If you read one article today, read this one by Paul Wells over at Maclean’s. It’s about the Maternal Health Summit that will take place in Toronto at the end of this month.

Life in Ottawa instills certain reflexes. I admit that when I learned about the Toronto summit—via a tweet from Laureen Harper—my reactions, in more or less this order, were: (1) scandal-plagued PM needs a distraction; (2) cheap PR stunt; (3) here’s another play to the PM’s social-conservative base.

I was not alone in these assumptions…

But I was left with a nagging question: Why would Ban Ki-moon and Melinda Gates lift a finger to help Harper’s campaigning strategy (motherhood and apple pie)? Harper has had strained relationships with the UN, where he was unable to land Canada a seat on the Security Council. I’ve got a crazy hunch Melinda Gates votes Democrat. Yet they’ll be in Toronto. So I started asking people who actually work in maternal and child health, and they told me a more complex story than any I’d brought to you before now.

Thanks to Paul Wells for digging into this issue.

A CBC discussion between pro-abortion Member of Parliament Carolyn Bennett and anti-abortion former Member of Parliament Jim Karygiannis.

My favourite moment is when Bennett tries to bring up same-sex marriage to divert attention from her party’s ridiculous position on abortion.

It’s a good interview. Mr. Wappel discusses the Charter amending provision. I haven’t heard anyone make that point yet.

And Mr. Wappel also asks, “What’s next? Euthanasia?”

Yup. What is next?

Check it out here.

I had met Joanne twice through pro-life work. Sad to hear that she passed away. My friend Lea Singh has written a lovely tribute to her. But it’s also a call to honour people in our lives today, knowing that death is the only certainty we know on earth:

Why is it that we wait until after death to celebrate a person’s life? It’s really all upside down. We should get together before the funeral. We should speak up before the funeral. Before the person has passed away, they should have the solace and joy of knowing how much they have meant to us.

Joanne McGarry was the same age as my mother, and perhaps that is why I am thinking especially of my own mother, whom I want to appreciate and recognize ever more for all that she has done for us in her hard life. I want to make sure that my mother understands that I love her and that I am grateful for all her toil and all her sacrifices.

There have been times, even in my adult life, when I have given my mother a very hard time and brought her to the point of tears. I hope that she has forgiven me for those times. The truth is that my mother is an inspiring example of strength for me. She still works so hard, and my mission now is just to keep our relationship good and to bring her as much happiness as I can, especially though her grandchildren, whom she dearly loves.

Life is so short. I know that when I pass away, there will soon be hundreds of unread emails in my in-box. My to-do list will be nowhere near accomplished, and those great projects I’ve been planning will remain forever undone. But all of that will not matter at all, and even I wouldn’t miss all those unfinished tasks, which are really more of a burden than a pleasure in some ways.

Since we can’t possibly accomplish everything we want in life, we need to focus on what truly matters and put our energies there. As St. Alphonsus de Liguori makes clear in his Preparation for Death, the greatest treasure we have been given here on Earth is time, which so many people fritter away in silly ways.

It is hard to use our time well. There are innumerable distractions, a never-ending parade of things that seem important in the moment but are insignificant and forgotten soon afterwards.

Whenever we need help to evaluate what matters in the long term, nothing is better than thinking about our own death. We don’t need to get depressed over it and snorkel in a pool of self-pity. We can use it to snap ourselves into focus.

On a different note, I learned of this while frittering my time away on Facebook. Sigh.

Canadians get a day off today, to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. A number of funny quotes are ascribed to her, but I shall choose to publicize this one, in honour of every pro-life woman across this great land who goes out on a limb for the cause and receives hate mail for it:

The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.

Well put.

Great background music for this little clip.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrdV3wthfno]

I’m in a bad mood this morning. Which means I should probably step away from the keyboard. Too late.

From the National Post this past weekend, one Kelly Gordon, PhD candidate at University of Ottawa, commenting on the anti-abortion movement:

“That’s a huge part of their strategy,” she said — to focus on “exceptions” rather than the majority of abortion services carried out in Canada.

“There’s no evidence that sex-selective abortions happen in Canada, but that’s definitely an issue in which people say ‘Well I believe in women’s rights, and I thought I believed in abortion, but you know…’” she said. “It disrupts the narrative that abortion is a women’s rights issue.”

Either Kelly Gordon doesn’t know any Indo-Canadians, or she is choosing what she hears and reports very carefully.

These days it is hard to comment on what kind of abortions are happening in Canada. Our official stats are officially shoddy. As someone who has tried to quantify sex selection abortions in Canada, I’ll freely admit there were shortcomings to the very sincere effort I made, furthermore, my work is now out of date. Still, to pretend they don’t happen at all is to foist deceit on the Canadian public.

Another thing: This notion of the movement “rebranding” to include women is a total falsehood, I’m convinced. It seems to me that there have always been equal parts of men and women on both sides of the abortion debate. What has happened in the pro-life movement is that it is increasingly dominated by women.

One notes the irony that the key founders of “abortion rights” are mostly men, Morgentaler and Nathanson, to name but two.

I’m pretty confident Kelly Gordon’s book will mention both me and ProWomanProLife. But she never made any effort to reach out to me and ask any questions.

I would not want to write a book about anything without trying to talk to the people I’m assessing and in effect critiquing, for the fear that my words would ring hollow–people in the movement being assessed generally know when others have made an honest attempt to understand what they are about. No such honest attempt was made here. I have always found it enriching to talk to opponents–like Joyce Arthur and Celia Posniak–both of whom are in the article linked above, both of whom are completely, thoroughly and utterly pro-choice and both of whom have sat down and talked to me.

But not so with our finest minds in academia.

And NOW I will indeed step away from the keyboard.

The question for Trudeau, asks George Jonas, is this:

I wonder if young Mr. Trudeau has ever noticed that women are split right down the middle on this question of their “fundamental rights?”

I do not share his overall pessimism about Canada’s descent into a police state; but then again, he has actually lived through a police state and while my parents escaped one, I have not. And while I feel sidelined and misunderstood as a so-called “so-con,” neither do I feel that I have hit the point of being diagnosed with a psychiatric condition.

I believe that turning the tide on the life issue in Canada will point us all toward greater freedom. I also believe that is precisely what is happening right now, hence my lack of pessimism.

Andrea has been called many things in her years of pro-life work. Today, the Post referred to her as an “abortion foe.”

And she now refers to herself as a “big slice of heaven.” Seriously. I got a text message to that effect last night.

(My husband may or may not have given her a particularly sappy birthday card from us. Which may or may not have referred to her birthday as a “big slice of heaven.” Going forward of course, I (and we?) need to now refer to Ms. Mrozek as a “big slice of heaven.”)

See the Post article here.

_______________

Andrea adds: It was quite a card, I must say!

…others run for office. Saira Blair is 17, and just beat the 67-year-old incumbent. In West Virginia. I really know nothing about her. I do know she is anti-abortion and on that, I salute her.