, where discussions on policy are virtually impossible, because any rational discourse is seen as an infringement on the so-called “constitutional right to abortion,” I think euthanasia will go the same way.  We will have little recourse when individuals who are not terminally ill or dying will claim their “right” and request death.

And I think that there will be serious issues with protection of conscience for physicians.

Moreover, “medical aid in dying “, as the law calls it, must be offered without exception by all public institutions in Quebec – hospitals, long-term care centres, CLSCs – regardless of the convictions of the management or staff of the institution.

I find that very troubling.

Come on. This is pretty great. Sister Cristina is a nun/finalist on the Italian version of The Voice. You can follow her on Twitter. Of course.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySc16v1elDs]

Remember, dear friends, that the only people in jail on the abortion issue today are pro-life women. We have all these abortion activists fearmongering that pro-lifers want to send women to jail. But today in Canada, it is two pro-life women who are doing time.

Remember Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons and what they are doing, for all of us, following the call of their conscience.

Mary just responded to a letter I sent her and included a good quote:

The pursuit of [human perfection] scientifically defined and technically advanced, not only threatens to make us more intolerant of imperfection. It also threatens to sell short the true possibilities of human flourishing, which are to be found in love and friendship, work and play, art and science, song and worship… We triumph over nature’s unpredictabilities only to subject ourselves, tragically, to the still greater unpredictability of our capricious wills and our fickle opinions.” –Leon Kass

Quebec passed Bill 52 yesterday, which legalizes assisted suicide. The worst part is that they’ve made killing part of “healthcare.” While safeguards don’t generally work as we’ve seen from international experience, this bill didn’t bother with any as a starting point. I suppose this means we won’t see a slippery slope, because we’re starting at the bottom.

There’s room for the federal government to do something, because our criminal code still declares killing folks to be, er, what’s the word I’m looking for, wrong.

This is interesting, given that only a few weeks ago there was a bit of a kerfuffle over some doctors in Ottawa who were exercising their conscience rights and refusing to prescribe the Pill, both for medical and moral reasons.

Now the College of Physicians and Surgeons are reviewing their policy:

The College’s Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code policy is currently being reviewed. This policy sets out physicians’ legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) and the College’s expectations that physicians will respect the fundamental rights of those who seek their medical services. It aims to assist the profession in understanding its existing legal and professional obligations, and provide physicians with guidance about how to comply with these obligations in everyday practice.

They are also looking for input, for people to e-mail them with their comments, or fill out a brief on-line survey.  Given the importance of this issue, I think people should respond and protect our doctors.

When an abortion clinic in Toronto advertises it:

Patients who are over 19 weeks up to 23 weeks will need to come for 3 consecutive days. The 1st and 2nd days are for laminaria insertions, and the procedure will be done on the 3rd day. The procedure is done with conscious sedation (I.V. and local freezing). The procedure takes approximately 15 – 20 minutes. Recovery time any where from half an hour to an hour.

If you are undecided about whether to keep your baby, this website sends you to a site, Pregnancy Options, to help with the decision. There, they help women understand that every faith, including Pope John Paul II on behalf of Catholicism, sanctions abortion as a valid, if difficult, choice.

My question is why they aren’t called out for this. Lying to women while claiming to help them equals not cool.

I’m currently reading Beyond Bath Time: Embracing Motherhood as a Sacred Role by Erin Davis. I’m only a few chapters in and I’m really enjoying it. Read the Amazon reviews here. The Kindle format is currently on sale for $3.24.

I’m so taken with it that I’ve been taking screen shots every few pages and emailing them to Andrea. Some of the author’s passages are just so powerful.

This is one quote she included in her book. I’m sure I’ll work it into a talk at some point. Enjoy.

Years ago, before this generation of mothers was even born, our society decided where children rank in the list of important things. When abortion was legalized, we wrote it into law. Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get.

In fact, children rate below your desire to sit around and pick your toes, if that is what you want to do.

Below everything.
Children are the last thing you should ever spend your time doing. If you grew up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood, to think like a free Christian woman about your life, your children.

How much have we listened to partial truths and half lies? Do we believe that we want children because there is some biological urge, or the phantom “baby itch”? Are we really in this because of cute little clothes and photo opportunities? Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? If so, what were we thinking?

-Rachel Jankovic